Update

That House is still my major obsession... I have learned so much about how to buy real estate without a bank!

The owner refused to accept less than we had offered him, so the neighbor adjusted the amount of the loan she was asking for. I don't know yet whether she was approved or not but this morning she is seeing a lawyer about drawing up all the legal and financial papers. If she gets approved, we will start the title search--my fear is that there are old liens on the place--and then we go from there.

The rollercoaster has been pretty hard because I swing so wildly between "we're going to get it" and "we aren't going to get it." We keep hitting obstacles and it has me discouraged but I guess I am the only one who feels any kind of pessimism... then again, I am the only one who has so much invested in That House (emotionally, I mean) right now. Everyone else seems to be okay doing the "wait and see" routine. Me, I am planning everything from how best to refinish the floors to what color I want "my kitchen" and where to put "my vegetable garden."

This is really hard for me and I am worn out. It didn't help any that I have been sick with a cold for over a week. Yanno that old saw about a cold lasts seven days if you treat the symptoms, and a week if you don't? This cold has already dragged on for nine days and so I am a little concerned about whether I am getting a secondary infection. I'm pretty sure that part of my pessimism about whether we'll get that house is due to being at low ebb from the virus.

having trouble with Blogger this morning

So this is a test to see if it will let me post... well, I may as well put some content in it, right?

The weirdest thing is happening.... we didn't get That House; I cried on and off for a month over it. We made plans to go on. There was a big (I mean BIG) hassle and dispute with the apartment manager over our new lease here. We resolved it--although it still feels like we are under siege, so I guess it is not really RESOLVED, just...quiet--signed the thing for twelve months, and made plans to go on. I gave up on the flowerpot garden and gave the pots away to a friend who is offering me a patch of her garden. We made plans for spending the tax refund.

Dear friends have made plans to move out of state in about a year and a half. It seemed like a great idea, so we made plans to go with them.

Then Winter came in after a couple weeks of Spring, and the freeze-thaw cycle made the broken area of the brick-facing wall of That House fall down. Now the neighbor is galvanized into action, and she is trying to buy the house so that she can either rent or sell it to us.

The timing of all this is incredibly weird, yanno? It's like the more we aim for stability in our lives, the more the universe sends rollercoasters. And they're the push-me pull-you type rollercoasters, too, c'mere, go away, c'mere, go away... stay in Wichita, leave Wichita, stay in Wichita, leave Wichita....

*sigh* I really hate rollercoasters, and yet I seem unable to avoid this one. I find myself calling it "our house" again and dreaming about how I'm going to refinish the floors, what to do first for moving--it's ridiculous. Even if the neighbor (bless her heart!) can get financing, there is no telling that the owner will accept her offer. It's five thousand less than ours was, really truly a lowball price... but then, had we been able to get financing, we would have offered him the same as she is. We only offered him more as an incentive to carry the mortgage.

BUT just in case... I'm holding off on spending the tax refund... we might need that money for appliances...