The Only Thing That Changes is EVERYTHING

It has been so long since I've even had any kind of desire to sit down and write something... let alone had the spare time to do it.  My week days pretty much all run together.  I don't know if I even have the brain capacity to regurgitate the events of the last few months since I went back to work.

Of course Elise is chatting up a storm.  She says the cutest things.  Her Grandpa recently taught her to "bump knucks."  Unfortunately with the fun, comes the bad fits... and she can pitch some good ones!  Pretty much the most frustrating thing she does is throw stuff.  When she gets mad, she rips her paci out of her mouth and launches it.  Then of course she wants one of us to pick it up.  But, we're working through it.

Two weeks ago I had gall bladder surgery. After having a few tests run my doctor sent me to a surgeon to have the nuclear test confirmed that it would need to come out.  He explained to me that one of the injections they gave me makes my stomach/gall bladder think I just ate a whole pizza.  It's supposed to immediately make the gall bladder start contracting.  He told me that a normal person's gall bladder functions at 80-100%.  Anything below 30% is considered to be abnormal.  Mine was 0.... ZERO functioning.  I had the surgery August 25th.  The first few days afterwards were a little rough, but I was back at work the following Monday.... I'm pretty hardcore like that.

Probably the biggest change going on right now is that we are moving.  Our house has been for sale for a while now.  We need more space and with the interest rates as low as they are, we won't have another opportunity like this to upgrade to something bigger and still affordable.

We spent valuable hours, brain power, arguing... you name it- it happened when we first started this whole process.  I believe it now when people say building a house is one of the hardest things a married couple can do.... I think we quite possibly could have gotten a divorce over the exterior paint color.  The day it came down to picking that out, Jason and I were going back and forth about it and I was laying in our bed trying to take a nap, but Jason kept on and on about it.  I evidently didn't think long enough before I made my decision between two different shades of brown, so Jason thought I didn't care enough about it....We exchanged words and then I finally jumped out of the bed, went outside in my T-shirt barefooted to the front yard, and literally ripped the For Sale sign out of the yard like The Incredible Hulk....  It was intense.  I put it in the garage and said "There!!!!  Now we won't have to worry about it!!!!!"

Anyway!!!  We had settled on a builder, had the plans, house was on the market, things were heading the right direction..... we thought.  After we got jacked around by the builder one too many times, my calm and patient husband LOST.HIS.SHIZ. and came unhinged on the builder.  After it was all said and done, we got our money back, we have a notarized contract release form that Jason made the builder meet him at City Hall to have signed, loss of sleep, no new house, but a house still on the market and a lot of time that I'll never get back.

We explained the situation to our realtor and he asked us if we'd consider starting the building process again in a new part of town.  We went through our options and met another building company and starting working up some plans.  A few lousy offers trickled in here and there, but nothing to write home about.  Then a friend of Jason's expressed some interest in buying it.  He came and looked at it 3 times, and then put an offer in through the real estate agent.  We have accepted and are anticipating a closing date of Sept. 30.... however, Jason and I have not committed to that close date yet because we currently have no where to go in the mean time.  It will take about 120 days for our new house to be built, so we'll need a place to rent month to month that will let us have our big dogs.  We'll probably have to put quite a bit of stuff in storage, too.

Our plans on the new home are almost complete.  We are really excited about it.  It's going to be in a new development just outside of town.  It's all brand new homes in an 8 phase subdivision that's currently in phase 1.  The lots are big and the homes are beautiful.  All we need to nail down is where we will live in the mean time....  and it looks like moving in the winter too.  Which I can say doesn't thrill me one bit.

P.S.  With all of the devastating wild fires happening all across this state, I don't know what more is going to have to burn until Obama doesn't reject Texas' request for wildfire disaster declaration again!!!