I'm still here! I've been knitting a sweater, dealing with work stuff, and choosing an ingenious Halloween costume.

You can call me the idiom queen of Halloween.

I've been...
-A lame excuse
-All ears
-A clothes horse

and this year, I'm going to have a chip on my shoulder! (Thanks to my brother for the idea.)

Bye, house.

We went and signed papers today canceling our offer on the house. We should have been moving in 10 days from now.

I am very sad, and it is easy to say that something as good will come along, but less easy to actually believe it. My parents didn't want us to buy the house and unfortunately they have some financial power in the decision. They want us to get a "nicer" house in a fancier neighborhood, which.... um... we can't afford. THIS house was what we can afford. Anything that they will deem to be better is also something that we won't be able to do without more substantial assistance. (Which we don't really want and might not even be possible anyways.)

Damn economy. Bad timing. Suck.

Since I last posted I got EVEN MORE bad news on the house front, and also on the home front as well. My great uncle, who married us last summer, is dying of cancer. Our wedding day will end up being the last time I will have seen him. He has between 3 weeks and 2 months to live.

I got that bad news on Friday, and then the financial/home bad news on Sunday since my family didn't want to heap it all on me at once. In between the swaths of yuck news I tried to relax in Bakersfield with my two good buddies. My best friend from high school and my college roomate now both reside in the same city.

As far as the house goes, I had resigned myself that it wasn't going to happen and was kind of okay with it but now there is hope again which is really screwing with my mind. I'm back to the stress level I had last week and early this one, which isn't cool at all. We also briefly had hope that my uncle could do chemo but after thinking that for a few days we found out he is in too poor of health. Bad news is better straight- the crashes are worse after you have hope.

Things aren't going well right now. I think we may be screwed. (As in, no house.)

This is really awful. Why did our offer have to be accepted at the exact same point as the nation's economy slipped into the toilet?

When I know what will happen I'll say it here. But right now... my confidence is at zero.

On September 5th at noon, I was at work and so was Steve. How, then, did we accept a 14 minute long collect call from Missouri??

Maybe Tony the Cat did it.



Ok. Maybe it was a billing mistake.

When I get really upset/stressed/nervous I will start burping. Gross, I know, and I apologize. But yes! Stress affects me physically, and the reactions I have can be strong. After I talked on the phone to my dying great grandmother over a year ago I actually was so upset that twenty minutes later I threw up in my front patio.

Today after the home inspection I started burping, but thankfully there was nothing more than that.

1) There are random minorish things wrong with the house, such as... the dishwasher doesn't appear to work, nor does the oven. Um, and some other wonky half-assed home improvements.

2) There are a few potential major issues, like some wood rot in the kitchen (subfloor?) and the fact that the guy could physically move the chimney around with his arms at the top. Ha! I don't think that is supposed to happen!

3) Once we get the inspection reports back, we have to make decisions. Big ones.

4) Loan stuff sucks and when you hear different things from different people... gah. We need some info and reassurance. And a magically improved economy! In the next few days please!

5) Work.

6) My grandparents really aren't doing well, and I'm afraid my grandpa won't be around in a year. He is 79, which I think of as being way too young to die, but it really isn't young at all. My grandma has been slipping mentally and wrote my birthday card with messed-up sentences and signed from Uncle Bill instead of Grandpa.

7) Oh yes, it was my birthday on Wednesday. I am now 26 years old, and though I don't have a house, hopefully this place does work out and my goal of home ownership by this birthday will still kind of be attained. We went into escrow right before my birthday, and if everything works out, we'll be in the house before Halloween.

Now I need to chill out and knit.