Chocolate Chip Muffins

I made Chocolate Chip Muffins on Saturday, as a special breakfast for the kids. I like to make them something special on Saturdays because during the week things are so hectic (I’m still asleep) in the mornings I barely get the cereal in the bowl.

These muffins were very good and I will be making them again. I think next time I will double the recipe and make some BIG muffins and some normal size muffins.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I USED MINI-CHOCOLATE CHIPS)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Grease pan or use 12 cupcake liners.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
3. Combine egg, milk, and oil add to dry mixture and stir until moistened.
4. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake muffins for 15 minutes.

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Update on Our Port Jubliee

I know that other than the financial updates I have been posting I have been pretty silent on the actual building of our home. And here is why....

Future Home of Port Jubilee!

Yes, that is our lot and yes it looks exactly the same as it did on May 15th (the day we got our written mortgage approval). No, it should not still look like this. There should be some form of a house there by now. But as you can clearly see there is not! The last 6 weeks have been DIFFICULT (to say the least) and I have not had the heart to update the blog with the status of the house. Because the status of the house was no status at all.

The day we received our written loan approval the city we live in shut down the building permits for our neighborhood. SHUT THEM DOWN! That means that the city stopped releasing permits to build new houses. My house! And so for the past month I have spent almost every single day on the phone begging complete strangers to have mercy on me and release my building permit. I have cried, I have prayed, I have given-up, and then picked up the phone and started all over again.

We came so very close to losing our home! We are using USDA funding and that funding has a deadline of September 30 (they redraw the lines on October 1 and our area will likely not be included anymore). What that deadline means is that our house must be COMPLETE (inspections and appraisals) before the deadline or no loan. July 1st is literally the last day that they can start work on our house and be assured that it will finish before the deadline.

So last week I called my commissioner (since we live in the same neighborhood where we are building he is my current and my future commissioner) and asked him to please help us. He said he would! I prepared to address the city commission on Thursday night. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning and worked on my speech until after 7:00 a.m. It could only be 3 minutes long and I had a lot to say (surprise, surprise).

Thank God I never had to give that speech! My commissioner and the city manager pulled me aside before the meeting started and told me that our permit has been released! THANK YOU JESUS!

They are starting our house Monday and we will have our Pre-Construction meeting on Wednesday! Since we are the only permit that has been released our house should move along fairly quickly.

 

Financial Goals Update for June and Our July Goals

Our Port Royal

Our Goals for June:

1. Pay all of our June bills DONE
2. Pay off old debt (they raised the amount to 1,250) and Visa (400) PAID OFF THE VISA. Close accounts
3. Pay off the IRS (1,100)  PAID
4. Save at least 500 dollars toward our closing costs DONE

We had a few hiccups this month. One my husband's car broke down (don't you just hate car problems) and we ended up dipping into our savings account (280 dollars) in order to fix it.

So while this was not something that we really wanted to do, let me tell you how AMAZING it was to have that money already set aside and not have to stress about where we were going to come up with those funds!

The other issue we had this month was that when we went to pay off the old debt they had raised the amount from a little under 1,000 to almost 1,250. This was extremely irritating to me and because of some issues that we were having with the building permits (another post for another day) we decided not to pay the debt off this month and wait until July. We do have the money in savings to pay it, we just decided to wait.

Our July Goals:

1. Pay all of our July bills
2. Pay off old debt (1,250). Close Visa account that we paid off last month
3. Fully fund our closing cost account (1,950) 

 These are some really big goals and so I'm not sure that we will be able to meet these goals but I am hoping that we can stretch ourselves and get these done!

If we are able to do this then we will be able to take all of the money we save in August and September and put it toward a new refrigerator, mini-blinds, ceiling fans, and bedroom furniture for our oldest son! You know the FUN stuff!