Quick Update

I tried to post a nice long update last night, with pictures detailing what we've been up to, but the computer crapped out. So that will have to wait! Today is Scooby's birthday party, and the weather is GORGEOUS!!! (Sorry, all you folks who are slowing growing mildew in crevices you never knew you had)
Tonight we're heading south on the great rental-house hunting adventure. Hopefully, if all goes well, we may have an address by the end of the week.
I'll try posting pictures again when we get back.

Well, it's a good thing the inspector came yesterday!

Wild weather tonight!!! There was actually a tornado warning in Sewickley, right along Rt. 65. Craziness. One minute we're out on the back porch watching the thunderstorm, then Tarzan and Cinderella are running around the backyard playing, then half an hour later it literally looks like barrels full of rain are being thrown against the windows. Hail, thunder...and our back yard turned into a pond due to the storm drain being unable to keep up with the volume of water. Water was pouring over the gutters in sheets - not because they were backed up, no, because we'd gotten most of the foliage out of them - just because of the force of the rain. And Scooby is on an overnight camp-out with the church in a state park. They should have some interesting stories to tell. If you'll recall, last year when he went to week-long sleepaway camp, they also had tornado watches in effect. Awesome. Welcome to Pittsburgh, Mom and Dad!

In BETTER news, we got the results from the home inspection today, and there are only a few very minor things to be done. Totally manageable. And the roof is fine!!! So it looks as though the July 30th closing day will hold and this sale may very well go through! Yippee!

Happy 7th Birthday, Tarzan!

It was a Lego birthday this year, and although I scaled down from last year's Webkinz craziness, enough went into it to wipe me out.

Below is the "Pin-the-Happy-Birthday-Timmy-Badge-on-the-Lego-Man" game

Lego cake, courtesy of Granny. Don't know why the picture is sideways, and it took too long to load to do it again. Just tilt your head. And pretend it says Tarzan.

Lego cookies, also courtesy of Granny.

I can't believe Tarzan is 7! He's such a little ball of energy, whipping from one activity to the next. He's teaching himself to juggle, and is pretty adept with two balls right now. It may not sound like much, but you try it - it's a lot harder than it sounds! Very adept at entertaining himself, whether it's playing catch with his mitt and ball, reading, playing on the computer, or playing with, yes, Legos, he's rarely at a loss for something to do. A very sensitive heart beats beneath that skinny ribcage. He loves hard, and cries when touched or when confronted with loss. He is also, however, RESILIENT. A word that we've been exploring as a family. He will grieve his losses and move on, ready to laugh again, love again. Not much for extended cuddling, but quick to give hugs and kisses. He easily finds the humor in life, and when there isn't any, he's make his own. My little middle child - how I love you.

Tarzan and Granny

Light, part 1

Well, I've been waiting hoping I'd have two good pieces of news to post, but it looks like I'm going to have to settle for just one. We got another offer on the house (yay!) and it's even better than the first one. I'm half excited and half waiting to see what goes wrong this time. We have inspections scheduled for next Tuesday (originally they were scheduled right smack in the middle of Tarzan's birthday party, but we were able to reschedule. Maybe we should have left it...bribed him with cake!) so we'll see what happens after that. Closing date currently scheduled for July 30.
News is still squiffy on the job front. Progress bar moving VERY slowly on that end. Will let you know what, if anything, develops.

Light = end of tunnel???

Keep those prayers rolling, friends. Good things are rumbling, but I don't want to jinx them (and yes, I kind of half believe in that right now!) so I'll pass along details when things don't feel so much like a house of cards.

Last day of school today. Tarzan came home in tears. He really loved his first grade teacher - we all did! Excellent report cards from everyone...some kind of celebration is called for, I believe.

No, STILL no news

I am really bad at waiting. I mean, really really bad at it. If we could afford marital counseling, I'm sure one of the things that would get repeatedly discussed and anaylized and an action plan created for, would be the different internal rhythms by which Don and I live our lives. Mine is pretty fast. Which is kind of odd, since I'm an introvert by nature and can happily spend hours reading, listening to the ocean, or just chilling out with my loved ones and a bottle of wine. However, when I need to get things done, am working on a project, or WAITING for something to happen, my little internal chronometer is tick, tick, ticking away. I hate waiting in line, for anything. I REALLY hate waiting for someone to get back to me with information that I need in order to make something else happen, which needs to happen in order for something else to happen. Not being too cryptic here, am I? This whole house selling process is torture - not just for the sheer work involved in the preparation of it, but then the waiting around for someone to call, to see, to decide, to make an offer, or not. Those of you who knew me then, remember how bad I was with the whole waiting to get pregnant thing? But at least with that, there was something I could do. (heh, heh) Now, there are lots of things I'd LIKE to be doing, but can't because I'm WAITING for someone else to make decisions about the things which will affect me and my family for years to come. I suppose I'm supposed to be learning something through all this waiting time - but one of the main things it's reinforced is that I'm wired quicker than this and I don't like it. I do not like it, Sam I Am.

You know what I do like, though? Watching the boys play baseball. Particularly Scooby's team this year. He's moved up to the "minor leagues" which means they have umpires, and can steal bases, and scores count and everything. He had a game on Sunday which I sat and watched for 2 hours, and loved almost every minute of it. The weather was perfect, the boys on both teams were earnest and trying really hard, but being really good sports about everything and some excellent plays were happening on both teams. Scooby's team was ahead by five runs until the last inning (they only play 6) and the other team made four runs pretty quickly. It was down to the last out and they had the bases loaded. We had to put in a substitute pitcher for the last batter (the kids are only allowed 75 pitches to save their arms) and he managed to strike him out and win the game. It was great! Scooby is still not a confident player - he plays right or left field when he's not on the bench, and our big goal for his last couple of games is to get him to SWING the bat when he's up, but he's still enjoying it and the other kids on the team and his coaches are terrific. It's been a great year for baseball.

Kennywood

And then...

Little speedbump.
Buyer's ex-husband-to-be won't sign papers.
She wants to back out.
Crap.

So now...

Kudos to Lisa for noticing that the "staging" of the house uses the same plant in every room!

So we came to an agreement on the price, signed the contract and are now waiting for the house inspection, FHA inspection, radon inspection, pest inspection and appraisal to happen sometime in the next 15 days. Hoping all goes well!!!!

I spent last night and today painting the basement floor, which hurts no matter how you do it, and we're working on a few last touch up jobs before the inspectors come. I'm sure they'll have more for us to do! Just hope it's not more than we can handle.

On Friday we dropped Scooby off at baseball and Tarzan, Cinderella and I went to the "mini-prom" at their school (fundraiser for cancer research) As we left the parking lot, Tarzan (after dancing like a wild-man the whole time, air guitar and all) said "I have to admit it, Mom. That was fun."

I'm ba-a-a-ck!

Sort of. For the sake of my brother's lonliness and sanity, I will attempt to make an update. The past three to four weeks (I've lost count) have been a whirlwind of deciding to sell this house, attempting to ready the house for sale, and listing the house. In the past six years that we've lived here (and bear in mind, we moved in with a four year old, a one year old, and a newborn) we've kept just about everything that's come into the house. Baby furniture, clothes, toys, books, etc. Every now and then I'd do a sweep and send some things on to the cousins, but for the most part, we still had almost all of it. Now imagine trying to lay hands on every one of those items and sort them into catagories: Give to Mom and Dad to save for Melissa and J; Cart over to Carol's house for a yard sale; Pack into boxes now; Leave unpacked; and throw away. This process was HUGELY overwhelming, and I've literally never physically worked so hard for so long in my life. Labor was harder, but over much more quickly. During that process I literally (and I really mean literally, not literally in the sense of "figuratively" which is how most people use the word), I literally went through more than 30 large sized trash bags either in yard sale or trash. Plus about two dozen boxes. The first yard sale netted about $140 for us and about $5.00 each for the kids (we let them sell their own toys) The next one is scheduled for May 30th. We had too much stuff and not enough time to sell it all in the first one. We also carted a whole truckload of baby stuff up to Norwood to transfer to Mom and Dad, who drove it back to Mass, to save for Melissa and J, in Providence. It's a long way around, but it seems to have worked. At least the stuff isn't in this house any more!
The next step was starting to prepare the house for listing. This meant removing all personal photos from the walls, emptying about 3/4 of the books out of the bookshelves, clearing off the kitchen countertops and cabinet tops, clearing off the shelves in the entryway, packing up about 1/2 my china, Clearing out the playroom side of the attic to lay down carpeting, repairing and painting the water damage in the front hall, retouching paint on walls, doors, and mouldings, scrubbing down the exteriors that we could reach, washing all the curtains and cleaning all the windows, and cleaning all the rooms of the house from top to bottom. Oh, and getting rid of the big ugly shelves from our bedroom, and moving the treadmill to Don's sister's house for the duration. Are you tired yet? I sure was!!!
Then, last Monday (the 4th) we met with the realtors and went over the paperwork, and the house was officially listed on Tuesday the 5th. We had our first showing on Thursday, another on Friday, two more on Monday, and one on Tuesday. Yesterday, we received an offer on the house. Today we made a counteroffer. Now, we still have to go through mortgage approval, inspections, appraisals, etc., but I'm quite please at the pace this is going so far.
The scary thing is, Don's job search hasn't quite kept pace with the house sale. There have been some developments, but it's been very frustrating overall. I can't really go into details, but if you're praying folk, please send some his way.
We're looking at a tentative move date of July 1st. Thinking about all that needs to happen between now and then is enough to make me nauseous. Because in addition to all this, I've been working, Don's working, and the kids still have school, baseball, birthday parties, and lots of nerves to assuage.
One bite at a time. That's how you eat an elephant, and that's been my survival strategy for this process.

yelp

Sorry, been a bit busy. Trying to sell a house sucks. Will write when I can!

Happy Easter

Went to T-ball practice this morning, then baseball practice. Both went really well - I think this will be a good year for both boys. Good coaches, good teams, some skills seem to be kicking in. Kind of exciting! Froze my patootie, but managed to get a little sunburn on my forehead. We then went to Granny's for an early Easter celebration...5 cousins, lots of aunts and uncles, two violin and one flute recital...lots of noise and merriment. Don took advantage of a lull to say, "We have a little announcement..." which has previously always been followed by a pregnancy announcement, so moving was almost anti-climactic. Got home and did the Easter bunny thing...thinking about what I need to do tomorrow to get ready to pack up and head to NY for Grandma's funeral. If I had a second to stop and breathe, I might be more able to focus on contemplating the reason for Easter, but for now I'm just trying to keep my head in the game and do what I need to do. Love to you all!

On a completely different topic...

I stopped at my favorite consignment store today to look for a pair of baseball cleats for the boys, and discovered they're no longer selling children's clothes. I was bummed, and then I found out the reason why, and now I'm really bummed! Check out this website:
http://handsandhearts.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=98
This could mean no more kids clothes at thrift stores, no more kids books, no more used toys...that's where I do a LOT of my shopping! This is really crazy and kind of scary too. Way to make things even harder in this economy!!!

VA Beach bound!

Well, we've officially told the kids, so I guess we're going!
Lots of decisions yet to be made, but this one is at least done.
I'm feeling better about it every day - Don still struggling.

The kids reacted about as could be expected. They all cried - Tarzan first, loudly, with big wet tears. Cinderella second - louder, but no tears. Scooby last, lots of tears, but trying to be brave. None of them want to go. They brought up missing their school, Granny, their friends. Cinderella wanted to know if we were bringing her stuffed animals and her mattress. Tarzan wanted to know if we were going before spring break was over. Scooby had lots of questions - he came downstairs after the other two went to sleep and we cuddled and talked for awhile. We told them that right now we don't know the answers to a lot of their questions, but we'll let them know as soon as we can.

My brain hurts.

Well, finally...

Well, I finally tracked down the bas-tuds at BU and got them to admit that they weren't making me an offer. They took 1 student for directing and 2 for theater ed. I guess I can't feel too bad with those odds!
So, now I officially have all the information I need to make a decision. Notice, that's all the information "I" need. We are looking for a job in the VA beach area for Don - it doesn't look encouraging. The pay scale there is even lower than it is here!
Will have to make the decision "official" by Monday, and will have to tell the kids shortly afterwards, as we'll be seeing family over Easter, and will probably want to announce it then.
Schnikees - remind me why I'm doing this again?

The hole of silence

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)


So, jumping out of silence.

First the easy part - we got a van. It's not that great of a van, but it was within our price range. We decided, with other decisions looming on the horizon that have the potential to be extremely costly, that we would scale back and get what we could afford now, rather than reaching for something nicer that was somewhat out of our comfort zone. It's a burgandy (again) Chrysler Voyager, 2002, with 83,000 miles. It's very similar to the one we lost, but slightly smaller on the inside. It's very basic, not many bells and whistles, but we don't need those. I just hope it keeps running. We bought it from a private owner, who was the only owner and took great care of it (service records, oil changes, garage kept, etc.) Hopefully it will turn out to be a good buy.

Now the harder part. We are strongly leaning towards going to VA beach. However, neither of us it totally peacefull about the decision. They would like us to tell them TODAY whether or not we accept, but I'm thinking about asking for a couple more days. For one thing, I still haven't heard anything from BU. It's probably a negative, if I haven't heard by now, but I don't like making a decision without having all the information in front of me. Don thinks the fact that I would consider BU if they offered means I'm not 100% sold on Regent, and I should be 100% sure if we're going to uproot our whole lives. Well, I don't know if I'll ever be 100%, because I'm very aware of how disruptive this is going to be for everyone. But as I said, we're leaning that way. Right now my plan is to wait until the mailman comes, see if there's anything from BU, then decide from there if I need to ask Regent for more time. I'm hoping they won't have a problem with giving me until, say, Friday.

I believe in taking a step of faith - making a decision based on the belief that it is the right thing to do, even if you don't steps 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. all figured out ahead of time. Don has asked me if it wouldn't also be a step of faith to see a "good" opportunity, but pass it up for what might be a better one ahead. (A better one meaning reapplying to Pitt next year and hoping that I get in this time.) I suppose it could be, but I think if we went that way it would be more about fear and less about faith.

Is this a great time to be trying to look for a job, sell a house, get financial aid? Hm. Let me think. No. It's not. But this seems to be the time that we are in - the time that the opportunity is there.

So anyway, that's where we stand. It's very hard. Please keep praying and stuff. I'll try to stay more on top of sharing our process and not crawl back into the hole.

UPDATE: Well, the mail came, and still nothing from BU. I've sent an email to Regent asking for a couple more days.

Let me 'splain...

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Still looking for a van - have found several possibilities. The rental car is nice. I bought a new car seat and used the rest of the insurance car-seat replacement check for groceries.

Got an official offer from Regent University for their MFA program. I'm seriously considering it, which is throwing our home life into a tizzy. Even more of a tizzy. (Except the kids don't know anything about it yet, and I don't want them to yet, so shhhh.)

I have THE most amazing friends and family. Sheesh, post one meltdown blog post and everyone comes running with love and support and stuff. Maybe I should do that more often! (Just kidding)

I have a killer headache right now, so I'm going to eat some toast and go to bed.

Love you all!!!!

Warning...turbulence ahead.

Okay, fine. Fine! I'm NOT fine. I've been trying...TRYING SO HARD...to focus on the positives, to count my blessings, to be thankful for all we have. And I AM. I am thankful, and there are lots of positive blessings.
BUT.
Right now I'm going to vent. If you don't want to be spewed on, stop reading now.

The van is totalled. MY van is totalled. Which means, the insurance company now owns it, and they will, eventually give us some money for it. About $3800. Do you know what kind of minivan you can buy for $3800? Model: Jack. Make: Squat.
And, of course, they want the rental car back tomorrow. How am I supposed to function without a car? How am I supposed to look for another car without a car???
And the car seat.
Did I mention they have to destroy the car seat? The boosters are okay, but our nice, expensive toddler seat/convertible booster has to go.
I spent the day on the internet looking for cars. I found some exciting possibilites, but none panned out. What I want, what I'd really like to salvage out of this situation, is to upgrade to a nicer van, with low mileage, that won't break down within three months.
Alas, it is not to be. Because everything in our price range is crap. Cruddy looking, high mileage, leering at us, ready to break down if you blink at it.
Why is this always what it comes down to? Stupid frigging money. Everything is about money. Where we live, what we drive, what I fix for dinner, what activities the kids can do. I'm freaking sick of it. I HATE complaining about money. WHAT could be more boring. But guess what? It's boring living it too. Boring and frustrating and shitty. I know lots of people are living with it, dealing with it every day. I know many many many people are worse off than we are. I know these things. I know it's just how things are, and tomorrow, I'll go back to putting my head down and plowing through. Facing the day. Worrying about the future. Tomorrow.
Right now, I just want to be pissed off. And about that weight loss thing? I EAT when I'm pissed off and scared and frustrated. So poop.

Update

Everyone is fine. Repeat. Everyone is fine.

The van is at the repair shop. We will find out today if it can be repaired or if it will be totaled. Until then, I have a free loaner Chevy Malibu. Just call me Barbie.

The other car had a barely scratched bumper and a tiny dent. They stopped in front of Don to make a left turn, and he just didn't see them in time. He was turning the wheel as he tried to stop, which is why there's more damage on the driver's side.

Our airbags didn't go off, and the car drove home fine, so those are good signs.

According to the insurance lady, we need to replace the carseats, though. At least Cinderellas - she's not sure about the boosters. Another thing they'll let me know sometime today.

Everyone is fine.