The randomness of absence…

I know, I know, it has been FOREVER since I blogged. In a few ways my husband could be held responsible for that, but I’ll get to that on another day. (and no, it won’t be a “trash your husband post”, you should know me better than that!)

Really though, I think the real culprit behind my lack of consistent blogging (and oh, so many other things) is 2014 itself. I don’t know about you, but this has been one nightmare of a year. As I reflect back over these past 10 months, I can’t find one salvageable one and I fear if I dug deeper, the weeks would play out the same. I hate to grimly nutshell it like that, but there it is. This isn’t really a whine about the year post either. Perhaps it’s an I don’t know what kind of post this actually is– sort of post.

As I’m sitting at my desk, in my chair, writing these nonsense words, fingers clickety-clacking on the keys before me- my eyes look to the grey blanket gloom filled sky outside my small office window and I can’t help but find it fitting. Trying to find words to say what I want to say here without being morose, and seeing this typical Michigan-sad sky already speaking them for me. I wish you could see it. The most delightful part about really, it is that I’m sitting here typing at all. For the past four weeks, I couldn’t have done that. Even now, I don’t think I could do it for long, but I’m sitting here, posture well, and that’s something. Late September I had surgery and while I knew the recovery could take months, and would be difficult, what I did not know was the that recovery would often feel like death, I would have numerous complications and this recovery would be one of the hardest things that I may go through physically.

My fifteen year old, she texts me about 147 times a day. Yesterday was sort of nice because she got her phone taken away and so she didn’t text me at all, but then she decided to be a little bit nicer and more helpful, (see: surgery, recovery, etc. I need help. A LOT of it, sometimes.) and she got her phone back. While I’m sure you’re thinking Awe, it’s so sweet she texts you so much, it’s not so simple. Her phone is restricted and she can currently ONLY text/call her parents. This was a result of major cell phone abuse and some really poor choices. She’s been given phone rules, and goals and told it will take a long time to earn trust back. One of those rules is no texting during class. (see: 147 times a day. and no, these aren’t to check on me. This happened since the first day of school. My most common text to her is “aren’t you in class?” Oye…)

We are buying a house. Well, let me refrain. We are hoping to buy a house. We, like half the country, lost a home (and most of our savings/money) in 2007. We were hurt/jaded and swore we’d never buy again. In June of this year, we decided to take a few steps towards buying a home. Our timeline for such an endeavor was Late fall of 2015/early spring of 2016. We were moving along well and feeling really good about our plan. This lasted roughly a month. Things began to look really grim (long term) regarding my mom’s health. She’s a few thousand miles away, and honestly she has a modest income. We can’t afford to put her in assisted living. Realistically if she continues to live alone, she is at risk for many things and it’s just not a good option any longer. I’m her only daughter and so after a hospital scare we had the conversation where we realized it was time to talk about bringing her here to the Midwest’s version of the Arctic tundra to live with us. I did not think she would be in favor, but she was and immediately began getting rid of things for her impending move east. The problem though, is that we currently rent a three story brown stone. The main floor is on the second story and the full bath and bedrooms are on the third. My mom is on a walker on a rare good day and does require a wheelchair. (someday soon, permanently.) We found the perfect house, and lost the perfect house. Found a lot of lemons, got really discouraged, and then came upon a doable option. It requires some tweaking, and isn’t the most ideal for her, but what is out there really wasn’t meeting those needs unless we stumbled upon a trunk load of cash for renovations and repairs… It’s all been beyond stressful, and this mortgage process is enough to make me want to stick kindergarden safety scissors through my eyeballs. Things are certainly different since the mortgage restructuring. Everyday it’s “everything is great, you’re good to go”, then swinging over to “nope, I’m sorry, miscalculation! No mortgage for you!” and back. Our landlords decided to put the brownstone on the market, thus making us officially homeless should this mortgage thing fall through officially, (which it seems to do every Tuesday, Thursday and every other weekend plus holidays.)

One beautiful thing happened since I last blogged… My older daughter married a really great guy. It was a beautiful wedding and we are so proud of her! (she also had unexpected issues arise that confirm other than her wedding, 2014 is a total Jerk…) Second to that would be my bestie from Boise came out for a few days last week. It was awesomely wonderful and depressing because then she left again and I was reminded that I am certainly NOT in favor of living across the country.

Another semi lovely thing happened. I received a $50 Pottery Barn gift card. I am forbidden from buying anything for the house (of course, due to my mortgage induced whiplash I understand why.) I chose to buy Christmas ornaments as they’ll look beautiful no matter where we live. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake. I’m hoping, if it all goes south, we find a box to live in big enough for at least a Charlie Brown tree…