The New Normal

Well, the saga ends...or maybe just slows to a dull roar. We moved into our new home last Saturday. I am so humbled by the effort put into the move by my friends and loved ones. Everyone showed up at 8 am (one friend even showed up a day early due to a work schedule), trucks & trailers galore, and just set to it! I almost didn't have to do anything but just sort of "direct" the events of the day. I am so blessed. At one point the hedges even got trimmed. Ok, so I'm REALLY blessed :) So, things have died down but not really if that makes any sense. I woke up the next day and for an instant I had no flippin' clue where I was. In fact, it still just doesn't feel real. Hubby & I agree that it will take a little while. Its only been a few days however, so to be completely fair we've got the rest of our lives to get used to this house. That's right, I said the REST of our lives! I do not plan on ever moving again. It might be a lofty goal, but hey, a girl's gotta have ambitions. I grew up a migrant. That word might bring to mind legal aliens (or maybe even illegal-depending on your background) and agriculture work, but it very correctly describes my childhood. I am a natural citizen and my parents weren't agriculture workers in the true sense of the word BUT my parents moved us wherever they could find work. In fact I went to 4 schools my third grade year by itself! Since I have gotten married the moving has slowed but we have still moved a whopping 22 times in 15 years. Mostly, because we have always rented and leases are always about a year long and we've never liked any place well enough to want to stick around for another term. There is always a better deal. Some of the moves were to find work, some to improve our standards, at least 3 moves were purely emotional and involved family and more than that involved my mother needing help caring for my terminally ill father. In the end I can say that this has made me a resilient person who does not shy away from new places and people. I recently took a strengths test and discovered that one of my strengths is WOO (winning others over)...perhaps God knew when he "packed my bag" that I would definately need that one, because with that strength moving was never that big of a deal. I hate packing...can I just say that? I always have. Hubby makes it worse because if it were up to him we'd load it all up in garbage bags and haul it on over. The control-freak in me cringes everytime we move because I know that in the end I'm going to be too anal about what to keep and what to shed and ultimately he's going to win. I have to admit this time that I think I did it pretty well. VERY few garbage bags made it into my house. I muse that it may have been the idea that this was our last move or maybe it was the fact that we were moving into our own home, but I really did not have the stress during this move that I've come to dread. All in all, I'm so glad we bought this house. Its definately worth all the drama.

Prayers, Pessimism & Pea Soup

Well, by this afternoon I should have the keys to our new home in my hand! I am excited but because I also have inherited a little pessimism from my hubby, I am nervous that the previous owners will not honor the contract & GET OUT TODAY!! Ok, that was a little uncalled for but I'm frustrated! We were in contract with this house for 3 months & the day that we FINALLY close they ask for more time to move out. I do understand that with the lagging close date they might not have wanted to pack everything in advance but I have moved enough to know that there are things you can live without that can be packed way ahead of time. If 7 days is not enough time to pack the essentials (clothes, toiletries, dishes, etc.) then maybe you have too much stuff! I do think that their Realtor might have led them to believe that they might have had until next month or that the deal might not even go through & I forgive them for that, but still... their adults. If you put your house up for sale have a plan! Have a place to go to so that the people who buy it can move in on time! I feel really badly for them if they did get caught in between but really & truly they are the only ones in charge of their business. No one else. So, this afternoon they are supposed to be out & the house is SUPPOSED to be clean. I pray that everything goes well with them & that they have a blessed life. In the meantime, I am going to be nervously awaiting a phone call from our realtor that the keys have been delivered. If I haven't heard from them by lunch time, two o'clock at the latest, I think my head might explode and pea soup might splatter everywhere. So, say a prayer for me. Pray that everything goes smoothly and my head doesn't explode. I'd kinda like it if that didn't happen :)

Tales from the Terrified

Ok, so I am about to leave my house. I am due at the realtor's office in 4 hrs 17 minutes to close on our new house and have errands to run before I get there. I am sitting on my bed, hair wet from the shower and I am losing my mind! Needless to say, NO school work has gotten done today. My children who dare not complain about it are pretending its a Saturday - cartoons and all. I cannot think about such mundane things as doing laundry and paying water bills right now, even though Hubby would prefer the laundry part as he is out of socks, because the fact that we are about sign a contract for over $100,000 is taking up too much space in my grey matter. Who would give us a house?? Do they know that this scares the pants off me? Do they know that we are babies (well early thirties)? Do they care? Does anybody? I need a serious dose of chill right now. God knows what he is doing-I'm sure of it. In fact it's the only thing I AM sure of. I'm not sure I'll survive today or get my laundry done or keep my lunch down...but I am sure that God knows what he is doing. I think the relevant question now is: What is he doing? Is he blessing us, testing us, sitting back to see how far we can carry it on our own, guiding the whole process with his hand? I want to believe that this is a blessing. I do. My flesh wants to know how we are going to carry this mortgage. My faith knows that God is putting us in a situation where we have only Him to rely on. How do I marry those two schools of thought long enough to not upchuck at the closing table? I don't have these answers. All I know is that I'm going to live through today. No one ever died from anxiety...did they? I hope not because if I die right now my husband will never have any clean socks ever again. By the way-I only have 3hrs & 56 min to go.

The Drama Llama came to see you today - I told her to leave a message

What is it about small Southern towns that make it so hard to keep a cotton-pickin' secret?? It cannot be just my town. I have lived in more than one hole-in-the-wall town down here, yet they have all been eerily similar. Let me qualify my rant by explaining that Hubby & I are buying a house. In the current market this is no easy feat. I could probably sum the whole experience up by saying: Who's idea was this?? So, its fair to say that it has not been easy. We still haven't closed escrow yet and we have had a contract on this house since June...JUNE! Anyone who is buying a house right now might know that the system is a little overwhelmed with greedy, I mean "eager", buyers trying to snatch up all the empty forclosures that were left after the housing crash. So overwhelmed is the system that, at least in Alabama, the servers are going down like me on a 6-mile hike--fast & with a thud. So, when we decided to let a few people know that we were buying a house it didn't occur to us that in a few days the whole church would have heard about it. It also didn't occur to us that by sharing this information with these people we would be locked into the commitment of keeping them updated on how the deal was going. It gets a little depressing saying "We don't know anything - we are waiting on the paperwork to process" a dozen times between the time you get your coffee in the church lobby to the time you take your seat! Don't get me wrong, its wonderful to have so many people to care for us and keep up with what's going on in our lives, but the reality of it is that we started getting a little scared. At this point, we are concerned about what might happen if the deal falls through. What will we tell everyone? There's this pressure now that I'm pretty sure we've made up but feels real anyhow. It feels like if something happens we're going to let everyone down! I know...its crazy, its probably inaccurate and wildly egotistical of us to think that we are on everyone's mind. These people probably only care to ask about it because its a good way to make conversation. Mostly I'm sure of the fact that if something terrible did happen, like the deal falling through, we'd have plenty of shoulders to cry on about it. I am just still so amazed at the fact that word travels so fast in my church! Forget "tele"-phone - tell the church members!!
Ps. If I have an aneurysm and die before I close on this house its probably because at some point a mass email went out alerting the congregation of the need for prayer over our "house" situation! If you hear of my demise check your inbox...you've got mail from the church.