Life has surely had its ups and downs the last couple of months here. We’ve jumped through so many hoops, sometimes I wonder how much more jumping I have left in me. Being this stressed is exhausting. It’s easy for others to tell you not to worry, when they really have no idea what you are going through. Sometimes I wish people would do a little less telling me not to worry, and just ask me what it is they can do to help. Life would be so much easier.
We are still looking for a new place to live, and for a short while, we thought we had found what seemed the near-perfect place for us. It was a nice house in a very small town an hour to the north of where we live now. John’s mom was going to help us get the down payment to be able to buy it, and I thought things were finally looking up.
That was until, lo and behold, and out of state buyer swooped in at the last moment, and outbid our offer by several thousand dollars.
Needless to say I was crushed and still am. Now I guess it is back to the drawing board. The realtor says she has more homes she can show us, but in our price range, the selection is kind of limited. Part of me is almost afraid to get my hopes up, but I want us to have a nice home of our own so badly. Rents are way out of league around here, buying seems like our only option if we have a prayer of affording anything. Rent on a comparable house would be four times as much as the mortgage payment would be, at the very least.
I just want a stable place to call home. I want somewhere for Thor to grow up, and not worry him over having to move every few years. I want to be able to paint walls a color that isn’t white or beige, and hang as many pictures as I darn well please. Now that my older kids are grown, in a few years I want something their kids will be able to call grandma and grandpa’s house, somewhere they can run back and forth in and jump up and down on the floor in without driving the downstairs neighbors insane.
Maybe it’s all just too much to ask for, but I have to keep trying. Hopefully when next week comes, there will be better news.
Meanwhile the little guy is growing like a weed and into everything. He keeps me smiling even when it seems like the job of trying to keep up with him never ends. He is almost frighteningly smart nowadays. He already knows how to do basic things not only on our cell phone, but also on the computer. He can open iTunes and play his favorite music, which I think he recognizes by the album cover pictures. He also already uses about a dozen different words , with some of his most consistent ones being: up, spoon, hi, no, and of course the word, owl. He still can’t seem to get enough of owls, which have been his favorite animal since he was only a few weeks old, but which are now having to share a special place in his heart with cats, especially his now much beloved stuffed cat named Tygie.
Tygie is the first toy that I can say, Thor picked out all by himself. He takes him almost anywhere and everywhere now, at least around the house. We try to make sure he leaves him at home when we have somewhere to go, because we are a little afraid of the cat getting lost. Thor would be devastated if that happened. He won’t go to sleep at nap time or at bedtime without him.
As you can see, orange cats are by far his favorite, I think because they look like our real live cats. The kitty here in the photo with Tygie is our oldest cat, who unfortunately came to us already with the name Boobies. He is quite an old man now, at 19 years old, and is very well loved, if slightly afraid of our son when he’s being noisy and moving too quickly near him. Thankfully Thor is getting much better about being gentle with the cats, and doesn’t pull tails nearly as often as he used to.
I am unsure what else to write about at this time. It’s hard to write, let alone be creative when your mind seems so busy with every day worries that seem so overwhelming. Writing used to be an escape, but nowadays it seems impossible when life seems this overwhelming. I am hoping to some day soon to at least have something good to write about here, instead of all this seemingly endless venting of the day’s issues.
Even if it is with much ranting and complaining, I always seem to keep moving, somehow…
Someone asked me recently why a lot of the stories I write contain such damaged characters. I’ve been asked more than once why the stories often have a melancholy tone, or deal with difficult subjects. I’m sure many people are skilled at writing stories that are sunny escapeism, but those don’t seem to be the sort of characters that come to me with stories to tell.
