A new level of manipulation

Because this is my story and my life, it truly was impossible to imagine that all would go down without incident. True to life's gentle promises, we had a bit of a snafu Friday at closing.

The (now) former owners of the house tried to scrape every last penny from us that they could in the last few weeks. When we did the walkthrough before closing on Friday and the owner was there, we were less than thrilled. At one point when dr. J left me alone, she let me know that she had left a baby gate in the garage if we were interested. I was, but I almost told her to just toss it, assuming this would somehow end up on our final bill.

Fast forward a few hours to closing. Dr. J and I are signing a smorgasboard of paperwork with our realtor M and attorney. M notices that the owners have arrived so he goes to greet them and let them know we will be done shortly. But he come back with this odd smirk on his face. The owner told M that it was against their religion to do a cash transaction on Fridays. however, they can make an exception if we give them $5. Dr. J is deep in conversation with the attorney when M tells me this, and I completely lose all sense of professionalism and church giggle uncontrollably for the next 10 ish minutes.

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:

- does his religion also prohibit them from notifying people of their religious restrictions on cash transactions in advance?
- how is this even their transaction, we are the buyers!
- ok so the religion permits sets of transactions. One was bad but two is good?

M and I scrape together $4.25 between the two of us, both believing that it is much more likely that we are funding their gas money than anything else. Dr J. finally notices my irrational snickering, so I go ahead and ask him if he has 75 cents. He doesn't even let me finish my question before he cuts me off, tells me he doesn't even want to know what is going on, fishes a buck from his wallet and tosses it to me like I was a pole dancer.

I can't say I've done heavy investigating on the matter but after about ten minutes of googles, my searches for religious prohibition of cash transactions on Friday proved fruitless. We have both resigned ourselves to the belief that we did, indeed, pay for a baby gate. Since M pitched in $2, we are calling it M's gate. Thanks man.

Every Man's Dream

And so go the house closings. Our first is today, closing on the home that we shared for the first 5 years of our marriage. Hopefully the second closing will be tomorrow. There have been a lot of hiccups in this home's progress, but I'm ignoring all that and assuming it will work out.

In any case, we are celebrating the sale of our first home today by making the first purchase for our next home. We'll head straight to Best Buy to purchase a ...

[drum roll]

a new vacuum!!

Our current vacuum was purchased for $75 when I was in grad school and has more than fulfilled its expectations. It has only survived 9 years because we haven't had many carpets in the house in general. Good job, little guy.

What a good man I have to let me take advantage of the 20% off of Dyson vacs before The TV Purchase. Dr. J has long awaited The TV Purchase. Much to the chagrin to our friends that are forced to watch Lost at our house, we have a 32" tube, that was generously handed down to me when my tv exploded about a week before moving from St. Louis to SC. It's still going strong, Erika! And now it's probably going to go strong in the guest room.

Plus, I personally love that The TV Purchase is going to happen right after Dr. J got his tenure. You deserve it babe!!

From whom all blessings flow

We've got a lot to be thankful for right now.

.... we have an unimaginable amount of stress, hence the posting at 4:30 a.m., but we've got more to be thankful for.

Near the top of that list is the survival of my grandparents from yet another tornado. These are two of the Godliest people that ever walked the earth, truly. Somehow, they have managed to ride their faith well into their senility. In case any of you are wondering, they do not do frequent local weather updates on either Larry King or on CNN. So if you are a political junkie, you may or may not be notified when there are two tornadoes passing through your town.

And if you are my grandparents, you will probably drive downtown looking for a good squash. Lord knows, if you don't get there in a timely manner, someone else is gonna get your squash.

As jawdropping as their continued behavior in the face of natural disasters may be, I think we (the family) have resigned ourselves to their stubbornness. Perhaps we all just need to up our prayers for their safety during tornado season.

Any of you reading this that actually know me, must be thinking by now ... the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Yes, I'm well aware of the irony here. And I'll close by saying that I can only hope to have the stamina to make homemade biscuits for my grandkids early in the morning AND stay up until 10 pm to watch Larry King when I'm 88 years old.

Rock on, Grandmother. Live it up.

Trauma Drama

So we are officially out of our house. Our first house that we lived in together as a married couple.

Pause for nostalgic purposes...

Well, we might have had a minute to consider this step in our journey together if only MONA HAD NOT LOST HER SANITY LAST NIGHT!

Mona has stayed with friends before, when we went out of town. She is often depressed when we leave her alone, so if we can, we find a place for her to stay. Oh dear God, I hope she's never done this to anyone else.

So what did she do?

We arrived about 9:30 pm, to our temporary home away from home, and Mona sat silent for approximately 12 minutes .... before the howling began. The howling and the crying that continued as we slept - correction - tried to sleep. About half way through the night she started propelling herself into the air, doing front flips like an Olympic Cat Gymnast, landing on her back on the bed, all the while continuing to cry. Gold medal performance for sure.

What on earth???????? She did at least 30 of those flips. FLIPS! That ended with her laying on her back! Without a doubt, we've been the cause of the most traumatic event in her kitten life.

So goodbye, little house. You were a good little house. You were all my little kitty ever needed.

Have Mercy!

Oh so many things happen all at once. My school year should be wrapping up as soon as all my little darlings take their finals ... and graduate.

It is so hard not to tell student stories on here, but I don't want to cross that bridge at all. I will say that final exams do bring out the strongest emotions in kids, and I remember those days clearly. Today I watched one of mine as he struggled to try and figure out how to manage all the stress. I could totally relate!! So, so, so many things are happening with me all at once. Some days I feel like I'm going to pop, not just because of the babies either. I keep thinking, if we can just sell the house, if we can just find another house, if we can just get tenure, if the appraisals / inspections can all go through, if ... if ... if. No matter what, I just know it's not all gonna get done before the boys get here. However, my mom is coming earlier than we originally planned and I'm SO GRATEFUL! Isn't it amazing how mom's can make everything better?

I do want you to know that I do not feel guilt when my students are stressed over finals - it's not my fault!!! However, I do feel for them. Even my little heart of stone that used to get grounded for crying, can only watch so many tears.

The Ugly Duckling

Or Leo the late bloomer or whatever children's story is a metaphor for our life as of late. Dr. J and I are both just overwhelmed with God's grace right now. We have just spent so many years reminding ourselves that the Lord will take care of us and there is a larger plan. And so we have just forged ahead trusting and praying.

Dr. J got tenure today. I'm so proud of him and want him to take time to appreciate the achievement. Which is going to be challenging with all the other things that have worked out for us lately. All of which are wonderful blessings - they just happened arrived in kind of a scary order. Right now, things are really looking up!!

Congrats Dr. J!!!

MUCH Progress

1. Our current home has been inspected and appraised and all has gone well. Close on May 27th - yay!!

2. Our offer on the next home was accepted!! Hopefully we can fast track inspections / appraisal / closing and be in by June 5th.

We love a lot of things about this home and are really excited about it. Photos of the front and back yard below.





Last but not least, I ran to the grocery store after work today to alleviate all the chores that Dr. J is now fulfilling. I thought I was going to have a heat stroke so I went to the frozen section and stood there holding a door open staring into the vast space of Ore Ida Potato varieties.