Thanks for praying yesterday. The loan officer got back to me rather quickly – she actually tracked me down at work, probably because I’d mentioned that we were “on pins and needles waiting to hear.” There was good news and bad news that I think we can work with. All the paperwork looked fine and there doesn’t seem to be any problem with giving us a mortgage. But we do have to put down 25%, which is somewhere just under $30,000. But on the good side (again), she did say that taking a home equity line of credit on one of our other homes was a perfectly acceptable way to come up with the down  payment.  You just can’t use an “unsecured loan.” We don’t see any problem with getting the amount that we will need that way. Dad is going to see if he can get the process started today. So we will be borrowing against our equity on the home that we intend to sell to cover about half of the cost of this home, anyway. This is just a way we can use that equity even before it sells, so I think it is a good and safe solution.

Right now it looks like the plan is for us to go south the second week of January, and head right down to Toccoa and roof that house, as planned. Then we will head up to Bristol, where we will already have had people interested in renting contacting us via Craig’s List, so we will just have to do the interviews and make the decision. Then it gets a little hazy. I think I will probably stay the rest of the month, to make sure renters get moved in and settled okay, before we leave them on their own. So Dad will be back home the third week of  January, but I probably won’t head back north until the very end of January. I think I’m okay with all my accompanying and lessons if I miss the whole month. Then I’ll finish up all my commitments in February, March and April and we’ll head south in May. That is pretty much the timeline we had when we were just planning to find a place to rent.

As far as the job search, Dad did find an occupational health nurse opening in the area, and is in the process of applying for that. He is also going to send his very impressive resume to the occupational health department of the hospital there in Bristol and see what comes of that. So, if he ends up getting a job, he may move down earlier than me. It is pretty much up in the air, but we are solidifying our Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, etc.!

I contacted the pastor of a CMA church in the area and he seems really nice. He said they’d have men there when we arrive to help unload the truck, which I thought was pretty nice, seeing as we’ve never even met! I have a couple of contacts there that I’ll be keeping in touch with as time goes on (him and the h.s. choir director), so we kind of know someone other than the realtor when we arrive!

So that is that, for today!