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Today is Saturday and according to our Realtor’s original plan we were supposed to close on the house yesterday.

The thing is, we still have not been told of an appointment time, worse, we have no firm commitment for even a particular date of closing. Someone has to have dropped the ball and now I’m just praying we will close on the house next week.

Drats! Drats! Drats!!

I so wanted the extra time this upcoming long weekend afforded to start the cleaning, painting, and fixing process. I’d also like to have my stuff surrounding me again.

This “life-on-pause” thing I’m in the midst of is making me crazy. I think it’s driving everyone around me bonkers too. Or maybe I am?

Press the PLAY button already would ya? Somebody?! Anybody?!

It’s not living out of this for the last two and half months that’s pushed me over the edge:

Really it isn’t.

And it’s not like I haven’t been to visit all our stuff at the storage units. Well, once.

I’m pretty sure my stuff misses me as much as I miss my stuff. The file cabinet tried to be stoic although I knew down deep it felt empty without me. But we all agree if necessary we could all live life without each other. It might be hard but we could do it.

We just don’t want to do it. We want to be together again. My sofa misses my behind. It didn’t actually say so but it was giving me that vibe.

This life on pause thing is harder than I thought it would be.

Tags: life on pause, living without stuff

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I’m not sure if I ever told you this but if so you’re just going to have to hear it again.

My kids are THE best.

God was so good to Julian and me when He chose these three to be ours.

For the last two months we’ve been staying with friends while we attempted to make the state of Texas our new home. Our kids are intimately acquainted with all that a cross-country move entails. They know that it takes a while before you feel like where you now live is home. They know the feeling of shifting allegiances from your old school, sports teams, and burger joint to the new. This moving thing, they’ve done it before. A few times, in fact. And I have to say, they’ve done it well.

This move though was the first time they had to wait months before they even began to settle in. We had no idea exactly where we would end up. Our search for a house took us as far as even a few hours from where we are staying. Hours would have meant a different life than the one they were already beginning to get used to here. They didn’t complain though. Instead we heard from them, “Just go where God leads you.”

They’ve accomplished something else they’ve never done before. For the last two months they’ve managed to live, nearly complaint-free, in a 12 x 14 foot room. All.Three.Of.Them! Think about that for a minute or twelve. Niko is eighteen, Kyle is 16, and Chloe is 12 and they have been nothing but patient and hopeful as they lived together in that one small room. They actually get along better today than they did when this adventure began oh so many weeks ago.

The moral of this story is the same one I’ve told countless times before. Pulling the rug out from underneath our children is an invaluable tool for the parent who will dare to use it.

I’ve seen this happen each time we’ve moved.

They grown, people. They grow up a bit and they grow closer too.

And that my friends is just one of things we as parents are supposed to be helping them do.

Tags: change, growth

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find someone else on whom you’ll stay.

or

How I got healthy on my summer vacation.

It’s been over eight weeks since I had chocolate chip cookie dough, fresh from the oven, still warm and gooey fudge brownies or even a piece of bread. I’ve been staying as far away from white flour, white sugar, and white rice as I possibly can. They aren’t nutritious no matter how you slice ‘em.

I don’t go overboard and avoid ketchup because it contains some modicum of sugar. No, I stay away from ketchup because I’m not fond of the taste. You can add potatoes to that short list too.

I started eating better the day after we arrived in Texas. I was planning on starting a day later than that but was encouraged, well more like bullied into it a day early. It’s exactly what I needed or I may never have started.

I had complained to a friend that while changing in the hotel bathroom on the move down I had seen myself  without clothes, in fluorescent lighting, in a floor length mirror no less, for the first time in literally years. It was a fifteen second horror flick that left eyes burning. I still have nightmares. Ugh!

I refused to weigh myself before I started this new eating plan because I was afraid it would be a number far beyond what I had ever seen on a scale, even higher than when I had carried another human inside of me. Okay, actually I knew it would be. I kind of wish now that I had. I’d like to know exactly how much or how many peoples worth of weight I’ve lost. All my pants are loose and that’s the only thing I have to go by.

Beyond the benefit of weight loss I just feel so much better. I want to eat like this from now on. That’s why I didn’t call it a diet but an eating plan. The problem is, it seems to get some people bent out of shape when they see me refusing to put something in my mouth that they enjoy eating. That in itself won’t stop me from eating the way I want but I’d love to come up with a planned response that helps people deal with it better.

“I’m allergic or it makes me sick,” besides being a lie would make me sound a bit like a hypochondriac.

“I don’t like it,” makes me sound too picky.

“None for me, I want to look like Angelina Jolie before I turn fifty,” sounds stupid and impossible.

“Old women like me aren’t supposed to eat anything enjoyable anymore,” might work unless it’s an old woman like me offering the poison.

Eating to live rather than living to eat is a hard thing to manage in a country where food is abundant and nearly a worshiped idol at every gathering.

I guess I’ll just stick with my famous, “No thank you,” and put up with the weird looks for now.

Tags: aging, healthy, weight loss

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I love the words “drastically reduced” even more than free most of the time.

Reduced says, “I have to, have to, have to get rid of it but I believe it has great value so I want you to be willing to pay for it just to show me you feel the same about it and you WILL take care of it.” Free says, “We both know that I should be paying you to get this stuff out of my sight but maybe you’re on cold medicine and aren’t thinking straight right now so you think you’re getting a deal here.”

The word FREE in most circumstances - free from the bonds of sin and shame, not included of course - is linked to things like this and this and oh yeah, this. Yes, you saw that correctly, someone is giving away a used birthday candle. Don’t bother though, ’cause that one is mine. It’s only an hour’s drive away at the most.

But this! This is a freebie worth mentioning and downloading too. I want to put the graphic in my sidebar but it’s just too darn big so I’ll place it in a post and hope my readers, okay Aunt Edna and Mom, whatever, find it anyway.

[Edited to add] It’s been so long since I blogged regularly that I totally forgot this: Hat tip Annieblogs.com

Tags: free, junk, music

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A few years ago, when my boys were young and MySpace and Facebook were just becoming popular, I signed up for both in order to keep an eye on them. I needed to know how they worked so that I would be able to protect my children online.

It wasn’t just about getting all up in their business, I never even got involved in using them. Really, I just made sure I was acquainted enough with the new technology that I could setup guidelines for them to follow.

Eventually I deleted those accounts.

Now I’ve been hearing a lot more about Facebook use by old people like me. With the recent move, I started thinking I should give it a try in order to reconnect with old friends. I’ve moved quite a bit in my life. Texas is the fourth ( and final!) state in which I’ve lived. There must tons of people out there in the world missing me, right?

I signed up for a new Facebook account last month and quickly began thinking of old friends’ names and plugging them in the search bar.

Nothing. Seems that old people who know me do not yet know Facebook.

And so my account sits, void of friends and looking pretty much like the account I had years ago that I never used. In an attempt to garner a bit of mercy from my two boys who have acquired hundreds of friends on this stupid website, I sent each a simple message. Here’s Niko’s response:

So I did what any self-respecting, fully in charge mother would do, I grounded him. It only took two days for him to become my friend.

Now I have to work on Kyle.

And it just might be time for Chloe to get a Facebook too.

Tags: facebook, friends

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The bank accepted the offer. Praise God!

We will be moving soon.

I can’t wait… but I guess I have to, again.

Tags: thankful

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You end up missing important moments, like your niece’s wedding.

I wish money grew on trees. I’d probably remember to water one of those.

Tags: missed, photo, wedding

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I’m not really that good at it. Waiting, that is.

It took a day and a half for the bank to counter offer and an hour for us to counter their’s. That was on Friday afternoon just before close of business and so we wait. I’ve managed to convince myself that I don’t care either way now. Whether we get this house or another one it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we begin our new life in the house that God has for us so we can grab hold of that (the life) for which Christ grabbed hold of us.

Any house will be fine. The waiting though? Not so fine.

So what else is going on around here? Let me see… well, Kyle turns sixteen on Tuesday and…

I seriously can not think of anything else. This has been one truly boring summer except of course for the cross-country move. We’re still staying with friends and we still can’t wait to get out of their hair.

Life just seems to be on hold for a bit longer. And so I wait…

Tags: patience

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Most of my house hunting over the last eleven years has basically taken place on the couch while browsing realtor.com. I’ve dreamed of the day the Lord would be so gracious as to give us our own home again. And while most of it has been just dreaming in those years we’ve also come extremely close to owning again.

We did everything possible in our own power to stop renting and to start owning. (Yes, I am aware of how terrible that statement is for someone who should be walking by faith.)

We’ve fallen out of escrow once when the owner changed their mind about carrying the loan, been approved with a co-signer on another home only to have the co-signer back out, talked another owner into carrying the loan on a home that we quickly found out was about to lose most of it’s land to the government for a future highway and we’ve even been pre-approved on our own finally but just couldn’t get the bank to drop even a dollar on the price of the foreclosure we had hoped to buy. So close, so many times. So many tears.

I’m a bit timid about getting excited but the mortgage lender faxed our Realtor the pre-approval letter and we have been actively looking to buy a home.

My hope is that all the previous troubles were simply because it was not in God’s timing. My prayers have always been that God would not allow us to step outside of His will for our family. We want His best for us no matter how hard it hurts to be told no.

We narrowed down the area and found a home that suits our family perfectly. It’s another foreclosure and we put an offer on it yesterday afternoon. I’m trying hard to be unemotional and unattached but oh.my I really, really, REALLY want this house. It needs a lot of work but for the first time ever I can look past the problems in a house. I can see us starting our new life there. The kitchen needs help, the yard needs help; it’ll probably take years to get this house to look like it does in my head. See, I’m not attached… I haven’t even considered drawing the changes out on paper. I admit I did search for a church, the school bus route and the nearest grocery store online last night though.

But if God says no again, I’ll shed some tears, praise Him and keep looking. He knows what’s best for this family and I don’t.

But I so hope we get this house.

Tags: buying a house, trusting God

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