Why we can't rent...

"Real quick answer.....the homeowners MUST live in the house. You may "allow" other people to live with you but the owner of the home must be in residence.Your exact proposal / model was in place next to my townhouse for over 2 years with Ashley living in it with 3 girlfriends from Messiah and charging them rent.It worked because the home owner was in residence and the township never found out......the association was always "against" wholesale renting such as you are proposing...especially with an eye to prevent Messiah college students ect from making group homes. Upper Allen twp has..likewise...provisions against groups of students renting off campus. There are several landlords with students that are apparently being Grandfathered and continue to rent to students but this is kind rare...FURTHER complicating your idea is a township ordinance already in place for a couple years stating that groups of students cannot be within 400 feet of another rental or group of same. I am quite sure there is just such a townhouse just up from yours near the corner of high street. Again....in a nutshell.....I think you may encounter resistance from the township for sure......"

This is the explanation that our association president gave us for why we're not allowed to rent. We are considering selling the place and buying something in MD or perhaps buying another house here in PA to rent out. Here's where you guys come in...

Do you know anyone that could keep an eye out for a fixer-upper that we could buy at a lower price tag and make improvements on? Maybe a realtor or just someone that has a good eye for houses? It doesn't even need to necessarily be "liveable" to start off with. We could live with my mom while we made the needed improvements to the house before we actually moved in. Or if Laurie takes a travel nursing job, they will pay for an apartment for us until we can make it liveable.

The only thing that we would want is to make sure the house is structurally sound, no bug infestations, etc. and that it is in an area that has the potential to increase in value. We have found a few townhomes in downtown annapolis (not the historic district) that are within our price range. We also found a few places on the other side of the Bay Bridge that are also in our price range and have a decent amount of land to them. That would require $2.50 every time we crossed the bridge but if we could get a house for a more affordable price, it might be worth it.

So, anyone have any comments, connections, or advice on what to do?

Matt and Laurie

Fire + Jesus = Good Times!!

I loved Megan's response to my previous blog so much that I felt it necessary to title my new blog accordingly. Thanks for the feedback Megan! I was laughing outloud when I read it. I always enjoy a good chuckle... even if it means setting my head on fire to get it!

Contentment vs Complaining

For those of you that keep up with Ariel Rainey's blog, make sure you read her most recent blog on contentment. If you haven't been to her blog yet, go to http://raineydaysinfrance.blogspot.com/ and check it out. My reason for mentioning her blog is that it really made an impact on me. In recent months, I've become somewhat discouraged in searching for a home down in MD. Along with the discouragement, I've had a good bit of jealousy as well, looking at family and friends that make more than I do and wishing I had what they did. But reading what Ariel had to say about contentment really put things in perspective for me. So, that's the good part, right? Here's the funny part...

I am preaching this Sunday at Daybreak here in PA and you may be able to guess the subject based on the following clue -- after reading the previous paragraph, it probably seems like the last thing I should be preaching about. That's right, my message is about complaining vs being content with what God has blessed you with. So, needless to say, when I read Ariel's blog, it hit me... maybe I should deal with the 2x4 in my own eye before I try to help anyone else with the speck in theirs.

Sometimes God can get through to me with a gentle voice and sometimes he has to use somebody else to hit me upside the head with it. Ariel -- thanks for "going upside my head" and reminding me of how blessed I really am.

Be encouraged as you read this - God cares for you and will meet every need in His timing. And as you follow Him, he'll hook you up with some of your "wants" as well. He's good like that.

God bless.

Matt

Yeah, you know it...

You would not be lying if you said that my wife and I hauled in an astonishing load of crabs for our crab feast last Saturday. You would, however, be lying if you said that it was all because of me. Dude, I just don't get it. Every time Laurie pulled up a trap or scooped off the line, the crabs were lining up for the steaming pot! One round, Laurie pulled in twelve crabs! I thought to myself, "Yeah, now I'm gonna show these crabs who's boss." So I took my round and hauled in a whopping two! Two crabs!?!? And of course, Laurie was all too quick to point out the discrepancy. So, once again in the Boyer household, it was mano y womano... and womano won.

Despite my paltry effort out on the bay, we had a great time on the water and an even better time hanging out with all of you on Saturday night. We're really excited for the next opportunity we have to get down to MD and hang out with the peeps from SRC! Hollah!!!

No House Party in Grantham

Well, it is now official. We are not going to be able to rent out the house here in Grantham. We've come to find out that not only does our association have a rule against renting but the Grantham community has a bunch of ordinances working against us as well. The reason for all of these restrictions is that they want to keep the small town of Grantham from becoming a "frat-town". I can understand why they have the restrictions, I just wish we could have gotten an exception based on our circumstances. So, please keep praying as we are still trusting God that He has a better way. He always does!

On a "Lighter" Note

Not sure why, but I felt compelled to share with you a story. When I was nineteen years old, I was an idiot. And not only that, my friends were idiots too. When I was in community college, back in 95-96, three of us (all idiots) decided to go to Creation music festival for the whole week. While there, one of us came up with the creative idea to take zippo lighter fluid and light parts of our bodies on fire. If you're familiar with Zippo, you know that if you put zippo on your pant leg and light it, it will burn the fluid but not your leg, provided you smack it out shortly thereafter. So, we tried arms and legs but I grew quickly tired of these extremities. I decided it was time to light my hat on fire. So I bent over and let my friend put zippo on my hat. (Note: I told him to put just a dot on the brim. He proceeded to put a halo of zippo all over the top of my hat because he said it would "look cool.") I then lit a match and slowly raised it to the brim of my hat. Before I even reached the brim, the flame leapt off of the match and set my head ablaze. Flailing and screaming, I frantically smacked at the hat, trying to remove it from my head. All the while, my friends just laughed and laughed and laughed. Oh yeah, they had a good old time. There was no concern over the fact that their idiot friend would soon be reduced to a pile of ash. No, no, no, they just thought it was hilarious seeing me run around in circles like a flaming chicken with it's head cut off.

Finally, I got the hat off of my head and found out quickly that everything had gone black. I couldn't see a thing. I reached up to my face with my hands to feel what damage I had done and realized that my eyelashes had melted together. I had to physically pull my eyelids apart so that I could see again. I had a ring of hair all the way around my head that had burnt off. My eyebrows were singed off and the smell of burnt hair stayed with me for months.

My mom was so mad at me... oh wait... um... actually, I don't know if I ever told her about this. So, let's just keep that between us. Ok? My mom would spank me with my hot wheels tracks for that one. (Mom, if you're reading this... I was just kidding, none of that really happened. We spent the whole week around the campfire singing Kum Ba Yah and practicing our Bible memory verses.)

Big Finish

If you made it this far, I applaud you. It's just like me to spend one fourth of the blog on anything of substance and three fourths describing my idiot encounter with some zippo and a flame. Well, you gotta love me... right? (Insert compliments that I'm fishing for here) Ok, I suppose that's about it. Thanks for your prayers. We can hardly wait to see you all again!

Matt and Laurie

Close Call

So... last night I ended up going to the emergency room. I have a history of weird problems when it comes to my health. I've never had a broken bone (except toes and thumbs but that doesn't really count), I've never had a major injury, but I am allergic to just about everything, I've had hives for three years (during my elementary school years), I get red dots on my hands every summer, and my ears start to itch when I eat too much. So, this latest incident is no surprise to me or Laurie.

A Little Background

Back in 99, I choked on a piece of pizza while I was out to eat after youth service on a Wednesday night. When I started choking, I tried to take a big gulp of soda to push it down... bad idea. I couldn't swallow the soda and it came right back up. Not only that, I trapped a large air bubble underneath of the food which made it push even further up into my windpipe. I ran to the pizzeria's bathroom and continued gagging on the piece of pizza trying to force it up. Unfortunately, it wouldn't come up. It did, however, become lodged a little bit lower in my esophagus which then allowed me to breath even though the food was still stuck. I walked out of the bathroom and tried to explain what was happening but I was greeted by the owner of the restaurant, yelling at me because he thought I was drunk. Meanwhile, all of my students from the youth ministry were trying to explain that I wasn't drunk but I was choking. He didn't believe any of us and kicked us out, which was fine with me, I wasn't going to try and stuff any more pizza down there.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I eventually made it to the emergency room that night. They had to knock me out so they could use a device to push the food through into my stomach. They also dilated my esophagus (stretched it out) because I found out that day that I have an extremely narrow esophagus. I guess I thought everyone had to take a drink with every bite just to make sure their food would go down. From that point forward, I was supposed to go to get my esophagus dilated every six months... I made it back once.

Now I Have a Reason NOT to Eat my Vegetables!!

So what does the pizza have to do with last night? Let me explain. I was eating a salad, yes that's right, a salad. I took a bite, chewed it up pretty good, and swallowed. But that was one tough piece of lettuce. It lodged itself right in my esophagus and wouldn't budge. I tried a sip of soda to push it down but that only made matters worse. Laurie heard me struggling from upstairs and came down to check on me. When she got downstairs, I was unable to speak to tell her I was okay. I was able to breathe, but not very well. Laurie tried the heimlich but I'm just too big for her to get her arms around for a good thrust. Eventually, I was able to get the air bubble out from under the food and my breathing settled down. So, we headed off to the hospital to get the food pushed through to my stomach. But after about an hour at the emergency room, it went down on it's own. A pretty exciting story with a bit of an anti-climactic conclusion. Sorry about that.

I have to go back to the doctor today to get stretched out at 3:00. It's a painless procedure but they do have to make me go to sleep. So, I suppose if you want to shoot a prayer on up for me this afternoon, that would be cool. I'm not sure this is great blogging material. I mean, what are you gonna do? Tell me what you've choked on?? But it was too weird for me to keep to myself. Come on... choking on a piece of lettuce?? That's priceless.

See you all on Saturday!

Matt and Laurie

Mad props to all my peeps!!

26 comments?!?!? That was incredible! Thanks for all the chatter. Who would have thought the lack of comment on my previous blogs actually came from a lack of discussion-starting material? I wonder what the next blog will be to create "feast-like" response??

Laurie and I are really excited about this get-together! It is going to be great to eat some crabs and more importantly, it will be a great chance for us to get to know all of you better. So, I was thinking... what goes with crabs better than some healthy competition? I am proposing some board game action on the night of the feast. My personal favorite is SCENE-IT, a movie trivia game. Unfortunately, it's not Laurie's fave because she says I always beat her at it. So are there any movie buffs like myself out there that could help me form an overwhelming majority?

Another game we would love to teach you is a Pennsylvania Dutch card game called "Dutch Blitz." Laurie and I both love this game. It's a very fast-paced card game (similar to speed or spit) in which all players play at the same time. Laurie loves this game because she is a much better multi-tasker than I am (It turns out that multi-tasking is a necessity when you're an ER nurse!)

Any other ideas for games and such?? Feel free to post away!!


Crabs in my belly, t minus 7 days and counting,
Matt