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So I keep getting on here intending to document life, but then get overwhelmed and don't type anything. I try not to blog when feeling overwhelmed because you don't want to read that and my future self doesn't want to look back on it. However, overwhelmed is pretty much the default emotion over the past ten days or so. Well, overwhelmed or tired. So if I wait to blog when I don't feel this way, I may not be blogging for quite a while. 

We are riding a not very fun real estate roller coaster. A few days after Christmas, as we were beginning to pack the house and were FULL of excitement about the move, our buyer's financing fell through out of nowhere. We were shocked and angry and defeated.

There were some choice words shared and even a few angry and disappointed tears, but then, in a matter of 24 hours, we switched gears from packing the house to getting ready to list it once again. We thought if we could just sell the house to a new buyer over the weekend, when we had to tell our seller on Monday morning what had happened, maybe he would continue to work with us if we had received a new offer. It was a long shot to attempt to sell the house in one weekend, we knew, but there had been a few people who had hinted at offers the first time around and we hoped maybe one of them would sumbit an offer if we went back on the market.

I went into a frenzy getting the house ready for showings. This was not an easy task because we had been in packing mode. I had begun to pull things out of closets to sort through and pack up. There was stuff everywhere. Finally, when it was as good as it could get in our short time frame, we spent a weekend showing the house to seven more people, each time loading up Bear and the kids and staying away from our house so strangers could walk through it. Not fun. The most not fun was New Year's Day when we had been up late with friends and just wanted to bum around at home but instead had to stay out of our house for three hours. 

Nothing panned out from those showings and when Monday morning came, we had to let our seller know that we needed out of our offer. We spent three days making peace with the fact that we had lost the house. After seven weeks of talking about the upcoming move and making plans for that house, it was quite an adjustment in mindset. We began to feel okay about it all, though, Truthfully. We created a space in the basement for toys- something we'd been talking about for a while- and placed a call to a contractor to come give us a bid on a couple of projects on the wish list around here. We began to set up an office for Ben and for me in the front formal living room.

We then got a message from our seller's agent, kind of unexpectedly, that he still hoped to work with us. He surprised us by giving us an extension on our offer if we wanted it. See? Roller coaster. So after lots of discussion, we are, once again, prepping the house to be put on the market. This time we are listing with an agent. 

The problem is, we are listing the house again with kind of an "I don't care" attitude. All of the crazy gotta-get-this-house-looking-its-best energy I had two months ago is no longer here. I just can't seem to work up some excitement or even some energy. Indifferent is pretty much the best word to describe my emotions at this point in the game. Indifferent doesn't work though. I just keep feeling like I am done and over this whole process, but in reality I am back at square one. You know when you get suckered into a game of Candyland with a child and you play for what feels like forever and then, when you are aalllmoooost at the top of the board and you believe you are finally going to get to end the game, you draw the card that sends you almost back to the very beginning and you just want to cry?? That's me right now.

The fear on my end is that we are putting our lives in limbo once again and putting ourselves through all this stress once again with absolutely no guarantees that it will be worth it. We could not get any offers. We could only get low offers, in which case we would not be selling. We could lose the house on Lockwood at any moment because he can continue to show the house to others until we get an offer on ours. We could get a good offer and then have the whole thing fall apart again. If any of these happen, then all of this is for nothing, and that thought exhausts me.

Ben's travel schedule right now sucks, so a lot of this is falling on me. I have orders pouring in, but instead of being happy about them, I am overwhelmed by them because I do not have a space in this house to work right now. The saw is put away, my paint is all packed in boxes, and I have to keep the house clean. I keep thinking how badly I need to work on orders and it stresses me out. Today I should have spent the afternoon setting up a temporary work space in the basement, but instead I cleaned the house so it is ready for pictures on Tuesday and an Open House next weekend.

I do not share this for sympathy. We are choosing to take on this craziness and stress. It's our own fault. I share this because this is my reality at the moment and I strive to document our life on here as it really is.