Oh. My. God.

I paid the rent, but still can’t have the keys. They say the handyman is still working on the house & is supposed to be done today. She originally told me I could pick up the keys on Monday, until I reminded her that we had spoken earlier in the week & told her we needed to be moving on Sunday. Now she says she can “probably” meet us on Sunday to give us the keys. I have no idea when that’ll be, but you can bet we’re going to be calling her & finding out, because I’m not going to wait around all day for that to happen.

It really wouldn’t matter that much, except that Ryan has Sunday off & can get a 24′ flatbed truck for us that day, which will make the move a lot quicker, plus he’ll be able to help Troy with the heavy stuff. We have to stay at the new house Monday afternoon, to wait for the cable guy to get there, so we really can’t be moving a bunch of stuff that day, either. We’re really hoping to be out of here by Sunday night, so it’s imperative for her to meet us pretty early on Sunday or even on Saturday night would be fine.

I’m just so anxious & frustrated right now. I want to be done moving & thinking about moving & already to the unpacking stage. At least I’m not having to worry about getting kids to & from school, planning prom dresses & buying photo graduation invitations on top of everything else, right? That’s part of the reason we stayed in one place while the kids were still in high school, it’s just already too stressful for everyone then, without a move, too. So, anyway, if you pray, we could use them, we really need those keys.

Oh! One positive note, they’re supposed to be cleaning my carpets today, so I won’t have to! That’s one less thing to worry about, at any rate!

Pretty much everything that can be packed before Saturday night is & now we’re just waiting. I plan to pay the rent tomorrow & have been told I can pick up the keys then, so that we can move in on Sunday. I don’t think I’ll stop waiting for the other shoe to drop until I have them in my hand. Sometimes, it’s hard to accept good fortune, especially when you get so used to things turning against you, as they have for us, over & over the past few months.

Monday, we have to stay at the new house while we wait for the cable company to show up, so it’ll be a good time to finish up our bankruptcy paperwork & get it ready to send off. I gathered all of the paperwork that we have to send today, now we need to learn about our debt counselling options & get that certificate & the money & we’ll be set, hopefully before the latest round of lawyers get a judgement against us.

My mom is giving us half of the fee, just so we aren’t stressing out & worrying quite so much, so the other half will be a lot easier for us to handle. I need to start scouring the web & find some unique gifts for her, and choose something to thank her for being such a great mother & friend to me, all of these years.

I just want to be in the new house and have this filed & be on the road to a new start in our lives again. I’m so tired of being stressed out & not sleeping well.

We’ve had a pretty good weekend. We went & picked up our produce from the co-op and then went with Dawn to get hers. While we were there, we volunteered, which was just awesome. We really felt like we had done something great & helped out by the time we left. Later on, we went over to Dawn & Jason’s house & celebrated all of our January birthdays. We had such a great time that we didn’t even get home until almost 4am. I wasn’t feeling too badly this morning, just a bit dehydrated and tired, but after I had a huge glass of ice water & something to eat, I was ready to get started on the bedroom. I went to work on my closet & Troy started cleaning the stove. We both worked hard & got a lot done. He’s cleaning as I’m packing other areas, so it’s working our really well. I intend to finish the closet here in a few minutes & probably try to get my desk done before bed, too.

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with legal matters right now, knowing we have to get started on filling out our bankruptcy paperwork & try to find out all of the information that requires is a bit daunting, but I know we can do it. My parents are helping us pay for it, which takes a little bit of the stress-load off of us, thankfully.

I just don’t have a lot of confidence in myself when it comes to this sort of thing. I can look at car insurance & life insurance quotes all day long & not feel like I’m going to ruin our lives if I screw that up, but this just feels like I will, you know? I’ll get through it, I just need to take some time each day to work on it with Troy so we can get it done by payday, so we can get it paid for & sent off. I’m just going to keep telling myself that we’ll get through this without going crazy.

It looks like we won’t be moving until February 1st, at the soonest. That’s okay, it’s been nice actually having time to get everything packed, instead of trying to do it all in three or four days like we usually do. I’m finished packing the living room & the kitchen is mostly done, I just need to finish the drawers & the food that we keep on the china hutch & freezer. We will need to clean out the fridge & get rid of a bunch of stuff, but I need to do that today anyway, because tomorrow is co-op day & I need the space. We aren’t taking our freezer with us, so we need to get that cleaned out & defrosted before our moving day. I’m going to finish the kitchen today & start on my bedroom, I think. At least that way, I can watch TV while I work.

Our rent will be more expensive in the new place & I’ve been trying to find ways to cut our monthly expenses to make up for it, I’ve even thought of getting some auto insurance quotes, even though I’m fairly sure we have about the lowest rates we’re going to get right now. I already spend less at the grocery store because of the co-op, and I think our utilities will be less over there, too, because the house is smaller, and we won’t need our storage unit anymore, either. We’ll gradually make up most of the difference, I’m sure!

There was a supposed issue with the new house & I say supposed, because we discovered that there was nothing wrong when we went & looked yesterday. The cleaning crew said that shower walls caved in while they were cleaning them, and when we went & looked there wasn’t anything wrong with the shower, at all. So we told the property managers what as going on & they were going to go & look last night. I’m impatient to know when we can start moving, I want to know how much time I have to get everything finished & how much longer I have to stay in this place & deal with these neighbors.

My search for the best wrinkle creams seems trivial in comparison to everything that’s going on right now. I guess that when I’m bored or dissatisfied while things in my life I find little projects like the wrinkle cream to keep my occupied & take my mind off of it. It works & there’s nothing wrong with escapism, I suppose, but it isn’t working for the impatience today. I guess getting busy is the only thing that’s going to help & sitting here isn’t getting that done, although, the coffee did help my head thankfully!

I’m going to see if I can get the kitchen packed & cleaned today, or as much of it as we aren’t going to be using in the next week or so, at any rate. I know I can probably pack everything in my China cabinet, because we really don’t use that stuff every day, at least not right now. We will in the new house, because I’ll have a dishwasher, finally. I also plan to start packing my clothes, I started my laundry already & I’ll just pack them as I take them out of the dryer & make sure I keep enough stuff out for the next week.

I am a little stressed out, but that’s mostly the whole not knowing exactly when we get to move & not having made any arrangements for my utilities to be transferred or anything. There’s that & Troy & I aren’t feeling great again this week, I’m pretty sure we have a cold, at the very least. Rhi has been pretty sick for over a week & I imagine we have a bit of whatever that is. Pretty soon I’ll get another cold sore & probably have a severe acne attack on top of it, so I’ll be gorgeous when I meet my new neighbors. *eye roll*

Anyway, that’s my plan for the day, I just need to finish my drink, have some coffee & tape some boxes together, then I’ll be on my way again. Fun times.. or not.

We got the house we were wanting, and will be moving no later than the 1st of February. I will take a lot of pictures of the house when we start to move, and then hopefully I’ll get back on track with my daily photos. We’ve been way too busy trying to get ready to move & then it was my birthday & activities with various friends. We also made a hue decision regarding our finances this week & are just waiting to get that started & try to get our lives back on track & be able to afford to replace things around the house that need it & all of that. I plan to download some free personal budget software to help me keep on top of things.

I love my new house & I can’t wait to get into it & start turning it into our home. I’m actually very excited to take care of it & make it look nice. I can picture myself in it, cooking our dinners & cleaning & all of the things I used to love to do for Troy. I think this is just what we needed. It’s right down the street from my brother & sister-in-law, so my niece is also really excited, because she can now just get off the bus & come to my house, if she wants to. I think it will be good for all of us.

Last week was a pretty stress-filled week. We received notice of another possible garnishment, which everyone knows we can’t afford. These people just come in & take everything out of our checking account, they’re like financial vampires. It’s horrible. I’m a little concerned, but not horribly, since my name isn’t on any of Troy’s accounts anymore, but it’s still stressful. Then shortly after that (I mean within minutes) we get a notice that our trailer park was foreclosed on & sold at auction & we have to sign a “new” contract with the current owners or move out in 3 days. I say “new” because we aren’t & never have been, under a lease in this house. We’ve been month-to-month renters for 6 1/2 years here.

We immediately started looking at houses for rent & found one that will let us have our cats & Tiny (well, the cat & Tiny, we have to rehome the kittens), so we put in an application for that one & we’ll hopefully know tomorrow. If we don’t get that one, there’s a duplex that will probably let us keep the pets, that we already qualify for that, we’ll go look at. We aren’t staying here, the contract they had a sign is unsatisfactory & we can’t live like that. I have no appetite with all of the chaos & stress, but it’s proving to be one of the best appetite suppressants I could want, if I wanted one.

Today I’m going out with Dawn & Vicki to celebrate my birthday, which I decided I was doing regardless of how busy and crazy things are right now, we all need the break from reality right now. Hopefully, I’ll get a great birthdat present tomorrow by finding out we got the house.

Guess what this picture means:

Yep, we’re moving. Not sure where yet for sure, but we have an application in.

I got so involved in looking at a house we’d like to rent & being excited over that yesterday, that I completely forgot about yesterday’s photo. I’m going to try really hard not to let that happen very often, but what can I say? Real life happens.

Anyway, this possible move thing. We’ve lived here, in this trailer park for 6 1/2 years. When we moved here, it was nicely taken care of & the owner made sure that yards were maintained & that the people who lived here weren’t criminals and such. Well, he sold the trailer park about 3 years ago & it’s steadily gone downhill ever since, to the point of there being no regular lawn watering & trash being everywhere. Half of the trailers are standing empty, several have been sold & the rest of us sit here & wonder what’s going to happen next. We found out yesterday that the park was foreclosed on & sold to a company in Nevada & that we’re supposed to sign a new lease contract tomorrow with them. I just wasn’t really that sure I wanted to get locked into a lease here. We’ve been month-to-month the entire time we’ve been here & for months I’ve been looking at houses & dreaming of getting out. I found it yesterday.

It’s only a two-bedroom, and the house is really old, but it’s quirky & unique & perfect for us. It’s like a little witchy cottage. It has an awesome yard, with a playhouse & space for a garden. There’s a smokehouse & a work shop with lots of storage (which means we could get rid of our storage unit). It’s just great. I have no idea whether they’ll accept pets & if they don’t we won’t look any further into it, but I’m hopeful. It’s been empty awhile so hopefully the owner is desperate enough to deal a little. So, think of us & send a little positive house-getting thought our way.

I’m stuffed up like crazy today. I’ve taken cold medicine already & I’m still congested, so I’m thinking of taking some allergy relief and hopping in the shower, hopefully the combination of that & the steam will make it easier to breathe!