Closed on home, Inconveniences, Hurricane season.

We closed on our house May 15, 2008. I was thinking today how happy and blessed I feel to have our own place! I finally took down 5 out of 18 blinds on our windows. I am tired of the dust that collects on those things! They came with the house so they were pretty dusty. I am still looking for curtains to keep out the light in our bedroom. I put up temporary curtain for now.

The house hasn't disappointed us yet. We haven't had an major problems (Thank You Jesus!). We did have 4 small leaks. One leak came from a vent that dropped water into the vent pipe. It was taped up temporarily and didn't do any damage. Two leaks came from the sink pipe coming off. We are not sure why or how it came unscrewed. There was no damage either. The 4th leak came from our refrigerator water line. I woke up to a puddle of water near the master bed room. The neighbor helped me close that faucet behind the refrig. We aren't using the water or ice maker till we buy another water filter. I hear nightmares of the things that happen to first time home buyers. We have been blessed to overcome our small inconveniences.

The day we closed on our home will be remember forever! It was an exciting day and ended with a scary tornado passing nearby. We lost a ton of limbs that hit our gutters and broke cable and electricity lines. The sky went black and it was only 4pm. I remember signing papers with our security company using our cell phone lights. The electricity was scheduled to come on the next day but the storm slowed that down. Ryan was moving some items from the van when the storm began. He remembers pulling out of the covered garage and then realized how bad the weather was and backed up just in time for a huge limb to fall right in his path. The radio on our van hasn't worked since the storm! The security guys girlfriend called him on his cell warning him that a tornado was nearby. That is when we decided to look outside and saw limbs everywhere. The house held up fine during the storm other than losing some gutters. We officially moved in May 17th. My family and my sisters family helped us move most of our stuff that day. Ryan and I made another trip to clean the place and two trips to our storage unit in Prairieville. We still have items in boxes and realized we need to have another garage sale this coming December.

The past hurricane season left us with a windblown shingles, trees down or split in half, fence bent from fallen trees and the covered garage had siding blown away. We are blessed to have a new roof on both the work shop and house as of Sept. 2008. We had to put more out of pocket money to buy 30 year architectural shingles from Owens Corning. They back up their product if there is any defect what so ever and they will reimburse you for the problem. We had some aesthetic(black glue that leaked outside on some of the shingles) issues on  some of the shingles and they reimbursed us to live with it. They mentioned that it won't affect the performance of the shingles. After spending more money then we had this past hurricane season we feel very blessed to have received this reimbursement.

We have much to do to make this home more comfortable. We would like to organize the workshop so it is more useful instead of a place to store our unwanted treasures. As they say one mans junk is another mans treasure! We hope to sell these treasures and make some extra cash for much needed items around our home.

My next post will show pictures of our unexpected visitors and our newest member to our feline family.

Have an awesome month of November!

God Bless America! May the Best man win this Presidential Election! Please God Watch over us during this coming year! May we find comfort in YOU and You alone during this scary place in time! Amen

Tiff. Nicole

Inspection Passed..Thank You Lord!

We had the inspection Saturday 4/19/08 at 11:40 am. It passed with no major red flags! Now we are waiting to hear about the loan, going to set up a flood elevation survey and appraisal. Here are more pictures of the home. The first pictures were taken in the Fall of 2007 and ones we have taken during our visits. We will post more later in the week.

We Found OUR HOME Sweet HOME!

Here is an update on our house hunting. We are officially undercontract once again! We found a 2 bedroom 2 bath home on 1/2 acre!

This home was a 3 bedroom and 1 bath. The original owners opened up the master bedroom to make it larger so now it is a 2 bedrm home. It has a nice size master bedroom though. We hope to build in the carport or add on to the right of the house and make another room if I ever become pregnant and/or have a boy, or if we ever have to move... otherwise we are fine with this house being a 2 bedroom. It is 1502 sq. ft.

There is plenty of room in the master bedroom for a nursery. The house is very spacious, almost completely updated, and passed inspection that was done by another buying that couldn't get the loan for the place. It has a detached 800 sq ft concrete foundation workshop with electricity, phone, old woodburing fireplace in both the workshop and living room.
There is a one car garage in front of the workshop and an attached shed next to the workshop. The landscape is beautiful and there are mature trees and shrubs on the lot in front and back of home. The home has central air/heat, updated appliances, built in GE microwave, Jenn-air cook top stove/grill/oven, fairly new refrigerator and compact Kenmore dishwasher.

Almost all windows are mirrored and have special filter screens, flooring through out home is ceramic tile, and wood laminate in 2nd bathroom. NO Carpet.. THANK YOU JESUS ! Master bedroom has 2 separate closets, a large closet in bathroom, a extra long shower, 2 separate vanity areas, an attached laundry room that can be closed in, and an extra counter to fold clothes. There is a door in the laundry room that exits outdoors to the right side of the house and thankfully the water heater is also in the laundry room instead of in the attic!

The 2nd bathroom needs some updating. It has a separate old fashion wall heater, original tub/shower, sink /toilet, and a good size linen closet. There is a hall closet that is deep and has shelves. The duct work looks new, ac and heat exchange unit are 5 yrs old and roof looks good. Will know about those items when I read the last inspection report and compare it with the new one we will have done.

We are getting an flood elevation certificate done so we won't have to pay too much flood insurance. It is currently in an AE flood but next year Fema maps show that it will be a B area. The neighbors to our right pay about 400.00 and the seller pays 700.00 without having an elevation done. I forgot to mention the house is about 50 years old and is quite charming. It is made of brick, wood, and some vinlysiding where they expanded the bathroom/laundry room.

This is the 5th house we made an offer on and only 2nd one that was accepted out of them all. The first one wouldn't lower the price when we found out the addition was done very poorly and would need major work done on the roof and entire room. It also didn't have the major appliances, would have needed new flooring due to Ryan's allergies, had a very small masterbath, no landscaping, and smaller lot than this one.

The house is inside city limits of Walker, Louisiana , (Livingston Parish) but considered a rural tract( no subdivision). We will be applying for homestead exeption(only taxed on the first 7500), getting a grant(free money!) to pay for closing costs and 100% finance by Rural Development with a one time 2%(of the loan) guaranty fee which is financed instead of the usual monthly PMI(Private mortgage Insurance). There are a mix of older and newer homes in this established neighborhood.

We are excited once again! We will be ordering the inspection, flood elevation, and termite inspection.

If all goes well with the inspection and closing process we should be in our home May 28th, 2008!

God is GOOD! Will keep posting as I find out more.

Tiffany Nicole

Still House Hunting...HELP LORD!

After inspection, we turned down the house we were calling home. :( We found out it needed 8,000.00 worth of repairs on an addition that was added to the house. We found out that the previous owners added this addition and soon after were told they had to leave due to not paying their mortgage. Someone came in to fix the addition to get it ready for resale. They did a horrible job that will make that house hard to sell to smart buyers. They didn't want to come down on the price at all or fix the problems.

A week later we had our hopes up on a house I had seen 7 months ago. We were told it was still available for-sale-by owner. Well, after many drives up to see the house, making an offer, and getting excited about the possibility of finally finding our home, once again it was a big disappointment. The sellers decided they wanted more for the house after they had it appraised. We didn't financially qualify for that amount and they knew up front how much we could afford ...so needless to say we were broken hearted! I was very disappointed with the WHOLE situation! God saved us is all I can say from being stuck in yet another money pit! Thank You Jesus!

Here we are a few days later making another offer on a house. We found out it has multiple offers and are given till this Thursday to give our best and final offer. We know that God has a house for us and this may or may not be the one. We know we won't go above what the house is worth so we are offering a reasonable offer, not a high offer! We continue to look, exhausted and all!

This house hunting has really tested our nerves, emotions, and relationship! It has emotionally drained me to the point of exhaustion at times! I know persistence is the key and we shall keep moving on till we find our home!

I will post more as soon as we hear more news on the house. In the mean time, I keep searching!

Home Sweet Home

Where to start again? A lot has happened since my last post. After about a year of house hunting, we have finally found our first house! We hope to close around the end of April if all goes well with the inspection. We are still waiting on the purchase papers to get the water on for inspection!!!! The wait is very frustrating. I have started packing to keep my mind off all the free time I have WAITING for inspection to begin on our first home. The house is only about 3 to 4 years old so we a praying for a clear inspection. It is pretty much in move-in-condition. We will have to buy a refrigerator, stove/oven and eventually a fence. There is a retention pond in the back which is nice. There are fish and ducks out on the pond. Thankfully we are not in a flood zone! The carpet in the living room and master bedroom will need to be replaced also due to Ryan's allergies. We would like to enlarge the master bath some day and make an extra room in the huge attic space. We will also need some type of landscaping. The yard is pretty boring. We are excited to be able to put our wasted money from RENTING to something more permanent! It can't happen fast enough for me though since I am the one at home waiting, WAITING, and WAITING for the days to pass till inspection and then closing. I pray this week we will have INSPECTION! I will update on that later.

I turned 40 last month and still waiting on our second little miracle! We miscarried again this past December but was only 4.8 weeks this time. It is hard not to become hopeful every month that we will see a positive UPT. Those prayer warriors out there, please keep praying for us! Not much more to write.
Have a Blessed month of March!

HELLP in pregnancy

Here is an encouraging post I found in one of my groups that I belong to. www.hellpsyndrome@yahoogroups.com

Hi all! My name is Dee, I suffered with the Hellp Syndrome back in 1997 it was my first pregnancy and my dr at that time thought I was a hypochondriac because everything hurt and I felt terrible, finally at 24 1/2 weeks I started preterm labor and was hospitalized my bp was 180 over 120 walking - finally got to see the specialists - with severe pre eclampsia, hellp syndrome and an undiagnosed case of lupus. My baby was born at 26 weeks - 1lb 1oz at 1:40 on the first of June measuring 1ft 1 inch I named my son Adam. We had such a hard struggle in the Nicu and I was able to take my baby home after 3 months. He unfortunately passed away at 6 1/2 months from a fatal heart arythmia. My heart was broken as you can all imagine. A few months later I found myself pregnant again and started seeing a specialist right away he told me we would take it day by day, I was on moderate bed rest from week 8 - had to take shots of lovenix and heparin every day. My Michael was born at 37 weeks and he was 5lbs 6ozs. Before Michael turned a year old we moved to Fl and I looked for new dr's NOT that I was planning any more kids but in case, I did want a dr that knew of HELLP and found that there were not that many. One dr offered to give me hysterectomy because I was just lucky to have Michael and should never think of more children, sadly many dr's felt that way. 5 years after being here in FL I got the news I was having another baby. I was so saddened because a lot of the dr's felt I should terminate because they didn't know enough about Hellp and didn't want to try. So I called the local hospitals with level 3 NICU's to see who they would recommend. Met a wonderful dr who in turn wanted to learn everything he could about HELLP syndrome. He got a wonderful team together and thru learning about Hellp with me he was able to diagnose some other patients that he also thought were just hypochondriacs with Hellp. My last baby Nicolas was born on 10/30 weighing a big 6lbs 13ozs. I wanted to share that with those who have been told you can never have another baby after having Hellp the first time. My last pregnancy was very closely monitored and everything turned out great. I thank God and my wonderful dr's all the time! Please feel free to write me!!!!

I found this story very sad but encouraging. I wrote the words below.

Thanks so much Dee for sharing your story. We get much encouragement
hearing how others can go on to deliver a HELLP free baby!

Just this past Tuesday I went to a cardiologist for re occuring PVC's, light headedness, nausea
and low grade fever. I mentioned that I could possibly be pregnant but that it was too early to test. I told him my history of ITP in 98, having benign PVC's in 2002, diagnosed with sleep apnea in 2002, HELLP with my second pregnancy in 2003, and a miscarriage Aug. 2007. He had no clue what HELLP was so I went on to explain. His comment was "I wouldn't recommend any further pregnancies after having HELLP". He was an older doc probably in his late or early 60's. Given he didn't know anything about HELLP he should have kept that comment to himself! He did mention it more than once during our conversation. I then left to get an EKG and was ordered to come back for a holter monitor and stress test. Everything came back normal.. thank You Jesus!
I have had members of my family even tell me "maybe God is telling you something"... "that maybe you aren't meant to have anymore children". I guess they don't realize how much it hurts to hear those words. I know God put us on this earth to "Be fruitful and multiply". If I am not supposed to have any more children I think I would know it in my heart.

Back in Sept. of 2006, through much praying and with much strength from God, I found the courage to start TTC. I had my IUS removed, my headaches stopped and I felt free from the pain. For the first time since my daughters birth I was sooooo ready to try again. My husband was away most of the days I was fertile so ttc was not in our favor. Finally, in June of 2007 my husband was home for over a month and I found out I was pregnant June 25, 2007. Three days later my mother-in-law passed away. She was fighting colon cancer for many years. The cancer spread to her lungs and liver. She was thrilled to know we were having another child and hopefully helped her pass on happily to heaven!

Anyhow, I miscarried Aug. 1st and again Dec. 16th of 2007. We are both frustrated but hopeful. We would like one more child and pray for another miracle this year!

Blessed hugs to all our moms!

PICTURE ABOVE IS OF MY HUSBAND CUDDLING EMILY'S KITTY. I GAVE THAT KITTY TO HIM BEFORE EMILY WAS BORN 2003...FOR HIM TO GIVE EMILY. EMILY ENJOYED SEEING DADDY HUG HER KITTY.

Tiffany Nicole

Passing of a loved one..

On June 28th, 2007 my mother-in-law passed away after fighting many years with colon cancer. We only met in person two times in our lives but we kept in touch via phone and e-mails. I met Sande the first time I met Ryan Feb. 23, 2002. She always had a calming and encouraging way about her. I miss not being able to talk to her on the phone and share Emily's daily happenings with her. We miss her very much but know she is in a better place.

Here is our only picture of our little one that we miscarried Aug.1, 2007. I was 8.5 weeks along.

Gently they go,


the beautiful , the tender, the kind;


Quietly they go,


the intelligent, the witty, the brave.


I know. But I do not approve.


And I am not resigned.


Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay(1900's lyrical poet and play writer)

Mother’s Pride


She gave me life and nurtured me


When I was like a budding tree.


She showed me what is false and true,


And how to smile when I was blue.


She taught me almost everything


That life would someday bring,


Taught me what was right or wrong,


How to read, to sing a song.


Now she’s with a Shining Star,


Time is running like the tide


And I have wandered very far


With memories of my Mother’s pride.

Poem by Ken and Sandy Parrish