LOST A SOCK

Reprise

I think I could have rambled forever.

I was on pins and needles throughout all of last week (who are we kidding- through all of the last six weeks with each step of the house deal) knowing and hoping that we should finally close by Friday.  Our original date was November 30th, which came and went.  Then our buyers delayed another week when they were late with some necessary document or another.  I wanted to text our agent every day, twice a day and three times even to see if she knew anything more.  As if she wasn't going to tell me when she knew something.  I couldn't blog because I didn't want to jinx the close by putting it out there-- THE STRESS OF THIS HOUSE SELLING BUSINESS MAY ONE DAY KILL ME.  I hardly talked to anyone about it.  I tried to not even let myself think about it.

We had been in a similar situation before, back in the Fall of 2007 when our closing date came and went.  Back then I kept thinking positive- it will happen, just a little late, and everyone will be happy in their new homes.  But the deal crashed to the ground with the fury of ten thousand fiery airplanes, and it was no picnic.  The last thing I wanted to do this time was think positive, think negative, think at all, feel sad, feel happy, SHOW UP AT THE LENDER'S OFFICE WITH A REASON FOR THEM TO HURRY THE HELL UP.  That reason being my humble offering of an assortment of holiday cookies, of course.  

So within all of this, I did the only thing I could think of and crammed my little family's calendar with as many activities as I could so that I would have to focus on something else throughout last week.  Namely, breathing exercises as Marin and I took yet another karate class minute by minute until we all survived with our pants on.  (Booya!)  I planned a fancy dinner date for my girlfriend Mary and I on Thursday night, so that I would either be crying into my crab cakes or drinking champagne, assuming I would have knowledge of what was to come on Friday.  

I'll be damned if we didn't have to wait until four o'clock Thursday to know that we were closing on Friday morning.  That entire day, I was sick to my stomach. I had a serious meltdown over the phone with Kevin, emphatically communicating the notion that I just couldn't do this anymore.  This, I believe, is what some refer to as a Breaking Point.  In recent months I had made the mistake of hanging our adoption on the sale of this house, fearing with good reason that we could not afford to carry two mortgages and save for our remaining agency fees and two trips to Africa in the coming year.  Over and over, I ran numbers in my head as to how we could make it all work.  And every time I came up with the same answer that this may not end well-- which would piss me off even more about the freaking house and bring me to tears over our baby in waiting.  I gave up my worries at some point on Thursday-- take ME down in flames but we are bringing our baby home no matter what happens with the house.

We began preparing our house for the market in January of 2007, when Jack was just a year old, and we listed it for sale that April.  We dragged ourselves through six long months on the market, cleaning and running out the door with two little guys on a moment's notice for showings.  We moved into our current home in October of 2007, sure that our sale was right around the corner.  We made even more improvements that were demanded after inspections from more interested buyers, signed deals and releases, and carried the two mortgages for nine more months after our move, until Marin's birth was coming close in the summer of 2008.  I needed some sort of reprieve while I had my baby.  The whole situation, in case I've never allowed myself to phrase it so honestly-- sucked.  It really, really sucked.  We took our chances on renters, which also mostly sucked.  While their rent payments helped, they did not completely cover our carrying costs.  Every time it rained we worried about the basement.  We called to check if the roof was okay.  We fixed miscellaneous problems as they crept up, and we held our breath on the first of each month until we had a rent check in hand.  We lost our homestead exemption on the old house because of the renters and we ended up shelling out an extra four thousand dollars last week in property taxes.  Atop the closing costs we agreed to pay for both sides of the deal, atop the roof we put on for them last month, atop the new appliances, repairs after renters, years of carrying the two places and everything we spent on siding and landscaping, new kitchen and bathroom, furnace and carpeting while we lived there because the whole damn economy sat atop a very large bubble that promised we'd see back all of our money tenfold.  This bubble, of course, burst right as we hit the market.  And all that we had paid, improved and fixed to buyers' likings, we still showed up at closing with a cashier's check.  

I have said a thousand times over that I am thankful that we managed to handle it all with our credit scores in-tact.  We're okay now, three days after closing.  I continue to pinch myself every time I remember that we aren't tied to all of that anymore, and I am enjoying the immense relief.  It's almost unbelievable after such a long, drawn out and difficult process.  

But I remember a conversation with Kevin the summer before we got married ten years ago, where he wanted to look at apartments and I didn't want to waste our money on rent.  I wanted to be smart and make an investment.  We failed here.  We damn near lost our asses.  And while it is fine to say that we made it and we can now rebuild, I also want to acknowledge the disappointment I feel from this whole scenario.  I am both grateful that this-- only something like this is one of the most difficult things I've had to live through, and also I am overwhelmed and exhausted now to say this mountain climb of a real estate deal is our story.  The love and good memories I felt as we walked away from the house for the last time was short lived, at this point, to the sigh of relief that this massive burden was no longer ours.  This went on for so long, and my God it was so hard.

We know how everything ended.  I got a call Thursday afternoon that we would close Friday morning.  I blasted out ridiculously excited, near-nonsensical messages here and on Facebook and ran out the door with Mary for a happy dinner.  

And we closed!  After the closing Kevin and I drove a victory lap around the block and we looked at each other a thousand times over the weekend and said, "Oh My God, we don't own that house anymore."  Disbelief.  

There have been a million lessons learned throughout these years and we feel older, wiser and weathered.  I am grateful for that.  And now I get to know how everyone else feels, again--- finally, just moving forward with our little life at a skip and a hop's pace, free from that large burden. 

Whew.

Goodbye, little house.

August 2000

Our first puppy, Daniel, September 2000

Annual Fourth of July parade, 2004

Of paint fumes, November 2006

Kevin's attic craftsmenship (cat inside new wall) 2007

Babies in their favorite hiding place, summer 2007

More babies hiding, August 2010

Two thirds of these babies will argue that they are no longer babies.

At it again, August 2010

We're gonna fight, we're gonna win.  

For sale again, September 2010

December 10, 2010

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.  I hope you had the time of your life.

BELIEVE IT.

How else can I possibly title a post that says, finally, we are scheduled to close on our little old house tomorrow morning?  I have to pinch myself, I can so hardly believe this is real.  

Most of all I want to sit down and write a long entry here, since this is the place where the heartache and the happiness of our drawn-out selling process has been recorded over FOUR YEARS, and maybe a slide show with Green Day giving us a little Hope You Had The Time Of Your Life.  (You saw the Friends finale, yes?  Sob.)  

We are selling our house tomorrow.  And then we are going to have a good, long cleansing cry, toast with a few bottles of champagne, and commence saving for our adoption.  

HAPPIEST. DAY. EVER.

Done

I would like to put very little effort into documenting the shape that our house was left in, though there must be something said for it here, again, right before I post the finished pictures, because it has taken us two solid God-foresaken weeks of hours upon hours upon hours of nonstop work to get the place back into shape to put it on the market.  And also, for as friendly as our renters always were I am so surprised to discover what a pickle they left us in.  Maybe I am taking this far too personally, yes?  They moved two and a half hours away and maybe they felt some sort of privilege to cut ties as quickly as they needed to, and take little responsibility on the way out.  Regardless, nothing says Good Luck With Your Surprise Sale like a dead fridge the size of a garbage truck left in the basement, permanent rust stains in your white porcelain kitchen sink from left beer bottle caps and a dripping faucet, and an entire summer's worth of unpaid water and sewer bills that the city has now deemed us, the property owners, responsible for.  Blech.

We are finished, though.  Oh my word, we are finished.  As in, twenty minutes ago we dragged our exhausted children back home, again, after a long, frustrating night of work at the house. 

The landscaping is clean and weed-free, and we put down new mulch in all of the beds, fixed the stairs, painted the railings and window trim and front door, and scrubbed down the siding.  Somebody buy me.  I'm all yours.

The broken blinds on every window of the house were replaced, new faucet, new floor beneath the kitchen sink, fist size hole in the kitchen wall repaired, broken ceiling light replaced, walls painted, cabinets painted...

I kept reminding Kevin through this entire process that we were not upgrading the house for our buyers.  We were returning the house to a state of decency in which it could sell.  It would have been so easy to think we should list it for a higher price, knowing its condition when we purchased it in 2000 or what it looked like when we reclaimed it two weeks ago.  But all of that is gone now.  We were just making it pretty again, and the money that we spent now, and all of those years, is gone.  It's just bad timing.

This baby, on the other hand, and his brother the stainless stove, function as the proverbial dangling carrot before the house.  (The house!  Bwahaha!)  You rarely see appliances in houses at this price level, let alone stainless and brand new.  These, I hope, will distract buyers from other quirky oddities that come with buying an older home. 

 

I have always loved the character and charm of this house, though, and I hope our buyers will, too.  

Please God one day again give me white baseboards, gigantic windows and pretty hardwood floors.  I am happy to trade this little place in for his big brother.  Or even his big papa.

(A girl can dream, yes?)

And while we're dreaming, I would enjoy one day living beaneath one of the world's largest oak trees again, please.

I debated much more than usual about what color to use through the main part of the house, and ended up with a greyish shade.  I was looking for crisp and clean, and to balance the hardwood floors while showing off the gigantic windows.  I think it turned out pretty well.

The bedrooms in this house are small.  We cannot fix that. 

The closets are small, as well, since the house was constructed in 1904 and back then Ma only needed enough room for her Sunday dress and her everyday dress.  Today Hannah Montana needs room for her twenty-two pairs of designer jeans and four hundred layering tops, and no doubt she will complain about closet size.  Move in, though, Hannah.  It's totally liveable.

This is our upstairs, a picture from four years ago when we first finished it off.  It is void of furniture now, but that is about all that has changed.  Would you believe I remembered the name of the paint color from that long ago, so that I could just paint a few walls? 

Olive Sprig burned in my brain saved me hours of work.  Fantastic.

A similar story with our back room, as well.  The khaki-yellow I chose for the kitchen?  Almost a perfect match.  Touch ups, thankyouthankyouthankyou. 

When we bought this house, the above room was dark brown paneling and floored with fancy outdoor carpeting and a crap-tastic drop ceiling.  We were able to paint and put down new flooring, but a new ceiling job stretched beyond our renovating abilities.  May the buyers forgive.  And forget.  Quickly.

And so is the case with much of this little house.  Fresh out of the college dorms we bought our first house together, and we overpaid for something that needed more work than we could possibly realize at that time.  We put in a furnace and a water heater, central air conditioning, siding, gutters, counters, flooring, a completely new bathroom and mostly new kitchen, finished upstairs bedrooms, re-landscaped, fenced in the back yard and re-finished the driveway.  We poured about thirty thousand dollars into this house- more than three thousand of that just in the last couple weeks, and our listing price in this housing market will not have us see a dollar of it returned.  

It's okay.  It really is okay now.  I am completely at peace with the entire situation, and what a blessing that is.  We are ten years older, and now we know better and now we will do better.  We once had the money, little by little, to fix up a house.  It was there, the house was fixed, the money was gone and we are actually better for the wear.   Had we been able to see it from this end, would we have lived that long with green sparkly countertops and a giant rust and silver kleenex box in the wall?  No. 

We wouldn't have moved, though.  If there is one thing I have seen more clearly from this angle it was our lack of patience three years ago, when the offers were coming in (and falling apart) and we were sure the sticking offer was just around the corner.  Looking back now, we would have waited it out in the house for as long as we had to.  We were different people back then, as was the economy different, and we thought we needed so much more than we really did.  Even last week we entertained the What If scenario for selling the larger place we currently live in, and moving back to the little house.  If not for the tiny back yard and all of the adoption paperwork that sits in Ethiopia and with the US government, unable to be changed.  Then surely both houses would sell immediately, simultaneously!, and the five (six) of us would live in side-by-side cardboard boxes selling pencils and being in love.  That's from some movie, but I can't for the life of me remember which one.

It's time to sell, baby, sell.  Dare I say I am a little excited about this?  (Paint fumes, people.  Two weeks of paint fumes.)  We should get on the market in the next day or two, provided I can track down our agent quickly and Kevin can score a night away from his office.  Wish us luck!

+++

Also, I just noticed that this is my six hundredth post on lostasock.com.  I have no idea how many I wrote for my old blogspot address, but six hundred here alone is a pretty fine milestone, eh friends?

Almost there

Breakfast.

I was present for breakfast this morning, a late lunch this afternoon and dinner this evening.  That doesn't mean I didn't spend the whole morning working at the house while Kevin's mom stayed with the kids, and then return there with the kids after dinner for much of the night.  We were together for all three meals today, though.

This has been a really tough two weeks for our family.  Two weeks ago we were preparing for our Florida trip, thinking we'd come home to slap a coat of paint in a few rooms and have the place listed for sale in a few days' time.  Instead I have spent just about every waking moment of the last two weeks depending heavily on babysitters and moving down the never ending to-do list. I've stained all of the gashes and scratches in our hardwood floors, filled in all of the holes in the walls and painted every room, and watched helplessly as my dad spent his entire day off of work tearing up our bathroom floor, realizing that our renters weren't very good about using the shower curtain and turning the bathroom sub-floor into rotten, mushy garbage.  I put down a new bathroom floor this week, as well.  

Meanwhile my sister and Leslie feed our children dinner and bathe them and read them bedtime stories, and by day my mom does our laundry and my mother-in-law pulls the weeds that have gotten out of control at the house in which we actually live.  My wonderful girlfriends call to check on us.  We are so lucky for all of these people who are so willing to support us in any way they can, on a moment's notice.  I have been overwhelmed by the kindness we have received in the last two weeks.

Sadly, while Kevin and I can trudge through with another caffeinated beverage and the hope that the house will be done soon, our kids are not having an easy time of this upheaval of normalcy.  Marin becomes so nervous any time she thinks I may be leaving again, and cries to go with me everywhere.  Two nights ago I found her sobbing in her crib, still asleep, "I go with you, Mom. I go with you, I go with you."  Having just gone to bed thirty minutes prior, myself, I dragged her into bed with us where we chatted and sang and snuggled half the night away (and eventually sent daddy down to the couch so he could get a solid five minutes sleep before work!) and then I had to get up the next morning and leave her all over again. 

I can see evidence of the stress with KJ, and especially Jack, in different ways than with Marin.  Thankfully I was determined to begin homeschool on Monday and that has become our stronghold for time spent together, mid-day, almost every day this week. 

We are going to get through this.  We are almost finished, I keep promising the kids today.  I am going to cook meals again and read bedtime stories, and once and for all we will be finished with the house when it sells. 

There have been good moments, too- lots of them in these weeks.  Kevin and I have joined forces to knock out one task after the next, and speed through home improvement stores just before they close (with me in a wheelchair, even!) and then celebrate another day finished with ice cream late at night.  Lots and lots of ice cream.  (Bridesmaid dress wha??)  I have listened to all twelve hours of the Eat, Pray, Love audiobook in an otherwise silent house.  The kids have enjoyed the playground that is a mildly unfamiliar empty house where their voices echo and the hiding places are fresh.  We purchased stainless steel appliances for the house last week, and one of the two delivery men was-- from Africa!  We chatted for a bit.  Then I placed our old (still working) appliances on Freecycle and the couple that came to get them had five children.  We were almost giddy to talk with them about raising a lucky five, and woven quietly into the conversation was the thread that they were very poor.  They had recently lost their fridge as they could no longer afford the monthly rent-to-own payment, and they'd been doing all of their baking in a roaster.  All of their cakes, all of their frozen pizzas for a year- the father figured out how to bake in a roaster.  Never was I so thankful to be able to give something to someone.  In that moment I felt for sure this entire house debacle was worth it if only just to cross paths with this good family. 

We really are almost finished.  The stained basement walls have to be painted, the yard cleaned up a bit and the floors still need a good scrubbing.  Then a few staging pieces and we should be ready to list. 

After that?  I'm going to take the kids apple picking, and to the library.  And then we aren't leaving here again for a month.   

We are al. most. there.

Week in Fast Forward

Oh boy, Internet.  Where to begin?

Kevin and I arrived home from Florida late in the night on Monday, and by early Tuesday morning he and the kids and I were at the old house to survey the...uh...damage. 

Our renters moved out while we were gone over last weekend, and they said they would be back the following weekend to clean up.  Unfortunately for us as the homeowners, the quick split of our renters involves us taking over a second mortgage payment and all of the utilities without notice, so we needed to get in and get it ready for the real estate market as fast as possible.  We have a house to sell! 

We were amazed-- no, shocked-- when we walked into the house.  Many of our renters' miscellaneous items were left laying all over the floors, crowded in amongst more garbage I could have imagined would be there.  The back gate was broken, many of the storm windows were separated from their frames, there were new holes in the walls and scratches in the wood floors, and the toilet and sinks were brown and filthy.  In the first five minutes of our walk through, what we thought would be a quick mental list of pre-market fixes, was devastation.

The thing is, we love our renters.  We have from the beginning.  They are a very kind family and they have never missed a rent payment in more than two years.  They did not intentionally trash our house, as in walking through with a hammer and a can of spray paint, but we learned a lesson in the last week.  Our people, no matter how sweet, did not care for our home, are not invested in our home, in the same way that we are. 

I fell apart for the first couple hours, and then we regrouped.  Kevin shoveled the garbage and the leftover stuff out of the main parts of the house so that at least Marin would stop playing with d-con disks and toilet brushes.  We got to work immediately and within a single day we spent a few thousand dollars on faucets, flooring, appliances, spackle, stain, paint, caulk and cleaning products.  A house to sell, we declared repeatedly.

Throughout the week I spent every waking moment at the house, up until just an hour ago.  There is more to go.  We have accepted the kindnesses of our friends and family who have offered to care for our kids for us on and off while we worked, and when no babysitters were available the kids came with to the house, where they played in the landscaping dirt and with the plethora of paint sticks and pipe wrenches on hand. 

KJ asleep, hours past bedtime in the middle of the empty living room floor.  Lucky for Jackson and Marin, they have no respect for bedtime and were certainly crawling through the back drop ceiling or locating hundred-year-old secret passages abandoned long ago.

In the first three days I had patched all of the holes in the walls and painted the dining room, living room and entry hall, kitchen and kitchen cabinets and one bedroom.  Kevin had changed out the faucets, reassembled storm windows, cleaned gutters and removed eight thousand weeds from the landscaping, each night after work.  We were making progress.

On Friday morning I had neither a babysitter nor the gumption that is required when repeatedly working in an empty house all day with three young, bored children, so we took off for Ikea, where I loaded up on cheap curtains and cute staging items.  Then we went back to work on the house.

On Saturday morning I broke my foot.

Wait. 

Seriously.

This story is exactly the type of thing you read in the Old Testament, about Job who lost his house and his animals and his keys and got twelve kinds of diseases and still did not curse God.  At the tail end of everything that comes with supporting one's sister in the weeks before her wedding, in the week before I was to begin homeschool with two little boys and planning a bachelorette party and a rehearsal dinner, amidst an international adoption, our renters gave us a week's notice that they had to run and we were left with a mess and a mortgage.  Then both my sister and Leslie's cars up and died at the same time leaving four of us to share vehicles until one could be purchased...a purchase I helped negotiate just five hours before I boarded a red-eye to Florida for the funeral of my husband's beloved grandmother.  Then we worked our asses off from morning to midnight, and I injured my foot.  My right foot.  My gas pedal foot, might I add.

My mom had very generously committed herself to our house, our children and our laundry for the weekend so that Kevin and I could plow through as much as possible at the old house, hoping to list the house for sale by next week, and in my excitement for forty-eight hours of uninterrupted work time, I raced out to the grocery store early Saturday morning to provide my children and my mother with a well-stocked pantry and fridge.  And just in the way you would imagine someone who had spent ninety-seven tireless, caffeine-driven hours of home improvement stepping off of a front porch while unloading groceries and cursing at the asshole dog who had just run away for the millionth time, stepping off of a front porch, that is exactly how I stepped off the front porch.  I caught the edge of the sidewalk and rolled my foot down into our landscaping and anything but gracefully plastered my whole self to the very abrasive concrete sidewalk.  

Just so you know how a non-human, ridiculously robotically driven person responds to her bleeding foot and leg and pain shooting up from her foot all the way through her thigh, I stood up, realizing fully that things just went bad, and said in a very matter-of-fact manner, Holy Shit, I do not have time for this.  I was pissed.  I was so pissed.  I sat at my kitchen table with angry tears rolling down my cheeks, counting the rooms left to paint and so on, and I had my sister drop me off at the hospital so that at least Kevin would not miss out on precious babysitter-padded work hours at the house.  I hobbled my ass into the Emergency Room and had x-rays taken, where I was diagnosed by the E.R. doc with a bad sprain.  I have, however, broken a foot before-- this one! in fact!  I fractured my fifth metatarsal back in 2004 when Kevin left a hand weight on a basement stair (this is him, never living it down) and the shooting, awful pain is exactly like this, in my third metatarsal this time.  You know, in the part of my foot that resembles the epicenter of the overblown football. 

As I finished up at the hospital I sent my sister a quick text with something we always say in moments of slight challenge, We gonna fight. We gonna win.  Come hell or high water (please, no) we are going to finish this house as quickly as possible and list it before the summer selling season is officially over.  We are going to start school, and we are going to coast to this wedding.  We are going to carry this empty house for as long as need be this time, and we are going to sell it to the highest bidder.  It has been a long run, and the end is approaching.

Then I sent a text to my husband so that he would come get me, my throbbing foot and my awkward crutches, and bring me back to the house so I could resume work.  I could see my doctor on Monday about a more correct diagnosis and possibly a plastic shoe.

As a person with a husband could guess, Kevin was slightly frustrated with my plans to resume work with a broken foot.  I was slightly frustrated with his plans for me to sit home and stare blankly at the walls.  He was slightly frustrated with being married to the most stubborn person he's ever known and no, he doesn't know why the top of the crutches won't extend from four feet up to five foot seven, can't I just freaking use them like that?  Like a freaking Oompa Loompa?  In the middle of Walgreens where I insist I need to pick myself up a two pound bag of peanut m&m's to help wash down the pain pills, and a few guilt-riddled toy-presents for my children who have barely seen their mama in more than a week now?

We didn't get divorced, thankfully.

I continued on as I was, sort of, and even asked my darling spouse to snap this picture.  You know.  For my blawwwg.

Did I mention Saturday was our dating anniversary?  We've been together for thirteen years.  This is love, baby.

Of course today I stayed perched near the top of an eight foot ladder like a damn flamingo all day today.  He had to know my promises of sitting on the floor with the baseboards wouldn't last.  But the interior painting of the rooms is now finished, and I am no worse for the wear.  I am okay with this- all of this.  I have even been happy about some parts of it.  There have always been things I have loved about this house, and I have been able to enjoy them this week.  And whether or not the end of this house saga is actually near, I know for sure it is at least on its way.  We are finally making progress again, and though this process calls for many sacrifices, it is time.  It is time to say goodbye, happily and gratefully for all of the blessings that came from once having a little old house to live in, and then the trials and the growing that came from carrying a little old house for as long as we have.  At dinner on the very first night of this fiasco, Kevin talked to the kids and explained that this was going to take a lot of work and sometimes be no fun at all, but, he said, we were going to get through this together.  I am glad for the valuable lesson for my kids now, that pulling together and fighting harder is what you do when the going gets tough.  Throbbing damn foot and all.

+++

Oh, wait!  I forgot to share with you the name of my doctor in the emergency room on Saturday.

Dr. Painter. 

I kid you not. 

Writing the next chapter

Once there was a little old house.

(Yep, the next chapter of this story.)

Once there was a little old house that was purchased by a young couple with no very specific dreams at all, more than hopes for happiness and a dog and a little black cat and babies someday.

The house was charming with its shiny hardwood floors and chunky white baseboards, and it suited the young couple just fine.

 

Before long the young couple brought their newborn baby home to the house, and he began to grow there. The mama walked the shiny hardwood floors with him day and night, and he learned to crawl and walk and run.

Family and friends gathered again and again for celebrations, and toys and puzzles and baby items of all kinds filled the little old house. A whole set of lives grew there, just as had been happening for more than one hundred years in that very place.

When they planned for their second baby, the couple worried about the space that was offered by the little old house. They placed the little old house for sale and let it ride for many months, but to no avail. Then they adapted their plans and decided to keep the little old house for a while longer, and they gave it a facelift.

Soon a second baby, a fourth family member, joined the house. This time there was work to be done. There was reorganizing and simplifying in order to make space for the again growing family to fit this house.

The family began changing in so many ways- their beliefs, their goals and their entire lives were becoming more purpose-filled. There were even more toys and puzzles and family and friends. They were ready for the next step, now, and decided again that it was time to move on.

(Like, for real this time.  We were moving, for real.)

The house was listed for sale and the family hoped and prayed that new owners were just around the corner.

A deal came, and a deal fell through. Another deal came, and another deal fell through.  A new real estate agent, another round of interested buyers changing their minds. The family did the best they could with the circumstances and after months and months of touring big, beautiful houses with brand new chunky white baseboards and brand new shiny hardwood floors, they decided to move forward at any cost.

 

The family again adapted their plan to fit the situation. They downgraded their new house budget by half, and they carried the two houses, the new and the old, for almost another year. They prayed for patience and guidance and wisdom, because something had to happen. They adapted their plan again, and they brought in a new family.

Renters.

The renters came as a family of three and soon grew into a family of four, just as the one before them had. They took good care of the house and stayed for more than two years until suddenly…

…well, yes. Until suddenly I received the call last night that our renters have taken a job offer on the other side of the state, and it is time for them to move out of our little old house, next week.

I have imagined a thousand times what this moment would feel like- the moment when the house became all ours again. For anyone who was reading me back in 2007 and 2008 when our house was on the market and deal after deal fell through, you know the way we struggled with it. We weren’t doing anything crazy, really. We were a growing family who was simply ready to spread out into a bigger place. We had outgrown our starter home, though unfortunately at the same time that our country spiraled into a real estate disaster and stock market crash.

I prayed for patience so much at that time. It sounds simple to look back and say we carried the two houses for nine months, but the truth of it was that carrying two houses for Kevin and I meant heavy weights on our shoulders every single day, and worries of what outcome we might face. We paid double mortgages and double heating bills each month, and we shoveled snow and cut grass at two houses. I didn’t want to do it, and honestly I sometimes felt it would break me. I tried, as hard as it was, to trust God that all of it was for a reason.

I also had no idea that I would become pregnant with Marin just three months after we moved out of our little old house. In the middle of shoveling snow and begrudgingly signing that mortgage check month after month I was carrying a baby with a then mysterious kidney condition that would require multiple hospital stays, and surgery. We had no plans for a third child back then, but suddenly we were having one.

I also had no idea that we would decide to adopt our fourth child from Africa before Marin was even a year old.

Most importantly, we could not have known back in 2007 when I was crying tears of sheer frustration and hopelessness night after night, that if we had sold our little old house and bought the big, new house with the chunky baseboards and hardwood floors for double the price, that we could not have afforded to adopt our baby.

The house we live in now- the one we settled on because we just needed to go already, is what is currently making our then unrealized dreams for our family come true.

I had imagined that once it came time to relist our little old house on the market that I would feel panic again, like I once had during those long, emotional selling months. No time is a good time to go through something like this, financially and otherwise.

I am not panicked, though. Isn’t that crazy? I don’t know if this will be easy or difficult, and I have no idea how this story will end.  Something has to happen, and it will.

But first I have to paint walls and polish wood floors again.  Ready?

+++

And, for the sake of fond memories I give you this gem.  I laughed my fool head off when I read this, remembering my Aunt Kathy leaping from her chair to help move the troops, Joyce with the bottle of windex and Mary and Sant hurling bags of freshly opened birthday presents into KJ's room.  And Jakie with the binoculars in the Dairy Queen parking lot.  Good gravy those were some ridiculously funny times, weren't they?)

Stopping to smell the tulips

A few years ago when I began reading spiritual/motivational-esque authors such as Wayne Dyer and Jack Canfield and Eckart Tolle, there was so much talk of living in the moment.  It was fairly new to me as I was an intense planner (still am, mostly).  Back then I was also very much caught in the web of carrying out plans ONCE we had more money, AFTER I lost weight, IF we could only live in bigger house, ONCE the grass was cut, LATER when the weather was warmer, IF I only had more energy at a particular time.  I began reading about all of the living consciously stuff somewhere in the middle of my initial hundred-pound weight loss, and little by little through the years, it began to catch for me.

Living in the moment-- that is, not waiting for what you believe to be more ideal conditions before you get moving with your life, is directly correlated with gratitude, I have learned.  To embrace what I am and what I have right now is to be thankful for what I have, who I am.  And there is something so freeing about learning to work with what you've got.  It is, after all, what you've got.   All of the maybes and I hopes are somewhere off in the future, and don't even exist right now.  What does THIS have to teach me, I forever wonder.

I was at the Field Museum in Chicago with my three kids the other day, on a field trip for homeschool.  We attended an early ed class about different artifacts from all over the world, did fossil rubbings and dug through sand for dinosaur bones, perused the colorful exhibit on Tibet and spent hours, literally, walking through room after room dedicated to explaining the Earth's history from its beginning all those billions of years ago.  We shared a picnic lunch in the same area I used to enjoy lunches as a child on field trips, and we even stopped for souviners on the way out. 

Of course, my alarm didn't go off that morning, causing a rushed exodus to be on time for our class, and there was a dry cereal mess breakfast in the car for all.  My toddler missed her nap on this day, creating less-than-ideal circumstances, one child had to poop, mid-lunch, and at times little legs became tired of walking. 

Both because of and inspite of all the truths, good and bad of the day, as we headed to the elevator I felt more than satisfied-- so happy with what we'd shared and what we had learned.  It was a great day!  I love days like that one!  I even let loose and bought each of the kids a souvenir, which we don't do very often, and it made them quite happy.

We boarded the elevator with another family, two parents and two kids older than my own, and the mom looked briefly at each of my children and myself and commented, "You're brave." 

I smiled cordially, suddenly having my euphoric bubble popped in mid-air.  This doesn't make me brave-- this is just me having fun with my kids, I wanted to say.  We're in the process of adopting more, I wanted to say.  But I didn't.  I try to pick my battles carefully, and responding with something contradictory to her quick, negative survey of my situation would mean only another moment of heightened discomfort, and possible bad feelings later on.  I didn't know what experiences the woman on the elevator had been through in her life that led her to believe that taking a crew of small children on outings required bravery.  Her tone indicated that it was more of a snide comment than a supportive one for sure, but it in no way altered my perspective on what a wonderful experience I had that day with my kids.

It still hasn't. 

Looking back, I am so thankful for the lessons I have learned in making lemonade from lemons-- wonderful renters in our unsellable house, going with my gut to homeschool in spite of my worries for already having too much on my plate, spending a day at the museum with the kids even though we'd gotten a late start and experienced a few hiccups in the road.  The hiccups will always be there, as will the ability to fight in frustration with them, or embrace the simple reality.

Watching a family of deer graze in the distance at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

All of these concepts were driven home to me in such a concrete way last year, when my Aunt Kathy died of breast cancer.  She was determined to live her life as long as possible in the way she was comfortable, and to squeeze every last drop into mothering her seventh grade son.  It made me realize again and again in the last eleven months that whatever we get is really all we get, and we have no idea when our time here will be finished.  It doesn't matter if we've parked ourselves in front of a television promising to spend time out with friends and family when clothing fits better, when money isn't so tight or when time appears more bountiful.  Tomorrow could be it, and our time was wasted, hoping for better, later.

From time to time I leave a sinkful of dishes for the next morning, just to finally sit down at the end of a long day.  More often, I allow wet clothes to sit in the washer while the kids and I head out for an impromptu visit to the park or to walk the trail near our house.  Sometimes I talk on the phone late even when I am tired because I really want to connect with one of my girlfriends, or I stay up well past midnight making bracelets or editing pictures because they are my treasures.  On Saturday we finished with the boys' basketball games and promptly threw our weekend to-do list to the breeze.  The weather was just perfect and we had been dying to go hiking at the nearby state park.

 

I hope that my (five or more) children remember days like these, and that they too spend their lives with the understanding of just how precious and quickly passing their moments and opportunities are.  I am so grateful to be learning it myself these last several years, even through difficult lessons as needed.  It really is our own to create, isn't it?  All through perspective.

Twenty Oh-Nine

First, our Christmas celebrations were good and I hope yours were, too.  We completed all but one item on my list of holiday fun (damn popcorn garland) plus took an unplanned trip to Florida this month.  The day after Christmas KJ came down with the stomach flu, and it then shot through every member of our house like a speeding rocket through some home-made pumpkin pie.  Or is that just what my laundry room looked like in its aftermath?  (Yes.)

I can hardly believe we're already a handful of days into the year 2010 (remember how crazy it was to reach Y2K with the projection of computers spontaneously combusting and scribbling out the 19 on every last page of your checkbook?  That was really ten years ago already?)  Last year, at the end of 2008, I wrote a review post, and going back to read it this morning I was surprised to remember what a difficult road we tread that year.  I had high hopes for 2009 at the time, and shared some of my goals here.  And now on the other side, I am so thankful to call 2009 one of the good ones.

With health a fair worry at the beginning of 2009, I am relieved to say that we made it through pretty smoothly.  Marin had surgery on one of her kidneys, and the other continues to be watched by our trusted specialist.  I was given the thumbs up by my own new doctor as well, to leave all return-tumor worries at her office door.  And while I didn't hit my final weight loss goal this year, I came forty-ish pounds closer, which is nothing to scoff at.  There's always the year ahead for celebrating the finish line, right? 

I gave running a try this year, and made frenemies with Jillian Michaels and her Eighteen Thirty Day Shred.  I also participated in two 5K walks for charity and pushed both a lawn mower and a double stroller a whole lot this year.  I loosened up my former strict relationship with the Weight Watchers points program for a balance with plain old healthy, natural eating, and wonder of wonders, found that consuming fruits and vegetables, and exercising, can help one shed pounds, also.  I accidentally dyed my hair black, and brown and had it short and long(ish.)  I lived in jeans and solid color t-shirts, and oversized hooded sweatshirts.   

This year we kept our noses clean financially, steering clear of credit card debt and paying off the lesser of our vehicles.  We were very honest with what we had to save, spend and give away each month, and though I know where I could have done better in certain situations, I am quite pleased in the end.  I learned a good deal about the stock market this year (as opposed to the Absolute Zero that I comprehended in years previous) and managed good returns as the market made its rebound.  I am forever thankful that we came away from the year with Kevin's job in-tact, unlike so many with different stories of 2009.

 
I fell head over heels in love with my simple laundry line this year, and spent more time than ever outdoors with the kids.  We visited our zoo through all seasons, discovered the walking trail near our home, and took full advantage of many free days for our local Chicago museums.  We also had a blast with Little League and basketball, took swim lessons and gave karate the old college try (read: fail!)  We practically lived at the library this year, heh, when we weren't at the zoo.  Many of those outings were done in the name of our new way of life as a homeschooling family, which I am both proud of myself for taking on this year, and proud of my children for embracing so readily.

 
This year was particularly difficult as we carried my Aunt Kathy to the end of her life, which is still hard to believe, and we participated in the Susan G. Komen walk in her name, to find a cure for a terrible disease.  I have remained overly-critical of myself through the year, still deeply longing to conquer my own fears and awkwardness to say the right thing a given moment instead of blurting out a jumbled mess of not quite what I meant to say as I back out of the room, sheepishly.  And still around and around with a sugar addiction, and eating in the name of comfort and celebration and worry, except for the moments when I managed to overcome it this year.  And there were a few. 

 
In response to 2008's Year of No Travel, we made our way from coast to coast in 09.  Kevin and I took a spring trip to California, just the two of us, and left a little piece of our heart at Big Sur.  We made a 3600 mile road trip as a family early this fall, visiting Mount Rushmore and the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the Texas panhandle and many of the plains states.  I will love and remember that trip forever.  Late in the year we took the kids on their first flight, down to Florida where we spent time with Kevin's Granny on the news of her late-stage cancer.  Marin paid her very first visit to Mickey Mouse, also.

 
KJ learned to ride a bike this year!  Kevin and my dad constructed our backyard swing set!  Sant and Leslie bought a house!  And got engaged!  My major purchase was my Canon Rebel and its lenses, which I love with my whole heart, and we landscaped the front of our house, and carpeted our family room.  We successfully rented out our old house for a second year, and our baby daughter learned to crawl, walk, talk and climb. 

 
This year a new baby began making his/her way into our family, growing in our hearts, rather than in my womb.

This year I learned that personal growth, and change, often do not happen overnight.  Or even in short months or years, sometimes.  I learned the value of solid friends willing to accept you for who you are, forgive you for who you were not but should have been, hold you up when you could barely stand and sincerely pat your back as you giddily make your way down the fast track to happiness.  I learned that making yourself vulnerable has its down-side, but is full of lessons when ridden out to a situation's end.  I saw that there is perfection in life's good and bad, and that opening oneself up to truest sincerity and God's abundance can bring nothing but joy, and even a few surprises. 

2009 was good.

Choose Your Own Adventure

 

You'll remember this little gem, yes?

Okay, so it's been a relatively quiet eleven months and if you've not been reading for much longer you maaaaay not know that when we moved?  Back in 2007?  We never sold this little puppy. 

Yep, that was the point in time that our country was calling this Nightmare Economy a "Buyer's Market" and people still had jobs and retirement accounts and one could score an interest only mortgage for as little as twelve cents down happily paid with a MasterCard and three salted french fries.  No shortage of buyers that visited our little place, for sure, and unfortunately, no shortage of deals gone bad when it came to the not-sale of our little house.

At this time last year the house was just to the point of tossing dirt upon our heads as we lay in our deep financial grave, and we were left with no choice other than to foreclose find renters.  Fast. 

I like to call myself a doggone economy-downturn pioneer.  Bitches.

(I don't know.  The title, it didn't seem complete yet.)

So our renters signed a one year contract with us, and they kindly paid on the first of each and every month for a whole year and as far as we are capable of knowing, they've taken care of the house.  And they're nice, too.

I took the year and worked my ass off to dig us back out of credit card debt for the second time (where credit card debt is to nine months of two house payments as vomiting from your toes is to the stomach flu) and I went to great lengths to begin rebuilding our obliterated savings account.  Oh yeah, and I had a baby, too.

You love happy stories, don't you?

So recently, just as we began talking sophomore contract with our totally fabulous renters, we were alerted to the fact that we unknowingly (wherein accidental landlords probably would not know but eventually came to know) did not remove the mortgage and homestead exemptions on our old house when it became --- now say it with me, and annunciate, in a slow whisper -- when it became an "Investment Property."  (In the "Buyers Market.")  (Haaaaaa hahahahahaha.)  

So apparently our county really likes you to live in a house if you're getting a tax exemption for living there, and therefore they estimated the back-tax bill to be rather extremely large, and in the mail. 

I'd like to say something clever here, but only the phrase Beginning of the End comes to mind.

Because then bad-ass Escrow had to get in on the action, causing the payment on this little non-homestead of ours to increase by a couple hundred bucks a month, nevermind the fact that our rent checks already aren't covering what actually gets paid to the bank every month.  (But hot damn!  We have great credit!  We're honest suckers payers and we didn't foreclose with the rest of the free world.)

Now let us pause for a moment and think about Spring tulips and baby chicks.  It is what I tried to do when I heard this news, and also I placed my fingers in my ears and sang loudly until I realized that I just looked like a damn idiot and needed to start making out the check.

 

Who can forget the Knucklehead Smiths next door, eh? 

So after our uber-fabulous renters accidentally disclosed the fact that they were not only fully committed to signing another year contract with us but also are currently house hunting for something later this fall or early winter (thus leaving us high and dry in the snow, oopsie) we sort of wondered with the couple hundred dollar payment shortage, the tax thing, the new renter search, if we shouldn't just try selling again.  Look, I know the market is still shit, but maybe we'll get lucky, right?

Hrrrrmmm...  Did I mention the Knucklehead Smiths next door did foreclose in the past year? 

Ohhh they did, and now the Banklehead Smith property is on the market for approximately HALF of what the Knuckleheads bought it for, capping our available asking price somewhere around the twenty eight dollar marker.  Why buy ours if you can get the house next door with a garage and an extra bathroom for thousands less, eh?

We tried to strike a deal with our renters to purchase our place, though they respectfully declined (though still looking for a new lease for whatever reason?)  We've talked about hanging on to it for another year and bleeding the couple hundred dollars per month, though lets face it, my husband works in the financial sector and jobs are anything but guaranteed and stable anymore.  Last, we've talked about bare asses to the breeze, listing the empty house again and shelling out an ungodly amount of cash from our recently partial rebuild of an emergency fund to cover the difference between the final sales price and what is actually still owed on the mortgage.  If we can sell it this time.

We've got mere weeks left in the safety of paid-up renters, so we're going to have to figure this one out pretty quick, eh?

Ohhhhh Eight

With having Jack's birthday right there as we ring in each new year, I noticed that I've not ever written a Year In Review post or a Herrrrrre's What's To Come entry on this website -- even though I am actually a mite bit obsessed with a huge fan of reflecting on the past and planning for the future.  So if you'll allow me to drag the new year celebration on for just a bit longer (sure you can drink champagne while you read) we can take a quick look at my year past, and later the one to come.

When I think about 2008, now that we are all of six days into 09, I need a good cry.  Every time.  First I want to weep big crocodile tears of sobby sadness for the hard road that was last year, then some tears of joy and gratitude, and then back for a good long cry of relief.  We made it through 2008.  And frigging hell it was TOUGH.

I think 2007 was one of those years that makes the surrounding ones pale in comparison.  I felt most myself in 2007.  I had a ton of energy and on paper we really accomplished a lot.  We went lots of places and moved to a new house, Kevin took on a new job and I painted and redecorated and just felt healthy in so many ways.  I assumed that 2008 would be a continuation of the year previous and I could spend the rest of my life gleefully hopping around with two kids Enjoying Every Damn Thing (once we sold that pesky house, of course). 

Why hello Morning Sickness, where did you come from?

As can be imagined, I learned a lot this year.  I learned a lot about patience, and grace, and flexibility.  We chucked our plans for selling our old house and rented it out.  We chucked our plans for being a two-child family and opened our hearts to our new baby.  I chucked my plans for finishing my weight loss and for happily vacationing, and we put off every major purchase possible.  Some things really fell to shit, and some of them were rebuilt.  Some things I will never be able to discuss here, but, well, they played a large factor in The Crazy that this year was also.  I'm glad to see the year come to an end.  I'm grateful for all of the opportunities for learning that I was presented with, and I hope I came away understanding everything I needed to.  And my word, I am thankful for my happy sweet-smelling baby that came from this year. 

So here we go - 2008 In Review - In Numbers.

In 2008...

• I mowed zero lawns, dragged garbage cans to the curb only once, and shoveled snow only twice.  Ahh pregnancy, alas I find your perks. 
• We had 2 baby showers, 15 ultrasounds, 1 surgery, 1 tumor removed and 1 reproductive organ lost.  This year my body happily grew 1 beautiful six pound baby and I continued my long-standing career sabbatical to stay home, care for and educate 2 equally wonderful and energetic little boys (and then 1 adorable baby girl).
• In 2008 I consumed 467 pounds of cookie dough followed by a close second, 462.5 pounds of every variety of fresh fruit, canned fruit, fruit flavoring and fruity smelling non-fruit fruit.  I drank only 1/3 as much coffee as I would have, hosted 6 parties in our home, consumed 2 alcoholic beverages and gained 50 pounds (the calories in the alcohol, I tell you!)
• I changed approximately 4000 diapers in 2008, washed at least 1500 loads of laundry, had 2 houses flood, 1 roof leak, and 2 vacuums died.  I painted only 1 room in 2008, hid from 1 tornado, stepped on 984 legos, pinched 1 nerve in my upper back and fell down the stairs once in the middle of the night (and tore the thermostat out of the wall in the process, way to go on doing nothing half-assed.)  I blew my nose 14,982,227 times through the course of 17 colds. 
• In 2008 I ran the dishwasher at least 365 times and washed approximately 4 dishes by hand.
• Major purchases were limited to 1 larger vehicle, 1 winter coat, 1 television and innumerable pink baby sleepers.  This year we purchased 3 DVD's, no CD's, our first video game system as a married couple, and 1 video game.  I purchased 1 pair of shoes this year and no purse.  This year we went to no concerts, no movies, 1 musical, and paid 18 mortgage payments out of our savings veins pocket. 
• Holding strong, we managed to fully fund 1 IRA, rebuild our savings and close out the year without 1 dollar of credit card debt. 
• I read 2 books that influenced me in a major way, meditated at least 100 times and attended church only twice in the middle of an incredible spiritual journey.  I learned 2 very important lessons in 2008, watched my favorite documentary at least 20 times and claimed my personal stake as 1 huge History Channel Dork.
• I learned to love, appreciate and accept this 1 body that serves me whether it is baby-filled, overweight, well cared for or otherwise.  I quietly celebrated my 11th anniversary with Kevin, proud of its fruits, proud of what it took to arrive there.
• In 2008 we took no vacations but made our way into 4 neighboring states, attended no weddings, 1 wake, no funerals, 1 baptism, countless birthday parties.  I helped coordinate 2 classroom parties and rode a school bus 3 times.
• We scheduled 1 vasectomy and cancelled 1 vasectomy, no longer convinced that two 3 is our magic stopping number.  (Possibly I don't mind changing 4000 diapers a year as much as I think?)  I underwent 1 tumor regrowth check to find myself still tumor free and cancer free, hopefully forevermore, at least until February. 
• I kept up with 67 blog feeds, wrote 144 blog entries of my own and took more than 8200 pictures.  I read more than 1000 children's books, (mostly) potty trained 1 little boy, and taught my 2 boys about charity, hands-on, in 3 ways this year.  I made two sets of curtains, six pillows and my first quilt on my gramma's sewing machine.
• I mailed out 72 Christmas cards this year, and excitedly received 46. I was awful about responding to emails.
• In 2008 I sang hundreds of songs, cried more tears than I care to count, smiled thousands of genuine smiles and thanked God hundreds of times for all that we are blessed with.  Even when those blessings are wrapped up in an easy-to-exit year like 2008.

With the raining and the pouring, both literally and figuratively

So it steadily poured rain in our area for something like two and a half or seventeen days recently, and our town received 9.95 inches. 

On Sunday morning we woke up to the sump pump running non-stop, again, but thankfully keeping up with what was coming in, blessing us with a dry crawl space and lower level family room this time around.  Phew.  Unfortunately, we were not so lucky with the kitchen ceiling, again, which happily gave us a taste of what Mother Nature had going on in the out of doors that day.  You know, the claim with our insurance company that I canceled three weeks ago because they wanted to tear my kitchen apart just before I was to deliver a baby, and for sure I thought it was a One Time Deal - a mere mistake - my leaky kitchen ceiling under the almost new roof.  Let's see how State Farm feels about a changed my mind phone call in the coming days, eh?  (Right after they deal with The Other Claim I made yesterday, just wait.)

Later that same morning we received a call from The Renters - the basement had water - not only leaking in through the hundred year old brick basement walls (as always with heavy rains) but also rushing up through the floor drains down there.  Kevin headed over to assess the situation, and after a few hours of craftily utilizing Aquafina bottles to create vacuums in drains, the problem was as under control as one could ask for in that house.

By Monday morning we thought for sure things would calm down and drain down, although we'd heard that there were nearly no open roads through which we could pass.  Luckily my mom and dad made it up to our house on Sunday night so that my mom could stay the week and help me just as she'd been planning, but early Monday morning we found out just how impassible our roads were.  Kevin called at 5am to tell me he'd driven through a puddle and the car stalled out.  (And herein lies The Other Claim.)

A thirty foot long puddle by forever wide by two and a half feet deep, and the car was dead.  In the middle of this...puddle. 

(Really, he called it a puddle on the phone.  I could not figure out, for the life of me, how a puddle could possibly kill a Ford Explorer.  And then it all made sense when I pulled up in our other vehicle, and my husband exited his vehicle, leaving shoes and socks inside, dress slacks rolled thigh-high, laptop bag safely harnessed around his neck to wade out through knee-deep water.  It was a bit more than a puddle.)

It took forever to find a tow company who was even willing to try to get the car out, for no less than the value of my right arm, and now it sits in front of our house waiting to be towed to the site of either its repair or its declaration of doom. 

In spite of the two major expressways around us being shut down (due to flooding, of course) I did manage to get him all the way to work yesterday morning, and he's been commuting via trusty ol' train ever since.

So this is our town, as of late yesterday afternoon.

This is the street we drive up and down forty-seven times a week, and the dark green rectangle-looking thing in the middle of all that water?  Would be the top of an enormous National Guard vehicle who tried to make it through.

This is the rear of our local library, where my mother-in-law works, which has been sandbagged for more protection in spite of the five feet of water that is filling it.  Actually, what you're looking at is the parking lot, and the lake itself normally has a pleasant brick walking path around it, all the way out past the light posts.

These light posts.

And the apartments and businesses nearby, and the roof of another car parked there.

It is safe to assume that the lake in the middle of our downtown area didn't have the room for all the rain that came down, though now things are becoming more serious and all are hoping the dam will hold.  Schools have been closed for two days now, businesses and homes are under water, and it's unbelievable to think that this is where I live, not something I'm seeing on the news from far away.

To add insult to injury, I also spoke with baby Marin's doctor late yesterday.  The obstruction to her kidney is pretty severe, unfortunately, and surgery is in her not-too-distant future.  He would like to give her a few more weeks to grow since she is so tiny, and then in the second week of October she will undergo the MAG-3 test I mentioned in my last entry, followed by another Renal Scan the next day, and then decisions about when to schedule surgery.  More than anything - more than the water, the damn car, the anything else that could possibly plague us, please do keep her in your prayers.

The one that almost started with loud sobs instead of Oreo Cakesters

Hot damn, those Oreo Cakesters?  Fan-friggin-tastic -- with a 20 ounce washdown of Lipton Green Iced Tea To Go (zero calories, you know, to balance out the cakesters of course).  MMMM.  I figured I might as well try them before they are banished to Neverland come September. 

This is possibly how I've gained twenty-five pounds in twenty-two weeks of pregnancy, no?   I'll add that I gained about this much with each of my boys' entire pregnancies (and then I'll go cower in the corner with mah cookies.)

Despite the weight gain, however, I'm so very happy to report that my blood pressure is holding perfectly stable, and I've yet to experience a single contraction in this pregnancy.

Earlier today I was in a stressed-out funk over playing the waiting game with renters.  I was sort of flipping out over that, and the fact that I'm no longer keeping up at home, and needing a break.  Desperately, desperately needing a break.  And I don't mean one of those breaks where I get to read magazines all day while hospitalized with pneumonia.  Though at the time I was taking what I could get.

We had arrived home hours earlier from driving Sant to work (I'm without my car after our accident, and thus keeping her car all day) and my kids were beginning their third episode of Dora the Explorer while I stared blankly at the computer screen wondering how the hell we were going to get out of this mess. 

I decided that, minimally, I was going to have to shower and get out of my oversized Old Navy Dinnerware Sleep Pants for the day, and do something with my children.  If there's one thing I've tried to hold onto through all of this, it is that the last thing I want to happen is for KJ and Jack to reap the ill-effects of The Crazy that has become our reality.  Therefore, trips to the zoo, trips to the park, and making the most of the time we do have as a family.  I may suck at cooking decent dinners lately, the house may look like a war zone, and my poor child might have had to wear too-short pants to school recently because the laundry took a back seat to my eighty-seven renter appointments this week, but by dammit we should continue going to the park. 

(My plans are so brilliant, I know.)

On our way out to a park far, far away, I passed the school where I was long ago a teacher.  Out on the lawn they had a sign advertising the annual Relay for Life car wash - an event I once participated in, late in May 2002 while pregnant with KJ.  I quickly remembered being there at the walk that year, barely making it around the track one time before my contractions started up again.  And then I had to go home, where I spent the majority of the summer on bed rest. 

I'm right about that time, I thought to myself as I drove, and I'm still in the clear.  I compared KJ's September birthday to Baby Marin's September due date, and was relieved to still be perfectly healthy.  And then I realized that KJ's actual due date was October 25th, making it even earlier than I remembered that pregnancy getting bad.  Jack's did exactly the same, I know for sure, only slightly earlier.  First with the premature labor, then with the pre-eclampsia.

I'm hoping to escape both this time around.

And it has to be this way, as sad a fact as it is, because my ability to take care of the house(s) and the kids ninety-seven percent of the time is about all we've got going for us.  Kevin must work long and hard to financially keep up with our current state, and I have to take care of...everything else.  Some day I will look back on these days as the hard times, I'm sure, and I hope I can at least know by then that they were instrumental in teaching me what I might otherwise not have understood.

We arrived at the far away park, I still in my funk, and I noticed a bus pull up just after we parked the car.  It was a bus from the school at which I'd taught, and out of it came a group of kids, followed by a teacher I once worked with.  My first instinct was to pull right back out of the parking space and find another park, rather than drag myself through phony smiles and pretenses of wonderful.  (Because really, who runs into anyone after six years and wants to hear that today's trip to the park was about all they could muster, given the crap they're dealing with at the moment?)

Thankfully, I knew for sure the boys would lose their shit if we left the fantastic playground we were seeing for the first time, and I figured I could do Pretend Pleasant much easier than I could deal with Multiple Meltdown right then. 

After a few minutes I met up with my teacher friend from seemingly ages ago, and we exchanged hugs like it was just yesterday.  We talked about our kids, I introduced her to mine, and she asked me if we'd sold our house yet.  Easy as that, she already knew.  She'd driven by a handful of times over the last year, and she's been wondering, she said. 

I told her it's not been easy and that we're looking for renters, and that it's been a year unlike any other.  What a blessing it was to run into someone exactly like her.  Not fake, not wanting to hear just how perfect everything is, just wanting to reconnect exactly as we are. We talked all about school, and she updated me on everyone I once worked with, and we shared a few good laughs.  We talked through the entire visit, stopping only briefly for me to chase down Jack and for she to corral a few of her students.  And before I knew it I'd forgotten all about my miserable mood, and I forgot to obsess over the possibilities for what's to come.  It was sunny, and chilly and breezy.  My kids were having a great time, and I too was enjoying myself, and I wish I could have frozen the experience in time.

I've been thinking so often about how to get through this, and about what's possibly to come and about what has been, that I had forgotten to forget about it and live in the moment I have.  I've been awful about connecting with my girlfriends lately, and my blogging has been spotty.  I try to focus on the positive when I remember, but boy that's not easy when you're down and the kicks keep coming.  Being so consumed by this one part of my life, which, admittedly does affect many other areas, I've grown tired of talking about it, and I just want it to go away already.  Today helped me to remember that as long as I'm thinking about it all of the time, I am forcing myself to live it all of the time.  Today's break was nice - something I need to recreate again soon.

And then bring on the Cakesters while I still can.  You know, for the baby.

Five hundred twenty five thousand, six hundred phone calls

(You got the reference, yes?)

So let's talk about everyone's favorite subject.  My Real Estate Disaster, eh? 

We've got Buyer Showings still going on, Renter Showings going on, and even Tripping Friends Who Think Their Friends Are Getting The House showings going on.  You name them, they've walked through our house in the last three days.

When I last left you, we had a FOR RENT sign on the front lawn and had received eight phone calls in the first few hours:

And then magically, right around 5pm, the phone calls stopped. 

It was good, I thought, that my cell phone was no longer going crazy that we had a handful of interested renters.  I had made a few appointments with people to see the house, two of whom seemed incredibly interested. 

Then when my phone rang just before 8am Friday morning, I figured it was the rental calls starting up again.

Nope.

It was one of my interested renters calling to ask if the house was still available to rent.  "Of course!  And, why?" I asked.  "Because I drove by on my way to work this morning and noticed you'd taken your sign down."

Grrrr.

Someone had stolen our sign. 

Seriously, friends, can you believe that?

At first I thought she just missed it, but then when I went there myself, looked on both sides of the house and in the back yard, I was sure that it had been swiped.

Now what the hell would someone want with a used FOR RENT sign with my cell phone number on both sides of it?  Also, the fact that I shelled out twelve bucks for the damn thing combined with the fact that we need renters left me one angry pregnant lady.

My phone rang again at three o'clock.  And again at three twenty.  And three twenty-seven. 

I buzzed back past the house? 

Sign returned.

What the hell?

On his way home from work that evening, Kevin was stopping at the house to meet with the favorite of our interested renters.  My phone was still ringing, (and ringing and ringing and ringing,) and I begged him to pull the sign the moment he got there.  I'd taken eighteen phone calls while brushing my teeth, dressing my children and running through Home Depot and the Subway drive-thru, had written no one's name down because I am sooo the first time landlord, and had made seven appointments for showings.

While it was crazy and a little stressful, it was amazing after an entire year of rejections to know that SOMEONE WANTED TO LIVE IN THE HOUSE. 

We showed the place on Thursday night, Friday night, and allllllll afternoon on Saturday.  There was Bad Credit Stella, the punky woman who offered me cash on the spot for a rent to own deal before she'd even made it to the kitchen, as long as she could build a large shed for her motorcycle in the back yard, Perfect Robin, the professional with perfect credit, again who offered money on the spot and who we loved, just looking for something for eighteen months while they build their new house.  Then there was Carol the Desperate who was seven and a half months pregnant with her second child, who had to be out of their rental place in two weeks, my God I'm afraid I'm not going to get the house, let's meet earlier, again and again she called to tell me.  Followed closely by Joe, the man who was divorced five years ago and hasn't owned since, sharing with us (and his girlfriend and her eight year old daughter) that he's spent the better part of the last few years drunk and is currently in an apartment lease, but he could probably break it.  And towards the end there was very, very young Brittany (I'm sorry, I HAVE to use this one's real name) and her boyfriend Kevin who were pregnant with their first baby.  I can only imagine they shall name him Sean Preston.

Somewhere during Saturday afternoon's chaos, right in the middle of my painting break (and my DQ Peanut Buster Parfait, thank you) a very tall, very odd, very shaky man knocked at our door.  I, at that moment, was very thankful my husband was there to field The Crazy.

Not only was he very tall, very odd, very shaky, but he was also very confused, explaining that his friend had made an offer on the house two nights previous (HAHAHA!) and he needed to take a look at the place for her.  Finally we figured out through his slurred speech and terrible mispronunciations that he was a friend of Punky Stella (who'd made the recent newspaper with her bar fight, even!)  He was as high as a kite, nearly walking into walls but making damn sure the furnace was in good working condition. 

That settled that with Stella.

We agreed to make a decision by Sunday night, and we did.  We called Perfect Robin and arranged for her to sign the paperwork at 11:30 today.  And then she called at 9am this morning to say they'd found something cheaper. 

Gah.

Desperate Carol was apparently not desperate enough, practically knocking us and her skeptical-about-a-rock-driveway husband down to secure the house, but then failing to turn in her application and return my voicemail message.

Leaving us with a few others who we weren't particularly crazy about, and the next round of voicemails from interested hopefuls.

Now on the books are Esther the Other Rent-to-Owner who has to talk to her fiance tonight, Dave the guy whose cell phone service plays, "I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill" before connecting the call, Sarah who talks reallyreallysuperfast, and Mark, who I decided not to even bother leaving a return voicemail for after listening to three quarters of the "I'm sorry I'm bad, sorry I'm blue, sorry bout all the things I said to you" song SO HORRIBLY LOUDLY on his voicemail message.  Am guessing he had a recent breakup and is hoping she'll call? 

The house is super clean, and super ready for super renters, whoever they are.  I decided to go with a zero paint on the hardwood floors policy, and therefore spent all Saturday afternoon and evening (before I could begin scrubbing down the kitchen and bathroom and changing smoke alarm batteries, that is) removing the adorable Pottery Barn airplane wallies that I once in 2006 thought to be the cutest idea ever, so that I could paint:

Repeat Note To Self:  Never stick anything to walls, ever.  Even if you think removing it will most certainly be someone else's problem.

Neutral enough, using a mix of leftover paints.

I am trying, though difficult, to keep my emotions out of the entire process.  I've gotten excited when renters were excited and desperate when renters were (even more pregnant than I, and) desperate, but I'm continually reminding myself to keep my brain in the game and realize that we have options, even if the right one doesn't pop up in the first several hours of phone calls.  We're hoping this could actually work out very well, and possibly even turn out to be a positive investment for the long haul.

And wouldn't that be nice?