30 November 2015

Anyone got half a dozen or so extra arms?

So, so busy, you guys.

So! Since last time I wrote... Wait, let me go back and see.

Okay, the last time I wrote it was a recipe. (Delicious.) The time before that, I wrote about how we had some hopeful signs about a house we liked. Shortly after that, after we had scrambled from separate states -- hubby was on a business trip -- to get together a mountain of paperwork and pay stubs and certified funds and mostly get Michael back in town so he could sign the application, and when we were about two hours from having the application signed, sealed and delivered, the owner and her realtor pulled the rug out from under us again. ("Sorry. She took another application.")

We were trying not to panic, but we were four weeks from our current lease running out. We saw three more houses as soon as we could get appointments, but they were awful (and awfully expensive for awful, to boot). We had no idea where we were going to live. Since we had seen everything there was on the market to see, we followed through on our plans to go visit my parents in Pennsylvania for my niece's birthday party.

While we were there, the realtor from The House That Kept Getting Away called us again and said that the owner wanted an extended lease -- 15 or 16 months instead of 12 -- and were we interested? We scrambled to get all the paperwork together again, because we hadn't brought the completed stuff from Virginia, and faxed him everything late on a Saturday night.

On Sunday afternoon, we were informed that we got the house. I didn't let myself believe it for two more days because until the lease was signed, she could totally change her mind again, and after the "No, yes, no, yes" we'd already been through... I was certain she was a flibbertigibbet.

BUT.

Now everything is signed. She can't back out. She even offered to let us move in before the lease even starts so that we wouldn't have to spend Christmas unpacking. I think it's all going to be good. As I said, the rent is still more than we wanted to pay, but it's a lot of house for the money. And it's nice.

Meanwhile we have so much to do that my head is swimming. The packing has begun in earnest, but we don't want the kids living in a box fort so we're having to take it slower than we'd like. Meanwhile, I don't know if you've heard but it's Advent now, and so, you know: BUSY BUSY BUSY.

Help me, Jesus.

21 November 2015

You're welcome:

Microwave "Baked" Apples

2 large apples, peeled, cored and diced
1 T sugar
1/2 t cornstarch
1/2 t cinnamon

(Or whatever. I measured the sugar so I wouldn't use too much, but I straight eyeballed the cornstarch and cinnamon.)

Toss together and microwave, covered, for 5-10 minutes until tender (depending on the size of your apples, the size of your dice, your variety... My Honeycrisps needed 8 minutes total).

Serve with ice cream, or whipped cream.

(With a half cup of Breyer's Carb Smart ice cream, and a floof of Reddi Whip on top, it's delicious, and only 7 Weight Watchers points. I didn't get to do any kickass food photography because I ate it too fast.)

Oh, yeah, and we went back on WW. I'm hungry, like, all the time.

09 November 2015

God is great (but you knew that)

A family member -- one of the ones for whom I begged vague prayers earlier -- who is facing a struggle was given good news. Like, really good news.

AND! The realtor of the house we saw last Friday, which we really, really liked and whose owner didn't want to wait for us (all the way to five weeks from now), called and said that the owner reconsidered taking our application. (I guess high credit scores count for something after all!) So the good news is that we probably won't be homeless; the bad news is that I'm going to have to actually set, like, a budget because my plan to get our rent way down is not panning out.

Thanks for storming heaven for me, prayer warriors!

(And keep 'em coming, please, because none of this is set in stone yet. Just... Hopeful, for a change.)

08 November 2015

I can actually feel my hair turning whit(er).

Still need your prayers. Still stressing to the high heavens. In addition to my last post worth of issues:

  • Michael left this evening (he's actually boarding his plane right now) for a business trip. It's as short as he could make it, given that he's hitting two states, but I'm still feeling preemptively overwhelmed.
  • And, of course, Keira, who is NEVER sick, got sick like clockwork the day Daddy was leaving. She was fine when she woke up this morning, started coughing at Mass (chasing away a poor woman who had innocently sat behind us, who was clearly battling cancer, and then saw my little savage covering her mouth only about 50% of the time when she coughed), started to get warm before lunch, listlessly picked at lunch, asked for a nap after lunch (which is basically unprecedented), and woke up full-on fevered, raspy-voiced, coughing uncontrollably and wheezing. She spent the afternoon in Mommy and Daddy's bed, watching Goldie and Bear. I usually let fevers run their course, but I thought she had a sore throat too so I dosed her with Advil and she got a bath. By dinnertime, she had her appetite back and has been playing and singing and not-coughing since. Hopefully, this was a false alarm?
  • Still no place to live. We saw something we loved on Friday (tippy-top of our budget, but a whole lot of nice house for the money), but the realtor called us back and told us the owner wanted someone who could move in sooner -- again, our preferred move-in date is Dec. 15, and it's already Nov. 8 -- so we're still on the hunt. There has to be a reasonable landlord somewhere in the vicinity. There has to be. But we have yet to find him/her. {Does a credit score in the 800s count for nothing?}
  • Here's how I know I'm too stressed to function: I just put the baby to bed without changing his diaper. So that's going to be delightful in the morning.
Please, pray for us.

05 November 2015

A plea for prayers.

You know it's been a rough week when a death in the family isn't even close to being the most stressful, or the worst news.

My great-aunt Margie passed away last week. She was 87 and died, presumably peacefully, at home from heart failure. She never married or had children, and while she loved her nieces and nephews (and grand-nieces and -nephews, and great-grand-nieces and -nephews), she was really missing her siblings, all of whom had already gone to their reward. So it was what I consider a "happy death" (which is not to say there were no tears).

But.

Today I got some bad news regarding a couple of family members. Their struggles aren't mine to share, but they could use your prayers.

Add in the stress I'm feeling over the fact that our current lease ends Dec. 20, and we don't yet know where we're moving. Almost. (Lest you think we've brought this on ourselves: we've been working on it for months, but at first no one would entertain us because "it was too long to wait" for us to move in, and just yesterday we had a possible rental situation fall apart on us, bringing us back to square one.)

So.

All this to say that my family and I are sorely in need of some prayers. I need prayers for peace, and strength, and patience, and discernment. My family needs prayers of encouragement, peace, trust and healing.

St. Jude, pray for us.