Little Friends.

Sonnet is friends with the girl who lives in the house behind us. They met about a year ago and almost every day since then, they have met outside and "played" together over the wall. When Sonnet found out we were moving, the only thing she was sad about was leaving this friend. On our last day there, they hugged each other and cried a little and gave each other some gifts and pictures that they'd drew. So sweet! Adios Gabriela!

Daddy's Helper.

Stetson loves tools! He loves to tinker around when Nate is working on something. You can tell he feels special sitting by Daddy's side, poking things with a screwdriver. Tonight, he was super intrigued by the headlamps they put on to work on a project. Such a cute little guy!

Happy.

A while back, Nate asked me what makes me really happy. The first thing I thought of was “a clean, organized, cute house.”

Is that so shallow? Partly I think that was on the top of my brain because right now I do NOT have a clean, organized, cute house and I probably won’t for a few months still. It’s stressing me out and I’m not all that thrilled about my current and near-future living conditions.

But saying that out loud, and letting it impact my happiness the way it has lately, makes me feel like I am a materialistic, ungrateful whiner.  

So I started thinking: why do I care so much about my house and my surroundings? What is the point of all of it anyway? There are people in the world who live on dirt floors or in the city dump.  Obviously they can’t base their happiness and success in life on their home. Why can’t I just let it go?

When you really think about it, what impact does a nice house and cute decorations have on your day to day life? I mean, I pretty much packed up my whole house three weeks ago and we’ve been living on the bare bones and still life has gone on as usual.  (Or has it?)

So, why do I invest time and effort and money to decorate my home and keep it organized? Does it really even matter? And why I am so stressed out and feeling so “off” just because my house is empty and because I will be renting someone else’s house for the next few months? And why should I care so much about finding a new home to buy? Is all of this a shallow attempt to find happiness outside of myself? What makes a “home” a “home” anyway? Isn’t it just the people and the feelings inside it?

(Yes, I was having a crisis).

Then I talked to one of my very wise friends. (OK, let’s be honest, I showed up at her door and lost it, and she talked me back from the edge). She told me it is OK to be stressed out about not having a place to live. It’s a stressful thing. She told me to take a breath and just have some faith and that it would work out (and so far it has). She’s a smart one, I tell you.

And when I started explaining how I feel guilty for caring so much about my home and my decorations and being organized, she told me that those things bring me joy, and that the Lord wants me to have joy. He didn’t put us here on this earth with all its beauty and nice things and then expect us to ignore it. If those nice and pretty things weren’t of some value, weren’t meant to be used and appreciated by us, then He wouldn’t have spent so much time creating this world and endowing people with creativity and artistic ability. He wants us to be happy. And if those things make me happy, He is not going to fault me for including them in my life.

Holy moly, I so needed to hear that.  

Now, obviously I need to be a well-rounded individual and be able to function in society and be nice to other people whether my home is perfect or not (and I probably need to work on chilling out a little bit). I can’t base my joy on materialistic things, but there is nothing wrong with allowing those things to bring me happiness or using my energy and talents to create and maintain a modest, happy, pretty, organized space for my family and me to call home.

I’ve always felt that being neat and organized is a strength of mine. Creating a functional space and keeping it clean just comes naturally to me. I feel spiritually better when my physical surroundings are in order and my physical needs are met. When my house is clean, there is food in the fridge, gas in the car, clean clothes in the closets, and all the bills are paid, well then I feel like I can do just about ANYTHING because the basics are taken care of. So, I take the time each day to maintain a certain level of order in my home and I can feel good about that. Even the Lord said His house is a “house of order...and not a house of confusion.” (D&C 132:8). I just love when I have things in common with The Man Upstairs.

And actually, (as long as I’m rambling)… I don’t think the “basics” are all that basic. One thing I’ve come to believe as a full-time mom and homemaker is that “making a home” and doing those sometimes mundane tasks like laundry, dishes, and grocery shopping are actually very noble jobs. They allow your children and spouse to have a place that they can come to that is safe and clean, a place where they can be free from the noise and chaos of the world, where their needs are met, where they can find the strength they need to fortify them and carry them back out into the world. Using your time and energy to “make a home” and keep it running as smoothly as possible actually creates a refuge for your loved ones. The more time you spend creating a good environment in your home, the more harmony and peace you can feel there.  And we all need that. When our physical needs are met, it is much easier to find the time and energy to seek after the spiritual things that truly matter. When our house is “in order” we are free to go out and help the rest of the world, knowing we have a secure place to come back to.  I believe the temporal and the spiritual are inseparably connected. Our bodies and our spirits must be nurtured. And for me, a nice home meets my physical needs and uplifts me spiritually.

So, I’m not going to feel guilty for being a wee bit stressed over being in “limbo.” And I’m going to try to enjoy the hunt for a new house when it begins and take great joy in creating a new home for my family. Because, really, my family is what makes me happiest of all. J                                               

Plan B.

We are still selling our house. We actually go sign the final documents tomorrow and officially close on Monday.

I am a tiny bit sad to leave my house, but I am ready for a new one and I feel I have let this one go already.

I am sad to leave my friends in this area, but I know I want to be closer to family and Sonnet’s school and Nate’s station, so off we go. (Plus, I’m only going across town, not across country). Text me, friends! Let's go to lunch! I love your guts!

I know selling this house was the right choice for us at this time. I know it’s time for us to move to a different part of town. I’m not sure how it’s all going to work out in the coming months (I’m sure my expectations exceed reality, as usual), but I can, with a clear head, say I’m on the right path for now. (I was doubting all this last week when I was feeling emotional and stressed, but I know it's right so I'm stating it here to remind myself next time I start freaking out again).

I am still stressed out because we are going to be moving twice in the next month. The townhome we are planning to rent in Boulder City will not be available until sometime mid-October.

I really didn’t want to move somewhere else in the interim and wait for it to become available, so we searched all over for another place we could rent immediately. We looked mostly in our “target” area because we felt it might be wise to spend some time living in the area we want to buy a house in so that we could get a feel for the neighborhoods, the people, the wards, etc.

We found a couple options that we could move into right away that were actually in our budget and accepted large dogs (Blaze complicates things, but we love that dumb dog), but we just never felt right about any of them. I wanted to feel good about them because they were way more convenient, but for some reason, it just wasn’t meant to be.

Honestly, I’ve come to realize I don’t love the idea of living in Boulder City again. We lived there when we got married and it is super nice, but that drive into town makes me batty. One of the big reasons we want to move from here is that we feel so far away from everything and spend so much time in the car. So it’s kind of dumb to move to Boulder where we will still be 30 minutes away from school and work. But, it’s temporary and well, it feels right.

Bright sides: Our friend who owns the townhome is going to charge us less rent than every other place we found, we can go feed the nasty carp at Lake Mead any time we want (which I find highly entertaining), we already know some of the people in the ward we will be attending (which brings me a lot of peace for some reason), and we will be closer to Nate’s parents and literally down the street from mine. (Maybe we can con them into babysitting lots and Nate and I can actually go on a date more than twice a year).

While we wait for Boulder to become available, we are going to rent our other friends’ house just around the corner from our current house. They recently bought a bigger house and moved out. They are planning to turn their old place into a rental and we decided to become their first tenants. J It’s kind of strange to go live in someone else’s house and I am not thrilled about moving, unpacking and organizing (the bare essentials, but still, it’s work) and then repacking, moving again, and unpacking and organizing again (a few more essentials, but not everything) and then in a few months doing it all over again. Just thinking about it has turned me into a crazy person. (I am a hermit crab. I love my shell and right now my shell is in total chaos and I do not feel like myself and you should all feel very bad for my husband who has to live with me every day).

Bright sides: our friends’ neighborhood has a pool (which means I can go sit in the hot tub every night) and a cute little playground literally steps from their front door (which Stetson will love), and I get to stay in this area and hang out with my friends for another couple weeks. Good stuff.

So really, I should just be grateful it’s all working out. And I am! I’m grateful and nuts all at the same time. Yep, sounds about right...

We The People...

Tonight was "Constitution Night" at Sonnet's school. At the beginning of each school year, each class holds a "constitutional convention" and they write their own constitutions... the guidelines that they choose to set for themselves for the coming year. Then, we have a special patriotic program and each student walks on stage and signs their constitution. Then they are hung in the classrooms for the remainder of the year. I think it is such an awesome ritual and helps reinforce the idea of "self-government." Also, how cute is my little Lefty signing her John Hancock?

Last Week.

Last Sunday I literally couldn’t get myself out of bed. I’m sure it was mostly hormones, but I was so physically zapped that I couldn’t even function. Thankfully Nate got home right before the kids woke up, so I slept until 9am. When I saw what time it was, I considered just rolling over and going back to sleep for the rest of the day (I reaaaaally wanted to), but I felt guilty about leaving Nate to play Mr. Mom. Instead, I went downstairs, greeted everyone, poured some cereal, and then fell asleep on the couch while the kids ran around and played on top of me. After a while, I managed to get myself in the shower and I was planning to get dressed for church, but instead I sat down on the edge of my bed and cried because all I wanted to do was get back in it. After Stetson went down for his nap, that’s exactly what I did. I slept like the dead and would have kept sleeping until Monday morning if I could have.

Monday, Nate was back at work, Sonnet did not have school, and it was a looooong day. I still wasn’t feeling hot and I then I found out that any hope I had of the current tenants in the townhome we’re supposed to be moving into actually moving out before we close escrow on this house and have to move out was completely unfounded. At this point, I’ll be surprised if they get out of there any time before November. So, we’re homeless for a month.  I know I should be extremely grateful that our house sold and that everything is progressing along nicely with the sale. And I am! But I am frustrated because I was originally told that the townhome would be available and it seemed like such a seamless transition (it's available, and cheap, and familiar, and near my parents, and flexible, and easy...) and well, I just hate when things don’t work out. I know it’s immature, but I don’t cope well. I want the world to work like I think it should work. I know it doesn’t, but sometimes I just get sick of that fact. I really don’t want to move out of here into something else for one month and then move into the townhome for however long and then move AGAIN into our new house. Our buyer offered to rent this place back to us, but she’s looking for a long-term renter. I don’t want to spend the next 6 months renting my own house back. That’s just depressing. Plus, I already packed it up and there is no way I’m going to unpack it and I can't function in this naked abode for much longer. We asked the buyer if we could just rent this place for the month of October and then we’ll (hopefully) move into that townhome for a few months and begin our search, but I haven’t gotten a response yet. 

The rest of the week was pretty good. I went to lunch with my buddies, I bought a new little t-shirt that I am quite fond of, the “Burn Notice” series finale was on and it was way better than I expected it to be (so long, Michael Westen, I shall miss you!), I did yoga, Sonnet had playdates, we went to the library twice, we went to the "back to school Bar-B-Q," I got some stuff done for my church calling, and I’ve been listening to “Atlas Shrugged” on disc and that book always makes me feel better about life, so other than the crazy bad case of hemorrhoids I am nursing right now (TMI, I know) and the fact that my ice machine isn’t working and I have a serious addiction to crushed ice, I feel pretty good.

Sonnet had a good week at school and I am so proud of her. I realized today that she is only 6. What I mean is, sometimes that catches me off guard... She is such a good kid and so very smart and I demand a lot from her. I kind of think she’s older in my head or something. But then once in a while, like today when she got SO excited about a Sophia the First doll she saw on TV that her eyes went wide and she squealed like the little girl that she is, I thought, “She is such a cute little girl.” And it struck me that yeah, she is LITTLE. I remembered that she’s only 6 years old and that she’s still a little kid and that sometimes I need to cut her some slack. Perils of being the oldest child, I guess. I know how she feels. I should be more sensitive.

Sonnet gets really excited about her Halloween costume every year. She always spends a lot of time thinking about what she wants to dress up as. This year, she has been debating between The Little Mermaid and Sophia the First for months. She finally decided on Sophia and when we went for a late night run to Walmart yesterday, we found a Sophia costume in her size and she is dying to wear it. She wants Stetson to dress up as Clover (Sophia's little sidekick) so we're on the hunt for a bunny costume for my little man.

Sonnet and Stetson have been playing together really well lately. It cracks me up how different they are, but he just adores her and tries to do everything she does. And she can make him belly laugh like no one else. I swear, there is nothing better than the sound of your kids laughing together!

Last night they were playing with dolls. Sonnet had a little girl baby and Stetson had a little boy baby. I was watching them play and Sonnet was being so soft to her doll, singing to it and putting it to sleep. Stetson, on the other hand, dunked his head first into the dog’s bowl and then chucked it down the stairs. To his credit, he did go pick it up and try to feed it his bottle afterwards. Stetson is very good at sharing. And talking! Holy cow, how did I end up with these two blonde, chatty babies?

Stetson  learned the words “clean” and “dirty” and he loves to walk around the house and point out the spots on the windows or the floors or the counters and say “duh-dee!” Gee, thanks for the reminder. He is also our little seatbelt police when we get in the car. He’ll say “buckle, buckle, buckle” over and over until we all show him that we have our buckles on.

After I drop Sonnet off at school every morning, I usually say something like "Well, Bud, it's just you and me" to Stetson as we drive home. I don't really think about it, but it is kind of a habit I have. On Friday when we dropped her off, Stetson was waving to her and yelled out the window "Bye Girl!" And then as I rolled up the window and drove off, he said, "Well, Mama." I'm sure he would have finished the sentence if he knew how. That kid doesn't miss a thing.

Today it is Sunday again and I went to church and I felt kind of sad about moving. Most of my friends in this area I will still see after we move. Most of my friendships consist of texting and meeting up for lunch or dessert anyway and I can still do that if I live in a different part of town. But, I belong to a really great ward with really great women and I am sad and a bit nervous to leave it. Seriously, as a general rule, all the women around here are so down-to-earth and kind… there is very little drama and no one is all that high-maintenance and there are no “cliques” and there is always something social going on if you want to go spend time with the other women. I know that not every ward is like that and I love so many of these women and I feel so comfortable here, sometimes I wonder why I’m giving it up. But, I also think I can take what I've learned from them with me and well, I think the time is right for us to move on. Plus, there’s always The Cheesecake Factory to meet at!

And now, it's a new week. Who knows what it will hold? Mexican food, naps, playing, laughing, and lots more Dagny Taggart if I have anything to say about it.

School BBQ.

Every year, Sonnet's school does a "back to school bbq" fundraiser at the park a couple weeks after school starts. They have food and a bounce house and a huge tug-o-war game... Sonnet loves to go hang out with her friends and eat junk food! :)

Counting Chickens in Limbo.

Here’s the big news: we are in escrow on our house! We had it on the market for one week (and even though that is such a short time I swear it was one of the longest weeks of my life!). We had 12 buyers come through total and on the 7^th day we got two offers, both at listing price. One was a cash buyer.

Even though I don’t really love the idea of all these “investors” coming in and scooping up all the properties and then renting them out because a)it stinks for the “nice little families” who want to buy a home but can’t compete with cash and b)renters are transient and less invested in the neighborhood which just makes for a less stable environment and c)I was kind of hoping some nice little family would fall in love with my house and be happy here, but instead it's going to be repainted and rented without care… well, it’s hard as a seller to turn down a cash offer when you know the money is sitting in the bank just waiting to be disbursed. So, we accepted the offer and we are in escrow and looking to close on September 30^th. Holy crap, we are excited and freaked out all at the same time!

The day after we accepted the offer, Nate came home with a bunch of boxes and we spent the day packing and organizing. I know, it totally feels like we are counting our chickens before they’ve hatched, but assuming it all works out, we’ve only got three weeks to get out of here.

Turns out, all we needed was a day. We literally have like 90% of our house packed and sitting in the garage. The only thing left is food, clothes, beds, and toys which we can’t pack or move until the last minute anyway. My house looks so strange with nothing on the walls and most of the furniture missing.

For a second I started to think that maybe it’s silly that I have all these “decorations” that don’t really serve any function. I mean, I packed them all up and my life is going on as normal. Except, it’s not really. I’ve only spent two days in this empty, empty house and I already hate it. I am such a visual person and I care so much about the way my home looks because that affects the way it “feels” and I need to feel warm, comfy, and like ME in my house. Having a clean, organized, cute house is just one of my “things”. So I’m not going to feel bad that I’ve already started decorating our future house in my head.

There is one little hitch. We have this great plan to move into this townhome in Boulder City for a bit while we look for something to buy. A guy we know owns it, but he’s not living in it and he’s just been using it as a rental property in the meantime (and he’s going to let us rent it for cheaper than we could find another place which is why it’s such an important part of the plan). But there are renters in it right now. Originally I was told that they would be out between September 15 and 30, so we felt totally fine closing escrow on the 30^th. They said they wanted to be out as soon as possible (they’re waiting for the house they’re building to get finished) so we figured we would be able to move the stuff we’re storing into the garage over there without really bugging them, and then just move over the stuff we’ll live off of at the last minute and that we’d have plenty of time to get all that done before the end of the month.

Turns out, they are now saying they may not be out until October 15^th. They’re shooting for the end of September, but they don’t seem like they’re in a rush to get out anymore (they seem burned out). So now I’m kind of panicking. What do I do without a home for 2 weeks? I mean, we can find a place to sleep and all, but what about my stuff? I just really don’t want to move it and then move it again and then move it again. If it has to be out of here, but I can’t move it over there, where does it go in the meantime? A storage unit I suppose, but the prices on those things are so unreasonable that we wouldn’t want to leave it there the whole 3-6 months we’re in the townhome which means we’d have to go get it out and move it to the garage once we were able. That’s annoying because it’s an extra move (and more chances for my poorly packed stuff to break). And what about the stuff I wasn’t planning to pack, but just sort of scoot from house to house at the last minute like clothes and toys and groceries? Where do they go for two weeks? I suppose I’ll have to pack them up and we’ll live out of suitcases.

I know it’s not the end of the world. This is a first-world problem if there ever was one. Poor me, my house sold in 7 days. Poor me, the buyer wants to close and pay me money. Poor me, I just have too much stuff! Someone call the waaaambulance.

But it’s stressing me out just the same.

There’s a chance those renters may get out sooner and we’ll go back to our original plan and everything will be hunky dory and I can spend my time whining about how I fell in love with a house and then a stupid cash buyer came and swooped it out from under me. But for now I’m just sort of living in a decoration-less limbo, hoping we close escrow, hoping we don't have to go back on the market, hoping those renters move on down the line in a timely fashion, and hoping I don’t go crazy in the meantime. It's normal to view something as a total blessing and a total reason to freak out, right?!

Total blessing. For sure.

Moving On.

We’ve decided to sell our house. Home values in Las Vegas have gone up 25% in the last year and homes in our price range are selling quickly. I’ve heard predictions that this increase will continue for quite a while. And I’ve also heard that several of the big banks will soon start doing major foreclosures again and releasing those properties back onto the market (which will increase inventory and therefore either steady or decrease prices). One way or the other, it’s a “seller’s market” right now and we have decided to throw our hat in the ring.

We’d always planned on staying in this house for 3-5 years. We’ve been here 4.5 years. With the market being what it’s been for the last few years, we didn’t anticipate selling or buying again anytime soon. But as I started reading about the upswing in the market and talked to several friends who have had lots of luck selling their homes in this area, I thought maybe we ought to look into it. We called our realtor/friend and had him run some comps in our neighborhood. Turns out we can make the profit we hoped to make when we bought this house (enough to pay off the bit of debt we have, cover closing costs on this house, and put a good down payment on a new house). So as of last Wednesday, we are officially on the market!

We bought this house in 2009. It wasn’t at the bottom of the market, but it was pretty close. We felt like we got a great deal on this house and we’ve never been upside down in it. We’ve always been very comfortable with our mortgage payment and now it’s looking like this house was indeed a good investment.

When we got married in 2005, the Vegas market was insane. Houses were selling at an alarming rate and for prices that seemed outrageous. Nate and I talked about buying, but we just never felt comfortable shelling out that much dough for a starter home. Also, we weren’t in a hurry to have kids, but we knew that once we did, Nate would become the sole source of income (so I could be a stay-at-home mom) and we didn’t want to be tied to a big mortgage that we couldn’t handle. So, we decided to rent a nice little town home and we were perfectly happy. We saw friends buying houses and sometimes we wondered if maybe we weren’t missing something, but the numbers never crunched for us and it just never felt like the right choice.

Turns out that was a blessing. A couple years into our marriage, the company Nate worked for went under (it was a construction company and the real estate bubble had just burst). We ended up moving to Utah where he got a great job and attended paramedic school. We were tempted to buy a house there, but we knew we would be moving whenever he got hired on with a fire department (he was actively testing for departments in several different cities for the first four years we were married), so we just rented a condo there and we loved our time in St. George.

When he got hired by the Clark County fire department in January 2009, we thought about renting a place again here in Vegas, but by then, prices had dropped enough that we could own for less than the price of a decent rental. So, we chose a number we were completely comfortable with, got a pre-approval, toured 15 houses, put in 5 offers, got our first choice, and here we are.

We have loved this area… we have a great ward and good friends and I love our house and our neighbors (except for the one with the yappy dogs!), so I will be sad to move. (I bawled when they put the For Sale sign up in front of my house!) I finally feel very “connected” to this area and my people here. And change is always stressful for me! But, I don’t want to stay here forever and the timing feels right to go now.  So we're giving it a go. We think we have a good plan. (I know, the best laid plans of mice and men…)

We’ve always hoped to settle somewhere in the Green Valley/Henderson area because we’re both from that side of town, it’s much closer to Sonnet’s school (which all our kids will attend all the way through high school), and near both of our families. We’re hoping to find something a little bigger and a little nicer somewhere in that area.

But we’re not in a hurry. Like I said, I’ve heard rumors that the market may come down again sometime around the start of the new year, so we’d like to wait it out for a few months and see if that happens (because obviously I want to buy as low as possible). Even if it doesn’t, we want to get out of this house and take a month or so to “reset” and then begin our search. We’ll probably only stay in our next house for 5-10 years, (I don’t like change, but I also don’t like the idea of staying in the same place forever), so we want to take our time and not be rushed into buying something we don’t really want.

In the meantime, we plan to rent back the old town home that we lived in when we were first married. Our friend who owns it now is not currently living in it and said we can stay anywhere from one to six months. We’ll just leave everything but the basics packed up in boxes in the garage and hopefully we’ll find something we like quickly (I am me. I can't spend too much time in "limbo").

But first, we’ve got to sell this place. Everything I’ve been told says we should be under contract within 30 days, and then with a 30 day escrow, we should be out in a couple months. BUT, I don’t want to assume anything because planning on something and then not getting it is a fast-track to Crazytown for me. So, I’m trying to be chill and just hope for the best. (I’m trying, but not really succeeding at all.) I tell you what, trying to keep this place show-ready all the time with a one-year-old in the house is already making me a little batty and it’s only been a few days. I just want an offer now so I can stop vacuuming obsessively. (And I'm stressed out because even though I love my house, I'm afraid people are going to come in here and see how um, creative, it is and hate it). Pressure! :)

I really have no idea what will happen. All of this is kind of new and scary, but also logical and fun and exciting. We hope it works out like we want it to. So, if you know anyone who wants a very non-neutral, cute house in a good area (or an investor with a pile of cash) send ‘em my way! We're ready to move on.