Gettysburg, Amish people, Hershey chocolate...

Yes, we are off to Pennsylvania. We have to get up in 5 hours, be at the airport in 6.5 hours and fly forever to go see my dying uncle. Our plane leaves tomorrow at 6:40am and we arrive in PA at 9:40pm! With 3 kids and my mom, pray for me will you?

On another note, I weighed in two days early this week and gained 2.2lbs. I'm thinking bad words as I write this. I'm so tired of going up and down, up and down! My main hope is that I just continue to never gain more than I lost the week before and as we settle into a house, I can get back on track.

I'll post fun pictures as I get them from PA!

Just a bit o'change

SO we're not buying a house that Frank built! The sellers countered back with an offer that was ridiculous. So, we set out last Saturday, in between a last football game and a football party, so find a home. We accomplished our goal! It's 7 blocks from where we currently live, it's a short sale and a great deal. The best part is it's big enough for us and it's a good price and it's close to where we wanted to be AND even though it's a short sale, it's moving along quickly as if it were a traditional sale! It's just a stressful time as we're leaving for PA on Tuesday and trying to find paperwork that we need to make funding happen when the paperwork is in storage--all that fun stuff!

In spite of all the stress and not following program, I still lost weight. I lost 2.8lbs and I am back into the next lowest weight group. Hopefully while I'm on our trip I will eat sensibly! We are going there because my uncle is dying, so I hope the stress won't get to me.

Well, I'm off to shower, find some papers in a stuffed storage unit, deal with barking dogs and whining kids, and do all that good stuff. I'm getting my hair cut and colored tomorrow for the first time in 18 months, so maybe I can post some pictures tomorrow. Before and after shots!

I like to dance, I really do....

I just don't like to dance with myself. Or rather, my weight. I'm up and down with the same few pounds, although I'm at least losing more than I gain back. I know it's excusable as this month has been icky, but I still hate paying money to gain weight.

We signed papers on the closing of our house tonight. I'm not sure how I feel about it. We were about $3000 shy of what we thought we were going to get, so now our financial situation is a bit uncertain. At the same time, we put an offer on a house. See, we found the most perfect house, but it was going to be about $10k outside what we could qualify for. So, I found one in our price range but in an area we don't really want. Both of them were in a not-so-favorite area, but this one is about 4 houses down from a walkway opening to a very busy main road. But I think it will be okay. Another thing I just found out is a sex offender guilty of rape of a child lives 6 blocks away. Oh, and the sellers were either lesbians or sisters who bought a house together--not that that matters in the situation, just another interesting tidbit about what kind of history the house might hold. Otherwise, it's good. Not sure what to do about the sex offender thing. It's not like I let my kids wander the neighborhood by themselves.

Another weird thing, weird in a good way. We started toying last weekend with the idea of building our own house. A friend of ours from our old church is a builder and we thought about calling him. Well, the next day, we ran into him at a restaurant (yes, one of those times I ate out that helped me pack on 2 pounds). He gave us his card and said to call him, he'd love to talk with us. Well, the house we're trying to buy--I was standing in the driveway and I said, "I think Frank built these houses. He did a neighborhood over here." Teddy just kind of poo-poo'd me, being used to me thinking I know someone or something when maybe I don't. Or maybe I do. Either way, it gets old I guess! :) Well, at the signing tonight of our offer, it turned out that the neighborhood is called Katie Lane, named after our friend Frank's second daughter! We are buying a house that Frank built! Weird!

Okay, the cat just threw up, I'm tired, I'm having a Pampered Chef party tomorrow that's going to be underattended, and I'm stressing over money. So I think it's time for bed. Did I mention that I had an anxiety attack tonight? It was either that or I'm having angina or a heart attack. So I'll leave you, my faithful readers (all 2 or so of you!), with a joke.

Two 6 year old boys were attending religious school and giving the teachers problems. The teachers had tried everything to make them behave - time outs, notes home, missed recesses - but could do nothing with them. Finally the boys were sent to see the priest.
The first boy went in and sat in a chair across the desk from the priest. The priest asked, 'Do you know where God is?'
The little boy just sat there.
The priest stood up and asked, 'Son, do you know where God is?'
The little boy trembled but said nothing.
The priest leaned across the desk and again asked, 'Do you know where God is?'
The little boy bolted out of the chair ran past his friend in the waiting room, all the way home.
He got in bed and pulled the covers up over his head.
His friend had followed him home asked, 'What happened in there?'
The boy replied, 'God is missing and they think we did it!'

Not that I drink a lot, but...

This was cool! I hardly ever drink, but I thought this was neat-o in honor of my Irish obsession.

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

What's Your Beer Personality?

In Honor of St. Patrick's Day

I had an awesome blog written. Really great. Seriously. Then I hit the back button and lost it. Blech! So here's the short version. Life has been stressful lately, everyday a new challenge. So I've been eating. Lots. And not counting points. So I will probably have a gain this week. Blech. But in honor of me favorite holiday tomorrow--well, favorite not-really-important holiday and only because I'm a quarter Irish--I'm posting my Leprechaun name. Ready? It's really funny, so be prepared to pee your pants a little from the giggles and joy.

Your Leprechaun Name Is:

Stinky Cabbageleaf

What's Your Leprechaun Name?

Okay, I just have to say that that is wrong. What kind of freak made this little name generator! :)

I couldn't resist trying a few more for my name:
Twindle O'Taters
Weebit Greentoes
Plucky Bottlesipper
Greenie McNugget (eeewwwww!!)
Paddy O'Shamrock
Twitchy Rainbowchaser
Freckles O'Gold
I also got Weebit O'Taters (how did they know what I had for dinner?) and Hairy Cabbageleaf, which I took offense to!

And here's Teddy's and the kids:

Teddy-Fluffy O'Guinness or Weebit Whiskeybreath
Madeleine-Wee Luckleaf or Freckles Shortlegs
Benjamin-Plucky Cababgeleaf or Little Whiskeybreath
Sophia-Wee Shortlegs or Lucky Luckleaf

Okay, I could go on and on! Anyone who knows me (and now those of you who don't really know me other than you happened to get my blog from a random blog search) knows that I LOVE ALL THINGS IRISH! My dream is to someday live in Ireland. AND I am addicted to Irish names. All my animals have an Irish bent to their names (Murphy O'Townsend, our next dog will be Guiness McTownsend, etc.) I just love anything Irish, even tongue in cheek. Anyway, these brightened up my day and I just had to post them! Go here to get your own Leprechaun name!

Have a happy St. Patrick's Day and enjoy a pint of Guiness for me!

Stuff

Get your own graph at skinnyr

Yes, in spite of a stressful week and not counting my points, I still lost 3.4 lbs! I am finally outside of one weight "generation" and into another. Yippee! I was sweatin' it going in there, though. I was sure I gained!

We are almost officially moved. This past Saturday, my husband's carpool buddy and good friend, John, came over as well as my best friend's husband, Dan. They both helped us all day, without complaining and going above and beyond what we expected. We are so grateful, as we couldn't have moved all that we did in one day. We had a 26' uhaul truck and moved our whole house, plus our 10x20 storage unit into a 12x30 storage unit. Sadly, we filled it. A very convicting moment for us--how little we really need to survive and how little most of the rest of the world has to survive on, yet we feel "poor" and can't pay all of our bills. Sad.

Anyway, we have a dump load to take this weekend and a few more things to move out of the garage and side of the house, and then we are done! Luckily, closing got moved to a bit later of a date! However, it was moved because the buyers had a bit of a problem with their lending and we had to play with some numbers in order to get them the cash they needed. It doesn't affect our numbers at all, or very little, but it's still stressful!

Being here at my Mom's isn't bad, relationship wise. I've done no homeschooling at all for the last 3 weeks or so, so we will have tons of catching up to do. The only irritating things are having ALL our clothes in boxes and plastic sacks out in the garage and the animals. My mom has this adorable 6 month old Lab that she rescued from imminent death. However, he joins an ancient black Lab, named Sadie, and a blind Terrier named Lady. The new dog, Jake, likes to play and piss off the other dogs. He also likes to tackle my kids, bite all of us, chew up everything in site including our shoes and underwear, bark loudly at the other dogs which means the blind one barks back even louder, although she's not sure what she's barking at, and basically this adorable dog has ruined Sophia's future relationship with animals. That being said, it is a comedy of errors to some degree, as he does hilarious things like jumping on my step-dad while he's sitting on the couch. Not just jumping on him, but using his private area as a launching pad to land on his shoulder and then try to smother him as he jumps over his face and onto the other side of the couch. All in the name of playing!

Anyway, this week we realized that our money situation is a bit tighter than I'd hoped but we will not last here in the trailer as long as I'd hoped. So, we went looking today for houses. We viewed about 8 and none of them said "I'm the one". Next week we will get debt paid off, get financing and start looking seriously. The kids and I leave for Pennsylvania on the 1st, with my mom, so I hope we can have a house in mind and be ready to see some action by the time we get back!

Sorry all I can ramble about is real estate crud and weight....

So let's just get the obvious out of the way. I gained 1.2 lbs. Darn. I've been fighting about 2 lbs for the last 3 weeks--up then down, up then down. The thing is, I had only 1 lb to lose to get into a weight bracket I've not been in for at least 4 years (like from the 130's into the 120's--that's not what I weigh,but we can just pretend, right?). I think I'm a bit terrified as my body changes. So my goal this week is to just track my points and not think about what my weight is, hopefully I can get over this hump.

The house thing...it's moving right along. We are nearly done with all the fixups. The same fixups that were estimated to be about $300 are now estimated to be about $1200. We've spent $847 so far and will know the total after the plumber leaves tomorrow. I have no words to describe my feelings on this matter. None. Well, muttering "bloody hell" under my breath in a British accent might suffice, I suppose.

The appraiser came today and we also learned that the buyers apparently would like to close sometime next week!!!! So, I had to rent a truck today, round up some manly help, and think about packing. I say think because I never got around to it. So I hope I can get all our stuff packed by this Friday night! ARRRRGGGHHH!!!!

It's starting to hit us now, that we're moving. Or at least, that we're giving up our house. Madeleine was up late tonight, bawling her eyes out. Which makes me start to cry, but I don't let her know that. I sat outside in the back this morning, taking it all in and remembering years past. Not just my kiddos playing back there, although there was lots of that, but also of my own girlhood memories. I know some people don't get sentimental about houses, but I do. I've only owned one, and for a long time too. These memories are starting to take over everything--I pull out of the driveway and think that this is the road the kids learned to ride bike on; I do dishes and think this is the kitchen they first ate real food in; I go to bed and think this is the room I conceived babies in. I start to hate the buyers. Then I start to get excited about, for the first time in my life, I really get a chance at a fresh start. I even looked into keeping my phone number, because I've had it since I was 16. But I decided to just let it go and get a new one. See, I've only really done things that are versions of things I've done before. I went to college, but only to Clark Community College (version of high school). I bought a house, but around the corner from my mom and one I used to live in (version of childhood). I abhor change, but at the same time, get so bored by routine that I don't function well.

Anyway, we're in the home stretch and things are stressful. I have a great story to share about $100 and God's love that I'll save for a better time, when I can really do it justice. For now, pray that we can move easily and I can actually lose weight this week.

Think of little ol' me from childhood saying goodbye to my house.....