I Tempted Fate and Fate Won, yeahhhh

OK, so I was really stupid to start making arrangements. I was even stupider to write about it. I said I was tempting Fate, didn't I? And I did. We should have closed pretty easily on this house loan on Friday, moved in on Saturday. So Monday afternoon, Tuesday, I get phone calls from the loan guy, saying the underwriters wanted more detailed info. I got up out of my sickbed (where I was hoping to actually SLEEP) and dug through the filing cabinet to find info that might help. Then I logged on to a website. I saved a PDF file and emailed it to the loan guy. Loan guy calls back, saying he got said attachment. They were wondering if I could craft a little letter to go along with that paperwork, explaining more info. Did that. OK, fine. No more nap, baby up. Kids home. No sleep. Picture me, dragging around, lying back in sickbed.
Today, I feel a little better, go to Costco, buy some shelf liner for the cupboards, etc., that I hope to be using in a few days. Yeah, sure. Noon, I email said loan officer. What's the update? Oh, he emails back later, (after a half-hour nap which wasn't nearly enough) the paperwork is all done and good to go, but now the title company is waiting for a really simple piece of paperwork from the bank who's selling the house. You'd think they'd have gotten that ready before now. But no. So we're now waiting on the bank. Ha.
So yeah, I'm starting to fall to pieces. Let's just say I'm glad no one other than some kids and sister-in-law were present to watch my breakdown. I sobbed on the phone to my husband at work, who is now feeling sick too but can't take sick time because, hey, he just started working there 6 weeks ago and hasn't qualified for that quite yet. So he's sounding like Ton Loc. If you know who that is. But a patient or coworker said that's what he sounded like, and yeah, I have to concur, he did sound like Ton Loc. A Filipino one. I blubber for 7 minutes, he listens while treating a patient, and I get off, not feeling any better; in fact, I feel worse for blubbering to him while he's sick AND trying to work. I have no one else to call. Except the satellite company and the TV installation people and the storage facility that's got our stuff in holding, and -- somehow -- all the people who have now committed to help us move on Saturday. I don't even like to think about it.
So, word of advice. Don't tempt Fate. It will always come back and bite you in the you-know-where. And unfortunately, my you-know-where is just bigger than it used to be, thanks to all the stress. My hormones are completely out of whack. I even visited an acupuncturist today, for the first time -- I'm so out of whack that conventional medicine sure as heck isn't doin' it. I've done some alternate work in the past, but today was the first I'd ever had needles stuck in my skin. Not bad. My qi is absolutely sluggish and depleted, and my heartfire or something is hot or ... not sure. But it's all bad. The tip of my tongue is red. My pulse is sluggish. I'm depleted and sluggish. So I got needles stuck in my skin in hopes that one day my qi will be happy and no longer sluggish. Maybe that will lead to less ice cream in and less you-know-what for the Fates to bite.

If we get to move in this weekend, it's going to take the bank sending that piece of paper first thing tomorrow and some moving of mountains by my hardworking real estate agent, Heather. But I could really use a miracle. Everybody, cross your fingers and say your prayers.

Almost there...

So here we are, in California. We've been "living" here for two months, but it's not what I would call fully living. We've really been more in stasis or in suspended animation, so it seems. I've been sitting around waiting for ages. But now it seems that the waiting will end. We will be closing on our house purchase this week and actually moving in this weekend. (Knock on wood -- I don't want to anger the Fates by making such a bold claim...)
I've been getting things scheduled, too. Phone service, satellite, carpet installation, cleaning, etc. So exciting.
I have to note here that I am incredibly pleased, amazed, and heartened by our new ward. Our house is in the Visalia 2nd Ward boundaries, and the members of the Church in 2nd Ward are just about the friendliest, most helpful, warmest people I've seen in one group in a long time. After all we've been through these past months, it makes me feel so good to be welcomed so heartily. When we first attended church in the ward a few weeks ago (before General Conference and Stake Conference), it felt like the people in the ward were jumping over each other practically to say hello to us. And then their youth brought us cookies that week, and now that we're moving, one leader has now told Marce, "Don't worry about making any more phone calls -- we'll take care of it." I cannot express to these people what a difference this makes to me. I am eager to be of service to them once we are settled in and able to do something.
When it all comes down to it, the people in our lives are just the most important 'things' we have. "Stuff" is nice but people are just the best. I cannot say enough what deep feelings of friendship and love and gratitude I have for all the wonderful people who have blessed my life in some way or another. I look forward to one day living in one place where we won't be separated by hours and miles but can easily "stay in touch." Perhaps mansions all in one neighborhood in heaven? So this is my "shout-out" to wonderful friends. If you're reading this, you deserve this kudos. :)
And here's to moving and settling and an end to waiting. For now.

I love to wait... ha ha ha ha

So, betcha thought I'd be done with waiting now, right? Wrong. House is still there, sitting, waiting for us. Closing is still a thing of the future. We're hoping that will be Friday. But that's assuming we can get a few items fixed beforehand, since we're getting an FHA loan. So closing might still be next week.... sigh. We went to Lowe's last week and ordered our beautiful new carpet for the living room and bought paint for all the rooms in the house. It's going to be lovely. We bought a Blu-Ray player and are shopping for the right TV. We've got a good place here in town that's going to mount it on the wall in the living room above the fireplace and get the system all set up for us. The TV and components will all be high above little fingers' reach. We hope. The house is going to be lovely. So exciting. Once we actually OWN it and can get in there and clean and paint and so on. It's going to be a good amount of work, but my fingers are itching to do it. After I'm done with all that painting, etc., my fingers will be curled into a claw for a good month, like they were 2 years ago after all the work we did on our house in Anniston (which is still for sale, by the way, if you know someone there looking for a gorgeous house for a reasonable price...).
Meanwhile, I sit. I wait. I try to keep myself busy, be useful. I bought a beautiful new quilt and shams for Brianna's room, which is going to look awesome. She's lucky enough to be in a room on the first floor with doors that open out onto the patio and backyard. Too bad, Brianna!
We even bought magnetic paint for the girls' rooms. This is a way cool thing. You paint it on the wall, two or three coats as a primer. Then you paint over that with a regular color paint. And the kids can just stick stuff on the wall with magnets, as if it were a giant refrigerator! No nails, no refrigerator overrun with art projects. That's going to be lots of fun.
I have been busy updating my website, Rated Reads. I'm very pleased with how it's coming along. I got good attention from the article run in the Deseret News and online Mormon Times. I've gotten some good contributors, too, so I can get many more reviews on the site now. I just added a blog and RSS feed, too. I'm excited about it. I think it's a great place for people to visit and get ideas of good books to read. I just can't wait to get in my own house and get all my books put up on shelves again! Poor things, they're sitting in boxes.
I also plan to get back to some writing soon. I started a YA book a while back and have been busily thinking on it for a while. Time to get some real writing done.
Here's to waiting...

News at last

OK, so I'm no longer waiting... Well, I'm waiting for different things now. Last Friday we officially found a house. I walked through it on Thursday, put in an offer late that evening (it's bank-owned, naturally) and then got a counter-offer from the bank first thing in the morning, countered back, and then the bank actually -- DRUMROLL, PLEASE -- accepted my offer on Friday afternoon! My real estate agent called that morning with a "are you sitting down?" and then that afternoon with a "I can't believe this!". I had to agree. What with the other two houses that are short-sale/bank-owned not budging at all in all this time, this bank's rapid response and generous acceptance of our counter was astounding -- and nearly miraculous. I felt positively giddy as I pondered the idea of having an actual house to live in sometime in the definitively near future.
The giddiness has eased and increased, alternately, with paperwork to fill out and information to gather, and so on; it has increased as the paperwork has gotten mostly done. Now only a few items remain and I can almost just sit back and wait with happy anticipation to simply move in. That, and shop. Not bad. Gotta find some carpet for the living room and a new HDTV. That will truly be the fun part.
Great news is, we don't have to do much work on it. Eventually, some painting. Some cleaning right away before we move in, of course. The house has a pool, so we'll need a fence right around the pool; there's already a fence around the whole backyard, of course. I would just like to be able to send the girls out to the backyard to play without worrying about the pool situation. So that'll be the next thing.
It's just so thrilling. A house of our own. Five bedrooms, three baths, a pretty neighborhood with lots of trees and established vegetation. A quiet little cul-de-sac tucked away a few streets removed from the main drag. The girls can bike around the neighborhood. Play. I might be able to have some quiet time inside the house while they're out in the California sunshine. Aaahhh. And I think I'll do some relaxing skinny-dipping at night when I am all alone. Just me and quiet, still water. Aaahhh.
My Rated Reads site just got some good publicity this week from an article run about it in the Deseret News' Mormon Times section online. I am thrilled that lots of people have taken a good look through the site and sent emails to thank me for the work I've been doing. I knew when I came up with the idea sometime early last year that it was a really great resource. It just needed some good publicity and word of mouth. Now some readers have emailed saying they got sent a link from their moms or something similar. Now that's what I was looking for. I hope it continues. I am excited about the possibility of having lots of reviews and ratings and plenty of new material all the time for readers who would like clean books to read. So ... life is moving forward. I'm still plenty busy. But I'm not treading water anymore, or pushing a boulder uphill.
Yahooooooo!!!!

Funny Farm, CA

So this area here in the Central Valley of California is agricultural. All surrounding this small city are farms and orchards -- walnuts, raisins, fruits and vegetables of all kinds. Sadly, there are lots of new housing developments fairly recently built and still being built. And apparently some walnut orchards are set to be flattened for even more development of some kind pretty soon.
So it's all about farms. I'm convinced that my new home here is about to be the Funny Farm, however. I've been holding up (I think) remarkably well over the past weeks. I've been cool and calm and resilient under a whole huge monster amount of pressure. But I'm warming up.
A week ago, we put in an offer on a home we really like that's been foreclosed on. It needs work, but we kind of like it that way. And it should be a good deal, especially for all its square footage. It's also very close to schools and church -- two or three blocks! Very cool. Lots of storage space, neat touches. Terrible paint job inside. But we can do that. Also needs a new roof. So we put in a reasonable offer, and the bank took two days to reject it outright. Put in another one. Two more days, another outright rejection. No countering. arrrrrrgggggggh!! I have also now had my children out of school for a week, thinking we'd have a contract put together by this point on the house so we could just enroll them in the right school now without having to enroll them where we're staying temporarily at the moment and then moving them. So much for that. I'm just going to have to enroll them tomorrow and be done with it.
And Marce is supposed to start working on Monday. Now, since he's a medical professional, he's supposed to have a license to practice. He had one here in California 10 years ago -- he got his first license here, in fact. Then we moved to Alabama and he got his license there, and the CA one lapsed. So we had to apply to get one here again. Well, the CA PT board has been most useless, indeed. Slow and slower. It's been a month since we submitted the application, and a week since the application fee check was cashed at our bank in Alabama. So how long will it be until he actually has a license again? I mean, really. He had one here before. He hasn't committed any felonies. Or misdemeanors, for that matter. So here we are, still no license to practice. So as of today, since he has no license, he's going to get to start working on Monday as an "aide," at a third of his pay. Yay. Then as soon as he gets his license he can work regular and get paid right.
I suppose it doesn't much matter. We don't have a house to move into, so it's not like we're going to have a house payment here anytime soon at the rate we're going. Of course, we still have a house in Alabama that's not sold yet (it's been on the market for a month, so.... ), but here we are. Homeless and a ton of slightly beat-up stuff in two big storage units, and living out of a suitcase in a house of 14 people. I'm sure that tomorrow as soon as we enroll the girls in the schools here, then we'll finally get somewhere with the bank and I'll have to transfer them in a week to the schools on the other side of town. At least there's only one unified school district. It would be worse if there were five school districts in town, like there are in Anniston. I suppose I should be grateful for the tiniest of blessings at this point. I have to admit, however, that I'm not feeling incredibly grateful. I'm swerving over to the bitter and nasty end of the scale.
Cross your fingers, pray, etc. whatever will help me to get over this huge, nasty hump. That and a whole tub of ice cream. Good thing I've found a gym here with a trial membership for the week. I've been spending some good hours there working out some of my frustrations.

Fati-gwayed

In a shoutout to my friend Wonder, may I just say I was quite fah-tee-gwayed yesterday. We are now in Visalia. Our vehicles arrived the day after we did, and it was very satisfying to see our cars arrive here to join us. The rest of the stuff arrived the next day. That was very satisfying to see, too, but then it meant a HUGE amount of work in a short time. Marce and I, our sister-in-law (you GO, girl!), two missionaries, and four others (including an 11-year-old boy) participated in unloading the whole almost-28-feet of tractor trailer stuffed full of our material possessions. In 6 hours. Marce and I were pretty steady going that whole time, with the others kind of coming and going. It was unreal, looking at that huge truck full of things, packed to the gills, and knowing that we had to get it all transferred into a storage shed. Very soon after starting, I realized the one storage shed we had reserved (10x20) was NOT going to do it. So I got another one across the little driveway, and we had two places to put our stuff.
The sun beat down on us, and we went through a bunch of bottles of water and a couple of jugs of Gatorade. I didn't eat lunch for fear I'd just want to throw up. Towards the end of the afternoon, though, we both wanted to throw up from the work and heat. But we didn't. We held out. We managed to get it all unloaded, so the trucking company could pick up the truck today and get it out of the way of other people's storage sheds.
So we were majorly fatigued. And dirty and dusty. Showers have never felt better. And we celebrated with a fantastic Mexican dinner at a restaurant I found in downtown Visalia. Picked it out of the phone book. New fave Mexican place. It was wonderful. There were a number of Mexican places back in Anniston, but I never found anything I really liked. This was perfect. Hit the spot! We'll be going back soon.
So I fell into bed shortly after 9 p.m. and slept until 6:30. Then I went back to sleep after a bit until almost 8. Then I slept for almost 3 hours midday. I'm feeling a bit more like myself now. And no more moving for about another month, when we'll get to put all that stuff from the sheds onto moving trucks and take it across town and put them -- at last -- into our new home. o
We found a really cool house here. It's almost 3000 square feet, not counting the basement, and it's got a way cool front door. Medieval. It's got a little door set in the old wood, and metal bars across that. There's a second set of stairs in the back of the house going from the kitchen up to a small bedroom that I'm claiming as my office. Tons of storage space, lots of room to put all that junk we just carted cross-country and hefted in and out of that huge tractor-trailer. I don't want to have to move EVER AGAIN. I said that 2 years ago when we moved into our bigger house in Anniston, and I am saying it now with even greater fervor. We will only move again if we get incredibly rich and a moving company can do it entirely for us. It cost a small fortune to get here as it was, and that was supplemented with the blood, sweat and tears of us and a whole lot of incredibly dedicated friends who are now probably quite glad we're not around to be moved anymore!
So now we wait. We put in an offer on this house today and hope it will yield a contract within just a few days (at least this one's not on short sale -- it's already been foreclosed on) so we can have proof of some kind of residence so the girls can start school. School started today but we're just having to let them be truant for a few days. But then they can start in their permanent schools and not have to switch. The house is just a few blocks from the elementary, middle and high schools, and two blocks away from the church. That is very handy indeed. The girls can walk and won't even have to school-bus it. And with the high price of gas, I certainly won't be driving them!
And we wait for Marce's license to be approved/renewed here in California. He first received his license here 11 years ago. Since we've been in Alabama the past 10 years, he's had a license active there. Now getting it back here is taking some time. Please just pray for us that he'll get it renewed soon so he can start working next week! A paycheck would come in pretty handy, let me tell ya.
And we wait for our house to sell in Alabama. The money from that will also come in VERY handy.
So we wait. And I sleep, apparently. I am so eager to be in our own house again. But in the meantime, we are very much enjoying being with Marce's brother's family. Watching all the girls be with their cousins has been wonderful. It is really making it worth all this hassle. So neat.
And I sign off now to get some more sleep! I think it'll be awhile till I'm really "caught up."

Tragicomedy of errors

So I took an honors Shakespeare course my first semester at BYU. I had to write essays on what comedy and tragedy meant in Shakespearean terms. So I could technically say that our move has been a comedy. It will turn out to have a good ending as Shakespeare would write it. In the middle, however, it's just been a little shaky.
We are now in California, so at least we've made it this far. Our stuff is all on a 28-foot tractor-trailer (hopefully) bound for California. We should be getting it around Wednesday or Thursday in Visalia.
Here's the rundown on move week:
Last Saturday and Sunday I was dead sick. Coughing, wheezing in my upper respiratory area, dead tired, exhausted, etc. I stayed in bed all weekend. No packing.
On Monday of this week, the car shipper picked up both of our vehicles. I managed to raise myself from my sickbed enough to do some packing and organizing, with little breaks. The vehicles then were gone and we were without cars.
Late Monday night, Cami woke up feeling icky and then proceeded to throw up. She continued this throughout late evening Tuesday. I lost another whole day of packing. But I did go into work to do my last book page editing. I caved and rented a car so I'd be able to get there.
Wednesday was really crunch time. The trailer was delivered that afternoon. I tried to do more packing. I also did my last batches of laundry. Wednesday night I started to get panicky.
Thursday was it. Friends came in that morning to help me pack up everything I hadn't gotten to, which was a whole heckuva lot. Sicknesses didn't help, of course. I still was hacking and wheezing, but I had enough energy to drag myself around to pack and give directions.
Marce had his last day of work. He came home around 11 a.m. I sent him to go get the little rental Budget truck we needed solely for its ramp, which turned out not to be a huge help. But the tractor-trailer didn't have a ramp, and it was 4 feet off the ground. Just picture it: huge refrigerator (I love it so I wouldn't possibly leave it behind), washer, dryer. Heavy sleeper sofa.
Shortly after I sent Marce to get the truck, an Alagasco pickup parked on the street in front of my house. It was towing a strange driller truck. I felt a bit panicky. I asked, "So, gas people, whatsa happenin?" Gas leak. Gotta fix it. Yeah, um, not really the ideal time for you to be doing heavy work like this out front of my house. Oh well. Most likely won't be in the way. We'll cross our fingers.
An hour later, it started dumping rain. Stopped in half an hour. I am still inside, wheezing away.
We're packing, men are loading the truck. Are we making progress? Doesn't look like it.
A couple hours later, I am trying to make arrangements for Mac, our cat, to be shipped via Delta's air cargo. I'm on the phone 45 minutes before I get a workable plan figured out.
Two hours later, Mac has escaped the hubbub of the house. He hides under the house in the crawl space.
Two hours after that, Marce tries to get Mac out from under the house. He goes in the crawl space and instructs a horde of about 8 kids to position themselves out in the back yard, ready to grab Mac. Marce gets Mac out in the yard; none of the 8 kids catch him. Mac runs into other people's back yards. Marce, steam pretty much visibly coming out his ears, steps into the house, covered in mud. His old clothes go in the trash bag, and we wonder if we'll have to write off Mac. At 10 p.m. Mac shows back up at the back door, meowing. I quietly try to get him inside. He runs away, never to be seen again before we leave town. Today, I canceled his reservation to be shipped. We're sad, Mac is free, and we save about $350 in shipping and associated costs.
Around 7 p.m. Marce surveys the house. I've been surveying it myself. It doesn't look very empty. We've been working our friends like dogs, and there seems to be no end in sight. Marce starts to panic. I feel for him on the one hand but on the other say, "So now you get why I've been so stressed for a month?" I try to stay strong in his panicky moment. How are we gonna do this? We just HAVE TO, that's how.
We're still in the house just past 10 p.m. We have a bunch of odds and ends still scattered, but the big stuff is all on the tractor-trailer. I've reserved 19 feet of the 28-foot trailer, and it's looking like we might use the whole darn thing. $163 extra per linear foot. Yikes!
We go to our hotel nearby and enjoy amazing showers. We could theoretically get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, but Marce and I probably get about 4 hours all told. Too much still weighs on our minds. We chow down on breakfast and get back to work.
We deliver our old entertainment center (yeah, we're not even taking that or the TV or a sofa) to a friend's house. We return the truck, which was $50 but almost useless. We race back to the house. We are helped tremendously by several loyal friends who see the look of despair and madness on our faces. We box up all the rest of the junk in the house and then leave behind a whole lot of stuff in the barn and a few odds and ends in the house for our friends to pick through and claim as their own.
We race to the hotel. First, I run to the school to get some forms for Marissa for her new school in California. We shower again. I rearrange the suitcases a bit. I try to make sure the huge suitcase is almost entirely clothes so it doesn't go over the 50 pound weight limit. We run by Marce's work for a check. We run in the bank to do three transactions. We hustle to the car rental place to return the car. We scoot out of town and cross our fingers, since it's 12:15 p.m. and our flight leaves at 2:10 p.m. and it's a one-hour drive to the airport. Our good comrade from the ward and neighbor down the street drives us all and our luggage and carry-ons. We make it to the airport at 1:20. We check in (the big bag weighs 59 pounds. Arrgh. $25 extra charge. And no, I don't think I can rearrange it to get 9 pounds out. I'll be happy to fork over 25 bucks.) We go through security. I pay $23 for three sandwiches and a banana to hold us over until we reach Chicago. We have a good flight. In Chicago, we have less than an hour before our next flight leaves, and we all swallow McDonald's burgers and fries in record time. We board our plane and sigh a huge sigh of relief that we are actually about done with this segment of our move.
And here we are at Marce's dad's house. It's Saturday, and we sleep some long naps indeed. I wash the sweat out of our clothes. I shower and even put on makeup and we all enjoy a nice dinner out with Marce's dad's family. Things are looking OK. But now comes the big second part of the move. Stay tuned for Act II. Let's cross our fingers on this one.