I declared it cleaning day.

Today I finished three loads of laundry (all folded and put away), helped the boys clean their room, Audrey cleaned the kids’ bathroom, I vacuumed and dusted the master bedroom, and I swept and dusted the dining room and family room and Ethan vacuumed the upstairs hallway. I have more on my list, but still have time to get to it.

I’m back on track with my eating too. It’s been a disaster. Really, really bad. I’m determined that today I’m turning it around. Baby steps!

Now, it’s time to clean the kitchen and vacuum the stairs. Doesn’t that sound fun?!

Two things I read on twitter sum this up:

From Jon Acuff: “The only thing Nashville has more of than hipsters is pollen.”

From Christy Nockles: “”I think the kids and I will head to the park and make pollen angels…”

That also means the return of the red wasps that love the pollen from the holly bushes. The holly bushes happen to be planted near the front doors of all the units in our HOA. Hmmmm….. interesting planning. It makes entering and exiting the house like a scene out of Mission Impossible. Also, they love the van. Getting in and out of the van without screams and terror is near impossible. I watched a wasp fly into a car that was sitting in front of me at a stop light today. It exited out the other window after much commotion.

My friend, Kimberely, visited us this week. She was here from Wednesday night until Saturday morning. I took the opportunity to drop the kids off at a friends house on Thursday and take in some historical places in town with her.

You may or may not know that the town we currently live in was a site of a very bloody battle during the Civil War. Sometimes I forget too, but I’m reminded when the traffic is backed up and I realize that it’s because Civil War reenactors are marching up one of the main streets in town! My other reminders are the brown signs all over town that say, “You are now entering the battlefield of Franklin”.

Kimberely and I toured the “big three” historical sites in Franklin that are associated with the battle: The Carter House, The Lotz House and Carnton Plantation. Of the three, the Carter House tour was the most interesting. Imagine getting a knock on your door one day and finding Union Soldiers who are there to announce they are taking over your home as their headquarters for a battle. The family and neighbors hid in the cellar while the battle raged around them. 5 hours after the battle started over 6,000 soldiers had been killed.

Living here has increased my interested in Civil War history.

Now I just need to visit all the major Nashville sites and I’ll really feel settled in here!

We rearranged again. Now the dining room table is in the middle of the family room. The couch, chair and TV are in the Dining Room! We’re wild and crazy like that, evidently.

I felt the need to move things around. I couldn’t get our family room size and furniture to arrange in a way that I felt was cozy. And the dining room table  felt too big for the dining room. I’ve always loved switching up how furniture is arranged. Some of it is that it feels like I have a new place when it’s done. The other aspect for me is that in recent years I usually do that when I need to feel better about the place where I’m living. If I feel restless and discontent, moving the furniture usually helps.

I have definitely been feeling restless and discontent. I’ve been praying a lot about it lately. Getting the paperwork to list our home was sobering. If we get what we owe (which is WAY above market value), we need to bring $11,000 to closing. If we get what our realtor thinks we’ll get, we need to bring $33,000 to closing. It feels like an impossible situation.

Our plan to save up enough money for a down payment for a house here seems so far out of reach too. The medical costs keep coming. Within the next month, we’re going to be spending more than $700 just to get xrays and teeth cleaning for the 5 of us. And I know that at least two of us will have cavities. That will be an additional expense. We have some saved up for medical expenses and we can reallocate money saved for different things. We can pay the bills, thankfully! The problem is that between saving for travel to see family, medical expenses, car repairs and for house repairs and a possible empty house in Winsted (depending on if the tenants decide to move), there is little left to save for anything else.

The truth is, when we do our budget, we have not been able to allocate money for things that we really should because of our mortgage in MN. We’re at a point where we need to set a date that is really soon for when we’re done with our home in MN and/or we need to find an additional source of significant income.

I’ve been quiet on the blog because I’ve felt sad about this, but I didn’t know how to express it. I don’t want it to seem like we’re in poverty. We’re not. And I don’t want it to seem like a request for money. I’m not asking for money.

In the meantime, I’m rearranging furniture.

Daddy Daughter Ball

A local church had a Daddy Daughter Ball on Friday night. Nathan and Audrey got dressed up and went dancing! They also got lots of candy, made necklaces and Audrey won a $10 gift card to Sweet CeCe’s. They had a great time.

We talked to our property manager tonight. We had been waiting to hear if our tenants wanted to buy our house, but we have not heard anything from them. So, it’s time to list the house. It sounds like it will probably be listed once we sign an agreement this week. The current lease is up at the end of April. We’re praying that they will renew.

Please be in prayer for us. The last month has really taken a toll. Having the house issue up in the air is hard. I’ve also been dealing with homeschool stress, Nathan’s face is hurting again and now I’m experiencing some physical things that I’m going to need to get checked out. The muscle under my left eye has been twitching since Friday (off and on for over two days now– anytime I pay attention to see if it’s happening, it is) and now it just feels weird in general. It’s probably stress related. I’m trying to figure out a way to not be anxious, but it’s hard. I’ve been praying about it. I wish God would just take away the anxiety.

It feels like we’re under attack. We would really appreciate the prayers.

Ethan was invited to the rehearsal of the Veggie Tales Live! show that is going to be happening in Nashville soon. It wasn’t open to the public, but family members of employees could go. So, our friends invited Ethan to join their family for the afternoon. That was yesterday. He had a great time and from what I can tell, he behaved himself!

This is unrelated, but too good to keep to myself. I was in the car with the kids and a song came on that has been on the radio for several years and Ethan was listening to the lyrics. Then he asked me “What are lobster lonely people?” He was hearing “lost and lonely” as “lobster lonely”. Hee hee I hope there are no lobster lonely people reading this post.

I have declared today to be Teacher Appreciation Day! I notified Nathan of the fact as he was leaving to get some groceries for me. I can’t wait to see what he comes back with

The last time I posted about our house, I was so confident and sure of our “plan” for this year.

A day later Nathan ended up in Urgent Care ($100), the next day he was in the ER ($200?), then he needed prescriptions ($80) and a follow-up doctor appointment ($94 — amazingly great deal!),  then Audrey needed to go the doctor ($not sure the price of that yet), and she needed meds ($100) then our property manager called to say that the dishwasher was needing fixing and possibly needed to be replaced ($200?), and yesterday she called again and said that the washing machine wasn’t draining and we needed to have someone come and look at the drains and clear out tree roots that were probably causing issues and we need decided to also have him take a scope/camera down and give us pictures of what is really happening so we can figure out what we need to do to keep everything draining properly ($300).

Our big plan to save for a down payment for a house doesn’t look so easy now. It’s probably unlikely that we’ll have $1000 in unexpected  expenses each month, but it has still been discouraging. Thankfully, we had some money earmarked for house expenses and another fund for medical expenses. I had been allocating a little to each of those funds each month. I’m very glad that I did.

Our tenants might be interested in seeing if they can get approved for a loan to buy our house. That would be great, but we don’t want to give them a steal just because they are renting from us. We want the best price we can get for the place and if they can’t offer enough money so that we can avoid a short-sale situation, we wont be able to sell to them because a short-sale means no one will give us a mortgage for 3 years.

I’m not even sure what the next step is in that process. I imagine will find out next week.

I know God is in control and I shouldn’t be discouraged, but I am.