Things he's said today:

People frequently shake their heads at me.  I have grown accustomed to this display.  Accepted it.  Embraced it, even.  Because even though they don't understand me, I'm coming to understand myself just a little bit better despite their opinion of my relative insanity.

that one...down there in those pictures...minus the furniture...

Just to give you a feel for the place...we're waiting to hear on an offer we made about half an hour ago.  We'll see.  I mean, it might help that we made an almost full-priced offer and they accepted it once before...but you know...whatever. :)

...we're going to see six houses, starting at 9:30am.  This is my favorite:



I know you can't see much of the house because of all of the (ahem) gorgeous landscaping, but...it's beautiful.  We looked at this house and put a verbal offer on it right before we made arrangements to move in here.  I loved it then...I still love it.

This is one of the many reasons why I love it:



And the water actually is that color.  Not green.  Imagine that.  Oh, and I could move into that house just enjoy the space right off the bat.  No major changes necessary at all. 

We shall see.  I'll keep you posted.

We officially submitted paperwork today to have our deposit returned to us from this house.  We will be moving.  Again.  We have scheduled 7 houses to see on Monday...and we have our pre-approval letter for a mortgage to cover the asking price of any of those houses...plus some.  The current home owners are considering letting us stay in the house until we close on another one.  Somebody please remind them that they signed a lease agreement with us stating that they agreed to just that.  Please.

If you know of any college students who would like to come pack and move my house for me in a month or so, please send them my way.  I will not pay them what a moving company would ask, but I have two wedding cakes and two more weddings this summer.  I'll give them every dime I make on cakes and weddings.  I'll even work on getting a couple more cakes in the meantime to supplement that figure.

OK, so I'm totally kidding.  I'll do it myself.  I'm too much of a freak about how my stuff gets packed to ever let anyone pack it for me...but it was fun to think about for a minute.  Heck, it bugs me the way the girls at the check-out at Wegmans pack my grocery bags. 

I think I might go have a nervous breakdown now.  Maybe right here in the middle of this hideous, pink-tiled floor.

Could somebody call my husband and let him know?

Thanks.

Whatever.  That is just the theme of my life lately.  There is absolutely nothing I can do about anything, everything that can possibly go wrong is going wrong, and there is literally no end in sight.  We're here.  We're stuck.  And this is the way it is. 

Period.

For a while the catch phrase around our house was "we'll get there" or "we'll figure it out."  After more than a year now of saying that, we've reached the "whatever" stage. The dog pooped all over the carpet?  Whatever.  The pool we just spent $700 on (umm, yesterday) still won't filter anything through the skimmer?  Whatever.  The stove gets repaired and the repair guy still can't get it to work?  Whatever.  No working oven and 2 wedding cakes in the next three weeks?  Whatever.  We get an email from our previous landlord saying they couldn't find the $10 smoke detector from the upstairs after we left the house (when asked about getting our deposit back)?  Whatever.  Five bears in the side yard at 8:15 on a Monday night while Seth's out of town?  Whatever.  My ten-year-old wakes me up between 3 and 3:30 every morning because she's freaked out about something else?  Whatever.  Who needs a full night's sleep anyway?  We get a call on a Monday asking if we're ready to close on Thursday on a house we absolutely know the owners don't have their money around to close on?  Whatever.  There's only $25 left in checking with more than a week until the next paycheck comes?  Whatever.

Whatever.

Really, what else is there to say? 

The thing that's irritating is that I'm still so freaking hopeful!  I keep thinking, with every new situation, that things just have to turn around.  I mean, really.  How many crummy, awful, lousy things can happen to one family?? 

Obviously many.  Many many many.

Ten years ago, I would have had a chipper, positive, "this will get better" outlook.  I know I would have.  I apologize profusely for my cynical, irritated viewpoint right now, friends.  But, wow.  I think I need to go sleep this off.

Like I'm going to fall asleep. Ha.

See?  I can still make myself laugh anyway.

Prayers welcome.

Seth called a few minutes ago.  His words: "So, I just got off the phone with [our realtor], and she said, 'So, are you ready to close on Thursday?' and I said, 'What??  Are you kidding me?' 'Well, it is the date that's in your contract--this is what you agreed to,' and I said, 'Uh, yeah, but when we spoke to [the owners] last week, they said they still needed to come up with a couple thousand dollars before they were ready, and we still need paperwork from our bank,' and she said, 'Well I got a call from [their realtor] last week and he's asking for your commitment letter and a copy of the contract saying that they're ready to go,' and I said, 'Why are we just finding out now?' "

You know...if I didn't love this house...and the pool (which we will have dumped $1000 into by the end of the day)...and the space (which I still haven't entirely figured out)...and the setting (although, I have to tell you...I don't love living in the woods)...and the landscaping (which is a heck of a lot of work)...and the beautiful deck (which is also going to be a heck of a lot of work in August)...and the humongous kitchen (no qualifier there...it's heaven-in-a-house...and my stove will be working tomorrow!)...if I didn't love this house, I would be hoping that the closing never actually happened.  Our mortgage terms end as of August 5, our lease commitment here ends Aug. 15.  If they don't have a closing date by then, we are no longer bound to buy the house.  Honestly, I'm just so sick of the run around, and the lack of integrity, and not finding things out until the last minute, and wondering what's going to go wrong next (the list so far is long)...it would almost be worth starting the process over, and packing and unpacking again.  Unfortunately...that sounds pretty daunting as well.  It would just be good to have things done at this point.  I'm pretty tired of it all.

Every year, we head to Cowanesque Lake for a week or so of camping fun with my parents.  We bring our camper, they bring theirs, we put together all of our food stuffs, we spend every waking moment together, we boat and fish and swim and ski and tube and hike and otherwise wear out ourselves and the children every single day.  Sometimes, my brothers join us with their wives and children and add to the...well, insanity.  This year, when everyone was there, we had 16 people (8 adults, 8 children) and six dogs in my parents' camper eating meals and watching a movie...because outside, it poured down rain.  My parents' camper sleeps 5.  Things were...cozy.  :)  Honestly, wouldn't have it any other way.  But wow. 

It's good to be home.