Stranded

Has anyone else ever been held captive in their own bathroom due to a gregarious tuxedo-kitty bent on staying spread-eagled on the floor in the doorway, massaging the air with her paws?  Whoever thinks that a trip to the potty is a chance for alone time has obviously never tried to use the bathroom in my house.  And if you concede to the doorway hijacker, and give her sweetly fluffed belly a rub, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.  Just try to stop once you've started.  Give it two seconds, and you will hear a seductive, half-purred "Meh" come floating up from the floorboards.  Then, if you look down, she will wink at you.  With. one. eye.  Then, my friend, she has you forever- a hapless victim of her coy cuteness.

"Try to resist me. I dare you."

Update on the New House

It looks like the move-in date might be changed to June 11th.  The sellers are not thrilled about the idea of changing the closing date overall, and have flat-out refused the idea of leasing it to us for the month beforehand.  All of this because of that stupid 6500 dollars.  Boo.

I keep looking for the silver lining, and how all of this is in God's plan for my good.  At this point, I don't really have any solutions to that query, I'm just trusting that there is a blessing in all of this, despite my frustration.  And, I'm also choosing to tell myself that it could be worse. I could be not getting a new house at all. I could be getting a busted-up house that I had to spend thousands remodeling. But I'm not.  The house we are getting is used but in good condition, so I will have the blessing of being able the slowly work on it as we have the funds instead of having to basically rebuild it from the ground up before we can move in.  So, at least I have a lot to be thankful for.  And, as I learned on another lady's blog, I can also be thankful for the problem, and the character that it builds in me for things to not always go exactly as I would like for them to.

Teeth Update

I just realized that I hadn't posted since just before my surgery- that's what a Hydrocodone-induced haze will do for you, folks.  The surgery went well.  They sedated me, but kept me conscious.  They told me I wouldn't remember anything.  They lied. I remember it all.  I might not have been in control of all my mental faculties, but I remember everything, including rattling off statistics about the current real estate market to the polite dental assistant just after she stuffed my mouth chock-full of gauze pads.  Before she even more politely told me not to talk too much.

I even recall telling David on the way home that he owed me a puppy and that I needed to go eat some chips and salsa, since I wasn't strapped down and drugged anymore and they couldn't tell me what to do.  And "I like my life spicy!"

Once I got home I don't remember much, except that I suffered on the couch for awhile, afraid that I might go into a shock-induced coma if I fell asleep.  Then I finally decided a coma would be worth it and went to bed.

When I woke back up I was ravenous, so I had a tall glass of water and some vanilla yogurt.  It was like ambrosia. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 8:00 that morning, so I was beyond ready for a snack.  Plus, the water helped flush the awful taste from my mouth.  After the surgery, I had numbness on my entire head and scalp, except for my forehead.  By 8:00 that evening, most of the feeling had returned.  I was surprised and delighted because I had signed a form prior to the surgery saying that I was aware that there could be permanent nerve damage and loss of sensation in my cheeks and jaw, and that it could take up to 6 weeks for all the feeling to come back.  By the next morning, I had all the feeling in my face back, and at my check-up on Monday, they said that I was healing ahead of schedule.  Yay!

Mom and Dad came down Saturday and Sunday, and were a huge comfort.  There wasn't really anything I needed from them (though Mom washing all the dirty dishes was super helpful), but their presence was gratifying.  Sometimes when a person is under the weather they just need their mom.

Today I took my last dose of antibiotics.  And I have sworn off the majority of my use of narcotics after five days of use.  I had a scary moment this morning- I had gotten up to use the bathroom, and when I layed back down, I had this feeling of numbness over my whole body, and my extremities were falling asleep.  I felt for a pulse, and it was fast and shallow. I felt a few muscle jerks. I looked up the side effects of the pain meds online and noticed that my symptoms were along the lines of adverse reactions to the medication and symptoms of overdose. I decided to stay awake and drink a lot of water until I felt the medicine wear off a little.  I was really afraid that I would have to go to the emergency room or something.  After about thirty minutes I started feeling better, and I stayed awake until time for the next dose of medicine had passed.  I was surprised that I wasn't in much pain at all once the medicine started wearing off, and I don't think it's worth it to keep taking the Hydrocodone.  I would rather be a little sore than a little dead. I think I can manage the pain with Advil for now.

So, now that I have finished the antibiotics, I can finally get a full night's sleep instead of waking up every 6 hours for a dose of medicine.  You have no idea how happy I am about that.  And I am sure that David is happy about that as well since he has had to make sure that I woke up and took the medicine, just in case I slept through the alarm or something.

I have been so blessed the last few days to have such good support from my wonderful husband and friends from church.  David has been so good to me, and has obliged me with treats, foot rubs, back rubs, and drink services.  He has been a delightful supply of milk, juice, and water for me.  And he has had a great attitude about it all as well.  I am so grateful for him.  I'm also grateful for the prayers of our friends- I know God has been in charge of this whole process, and has allowed me to get through all of this with minimal discomfort and quick recovery.  And I'm also grateful for the food that some of our friends and family have brought over!

That's about everything as far as my whole tooth update.  On a different note, it is only one week from tomorrow until we move into our new house!  Woo hoo! Things are going well with that too.

Dentist Update and Other Things

Yesterday I was a little loopy all the way until bedtime, so I decided to just go to bed and post the update on my teeth today.  The good news is that I got one of my teeth patched up and repaired.  The bad news is that it wasn't the wisdom tooth.  The wisdom tooth has to come out, asap.  They didn't bother doing anything to it because they said that it was chipped down so close to the nerve that it would just crumble apart if they even tried to smooth the edges down a little.  And rupture.  And then I would be in a whole new world of pain.

The wisdom tooth chipped because apparently I had quite the cavity in it, and it just weakened to the point that eating a bean burrito made it fall to pieces.  So the dentist gasped when she saw what state it was in, and said that the break was micromillimeters from the nerve, and that it is absessed.  I am at risk of it rupturing and the infection spreading to the nerve.  So they put me on horse-pill antibiotics so that the infection would get better, and told me they would get me in as soon as possible to take not just the trouble-making tooth out, but all four of my wisdom teeth out.

So, I was like, "I'm sure we'll do all of this in a couple weeks or so...." Then, this morning the secretary called and said, "We can get you in tomorrow at 2!" And, I have to go in today for x-rays.

SO, now I am looking at major dental surgery tomorrow, sedation and all.  I am super scared.  You have no idea how many horror stories I've heard about people practically bleeding to death from getting their wisdom teeth out.  Granted, I would be okay with a little blood loss.  I think that I could probably lose a few gallons and still be healthy as an ox.  Maybe healthier, since who knows what kind of medical issues go on with oxen. In any case, it's better than slowly ingesting my crumbling teeth and then dying from infection.

Okay, I'm being a little dramatic.  I'm still scared, though.

As far as everything else goes, things are going well.  We had quite the drama going at the beginning of this week due to re-negotiating and stressing over the house contract on the new house.  We would really like to get the 6500 dollar tax credit for long-time homebuyers, which means that our closing date has to be after June 10th on the new house.  So, our realtor worked out a deal where we would lease the new house for a month and then close on June 11th.  And, we would net about 5500 dollars from getting the tax credit.  Hooray!

So, for a few days we thought we wouldn't get to move in until June 10th or 11th.  Then, we were stressed about all the little legalities in the qualifications for the tax credit.  To the point of gnawing off our own hind legs.  (Or grinding out our wisdom teeth....)

But, we have now settled into relief and excitement that this will all work out okay.  And we still get to move in on May 6.  Double hooray!

Now I just have to figure out how I am going to decorate and what repairs we can afford to make now, and what we have to wait for later on.  I am thinking that with all of the dentist stuff going on we will probably only be able to afford to paint with the leftover paint from fixing up this house, and steam clean the carpets myself with my own steam-cleaner.  One of the rooms has a Winnie-the-Pooh theme going on with medium blue walls, which is wonderful except for the fact that the child who lived in that room managed to rip about a third of the border off the walls next to the ceiling.  So, that room has to be redone.  And I have all kinds of fantastic daydreams about what color to paint it and how to decorate, but the reality is that it will be painted a muted shade of white with the leftovers of what we already have. The upside is that whenever I remodel it in the future, white is a great base color.  I'm just happy that I will finally get to have central air in my home this summer, and I will have a dishwasher!  Triple Hooray!

The Dentist

I have an appointment for The Dentist today.  Somehow, I managed to chip one of my wisdom teeth.  None of them have even finished growing in, seeing as how they are impacted and all.  And yet, I managed to chip one of them.  The rough edge in the back is tearing the inside of mouth up to holy heck, and my entire jaw hurts.  I don't know how I did it.  I don't know when I did it.  All I know is that the night before last it felt like something was stuck in my teeth back there after eating a bean burrito, and when I felt around back there I practically cut my finger on the rough edge of the tooth.  And it hurt when I touched it.

So I have a dentist appointment for this afternoon to get it checked out and taken care of.  When I called to schedule the appointment yesterday morning, apparently the girl that answered the phone was not familiar with me.  So, this morning, we got an urgent call from the highest-up of the office secretaries, who told us that my dentist said that if she was going to have to do any kind of "work" on my teeth (apparently more serious than a routine cleaning...) that she would have to have me take a Halidol beforehand.  So hooray, I get to get buzzed this afternoon. 

Which brings me to my next point, which is that we have only one car.  David was planning on just dropping me off before the appointment, then letting me call him when they were finished with me.  While waiting to be picked up, I was going to window-shop and just generally wander around.  I still don't think that's too bad of a plan, but I have my doubts as to whether or not it would be wise to unleash  me onto the general public while still under the effects of my sweet sweet medication.  Who knows, we might come home with another puppy.

Update on the House-Buying and Other Things

The new house is ripening swimmingly (it's okay if I mix my metaphors, right?).  Last Friday we had the inspection done by a guy recommended to us by Greg, and it took about 3 hours.  The walk-through took about 30 minutes.  The news is good.  There are no major problems with the house (thanks, God!).

Then, Monday evening we met over dinner with the loan shark  highway robber  loan officer, and signed our life away a whole bunch of papers to get the process started for applying for a mortgage.  We've been pre-approved already, so all of these papers and this process are just a formality at this point, or so I've been told.  Once the loan is approved and everything, then they will do the appraisal, and then we will close at the closing date, which is May 6.

So, basically we are just waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.

A really good thing that happened recently was that I went for an overnight get-away with some of the women from my ministry group at church to a lake house this past weekend.  I felt so refreshed during and afterwards, and it was just so nice to relax, talk, pray, and just soak in the beauty of nature for a few hours.  One of the most exciting parts for me was the halfway-civilized deer that would wander by occasionally.  At one point I spotted a mother and two fawns!  And they still had spots on their back!  Cute! :)

Also, I had a moment of conviction this afternoon.  I was reading the latest issue of Above Rubies magazine, and there was an article talking about how a lot of us have the Bible on a shelf, but not in our hearts.  I realized that a lot of times I pray for God's will to be done, or for Him to make His will known for me in certain things, and yet I spend so little time in the Word.  How can we discern what His will is if we are not reading his letter to us?  A lot of times I just go by what "seems Christian" instead of searching it out in the Word.  There are so many competing philosophies and influences in our world and culture that can sneak up on us and creep in when we are least expecting it. Plus, there are times when I get so focused on the things that I want, and I actively resist considering and waiting on what God's will is.  I have become renewed in my desire to fortify my mind and heart through reading the Word.

New House

We tentatively have a contract for our new house.  It's the same one as all along.  The sellers decided to be reasonable, and have even conceded a fridge.  ( We won't even go there as to what we conceded, now will we!)  And, because of the way the contract is written up, we have plenty of time (Lord willing... please, oh please God!) to sell  the house we have now. 

As always, the cats are super pumped about the coming change.

New News About the New House

The sellers on the house we want called Greg (our agent) and left a message yesterday morning saying they would come down a couple thousand dollars.  This is after they basically decided to walk away last week.  Greg said that it's like them waving a white flag and conceding defeat.  The new counter-offer they gave is still about 6,000 more than we can afford to pay on a house.  David and I discussed it, raised our offer a little tiny bit and sent it back to them.  We'll see what happens.  I think our prayer for the hedge of thorns worked, and hopefully they are ready to make a deal. Oh, and, in case you didn't catch it, the "hedge of thorns" thing was totally tongue-in-cheek....  ;)

Best Easter Ever

Yesterday was, in my humble opinion, the best Easter ever.  I liked that it was so very low-key.  David and I went to my oldest sister's house for lunch with my side of the family.  After lunch there was an Easter-egg hunt (indoors since it was raining...) for the two youngest members of the family- Shayce and Kylie.  Kylie kept finding eggs during lunch so that by the time it was actually time to officially start the egg hunt, my teenaged neices had to take a couple minutes and re-hide about half of the eggs.

I took my current crochet project with me to work on whenever the mood hit.  I got the opportunity to chat with pretty much everyone, and got several small granny-squares done for my next small blanket (for the hope chest).  David and I finally ended up leaving a little before midnight, after having some really good, deep, heartfelt conversation with my sister and her husband.  We closed the night in prayer, and I so enjoyed the feeling of unity amongst the four of us during and afterwards.  I love my family! :)

Yesterday was a wonderful family experience for me, helped by the fact that I have gotten older and more appreciative.  The atmosphere was just comfortable, companionable, and peaceful.  I felt so much joy in seeing them all, and my biggest accomplishment (in my opinion) was that I was able to let go of the expectation for them to please me or be perfect, and I just accepted and loved what was.  I can say with full honesty and heartfelt confidence that even if I could, I wouldn't change anything about any of them.  I love them all exactly as they are, for who they are.  And, I think I am truly beginning to feel the same way towards myself.

Not to say that I and my family don't have issues, or that I had an entire day without struggles, temptations, and trials with my temper. BUT, they and I are good enough. I'm one more step down the path toward "Anyway" love.  Not the kind of love that says "I will love you if ____, or when ___", but the kind that says "I will love you anyway."

House-buying Update

Ok, so this is the deal with the new house negotiations:  they are being stubborn and won't come down on their price.  We gave them a very very good counter-offer, but they are holding out over a few thousand dollars.  Greg thinks that they are waiting to see if they get any better offers over the weekend, maybe in the next couple of weeks.  Our position is that we are waiting to see what happens, and saying nothing else to them about it.  I am hoping that they get no other offers on their house, and that they sweat over this a bit.  Then maybe they will be a little more reasonable.  I also wonder if they were offended at our very first offer, which I must admit was pretty low. 

I feel pretty stressed about all of this, because I really liked that house.  I even had daydreams about our pets running around inside, and had begun considering which room would make a good nursery for when the time comes for that.  I have been praying for faith that God knows what is best for us in all of this, and that I can trust Him to take care of us.  I've also been praying for God to set a hedge of thorns around that property so that no one else shows any interest and they come back and beg us to take it off their hands....  Oh well, if this isn't the house for us, then I'm sure that God has something better just around the corner.

Update on the House-Buying

Okay, so this morning we signed the counter-counter-offer.  The day before yesterday they sent a counter-offer, and we have been discussing strategy, finances, and doing some good ol'-fashioned arithmetic (combined with a detailed examination of all the comparable houses sold in the area in the last two months).  After looking at all facets of the situation, we decided on a certain amount to offer.  This is after waffling for the last 24 hours back and forth between a couple of different bid ideas, but our realtor Greg finally told us that if we were willing to ultimately go with the higher amount, and were figuring on haggling back and forth one more time, that we needed to not do that. 

He said that it would irk the sellers and make them not want to deal with us at all.  Even if we were offering a really good price.  I totally understand what he meant because the sellers already irritate me because of the fact that they rejected us in the beginning (even though Greg told us not to take it personally...).

So we decided to go ahead and offer the slightly higher bid, and now we have both signed the offer contract and sent it in.  All this after much discussion and a three-way conference call between Greg, David, and Me.  (And I'm the one who figured out how to do that- how exciting!)

The good news is that if they take this bid then it will end up financially meeting all of our criteria (as in, not exceeding any of our limits) that we had discussed beforehand.  And they said they would throw in their dining set and matching hutch and refrigerator at no extra cost.  Happy dance!

All of this has been pretty nerve-racking for me.  I've been really nervous with the whole process of bandying around large amounts of money, as well as the stress of getting our house ready to sell, hoping for a buyer for our current house, and dealing with treading the tight-rope of finding a house I like, but that I don't like too much to walk away from.  David and I have been doing a lot of praying aloud the last few days with each other, and God has really helped me to feel more chilled out afterwards.

Another positive in all this is that David and I have had some more opportunities to learn how to resolve conflict with a win-win outcome.  And we have both learned a lot about how to deal with stress and our own feelings in constructive ways.  We had a really good moment the other day:  we were driving home, and discussing everything on the to-do list for the evening.  I could feel the tension building in myself, and could feel that I was starting to get overwhelmed.  Then, we both used slightly snippy tones with each other, and I realized, "Wow, we have a good learning moment here.  We can resolve this now, or we can ruin the rest of the night with sulking."  So, instead of fighting about it, we discussed how we were feeling- that he was feeling stressed because our time schedule, and I was feeling overwhelmed because of all we had to do. We came up with a resolution that consisted of relaxing four about 45 minutes after we got home, having a cold drink and a healthy snack, and then working on the house for 20 minutes.  When the 20 minutes were up, we would stop and start getting ready for bed, and whatever we got done in that time was going to be it for the night.  We both felt so much better after discussing our thoughts and feelings, and then coming up with a manageable solution.  And we had a great night together!  Yay!

And, some pictures of cuteness, just because!

My little Mackenzie (Mickey-mack)

Gizmo being wild and crazy

New House Update

David and I have been talking with our realtor Greg a lot recently.  Last night he told us that the people whose house we want decided to reject our offer, with an invitation for another offer tagged on the end of the letter.  Soooooo, Greg said he would talk to their realtor this morning and see what the deal was, and what their thinking about it is.  Then, we talked to him this evening and he said that he had talked to their realtor this afternoon, and their realtor is going to get them to counter our bid.  This is a good step.  Technically, once we get their counter-offer, then we are half a step closer to getting the house.  Once they counter-offer, their property is then tied up until we make a deal or walk away.  When they rejected our offer outright, that left them open to accept other offers and make a deal with someone else without saying boo to us about it.  Once we get a counter-offer, then we have first dibs and no competition until we either own the house or walk away.  I am very happy tonight, and in an entirely different place emotionally than last night, where I was in the depths of despair for the rest of the night because of the rejection.  So, further proof that God is good, and that I need to just trust that He will work this all out for the best, even if that means this isn't the house for us.  But we still need prayers.