Soooo...how are you? Anything interesting going on in your life?
I feel like we just don't talk enough. What with the job, kiddo, house hunting, moving and now...finally...unpacking, there is just not enough time in my day.
Unless you are a flashcard.
Then I've got hours for you.
In my hand. Out of my hand. In the box. Out of the box. In the bucket. Out of the bucket.
Her mind is fascinating.
The update on our week is like this:
Saturday - First birthday party for Mrs. Eartha's little miracle man, James. Instead of presents, she asked for school supplies for a local elementary. So many notebooks!
Sunday - Move. With high schoolers driving their Lexus sedans. Awesome. And really?
Monday - No internet. Or TV. Unpacking. As much as Pumpkin would let me. Work.
Tuesday - Laundry. Lots and lots of laundry. Work.
Wednesday - Work. Work. Work. And frustration.
Thursday - Find out none of my emails have been getting to my boss. Thus the various emails from her asking me where I am and why she hasn't heard from me. All my emails were routed to a folder instead of her inbox. Fabulous. So relieved because 24 hours earlier I was ready to crawl under the covers and cry.
Thursday - Sorry. It needed another slot. House hunting day 268. Nice house. Bad location. Great location. Peeling vinyl floors. Horrible yard. Tons of space. Fabulous yard. Carpets full of cat.
Sigh.
We're not looking for perfect. Honestly. We are not afraid of doing work. Pulling up carpet and laying some hardwood is totally doable. Taking down gigantic fruit wallpaper, bring it. Living with green counter tops, fine by me. We just can't seem to find that house in our price range.
But today was likely the bottom of the pile in houses we saw.
Last weekend, a new listing came up. No pictures but the specs read fabulous. So I did what I always do first.
Drove the neighborhood.
Hello fabulous.
It was short sale and thanks to my documented obsession with HGTV, I am very aware of the challenges with short sales. There's a great deal of time and patience that has to be invested. And then the bank might say, nope.
Good news is we have time.
So despite our realtor's advice, we wanted to see it anyway.
All together, we likely spent less than 3 minutes in the house.
That's a generous estimate.
When we got in the car, we started talking about the state of the house. The dogs are using the carpet as their potty. There was a hole in the wall. Dirt and mold in the bathroom. A green algae filled pool. And the homeowners were there. Watching us. Very unfriendly like.
On our way out, the owner told our realtor the bank was only accepting offers through Thursday. I suspect the bank is planning on moving forward with foreclosure.
We've seen a lot of foreclosures both during this house hunt and in 2007. In fact, our last house was a foreclosure. They're not always clean and they usually need some work in the form of paint, flooring and general repairs to the house.
You know, the things you can't do if you have to chose between fixing the rotting wood on the back of the house or say, feeding your family.
But we've never seen a home where the owners are deliberately damaging the house. Because no way humans live in pee soaked carpets, everywhere, without a serious helping on anger going on.
My heart breaks for them.
I wish I knew what I could do for them. Heck, for everyone who's lost a job and struggling to hold on to the basics. For everyone who feels that pit of your stomach keeping you up at night completely clueless as to what to do anger.
There are so many people out there going through the exact same thing. Almost 14 million are out of work. One in four kids go to bed hungry each night.
And I don't know what the solution is. Honestly, I really could care less what politics says. The talking heads on TV and radio aren't getting it done either. Even non-profits sometimes astound me with where they put their dollars. I mean, do we really need another memorial when ONE IN FOUR KIDS GO TO BED HUNGRY?
So frankly, seeing that house and then the hours afterward when I had a chance to reflect, was exactly what my week needed.
With my frustration level about my job...which I realize is a mom's ideal situation...and my general loneliness with Chris working 14 hours a day...doing his flipping dream job, my week seemed to be eating me alive.
And I have nothing to complain about.
Seems like lately God's been putting me in my place at every turn. Like He's showing me how much I need to get over myself and my petty "problems" and get back to some serious praise. Because I believe God can use a grateful, humble heart but not so much a frustrated, whoa is me heart. That heart doesn't bring glory to Him as much as it does disappoint Him.
So that's what I'm going to do. Get back to living a grateful life serving Him and His calling in my life.
First task is turning this apartment into our home! Which means it's time to put stuff on the walls. Chris, I'm looking at you!
I feel like we just don't talk enough. What with the job, kiddo, house hunting, moving and now...finally...unpacking, there is just not enough time in my day.
Unless you are a flashcard.
Then I've got hours for you.
In my hand. Out of my hand. In the box. Out of the box. In the bucket. Out of the bucket.
Her mind is fascinating.
The update on our week is like this:
Saturday - First birthday party for Mrs. Eartha's little miracle man, James. Instead of presents, she asked for school supplies for a local elementary. So many notebooks!
Sunday - Move. With high schoolers driving their Lexus sedans. Awesome. And really?
Monday - No internet. Or TV. Unpacking. As much as Pumpkin would let me. Work.
Tuesday - Laundry. Lots and lots of laundry. Work.
Wednesday - Work. Work. Work. And frustration.
Thursday - Find out none of my emails have been getting to my boss. Thus the various emails from her asking me where I am and why she hasn't heard from me. All my emails were routed to a folder instead of her inbox. Fabulous. So relieved because 24 hours earlier I was ready to crawl under the covers and cry.
Thursday - Sorry. It needed another slot. House hunting day 268. Nice house. Bad location. Great location. Peeling vinyl floors. Horrible yard. Tons of space. Fabulous yard. Carpets full of cat.
Sigh.
We're not looking for perfect. Honestly. We are not afraid of doing work. Pulling up carpet and laying some hardwood is totally doable. Taking down gigantic fruit wallpaper, bring it. Living with green counter tops, fine by me. We just can't seem to find that house in our price range.
But today was likely the bottom of the pile in houses we saw.
Last weekend, a new listing came up. No pictures but the specs read fabulous. So I did what I always do first.
Drove the neighborhood.
Hello fabulous.
It was short sale and thanks to my documented obsession with HGTV, I am very aware of the challenges with short sales. There's a great deal of time and patience that has to be invested. And then the bank might say, nope.
Good news is we have time.
So despite our realtor's advice, we wanted to see it anyway.
All together, we likely spent less than 3 minutes in the house.
That's a generous estimate.
When we got in the car, we started talking about the state of the house. The dogs are using the carpet as their potty. There was a hole in the wall. Dirt and mold in the bathroom. A green algae filled pool. And the homeowners were there. Watching us. Very unfriendly like.
On our way out, the owner told our realtor the bank was only accepting offers through Thursday. I suspect the bank is planning on moving forward with foreclosure.
We've seen a lot of foreclosures both during this house hunt and in 2007. In fact, our last house was a foreclosure. They're not always clean and they usually need some work in the form of paint, flooring and general repairs to the house.
You know, the things you can't do if you have to chose between fixing the rotting wood on the back of the house or say, feeding your family.
But we've never seen a home where the owners are deliberately damaging the house. Because no way humans live in pee soaked carpets, everywhere, without a serious helping on anger going on.
My heart breaks for them.
I wish I knew what I could do for them. Heck, for everyone who's lost a job and struggling to hold on to the basics. For everyone who feels that pit of your stomach keeping you up at night completely clueless as to what to do anger.
There are so many people out there going through the exact same thing. Almost 14 million are out of work. One in four kids go to bed hungry each night.
And I don't know what the solution is. Honestly, I really could care less what politics says. The talking heads on TV and radio aren't getting it done either. Even non-profits sometimes astound me with where they put their dollars. I mean, do we really need another memorial when ONE IN FOUR KIDS GO TO BED HUNGRY?
So frankly, seeing that house and then the hours afterward when I had a chance to reflect, was exactly what my week needed.
With my frustration level about my job...which I realize is a mom's ideal situation...and my general loneliness with Chris working 14 hours a day...doing his flipping dream job, my week seemed to be eating me alive.
And I have nothing to complain about.
Seems like lately God's been putting me in my place at every turn. Like He's showing me how much I need to get over myself and my petty "problems" and get back to some serious praise. Because I believe God can use a grateful, humble heart but not so much a frustrated, whoa is me heart. That heart doesn't bring glory to Him as much as it does disappoint Him.
So that's what I'm going to do. Get back to living a grateful life serving Him and His calling in my life.
First task is turning this apartment into our home! Which means it's time to put stuff on the walls. Chris, I'm looking at you!
Robin I don't even remember how I came across your blog long ago but it was during my journey through infertility too. I'm also not sure where you moved up north but we are in the process of moving to MS and have our house on the market just outside of McKinney. Please email me if you ate interested and I will send you more info. abbeydawn at hotmail
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