$10 Gets You 15 Songs (and Us This House)

Six weeks ago, I hinted that we were trying to buy a house here in St. Louis. The good news is, we're no longer trying; we've bought a house, and it's pictured above.

Neat story: after our offers for the initial house got shot down (twice) by the bank, we decided to let things sit. I went to South Dakota and pretended to be a wilderness guy for two weeks as part of Westminster’s Summer Seminar program; Megan and the girls (along with our realtor, Diane), looked around at a handful of houses, but really didn't find too much in our price range. No big deal.

Then the house shown above went on the market and, get this: it's a block-and-a-half down the street from the one we were originally pursuing, $60K cheaper, and in immaculate condition compared to the fixer-upper for which we were going to have to pay more. The owners (sweet Christian people) have lived in the house 33 years, are moving into a retirement village next month for health reasons, and needed to sell the house asap (thus the fair asking price). Because we felt the house was easily worth what they were asking (kind of refreshing in the still-inflated real estate market), we gave them the full price. We move in three weeks.

Now comes the hard part: paying for it. My parents are loaning us the 5% down payment, but Megan and I need to come up with an additional $3,000 to bring to the closing to cover lender fees, title fees, and a few months' worth of taxes and insurance. As of now, we don't have it, but we've come up with an idea we think could work (with a little help from the Internet).

Since 2008 marks the 15th anniversary of my foray into music recording, I thought I'd put together a "greatest hits" collection (yes, smirking allowed - you know who you are). The compilation is called Remember Not to Forget: Songs (1993-2000) and the deal is this: $10 gets you 15 songs from all five albums I recorded, along with a custom-designed CD liner with music lyrics and credits, all available for immediate download.

Of course, you're welcome to send more than ten bucks if you feel so compelled, but you don't need to in order to get the songs (actually, you don't need to send anything to get the songs, but we hope you will). Obviously, it's going to take a lot of $10 purchases (300, to be exact) to add up to $3,000, so if you'd just buy the songs and put in a plug for us through your network(s), we'll see what happens. Who knows? It is the Internet.

We're set to close on the house July 18th, so the sooner the better. Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give us, and thanks to those of you who prayed for our house-hunting efforts. After living in eight different places in a dozen years, we're hoping this is the last move for a very, very long time.