Welcome to the Asylum...

Lots has happened since my last post. I keep telling myself that if I posted more often, there wouldn't be so much to write about every time. Where to start? I left the A/E firm in May to go to work for another law firm. The female attorney that I worked for previously is married to an attorney. He needed a paralegal/legal secretary, and guess who got the job? I don't know if I'm really very good at it, but I keep the paperwork flowing.

The reason for the craziness in our lives? Well, sometime this summer my wonderful husband got the bright idea to move. Yes, he actually SAID that we live too far away from town. ('Scuse me, would my REAL husband please return home?!) He owns his own pool business, and most of his customers are 45 minutes away from our home, so he decided that we need to move closer. (I'm still in shock... I am perfectly happy living 30 miles from anywhere at the end of the earth! No one drops by unannounced, and as long as I don't have to move, I don't have to pack all this JUNK that has accumulated in this house that is too big for three people. Not to mention that our last experience selling and buying a house came very close to sending me over the edge, to never return. Quite frankly, I didn't think it had been long enough for my dearie to forget about the evil, hissing monster that took over my body during that time.) This little idea of his started growing until he had my daughter and I going with him to look at potential homes. I said a very special prayer to God at that point - "Lord, I know you love me and want what is best for me. I CANNOT handle another move. I CANNOT handle selling or buying another home. I will just sit back and let You determine if moving is the best thing for our family. If You open the doors, I'll follow. If the door shuts in my face, trust me, I'll turn around and go back home. Otherwise, I am just sitting here, letting You take care of all the little details that will make my head spin." Let me just tell you -we dragged our sweet realtor to LOTS and LOTS of homes for sale near my husband's "ideal" location, and what PROBLEMS they all had! If it didn't have cracks 2 inches wide and 14 inches long from "minor settling" that wasn't indicated anywhere on the listing, it had older appliances than the ones I just replaced in my house. And some had both. One had no carpet or other floor covering - just DECKING - and still reeked of doggie TT. Talk about depressing. But of course, I told myself that God would provide the house if He wants us to move. Every house we saw confirmed in our minds that our asking price was right on the money - our house has all new major appliances, no "minor settling" cracks, decent carpet and no animals have lived inside except for Spec Fred, the beta. We finally found a house that we could live with, but my dear darling took so long getting pre-approved by the mortgage company that someone else came along and bought it. So, back to square one we went. At that point, I really was starting to think that God didn't want us to move. But, sometimes there are just bumps in the road - not necessarily roadblocks.

As we were on our way down this emotional roller coaster, I found reasons to be happy about the move. Yes, I have to pack or get rid of all the JUNK, but if I get a smaller house, I won't have to clean as many square feet! Oh, the joy of that thought! You have no idea how happy that one, tiny thought made me! So, I set a square footage limit on the new house - no bigger than 1800 square feet. (Our current abode is 2600 sq. ft.) There are people who don't understand someone wanting a smaller house while still having a child at home, but those people either 1) are wealthy enough to have someone clean their house every week, 2) have never lived in a house that is too big, or 3) don't work a full time job outside the home while also being responsible for cleaning the very big house that they live in. Also, I realized that I may be able to get away from the redneck mansion decor of my current home and have a really nicely decorated home! Now THAT's a reason to pack 2600 square feet of junk!

Well, one weekend my MIL came over to help me clean the monstrosity of a house that I live in, while my dearest was at the neighbor's replacing a pool liner. I drove over to the house to take some cold water to my husband and his crew. I happened to mention to the neighbor's wife that my MIL and I were cleaning our house so we could get it ready to put on the market. The neighbor told another neighbor about us selling our house. That neighbor showed up the next afternoon with his mother, wanting to talk about buying our house. We let them look at the house because, after all, it was CLEAN! They loved it and immediately wanted to "make a deal" with us. Because of our last experience, we asked them to wait until we found a house to sign a contract on ours. They told us to let them know when we found a house.

We found a house. It popped up on MLS on a Thursday. And it is so perfect! See, God knew that I wouldn't have really been happy only having a shower in the master bath, so he took that other house out of the picture. God knew that this house would be the best house for us. My realtor called about it, and we set up a time for Monday because the owner wasn't quite ready to show it. Well, we stayed at the house for almost 2 hours on Monday, taking pictures and imagining where our furniture would go. We made an offer on Tuesday, and accepted the owner's counter-offer on Thursday. We signed a contract with the neighbor on our house Sunday. That was six weeks ago. Today we close at 2:30 on our house and 3:00 on our new house. We move Friday. I'm excited, but I won't let myself get too excited until I have signed papers in my hand that say the house belongs to us. Then, you'll hear my joy all around the world! (And maybe see another post!)