On birthdays and life....

I don't know if I've ever really gone into Alex's story before....

My divorce from Ex1 had been final for several months when I met Alex's father. We were introduced by a mutual friend at a bar one night - I was being hit on by a really skanky guy (oh my hell was he skanky) and a friend of mine was the bartender. She came out from around the bar, grabbed me, shoved me into this group of guys and said "this is my friend - take care of her" and then went back to her post. As it turned out, one of the guys in this group was her cousin.

Long story short, we started dating. One thing led to another, and boom - I was pregnant.

As soon as I told him the news, he "needed space".

I was at work one night when I started having sharp pains in the left side of my abdomen. I tried to ignore them, but they got more and more intense as the night progressed. When my relief showed up at midnight, I split and drove myself to the hospital as fast as I could. I was only about 7 weeks along, so I hadn't actually seen my OB/GYN yet, but I knew something was wrong. I got to the ER, went through the preliminary BS, and could tell from the looks of the nurses' faces that it was bad. So I called him.

He showed up. But that was about it. I was in a panic, knowing that I was going to lose the baby. After hours of testing, the ER doctor informed me that I had a sub-chorionic hemorrhage and I was more than likely going to lose the baby. I never felt so alone in my life, even though my baby's father was in the room with me.

I was eventually sent home and told to schedule a follow up with my OB/GYN. As I sat in his office and he told me that I had less than a 50% chance of carrying this baby to term, I freaked. I knew that realistically, my life was a mess. I was a newly single mother with 3 very young kids, and the last thing that I needed was another one, but suddenly I knew that no matter what, I wanted this baby to make it. I didn't look to this baby as a way to get his/her father back into my life, but I looked to it as another reason for me to live.

I was in such a deep, dark hole at the time that I didn't know where to turn. I knew that if something happened to me, my 3 kids could go and live with their father and everything would be fine. But this baby - this little being who only had me to count on - I knew that he/she only had me. And that thought kept me going. This baby gave me a reason to be strong and to do what needed to be done.

When I found out just a few weeks later that this baby was going to have a sibling who would only be a few weeks younger than he was - I didn't have a very kind reaction. In fact, I was downright hateful, nasty, and mean. Realistically, those reactions did nothing to benefit me. I knew that I was going to be raising this baby on my own - and finding out that there was another woman pregnant by the same man at the same time did nothing but cement the fact that I was truly on my own at this point.

At one point during the pregnancy, Ex1 actually took me to court to try to gain full custody of the older 3 kids. He used the reasoning that my previous pregnancies had been so hard on me (they hadn't) that an unplanned one would just be too much stress and the kids would be better off with him than they were with me. Luckily, I made it through that ordeal with no changes to our custody arrangement - and it gave me more motivation to power through all of it and show just how strong I could actually be.

Alex decided to make his appearance almost 3 weeks earlier than he should have. I wasn't prepared for his arrival - even though I was already at the hospital with a sick kid when I went into labor. But his birth showed me that no matter what, something wonderful and beautiful will always come out of the storm.

He's been challenging. He's been difficult. He's had more health issues than the other 4 kids combined. But he's the most loving, most compassionate, most loving little being on this earth - and his hugs are enough to make the worst days seem just a little bit brighter. He's had to put up with me 24/7 but at the same time he's shown me that no matter what, he still loves me - and occasionally he even likes to hang out with me. And those moments are my favorites.

Happy 11th, Alex.

Bloggy Stuff

I got an email a few days ago, and the more I think about it, the more I want to talk about it.

It included phrases like "revolutionary video summit", "video event", "active community", and "win-win with our existing community". I usually ignore these emails because my life is chaotic enough without having to schedule stuff around my blog, but this one was so happy and upbeat that I thought "oh, what the heck" and I emailed her back and said ok, tell me more.

I got an email back a little while later telling me what I'd need to do to participate in this "revolutionary video summit" as a so-called expert (an expert on what? I don't know.) and there was a list of requirements. A pre-recorded interview. Sending out some emails. Sending out a newsletter. Oh, and did we mention that you have to have at least 5000 people in your email database, but that doesn't count anything that you do on social media?

At this point (after I got done laughing) I sent her an email back saying that while I appreciated the opportunity I would have to pass, as I don't have an email database and everything that I do is on social media. What I didn't say was that even if I did have an email database, the last thing that I'd want to do is spam 5000+ people to beg them to watch me on video. No one wants to see that shiz.

When I started this blog, it was at the urging of one of my friends who at that point said something to the effect of "I bet you could have at least 30 people following you!" - I never expected it to get this far. But thanks to that silly letter, it's gotten way bigger than I anticipated.

In the early days, I went out looking for people to read my stuff. I promoted myself in so many ways that it was downright exhausting. I celebrated each milestone and did everything that I could to get to the next one. The blog that I wrote about food stamps put me on the map, and then the Tooth Fairy blew it out of the water.

The Tooth Fairy letter has been stolen and reposted without being credited back to my page approximately eleventy and a half bajillion times now, and people criticize me for pointing out that it came from my page and asking to be credited for it. "If you don't want the numbers, why do you insist on pointing out that it's yours, you big fat hypocrite?" Well, to be honest, I don't want the numbers - but at the same time I believe in this little thing called intellectual property, and if something isn't your creation, then don't post it as if it is. If the whole Tooth Fairy letter debacle has done anything, it's proven just how fast something can be stolen and spread out of control.

So why am I blogging about how I don't care about how many people read my blog?

Because sometimes I need to remind myself why I even started this thing in the first place. Because when it started, it was just a place to express myself, whether it was to journal about things that we had done that day, to rant about something that pissed me off, to express my feelings over a difficult situation, or to post a dumb picture or story that I felt like sharing. There was no purpose, no rhyme or reason. It was for me, and for whoever decided that they wanted to read it. Period.

Then I started to get worried about what people would think. And so I'd censor myself. I wouldn't write about a certain topic because it might offend someone. Or I wouldn't ramble on about my day because no one would really care about it anyway. But then I went back and I read some of my older posts - posts where I just rambled about the normal day-to-day crap in our lives - and I realized that while it might not be interesting to other people, it was fun for me to go back and read it and remember things.....which is why I started this in the first place. So while I can't guarantee that I'll blog about something fun and exciting every single day, I'm going to make much more of an effort to blog something more regularly.

I mean seriously - I have some fun and exciting stuff (to me, anyway) going on in my life. Between shenanigans with The Dude and/or the kids, getting Mom Cave Designs up and running as a legitimate business, getting myself up and running in a bunch of races, and just life in general - my mind goes a million miles an hour. It's time to stop worrying about what people think and actually put some of these thoughts down in writing so that I can look back at them later.

And if people don't like it, screw 'em.

Random moon photo by Emily, taken when she
snatched my phone while on the way to town
to pick up pizzas and movies.

The Backwards Stocking

I finally started decorating for Christmas today.

I went out and bought a fake (ugh) tree, and got it upright and put more lights on it (a story all on its own) and I got the stockings hung up on the mantle.

Every time I post a picture of our stockings, I sit back and wait for someone to point out that one of them is backwards - because someone does it every. single. time.


The funny thing is that I don't even notice it anymore. It's normal to me.

After I got them up, I decided that I was tired and I was going to quit for the night. There's still so much to do and if I keep going, it's going to be way too late way too fast. So I sat down for a few minutes and looked at the stockings and tried to remember exactly why I ended up with one that faced the opposite direction.

It all started back in 1998, when I was dating Ex1. He told me that he had never had a stocking when he was growing up, and I was stunned. So I set about making him a quilted stocking to give to him that Christmas. I didn't have a pattern, and I didn't have a lot of money, so I used scraps of fabric and made him a quilted stocking and gave it to him.

By the time that Christmas 1999 rolled around, we had Sarah - so I made two more stockings. The toe on Ex1's stocking pointed to the right. So I made mine point to the left and made Sarah's point to the right. That way, when they were hung up "in order" the toes would alternate. When Emily was born and I made her stocking, her toe pointed left in order to continue the pattern.

Then life happened, and Ex1 and I split right before Christmas the year that Jared was born. Ex1 took his stocking with him, and Jared didn't get one right away because things were too chaotic. In fact, I made stockings for Ex2, my then-stepson, Jared, Alex, and Daniel for Christmas in 2006 - however Daniel's didn't even have a name on it since we knew he existed but we didn't know if he was a boy or a girl yet. We used the blank stocking to announce to the kids that there was going to be another baby coming. And for whatever reason - probably chaos and lack of time - those stockings all pointed the same direction.

Fast forward a few years. The Dude now has a stocking hanging with the rest.

To me, Sarah's stocking isn't backwards. When I look at the row, the first one, the fifth one, and the seventh one are backwards. They should all point to the right in order to have the alternating effect that I planned.

When other people look at it, they see the one pointing the opposite way.

In the end though, we all have our stockings. And they'll all be jammed full on Christmas morning regardless of which direction they face.

Plans change. Life changes. Things don't always turn out the way we hoped, but it's ok. It's important to sometimes stop and look at things from a different perspective and realize that an unexpected result isn't always a bad thing.

Haters gonna' hate....

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this whole blog thing lately.

I know I haven't been writing as much recently, but that's mainly just been because I've been so busy that it's been hard to sit down and take the time to actually write something. It's way faster to just slap something up on facebook instead. But there are times when actually sitting here and writing a blog post helps me to get things off of my mind.

So here I am.

I don't really pay attention to my numbers anymore. There are some bloggers out there who focus on how many followers they have (or lose), how many people view each and every post, and they make it all about the numbers. It's a game. They intentionally post something to stir the pot or to increase their numbers - and that's ok. It really is. More power to them and all that jazz.

I'm not saying that I don't look at my numbers at all, but I don't stress about them. They are what they are - sometimes they go up (and I start to hyperventilate) and sometimes they go down. Sometimes they stay the same for weeks or months at a time. Whatever.

I've had one thing go viral (gee, guess what that was?) and a few things get more hits than others (food stamps, anyone?) and honestly, the chaos surrounding stuff like that is way too much pressure for me. I don't really like it. There are times - more often than not - that I really wish that silly Tooth Fairy letter would just disappear.

Earlier this evening, I posted one of my time-lapse videos of me cleaning my kitchen. And I captioned it "It's been a while since I've done one of these." These videos are fun to do, and they help me to stay focused on whatever it is that I'm doing (usually cleaning). And I post them because they're fun. But I've gotten a couple of comments from a couple of people who have been less than impressed with them. They said things to the effect of "how could you let your house get so dirty?" or "I would never leave that much crap on my counters" or "your kids should be cleaning that mess" or whatever. And for some reason, I allowed those comments to bother me and I quit posting the videos for a bit.

Why do I post videos that show just how trashed my house can actually get? Because it's life. It's my life. My house gets messy. It gets dirty. There are times when it gets downright disgusting and I can't even stand it. But it's real, and it happens, and I deal with it. Sometimes the kids help (if they're home and not busy with something else) and sometimes they don't. Sometimes I enjoy cleaning by myself. Often, they're cleaning their rooms while I'm taking care of the kitchen or living room or whatever. But regardless of the reasons behind the mess and who is cleaning it, it's all a part of life.

People in the past have suggested that I should write a book, but that's really just not my thing. This blog and my facebook page are how I choose to document my life - the good, the bad, and the messy. I continue to share it with all of you because it's created a neat little community and the interaction is (mostly) fun. The criticism makes me look at things differently and decide if I need to change something. But at the end of the day, I'm going to write about and post things that I find interesting, or that I want to remember, or that I think someone else might be interested in seeing. There will always be someone who disagrees, and that's ok. The world would be a very boring place if everyone agreed with everyone all of the time.

The haters can keep on hating. And while they do, I'm going to go clean up my messy bedroom.

Baseball and Gratitude

The past few days have been..... I don't even know how to explain it. 

Busy. Calm. Chaotic. Peaceful.

I've been running around with the kids, going back and forth to baseball practices and games, running errands, and doing all of my usual stuff. 

But last evening....

Alex had baseball practice (his first one since getting the cast off of his arm), so Emily and I took him up to the field. While the team practiced, she and I played catch in the area between the ball diamond and the swimming pool here in town. 

The weather was perfect. To my right, boys played baseball. To my left, families played in the swimming pool with country music blaring from the snack bar speakers. Kids rode by on bicycles, a couple of women walked by with a dog, and occasionally a train flew past on its way to parts unknown. Every now and then if the breeze blew just right, I'd catch a whiff of chlorine and feel a slight mist of water from the pool.

The batting cage at sunset

There are times when I still can't really believe that this is my life. After the struggles that we went through to get to where we are today, sometimes it still just doesn't seem real. 

But, that unreal feeling - that is this really my life? thing - it's what keeps me grounded. 

I came so close to losing everything not so long ago. I did lose my home, my van, my marriage - and I know how completely hopeless I felt at the time. But now - I have a home. I have a dependable vehicle. I have The Dude and the kids and this crazy wonderful chaotic life and it's good.

I see how far we've come. I see how much progress has been made. And I don't take any of it for granted, because I know how fast things can change. 

Sometimes it just takes an evening of baseball to remind me.

Separating the anger

A few months ago, I wrote a piece about how 15 miles was too far for my son's father to travel to spend time with him. At that point, it had been a year with no contact.

Today would have been 15 months and 5 days, except that I woke up to a text from him.

"I have made mistakes and I no I am wrong. I miss alex like crazy and it is killing me not seeing him. Can I please set up a time to see him. I will pick him up and bring him back and do what ever it takes so that I can see him again on a regular basis." 

I knew for a fact that I was dreaming so I rolled back over and went back to sleep for another 30 minutes or so. When I woke up again, I looked at my phone a second time. And then a third. I put it back down on the nightstand and stared at the ceiling for a while. Looked at it again. Got up and went to the bathroom to make sure that I was really awake and then looked at it again.

Then the anger started to build. It simmered for a while and I considered sending back an extremely nasty text including everything that I was really honestly feeling at that particular moment, but I held back. I knew I had to calm down. A lot. I texted The Dude and clued him in, and he was as angry as I was.

Finally, I responded a few hours later.

"I woke up to this and I've been trying to figure out how to respond ever since. I told you the last time you walked out of his life and then suddenly reappeared that it would never happen again - and that time was only 4 months. Now, it's been 15 months and 5 days.  There is no excuse. There is no way to make up for that. Being a parent is a 24/7 job to ALL of your kids, not just the ones who are convenient to you. Coming into town for softball games and to go to the pool and not contacting him is beyond despicable. Not calling him, or sending a text, or being at any of his school or sports events is unforgivable. Lying to your family and blaming all of this on me? Grow up. And you're not going to just waltz back in and pick up where you chose to leave off over a year ago."

(Yeah, I tend to get a little long-winded when I'm angry.)

Discussion (via text) ensued and lasted most of the day. I tried hard to contain my anger and sarcasm (except where I pointed out that even if one is working "out of town", there's a nifty invention called a 'phone' that can be used to maintain contact)  as much as I could, but it was hard.

Finally this evening, The Dude came over to take Daniel to baseball practice. The older 3 kids are still on vacation with Ex1, so Alex and I sat down to talk. I told him that I had gotten a text from his father this morning, and gave him the basic rundown of the discussion.

I did not say anything nasty about his father. I did not say anything hateful or mean or even snarky. I gave him the facts. We talked. We discussed. I listened.

And then I told him this:

"How I feel about your father is totally separate from how you feel about him. I'm upset with him for a lot of grown up stuff that has more to do with responsibility and obligations. But that's my problem with him, not yours. You can feel however you want to feel, and that's ok - if you want to see him, I will make it happen. And if you don't, you don't have to."

You know, I think this is the hardest part of this single parenting thing. And I don't think that I truly got it until today. And I think that there are a lot of parents out there who don't get it.

It doesn't matter how we feel about the other parent. It really doesn't. It's not about us.

It's about the kids.

Should Alex choose to see his father again (and he probably will), I have to completely put my anger and resentment aside and make it happen. His father is not a bad person in the grand scheme of things. Irresponsible, yes. Not good at setting priorities? You betcha'. Bad person? Not so much.

Alex is still at that age where no matter what, his father walks on water. He knows that his father hasn't been around, but he's still young enough that he just wants to see him. I know that as he gets older, he'll understand more about what's happened - but for now, he has his eye on the prize and as much as I hate it, I have to allow him to make the choice. My only consolation is that no matter what happens, I know for a fact that I'll never walk away from this kid. Ever.

After our talk, we got ice cream and went for a walk by the river.
Believe it or not, there's a dam under all of that water.
Stupid rain.

One of those days....

Today has just not been fun. Seriously.


It took me a while to even get motivated, but once I did I finally started working on my shower some more. Luckily, the tile on this wall doesn't have to be cut to size at all, so it went fairly fast once I got started. But, getting all of the tile work done is going to take forever and at this point, I just want it to be done. I want my shower back. But of course, once I get the shower done, we have to redo the floor - it's a neverending battle at this point.

(And in case you're wondering about the crazy tile - the light blue tile is what was in there originally. I pulled that off, and I'm putting it back. However, some broke in the process and we couldn't find the same lovely shade of baby blue. So we bought a couple of boxes of white to mix in with the blue. Rather than try to make a perfect pattern, I just opted to go with a random one.)

Once I decided I was done working on the shower for the day (as in - once I ran out of the mortar I had mixed) it was time to run to the grocery store for a few things. Right about then my phone rang, and I had to run and pick up a "sick" kid from school. I say "sick" - I think I got snowed on that one. Live and learn. We went to the grocery store, got what we needed, ran through the carwash and came home.

Once the other kids got home, the chaos just escalated - and boy, did it escalate.

Crappy attitudes. Temper tantrums. Whining. Fighting. Arguing. Slamming doors. Neighbor kids coming over to play and doing stupid stuff so that I had to yell at them too. Constant yells of "Mom!! I need _____!!" or "Mom! He said _____!" or "Mom! She _______!" One kid flipping another kid the bird. One falling off of a bed (after jumping on it) and getting hurt. Vomit. Weird bug crawling across the dining room floor.

Nights like this get to me. I know that they happen, and I know that they're inevitable, but holy crap do they make me feel completely and totally inadequate. I count down the minutes until bedtime, and I feel guilty because I'm not all mushy-gushy and "oh I love my kids so much and every minute is precious and rainbows and unicorns and happy happy yay!!"

Instead, it's "holy hell it's only 30 minutes until bedtime and then it'll be quiet and then all I have to do is get through the morning and get them to school and then I can get stuff done".

A big part of it is stress. The next few days are absolutely jam-packed with stuff, from track meets to a field trip to choir concerts to baseball practice to The Great Strides Walk for Cystic Fibrosis to the half-marathon, and I have no adult backup at all because The Dude is going to be out of town. I'm worried about making it to everything and attempting to stay sane, and then worrying about whether or not the house is still going to be standing if I leave the kids on their own Sunday morning while I go to my race.

For now though, I'm just going to chill. It's been a crappy night, yes. But it's not the end of the world. It happens. Instead of freaking out, I'm going to enjoy a glass of wine and some "baby oranges" (in a very worn and nasty looking - but clean - bowl) and listen to some music and play around online, and then I'm going to go to bed knowing that tomorrow is another day. And with any luck, it'll go smoother than today did.

All That Distance

It's such a simple little note. But it tore me to shreds when I found it.

The little boy who wrote this - the amazing, smart, funny, clumsy, aggravating, loving, sarcastic, lovable little boy with the huge blue eyes - hasn't seen or heard from his father in a year.

His father told me a year ago today - as we were in the process of moving to our new house in a better school district with less crime and more room where our son could finally have his very own bedroom for the first time in his life - he told me that I couldn't expect him to drive "all that distance" to see his boy.

All that distance. Those words rang in my ears as I told him flat-out "if you can't make seeing your son a priority in your life, that's YOUR problem, not mine".

All that distance. He can't drive it to see his son, but he can drive it to play in a softball tournament. I know he did, because I saw him that day, right here in the same town where we live now.

All that distance. He can't drive it to see his son, but his wife can bring their other two kids to town to go swimming in the pool that's less than a mile from our house. I know about that because a mutual friend saw them there and mentioned it to me later.

All that distance. He can't drive it to see his son, but he can drive triple that distance to have a birthday party for his daughter and not even bother to invite his son. I found out about that one when another friend shared some pictures with me.

All that distance. In this day and age, distance doesn't really matter, does it? There are cell phones and computers and Skype and FaceTime and emails and texts just to say hi or to send a funny picture or to find out why his insurance company is suddenly getting bills for emergency room visits and plastic surgeons and allergist appointments.

All that distance, in reality, is 15 miles. FIFTEEN MILES. That's how far it is from my house to the town where he (supposedly) lives. I say "supposedly" because I have no idea, honestly. I know he moved, but the last I had heard he had only moved a few blocks away from where he had been living - but I was never given an address. Thanks to my phone getting run over by a car one day, I no longer have his phone number so I can't just call him - but even if I did, why should I? He's made it clear that all that distance is too much for him. He's pulled this crap before (although not for this long) and always comes crawling back with a bunch of excuses about how he was oh-so-busy and just didn't have time to make contact. I've tried to force the relationship, and it just didn't work.

And that sucks.

But you know who it sucks for the most?

Him. He's the one who is missing out. He's the one who missed the baseball games and the soccer games and the basketball games. He missed the parent/teacher conferences and the open houses and Christmas and birthday and Thanksgiving and everything else. He's the one who may be a willing participant in fatherhood with his other kids, but who has made the choice to walk out on this one.

For this amazing little boy though? He's going to be just fine. He has a mother who loves him no matter how much trouble he gets himself into, he has siblings that can't wait to hang out with him and goof around with him, he has The Dude to show him all of the necessary manly stuff, he has teachers who can't get over how smart (and mischievous) he can be, and he has friends knocking at the door almost every single day wanting him to go out and play with them.

All that distance that he's put between himself and his son is only going to hurt him in the long run - because we are just fine.

It's hard.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a post about January and how it can be kind of an emotional month for me.

There are a lot of things going on in my life right now. Physically, mentally, emotionally - just a lot of stuff. Some minor, some major, some right in the middle.

I generally try to keep a pretty positive outlook on life. I'm the type of person to "act as if" and just push my way through when I feel like crap because most of the time, I have no choice in the matter so I might as well make the most of it. What I don't always admit is that it's hard.

Being a parent is hard.

Being a friend and girlfriend is hard.

Being a homeowner is hard.

Sometimes, just being is hard.

The past few weeks have been a struggle for me. I've been in a funk, and although it happens occasionally - this one was worse than usual. I still got up every morning and took care of the kids and did what I had to do, but that was pretty much it. I didn't do a whole lot around the house, I didn't go out and do anything fun and exciting, and I certainly didn't do anything that didn't absolutely have to be done. I made lists of things to do around the house, but at the end of the day I'd just throw them out because looking at lists that didn't have a single thing crossed off just made me feel worse.

Part of it has been the weather. Although the past few days have been nice, the cold weather just makes me feel blah. It makes me hurt and I don't want to do anything. Part of it is hormones, because you know, I'm a woman and I'm in my mid-40s and everything just has to get all sorts of out of whack right about now. Part of it is just normal everyday stress that is made worse by crappy weather and wacky hormones and my usual lack of sleep from trying to get everything done.

I lost it last night. I was exhausted after 2 full days of cutting down bushes and digging up stumps in front of the house, and I needed help. The kids were not cooperative and didn't do what I asked them to do, and I flipped. I locked myself in my bedroom and told them that getting everything done was up to them. At that point, I didn't care what happened, and I let them know it. I even took out some of my frustration on The Dude via a long text conversation.

Not knowing what to expect, I came out of my room several hours later. The boys had all gotten baths and were in bed, supper was cleaned up with the leftovers in the fridge, a load of towels had been dried and folded, stuff was ready for school, and more laundry was being done. They didn't do it without complaint though, and I heard quite a bit of grumbling about it (including a "you didn't do anything tonight, Mom" to which I snarked back "welcome to my world") - but they did it. We talked about it a little this morning, and they all agreed that had they been a bit more cooperative to start with, it wouldn't have resulted in my freak out.

Once I got everyone to school this morning, I came home and got busy. While I scrubbed bathrooms, I thought about everything. I contemplated how I really try to only talk about the good stuff here or on facebook. I always try to portray this image that everything is good and life is easy - but in reality, it's not. There are days or weeks where things really just plain suck - and while they're not pretty, they're nothing to be ashamed of. They're all a part of life, and trying to pretend that they don't exist doesn't really accomplish anything worthwhile and all I end up doing is bottling it all up until I finally flip out and go on a Mom Strike like I did last night. I need to get it through my thick head that it's ok to talk about the bad days.

It's ok to not be ok.

But the good news is that now that I had my freak out and took a break from everything, I feel a little more rejuvenated. I'm not ready to go out and take over the world (yet) but at least I'm actually crossing some things off of my list today. The Dude is planning on coming over and spending some much-needed time over the next few days, and hopefully we can use some of that time to get some things done around here and to relax together - both of which we haven't been able to do much of lately.

Mayberry

I swear.... we moved to Mayberry.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

The boys have gotten into a routine after school. The girls are always at volleyball practice for the first few after-school hours, so the boys come home, grab a snack, do homework and whatever else I need them to do, and then they're gone.

They are back outside as fast as they can possibly be. They grab their bikes and that's it. I don't see them again until I hunt them down after I pick the girls up from practice. They ride up and down the street, or to the park that's a few blocks away, or to any number of friends' houses. If I don't spot them right away, I usually spot their bikes parked in front of someone's house - and it's never just one or two bikes. There's usually a whole pile of bikes and scooters with random footballs and hoodies nearby.

Today, a bunch of their friends showed up here, and then they all took off and disappeared. I heard them say something about going to the park. A little while later, there was a knock at my door. There was a man who looked vaguely familiar standing there, and he asked if his daughter was still here playing with Alex. I said no, that they had all taken off toward the park a little bit ago. He laughed, we introduced ourselves to each other, and then he said he was going to go to the park to get her for supper - so I asked him to send my boys back when he saw them. He smiled and waved as he got in his car and drove down the street. Sure enough they boys came zooming back a few minutes later. "Mom, did you need us?" I told them I just wanted them to check in with me and sent them back on their way again.

A little later, I looked out the kitchen window and saw them climbing the cottonwood tree and playing in the dirt.

All 3 of them were covered in filth from head to toe. I made them come inside one by one and actually gave them baths instead of letting them do it on their own - because I knew that there was no way that they were going to get the dirt out of their hair by themselves.

And then I scrubbed every inch of the bathroom, from top to bottom.

This is it. This is why we moved. This is the way that life is supposed to be - knowing that I can send my kids outside and not worry about them and they can play with their friends and have fun and get dirty and not be sitting inside with their noses stuck in a video game.

Sure, they get into arguments with each other while they're out running around. But you know what? They resolve it on their own. They know that if they have to come running to me to tattle or settle a fight, I'm going to make them come inside. They know that if anyone strange happens to approach them, they are to stick together and either come get me or get to a friend's house, whichever is closer. Same thing if someone gets hurt. They are learning to cooperate with each other and to look out for each other and to amuse themselves. They problem solve and brainstorm and meet new friends and play new versions of old games.

And they get to be kids. If that means that I have to scrub the bathroom every single day, I'm ok with it.

It's a little ridiculous...

This week has been crazy busy. It's not like that's unusual for me, because my life is always crazy busy, but for some reason it seemed worse this week. Maybe it's because we're just getting back into the swing of the school schedule. Maybe it's because the kids are revving up their sports schedules. Maybe it's because I still have so much to do on the house.

I'm pretty sure that it's a combination of a lot of those things, plus a whole lot more.

It's funny though. I caught myself the other day - I was standing at the stove making cookies at the time. The boys had come home from school and absolutely begged me to let them go to the park. I had so much stuff to do and as much as I hated to admit it - I didn't feel like going with them. I relented and allowed the three of them to go to the park without me - after giving them a specific list of rules and an even more specific list of what their punishments would be if I even remotely thought that they had gotten out of line - and sent them the 4 blocks to the park.

I think that's when it hit me.

I had clothes hanging out in the summer sun on my new clothesline. I had cookies in the oven. Supper was ready to go into the oven as soon as the cookies came out of it. Laundry was in the washer. I had been puttering around the house, both inside and out, getting projects done all day long. The boys were at the park. The girls were at volleyball practice.

My life is ridiculous right now. Ridiculously wonderful. Ridiculously right.

I get so stressed out by the amount of work that I still have to do on this house - and I know that it will NEVER be completely done. But a lot of it needs to be done, and at times it seems so overwhelming - but it'll get done.

I spent the last year or two in my old-old house trying to figure out how to get out of it because I knew that it was going to go into foreclosure. Then we moved into the ghetto-esque house and although we knew it was only temporary, we were there for 3 1/2 years.

Now, we're in OUR house. The one that we will stay in for a very long time. For the first time in many years, I feel like I am where I belong, and it feels so ridiculously perfect that I can't even begin to describe it.

I've slept more in the last couple of days than I've slept in the last couple of months, and I think at least part of that is because it's finally starting to hit me that I don't have to keep pushing myself to get stuff done. It's just stuff - and realistically, most of it is cosmetic stuff. I've gotten way more done than I give myself credit for doing, and I didn't realize it until I sat down and started looking through pictures from when we first looked at the house and compared them to what it looks like now. Only then did I realize how much I've done already.

I am so ridiculously grateful right now.

Life is so good - when we take the time to notice.

And I wonder why I'm so tired....

Today has literally been a non-stop day.

I was up bright and early to get the kids up and off to school. Somehow I managed to make pancakes, pack lunches, double-check and sign agendas, and get dressed all at the same time - and managed to get all 5 kids out the door on time and off to school. As soon as the door closed on the Traverse after dropping off the last kid, I breathed a sigh of relief and came back home.

I ran around the kitchen, trying to find it under the piles of dirty dishes, nasty dish rags, stuff that needed to go out to the recycling, random food items, and various other unidentifiable pieces of crap. Once I got the kitchen somewhat straightened, The Dude and I worked out our plan for the day.

I started mowing, while he worked on scrubbing out the new-to-us fridge that we got yesterday. Before anyone says anything about why *I* was mowing and he was cleaning the fridge - I enjoy mowing. I really do. It's an awesome workout, I love seeing the immediate progress that I make with each pass of the mower, I get lots of sun and fresh air, and I totally have a brain dump while I'm out there. All of those weird, random, self-defeating thoughts run through my head (and sometimes out of my mouth because no one can hear me) and then they're gone. POOF. Just like that.

Before I got done mowing, he was ready to move the fridge, so between the two of us we managed to somehow maneuver it down into the basement and into place, and then we moved the new-to-us stove into place as well. Once I get that kitchen organized, I can officially move my entire canning operation down there and not destroy the main kitchen while I'm working on that stuff.

However, that's going to take a while - it's a disaster down there.

But at least we're a few steps closer to getting that area done. Of course, there's a whole list of things to do to get it "officially" done, but at this point I'll settle for making it functional.

After we got done down there, I went back outside and finished mowing the grass. I grabbed a late lunch and then got in the shower to wash the ick off of me, and then went and got the boys from school. They were both tired when they got home, so they wanted to do nothing more than lay around for a while, so I took the opportunity to work on a set of curtains that I had started for Daniel's room. I worked on those for a while and got them finished - but didn't have time to hang them before we went to Scouts.

After Scouts, we grabbed supper and came home. I got the curtains hung up, did a few more things around the house, did the stuff I needed to do online, and then I started to wonder why I was fighting sleep....

I have a list of things that I want to get done tomorrow while the kids are at school, and I will totally admit that taking a nap is on that list.

It's an amazing life

This is my life tonight.

Roughly half a case of bananas, 4 loaf pans, and my oven.

By the time that I'm done, I should have about 14 loaves of banana bread made. And I won't eat a single one.

Instead, it's all going to the local homeless shelter. They put out an announcement today that they were inundated with a huge donation of bananas, and they couldn't possibly use them all before they went bad. They've tried to freeze them before in the hopes that they'd get used eventually, and that just didn't work - so they asked for help with them.

I like to bake, especially when I'm stressed. Problem solved.

What's funny though is that my stress is probably some of the best stress that a person can have.

How is that possible?

Easy.

My life is amazing right now.

I might bitch and moan about the amount of work that I have to do on the house - and trust me, there is so much work to be done - but it's my house, and I'm able to do most of the work myself.

I've been complaining about the kids a lot - and not without reason. Summer vacation is crazy insane at times, and the amount of togetherness is starting to grate on everyone's nerves. The fighting and bickering and laziness is at an all-time high, but at the same time - they are having fun most of the time. They have been working together to help clean the house and do their own laundry and help me do yardwork.... and there is absolutely no reason to complain about that.

I'm getting ready to take The Dude and the kids and do our cross-country jaunt to see friends and family. I was able to rent a 12-passenger van so that we can travel without sitting on top of each other or with the kids' knees up their noses or elbows in each other's sides, which will hopefully keep the road trip relatively bicker-free.....and considering that the last time we made the trip we came back without a transmission in my van, renting a vehicle seemed like a wise choice. We are going to hit some new stops along the way and do some really fun stuff, and we haven't even told the kids where all we're going yet because that's part of the fun.

Speaking of The Dude - he continues to put up with me and the kids and my neurotic tendencies, no matter what I throw at him. And if I throw too much, he calls me on it and throws it right back at me. He helps with the kids and the house as much as he can with his own responsibilities, and he continues to amaze me every day. Heck, we even have the chance to go on a real date - kid-free! - on Friday.

I see so many of my friends struggling right now. Seriously struggling. And it breaks my heart. I see marital problems, financial problems, issues with domestic violence, deaths of loved ones, kids using drugs - and I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have the life that I have right now.

But I also realize that it can be gone in a heartbeat. I refuse to take this life for granted. No matter how much I complain about petty crap, I know that it's petty and people have problems that are so much worse than mine.

So I will stay up all night to make different varieties of banana bread to take back to the homeless shelter tomorrow, because I know that someone there is having a much worse day than what I could ever imagine.

I'm not writing about this to get the attagirl's and the good job's that typically come when someone does something like this. I'm writing because I truly believe that we ALL have the power to make someone's day a little bit brighter. Maybe it's not by baking a bunch of banana bread. But we can all do something.

Donate your old clothes to charity. Buy something from that kid's fundraiser, even if it's overpriced garbage. Go to a local nursing home and visit with someone whose family has forgotten about them. Volunteer at your kid's next school function, even if you have to put up with those parents. Smile at someone you pass on the street.

Do something. I know you can.

Home

Today has been a good day.

The boys and I got up and took The Dude's truck to go back to town and swap it out to get my Traverse back from him after his road trip yesterday. I didn't expect him to be up and moving after driving for almost 24 hours straight, but he was - so we snatched him up to run some errands. Before we left his parking lot, his landlord - who was my property manager at the ghetto-esque house - caught me to finally give me the last of my security deposit back and so we chatted with him for a while. He took us to a vacant apartment to look at some furniture that I am most likely going to try to buy, and then he went back to his office and The Dude went with us to run errands.

We went to the bank and to the car wash to get rid of the skunk smell in the Traverse and then stopped for lunch and had some amazing Mediterranean food (shawarma, anyone?) and then took The Dude back home, and then the boys and I went to WalHell to get a few things before we came back home.

Home.

Once we got back, I started working on bikes. I worked on putting a new rack on the back of my bike so that I don't have to stick stuff in a backpack every time we go somewhere. But, I needed a bigger allen wrench for it, so we hopped on the bikes and rode over to the hardware store to get one. Then we came back home.

Home.

Once we got back here, I got the tube and tire changed on Alex's wheel, and we put it on my new rack on my bike and rode over to the convenience store to air it up before we came back home to put it on his bike.

Home.

I got the wheel put back on his bike, and tightened up the handlebars on the 'spare' bike that he had been using while his tire was flat and then we came inside for a while. I did a few things around the house and grabbed something to eat before I headed back outside to the firepit/shed area to do some work. Several hours later, I felt like I had made enough progress - and suffered enough mosquito bites - that I could quit and come inside.

While I was outside working, at least 90% of the traffic that went by was either combines, grain trucks, or other harvest equipment. The drivers were all up high enough that they could look over the fence where I was working and almost all of them smiled and waved - a normal occurrence around here. It made me so grateful that I live here now, instead of in the city where no one would even look someone else in the eye.

Home.

After I came inside and showered some of the filth off of me, I sat down and played around online and watched a movie for a bit. After a while, I got up to do a couple of little things and as I walked around the house, it kind of hit me again.

Home.

It's crazy. I still can't believe that somehow *I* managed to buy a house. Not just any house, but a really cool, really big, really awesome house. It's mine.

It's still surreal. Unbelievable.

In a way, I'm still waiting for the bank to call me and say "Oh, you thought you were buying that house? Hahahaha, joke's on you, sister! There's no way we're going to let that happen! Bring the keys back immediately!"

OK, I know that's not going to happen....but in a way it wouldn't surprise me if it did. I still wait for the proverbial shoe to drop, because that's what has always happened.

But it's not going to happen this time. It is what it is. It's mine. The house is mine.

It's our home.

At some point, it'll sink in and seem real, right?

The house and stuff

As a continuation of the questions that people asked the other night, I figured I'd go with the topic of the house.

Honestly, this whole I Now Own A House thing is still so surreal. I catch myself smiling as I drive down the street toward it, thinking "Hey, that's a pretty cool house over there on the corner. Well, would you look at that? It's mine." Seriously. I have conversations in my head like that on a regular basis.

"I'm going to stroll down my hallway into my bedroom past my walk-in closet and go to my bathroom to use my toilet." Then I sit on the toilet and look around and think "Yeah, I think I'm going to rip this tile out of here and just paint the walls - because you know, it's MINE."

"I think I'm going to rip this hideous bush out of the flowerbed and plant something else, just because I can."

"I'm going to put my garden over there. No, I want my clothesline there. The garden can go over THERE."

It's an odd feeling, this MINE thing.

But at the same time, it brings a whole host of frustrations. I had help with the actual move, as in relocating stuff from the old house to here. But that's pretty much where it ended. The Dude hasn't been able to do a whole bunch because of medical stuff, so the majority of it has been on me. For the most part, I'm ok with that. I'm a bit of a control freak about some a lot of most stuff. What's hard though is when I ask for help, and there's no one there for whatever reason. Tonight, with Alex's help (you know, the 8 year old who just had a skin graft done on Monday?) I was able to move the pool table out of the way so that I could get the floor underneath it painted - I have been trying and trying to get help with that, but .... yeah. It's moved. The floor is primed. I should be able to paint it and get the pool table put back by the end of the weekend, with or without help from a grown-up. I also pulled everything out of Jared's room and primed his floor so that I can get his room done too.

(And before any of my local friends get offended, this isn't aimed at anyone in particular. Got it?)

I still have a ton of work to do yet. I have to finish the basement, which involves a few more steps to getting the floor done, then moving the massive pile of craft stuff out of the living room and sorting it out down there, to actually getting my craft stuff set up so that I can catch up on projects whose due dates passed MONTHS ago - literally. I am desperate to get my basement done just so that I can catch up on everything and get stuff out to the people who are waiting for it.

But honestly, looking around this place makes me realize again how lucky I am. I talked the other night about how I can afford to own a house and even though I know that for at least right now, I don't have to worry about having the money to make the payment every month, I feel a responsibility to make improvements on the house to make it acceptable (in my eyes) for the kids. I have a fear that something big is going to break and I'm not going to have the money to fix it. For example, the central air is acting a little wonky right now - and I'm terrified that it's going to cost me a lot of money when realistically it's probably something stupid. But I'm doing something amazing here - I bought a house. Me. Just me. Alone. It's mine.

And that, to me, is so amazing that I can't even begin to explain. I just can't. There are no words.

At the same time though, while it's mine on paper - realistically The Dude and I bought it together. We looked at every house together and we discussed everything and made every decision as a couple. He doesn't live here - yet - but ultimately, this is going to be the home that we share. He has had a bunch of health issues over the past few months that have put some kinks in some of our plans - but the plans are still there. For now, I am doing the physical stuff - and he is my biggest and loudest cheerleader. We are working toward combining households, but there are so many things that have to happen in order to get there.

Finally for the million dollar question about whether or not we'll ever get married.....I still say never.

(If you want some background on that, you can check out this post and then this post to get the basic understanding.)

Marriage still terrifies me to no end. The Dude and I have now been together for almost 2 1/2 years, and life is good. We don't get to spend nearly enough time together for a myriad of reasons, and I'll be totally honest and admit that I've been picking fights with him - but I'm going to blame it on stress and not seeing enough of each other and stress. I get pissed, I get unreasonable and obnoxious and hateful and yell at him, and he calls me out on it and then we kiss and make up. And then I sit here and wonder "what just happened?" and "why is he still here?" Bottom line is that he IS still here - and that in and of itself is terrifying to me because it's making me think that maybe he really IS planning on sticking around for the long haul.

Even after 2 1/2 years, I'm still getting used to the idea that he's not going to walk away any time soon - but that's still not enough to convince my overly dense head that he might just stay around forever.

One day at a time. It applies to so many things right now.

Dear House...

I left you today.

When I found you, I was desperate. I had no place to go. I searched and searched to try to find a place that would work for my family, and I couldn't find anything. Finally, you came along. When the kids and I walked in and looked around, we knew right away that we could use you, even if it wasn't going to be very comfortable. The landlord was willing to work with a single mom with 5 kids and no income, even if it meant that he would have to wait for the rent payments to come through the homeless prevention program that was assisting me.

Emotionally, I was at an all-time low in my life. Depression had truly gotten the best of me, and I didn't know what I was going to do next. My church family moved us - seriously, they packed up our stuff and moved us because I just couldn't do it. Honestly, I don't know if they even realized the extent of the darkness surrounding me at that point in my life. Whether they did or not, they stepped up and rescued me.

I remember standing in the middle of the living room as people moved in and out, carrying boxes and bags and piling them up in any empty space they could find. When you were packed completely full, they started stacking stuff on the porches. I sobbed as the amount of stuff in such a tiny place seemed to swallow me alive.

It took what seemed like forever for me to get my act together and get things straightened up and organized. I donated tons of stuff to get rid of it and make room, because going from a 2 story 4 bedroom house with an office and tons of storage, to you with only 2 bedrooms and zero storage made downsizing not only necessary, but mandatory. It felt good to get rid of so much crap - both literally and figuratively, because as I got rid of some of it, I felt the emotional baggage go along with it.

As time went on, I started to see the light. I got my stuff organized and I got my feelings organized. I started living life again. I filed for divorce and waited patiently for it to become final, which would happen on my 40th birthday. And 20 days after that, my ex-husband died and I boarded one of the biggest, scariest, longest lasting emotional rollercoasters ever created. His death was the last thing that I ever wanted, the last thing I ever expected, and easily one of the hardest things that I have ever had to go through in my life.

I spent hours sitting at the table in your kitchen, dealing with Social Security and pensions and death benefits and bill collectors and the IRS, trying to make sense of it all. And when I couldn't focus anymore, I'd fall over on the futon in the corner of your living room and sleep for a few hours until I had to get up and face another day.

Within your walls, I started to rebuild my life. I started dating, and then I stopped to deal with the emotions of his death. And then I started to live again.

I helped my kids with their homework. I did their laundry and packed their lunches and baked their birthday cakes. I planted flowers and cut the grass and replaced light switches. I canned sand plums and strawberry jam and applesauce. I fixed the She-Beast time and time again in your driveway. I held my kids while they cried and I disciplined them when they needed it and kissed their boo-boos that they got from playing in the yard. I started dating this crazy guy and then fell in love with him and even got up the nerve to tell him that I loved him in the front room in the wee hours of the morning before a road trip to Kansas City to take a friend to the airport.

And through all of this, I learned so much about myself. I learned just how strong I can really be - and at the same time that I don't have to always be so strong. I learned that I can take care of myself and my family, but that it is also ok to ask for help once in a while - or to accept it when it is offered. I learned that if you want something bad enough, you can get it - even if it takes a lot of time, effort, and patience to get there.

As we've been packing up our lives and moving stuff out over the past few weeks, I've been hit with emotional waves more often than I'd care to admit. As much as I complained about how small you were and OMG Why Can't We Have A House With More Than One Toilet, I loved you dearly. You were there for me in so many ways, not just as a house, but as a home, a shelter, and a place to grow.

There are so many amazing memories that happened within your walls. But what I will remember most is that I found the most important thing in my life within your walls.

I found myself.

The Ghetto-esque House
Sept. 1, 2010 - March 7, 2014

No really, it has to be done.

Over the past few weeks, as I've been working to get moved and get things unpacked and organized in the new house, I've really been pushing myself. I've gone past my breaking point several times and have literally had meltdowns where I've ugly cried and sobbed and snotted and screamed and honestly lost my mind. And then I sniffled and blew my nose and wiped the tears away and kept on going with what I was doing.

Why? Why do I do this to myself? Why can't I listen when people say "but you've got lots of time" or "the boxes can wait" or "take a day off and relax"?

There are so many reasons.

I'll be honest. Some of it is just me being stubborn. Shocker, I know.

But, I have reasons to be stubborn.

There are people....people who are waiting for me to fail. People who don't think that I deserve to have this house or the new vehicle or anything else that I've busted my ass for over the past few years. Yeah, I get the Social Security money, so I didn't "work" for a lot of my income. But I used that income to pay the bills and to take care of my family and I put a bunch of it aside in order to make this happen. We've gone without things that we wanted in order to make this happen. I've paid off bills from my 'past life' to make this happen. I've paid off bills that weren't even mine to make this happen. I worked full-time for a short period in order to speed up the process. I've done whatever I could do to get here, regardless of whether or not other people think that I deserve it.

There are other people.....people who will go so far as to watch me fall in order to take advantage of it and use it to hurt me even more. I know that I put a lot of my life out here for people to see, but there is so much more that happens behind the scenes. There is so much drama that I don't discuss for many reasons - and the people who are waiting for me to fall are a part of that. It might sound like I'm being dramatic - but I'm not.

There are even people who don't even know me who already have preconceived notions about me, and they're wrong. But I can't convince them of that - I can only show them that I am a better person than I've been made out to be in the past.

There are my kids. We moved in order for them to have a better home, a cleaner home, a safer home. As long as they have exposed wiring and pipes and breaker boxes and sump pumps and crawl space openings in their bedrooms, they do not have the living conditions that they deserve. Those things have to be done, and there is a time limit on those things

For those of you who are wondering, The Dude is not living here. Not yet. There are multiple reasons for that, none of which have to do with our relationship. We are just as strong as ever, and I have no intentions of letting go of him. The timing just isn't right for him to move yet. He has responsibilities at his place, and he can't ignore them. He helps me when he can, but his time is limited right now.

The older kids have been helping me - when they're here. But, they're only here 50% of the time. And when they're "here" they're also in school or at school activities or at church activities or whatnot - so yes, they help when they can.

For the most part, I'm on my own with this. I had tons of help with the actual move - friends from church have been amazing and helped clean this place and are still helping to clean the old place and they used their manpower and truck power to do the actual move. But the unpacking and organizing and fixing up and everything else is pretty much all me.

There ARE time limits and deadlines. Some of them are self-imposed. But the majority of them are not, and I have to follow them in order to avoid a lot of unnecessary drama and stress. It's just the way that it is right now.

With all of that being said....I appreciate the amount of support that I get from my friends and the readers of this blog (even though I hardly blog anymore) and from the people on my facebook page. Y'all are seriously wonderful and you give me the strength that I need on the bad days and for that I am eternally grateful. I wish that I could explain some of this in more detail, but I just can't. But hopefully this will give you a better understanding of why I am pushing myself so hard to get this stuff done.

On that note....

My kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen.... even though I don't have it all totally unpacked yet. I seriously can't wait to get it all done, but I can at least cook now.

Maybe it's official....

Lots of stuff still going on with the house. After all of the chaos that was Friday, we had a fairly quiet weekend. I waited to hear back from Mortgage Lady because she said she was going to touch base with me on Sunday, but I didn't hear from her.

Yesterday morning, I got an email from a woman who works with Mortgage Lady. She needed some additional info (mainly documentation of that bill being paid off) and so we emailed back and forth several times until I got an email from her that about knocked me out of my seat....

Unfortunately {Mortgage Lady} is no longer with us. I believe that she is still going to finish the files that she has but she will not be in the {local} office.

Wait, what????!?!?!! What do you mean?!?!?! Mortgage Lady has been there for me from the get-go! She's been there since before I even started the process! How can she just leave me hanging like this??? Noooooooooo.......

After I got over my initial panic, Mortgage Lady 2.0 explained that she had been working with Mortgage Lady the entire time, and everything would be fine. She knows my story, she knows my file, and there is nothing to worry about.

Uh huh. Sure. Easy for her to say.

Anyway, more emails between me and Mortgage Lady 2.0, and me and Realtor Lady, and I started to think that maybe, just maybe things were going to be ok. They seemed way calmer about the whole situation than I was, so I did my best to take my cues from them.

I didn't have to work today, so after I got the boys to school I came home and started puttering around. I had gotten some empty boxes from work and decided to start in the laundry room, which has been a store room to a ton of games and toys that the kids just don't use anymore. I started going through the stuff and trashed the ones that were missing too many pieces, packed the ones that I want to keep, and posted the rest on facebook in the hopes that some of my friends would want to adopt some new games.

I actually made a little bit of progress, although there's still way more to do - but at least I got started. No more denial - time to start packing.

The Dude came over to hang out for a while this afternoon and we were talking about everything that has been happening with all of this. Then the emails started flying again. Long story short, closing is now officially scheduled for Monday, January 27 at 3:00pm.

Officially. Like.....it's going to happen.

*commence panic attack #745,812 of this process*

At that point we decided to go out and grab a (very) late lunch. As we ate, he tried to talk me down from my freak out (he failed miserably) and we just tried to absorb the enormity of what is about to happen.

As I go through this process, there are so many emotions that go along with it. On the outside, it's just me buying a house - not such a big deal. People do it every day.

But there's also the doubt, the fear, the caution that it might not happen. I know in my head at this point, it's going to happen. But it seems like such a stretch for me - ME - to be doing this. I've made some pretty stupid choices in my life, and none of them should have led me in this direction, but here I am about to commit to a 6-figure investment that in a way I feel that I don't even deserve.

I know that realistically, I could not afford to do this without the Social Security. And I am well-aware that I would not be receiving that if my second husband hadn't passed away. That makes this whole process more than a bit bittersweet for me. I still battle with the feelings of guilt over his death, even though I know that it wasn't my fault. I struggle with the thought that the money that Daniel and I get because he died is what is making the home of my dreams a reality for me - but at the same time, I know that I am doing the right thing by making sure that we have a home that suits our needs in so many ways.

I think about my battle to avoid homelessness a few years ago, and can't wrap my head around the fact that very soon, we will be in a house with 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and more than enough room to meet our needs plus some.

Overwhelming doesn't even begin to describe it. Seriously, there are no words to describe how I'm feeling right now. I wish that I could explain it, and I will probably ramble on and on about it over the next few weeks as I try to work through all of it in my head. All I know is that right now, I'm caught somewhere between ecstatic and numb - and feeling maybe a little bit of both.

Progress.....I think.

*gasp*

Two blog posts in two days? Can it be????

Seriously though, I want to do better about this, plus use this as sort of a journal of the last leg of this house-buying journey.

Alex and Daniel didn't have school today, so we slept in a little bit. I had to get Alex to Wichita this morning for an allergist appointment, so when I woke up I knew we had to get moving fairly soon. I checked my phone to see what notifications I had, and there was an email from Mortgage Lady. I read it and quickly grabbed the laptop.

Basically, what she said was that the Rural Development people had already gone over everything, and there were a couple of things that I needed to do. One was to pay off a really really old bill - back in my past life, an old cable bill had gone to collections and stayed there. When we started working on my credit report, we ignored that one for several reasons, but we knew that it would probably have to be paid prior to closing on the house. When my file went to the underwriters, they made me pay off another one that was in collections, but never said anything about this one - so we hoped that they were going to ignore it. Long story short, they didn't ignore it, and I had to pay it. No biggie - I was prepared, plus today was payday from work so the money was already in my checking account. I dug up the number for the collection agency, called them and paid it in full before I even got out of bed.

I emailed Mortgage Lady to let her know. She would need verification as soon as they processed the payment so I called the collection agency back and they said that they would fax her the info.

The boys and I hopped into the GrandpaCar and took off for Wichita. The appointment went well and we grabbed a quick lunch afterwards. Another email from Mortgage Lady arrived - the "dirt work" has to be done.

"Dirt work" - another long story.

Shortened version - structural engineer inspected the house and it passed with flying colors. On his report, he put a disclaimer that he puts on every single one of his reports saying that there should be dirt put around the foundation sloping away from the house to help with drainage. Rural Development now decided that this HAS to be done. We had a feeling that this was going to happen too, so Realtor Lady already had a spare load of dirt dumped at the house (the woman is awesome). I tried unsuccessfully to locate a wheelbarrow on my way back from Wichita, and instead stopped and bought one. Seriously - I've been wanting one for a while (who in their right mind wants to buy a wheelbarrow? and do you know how expensive those things are? and how hard they are to fit in the trunk of the GrandpaCar?) so I just bought it. Boom.

Came home, changed clothes, bought lunch for The Dude, took that to him, tossed the wheelbarrow in the back of his truck, threw him the keys to the GrandpaCar, and took off to the house.

I spent the next 3-4 hours moving wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the driveway to the side of the house, as well as battling the boys to NOT throw piles of dirt in the driveway, and to stay out of the truck, and to stay where I could see them, and no I'm not driving across town just to get you a drink, yada yada yadaaaaa......

Suddenly another truck pulled into the driveway. A man and a woman got out and the man introduced himself to me as the seller.

Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh......so YOU are the man who has been a total pain in my ass since this thing started? I had to stop myself from saying it out loud. The woman with him was his mother-in-law, who also happens to be his realtor.

Great.

We actually had a very nice visit. We chatted about the house in general and I told them how I had immediately fallen in love with it. I told them about some of our plans, and as soon as I mentioned putting a clothesline in out back, I immediately got on the mother-in-law's good side and she joined in on the conversation. They shared a little bit more about the history of the house and I told them that I was interested in learning anything that they want to share about it. It was awesome, and they admitted that they were relieved that someone wasn't going to just buy it and flip it, but was instead going to fix it up and live in it and love it. I told them about how I had lost everything and was days away from being homeless a few years ago, and how that made this whole process so much more important for me. All in all I think that it was a great little chat and having that face-to-face interaction was a nice surprise prior to meeting over the closing documents.

I did find it amusing that he is planning to pay someone to move the pool table out of the basement just so that he can sell it. I told him that he is more than welcome to leave it there, but he really wants to sell it. I'm curious to see if it actually happens or not - it honestly doesn't bother me one way or another. It would be nice to have, but I can use the added floor space just as much as I can use the table.

Oh, and they're taking the rocks out of the one flowerbed. Yes, the rocks. But, in his defense they're from various camping trips all over the country, so they do actually have sentimental value.

He also warned me that the neighborhood can be kind of competitive when it comes to yardwork.

Ha. Bring it.

In the meantime, more emails back and forth. Mortgage Lady was having trouble getting the verification that she needed from the collection agency, so I called them again. As it turned out, I had to fax them something with my signature for them to release the information to her (and you didn't tell me that this morning because...............?????) and since The Dude's truck isn't equipped with a portable fax machine, I had to cut my dirt moving short, drive back to town, stop at my bank, scrounge up a piece of paper, write out the authorization, and have them fax it to Mortgage Lady. I emailed her to let her know that they now had the authorization - so hopefully she got what she needed from them.

Back to the house to dump the wheelbarrow into the garage, then to The Dude's work to swap vehicles with him, then out to grab something to eat. Then home again.

Baths. Cleaning. Laundry. Preparing to go back to work tomorrow. Hoping that The Dude is over his stomach bug enough that he can handle the boys all day while I'm stuck in Fast Food Hell. Still trying to figure out how to deal with this whole job thing. Making lists of things that need to be done in both houses before/during/after the move. Hoping to win the lottery just to make life easier.

Just another day.....