Season of Life

I have been thinking a lot lately that I am not in a season of "having fun"! Being an adult is not all that it is cracked up to be. In fact, I tried to explain this to my kids the other day. It is rare that I laugh until my stomach hurts, I have so much to do, and I look around at all the boxes and everything I need to buy to make our house "liveable", and it is overwhelming. Back in the day, I laughed all the time, I laughed and laughed and laughed, people would always comment on my laugh, but I think the times have changed. I miss laughing, but I realize now that my life is much fuller without all the laughter. When I do laugh now, it is a meaningful laugh, one that is brought on by people I love. My kids come up and hug me a million and one times a day, tell me they love me, and give me lots of hugs and kisses. While this doesn't make me laugh, it makes my heart smile for sure. I think my definition of fun has just changed. Being alone in my house, that is fun. Having a pajama party with friends, that is fun. Playing board games or going swimming, taking a road trip, heading to Disneyland, while these may not scream laugh until your stomach hurts fun, they are good for my soul, so instead of focusing on how I don't laugh as much anymore. I am going to focus on the good that I do have, and how it is all just a little bit different. Especially how much more fun I do have in my life because of these two:

Ten on Tuesday

1. Happy 60th Birthday to my MIL! Hope she is having a wonderful day and eating lots of great food.

2. I have an excruciating headache today, it started as a stomach ache this morning, but has remained in my head and face the rest of the day. I have tried to suck it up and took the kids swimming, but mostly I unpacked my five boxes and tried to lie down as much as possible.

3. My goal is to unpack five boxes a day until they are all unpacked. So far this week I am two for two. YAY!

4. I tried to reimburse my mom for letting us stay with her while we were homeless because I would crank the air down, the water we used was much more than she normally does, etc. What does she do? She took the money and spent it on things we need around here. Some things never change-love my mom!

5. My sister and I took the kids to Cinnabon for a "snack" yesterday. While Tyler may not eat much on a daily basis, that girl will THROW DOWN dessert. She ate a large majority of the regular size cinnamon roll with me sneaking an occasional bite or two.

6. I am contemplating lying my head down on the desk and taking a break while writing this. OMG! It hurts so bad, and if it is a migraine, I will have to go sit in the gross doctor's office to get a prescription. I was holding my ice water cup to my head for awhile, it didn't help much.

7. Pat didn't get home until 10 last night, I love our security system, it makes me feel safe when I hear weird noises alone here at night.

8. I tweeted about how I cannot imagine sleeping with my bedroom door open, but it looks like I will be starting to do just that because I think the air flow will be better, and it will be cooler in there.

9. Fantasy Football will be starting again soon! YAY! So glad the lock out is over!

10. Our thermostat is on the same wall as our oven. Can someone? anyone? explain to me who thought that was a good idea. The second I turn the oven on the temperature spikes about six degrees and continues to go up! UGH!

Ten on Tuesday

This week's edition is brought to you by some of the things I have spent money on recently.

1. $350 for two new tires.

2. $7.99 for a temporary shower rod at Target.

3. $12 for an in air snack when heading home from Seattle-really worth every penny because it entertained a whiny, crying Tyler for a little bit of time.

4. $40.11 at Macayo's last Sunday. It was seriously the best meal and I scarfed it down. It seemed like it took FOREVER for us to actually GET to the restaurant, BUT once we got there, YUM YUM!

5. Haven't spent the money yet, but I lost my camera in Seattle, so I will have to get a new one, BOO!

6. $1300 for a new refrigerator, and worth every single penny. Once Pat and I figured out we had to put the filter in so that the water would stop tasting like a**, it made every penny worth it.

7. $874 on new carpet for the bedrooms. Shout out to Avilez Carpet and Tile. Seriously the only thing that has gone smoothly in this entire housing fiasco.

8. $55 to repair my leaking toilet so that we can go back to the land of two toilets again because one just isn't cutting it.

9. $480 for a home warranty, best money ever spent.

10. $117 for a new cell phone because the battery on my old one kept dying, not surprising, I don't think it was the phone, I think it is the amount I use it because the new one dies just as quickly!

The Timeline

I think everyone knows that when someone is given a closing date, it is pretty arbitrary! Yes, you might not close on time. Yes, it may be a week later. Yes, things may go wrong. But, I don't think anyone ever thinks it is going to happen to them.

I was skeptical from the start. I didn't really think we would close on the 28th. The issue with closing on time for us stemmed from the fact that we had to move out of our house on the 30th, AND there was a $100 a day penalty that we incurred if we didn't close on time. These two factors caused me to lose A LOT of sleep over the past two months. Pat wanted to discuss schedules, buy refrigerators, set up deliveries, painters, carpet, etc. I just kept telling him that I would plan for it once we closed on the house, or got some sort of confirmation we were going to close. The Friday before we were set to close (closing was on a Tuesday), we were still waiting on the inspection report to come in. As of Friday evening, the inspection wasn't in, but according to Eddy at compASS bank, if it came in Monday morning, we could still close on Tuesday. BIG FAT LIE!

Once the inspection came in late Monday afternoon, it wasn't reviewed until Tuesday (THE DAY WE WERE SET TO CLOSE!). It was determined that we needed to put additional money down because the house was in a declining market (WHAT HOUSE ISN'T these days), and we had to put money in escrow for carpet, a window and an interior door. ONE the window had already been replaced and documentation had been sent, two the amount they were estimating carpet to be was ludicrous (HELLO Avilez Carpet and Tile), and three we planned on replacing the interior door because it had a hole in it, but isn't that cosmetic and up to me whether or not we want to freaking replace the door?

We agreed to all of these items because let's face it. We didn't have any options, and we needed somewhere to live, and we needed to close FAST! So, it was said by Eddy that we should close Wed or Thursday. On Wednesday, we were still getting no answers, so Pat found a random number on the inspection report and called it. This lady at compASS bank, is seriously the only good thing I can say about the bank. She told Pat that on June 17th she emailed Eddy and told him that we weren't going to be able to close on the 28th, and that our new closing date was to be July 13th. She never heard back from Eddy (WHO PAT CALLED EVERY SINGLE DAY!), and so she assumed the new closing date was fine.

This lady, Margie or Martie, I can't remember her name was an ANGEL! She pushed everything through so quickly, she gave Pat her own personal cell number, she got it done. And her supervisor, equally as helpful. If anyone deserves a gift basket, it is this woman. It was in final review by Thursday, and she got it done.

We are now up to Friday, Pat went to the Title office and sat there ALL DAY. The title company wasn't going to look at it on Friday because they assumed we knew that it would be 48 hours from the time it got to their office. Pat explained to her the situation, and she literally did everything in her power to get it done on Friday. She also deserves a smaller gift basket because she wasn't very nice about all of it, but she still did it. My next post will be about the phone call I got while I was in my bathing suit at the Pointe stating that I needed to get to the title company as fast as possible (picture AMAZING RACE!). We signed the papers on Friday, but the seller didn't sign them in time, so we had to wait to close until Tuesday.

When Pat met the realtor at the home to unload the U-Haul on Tuesday evening, the lock box wasn't working, so they couldn't get the keys out. Once again, the phone calls started and it was a little dramatic. Thankfully Pat's dad, Jim, had some tools in his truck, they CUT the lock box off and smashed it to get into the house. Nothing says, "Welcome Home!" like smashing a box to get the keys. They managed to get everything into the garage before the Haboob hit (a whole other posted is needed about this word too!)

So now, it is all about finding everything that is wrong, getting it painted, carpeted, and unpacking to find the stuff we need for Seattle. But, the kids and I are at my mom's house until Saturday, and we are pretending we are jet setting celebrities that pop in and out and take off on trips on a whim. I bought a whole new wardrobe at Old Navy yesterday because I seriously have NO IDEA where all my clothes are, storage unit or garage? It has been such a disaster, but I wouldn't have wanted to do it with anyone other than Pat. He has been such a trooper, and he has shown that no matter what happens, he will always take care of us!