Reading for Empowering Strategies

I've been reading the book by Kim Kiyosaki called It's Rising Time! and love it!  One of the things that really hit me was her idea of using creativity in everything you do, if you want to be succesful, along with noting what the problem is you want to solve and then solving that problem becomes the good business opportunity.  She told some stories, one was about the mother who created the first sippy cup lid for her toddler.  It was simply a solve the problem scenario, but that lid has changed the way parents raise their children.  It is rare to find a home with little ones in America that do not also have sippy cups.  This was all because of one mother, with one problem, and one good solution.  This idea has inspired me to make a list of those things that are frustrating to me so that I can not just deal with them, but rather, find my own solutions.  For example i'm frustrated that it is so hard to have a nice relaxed walk with my husband now that we have 3 kids.  We have a bunch of things like strollers or wagons that fit 2 kids and are fun for walks but 3 just isn't working unless we carry one or make one walk.  If our oldest walks or rides her bike than, instead of rekindling like I want from the walk together, we end up focusing on her or the stroller to keep the kids in line, un-injured, and happy.  I want a 3-4 kid stroller or wagon but am not in a place to purchase one for $400 or more as that is far too overpriced in my mind.  We also need something that we can tote them in while riding bikes to the market once winter is over, which could be the same thing if I designed it right.  The words from this book I'm reading made me feel that I should just design a stroller thing instead of just being frustrated every time we want to walk as a family.  That idea is so EMPOWERING, its great!

Snow In The Yard

It snowed yet again today... making me wish it were summer so that we could play out in the yard and garden finally.  That was the thing that was so enticing about this starter home in the first place so its hard no never have less than 2 feet of snow in the yard.  As sad as it may be it also reminded me of the home we almost were able to purchase.  That house had a huge back porch leading off from the kitchen and family room that would have made the snow in the yard so much more inviting than it is here.  I have had so many dreams of that family area and back patio.  It kinda haunts me sometimes.  No matter though... I'm just anxious for spring to finish coming here.  :)

If I Had The Money...

I was thinking about my family and our home buying scenario the other day and I had this fun idea come to mind.  I decided that if I one day become wealthy enough to be able to afford simply an extra home, I would want to find a cute little family that desires self sufficiency and a home of their own but just can't quite afford to purchase.  Then I would gift them a quaint little home that would fit their family perfectly.  To even just do a program that helped families get into homes via a grant or something would be cool (and a little more realistic).  We were about $50,000 off from literally our dream home and if someone had been doing a program like a grant that we could have qualified for, than instead of living in a starter home, we'd be in a dream home.  That is just crazy to think about.  I love the house we're in now, but I do think it would be cool if more programs were out there to help families get into places that fit them the best when it is just a bit above what the family qualifies for or could pay monthly and still lived decently.

I know its been quite a while since I posted, but I thought I would update.  We ended up purchasing our home and moved in November.  We weren't able to purchase the home that we felt fit us perfectly and would grow with us because of needing to qualify for about $30,000-$50,000 more than we could.  We then realized that to get out of the renting scenario and start living the life we dreamed of we would not be able to start with the home we dreamed of.  We needed to do what we didn't want to think about before and just start with a starter home.  It has all the absolute perks that we needed though.  Its close to the hubby's work so he can ride his bike for transportation if he needs or wants to.  Its 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom upstairs and then has 1 bedroom and one bathroom along with a laundry room and large sitting room downstairs.  We are using the downstairs room as part of our office but its not conducive to our studio space equipment like we anticipated.  The rooms are all small, but its a house that has "good bones" and is super cute with a lot of "character" to it.  The yard is what we fell most in love with because its got a really nice patio sitting area and then this amazing garden.  I can't wait till it warms up so we can spend most of our time out there instead of inside.

We are loving the people we live by and being close to work.  We are also glad that our payments aren't as high as they would have been if we had qualified for more.  We however are going to need to upgrade in a few years simply because we want a large family and won't be able to live the lifestyle we want and have more kids (that is not in the plans for a few years though as we just had a baby).  I am secretly hoping that we can make it big in one of our entrepreneurial ventures just enough that we can actually afford to get into a home that we don't have to worry about the option of having more kids or being able to fully run a home based business or studio.  We will just see I guess but for now we are enjoying not having to answer to any landlord and just living happily, we are so grateful for the opportunity we had to find this place, be on our own, and get such a great deal on it.