Today

When the alarm went off at 6:30 I made the executive decision to have Carter stay home. After the extreme coughing and lack of sleep that occurred last night I did not feel he needed to sent to school. I hate him missing out on the lessons but when you are over tired or not feeling well...not much learning is going to happen anyhow.

After I got up and got dressed Carter asked me if I would race him in a few games on the Wii. He had been asking me for a couple of days and I had to keep pushing it off. So I finally sat down and raced him on a Sonic the Hedgehog racing game. I won twice. He won once. The computer won a couple of times. It was fun.

Then we headed over to the office. Today is the 6th. Deposit day. Rent is due on the 1st for my tenants. They have until the 5th to pay before they start accruing late fees. So the majority of rent payments come in between those two dates. On the 6th I make my largest deposit of the month. I have my own check scanner in the office so I actually scan all the checks and money orders right there without ever having to go to the bank. I then have to input all of the payments into our accounting system. I then see who has not paid and make contact with them (ugh...my least favorite part) Luckily, I have pretty good tenants right now. 90% of them paid. Later today I received half of the outstanding balances and only have a handful of people I am waiting on. It does not look like I will have to do any evictions this month. Yay! I had 2 last month. One left...the other paid in full and gets to stay. The tenants that left, left my only vacant unit and I have someone lined up to rent it. Things are running very smoothly right now.

Carter and I ended up staying the entire day at the office. I had lots of traffic. People wanting to rent, people paying rent, etc. I had a lot of bookkeeping to get done. So Carter watched PBS and colored A LOT in his dragon coloring book. He is getting really, really good at coloring inside the lines. I never told Carter he had to stay in the lines. That is something that stuck with me in one of my college classes. I knew that eventually he would come to it in his own terms. I always told him his scribbles were fantastic. And they were. His neat pictures are fantastic too. After all of my work was finally done and I had a sufficient headache Carter asked me if he could try a game on the computer. I then too respite on the couch and caught up on Entertainment Weekly. The magazine told me who should win the Grammy's (Adele being the big winner) and who the Front runners are for the Oscars(the two ladies who played the maids on "The Help" and George Clooney (I think) ).

 Josh called. In 4 years I think this is the first time he made it home before me. So we packed ourselves up and headed home. It was 6:30. Time had gotten away from us! So we stopped at "Big Mamas". I call it that...but it actually just called Cafe 51. They are a cafeteria style diner that serves Southern Home Cookin'. Perfect for a night that I did not make it home in time to cook dinner. You go through the line and pick one meat and then pick either 1, 2, or 3 veggies. We got it to go and ordered things like hamburger steak, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. It was Slap Yo Mama good. I wish I could never make dinner and always let Big Momma cook for us.

We ate and got Carter in the shower and into jammies and into bed. His coughing had seemed to cease but since starting this post he has had a few small fits. I hate it because he always cries a little bit after each fit. :(

I then Skyped Casey. Then got into my bed with my laptop and started typing...which leads me to now. Josh is snoring beside me. I am now either going to catch a show on Netflix or read until my eyes go foggy and I can no longer stay awake.

Goodnight. Sweet Dreams.

So Here's The Deal...

Over the past few months I have been talking with the owners of Orion Property Management. Orion, along with their investors, owns an apartment complex we manage for them. They like us. We like them. Good thing.

Last night Josh and I went out to a really nice dinner with them and discussed further what has been discussed over the past few months. When taking on their property in October, it was mentioned that they could use us at some of their other properties, namely one is Mississippi. My heart skipped a beat. As, many of you know I lived in Mississippi when I was a little girl and it will always have a huge spot in my heart. I also have a lot of family in the South who I ADORE and miss everyday. So the thought of being able to live there for a time is so exciting to me. Josh on the other hand was less than thrilled. (he has never been there!! so he is totally pre-judging with no grounds to do so) Over the last few months we have talked about it a lot, praying, pondering, wondering what in the heck we are supposed to do!

So last night, they sat us down and said it is ours for the taking. Do we want to do this. So of course we would only go if financially it made sense. Yes, it makes sense. But money aside there are so many more reasons for me wanting to go. I would want to go even if the money wasn't there. Josh is torn because he has another property here that he is really attached to. It is a property that basically runs itself and Josh really likes it. Josh also is torn because he feels committed to the owner of a business he is currently running. Carter said "no" when I asked him if he wanted to move to Mississippi...his vote doesn't count yet.

We wouldn't be in Mississippi forever. The plan is we move there and "rehabilitate" the property. Get it running to its full potential, train new mangers, and then from there move on to another property(right now the next tentative location is in Indiana). Then when we want to settle we can pick a place and stay as long as we want...or buy out and leave completely.

So that is what we are up to. I have been wanting to blog about it for months but I was never quite sure if it was for real, if it was really going to happen. But it is totally up to us. They want us to go, but they also understand if we choose to stay where we are. These guys are seriously THE BEST guys ever. I trust and respect them 125.6%. So I am really excited, but nervous, and scared. The only thing holding me back is of course family. I like having my mom in arms reach. I like being able to drive only 90 minutes to see my most favorite people in the world. So that is the only thing tugging at my heart. The rest of me is ready to move right now.

What do you guys think?