2 days down, 8 to go!

What is this countdown about you ask? Brian is in London and will be back in 8 days (but who's counting!). So far, things have gone very well. We have down our best to prepare the kids (especially Adam) for how long he will be gone, and I THINK it's working! I know it's only been a few days and he might get tired of waiting for Dad to come home, but there is a trip to Victoria coming up that he is talking a lot about (Victoria Day weekend) and I think having that to look forward to is helping! Bedtime has been going smoothly, he sees the car at home and talks about it, and I keep reminding him that even though the car is home, Dad is still on his work trip, and for now he is accepting that. It's too much to hope for maybe that this will continue, but I have to say that it's been pretty easy so far! I got the neighbor girl to babysit this morning and went to the Free Them 5K in Shoreline this morning which was fun, and it all went off without a hitch! I made up a calendar with all the events in May so I keep showing it to all the kids so they can have a visual, really seems to be helping. We'll see how optimistic I am sounding in a week! Wish me luck:).

I joined a different gym this week, so that's new for me. This gym has way more classes, so I can be a lot more flexible about when I go. The 24 Hour Fitness was not adding any classes, and in fact were dropping existing classes and changing them so much that it was just becoming really frustrating. This new gym even has Hot Yoga included in the membership which is really cool! I just have to convince my friends from 24 Hour to move over, too, I will miss the socializing after working out.

What else is new . . . not a whole lot! Oh, I guess I could report that we tried to buy a house a week and a half ago (try being the operative word). It's such a difficult process, because even though you KNOW there is a strong chance you won't get a house, it's impossible to go through the process of getting it pre-inspected and then writing an offer without investing yourself in it. Brian was thinking about all the things he would do to fix it up (not that it needed much fixing up, it was very nicely redone) and I was imagining where the furniture would go, what we do in the yard . . . you just can't put an offer on a house without getting invested in it. To top it all off, we were putting in what we thought was a very strong offer - we were offering 10% over asking price with few contingencies! All the comparable solds in the area seem to indicate that this was going to be more than enough to get the house, I have to admit I really thought we would get it. I had even connected with the owner on Facebook because she shared the listing on one of my groups! She was very sweet and I know that both her and the Realtor were rooting for us to get it! Well, I guess even when everything seems to fall in place, there can always be a hitch. Someone went crazy and bid 15% over asking. As much as these people wanted to sell us the house, money talks as we all know. I couldn't believe it, it was really hard. Both Brian and I were pretty down about it for a few reasons, not the least of which was if THAT house was going for THAT much, it would seem that we are rapidly being priced out of our first choice area to buy:(. I have to say that I haven't really felt like a little fish in a big pond until this experience. Nobody made me feel this way, but I couldn't help but feel like the world is looking at us like, "How cute, they were trying to buy a house! Awww, nice try guys!" I know it's not just us that is experiencing this madness, and this isn't a logical feeling, but it was definitely how I felt for a few days, very inferior and small. We have recovered now and are soldiering on, but the market conditions for buyers are just ridiculous. I feel like the door has been continually closing on us buying a house here, and while I don't understand why at this point in time, I know that we just need to keep trusting that God knows what's up and we'll figure this out! We are just going to keep looking and if we don't find something, we keep renting this house and see how we feel next Spring about trying to buy again! Not time to give up yet, our landlord has told us we basically have until the end of August and then we need to either sign another lease or be gone. We'll see how it goes from here on in!