The End

I have finally decided to lay this blog to rest, seeing how I never blog anymore. I'm going to figure out how to get this thing printed into a book, and then I'm going to give it to the Grandmas, because after all, it's a blog for Grandma.

So this is going to be my last post. Lucky you.


I won't even try to recap all that's happened in the past few months since my last post; I will instead focus on our plans for the future. While just *yesterday* we were just a few days away from listing the house onto the market and moving onto our exciting plan of moving into a new house, today we are back to square one. And I do mean Square One. As in, Pay Off Bills And Then Talk To A Bank Square One. Which means, whereas we only had a few days to meet our goal of getting the house listed, we are now months away. It's a little depressing, I will admit.

So since this is a blog post and not a book, I just can't go into great detail about how we landed back on square one. I'm sure you'll hear all about it during birthday parties, Easter, and phone calls. But let's just say that between my Mom, me and Dennis, we've agreed this is the right thing to do. We are going to finally "leave the nest"; we're going to break off and buy our own house. It's about time, right? We're only nearing 40....

My Mom and Dad did a really good and generous thing about 10 years ago when we first had Max. They offered to buy us a "fix-up house" with a plan that we would glam up the house and we would make a great profit of it. The profit would go to Mom and Dad and they would help us with the down payment so we could get another house. They did this to help us get out of our apartment and so that I could stay home to take care of Max. Only God Himself knew how much care Max was going to take as we didn't know about his sensory issues and how very stressful and exhausting it would be, and to this day, I know that it was what we were supposed to do. No regrets, just lots of gratitude. The house that Mom and Dad chose for us was not the one we really wanted (we kept seeing it online and saying to each other, "There's *that house* again.") But we were grateful to have it. We had space. This was supposed to be originally a five year plan and I kept telling myself that we would soon have a house of our own. But then, things happened.

 

• I became a stay-at-home-mom to take care of Max, so we were on one income
• Eventually I did go back to work but became pregnant 4 more times, quitting my job so I could stay home w/ the new baby for the first year.
• The house market crashed. Or whatever you want to call it.
• Dennis's job became unstable with lay-offs and so "the move" was off, until we were sure he would still have a job.
• I had a heart attack--a huge setback with hospital bills and more to come as I needed ongoing care for the first year and cardiac therapy.
• Dad died, making it difficult for Mom to help us with house updates.
• Updates pretty much stopped.

Over the years, our family continued to grow, including our surprise pregnancy right after the heart attack. But unfortunately, houses don't grow. We found that as the kids get older, they need more space. We are especially concerned with Max, who still struggles with his sensory issues. Noise is his biggest trigger, and his intolerance of it affects the whole family. So that led us again to thinking of moving. Mom suggested that maybe we could sell this house and buy another with the profit of this one. It sounded so do-able!

So we worked really hard for a good six months; repainting the entire house, updating everything that was broken. And then I started a novena to St.Joseph. And then everything went downhill from there.

I had read a really good article a few weeks ago called "Sometimes God says no", and it seems He is saying "no" to this for now. Only He knows the answer as to why; I am okay with this now (after a day of sobbing) as long as we have a plan in place. Or He does.

So I don't know about His plan, but our plan is to work hard on paying off our debt. This is what we've always been trying to do, but I mean really work hard, as in "Little House on the Prairie work hard". You know, those episodes where Pa goes off hundreds of miles to do some dangerous work for good money and Ma and the girls pull together and take care of the farm? That kind of work--the hard working sacrificing kind of work that makes you fall into bed exhausted but proud of yourself kind of work. I will try to find a part time job that my poor brain can handle, and Dennis is going to sell his truck. We will eventually go down to one car. Most of my social security will go to bills. We will work hard. And then in hopefully just a few short months, we will go to the bank and beg for a loan. We'll show them all the hard work we did and hopefully, they will approve us.

The plan is to then list this house and try to sell it for as much as we can; Mom said she will give some of the profits of this house for us to use as a down payment, which will help a lot. We will then find a house far, far away (most likely) that will work for us to live in and can afford. Actually, we prefer not to go far away. We will have to see where we end up.

That is our plan. I'm okay with it. Dennis is still a little wide-eyed over the sudden switch of plans (I already had my melt-down), and I'm still trying to adjust to the thought of not listing the house.
And no, we're not really enjoying the updates. Those updates were picked for someone else, not us. I would not have painted the house this yucky white color, for one thing. (And no, we can't just paint over it again. Painting alone was $200!) We would have chosen different carpets. But I do love the new kitchen light and microwave! I will enjoy that.

In a way, I'm grateful to stay for another spring and summer (and possibly fall). I like it here because of all the trees. I love the trails nearby and riding my bike through the woods. I love all the colors of the changing leaves and I love that the kids can swing on the swing set one more summer. I think they will be happy too.

It's difficult to have to start all over again (and this isn't the first time), but I knew when I started the novena to St.Joseph that my plans might get messed up. Because when you are asking God what His will is for you, sometimes that means you have to give up what your will might be. If you are asking God for direction in your plans, sometimes He might mess them all up and point them in a different direction, or worse, just take them away completely. But the consoling thought of this is that it is done all for your own good. My plan wasn't a good one, so God took it away, and I know He has a better one. We don't really know what the end of the story is, but the beauty of it is that we will watch it unfold before our eyes as we take things step by step and let Him lead us to where we should go.

So I feel like this is a good place to end this blog. It is sort of an end of an era but also a new beginning. Where we go and where will be in the next blog? Only God knows....

TO BE CONTINUED.... (In the next blog--whenever that will be!)