Hi, are you Susanne?

Ok, so here's the scene. It is 8:45ish and the Paul Arpin truck pulls up in front of the house. (Paul Arpin ROCKS btw) It is only a box truck, not the big semi, which I was informed by the 5 year old was not what I promised. He was pretty let down, but I digress.

So, the guys from Paul Arpin are here, give them the nickel tour of the house and they are getting boxes from the box truck. (Get it? Ok, well, I thought is was funny. Yeah, no one else does either.) They are bringing in the load and there is this young guy at my door. I say hi. He says, "Are you Susanne?" I say, "yeah." Now, I know my name is Susanna, but in the history of the world, no contractor has ever called me that. He says to me, I am here to look at the chimney. I say ok. He tells me that someone called him and said the chimney was falling apart. I said "WTF? I don't think so." I told him that the crown had cracked and that we had it fixed. He could inspect the crown. He said ok. I also told him that if he wanted to go on the roof I needed to see his insurance. He said he didn't need to go on the roof. He told me everything look solid to him, and he left. I thought GREAT!!! The AH's didn't come! Maybe they aren't so bad after all.

So I am in the house making food for the kids and I get this feeling that the swine were out there. Sure as poop, they were. We let them cool their heels in the street for a half an hour. After I was pretty certain that they had called the chimney contractor and talked to him, I grabbed the 2yr old and went outside and had a chat with them.

I tried to schedule the walk through, but they would have nothing of that. I also gave the realtor a piece of my mind about her calling my chimney contractor. She had the audacity to accuse me of not sending the information. Now, everyone that knows me knows that I am pretty buttoned up, so this is a ludicrous accusation. She was extremely combative, and I finally told her that we are trying to do the right thing. I was pretty upset that they keep kicking us. Have I mentioned that I HATE her? Hate is actually too mild a word. Unbelievable!

Anyway, the good thing was that she assured me that they planned on closing. I hope that happens. I really do, because if it doesn't I plan to sue them for liquidated damages.

Only 3 more days, only 3 more days.

Are they for real?

So, we told our realtor that the buyers couldn't come and see our house on Monday, the chimney guy could come, but they couldn't. Our movers are coming between 8 and 10 on Monday, and having them arrive at the same time too is a bit overwhelming.

When we told them that only the chimney guy could come, they got mad and didn't understand why we wouldn't let them in the house. Tomorrow should be interesting. I am on the brink of a nervous break down!

The kids are excited to get going and see the truck. I think everything will be much better once we are in our temporary apartment and our current home is sold. Seeing the money in the bank will make me very very very happy.

I ask everyone to pray for me to make it through this and to have our house actually be sold. I never thought that selling our house could be so amazingly difficult!

My last girls night

It is very sad, we had our last girls night. I am going to miss my friends so much. I have had so many negative experiences in my life that it is hard for be to believe that I have some many great friends.

I wasn't very popular in High School and even after college, people were pretty mean to me. So I was very nervous about staying home and trying to make mommy friends. I have gotten to the point where I have some wonderful relationships, and now I have to leave them. :(

I am very nervous about meeting new people in the new place. Will they be nice? Will I like them? Will they be muffys? Will they be regular people who like to coupon? Will I find a job?

So much unknown. It is scary and I feel like I want to cry every time I think about the move.

The whole thing has been really stressful . It seems that everything thing that could go wrong has gone wrong. My husband won't let me go into detail yet, but once it is over, I have some stories for you! Needless to say, I go to bed crying most nights because of the sadness of it, but also because of the overwhelming stress.

Is the siding coming?

The truck is scheduled to arrive in 10 days. The count down is on. My 7 year old is concerned about leaving his friends and all the change that is coming down the pike. My 2 year old is clueless. She just dances around and plays with her toys. Her pack? I don't think so!

But, my 5 year old, he is very concerned about what is coming with us. We look at the virtual tour of the house almost daily so he can see his room and the playroom where his toys will be.

"Mom, why do Mac-y and Hannah have beds in their rooms? My room is just empty?" Says Sam.

"All the furniture in the new house will be gone when we get there sweetie."

"But Mom, where is our furniture going?"

"It is going into storage for a month and then the truck will bring it to our new house."

"Are the men taking our beds?"

"Yes," I say getting exasperated with the daily questions about what is coming and what is staying.

"Are they taking the stuff on the side of the house?"

"Yes, sweetie, they are taking your toys from the side of the house," I say, as I start to walk out of the room.

"No Mommy, the plastic stuff on the outside of the house."

"You mean the siding? No, that stays, our new house will have siding."

"But Mommy our new house has bricks."

Leave it to a 5 year old to state the obvious.

Homelessness

As we are embarking on a cross country move, we have the unfortunate situation of being between houses for a month. We have also had a financing snafu, and almost lost the new house. This caused me great angst! I couldn't imagine not having an address, especially with three small kids. It just seemed very horrible.

The paper had an article about a little girl who had been homeless for most of her life, and was now living in a shelter. She was being profiled because she had received high honors in school. It got me thinking, as we traverse our "homelessness" situation, about how bad it would be to truly be homeless.

I couldn't even imagine how stressful and scary that would be for me and my kids. What would we do? How do you send your kids to school so that they can get ahead? How do they study and do homework if you don't have any place to live? The simple details of life that I take for granted become a huge problem if you don't have a place to call home.

When I think about it that way, I realize how incredibly spoiled I am. Some folks would probably give their eye teeth to have the apartment my family will live in for a month. It would probably seem lavish to someone who was living in a homeless shelter. I thank God that I am able to fill the gap between houses.

Moving

It has been awhile since I have done this. I suppose writing a column for a weekly parenting newsletter has taken up much time. Since that is coming to an end, I am going to need an outlet. So I return.

We are moving. We sold our house really fast. I hope it stays that way, but right now it is under contract. YEAH! This seems to be a small miracle given the housing market. On the other hand finding a new house seems to be a huge issue. You would think given the fact that there are over 100 homes for sale in our target area we would be able to find one. Yeah, not so much.

It seems all the houses that I like are either on a busy street, sex offender adjacent, have no yard, in the one elementary school district that is bad, etc. It has almost become a joke, if I like the house, the location must be a problem. We have finally found one that we like, can afford, and in a good area, but we can not get into for a month after our house closes. So we are going to be homeless for a month.

So for a month, I will be living with 3 kids, ages 2, 5, 7 in a 2 bedroom apartment with my husband and our dog. My husband will be working from home, so I have to keep everyone quiet. I haven't decided the best solution for this, muzzles perhaps?

I suppose the kids and I will explore every park, McDonalds Playland, museum, and zoo in the great Chicagoland area!