beaners
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Posts posted by beaners
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We are trying to figure out our living arrangements for the next couple years. My husband was reoffered a higher paying position and I think he might take it this time. We don't want to sell our land and property here. We may rent it out for that time. (Only the most horrific of renters would do more damage than my herd.)
I'm trying to look at these couple years as a bit of an adventure. We don't necessarily need permanency, but some temporary living situations like renting are difficult with our family size.
I'm going to be terribly crude and put numbers out here because they influence our options. We will have about $15K to work with initially. Over the course of the year we will probably have another extra $20K, but as much of that as possible we want to save or else there is no reason to go through all this upheaval.
We are thinking about buying a destroyed foreclosure with the initial money and getting it into livable condition. Our standards are really low here. There are houses available in the price range we are looking at. We want to be able to pay cash. We carried two mortgages the last time we moved and it was torture. We are priced out of the suburbs regardless, so we would rather not go into debt and get tied into a mortgage. Even with the repairs we anticipate making, it will still be a house in what will likely be a less desirable neighborhood. We are trying to avoid the most dangerous areas.
We talked about getting an RV and me and the kids traveling while my husband stayed for work. That's tough logistically with wheelchairs and so many little kids. It would be an awesome experience though. Maybe a campground? Bare lot?
I'm trying to find a way to frame this as a different and exciting experience for our family, since the typical rent a house/get a mortgage options aren't a choice right now. I've made all kinds of living arrangements work when I was on my own, but it's different with a whole bunch of kids in tow. ;) Last option is staying while my husband goes, but that is unrealistic for the duration. Any fun or exciting ideas to consider? What would you do if it was your family?
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Oh I feel your pain. I have 7 boys. Somehow we have a ton of nice clothing in the only two sizes that fit NO ONE. And no matter how many times I shovel it into storage for down the road, it still appears in their dressers when I need to get everyone ready to go.
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There was the thread where someone had seen a famous person at the airport scrolling through the forums on their phone or tablet, but the person who started the thread wouldn't tell who it was in case the famous person wanted to keep their anonymity here. People were guessing like crazy and begging for hints, but as far as I know, she never caved and told.
Eating poutine, if I recall correctly. I was just thinking about that crazy thread a little while ago!
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It was because of a parent here that I knew to tell my son to check his college email before classes started, so thanks for the heads up!
And I get the "it's fine mom" thing from my student too. He knows everything there is to know about taking a college class, even though he's never done it before. And mom, the one that has attended FOUR different universities in this state, is obviously clueless as to how things work. I told him we needed to get his book before school started and he said no, since he couldn't log into the class yet he must not need anything. I told him the bookstore on campus and online has the books listed for every class, you just have to look. He argued with me for 30 minutes before I proved I was right. Then rolled his eyes at me as if he'd been the one to say it all along. Sigh.
I'll admit there were a few times I wished I didn't need the books before class started. The worst case was when you needed to open the (super expensive) shrink wrapped pack of books for one tiny thing and then the professor would say that his or her section didn't use the textbooks themselves. So there's another thing to share. Don't open the shrink wrap until you 100% need to. Before that you can return it for full price. After that they buy the same books back for $5 each.
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I'm having trouble finding a good word. Taunting seems like the best fit.
My husband took a few of our kids to visit his family. (For those who remember some previous threads, we have had some incredible nuttiness from his family. This is someone different but equally difficult.) A relative who knows we homeschool and disagrees with that decision gave one of our boys a book all about riding the school bus. Which she knows he doesn't do anymore. She then proceeded to send my husband text messages a week later about how he seemed so excited about the book and that we should reconsider homeschooling him. Our son never owned anything before we adopted him last year, so every possession is incredibly precious to him. He has special needs. It seems so unnecessarily cruel to him to give him this thing, knowing that, and then try to guilt us into sending him back to school to avoid disappointing him.
I'm so torn on what to do with that stinking book. It makes him sad because he will see it and ask if he is going to ride the bus even though he knows he won't, but I'm worried that getting rid of it will be more painful for him. Any of my biological children, I would just toss it. Come to think of it, I HAVE tossed similar items this same relative has given to them! If I had been there it never would have made it into his hands, but she handed things out to the kids while my husband was helping with something else.
It is his family to deal with. He knows that if she talks to me about it she will get an earful and firm boundaries laid out, but she has only talked to him. She also had all kinds of things to say about how our children are socially crippled and "it doesn't even matter if they're good at academics because autistic kids can memorize stuff but not get a job." Seriously. Word for freaking word. What the.... Where do I even begin with that statement? Then she continued on about how she doesn't think our kids are autistic though. (Uh, we never said they were? And so what if they were?)
On the bright side, the craziness in my family looks positively normal in comparison!
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Late to the party, here. I hope you got it worked out.
I make 3 c. of (uncooked) rice for my family of 8. And two people don't eat any. It seems like we eat larger quantities of rice than the average family?
So, 3 c. of rice for 6 people who actually eat it = 1/2 c. of uncooked rice per person = 20 c. of rice for 40 people.
"That's an awful lot of rice!!!" *
* We have a family story about rice. My dad was dreaming and said in his sleep, "That's an awful lot of rice!" My mom said, "What's an awful lot of rice?" He responded, "If you can't dream the same dream I'm dreaming, don't ask questions!" OK then.
We usually do 5 cups of dried rice for 10 people. (Baby doesn't eat yet!) We never have any left. I have some serious rice eaters here too!
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I think my 8 year old could do this, but she would produce something less sophisticated than a 13 year old would. Basically you read, make a list of pros and cons, then share your opinion? The level of the original material might change my answer.
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Have you ever noticed that every free printable handwriting sheet has one letter or number that isn't the same way you have your kids write? Why must a, t, 1 and 9 torture me so?
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I should give up hope then, right? I just scoured their room top to bottom including taking apart and cleaning mattresses a couple weeks ago. It didn't help. Closet has clean clothes put away and nothing else hiding. Under the bed is clear. Everything, including the boys, is washed regularly. My oldest told me so sincerely tonight that he loves hot water. (That is why I always have him go last!)
Has anyone used an air purifier or dehumidifier?
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Definitely not an orb weaver body type. I'm sorry if anyone gets nightmares tonight from all this spider talk!
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Okay, so the main front section of the body was not as flat as a tarantula, but otherwise it looked very similar to this.
http://exotic-animals.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=171
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We have tons of wolf spiders. I don't think it was that. I was trying to find the color and I found orange philippine tarantulas. It was almost exactly that color. The body was really similar to that too. Let me find a link!
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The other spider thread reminded me of something. Earlier this summer we saw a huge spider in our backyard. Without exaggeration, it was tarantula size. It was more velvety than hairy like a tarantula would have been, and an even rusty color. Its proportions were slightly thinner than a tarantula, but it was not a spindly spider. We live in southern Ohio. Not the rainforest. I haven't found any matching common native species but we don't have enough neighbors to think it was an escaped pet. What was it?!
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They tend to leave all their wet towels and dirty clothes around the corner in a pile on the bathroom floor (sigh), so none in the bedroom. They're willing to bathe and change their clothes, so I just count my blessings. I do the pillowcases with the sheets, but maybe I will give their pillows the sniff test tonight.
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Boys are stinky. I know that. But help? How do I fix this problem?
I have three teenage boys in an adequate but not huge room. Every morning, or even afternoon if they take a nap, the room smells awful. It isn't BO. It's more of an overpowering humid, stale, musty kind of smell. I wash sheets. I spray febreeze. I run a fan and open a window. They just continually give off this smell when they sleep. What can I do so that the room doesn't eventually become uninhabitable? (By my standards. Not that they notice, lol.)
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Münchausen syndrome? Munchausen by proxy is when the parents do terrible things to make their kids seem sick.
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Oh yeah, definitely much easier without having to move! Too bad they couldn't come up with a huge raise for staying here! ;)
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Update! We aren't moving. My husband declined the offer. The salary kept shrinking until we wouldn't have come out ahead by enough to justify uprooting everyone again. Sorry that was so anti-climactic!
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I have little artists in my house who have trouble remembering that their wall is not a canvas. My husband took some of them with him on a trip, so I have been trying to repaint their room. I have put five coats of primer over a section where they used markers. It is KILZ and I am following the directions. The color is still bleeding through. They get home tonight and I need to get the color coat on and dry. It won't be done in time.
My husband told me we should just put a pokemon poster over that part of the wall.
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WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT????????????????????????????
I just now saw this!!!!
Isn't it crazy?! I don't know what will happen yet.
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Thank you all! As of right now we still don't know what is going to happen. They tried to give him the offer today. It turns out they were basing his raise on what HR had listed as his salary instead of numbers from payroll. HR still had the numbers from before the last time we moved for this company. Since then he has gotten annual raises and pay increases for transferring to different places within this region. So the awesome raise they thought they were giving him was only slightly higher than his current salary, and about the same amount he was anticipating for the transfer within this region he is scheduled for by the end of this year. On the plus side that made us realize just how much more he is making than he was a few years ago. (Now why does it seem like we have less money these days?)
They do still want him to move, but I don't know if they can tack on that same amount they were planning to his current salary. I'm guessing they can't, but maybe they will surprise us. Looking at houses in Birmingham, it doesn't look like we could buy comparable property without that extra. The company only figured all this out around quitting time today, so I don't think we will know anything more until Monday. I will keep you guys posted!
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Thanks everyone. I'm going to read everything over again a few times. Haha, clearly this is going to be tougher on me than I expected because every possible alternative has me screaming, "Nooooooo...." in my head. I think the simplest option is for me to pretend this isn't happening.
We are still waiting on some of the details that are coming with the offer. My husband went ahead the last two times we moved and it was rough but doable. We had far fewer children then though. Needing to get a babysitter or take 9 kids (2 wheelchairs!) to go grocery shopping is something I could do for a few weeks but not for a few months.
I also don't want to get tied into another house when we don't plan on staying there. We would rent if we could, but I'm guessing the odds that we could rent with all the kids and animals are pretty slim.
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My husband is waiting to get an offer letter that would move us across the country...again. This was unplanned but the executives in his company have an opening where they need a specific set of skills and he was suggested to fill the spot. There would be up to a 50%(!) raise and the area has a similar cost of living. He only found out last night so I'm still processing this.
I don't want to move again. Now that I've said that, what would you do if you needed to move a big family to a new city? We have 9 kids and 5 dogs plus we need wheelchair access. I can't imagine anyone renting to us. But twice we have bought homes in areas we weren't familiar with and that has some obvious downfalls. (Surprise! Our acreage is a swamp during spring, for example.) So I'm not crazy about doing that again. And I don't want to carry two mortgages for a year like we did when we moved here. And I don't want to do showings with us here. The prospect of loading up 9 kids (remember, wheelchairs) at a moment's notice? Ugh. We could rent this out, maybe?
The unfortunate fact is that what I don't want doesn't matter much if it is what we need to do. Are there ideas I haven't thought of yet? I'm pretty sure I'm not thinking clearly yet. My head is still spinning at the moment since this was completely out of the blue. We would be heading to Birmingham AL if that makes a difference.
Update in post 26: We are staying put!
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Those wave pools make me super nervous, even with older kids. It's that much easier to misjudge in the water and not be able to recover because those waves keep hitting you.
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Outside the box living arrangements?
in The Chat Board
Posted
If we buy a house, we wouldn't move in until we could get a certificate of occupancy.
If traveling in an RV, we would travel part of the time and use either this area with our current medical team or set up a home base there for medical appointments. We have a lot but they are mostly every 4-6 months with each specialist. Therapies are also quarterly consults right now.
I'm not sure how it is different staying at a campground. I've known people who have done it but the laws surrounding it aren't something I had considered! Thank you for pointing that out!