Posts I've started but never finished, and other things - 7QT

I still read Conversion Diary's 7 Quick Takes posts, but I obviously don't participate in the link-up anymore since I'm not publicly blogging. Her format fits this time, though -- I've started at least 3 posts recently that never have gotten finished and I just feel like sharing today, random (and whiny) though it may be.

--- 1 ---

Relating to Others. I had some thoughts going on this topic last week, when there were a couple of days where my coworkers and I barely said two words to each other for 8 full hours. Mostly, it's because we all have so much damn work. There's just not any let-up in this company. I don't know if it's the economy, and we're all doing too many jobs because we can't afford to hire more people, or if it's just our weird policies and procedures that have evolved over time, but some days I hate it. I work with nice people... it's just that we don't take the time to talk to each other. Maybe good morning, how was your weekend. MAYBE "come look at this funny YouTube video. Oh, and there were other thoughts included in this about Smart phones, and Facebook, and how they've also ruined us for relating to each other. Example: I NEVER call friends anymore, just to say hi and see how they're doing. I think, "She's too busy," and "I hardly know him/her anymore." Sad. Even my friends who were persistent about calling 3 or 4 years ago (and by persistent, I mean slightly annoying) have stopped altogether, and it turns out I'm kinda sad about it. This world, man. It's a little messed up.

--- 2 ---

Kids' Activities. Good heavens, this move is badly timed. End of school and summer camp haven't even been on my radar, so I'm late, late, late planning them. I think we've figured out most of how they'll spend the summer. MOST. Kate will have three weeks in Florida, thanks to her awesome grandparents (thanks, Grandparents!), and Alex will have two. Then Alex will go to his sleepaway camp for 2 weeks -- ON HIS 10th BIRTHDAY, sob, sob!!! He'll also be going to a Manga/Anime camp at the local university sometime in June, something I know he reeeeeeeally wants to do. I've got my eye on a week of Theater camp for both of them. (Can't help myself!) And for the in-between times, they'll just have to go to their old daycare camp and hopefully get to go on a few field trips. I wanted one of their second cousins to be their nanny for a week or two, and take them to the pool and stuff, but now that our new neighborhood won't have a pool... besides that, I didn't want to tie the girls down. They're 18-19, I doubt they really want to babysit for 5 days straight.

--- 3 ---

Reading. I bought three new books on my Kindle last week and had high hopes for getting back into reading. I've missed it! I haven't read anything in MONTHS, besides my Facebook feed and blogs when I don't feel like working, and magazine articles. I miss books. But with all the packing to do, it's not looking real good for the rest of this spring, either. The books I bought are:

Astonish Me, by Maggie Shipstead -- I know nothing about the author except what I read in the description and the book jacket, last time I was in a bookstore. But it's about the backstage of professional ballet, so I know I'll love it. And it's fiction. Haven't bought fiction in a great while, surprisingly!

Something Other Than God, by Jennifer Fulwiler -- I don't know why I didn't pre-order this first thing, but I didn't. But obviously I love the author, wish I knew her in person, and atheist-to-Catholicism stories are AWESOME. Can't wait to get it next Tuesday.

Five Lessons from the Carmelite Saints that Will Change Your Life, by Connie Rossini -- on Jennifer Fulwiler's recommendation. I think I put it in my Cart at the beginning of Lent when I still thought "Maybe I'll make Lent count."

--- 4 ---

Lent didn't happen much for me. I was very busy TRUSTing God about real estate (side eyes: was I really?), so I didn't concentrate on anything else, prayer-wise. I ate my usual amounts of chips and salsa even though I had wanted to give them up. Bah. Try again next year? Or does Lent even need to be "fruitful?"

--- 5 ---

Webelos Woods campout. Shawn's taking Alex and his den of Webelos to a serious camping event this weekend. I am so impressed with Shawn, first of all. He doesn't even like camping, and yet he's been on 7, I think, campouts in the last 4 years, with a few more on the way. This one, he's kind-of in charge. Being a Leader and all. He's had the extra stress of planning the menu, getting the food itself, coordinating with who has the coolers and other supplies that belong to the Pack, assigning tents and activities to all the campers for his Den.... it's been a lot. He doesn't like this stuff. And yet, he's doing it (is even good at it - he was in Production/Project Management for a while, after all). So this campout is specifically for teaching the kids to DO IT THEMSELVES. They've all been assigned particular duties, and once they get there, the Leaders aren't even supposed to help. Pitching the tent, cooking the food -- all on the kids' shoulders. No help unless there's an emergency. Alex is the "Grubmaster." I'm so excited for the boys. Kids these days need to be allowed to do for themselves! I think it's awesome. (Profound.)

--- 6 ---

and Girls' Weekend! With the two males out of the house, Kate and I... don't have many plans except she's sleeping in my bed with me. :) Hee. I hope we'll go out to a nice dinner together, maybe invite a friend, and we have a birthday party to attend. She willingly told me that the birthday boy "likes" her... and she also likes him... "kind-of, I mean, I don't want to talk about it!" !!! Hee hee. I'm looking forward to our time together, even though we already spend a lot of time together, she and I.

--- 7 ---

Quick Takes are never that quick, actually! Wowee, this seems long. I've just had conversations with our real estate agent and we're getting closer to having things buttoned up. We might not even come out as poor as we originally thought (although summer camps don't help! Geez!) We're trying to coordinate moving times, talking about the final clean-up before we leave... at Easter dinner I said to the kids, "This is the last holiday meal we'll have in this house..." and none of us was very sad, I don't think. Shrug of shoulders. I've had some mixed emotions telling people, but have been trying to think of it as EXPANDING our circle, not moving it altogether from one place to the other. It's all going to be good, because there's a reason for everything. Yes. It is.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Calendars and tasks

I'm plowing through articles for work websites. Had to do a big "brain dump" this morning to get all the tasks out of my head, and I think it helped. I set a timer, tuned everything else out, and just typed.

Get the dry cleaning
Drop off the salad for Teacher Appreciation
Pay this bill
Scan that document
Write the behind the scenes article (work)
Fix the product description file
Call about moving truck
Sign kids up for summer camps
etc etc etc

There's a lot to do. The brain dump helps, though. Sometimes I do it on paper but I'm trying to break myself of that habit (again). So once the tasks are in Outlook (my planner of choice), I can schedule them on the Outlook calendar, and then my time is spoken for. Like this:

The theory is, you only have so much time in a day, so prioritize/schedule what fits in the allotted time and plan to do the rest later. I like it. It sometimes even seems like it gives me extra time, because, for instance, writing an email doesn't necessarily take the whole 30 minutes. I just wish I could stick to it.

Oh well, productivity once in a while is better than productivity never. (I think.) And a generally zen "everything is okay, it will all get done when it's supposed to" attutide helps as well.

If you've looked at the time stamp on this post you'll see that I'm supposed to be making website updates (TBCS is a website) right now. Heh. Guess I'll go do that and then I can reward myself with a trip to Target for Kleenex and TP. Woo! Lifestyles of the rich and famous! ;)

Half caffeinated this morning

It's the Monday after an at-home Spring Break, so you can imagine exactly how the kids and I all feel today. (Well, except Alex, who had a field trip. Lucky duck) I've combed through my work emails once or twice, and had one catch-up meeting already -- all without coffee, which I didn't want this morning. I bought cheap Folgers coffee last week in a fit of "we are running out of money" related to the house sale and subsequent purchase... and it's awful. I didn't think I had become such a coffee snob but it turns out I have. If I don't even want ANY coffee you know it's bad. I brought a big glass of ICED TEA from home this morning, a complete sacrilege.

I'm considering Office Coffee for a mid-morning perk-up.

Anyway, work today is going to be horrible, obviously, after a delightfully lazy week. The only thing I had on my agenda, really, was Find us A House. I woke up when the birdies got so loud I couldn't stand it anymore (around 7:30 most days), took showers only when I had to, did yoga in front of my south-facing window every single morning while the kids watched Disney Channel, and barely did a chore. Oh, and we did find a house. (Were you here just for the update?? Hee.)

We looked at quite a few -- the poor kids (mine and the agent's), being dragged around town all week -- and last Wednesday we put an offer on the prettiest house we've seen. That much is true. It is move-in ready, all updated, and very open, bright, and pretty. It's not Edenberry. We're both still crushed over the loss of that one, and we can't deny it. But it's lovely, LOVELY.

4 BR, 3.5 BA, built in 2000, granite kitchen (and bathrooms!), hardwoods downstairs, a rocking-chair front porch, and a big, flat backyard. There's a small office off the master bedroom. Walk-in closets. The only thing we're not getting is a basement/media room, which wasn't one of our original requirements but we came to think of as something we'd like. No matter; we're both somewhat glad of the reason to pare down and simplify, and try to keep it that way. I take it back, there's one other thing it doesn't have: a Swim/Tennis subdivision. However, the next-door neighbor has a pool (score!) and if we get really determined, I've already inquired about the nearby country club, and it's only $40 a month to swim over there. When we thought about it, we realized we only really swam 4-5 times each of the last 2 summers, in our current neighborhood pool. With rainy days and working full-time, it's just not something we're able to spend the whole summer doing -- not like when I was a kid and we swam nearly every day in summer. We (the kids) swim a lot during our annual time in Florida, and at camps, and we'll make it work.

It's slightly farther northwest than our current location, which panicked me late in the night Thursday after we'd already made an offer and nearly signed on the dotted line, but the good thing about this is, it's a better high school district, and full of families. My agent assured me we will love the community up there, including youth activities for our kids based at the H.S., which sounds promising. Lots of people live up there and it's just as "suburbia" as we're used to, with Super Target (upgrade!) and a Publix on either end of our main road. We predict it will add about 10 minutes to commute times, but those still won't involve the interstates which most metro Atlantans can't say.

We got it for an excellent price, exactly what we were comfortable spending.

We are waiting on paperwork now. I'm freaked out about packing/moving/logistics at the moment, because both closings take place on the same day. How to schedule the truck? I have no idea.

Will keep you posted.

Not meant to be, but...

I totally jinxed it. (No I didn't, I don't believe in jinxes. .......but I totally did.)

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. We KNOW this. We should have known this.

Crushing disappointment.

Big blow.

Don't f*king count your chickens.

Why did we do that?? Let ourselves get emotional?!

Hard to motivate now. I just looked at all the previous listings we've been given to consider, and none of them is as good as that house was. Ugh. Stupid.

Also, the seller is going to get their karma, too. They went w/other offer because those people needed to be out of their house next week (=less risk?). I know because I was in their house that they have a LOT of stuff to get done before next WEEK, and I think they're going to regret it. Not that I wish it on them, but.

Sigh. Just some thoughts going through my head this morning.

Frowny face

They got a better offer.
We even upped ours to more than what was actually comfortable, but it wasn't enough, apparently.

Now YOU'RE riding the roller coaster with us! Sorry to dash your hopes, dear friends/family. We will keep trudging and keep you posted. Sigh.

No jinxies...

We made an offer! We knew from the photos -- we had a good feeling, and the feeling ended up real. It was funny, the FMLS sent us the email about this listing about 4 times, for some reason. We woke up to an insistent FMLS: HERE IS A HOUSE FOR YOU! Thank you, God, for the sign. A big, yellow arrow of sorts. :)

There seemed to be very little wrong with it. One or two little bits of wood rot on the exterior; some fencing that the owner already told our agent they were planning to have fixed (so we wrote that into the offer, of course); but overall everything checked out. It's an upgrade for us without being too much house, and it met most, if not all, of our wish-list items:

• Guest bedroom
• Flatter, smaller yard
• Nice kitchen
• Fenced backyard
• Nice flooring -- (oh, it has the most beautiful wide-plank hardwoods!)
• Decent-sized, equal kid bedrooms with bigger closets than what they have now
• Basement (it's even finished, and fairly nicely, with a full bathroom!)
• Swim/Tennis neighborhood with reasonable dues (we've seen some where the dues are $595 and uhh, no)
• Obviously, price point

I mean, we had to wait for the right day and suffer some disheartening worry in the last 2 weeks, but then God handed us the very thing we were wishing for. (My word through all of this has been TRUST. I haven't always achieved 100% trust, but I've been really trying.)

I mean, not to get ahead of myself -- they haven't accepted the offer yet. They have until 2:00pm today. This market is nuts with the one-day-or-less turnarounds! These people hadn't put the sign in the yard yet! And they're on Spring Break - I'm sure they're feeling shell-shocked, much like we were. My guess is they'll come back wanting to pay less of the closing costs, because who accepts an offer as-is? Nobody.

They decorated to charm me, too. I know the decor doesn't stay, but it had a lot of sweet furniture that was country-chic, but upscale-country, you know? Pottery Barn with purposefully roughed edges, or something. It's hard to describe but it clearly worked. Also, they had a lot of Texas knick-knacks and treasures, so obviously (to those who know I lived there in my childhood, lucky me!) that said "home" to me in a certain way, and made me like them. Apparently they're moving because they've outgrown the space (3 kids), just like we had outgrown ours.

I will update by 2:00! THANK YOU ALL for your prayers and crossed fingers. Really, I felt them. Thank you.

Sherry, I heart you for asking! What's happening...

We're holding our breath is what's happening. We signed the buyers' amendment and agreed to fix a few things. We hope it won't cost us an arm and a leg and I'm relieved that we're finished with the sale -- that document seals the deal, I think (besides the closing, of course).

Today we got a search result that I'm excited about. It's in what appears to be a lovely neighborhood, and looks like it will need some interior paint, but we've gotten pretty good at that! Finished basement, fenced yard, swim/tennis community, closet "systems" in each bedroom... The seller said in the listing that they're putting granite in the kitchen this month. (Saves us the hassle!) As far as I can tell from the photos, it is one of the best options we've seen, so I've already asked to go walk through it at lunch.

Fingers crossed. Trying not to get my hopes up, but you know they're up.