We survived closing!

After a chaotic morning and 1.5 hours at the title company, we have the keys to our new house! It's been a rough road but I'm sure it's worth it.

So tomorrow is the big day....

Tomorrow at noon we close on our new house. It's been such a wild ride and I've honestly got to say that I'm anxious for it to be over. The buyer on our condo backed out on Monday and then changed their mind again. So it is still "sold". Hooray!

We saw the new house today and it is BEAUTIFUL! I am really looking forward to living there.

Hoppy Easter!

I hope that the bunny was good to you and left you lots of chocolate!

SOLD!

Well, most likely anyway our condo has sold. We accepted an offer today. Now we just have to get through the home inspection and apprasial. Woohoo!

Feeling like a scaredy cat today...

Today is not a good day.

Today I had a major panic/anxiety attack. And really all for nothing. We were supposed to have a 9am showing. Getting the kids up, dressed and fed in time to leave is a major feat in itself. Then you throw in cleaning.... AAAARGH!

3 hours later I still have an adrenaline rush. I wish I didn't have this anxiety disorder. I feel like a cat with it's hairs standing on end. I probably look like one too.



After we got home, (because naturally I have to take the kids out during the showing) the realtor's office calls to cancel. So it was all for nothing. Try telling that to my "fight or flight" response though....it's still worked up. I hate when this happens to me because it wears me out for the rest of the day. It's exhausting to have my body so worked up and to worry so much. I know that after I finally calm down all that I'll feel like doing is staring at a wall, but I can't do that. I have too many responsibilities today: packing, taking care of my toddle tot, a Geology test and Political Science homework. Aaargh!

I really can't wait until we move out next Wednesday because I really think that will help my anxiety. To me, having strangers in my home pawing through my things is like the worst thing that could happen.

I am nervous about going to belly dancing tomorrow too. Last week I flipped out. To someone who doesn't have anxiety this is going to sound so lame, but here's why: We had to get into a "V" formation. Usually we all stand in our spots and dance there. Well this dance calls for us getting into a "V", changing places in the "V" and then going into a circle. Freaks me the heck out.


One more week of this, and hopefully...life will start to be normal again.

One more week!

One week from tomorrow is our closing!!!

We even have a showing bright and early tomorrow morning so hopefully it will go well. I am anxious to sell the condo.

Hip Hop Easter

You have to check out this link. It had me laughing my tail off. Make sure your speakers are turned on.
http://www.debsfunpages.com/easterswf/rapeasterbunny.swf

What your sleep position reveals about your relationship

I thought this was interesting: http://women.msn.com/1073061.armx?GT1=6211

Josh and I are spooners:
"The Spoon So close, so safe, this is the most common sleep position for the first three to five years of marriage. "Usually, the man is the embracer," says psychiatrist Samuel Dunkell, M.D., author of Good-bye Insomnia, Hello Sleep, who has been analyzing the body language of sleep for more than 25 years. "When a woman assumes the posterior position, it may indicate she is the more giving partner or that he needs special nurturing."
Semifetal, the Spoon provides both of you with maximum physical closeness, though it's not necessarily erotic. "Many couples simply find the Spoon a comforting, safe cocoon," explains Shirley P. Glass, Ph.D., a psychologist and marital therapist in Baltimore.
During early marriage, couples tend to maintain the spoon position for much of the night, mirroring each other. "When one person turns, the other follows suit, so that the spoon position is resumed on the opposite side," says Dr. Dunkell. But just because you've been married a while doesn't mean you have to give up this closeness. "When my husband hits the snooze alarm in the morning, it's our cue to spoon until the day can't be postponed any longer," says"

The countdown begins!

Allegedly in 9 more days we shall close on our new house! I am so excited but yet at the same time can't imagine that we'll finally be living there. There have been so many obstacles along the way that it almost seemed impossible that we'd get the house.

Doin' the happy dance!

The bank just got called and we got approved for our new 100% loan and we will be closing March 30th! Wooohooo! We might get knocked down, but we bounce back!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

"St. Patrick... one of the few saints whose feast day presents the opportunity to get determinedly whacked and make a fool of oneself all under the guise of acting Irish."
...... Charles M. Madigan

I actually am Irish, but I won't be doing anything traditional today to celebrate. Tonight is belly dancing which will be cool. I am ashamed to say that I don't have anything green to wear, but both kids are in green today. Miss Abby has it on from head to toe, very stylin'.

What I hope to be celebrating today is an offer on the condo or the final approval from the bank on the new loan. *crossing fingers*

Trash can tango!

Today we have 2 showings, which is of course good news. However the first one came with only a 1/2 hour notice. Ever try to speedily clean a house while tripping over a "helpful" 2 year old? Not fun. I was pretty much feeling nuts by the time we got out of here for the showing.

So off we went to Target to run some errands. For me going to the store really sucks because of my anxiety thing. It's a double whammy when I'm also worried about the showing and whether or not we'll get approved for this new mortgage. So I guess it was no surprise that when I got home, I accidentally threw my keys away in the outside trash can (which reeked of cat pee BTW). Naturally they landed on the bottom of the can so I had to tip the can over and basically crawl inside to retrieve my keys. Ewwww!

The Elusive Zzzz's

So now that I've shaken my stress induced insomnia, I want to sleep like all the time. I find myself dozing off while I'm reading or watching tv. I feel like I have to take a nap every day when Abby does too. It seems like I can't get enough sleep.

Last night we went to bed early because I was exhausted. Josh promptly fell asleep and then embarked on a night long mission to steal the blankets and try to push me on the floor. I tried waking him up several times to ask him to knock it off, but I had no luck. I even tried sleeping on the couch, but for some reason it riled the cats up and they were jumping all over me so that didn't work. Aaack! So today I am more tired than over. How silly is that?

This was a scary sight!

Thursday I went over to my parents' house because Cassandra and I have our belly dance. Because I'm rude I just let myself in and walked on in. I said "hello!" and my mom kind of gruffly answered back "hello". Then I found her sitting in front of the wood burning stove shoving bank documents into the fire. WOAH! Naturally I'm wondering what the heck she is doing because it looked awfully fishy.

Luckily she was just getting rid of really old records that she didn't feel like shredding. Phew! I can't ever complain that my family is boring.

Today was our open house!

We had 3 families come through. 1 of them was the family that saw our place TWICE on Friday. 2 of the 4 showings were for them on Friday. So hopefully we'll get an offer soon.

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace. "
....Buddha

3 Showings tomorrow

We have 3 showings tomorrow...woohooo! Cross your fingers.

I finished the fairy painting!

I finally got the fairy's mouth right! The trick was using a paint pen. It feels a bit like cheating, but I'm pleased with the final result. The gold in her hair didn't photograph too well, but it looks good in person.

A picture of my lemon siding

Something to make you think today

Here is a little morsel to ponder while I'm "suffering" through this whole home sale business....

"Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration. True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial... Suffering is valuable only as a test of faith. What if our faith fails the test? Is it good to suffer, then? What if we enter into suffering with a strong faith in suffering, and then discover that suffering destroys us?"
......Thomas Merton

Investing in "fun"?

I have recently learned of this game called Cashflow. I learned about it when someone I thought I knew turned from nice to nasty.

Check it out: http://www.richdad.com/cashflow-game-cash-flow-game-rich-dad-products.html

Not that I'm thinking all persons interested in investing are weird, but I just don't get how you could play a game about investing. It seems like Monopoly gone wrong. I can think of many things that I would rather do for "fun" than a play an investing game. Like give my cats a bath, clean out my sock drawer or ooooo....get eaten by a goat. But, to each his own I guess.

Just can't sleep

Our condo is on the market since our buyer (*ahem*, biotch) backed out. While I am confident that it will sell, I am also hugely freaked out by the process of being "on the market". I am unable to sleep because I am up thinking about the horrors (at least to me) of strangers in my home. It's been one long anxiety attack since Friday when I found out that we'd have to go this route.

I have no choice but to keeping plugging and hope for the best. I believe that things always happen for a reason.

"Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence."
...... Buddha

Love your body...

"The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor."
— Martha Graham

Updated picture of "our" house

Here is a more recent picture of our townhouse. I am still hoping we'll get to live there. :o(

It's really hard to be patient...

Today I am still sick. I definitely have some sort of horrid nasty cold or the flu. Bleck! While I did have a nice dinner with my sis last night (we could have fun doing anything!), we did not wind up going to belly dancing. I had visions of trying to shimmy while also trying to blow my nose. Icky... So I didn't try it. Plus with the body aches, moving is kind of the last thing I want to do. I just want it to go away. I hate being sick.

It looks as though our contract with selling our home is going to fall through. I am waiting to hear something from my hubby and it's so hard to wait. I am hoping that by some miracle we are able to work things out with our buyer. I so do not want to go on the market. I want to be in our new home at the end of the month like we should be, not trying to get our condo sold.

So, I sit here waiting. Waiting for Evan to go to school so I can hop in the shower. (Ah, there's nothing like a hot shower when you have the flu!) Waiting for some news on our home sale. Waiting to feel just a little better. Waiting sucks.


"Being means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!"

.....Rainer Maria Rilke

Things that make me go hmm....

How is that I could have a horrible cold/flu for 2 days, then feel fine, and now it's back? Hmmm? That's not cool.... I'm too busy to be feeling sick right now. Plus today I have to go take a Geology test that I'm SO not prepared for and tonight is our first belly dancing class.

Another thing that I cannot figure is how to paint a mouth on a fairy. Sounds simple enough right? Well I have my fairy painting done except for the darn mouth. I have tried 3 times and she always winds up looking like she put lipstick on in the dark. Ugh. Perhaps she was meant to have no mouth like Hello Kitty? Try, try again I guess....

***House update***

Apparently our buyer's bank is allowing us to get another appraisal (because the first appraiser was smoking crack or something)but we must pay for it. Sure, no problem....I'll just run to that money tree we keep in our closet. Uh huh... But at least there is a good chance of this getting worked out.

I'm thinking of changing careers..

I know that it's common for students to change majors. But I'm thinking of changing schools and career paths totally.

I am currently majoring in Political Science with intentions of going to law school. All total, I'm looking at 5 more years of school, full time of course before I'm done and able to get a job. But the challenge of not only going to school, but taking care of my family and running my eBay business is really stressing me out. Not just a little worry, but like all consuming anxiety.

So I have come to the conclusion that something has to change. I am considering going to beauty school. I know that's a big change from being a lawyer. But I could actually be done with school before I'm 34. That is pretty appealing to me. And I do think I'd enjoy doing hair and/or nails. With everything going on with school and the house, I'm definitely not going to be rushing to make any big decisions. And I do know that I will be getting my associate's degree no matter what. I'm just not sure what will come next for me.

Or

????????

Ebay does know how to apologize

HA! to my troll who thought they were so splendid for getting my auction improperly pulled on me. I got this email from eBay today:

Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to write eBay with your concerns. I'm happy to help you further. I have reviewed your account history and the action taken with regard tothe auction listing in question. I have determined that your auction was incorrectly ended. I can certainly understand the dissatisfaction and aggravation of having your listing ended and ask that you please accept our apologies for this mistake. I have made an amendment to your account to remove the Search Manipulation violation from your account history. Also, if you're not already aware, your listing fees for the auction(s) that eBay removed have been refunded to your account.Please feel free to relist this item on eBay at your convenience and we are sorry for any inconvenience it might have caused you. It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.

Regards,
Archibald
eBay Community Watch


By the way, who still names their children Archibald? Poor guy!

Why does buying/selling a house have to suck so bad?!?

Our appraisal report came back for $5,000 less than we expected. $5,000 less than our last appraisal actually. This of course causes a downward spiral of a lot of trouble. GRRR!

I need a break.

Embrace your belly fat!

I am feeling a little better today...if only I could shake the dizzy, out of body feelings I'm having.

Speaking of bodies, I found a great website about body image that I must share. http://www.lovingyourcurves.com Check it out.