so, um, yea, haven't been posting. despite what i said in my last entry, my life is still almost entirely about the house, taking youngest to and from school, and dealing with a lot of financial fall out (which really has become nightmare as we keep having to wait for the one thing we need to close this up: the money from out amended tax return). the last week has also had a lot of concerns about rain and dealing with the emotional issues brought up for me when there's nothing but gray skies. plus there's been a whole LOT of crazy going on with the husband's job. he still has it, but for awhile there, he might as well have been working for free.

yea, it's been just a little stressful.

so something of an update....

no, we're still not in the house. we're still waiting for the tax check. until that makes it in, well, closing is impossible. so, until it comes in, we're continually being asked for more paperwork, being asked to jump through more hoops, and pretty much going crazy. we made the repairs asked for or we'd give the mess up. well, maybe not, but the amount of stress right now is beyond anything i've ever dealt with before. i managed something good, and now i need to redo it because the timing and payment agreement no longer fits what we need. we tried to bring in the child support, but because we don't have an actual court order (thanks california!), they have to consider out income lower than it is and now we're looking for near impossible homeowner's insurance rates. AND we've just discovered that some trees need to be removed because their roots have broken into the power lines. so far everything's being taken care of, but the financial burden on us has finally plastered us against a really nasty wall. we don't have rent money for next month and we can't pay a $500 water bill. we can probably barely scrape by on all the other bills, but those two are biggies and i have no idea how we're going to take care of them without taking out a loan, which is a bad idea. and no one does the cash advance on a tax check at this time of year.

as of right now, it looks like we're missing the next closing date. i sent my return in when it was an 8-10 week turn around. now it's a 12-16 week turn around. if we don't receive it this in the next day or two, there's no way to get the final paperwork in to the lender for approval, the approved loan to the choice program for approval, and all back again to close on the 30th. which means asking for yet another extension and hoping that the amount of money we've put in will account for something with the bank holding the house.

definitely not looking forward to that.

but there is some good in all of this delay. granted, the financial mess probably out weighs the good, at least in the moment, but there is good. with each delay, something else at the house comes up and gets dealt with, and not necessarily with us paying for it. for example, right now the husband is talking to the fellow handling the electrical and plumbing repairs about the trees that are having to come down so the electric company out there can put down new lines. something like that is better to discover BEFORE you close, if only to make sure the house is working 100% when you move in (but the financial considerations are in there too—removing 3 trees and number of bushes would be horrendously expensive, but we're not paying those prices at this point). at this point, i have to just hope the delays are all a part of divine providence to make sure this house will be actually livable when we get in.

now if only providence would help provide money for the rent and water and keep us in food, i'd be less stressed about the whole mess.

okay, maybe not. house buying is crazy stressful. it really is.

as for the crazy recent rains, the new house survived better than the current house...sort of. the leak in our garage finally gave way and now there's a hole in the ceiling of the garage and it's been flooding and there's nothing we can do about it. at the house, the things that needed repairs have been repaired and are doing their job and the water has remained outside. i was worried about the garage because of the incline of the driveway, but i checked on it and it's fine. can't say that about the back yard which became part of the yellow river which runs behind the house. the river never actually reached the house itself (and from what i saw as i drove down the street to check on the house, we're lucky), but most of our back fence is down or gone. the neighbor said that he's not seen anything like this in the 11 years he's lived there, and georgians are in shock with where flooding ended up. one of the roads i usually take to get youngest to school is closed indefinitely—the road had been washed away (almost taking a driver with it) and created a sinkhole that even destroyed a construction pipe. so, yes, it's been a mess, but we're safe, and the house is safe, and the last 2 days of drying out should help keep it from being an even bigger catastrophe when the next line of storms come through.

and, yes, there are more storms heading the way. the question is whether they will be here tonight or friday. hopefully it won't hover the way this last one did. that's part of what caused the problem: those storms just sat here for a few days, dumping everything they had.

saxy's job has also been adding to our stress. hopefully that problem is settled until he can find something comparable that he'll actually like doing, but we'll see. his boss is something else. he called a meeting and told the drivers he wasn't going to be able to pay them salary anymore, just mileage, which he doesn't calculate correctly anyway. i don't know what the drivers were thinking—saxy and one other one that i know of knew that this was yet another way for him to take more of their pay away from them, but no one else complained until they got the actual checks. everyone made half their pay or less. crap like this is why our finances get so fucked up: the boss changes the pay date (thus finagling the number of days on the check), takes deductions he shouldn't, and just plain takes money without explanation. saxy's checks have been shorted a total of $500 minimum, without explanation, without any way to get the money back because he gets the run around. the drivers were going to stage a walk out this week, but then he decided to go back to paying the salary and, today, it was decided to pay $9.50 an hour. we'll see if that works.

actually, it only has to work long enough for saxy to get out of there.

which brings me to the one real bright spot: saxy's culinary school. everything is signed and ready to go. on the 29th, he goes in for orientation and picks up his knives and apron and books. he actually starts on my birthday. two weeks later, he is eligible for job help through their career center. he's so excited about this. he's told the job he needs to be part time. not sure if that will pan out, but he's pretty determined to make sure he gets to class, and i back him with that. with the amount of sitting time they give him, they can send him home early and send someone else to make whatever pick up he's waiting for. saturday and sundays (i think) will be spent in the kitchen doing hands on stuff. mondays is his safety class.

i'm looking forward to the treats he's going to get to bring home. ;)

so, that's why so silent of late. there's just not been much progress on any front, really, and a whole lot of stress that's making me antisocial. i'm not writing all that much because my days are a complete mess, but when i am, i'm working on the first run through for a.c. v6. otherwise, i tend to be trying to recover from one thing or another or running to one place or another or dealing with yet another crises or other. not sure when i'll break my silence again, but between now and then, just figure it's more of the same.