Thursday March 6^th

Work is going well and packing is going even better though I'm running low on boxes right now. We got a new baby at the day care this week. She's three months old and just the tiniest cutest little thing.  She's got the sweetest disposition too. I sat her in her bouncer this morning in front of the television and she watched the entire Sesame Street show without moving. She cooed and made noises at the television. It was way cute. Of course, I forgot all my "baby" do's and don'ts over the past few years. I fed her a bottle and then burped her... over my shoulder. Yep, you guessed it, puke all the way down my back. UGH! But it was worth it because I am totally enjoying caring for an infant again. The crying baby is still there and as jealous as can be over the new infant. She screams as loud as she can for HOURS unless you hold her. 8 months old and spoiled rotten. WOW can you say headache? I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.  

It looks like Chris & I will be heading into school next week. Becca brought home her journalism journal yesterday and as I was glancing through it I noticed the teacher is having them write "quotes of the day". Every quote is either a "God" reference or a verse from the bible. With everything he's already pulled off, this is UNACCEPTABLE! This guy is a total nut job. Becca informed me that one of her friends already had her parents up there last week to complain (the one who's cousin is rotting in hell) and rumor has it the 6^th grade Vice Principal already had a talk with this guy but apparently it's not working as he's still pulling the same crap this week. We've put it off long enough, this has got to stop.

The next few weeks are getting more and more chaotic. I've spent the last hour trying to re-arrange my schedules for other important "things". The weekends just keep filling up and there is no stopping it! May 3^rd is our first free weekend as of right now. SHOOT ME PLEASE!

The house is still not sold and I'm still getting "crack head" phone calls to rent this place. $800 is a steal for this area. You can't even get a good apartment at that price. I wish we could raise the price, just a little to ease our minds. If someone moves in and destroys the place we are so totally screwed. I am so not ready to rent this house out. PLEASE SOMEONE BUY THIS HOUSE!!!

Cookie sales are almost over and now we're at the point of constantly reminding the parents to turn in their money. We've got a handful of cookies left and one booth left scheduled for next weekend so I think we'll be set this year. No screw ups!! WOO HOO! Nickelodeon Hotel... here we come...uh - woo hoo?

TWO HOURS LATER...

I am so angry; I can't wait until Chris gets home because we are definitely heading up to Becca's school to speak to someone in charge. Becca spent her time in journalism NOT taking notes on how to be a journalist but taking notes on the garbage her nutcase of a teacher was spouting off about Christians. Here's a few of her notes:

Teacher says, "I just received a note from an old student saying that she used to shun those who believed in GOD but now she believes in the lord and is getting her own bible." He then tells the children that he was sorry for being late to class today as he had to stop and pray after reading the note.

When he speaks of the lord the children need to focus on the words. He wants to prepare them for Judgment day, because he's a good Christian and his job is to tell everyone about GOD. If you believe and follow him you will go to heaven, if you don't you will go to hell. He wants them all to go to heaven and he'd be disrespectful to people if he didn't inform everyone he meets about the lord. We are all children of God.

A true Christian does not slam things down your throat; they are there to basically introduce you to Christianity.

NOW, tell me what the hell any of this has to do with JOURNALISM!!!! This is bullshit and it must be stopped! I have not enrolled my daughter into a "magnet school for the academically gifted" for her to sit through BIBLE STUDY and/or Church to learn journalism. This man has totally lost focus on the curriculum he's supposed to be using. I did not raise Becca to have to deal with this mess being shoved down her throat and THAT is exactly what this man is doing. If Becca wants to read the bible, then she may read the bible and decipher it on her own. I don't want someone else to give her their thoughts and opinions. If the time comes and she decides Christianity is what she wants to believe in then Chris and I will accept that and if she decides to become an atheist or anything in between, well, that's her choice too. I won't have her forced, scared or bullied into believing anything.  I'm so tired of this crap. This guy needs to keep the church and his beliefs out of the classroom.

Ahh, another day shot to hell....

Tuesday March 4^th

And the days just keep getting better... Here's a wonderful follow up from yesterday's train wreck. I've received a total of 3 calls so far to show the house for rental. $800 in Arlington seems to be a big steal and everyone wants to be here. Too freaking bad they won't buy the damn place. Anyway, I showed the house yesterday and have ignored all the calls today because I wanted to get an answer from the realtor to find out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing.

Basically, they call the 800# and ask information. If the consultants think the potential renter seems interested they give out my cell phone number to contact me and set up an appointment. I allow the potentials to walk thru the house and make their decisions. If the potential is interested, I send them back to the 800# to ask for an application and pay the $50 for application and credit check. I then wait for the credit check to be forwarded to us for review and decision making. If I like it, then we call the potential renter and give them the thumbs up to move in at the time of our closing on the new house.

Now here is the problem. They are trying to find someone interested in renting with the option to buy but they can't guaranty this. I can not "technically" keep the house on the market with a renter because it may be offensive to the renter to force them to allow potential BUYERS into the house while they are staying there. It causes chaos and instability for the renters which may scare them off. So basically, whatever we do, we're screwed. I've got to come up with $13,000 to buy my new house, rent this house out to pay the mortgage and still be left scrounging for money because the mortgage on the new house is going to astronomical because we didn't and can't sell this current house. AHHH, life sucks! Time is running out, and it looks like so is my luck. I don't want to lose my dream house but it looks like I'm going to have to. I can't believe I'm praying my sister gets off her ass and gets the okay to buy this house. PLEASE SOMEONE BUY THIS HOUSE!!!

I just spoke to Karen and it doesn't look like they're going to buy. They'd rather rent, get their credit rating up a little more then attempt to buy next year. Great thought, but what the hell am I going to do in the mean time? Jeff mentioned I could possibly call my current mortgage company and ask for a re-finance on this house to get the down payment for the new house, rent this house out for the next few years until the housing market goes back to normal and then attempt to sell. Good thought but can it be done? I'm too afraid to ask. Oh well, another thought to flow through my head right now; like I need anything else to worry about. PLEASE SOMEBODY BUY THIS HOUSE!!!!

I picked up my niece and nephew from daycare today and I thought the ladies were going to refuse me. As soon as Jordan saw me, her eyes grew two times their size and then she started screaming. I just can't win! I picked her up and started walking out the door and I swear I thought the lady was going to run to the phone and call Tammy. Luckily, Nicholas walks up to us with a great big smile and hug for his Aunt TC and the ladies relaxed a little. Jordan immediately stopped crying upon seeing her big brother. We get to the house and the kids are fine. Jordan gets her drink and some crackers and she's set. Nicholas and Becca start their homework and I bake some cookies. The next thing I know, Jordan is sound asleep. GEESH! I think she falls asleep just to escape me! It makes the time go faster. At least my Nic Nic loves me.

Monday March 3^rd

First I want to say a great big thank you to my two favoritest men in the world (yes I know that's not a word) Chris & Thom. They are total life savers and stress relievers! (Get your minds out of the gutters there folks!) Thom came over this weekend and he & Chris worked on the house plumbing. I can now do laundry without worrying about overflow. WOO HOO! And it's a good thing they worked on it because an hour after they were done we got a call for a showing. I don't know what the out come is yet but hopefully we got an interested person. We get the bites but no hooks. PLEASE SOMEONE BUY THIS HOUSE!

And on to today; Becca is home sick. She's been fighting a cold since Friday but we've not had a minute for her to just sit down and relax. We've been on the go from morning to night and it's killing her. So, she goes to bed at 8 last night and wakes up at 9 feeling slightly better but still stuffy. I've got her sitting in bed reading, finishing her People to People project and just plain being lazy so that maybe she can get rid of this cold. Unfortunately, it looks like I caught the cold again too cause I've been hacking and coughing again this morning DARN IT. Anyway... I'm sitting here at my computer, following up on Girl Scouts, checking my emails and just being lazy when my cell phone rings. I don't recognize the number so I hesitate before answering. I should have followed my instincts and let it go to voice mail. I answer the call and this woman says she's interested in my rental and can she come out today and check it out. My response; HUH? She says she saw that we were renting our house for $800 a month and wanted to check it out but didn't have the physical address. Again, my response, HUH? I told her I had no clue what she was talking about and that yes we were considering renting but I didn't know we were actually scheduled to do it yet. She insisted on coming out today at noon to check it out. She had no problem with the 1^st and last month rent thing and hoped I'd be available today. UH - okay! So I hang up with her, call my realtor and his response was.... HUH? He has NO CLUE what's going on and why it's for rent. So I hang up from him and call my KB consultant and of course they thought my panic was hysterical and couldn't stop laughing at me. They thought it was funny to say - Hope you're packed! (SMART ASSES) She calmed me down, told me she'd contact our realtor and find out what's up. She said it's a good thing we've got an interested renter since we can't get a buyer but what are we going to do about getting a down payment. GOOD QUESTION! I love my little consultant. If she gets me out of this mess and into my new home without any additional stress I'll be sure to send her some beautiful flowers for this.

So, I've got a sick kid in the house, 2 dogs in the house (who are not leaving for Grandma's house for 2 more weeks) and an idiot in charge of showing the house and trying to answer questions with full sentences instead of, HUH? Oh this is going to be a treat!

Would you believe I thought I'd have an easy week this week? My plan was to start packing up the rest of the house and just take it easy. What a joke. I've got practically every hour of every day scheduled with something. I've got to work most of this week, I've got a volunteer day, doctor's appointment and I get to pick up my niece and nephew from school one day this week. And that I can't wait for as I'm dying to see how my niece Jordan reacts when I show up to pick her up from school. She usually cries when she comes over to our house or even sees me at her house so picking her up from school should be fun! I think I'll have Becca take video of it. All my other nieces and nephews adore me. Jordan, well she thinks I'm the devil himself. But I'll get her to come around some day.

Oh, we got our Wal-Mart's back. I don't know what the issue was but the issue was only with our local Wal-Mart. They decided Friday morning to let us sell AND even gave us an additional weekend to sell there so we were able to do our Friday booth and actually picked up another booth on the 15^th. We had a good night. In two hours we sold 87 boxes of cookies. We sold about 300 this entire weekend so I guess we could say that was an awesome sale!

House update here: Well, the potential renter and her kids showed up at noon and walked through the house. I apologized for my stuttering when she called earlier and explained that I was totally at a loss because I had no idea they'd put the house up for rental. She walked through the house making no comments except - do you have an alarm system? And then when we were back in the living room she asked if I had an application for her to fill out. Uh - NO? I took her name and number and told her after I got to the bottom of this mess I'd get back with her with an application. I guess she's interested because she asked when they could move in!! I don't want to rent! I want to sell DAMN IT!

I called my sister and let her know what was going on. She and Jeff are trying to find a lender to help them buy the house. They REALLY want this house and it'd be cool to sell to them. They need to hurry up though because we're running out of time. I gave them some information about lenders and told them to get their butts in gear. We are so running out of time.

I talked to my loan officer and he gave me the details. If we don't sell this house, we need to have $13000 before April 2^nd. GULP! Where the hell am I going to come up with that amount? He sounded a little snotty when he found out Chris was the only one with a job. His tone totally changed. I informed him I was taking classes and would have a new job/business within weeks of moving into our new home. DICKHEAD!

So, I'm supposed to sit down with my husband and make the decision as to what we want to do, find out how we're going to come up with $13000, and if we can't what our plans are; then I'm to call DICKHEAD and we'll make some decisions and he'll draw up the papers. Gee golly am I getting excited or what!

Anybody have any empty boxes? I'm looking for some to finish packing up this crap in this house. I've already used about 20 Girl Scout boxes to pack up Chris's DVD's.