Andrea Hill March Goal: Important things all in one place

When we moved to China we stored some of our things in my friend's unfinished basement. While we were in China she finished her basement and moved our things into a new spot. When we moved back from China and gathered up our storage we couldn't find the plastic container that had our wedding pictures, mission pictures, and journals.  I was devastated...and pretty much cried everytime I thought about it.  There was really nothing I could do, I could replace pretty much everything else that we had stored, but I couldn't replace our journals and pictures.  

After a couple of months had past and I had given up hope, my friend called and she had found the container!  So I learned a lesson about what "things" are worth saving and storing.  

Fast forward seven years…

My husband's mission pictures are still in a box,  wedding pictures are in albums, 

and all of our video is still on tapes that haven't been made into movies.  

So---my March goal was an attempt at digitizing everything I could, putting it on to an external hard drive, and then putting all the backups and journals etc. into one spot.  If I suddenly have to evacuate my home I could quickly grab my plastic bin with all the important pictures and journals.  

Costco had a coupon for making tapes into DVDs during March and so I did about half of our tapes (next coupon time I'll do the other half).  

I also spent about several hours digitizing my husband's growing up pictures and mission pictures. I've gathered up everything else that needs to be done and it's sitting in a stack next to my computer.  I'd say I'm about 50% completed with my goal.  It's not completed, but it's better than it was in February.  

For my April project I am attempting to gain some Photoshop skills…I've been watching the Lynda.com videos and scanning more pictures.  Maybe I'll be finished with March's project by the end of April??

P.S. Just an update on my January project "to sell a house in St. George"… it is under contract!  Our renters moved out (we took new pictures:) and a couple of weeks later a nice family made a great offer.  We were able to sell it "by owner" and now we are just waiting a bit until closing.

Andrea Hill, February Goal, Weekly Temple Trip

My oldest son, Josh turned 12 in January.  My sister in law Kristyn sent him a special package for his birthday.  She's a family history guru and has found and done the temple work for hundreds of her ancestors.  She's shared family file names with us before (my family tree is pretty researched out--but as a side note--according to Elder Anderson's amazing RootsTech Conference talk I should be able to still find cousins) but the package that she sent Josh was a miracle package and here's the story--

A few months ago Kristyn had a distant relative send her a picture of Kristyn's 3rd great grandmother as a child.  The relative didn't know who the other 8 men were in the picture and asked Kristyn if she knew who they were.  Kristyn researched this family photo and discovered that her 3rd great grandmother had 8 brothers that she didn't know about.  She found the important information for these brothers and their families and prepared the family file cards.  She sent them all to Josh so that he could do the baptisms for them.  Isn't she amazing?

We took the first batch of names with us on our trip to St. George.  Our friends the Atkinson's helped us with the names and my husband baptized me and Josh.  Beautiful temple!  Amazing temple facts and history to read here.

My other temple trips included: sealings at the Draper temple (my father in law was the sealer) and an endowment session at the Provo Temple. Both of these trips filled me spiritually and I came home grateful for the opportunity to be able to go.  I didn't get the intiatory done before the end of the month and I really have no excuse because I live about 2 miles from the Provo temple…but 3 times in one month is pretty good for me.

Andrea Hill, January Goal, Sell a house

Hi!  My name is Andrea Hill.  I am one of Nora's many Allen cousins and I am also a Nora fan:)  As a (slightly) younger cousin I really look up to Nora. I love her enthusiasm and love for life.  This isn't the first time she's inspired me to finish a project.  My husband and I are "home-improvement impaired" and about 10 years ago she helped us tile our laundry room floor.  That actually might have been the last home improvement project we've done...I don't think assembling IKEA furniture really counts.

I live in Provo, Utah and I have 5 children and a great husband. Being a mom really takes most of my energy, time, and patience, but when I get a minute I love to read, run, ski, and discover new places.  I love to find a new subject and learn everything I can about it. 

In January I learned all about selling a house. The background story behind the project starts in August of 2007. Our family of five moved from Shenzhen, China to St. George Utah.  We bought a house in Washington Fields and looked forward to mowing a lawn and left the days of elevators and taxis behind us.

Our China Home

Our St. George Home

Four years later, in 2011, we needed to move to Provo for my husband's new job.  In the four years we lived in our house it had depreciated about 50% and so we decided to not sell but rent out our house in St. George.  We've learned a few lessons about renting over the last couple of years and now have lots of great landlord stories to share.  Housing prices in St. George appreciated enough though in the last year that we decided it was worth a shot to try and sell it.  

In January I researched realtors, housing prices, photographers, the market, comparables, etc. I ended up choosing to try and sell it FSBO first.  My renters were not happy when we broke the news, but understood why we wanted to sell.  Everything was going well until I sent in the photographer and came back with these pictures…

The photographer jokingly named them the "Duck Dynasty" and "Hunger Games" rooms. These were great pictures if you are looking for a man cave, but I knew if I posted these pictures I would attract deer hunters, not buyers.  We also started getting feedback from the potential buyers and real estate agents that our renters were trying to point out all possible flaws with the house during the showings. I stressed and agnonized and debated with anyone what would listen the pros and cons of making the renters move and finally decided they needed to go.  They will be moving out next month and we will try round 2 of selling the house in March.  It’s not a completed project (it was a long shot) but I feel like great progress made in January.

I am looking forward to getting to know all of you better and being inspired by your projects!  Thank you Nora!

Andrea Hill's Goals & Projects for 2014

January--Sell the rental house in St. George.  I wanted to kick off the year of projects with something fun, but since selling the rental has become all consuming, it is now my project for this month.

 

February--Go to the temple once a week this month. Do baptisms with Josh the first week, initiatory the second week, etc.

 

March--Organize all photos, journals, important documents, and important memorabilia so that it is in one easy spot.  Digitize video tapes and scan pre-digital camera photos.