Keyboard Warriors

So last night, that silly Tooth Fairy letter resurfaced in a really big way. A page on facebook with almost 4 million fans posted it, but of course - without the backstory. Without a link back to my page or my blog. Without my permission.

It happens all the time. All the time. I should be used to it by now, and for the most part I do ignore it. I'll read a few comments, throw the link to my blog up there, and let it go.

This time was different. This time, the comments were mean. Hateful. Judgmental. Way worse than usual. Sure, there were a few positive ones, but they were quickly buried under the ones touting my inept parenting skills.

Of course, since the letter wasn't credited to me, people didn't know who they were insulting. They sat there behind their keyboards, casting stones at someone who wrote a letter to an 11 year old girl as a joke. Even after they read the blog post, they continued.

Emotional violence. She should be ashamed. What a horrible mother. That woman doesn't even deserve to have her kids. She should take parenting classes.

The ones that hurt the most were the ones who insinuated that I was a horrible person for raising my kids in a broken home:

(This thread of comments on the post has since been deleted. I think.)

Broken home. No father figure.

The last thing that I ever wanted was for my family to not be "normal" with a mother and father and kids. I never planned to get divorced, and certainly didn't plan to do it twice. I fought like hell to keep it together, to keep it from being broken, and so I stayed.

But staying wasn't worth it. Staying wasn't safe, for me or for the kids. We had to get out. I had to "break" our home in order to keep them safe. I had to get them away from the violence.

Yes, we lived in an "icky" house for 3 1/2 years. But that icky house meant more to me than just about any other place we've lived. I learned more about myself in that house than ever before.

I know that the hate and the judgment and the Mommy Wars will never stop. As long as there is an internet, there will be keyboard warriors who get their panties in a wad and think that they are better than everyone else and believe that they are entitled to pass judgment on other people without knowing the background. It's never going to stop.

I tell my kids all the time - you can't stop other people from being jerks, but you can certainly control your own reaction to it.

Same thing applies to adults. Don't feed into the anger or the hate or the judgment - it's not worth it.

Sometimes I need to remind myself of the same thing.

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.

Crazy busy thankful

Life is crazy.

And by that I mean absolutely positively unimaginably insane to the nth degree. And then some.

Popcorn sales for Scouts. As treasurer,
I've had my hands full.

Daniel and I helped unload a tractor trailer full of Christmas
trees. We'll be spending every spare moment at the Scout
tree lot until the last tree is sold.

Sarah celebrated her 14th birthday - and had
basketball games on the same day. The 3 oldest
are all playing now - so life revolves around
basketball AND Scouts.

The Dude and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary.
Still trying to wrap my head around that one.

I sat down during my break this morning at work and paid bills - and officially paid off the last of my debt. All of my old debts from my previous lives, all of our medical bills, all of my credit card bills, the van - those payments are all gone. GONE.

I am literally debt-free..... until.....

The biggest thing of all right now.... is the house situation. I haven't really said a whole lot about it since I posted those pictures - but I'll fill you in now.

I officially made an offer on it last week. The seller countered, I countered his counter, he countered my counter of his counter....and it went on for several days like that. He was being obstinate and pretty much refused to budge on anything. We finally reached an agreement and I did all of the loan paperwork on Monday. The inspection is scheduled for December 9, so as long as everything goes well and there isn't anything major wrong with it, I'll close on January 25.

Here's the catch. The seller - is stubborn. He doesn't want to do anything to the house. He doesn't want to allow room in the price for repairs. He just wants to get rid of it. So, if there's something wrong with it, we'll either have to fix it ourselves or give up on the house. I am trying desperately not to get my hopes up because I know that it'll just take one big bad thing on the inspection to lose this. I have the day of the inspection off from work, and I plan to follow the inspector around so that I can see first-hand what needs to be done - and then I can make a decision as to whether or not it's something that we're willing to do.

Needless to say, I'm an anxious nervous wreck right now. And I couldn't be happier about it.

I never thought it would happen. Never.

You know, it's kind of funny. When I was kid, I loved to draw. Whenever I drew a house, it always looked the same - kind of like this...

I never claimed to be an artist.

Anyway, as The Dude and I have been out shopping for houses, we found one that we both like. A lot. And the funny thing is that it really kind of looks like the house that I always drew as a kid. Except it's straighter. And prettier. And has a front porch. And a hot tub. But I digress.....

We were shopping for houses with the knowledge that my credit wasn't quite where it needed to be yet. I've been working on it, but as anyone who has shoddy credit knows, it's a process. I have been working with an agency that has been busting their butts to get negative stuff removed for the past few months. We thought that I was where I needed to be a couple of months ago when my scores suddenly tanked. I was heartbroken. As it turned out, an old debt (to the tune of $3000+) that has been in collections for years - and that I have been faithfully making payments on for years - was sold to a new collection agency, who in turn started reporting it as new debt. It killed my credit.

Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago when I got a letter in the mail. It was from one of the credit reporting agencies. Nervously, I opened it. 

According to the letter, that particular negative piece of information was deleted from my credit report. Deleted. Thinking back to how much of a negative impact it had when it appeared, I wondered what kind of a positive impact it would have when it disappeared.

As the battle against this particular creditor was happening, I paid off my credit cards. I also paid off a couple of smaller debts with the agreement that those creditors would remove the negative information from my report. I also got the raise at work, and the Social Security that Daniel and I receive increased at the same time.

So on Friday, I was able to check my new and improved credit scores through an online deal that was set up by the credit-report-cleaner-upper-people (my official name for them). I already know that the numbers that I see are slightly higher than the official numbers, so when I saw on Friday that they were high enough, I anxiously contacted Mortgage Lady (also her official name). She was excited to hear the news, and we agreed to meet this morning.

Fast forward to about 2am today, when Daniel's official name changed to Sir Pukesalot. He kept that up for the rest of the night, but seemed to level out a bit. The Dude had planned to go and meet with Mortgage Lady with me, but because Daniel was so sick I emailed her and asked her to just pull my credit report without me and to call me, rather than run the risk of Daniel hurling in her office. The Dude came over and we waited by the phone. Finally she called.

It's official. My credit score is now high enough to qualify for a mortgage.

I started shaking and pacing around the house while I talked to her. I'm not officially pre-qualified for anything yet because there is still one account on my credit report that is showing as "in dispute" - so I have to contact all 3 agencies and tell them to remove that because nothing can happen while there is an active dispute. Minor detail, really. But qualifying for "our" house will not be an issue - and we can actually look at houses in a higher price range than I would have even thought possible.

I contacted the realtor who has been helping us, and "our" house is still on the market.

I am completely and totally overwhelmed right now. Just over 3 years ago, I was on the verge of being homeless. People were sending me money to try to help me save my old house, but it wasn't enough and it went into foreclosure and we were forced to move. We moved into this house only because I qualified for assistance at the time - but I had no idea how I was going to pay the rent when that assistance ended, which was only 3 months. Then my ex passed away and the Social Security started and through the emotional turmoil that followed, the bills started getting paid regularly. It was a horrible way to get the bills paid, but I did what I had to do with what I had - and it's led me to where I am today. Between the Social Security and the job - I will be able to own a house, and soon. 

Me. The same person who was days away from being homeless just 3 years ago - will be buying a house within the next few months.

It's crazy and mind boggling and overwhelming and exciting and scary and surreal, all at the same time. 

Is it worth it?

So things have been kind of crazy around here lately.

I started my full-time gig at work a while back, and I have mixed emotions about it.

Seriously. We all know that I'm not a morning person. Getting up at 4:30am five days per week sucks. My days off are unpredictable. I come home greasy and exhausted and cranky and sore.

I work with some really great people. Some really awesome people. But there's always that one person who ruins it for everyone - and in our case, it's one of the people in a position of power. There are days when the stress of being totally overworked and underappreciated gets to be too much, and I have to convince myself (and others) not to just walk out of the building and never return.

And then I get my paycheck, and I seriously wonder.....is it really worth it? It's not like I'm making a ton of money, which would make being miserable slightly easier to handle.

At the same time, I need this job. No, I need a job. This one was handed to me at the right time. My credit is *thisclose* to being repaired enough to apply for a mortgage. Seriously, *thisclose*. I got word the other day that one huge thing on my credit report has been deleted - and this was something that had a serious detrimental effect on my scores. So I'm waiting for next month's report to see if maybe, just maybe, it was enough to push me over the top. The extra income from this job will make it easier to get us into a house - without a doubt.

I sat down last night and figured some bills. My van is so close to being paid off - like, if I really push it, I can maybe pay it off by the end of the year. And the medical bills that appeared over the summer - instead of taking 7 months to pay them all, I think I can do it in four. I can't do that without the income from a job.

So the job is good. Or at least the income from the job is good. Or good-ish. It definitely helps.

But at the same time....

I was off the last couple of days because I was sick. Well, today was supposed to be my day off, but I took off yesterday as a sick day. And honestly, these were the best two days that I've had since I started this job - because I wasn't there. I got to take the kids to school, and I realized how much I miss doing that. I got to putter around the house and get stuff done (when I wasn't sleeping) and I realized how much I miss doing that.

Don't get me wrong - I love that The Dude does so much with the kids so that I can work. I love that he does it and that he does it willingly. But I hate it. He's spending more time with them than I am - and as a mom, that's not ok with me. He shouldn't be the one meeting with the principal over behavior issues - that should be me (ok, it really shouldn't be either one of us, but the kids aren't perfect). He shouldn't be waking the kids up for school - that should be me. He shouldn't be the one running them to last minute appointments - that should be me. And now that he's working, I'm having to turn to other people to help out with the kids from time to time - and while I trust them completely it still makes me feel so incredibly guilty every time I have to do it.

I know that this is what working parents go through, but I hate it. I made a promise to myself 2 1/2 years ago that I wouldn't work as long as they were little and I could afford not to do it - and I'm breaking that promise - to myself and to them.

I have to stop and ask myself why I'm doing this. I keep saying "it's to get us into a house of our own" and yes, that's true. But at the same time I have to wonder if I couldn't do that without the job. Or maybe without THIS job. Sure, it might take longer, but it could happen. I know it could.

I'm seriously questioning my "need" to work right now. Is getting into a house of our own right now so important that I should be sacrificing time with my kids and my own happiness to make it happen? Am I being greedy by wanting this to happen right now, when realistically we could wait a few more months for it to happen? Or is it something that we can put off for a few months in order to save our sanity? I don't ever want to look back on this period of my life and say "wow, that was so not worth the stress".

I'm not a quitter. I'm not one to walk away from an obligation just because it's hard or stressful. But this is one of those situations that really has me questioning what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

Decisions, decisions....none of which can be taken lightly.

Stress doodles while working on computer
stuff tonight. No point, really.

Thoughts & stuff

September 1. We've lived in this little ghetto-esque house for exactly 3 years now.

It's been 3 years since I felt like I lost everything, but it's also been 3 years since I started my life over again.

Life is better in so many ways. I'm financially secure - not rich, but secure. My kids are doing great in school and are healthy for the most part. I have a wonderful man in my life who loves me and loves my kids as if they were his own.

But no matter how good life is at the moment, I know that it can change in a heartbeat.

Things have changed so much for us in the past 3 years, and to sit here and think about it can absolutely blow my mind. I don't ever want to forget about the struggles that we went through, because those struggles made me and my family who we are today. We are better people for what we experienced.

I continue to carry my Vision card (EBT, food stamps, whatever you want to call it) in my wallet. It's right there, under my checkcard where I see it every time I open my wallet. It hasn't been valid for a couple of years now, but I won't get rid of it. It reminds me of where we were not so long ago, and seeing it there reminds me of where we want to go. It keeps me grounded.

With the amount of progress that we've made in the last 3 years - I can't wait to see where we are 3 years from now. I know where I want to be - and now I just have to make it happen.

On a mission...

I'm not sure what's gotten into me over the past few days, or even a week, but I've been getting so much more done around the house that it's kind of scary. I've actually been keeping up with the laundry (more or less) and keeping the kitchen clean and really just staying more on top of things than I usually do. I've been sitting here thinking about it tonight - because God forbid I should just take it at face value, and instead I have to sit here and over-analyze it to death.

I think a lot of it has to do with our impending move. I'm super excited about it, but there are so many stresses and so many questions and so many variables right now, and it's ....... I don't know ...... I think it's one of those things where right now, there are so many things that I can't control, so instead I have to go all control-freak-crazy on the house.

The Dude and I have looked at a handful of houses. Some have potential. Some..... not so much. But they are all within our price range if everything else falls into place.

My income is supposed to increase significantly around the end of August. I know about how much it's supposed to increase, but not exactly. And I can't find out the details yet, because well..... it's Social Security. And they don't like to answer questions. I just have to wait a couple more weeks to get the letter with the verification, assuming that what a worker told me several months ago was correct. A lot is riding on receiving that letter.

My credit score is so close. I bit the bullet and I'm paying to get my credit report cleaned up and looking respectable. We already went through Round One of their efforts, and it paid off big time with one of my credit scores going up just over 100 points! They think that by the end of this month when they complete Round Two, my other scores should be where they need to be in order to qualify for financing.

And of course, we have to find the right house.

At this point, even if we found the perfect house and were able to make an offer tomorrow, we still wouldn't be able to be moved before school starts. So that leads to more questions about what to do with the boys - do I enroll them in school here for the first month or two, and then transfer them when we move, or do I enroll them over there and drive them back and forth every day until we move? There are definitely pros and cons to both, but I'll figure that part out soon. I hope.

Walking home from the
grocery store with survival
food for the next couple of
days while I'm working.

So with all of these questions and random scenarios playing in my head, I've gone into uber-cleaning and organizing mode - which serves two purposes. It gives me control over at least part of my life AND it's getting the house ready to be packed up and moved. (I swear I will never be as unorganized as I was for the last move - I still apologize to this day to the people who were kind enough to help me with that disaster.)

In the meantime, I'm just trying to work as many hours as I can so that we can save up a little bit more money to put towards all of this mess. The Dude has been amazing with his willingness to watch the monsters kids while I work and I am forever grateful to him for it - especially when he has to be over here by 5am some mornings in order to make it all happen (like tomorrow). I'm just ready for us all to be in one house so that life will be just a tiny bit less chaotic.

Of course, I don't think he's going to complain too much tomorrow when he actually sees the 2 loaves of banana bread that I made for them tonight.

Hunting

I've mentioned before that we're trying to move to a different house. My older three kids go to school in one district that's about 15 miles from here, and my younger two go to school here. Needless to say, it's crazy at times with all of the running back and forth.

We've been just kinda'-sorta' looking for a while. Not being in a huge rush to move helps, but then again I've had the urge to really get the ball rolling lately so that we can hopefully be moved and settled well before the next school year starts - or better yet, as soon as this school year ends. I've been looking online, or calling about houses that I've seen while out driving around, and I've called realtors. We haven't really decided if we want to rent or buy yet for a few reasons - so we're just kind of waiting to see what happens.

Anyway, today The Dude and I went and looked at a house. It definitely has potential for us, in spite of the overly festive blue bathroom. It needs some work (and better paint colors) but it could be "our" house. There are a lot of details to work out with the seller though and we are trying to be very careful before we even decide if this is the one that we want to get.

So don't get too excited. We haven't decided for sure. It's still early.

But on the way back here, we stopped for lunch and talked about it some more. For a lot of reasons that I'm just not going to discuss because it's between me and him, whatever house we get will be in my name. Not his. Not ours. Mine.

He jokingly asked me if I was going to make him sign a lease when we moved in together. I laughed, told him no (actually I gave him a really dirty answer, but I'll leave that up to your imagination) and we continued on our merry way.

But then I started thinking. And processing. Because that's what I do.

Here we are, almost 17 months into this relationship - and he still puts up with me and my nonsense. Not only does he still put up with it, but he wants to live with it. Not only that, but he is willing to move in with us without anything on paper saying that I have to keep him around for the long haul.

Not that I plan on getting rid of him or anything, mind you. Because I don't. But that's a lot of trust on his part - and the fact that he trusts me that much is a lot for me to digest. This is a huge step for both of us for so many reasons, and it's scary. For once in my life though, I am not going to let fear stand in my way. Whether we end up with this house or another house, we are going to work together to make this happen.

And hopefully I won't lose any more of my mind in the process.

Unveil your ideas...

I find it kind of funny that just last night I talked about how I have put the wheels in motion to actually move into a different place and then this is the fortune that I got in a cookie tonight.

Today has been a fun day. I got to spend the entire day with Sarah and Daniel, which is not a combination that I get to have very often. I love seeing the relationship between my oldest and my youngest kids when these two are together - they don't get to have time with just the two of them very often, and I think that they had fun. I know that I did.  We went to church, did a little shopping, grabbed some lunch, hung out at home, spent some time with The Dude, went out for Chinese food, picked up Alex, came home.... nothing exceptionally spectacular, but it was wonderful in its own way.

As we were driving back home after getting the aforementioned fortune cookie, I started thinking about some of the ideas and plans that I have in my head. Some of them I've talked about  here and some of them I haven't, each for different reasons. I can be kind of superstitious at times and I don't like to jinx myself by talking about what I think might be a good idea - because it seems like right after it comes out of my mouth it immediately turns into the most ridiculous idea known to man.

Honestly, my biggest plan/idea right now is this move. Getting out of this house is really our number one priority at the moment for so many reasons. The kids all need to be in the same school district. It'll be easier not only for me, but also for Ex1 when we get moved over there. This house is too small. And there are so many things about this house that I've tolerated for the past 2 1/2 years, but at this point - I'm starting to hate it. I hate it more and more every day. Moving will not be a simple process (it never really is, is it?) but we'll get through it, one way or another.

My other short-term plan/idea is this half-marathon coming up in a few short weeks. I have talked about that because otherwise I can just pretend that I'm not signed up for it and have absolutely zero accountability for it. But, I'm doing it.

Probably my other big idea - one that I've touched on briefly - is trying to figure out how to turn my crafty stuff into a legitimate business. This is something that I've wanted to do for a very long time, but I've never really pursued it. I need to do that. I'm still not sure exactly what I want to do, but I know that I want to make stuff and I want to make money while I'm doing it - and more money than I can do in a once or twice per year craft show. It's something that I like to do, I'm fairly good at it, and it'll give me the freedom to work at home and still be with my family - the best of all worlds if you ask me.

So anyway, there you have it. A little bit of a brain dump courtesy of a fortune cookie.

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And if you haven't already please READ THIS POST because it's the most important one that I've ever posted on here - and it's your chance to make me look like an idiot. So go read it. Now.

The Notebook

No, I'm not talking about the movie. Although, it is one of my favorites.

I'm talking about an actual notebook, an old one with a broken spiral and a stained cover that is sitting in front of me right now. It's one that's been around the house for a few years but has never really served a specific purpose. Honestly, I'm surprised that the kids haven't made off with it and used all of the paper in it by now.

However, it now has a purpose. I've been sitting here for the last hour or so, carefully crunching numbers. Maybe it's the impending new year with all of its potential, maybe it's frustration with where I'm at financially at the moment, maybe it's just the weird mood that I've been in for the past few days coupled with a few realizations of what I want to do with my life in the next year or so....

Maybe it's a combination of all of that. But regardless of what "it" is, I'm formulating plans. On paper, even. I'm figuring and re-figuring my budget. I'm figuring out a way to actually get some money into savings - starting this month - so that I can make some changes happen when I want them to happen without being totally stressed about money all of the time.

Living on a fixed income is not easy. It is nice to know exactly how much money is coming in and when, and it's easy to live day-to-day on that. But when emergencies like a busted transmission or an abscessed tooth happen, it's hard to come up with the extra to take care of those things. Now that I've been able to pay off some bills, it will be a little easier to build in a cushion each month to make those unexpected expenses easier to handle. And having that little extra cushion will also help us to be able to make some other things happen - including combining two households into one within the next 6 months or so.

Willpower has never been one of my strengths. In fact, I've always been horrible about it. Hopefully,  putting it all on paper (not to mention putting it "out there" for everyone to see) will give me the motivation to be able to stick with it and actually make progress.

Thankful.

Today, I am thankful. For so many things - and I don't know if I can even express all of them.

First and foremost, I am so incredibly thankful that I have my wheels back...

I couldn't have gotten it done without the kindness and generosity of so many of you - and for that, I will be eternally grateful. I am amazed still by all of it, and it still brings me to tears if I think about it too much.

I am thankful that the transmission waited to die until we were home safely after our road trip.

I am incredibly thankful that the axle didn't fall apart until it was in the garage being repaired already - for those of you who missed that story...

The garage guy called me yesterday (was it yesterday? I think it was yesterday...) to tell me that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that he was able to locate a remanufactured transmission and wanted to put that in the van instead of a used one, but for the same price. I was thrilled with that news. But then he told me that as he was under the van working on it, the drivers side axle literally fell apart in his hands. It broke. Snapped. Crumbled. So he had to replace that, which obviously cost extra. So, I scrounged and came up with the extra money, which is going to make the rest of the month tight, but the van is fixed.

And I am so thankful that the axle broke then, and not while we were doing 75mph on the highway. Had it happened then, chances are that we wouldn't have landed upright. Or in one piece. And that thought just makes my skin crawl.

I am thankful for The Dude, for so many reasons. For him allowing me to borrow his van for the past 2 months. For making me smile when I don't really want to do it. For taking care of the kids for me while I was so sick last night that I literally couldn't stand up straight. For taking care of me and making me go to bed instead of staying up trying to get things done. For just being him and for loving me in spite of my neurotic tendencies and for "signing up" to be a part of our lives.

I am thankful for my little ghetto-esque house. The kids and I moved in to this house 2 years ago today. September 1, 2010 was the start of my new life and had I known then what I know now - wow.

I lost virtually everything in my second divorce. I lost our home because the mortgage wasn't in my name and I couldn't talk to the mortgage people to do anything about the payments that had been missed. I lost our van because again, that wasn't in my name and I couldn't renew the tags on it because of that. I lost a lot of my valuable possessions because I had to sell them to make ends meet. When I felt like my world was completely caving in around me, I found this awful little house - but I knew that I could make it work. Thanks to my church family volunteering their time to help, we got everything moved from the old house to this one. It took months to get things situated, but we eventually did it and we turned it into our home.

It's not the best house in the world - but for now, it's ours. And I know that we can stay here as long as we need to in order to save up enough money for our next move, which will be to the town where the older three kids go to school so that all of my kids can go to school in the same district. Although the house is tiny, we make it work (most of the time) and for that I am thankful.

Even though at this particular moment in time I feel like crap and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and go to sleep and not wake up until my allergy season is past, I am so incredibly thankful for my life.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Life is good.

Long day

So I spent the day helping my friend pack up all of her belongings so that she could move on to bigger and better things. It was a long day - I forgot that she lived in a second floor apartment, so at this point, my entire body hurts from running up and down the stairs. But, we got it all loaded up, and got her car on the trailer so that I could send her on her way again. *sniff*

We had to keep moving faster and faster as the day progressed because there was some nasty weather rolling in to the area. And of course, it started to pour down rain just as we started loading the car onto the trailer. At least we're not girly-girls, or it wouldn't have gotten done.

Wait....this is supposed to attach to what???

I got out of there about 5 minutes before the hail hit, and managed to avoid any severe weather until we got back to The Dude's house. At that point, the wind and rain started. But, we were hungry, so we took his mom and went out to eat. The storm was pretty bad - there were downed branches everywhere and trash cans littering the streets but we got there, ate, and went back to his house - and then found out that there was actually a funnel cloud about a mile from us as we were going into the restaurant. And we didn't see it. But, in our defense, we were hungry.

And now....I'm exhausted. My futon is screaming my name.