A Minute to Breathe

Now that I've gotten a minute to breath... here's what's been happening.  Chad was interviewing casually for some time for a new job.  His has gone rapidly down hill after the hire of an office manager that thinks he's not worthwhile.  We didn't think we'd get an offer that paid as well though, so moving wasn't no my radar.  But he interviewed with a place just before Memorial Day weekend.  It's a cut, but not as drastic as some of the other offers.  Over the long weekend, we decided to take it.  

Over that weekend too, we went to Charleston with my brother's family.  We are SO happy they now live close enough to go to the beach with them!  We hit the aquarium:

 And the beach, of course:

This was Calvin's first time.  Of course, he spent his time eating sand, happily.

 And we hit the pool:

Our kids get along so well.  It's wonderful!

 As soon as we got back, we got to work on the house.  We had to paint over the bright yellow kitchen.  Actually, this picture looks pretty pale... hmm.  I bet this is the yellow from the previous owners... yep, mine was brighter.

I did a pale, minty, grey-ish green.  With the other rooms, I'd say it's not a great choice, but oh well.  It made us all sad to see the yellow go.  We also had to paint over my trees in Calvin's room... also sad.  It's been a process, letting go of our first house.  We moved a ton of stuff over to storage - basically worked our BUTTS OFF for a month.  We were in a huge hurry b/c summer time is moving season here, in a big way.  We didn't want to miss out on that.  My mom came for a week to help too.  So glad she was available to watch kids while we painted the deck and whatnot.  It was stressful.

 Speaking of which, I wish I had pictures, but I don't.  If you have an old deck, in need of some new life, I've got the product for you - Behr's "deckover".  It's really thick and fills in cracks and splinters (our poor kids were always getting splinters!)  Seriously, when we moved in we thought, "that's gonna have to be replaced."  Now it's "ah, nice deck, got some years left."  And NO more splinters!  It's a beast painting a deck, but it looks great now.

Anywho, Calvin turned 10 mo.  (sorry for the lack of edits; I don't even have his 10 mo. off the camera yet.)

 So we worked like dogs, from sun up to about 10pm every day to get it listed... and now we wait.  It SUCKS!  We've been listed now for 3.5 weeks with not a single showing.  I took two weeks just recuperating.  But last week, I was done sitting around trying to keep the kids from making a mess, unable to pull out anything to do, for fear of making a mess - just waiting.  So we went to the beach by ourselves.  It was a total bummer having to leave hubby behind, but I'm glad we did it.  I needed it and came home feeling pretty good about everything, happy to see hubby.

He'd suggested that we take a Saturday and just go to W-ton to play and explore since the kids and I hadn't been there.  So yesterday, that's what we did.  Tons of people I know go, often.  And EVERYONE raves about it.  I was excited and expecting to fall in love right away.  Did. Not. Happen.  It rained the whole time, of course - finally completely fed up with that btw.  And the town is not that cute.  Still, even with a less-than-stellar first impression, it's far better than F-ville, b/c there's actually stuff to do.  And then we meandered through some neighborhoods in the school district we'd like... that was discouraging.  To spend what we want to spend in that school district, it looks like we'll be getting a dump, in a dumpy neighborhood.  We drove home, tired, hungary, and still NO CALLS for our F-ville home - further proof that we will Loose Our Shirts on this move.

But last night, in His infinite mercy, the Lord reminded me that even the best people get discouraged sometimes and that He's in still charge.  He's testing, teaching us to extend our faith... meaning this will NOT happen on my timetable.  And it WILL suck not living with my husband for the forseeable future, and we may be starting over financially, but in the end, it will be blessing... ok, it was comforting at the time, if only marginal.  UPDATE:  The next day we got our first showing.  It was a soldier over seas who's wanting to buy (site unseen) - his agent.  It's between our house and one other.  Crossing our fingers and praying really hard.  But even if he decides not to buy our house, it was very kind of Heavenly Father to send him.