Not Even A Week Yet, But Still Too Long...

Well, my best friend from high school called me Monday and told me that her grandma passed away on Saturday. She came all the way from Missouri for the funeral which was Tuesday, and went back home on Wednesday. Between getting everything ready for her short stay in town, and the funeral itself, we've had a pretty busy week. We've done the basics for school, and gotten a lot more time to be outside and notice the way spring is coming to the area. We've done a lot of our spring cleaning, and taken things to the dump and junkyard depending. Got the old broke stove and freezer out of here, and made lots more room for the kids to play as it gets warmer. We also cleaned up the back patio and the yard, making sure that all the trash and debris that accumulated over the winter (pop bottles, wrappers, things that blew in the yard) got taken care of an cleaned up.
And yesterday, we had our first cookout of the new year! It's been hovering in the 60's during the day, and our home thermometer had even recorded a few 70's in the past week. But I've heard that we may get some cooler weather for the next week or so, only getting into the 40s and 50s. I hope not because I love this warmer weather!

We're going to visit our friends Ron and Renee' on Saturday, and Sunday is our 13th Anniversary. Can't believe it's been that long. Heck, can't believe we've lasted that long! Doesn't seem like we've done enough with these years. Like we haven't come that far. We've moved 10 times in the last 13 years, lived in 9 different houses. Lived in 1 house twice (here!). That's if we include moving into his cousins for a month and his grandma's for a month before we got our first place. Otherwise, not counting them, we've moved 8 times and lived in 7 different houses. I don't usually count those 2, because we only had our clothes and bed, not furniture or anything like that because we had just gotten married.
In the time we've been married, we've rented, bought, and lost a house. That's a lot if you look at it from the standpoint that we rented 3 different places for a year each, then bought our house, lived there for 6 years, and lost it to foreclosure. Then we rented this place for 9mos, moved to another place for 13mos, and moved back here again. This fall would've been 8 years that we would have owned our house.

I don't really miss our house most days. I keep busy and don't think about it. But when I drive past it, I look at the work that's been done by the people who bought it, and I wonder why it was so hard for us. We did some work on the place, it's not like we let the place fall down around our ears. We pulled up carpet, refinished some floors, painted, redid some plumbing. We got rid of 10+ years worth of crap that had been left by previous tenants and the old landlord. We got rid of old cast iron sprinkler pipes that ran thru the entire house, and replaced doors, some windows and the entire boiler system and hot water heater. And we hated every minute of it. That house needed so much done that it sucked the life out of us. We fought nearly every day, there was something new to be fixed every time we turned around. None of us was happy there.
But I do miss it sometimes. Every time I have to say no about getting something we want or need because we don't have the room for it, I miss that big old house and its space. Every time the kids are fighting about not having room to play, or space for their stuff, I miss it. Every time I do laundry, and run out of hot water for showers, I miss it. I miss not having to screw around with the furnace, not having the extra space in the laundry area. Not having the room for company, or for a friend who wants to come and stay for a few days. I miss the floor that we spent a whole weekend refinishing til it was beautiful and new-looking again.
But I don't miss the constant headache of robbing one bill to pay another because we had to fix something else this month. I so don't miss the roof leaking, or the electrical that was bad, or the kitchen that needed the floor re-done. Or the tiny pantry and lack of cabinet space.

But life moves on and so do we. We're hoping that we can manage to find a house that fits our needs within the next year or 2. We're considering a land contract, rent-to-own, or just outright buying. We're trying to pay some things off, and get our credit better before then. We have a few loans, they're improving our credit because they're paid on time, even when he's been laid off. We pay cash for darn near everything else, and we are careful of what we spend money on. If we can't afford it right that minute, we don't get it.
Here's to another year of trying hard and working on all that we have.

Tired and Sick....

Well whatever is going around has finally made it here. First Adrian came down with it, then Gabe and Caleb and me, and of course Caitlin and James. So, we're all sitting here with stuffy and runny noses and headaches and body aches. Pretty miserable stuff. But Adrian is feeling much better, go figure.

The 23rd was my dad's birthday and his anniversary with Colleen. It would also have been him and mom's anniversary if they were still married. It would have been 32 years for mom and him. That's a LONG time. It's been a year of being married for him and Colleen, and 7 or 8 years of them being together as of this June or July. I can hardly believe that it's already going to be a year that we've been back in touch with dad. We were planning on having them down today, but with all of us being sick, we figured next week would be better for that. Jaime's making a cake, and I'll be making the drive up and back to get them. Here's hoping we're all feeling better by then.

I also have to finish painting the front room and hallway before then. We picked out a fairly bright blue that I had planned on using for the boys' rooms, but decided to touch up a few areas in the front room with it, thinking that it was a close match to what was already in there. Wrong. It's such a bright color that the old blue that was on the walls already looks almost gray in comparison! I painted the bathroom a nice cherry bright yellow, and have the same color picked to use in the hall, since it doesn't have much light to brighten it up. The boy's rooms will be 2-tone blue, with a dark almost navy blue on the top of the walls and the ceiling. And glow-in-the-dark stars and moons on the ceiling.
Caitlin's room will be a color that she picked, called bright citrus. It's a peachy pink color. It'll look great in there, and bring more light in. She has the smallest room in the house for her bedroom, so it can use all the brightening it can get.
Still need to pick a color for our room, because right now it's a deep red color that reminds me of a bordello. Not really my thing. Personally, I favor earth-tone colors. But Mike says he really doesn't care what color, as long as it's something that I like. Makes it easier and at the same time harder, because I really would like his opinion on things.
I'm thinking of light tan-ish or beige, or maybe something similar. Who knows.

As far as school, we're going to take a few days or maybe a week and just cut back to the basics while everyone's feeling under the weather. It'll be a nice break for all of us.