FridgeSmart Tupperware

I don't own any Tupperware myself but I hear so many good things about it, I thought I'd enter a contest to win some. That way, if I win, I can try it out for free! If you'd like a chance to win, too, visit Carissa's Kitchen to find out how.

Paint, People! Paint!

Those who know me well - and I mean well - know the meaning behind the above phrase. I shout it out often in passing by a home that would otherwise be beautiful if not for its peeling paint. I mutter it when I see fingerprints and scratches and picture fade spots or nasty wallpaper. It's almost become somewhat of a joke between me and one of my best friends, F... Paint, people!

And now for a seemingly unrelated topic and complete 180 degree segue... (it'll tie in, I promise!)...

I don't live in a world of cable tv or dish ne.twork. Gil and I don't spend the extra money for channels too numerous to watch in the course of a lifetime, yet alone be able to watch what we want to watch. We've stuck with the "olden days" and get our tv signal over the airwaves. We were blessed with 6 channels where we lived so it was just fine for us. It didn't create tension because we wanted to watch different shows... it didn't cause us to spend our time in separate rooms, watching what we each chose to watch... it didn't cause us to become couch potatoes, vegging on the couch every night.

As good as that life was, where Gil and I focused our attentions on each other rather than the "boob tube", ma and pa have dish so when we're here, we tend to fall into zombie-like trances as we're introduced to shows and entertainment we've been without all our lives! I must say... I *heart* H.G.T.V. And in my naivete, I never once thought about full and complete episodes of their shows being broadcast online... without cable... and for free!!! What a concept! I watch my favorite network shows online... why didn't I think cable shows would be there.?

Yesterday, I found and fell in love with Col.or Spl.ash. (happy sigh) It feels as though David is reaching out to me and my "Paint, People!" take on life. I watched about 8 episodes last night, back to back. I plan on watching them again tonight... or sometime in the near future.

And to think... I will essentially have a blank canvas for all this inspiration in about a month when we sign and close on our new home!

Under Contract

It's official! As of today, we are under contract for the purchase of our new home! We couldn't have found anything more perfect for our needs or desires. It's in the country with fabulous views of the mountains and mature landscaping already in place. In addition to the typical living/dining/kitchen, the house has 4 bedrooms that we'll use as bedrooms, 2 bathrooms a separate family/game room, a separate library/office that has 2 additional small bedrooms/bonus rooms, and 2 2-car attached garages. The shop is a story in and of itself! It's a 30x50 shop with a 20 ft door AND has separate (ranch hand-type) living quarters at the back end. I'm so darn excited! Everything is move-in ready and if we weren't persnickety about our dogs, we wouldn't have to do a single darn thing. However, we'll replace the flooring in the main rooms, taking out the carpet and replacing it with hardwood. If I was a normal person, there wouldn't even be any remodels needed, but I already have plans drawn in my head for a larger master bathroom with an enlarged walk-through closet. I need room for my shoes! :) If everything goes as it should, we'll be moving in at the end of July. Yay!!!

This is the view looking west.

This is a barn on the property behind ours. It and the silo were built in 1920. I just love the look of it and had to "antique" it to make it look more realistic. I'm so looking forward to living away from neighbors only 30 feet away again!!!

Adoption PSA's

And just because it's funny...

It's always something...

We spent our third weekend in a row looking at houses. Property overload! We've had an offer in on a big house with 3 acres for just over 2 weeks now. Problem: it's a short-sale. And there's been absolutely no activity by the bank who needs to approve our offer. So we've continued looking in the meantime, knowing we could back out of the short-sale if we found something better. Last weekend was just plain discouraging. This weekend, we actually found 2-3 properties that caught our eye. One house, in particular, made us both gasp and want to jump on it right away.

But there's always something... some "small" issue that could stand in the way of everything. It doesn't matter that it's on a lot in a new subdivision (not the acreage we thought we'd be getting). The house with an attached 3-car garage is absolutely to-die-for beautiful and needs absolutely no remodeling or ANYthing done to it except for the fence around the backyard. The problem? The covenants. Holy crap, are there RULES to living in the place! So, before even making the offer that we were ready to throw down yesterday, we now have to find out if we can even fix a Jeep within the confines of our garage or park our trailer within the perimeter of our fence. We don't even know if we can put our dog kennels up because "all" fencing has to be pre-approved by the "Committee"! WTF???

We're leaving the offer on the table for the short-sale until we hear back from the "Committee" but we're really praying for this other house. Excluding the fact that we wouldn't be able to park our flat-bed hauling trailer on our property, this new house is absolutely perfect.

So, again, we wait.

Frazzled

I think I might make brownies on my lunch break today. Working from home can be good (or dangerous) that way.

Testin' the Upgrades

We decided to head north Saturday afternoon to do some drive-by's of potential house/property purchases and ended up driving down and across the river to test out my JK's ability with its recent 4" lift (in addition to the 2" it came with stock) and the 35" BFG Mud Terrains. I wish I would've grabbed my camera but I truly wasn't anticipating going off-highway, much less off-road. My brother had joined us and it was his idea to go wheelin' when all the home searching fell through and ended within about a half-hour.

Let me tell you... it was pretty darn suh-weet! We turned off the ESP and anti-sway bar and truly tested the lockers, hit some hills that dirt bikes and other off-roaders put to good use. Got in some good climbing and rock-crawlin' before we decided to venture further down the "road" and hit a heavily treed and rocky mountainous area near the river where I thought even my Jeep was too wide for the trail. Though the soft top was on, the windows were down and we had plenty of shrubbery and dust end up inside. We had to wind our way down-river to the next bridge/crossing, so we ended up going through some open range with deep gulches, big bumps, and lots of sagebrush. One of the dry creek-beds we crossed that Gil used for his "angle of approach" lesson ("big red truck" obvious - duh!) was so deep that when we stopped and straddled it, the passenger seat hit level with my brother's nose when he jumped out.

Due to my inability to be a proper camera-carrying-at-all-times outdoorsperson, I tried finding a video showing terrain similar to what we were playing on but came up empty. This one is sort-of similar to the hill-climb area we traversed, though where we were was more of a dry, compacted clay surface with a dusting of loose dirt rather than sand. We were really bummed that, even though it had rained real good the day before, there was no mud.

So, to all those other hard-core Jeepers who say the JK's are a joke and not "real" Jeeps... shame on you!



This video is here only to show a loosely-similar terrain to what we dealt with Saturday. What we tackled was tougher and Gil definitely went at it harder. The way this guy drives is - ahem - kinda wussy! :)

Not My Ways

"The Lord is close to the broken-hearted, saves those whose spirit is crushed."
(Psalms 34:19 NAB)

I'm both struggling and desiring to have the same faith as David. It's been a rough week.

My friend, Thelma at "Life as Two", wrote this post earlier this week that so eloquently sums up all the feelings jumbling around inside me. She has been blessed with the gift of prose, of putting into words things I've yet to figure out how to even vocalize. I have the same issues she describes about my career... because at some point in the past 5-7 years, it has become a career rather than just a "job". It's definitely not what I planned for my life but it is something I've been given to keep my life occupied in the absence of other things. I have a good career, I have people who look to me for problem-solving and advice, I have managers who encourage me to expand even further, I've had coworkers try to get me to apply to be their supervisor (never!) and, for the most part, I think I'm really good at what I do. It's just not what I want to do. And I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with having to do it every day.

Here's something Thelma said in her post:

In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says,

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD."

As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Not the plan. Not my plan, at least. Not our plan. Our ways aren’t His.
It boggles my mind that my life is not upside down or backwards to Him. As much
as it feels like a jumbled mess, He’s pulling it all together.

I really encourage you to click here to read her entire post to get a better understanding of where all this is coming from.

Guilty Conscience (Adoption Frustrations)

We had our fingerprints submitted for background checks a year ago this month. We're approved to fost-adopt through our state and it's been going slow, slow, slow... mostly because we chose ages 0-4 and that's hard to come by unless we care to do foster rather than just adopt... our hearts wouldn't be able to handle the uncertainties and giving the children back to their parents.

As we were getting ready to move two weeks ago, our social worker called and gave us our first placement referral. We just received their long, expanded social narratives Monday. DH got home from his out-of-town trip yesterday and we poured over the narratives, prayed over it, discussed it and rehashed it, and with a sad and heavy heart this morning, I let our social worker know that this wasn't the situation for us. And then I broke down.

It doesn't help that we're currently living with my parents while we try to find/purchase a home and both mom and I work from home so she was here to comfort me. I can often hold it in if no one's trying to hug me and wishing they could fix things. I'm not complaining that she was there, but I don't think I would've broke down so bad if she's wasn't allowing me to.

My deeper hurt is coming from guilt... guilt at saying no to two boys who so desperately need a home. Our reasons? They're a bit older (4 & 8) than we feel equipped for right now and they come with some abuse situations we feel ill-equipped for. Physical and emotional abuse we could handle... but sexual? That's a whole different ballgame. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if our situation right now was a bit less tumultuous but we'll be moving into a new home within the next month (fingers crossed) and doing renovations and getting used to a new community and I think they'd need more structure than that. Also... it just didn't feel right... I can't explain it.

I also feel a different sort of guilt at "getting" to choose who our children will be. The fact that I could say no because of a situation we're uncomfortable with... how many other parents get to choose their children? Why should I get to say no when children are all I've ever wanted?

I hurt at being angry because I have to choose whether to pay off debt and buy a house over getting to buy a baby (because going through an agency is just that to me). Anger because I have to not only deal with infertility but a stupid disease with ugly and life-altering side effects. I hate it. I'm tired of dealing with it. I don't see the purpose, His purpose, in this life path I'm being forced to stumble along. My toes are bruised and broken from all the roots and rocks sticking out of the dirt and mud. I know it may be boring, but sometimes I'd really like a nice, smooth asphalt trail to skate along.

I know I'm rambling but I'm really hurting... and feeling guilty. I just wish I could take those boys in and love them forever but I know in my heart they are not our children. I just hope it doesn't take another year before we get our next referral.

A-hunting we will go...

Gil and I spent all day Saturday looking at houses. Our realtor sent us a huge list of about 90 possibilities that fit our criteria the closest (there were many more that fit most our criteria). Of those, we came up with a list of about 10 that we wanted to look at right away. Saturday morning dawned with a few raindrops falling but that didn't deter us as... we rolled up the soft-top on the Jeep, threw on a sweatshirt, and took off. By the time we got halfway to where we were supposed to meet R (our realtor), we stopped for a frappucino and put the top back down. We spent all day (8 hours) going from house to house to house, taking pictures and jotting down notes. R was a great sport and hopped in the back of the Jeep to ride along with us rather than making us go in his car. He even bought us an early snack and a nice lunch afterward.

The house I wanted to see more than any others was probably the biggest disappointment. I almost started crying the moment we stepped out of the Jeep to go up the walk. The owners were building it themselves and waaay over-extended themselves. Even I could tell - with my unprofessional eye - they knew not a whole lot about construction. Measurements in stair areas were so horrible that we'd have to duck in places to avoid hitting our heads and there was water damage everywhere. They tried saving money by cutting some corners but you could definitely see the dreams they had for it. If they would've done it right, it would've been absolutely gorgeous and to-die-for. It could've been worth half a million dollars, at least, but now will probably go for less than $200 thousand... and whoever gets it will have a LOT of corrective work to do before they can even complete what was left unfinished. Sad, sad, sad.

After much deliberation weighing all the pros and cons - and much regret for not wearing sunscreen while going topless in the Jeep - we narrowed it down to two choices. These two had about a $40 thousand difference in price tags! Sunday, we signed a buy/sell and put in an offer on the lesser priced one and are now eagerly awaiting news. We should hear if the bank accepts or declines our offer by the end of this week (fingers crossed). There are two other offers on the table for the same place. It's a short-sale... Not because the sale takes place in a short amount of time, that's for sure. This is essentially the last step before the bank forecloses on the property. It's still in the seller's ownership but the bank is going to be getting less than what they're owed, so they have to approve any and all offers. It's definitely a lesson in real estate. So... we wait.

In the meantime, we are thinking and planning as though it's already ours. We're brainstorming new flooring and wall colors, we're prioritizing projects (fencing is going to win so the dogs will have a place of their own without being in our way), and softly penciling in our weekends so we can make sure to also get in some fun play times (and the Jeep Jam.boree!). It's really hard to focus on anything else.