Not a Creature Was Stirring...

well, except maybe a mouse.

So. We are moved. We left our house behind to sell and because we're still paying a mortgage in Lex we decided to cram into a tiny rental house in Ohio, temporarily. I'd love to leave it at that… tell you that everything is wonderful because we are all together again under one roof… and nothing else matters.

Everything is not wonderful. While I'm thrilled to have my husband by my side more regularly and the kids are soaking up every moment of the time he's home, some stuff is happening in this rental that I was not prepared for. I was ready for small. I was ready for temporary. I was ready for less than ideal. I was not ready for mice. flooding. animals in the attic. grime. safety issues. broken promises.

When freaking out to my sister the day after arriving I got my first hearty laugh over the situation. We decided that I thought coming here was finally the light at the end of the tunnel… but turns out that those were just the headlights of an ORKIN truck.

This is one of those situations that Hottie and I will look back on later and think, holy crap, that was terrible. How crazy that we lived in that hole! We will refer to this as our rough patch and talk about how grateful we are it's over…

for now?

Well, I'm living in my rough patch. I'm handling it the best I can (which is pretty darn good, aside from the occasional sos call to my sister.. or bawling episode to Hottie). I've looked at other rentals, even if it means a move before our next move I feel it would be worth it to get out of here…. the problems are too much for me to stomach, really… but having a large dog, needing to be on this side of the city, and our price range limits us.

temporary, temporary, temporary, I chant to myself. We will get through this, together… thank goodness. But it's a hard lesson. I'm angry that we are going through all of this, after everything we've already gone through. I feel like we've been tricked into living here. Promises were made to Hottie that two rooms would be finished in the basement (bedrooms for the older boys), there would be all new carpeting, deep cleaning, etc, before our move date. None of these things happened. Not one… and now we are stuck dealing with it, figuring out what to do… hoping that our house finally sells so we can get out of this dump.

and I'm mad that my kids had to spend their Christmas here in these conditions. I'm pissed that we have to stay here. I'm disappointed that I was looking so forward to us all being together and how relieved I would feel and now I'm here and there are so many issues I can't even enjoy it. It's a constant struggle. Every day is something new. I need some kind of relief, but instead things just get worse.

So anyway, that's what we are dealing with. I don't mean to rant, but I'd be lying if I said things were great… I so wish I could say that, but it's not the case. We will get through it. Our house in Lex will sell. We will find a house to buy here and move into it when that happens. We will look back and cringe. But for now things suck, and I'm trying really hard not to be angry about it.