Happenings

We have had a lot going on lately! For whatever reason, we've been working like crazy around here on projects- I've been working on painting the metalwork inside my house- handrails and such- and David re-wired the garage this past weekend.  Also, I planted an apple seed a few days ago, and have been enjoying watching it start to grow.  I gave up on growing my avocado tree- the heat wave this summer dried it out to the point that it finally gave up the ghost.  I was very sad about it, and despaired of ever growing anything again. Then, a week ago, I was slicing an apple and found one of the seeds had sprouted a root! I was delighted and folded it up inside a wet paper towel to see if it would continue growing.  It did, so a couple days later I put it in a pot with some soil, and now it has two leaves!

Another project I've been working on is getting the carpets in my house washed.  I've been doing it a bit at a time.  Last Friday afternoon I did a big chunk in the middle of the living room floor where there were several spots in preparation for a prayer meeting that night.  It was our first ever prayer meeting, and it was wonderful.  One of our friends had one about a month ago, and we couldn't make it.  I was so sad that I didn't get to go that I decided to just have one myself!

I have also been enjoying figuring out how to beautify my home without spending a fortune.  I went to Dollar Tree the other day, and found little miniature pots with fall-colored fake flowers in them, and bought a couple for my dining table.  Then I selected some yellow flowers from their other floral decorations, and picked out a small vase to put them in, and made a decoration for my breakfast table.  I also got some of their small river rocks, and a couple of larger glass vases, and made a little seashell, button, and rock display on my living room mantle.  The result has been wonderful, I think, and not too expensive!  I just love the dollar tree!

Cat Update

Guess who discovered a new hiding place last night?

When we first looked at this house, we predicted that Trinket would enjoy this spot.  We made it over two months before she discovered it.  She was hilarious.  She couldn't understand why we couldn't pet her when she sits on the edge like when she sits on the edge of the bed.

Gizmo is also doing good.  She seems like she has become fairly satisfied with our food choice for her as of late, but still has moments when she clearly is holding out for something from a can (tuna, anyone?).  Plus, even when she comes up and rubs your legs, if you try to pet her, she has an immediate duck-and-weave response.  Like she's thinking, "Ack! My head! My head will come off!"

It's All in a Hard Day's Work

Today I did several productive things.  First, we went to the vitamin store around the corner (oh how I looooove living in Garland instead of Lancaster....) and got the vitamins I was advised to get by my doctor (the special one).  I got Vitamin D, but I got the drops instead of the pills.  I felt that if it was in liquid form I might have an easier time absorbing it.  And, I got the calcium supplements as well.  Plus, for good measure I threw in a sublingual Vitamin B/ Folic Acid supplement.  They taste like cherry!

Then, we headed home. On the way, I spotted a garage sale sign, and we decided to drive by.  The third one on that particular street looked promising, so we got out to look.  David found a new lawn mower for 60 dollars! I got Kylie a pair of sparkly red sneakers for a dollar.

Then, we really headed home.  I got to work sorting books, toys, and teaching tools into a semblance of organization up in the girls' guest room, as well as choosing some to share with some of our friends at church who homeschool and have kids under the age of eight. Also, Mom and Dad came over and helped. Dad and David worked really hard moving book shelves up to the second story from the garage, and then hanging all the shelves and pictures in the guest room. At the beginning of today, the guest room was mostly empty, and here are some pictures after a full afternoon of work:

Mom hanging up some of the dress-up outfits.

The rest of the room, with not quite everything put away yet.

Notice the sleeping man... my dad worked Hard!!

The upstairs sitting area.  Where did the cats go you might ask?

Peekaboo! They found a cozy little corner to cuddle in.

Trinket: "Hey, I thought I had successfully ducked the papparazzi...."

My main man. ^.^

The entry, plus part of the dining area.

The view from the entry- love those arches!

I just love our new house. I picked out the colors on the walls, too (at least in the downstairs and the guest bedroom...)!  I like how they turned out. We have increased our living space by 250% by moving.  It's big enough that we each have lots of elbow room, but not so big that we could lose one another in it.  I feel like this house fits us better than anywhere else possibly could. Thank you, God, for our wonderful home! 

My Gas Stove

Today I am using my gas stove for the first time.  Wonderful David got the fire on it started for me, and relieved me of the stress-inducing job of playing with the combination of fire and natural gas.  Needless to say, I am a bit of a baby, and he is good to me.

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Okay, just finished my virgin run on the new stove.  I have never cooked spaghetti this quick before in my life. Fabulous!

This is my third day without meat.  Last night, though was a little rough.  We went to a buffet for my dad's birthday- his 75th, as a matter of fact.  I stayed away from all the meat, but I did splurge a little with a couple dishes with cheese or butter in them.  Overall I consider it a success though.  Today I have done very well- lunch was a large salad with spinach, tomatoes, guacamole, and italian salad dressing, with an orange and banana as a side dish.  Dinner tonight is spaghetti with mushroom sauce, salad, and fruit.  I haven't decided to give up my sodas yet- they are my comfort food through all this change.  And I still maintain that I will only do this as long as I want to, and I have permission to stop at any time. And I feel great about all of it! :)

Happenings

Yesterday I ate no meat.  I also ate little other than raw fruit.  I had oatmeal for dinner though, along with my fruit.  I woke up yesterday morning with what I feel is an inspired drive to start eating healthier.  I haven't decided for how long I will forego meat.  I might not even continue through this evening.  The point is, I want to for now, and I will continue for as long as I want to, and I have given myself permission to stop at anytime.  And I think that is the most important principle: all of us strive against rules, myself immensely so. It's deeply embedded in my nature to lust after the forbidden fruit.  So, in order to have success, I make it so that I am okay either way. I am also praying for God to teach me to love submission.  I think that there is so so much to be said for those who have the skill of making up their mind to do something, and then accomplishing it.  I'm slowly getting there. God and I are working together on slowly taming my rebellious heart, and I see improvements every day.

I felt better this morning when I woke up.  I felt lighter, and I had more energy.  And, I managed to feel well-rested after only eight hours of sleep.  That is huge for me.  The last few days I have been feeling tired, and I have been sleeping in a little later every day. A lot of times I would still feel tired after sleeping for ten or eleven hours.  Not so this morning! :)

I think the trick to making any sort of dietary change is to wait to eat until you are very, very hungry.  Then, everything tastes like ambrosia!

I've also been slowly tackling getting my house in order.  The new house is still piled with boxes, yet it feels comfortable.  My furniture is surprisingly suited color-wise to the curtains that were left by the people who lived here before.  And, the color that I chose for the walls adds the perfect final touch.  Now I just have to go scrounge around in some thrift stores and garage sales until I find the perfect artwork for the walls.  In my new house I want to keep things as simple and uncluttered as possible.  I have been forcing myself to let go of a lot of things the last few weeks, and it really shows!  My bedroom is almost completely finished, and my kitchen is getting close to being done.  I think I might do some laundry today, too! It's easy because my washer and dryer are inside.

I have been feeling so appreciative of things that I took for granted before- toilets that work without having to be jiggled, dishwashers, laundry in air conditioning, vent to the outside for the dryer, and my wonderful husband for providing me with all of the above.  And also, I thank God for providing us with everything, and for giving us challenges to help us appreciate what would otherwise be normalcy.

Moved In

Ahhh, finally back on the computer for the first time in a long while!  All of our stuff is officially inside our new house.  We are no longer moving things from house to house, but are now working on moving things out of boxes into their new spots inside our new house.

I have accomplished so much in the last week!  And, I have had so so so so much help to do so! I have had more people inside my new house in the last two weeks than I had in the old house in the entire time we lived there.  I have been feeling so blessed and grateful for the last few days.  We completed painting four whole rooms in the space of 3 days!!! About a dozen people from our church, plus my family, and my sister-in-law on David's side of the family all helped with the painting and cleaning.  I didn't quite finish shampooing the carpet before time to move in, but the carpet I did finish looks fantastic.  This past weekend it took us four hours to get all the stuff from the old house and all the stuff from storage piled neatly into the new house.  I was amazed.  And so, so grateful and appreciative! 

So, now I am slowly and gradually getting things put away and in order.  I feel a tad bit overwhelmed with organizing my stuff into my kitchen cabinets.  I am going from 5 cabinets total for putting things away to about 25.  I have plenty of storage space now. 

Another change I am grateful for is being able to do laundry inside the house!!!! I feel so blessed and lucky to be able to do laundry in air conditioning without having to dress for the out-of-doors.  I no longer have to worry about my underwear being on display to the public if the wind happens to catch them and waft them across the neighborhood.  And, my new garage can be used for storing the car now that there aren't a bunch of large appliances taking up all the space!

The best part about all of this is that I can now have friends over to my house, and we actually have enough space to entertain!  Our old house was sort of close quarters for having more than 2 people over to visit.  Now, we can have lots of people over and everyone can be comfortable! Hooray!

The Countdown

It is officially three days until the closing date on the new house!  WOO HOO! I felt like this day would never, ever get here!  I am so excited, and I have practically been counting down the hours.  I find thoughts along the lines of "It's already 10 am, so this day is over and doesn't count...." and such.  I still have quite a bit of packing to do though.  I have most of the items not necessary for daily living in storage, so at this point it's packing things up that I "need".  What can I say- my college degree is mostly in procrastination.

It's been awhile since I last blogged because I have had a lot on my plate to deal with, and I haven't been in such a happy frame of mind for most of it.  I have a goal of only blogging things that are positive, funny, helpful, or quirky, and nothing negative.  I feel that we are called to focus our minds on higher things.  That doesn't mean I am free from days (or weeks) of "Bah Humbug!" though.  My cats can attest there have been quite a few of those lately.  Thus, the lack of blog posts.

I'm feeling much better now though!  David and I have been so lucky and blessed to be surrounded by loving family members and our church family, and I have been delighting in spending time with them recently.  Tonight David is spending time with some of the younger men from church, and I am so thrilled for him- he has been so excited about it, and about developing deeper relationships with guy friends.

The silver lining in the midst of the pain recently has been the fact that I have fell the Spirit and presence of God more now than ever before.  David and I have been reading a few chapters in the Bible and in another book of our choice for the last few weeks, and we have drawn such strength and peace from it.  Last night we were particularly uplifted when our nightly Bible allotment fell on Isaiah 53-55: "For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the hills shall clap their hands." (excerpt)

It's Official

We have a new house! All parts of all contracts and addendums and checks have been signed by all the respective and appropriate parties. The official closing date was successfully moved to June 11th.  We didn't get the lease option for the month beforehand, so we will be moving in after we close.

David and I are both just really glad that the uncertainty is over, and that we can now relax and start looking forward to and preparing for the move.

As far as other things go, my gums are still slowly healing.  I've been in more pain the last couple of days just due to not taking as much pain medication, so I've been sleeping more to cope. Yesterday I had one of the worst headaches of my life, so I took a long nap and felt much better afterwards. 

Despite the headache and mouth pain, yesterday was a really good day.  David and I went to church yesterday morning, which was really refreshing since I haven't been to anything in a couple weeks (except TV sessions on my own couch....).  Also, David and I both felt so encouraged after spending time with God, and our church family.  I have definitely been more aware the last few days of how important it is to spend time at church together; keeping God at the center of our relationship is what gives us hope and strength to keep working on things and to stay positive.  I have really struggled in the last week with a critical spirit, and I realized that I had forgotten my faith.  Worshiping and reminding myself of all I have to be grateful for makes it much easier to be accepting and forgiving of others.

David has been an absolute superstar this past week.  He has been so patient with me, and so quick to forgive whenever I make bad choices.  He has been such a wonderful support for me while I've been recovering, and has spoiled me so much! Every night this past week he has prayed over me for healing, and indulged me with foot rubs, back rubs, and cooking for me.  I have felt very pampered and loved!

Yesterday we spent time together talking while driving around after church, and had some really great discussions about what we had heard.  We had some time to waste because I wanted to go to my weight-watchers meeting.  I haven't been able to eat much this last week due to my gums, so I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity for rewards and applause! Fortunately, I reached my five percent goal and then some, so I got lots of kudos. 

David and I also spent some time tooling around in some thrift stores, and we both had a really good time with that.  David sighed when I first suggested shopping at the thrift stores, but he conceded (with a sheepish smile) afterwards that he had a pretty good time.  And, I spent three dollars and got eight super-cute little mini mugs, which I think make great little dessert dishes.

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.

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!

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....  ;)

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.

Another Step Closer

There has been so much accomplished in the last four days, and I wasn't even here to see most of it!  Amazing!

On Thursday I left for the churchwide women's retreat, and I had a great time.  I stayed Thursday night, Friday night, and then came back home on Saturday afternoon around 4.  David missed me quite a bit, I gather.

On Saturday morning, the contractors came to our house and put a new roof on it.  I wasn't here to see them do it, but I got to see the results and they did a fabulous job.  David supervised.  Plus, he also cleaned up and cleared out our bedroom and guestroom because this morning the contractors came back to repair some tiny waterspots on the ceiling and paint our bedroom and guestrooms.  The rest of the house that looked so so amazingly clean a few days ago are now cram-packed with the innards of the two rooms being painted.  At least the bathroom is still accessible, since we only have one.  And things would get kinda messy if it was off limits. ;)

Another big step that we took yesterday was looking at our final set of houses.  We only saw one that was likeable, but then I got a splinter from the railing in the stairway, so I had a grudge.  It was off the list.  My finger is still sore, and I'm not sure if I got all the splinter out.  It will be more apparent once the swelling goes down a little more, and as of now I am just keeping it doused in Neosporin.  My realtor's suggestion after I showed him my boo-boo was to smash one of my other fingers to get my mind off the splinter- you can tell that sympathy is his forte.  At least he was helpful for a laugh. 

And, an even bigger step that we took at the end of our house-looking yesterday was to take a second look at one of our favorites so far, and after giving it another look, we decided to make an offer.  We decided to go ahead and go for it because Greg (our realtor) had been contacted twice by the realtor selling that house and basically told him that the situation was highly open to negotiation on the price and closing date, and that the sellers were very motivated because they were closing on another house, ready to move out, and didn't want to have two mortgages at once.  I can understand their point of view, and I hope there is enough desperation in their hearts to accept the bid we gave.  Because we basically offered the exact amount that we could really afford to pay right now.

And we really like that house.  It's the perfect size, the layout is great, it has a nice yard (and a separate fenced-in sideyard with a patio!), it looks unique, and it is in a mature and safe neighborhood with lots of shade trees (David's particular caveat).  The only drawback in my opinion is that it's not quite as far north as we originally intended to get.  But, it's well within the distance from David's work that we had hoped for.  He'll only be about 12-15 minutes away from work now instead of 30-40 minutes.  That is, if they accept the offer.  And I'm hoping they will, but I'm also praying for the will of God to be done in all of this, and if you're reading this and wish to pray for that as well, I would greatly appreciate it.