Double posts!

Aren't you all lucky today? Actually, after some of the monster posts I've done in the past, this one should be a bit of a breath of fresh air since it will be short and sweet. We went to a local buffet tonight for dinner, and after we managed to brave the elements and get everyone buckled back in the car a MAJOR realization hit me. I've been talking off and on lately about possibly having more kids (something that never would have occurred to me if my tubal last March didn't get canceled, which is another post in itself) and when I looked at my minivan filled with children it hit me that we would have to get a bigger vehicle. Like, minibus type of vehicle. We're already full up in our 8 passenger minivan and if we had two more girls (and yes, they would be girls. I've never been wrong about this before, you can ask my clients and my husband, and don't intend to start now) we would have to get one of those 11-12 passenger vans. Definitely a thought to make a person pause. I don't mind the size, I learned to drive on a big van and I like to sit high up when driving, but the cost can make you shudder. Those things aren't cheap and since they don't make a lot of them for consumers (mostly commercial sales) the resale cost stays pretty high. IF you can find one used, that is. People tend to hang onto them for years. Definitely a thought to ponder.

Winter's here to stay.

Alright, I know it's been here for awhile but I'm just now getting the chance to blog about it ok? We had a very mild summer this year, much cooler than usual with lots of flooding this past spring. Every one assured me that it meant we had a mild winter in store for us. Well, every one was WRONG! We usually don't start getting our freezing temps until January, but they've started early this year and with a vengeance. The temp outside is currently around 0 and the wind chill makes it drop to maybe 10-20 below. That's the kind of weather that can make a person seriously question why they were crazy enough to move to such a location. Well, I can truthfully say that we had lots of reasons all of which were good and valid but none of which exist any longer. Anyone know of some decent houses or lots for sale in one of the warmer states (as long as it is within 30min of a temple and still gets a bit of snow in the winter)?

Enough misery to go around.

So, last night wasn't the best night ever. John went to bed at 9:30 and 2 hrs later was still awake. I know this because that's when I fell asleep. Fast forward to 1:40 and both girls are climbing in bed with me and John is nowhere to be found. I assumed he got up to do something with work (it's not entirely unusual for a program to have to be started at odd hours), and started to get the girls settled in when I realized Jasmine was holding back vomit (there is no mistaking that jerking torso). We didn't quite make it to the bathroom. I sent Jocelyn for John to come help out and fortunately clean up was pretty quick and easy but she spent the next hour or so running her razor sharp toenails up and down my leg (and yes, those toenails are now history). I kicked Jocelyn out after I found a wet spot on the side of my bed where she had been sitting, so at least she wasn't there spreading the love. Next morning I go to get the boys up and find Jared clutching his stomach and groaning and Joseph was complaining about a headache, so I sent everyone back to bed. By 9 Jared had thrown up (and other stuff), Jasmine was acting fine but had the other stuff going on all day, and the rest of the kids were great. Around 10 I took off to get stage stairs for the church Christmas party and almost killed myself (seems to be a common theme lately). Some guy didn't like me going the speed limit and passed me on the left going 45 in a 30. This annoyed me so much that while fuming about it and thinking about all the fun stuff waiting at home, I managed to make a left turn onto the wrong side of a divided highway and barely missed a head on collision. Did I mention I did this in front of a cop? Fortunately he ignored me and I continued on my way only to get to the rental store and find that the stairs wouldn't fit into my vehicle with the back two rows of seats in. I headed back home to take them out, once again failing to notice a crucial traffic law. A one way street I was traveling on turned into a two-way and I didn't notice I was in the left lane until I (once again) almost ran head long into another vehicle. I swear, I was beginning to think I was possessed by my dad. He's actually run through the cross guards at a train track because he was too busy thinking and off in his own world to notice the crossbars were down. I managed to get back to the store and to church with no problems only to realize the stairs were too wide to fit through the doors at church. I went inside to tell the other two women I was there and came upon them telling their own misery stories. One womans husband failed to put his vehicle completely in park and got knocked down and almost run over that morning and then she came to church where another woman promptly locked her out of the building with no coat, keys, or cell phone. The other woman then went to practice on the organ and couldn't hear her ringing the doorbell. In 10 degree weather, being locked outside is no laughing matter. She managed to find a door that was locked but hadn't latched all the way and got in and started setting the tables only to realize that most of the buildings tablecloths were missing, the butcher paper was running out, and she didn't have a key to the library. The second woman from our ward (the organist was from a different ward) got in a fender bender last night and waited an hour in the cold to file a police report only to find out she didn't have to because the damage was less than $1000. She missed the class she was heading to and the store she wanted to go to closed while she waited. She also found out this morning that she made a mistake with her checking account and now owed $360 in NSF fees. Plus she had to cover the missing $800. We almost scrapped the Christmas party then and there. Luckily things went better. One of the three sets of doors turned out to be just big enough to get the stage stairs through (but not without crushing my finger first) and a third woman showed up with keys to the library and we were able to get another roll of butcher paper out. That's when I took off so I could grab some groceries and feed the kids again. I didn't want to pass around the flu so I didn't go tonight, but hopefully we didn't jinx it and keep the party from going smoothly.

My cliff hanger

So do you like the way I left my last post with a total cliff hanger? That birth just may have killed me (cue the horror movie music). I don't know though, the Lord works in mysterious ways and this may just have been one of them. I had a mom call me on a Fri morning to report she was in labor with her water possibly broken. She then proceeded to labor on and off until her delivery on Mon morning. Not quite as bad as it sounds, she had several breaks in there where the labor stopped and she was able to get a good bit of rest, but unfortunately I was unable to. In that entire time I probably got 8-12 hrs sleep. When I got home from the birth Mon, I got Joseph off to school and the rest of the kids going for the day and then completely crashed. I managed to get maybe one-two hrs of sleep in before I got a phone call from another soon-to-be due mom and friend and ended up dragging myself out of bed to take care of the kids and whatever else around the house. By 3:00 I was lying down on the couch almost completely out of it again and crashed hard when I finally made it to bed that night. It took me several days to recover. Flash forward a few days and I noticed on Facebook that a former client of mine had delivered. She had her baby at 12:30 A.M. Tue morning. That's right, TUESDAY morning. If we hadn't announced that we were moving and she hadn't been worried that I wouldn't get back in time for the birth (I intended to drive back for the three births I had lined up) she wouldn't have changed to a different practitioner. If she hadn't changed, then Mon night I would have gotten called out to her birth and I wouldn't have left to come home until maybe 4:30 or so Tue morning. Her home is maybe a 40min drive out of town. Can you imagine me making that drive back? I truly feel that I wouldn't have made it safely. With the degree of fatigue I was dealing with, there is every possibility I would have ended up in a ditch on the side of a lonely highway (all highways in ND are lonely, there just aren't that many people in the state to keep them hugely busy). Who knows why we felt prompted to try to buy this house in Montana, but I'm willing to bet that was one of the reasons.

I'm sorry, so sorry....

Please accept my apologiesss. What, you don't remember that song? Don't worry, I won't sing it but I promise I'm thinking it. I guess I've just been so disheartened with all the stuff for the house, and going crazy with stress and lack of sleep for work, and home school (not that home school is stressful, it just keeps me busy) and regular public school, and the ward Christmas party and the birth experience survey that I haven't kept up with this the way I should. I'll do better from now on. Ok, house. Our deadline for her counter-offer for owner financing came and went with no response. She finally replied 2-3 days after our offer expired stating that she was interested and would get back to us. Here it is Dec 7th and we haven't heard from her since. Our realtor called hers every day last week wanting to know what was going on, so her realtor finally drove by the house only to find a moving van. Yep that's right, she was moving all her stuff out and heading to Texas (one more crazy independent coming your way Julie) where her fiance lives. We finally gave up and called it quits. We emailed our termination letter to our realtor today and should be getting our earnest money back soon. Our families lives have been on hold for the last two and a half months and finally enough was enough. Our realtor believes that the seller is just waiting until her contract with her guy runs out and then she will approach us privately. Not the most honorable of options, but I can believe it considering how much she (the seller) dislikes him. So, for the moment we are on hold. Good news for my April client but terrible news for us financially. That's @ $2000 down the hole which could have gone to bills or something else. We're not taking the house off the market just yet. I'm sure it won't sell until spring anyway, and we might as well leave it on in case this woman approaches us privately. It really upsets me that I've lost two births due to this, but it may have all been for the best since one of them just might have killed me. But I'll save that story for tomorrows post.

Are we done?

Can't answer that one, because I don't know. The seller had until 5:00 MT to respond to our new offer and yet once again we have heard nothing. Makes me want to call her up and demand to know what her problem is. Hey, if she can call me at 7:00 in the morning (knowing full well she's not supposed to contact us) and make my kid late for school I should be able to return the favor. We have spent so much time and so much money on this house purchase only to end up with a very real possibility of getting nothing out of the deal. It's breaking my heart, and driving me insane with stress having our lives up in the air and at the whim of this crazy woman.

And waiting.....

Alright, I know I haven't written in forever. It's hard to get the motivation up sometimes when I don't even know if anyone is reading these posts, but writing often makes me feel better so here I am back at the keyboard. The house. Wow, that could make for one monster post. I'll try and keep it brief. We had begun working out the details about who would pay for what when it comes to house repairs, when I got a call from our loan agent. Our new closing date (Nov 13th) was quickly approaching, so he had our appraiser start the paperwork for the house and had received some bad news. It cost us $75 to find out that the house is unappraisable. There are no comparable homes in the area, average house size is 1200-1500 sq ft and this one is 8000, so he has no way of figuring out what a house like this would normally sell for in that area. If he can't figure out what it would sell for, he can't assure the bank that they aren't providing a mortgage that is worth more than the house and without that assurance the bank won't provide a loan. So not only will OUR credit union not provide a mortgage for this home, NO lender will provide a mortgage for this house. That means we are now without a loan and this woman is up a creek. When we first found out that this may be a problem, John and I started brain storming and decided to request owner financing. This woman doesn't have to sell and can take all the time in the world (if you ignore the fact that she's 80 and could be on the final countdown), so it won't matter to her if it takes us 15 yrs to finish purchasing the house. Which is what we offered. We offered a $5000 down payment and 15yr loan at 3% interest. Oh, and no repairs done to the house. We offered to do them all. She expressed interest and asked for the weekend to think it over, which we were happy to agree to. I'm sure we'll have to go back and agree to a bigger down payment, but she has agreed to wait until our house here sells so we are prepared for that. We won't agree to much more, if any, when it comes to interest since we are offering to do all the repairs but we'll have to see how that goes. So that's where we're at. If she accepts, that means Billings is it for us. We may not ever be able to sell the house, so we better settle in and enjoy it.