Back Home!!!

We are back in our own home!!! Yippee!!! All at the same time I am stressed a bit because of all the financial woes, the modification is taking its sweet time, and slowly our savings is dwindling away again. I can't tell you how great it is to be back in my own kitchen cooking, or using my own washing machine that does big loads with no problem. The best is being able to use my own master bathroom in the middle of the night without worrying about getting 100% clothed. No I do not sleep in the nude, but sometimes just in my underwear... o k too much info. It is awesome to have my own little master suite again, with a garden tub I can stretch out in and enjoy my bubble bath. I'm certain that we have made the wise decision for so many reasons, now I just have to rely on Heavenly Father to help us work it all out. It's great to know that we have his guidance in our lives to help direct us in the paths we should follow.

Twists and Turns part 2

Life again has given us another interesting thing to deal with. Today I got a rent check from our tenant, I was amazed that it had arrived on the 1st, we have had several problems with her paying on time. I decided maybe she was turning over a new leaf, perhaps she wanted to make things better in hope that we would let her renew her lease in July. My joy was short lived. When I opened the envelope there was a letter, which never is a good sign. The letter stated that due to the economy she is no longer able to afford the rent, she would be moving out by the 15th, and it only included half of the rent amount. Ugh!!!! We are currently in the process of trying to get the loan on our house modified due to our financial hardship, it takes about 2-3 months, and we were deciding if that would be enough to get us back in our own house. So now we have to decide if we can swing it for a few months and start moving back now, or if we list it and rent it out again. Is it possible to rent to someone for only a few months while we wait for the modification to come in?
I can't express how much I would love to just pack up and move back in, but is it possible? What if they deny our modification? This is somewhat of a sore point with me. If we were already on the brink of foreclosure then they are required to modify our loan and help us out. Foreclosure was never an option for us, we value our credit rating to much. I realize that there are many people out there who have not been as fortunate as we are, they may not have the option of living with their mom and rent out the home they own while they go to school to try and make it all better. I also know that their are so many people who simply bought more home than they could ever possible afford, or worked out a very risky loan to get into the house of their dreams. Jarrett and I have taken baby steps. Our first home was a tiny town house that built up some great equity. Our second and current home was the stepping stone to our hopefully final destination. Of course we wanted bigger and better, but we were smart about our choices. We just did not foresee the loss of a job and lack of schooling being such a big factor in finding a new job. Maybe that is the one big decision that in hindsight I would change. We had several opportunities to go to school, we should have. We are now trying to rectify that. I guess my point is that I would give us a loan modification because we have tried to do the right thing. We deserve to be helped out so that we can return to the home that we were willing to do everything to keep, by renting it out and letting go of our dream, to pursue a bigger and better one. Keep your fingers crossed for us and more importantly keep us in your prayers.

How babies are made

This morning I heard a very interesting conversation between my Mom and 4 year old Hayden. My children were all upstairs with my mom having breakfast when I headed up the stairs. I paused at the bottom when I heard them talking about a new baby. My mom had been telling them about how women in Africa had all but given their little ones to my sister Elizabeth to bring back home. We could of gave Brad and Angelina a run for their money if she could of brought all of them home. So they were talking about what it would be like to have more people in the family. Hayden said he wants a baby brother, everyone agreed that would be great. Then Hayden said," If I let my mom exercise then I can get a baby brother." I was laughing at the bottom of the stairs, I can only imagine what kind of exercising my Mom was thinking about. She commented," I'm not sure that's how you get a baby." Hayden insisted that if he left me alone when I was trying to get some exercise then I would have a baby. I decided it was time to interrupt before my mom thought Hayden had seen or knew way to much. His comment came from a conversation we had the night before. For those of you who might not know I suffer from PCOS(poly cystic ovarian syndrome). This disease that causes you not to ovulate has been the reason we don't have any more children. PCOS is kind of like diabetes, you can have it all of your life, or in my case, it can be brought on by weight gain. The doctors have suggested taking of the weight would be healthy for me all around. Now trying to exercise when you have children is difficult. I try to get on the treadmill in the mornings, but I am often interupted by one little boy named Hayden. He want's a toy, he wants a drink or snack, he wants the channel changed on the T.V. and so on. This is how we got on the subject of letting me exercise. He siad he really wants a baby brother and so I told him he could help by letting me exercise. All inoccent in nature!! It sure was funny to explain to my mom.

Twists and Turns

Life we know it has all kinds of twists and turns. As many of you may know we are currently living with my mom. Seems to be a trend among people our age these days. Who could of foreseen Jarrett losing such an awesome job that we felt blessed to have each and every day. I guess sometimes Heavenly Father feels like he needs to give us a little push now and then. This goes back so much further than just Jarrett losing his job though. I had felt for a while before any of our hardships that we would be living with my mom. At the time I thought maybe it was because she would need someone to take care of her, at that time she had just been diagnosed with M.S. and was having trouble even walking. Fortunetaly the diagnoses was wrong and she was able to have surgery to repair some damaged disks in her neck, and she eventually gained back her strength. At that time it seemed that maybe my promptings had just been my concern to take care of her. When Jarrett lost his job I felt comfortable moving in with my mom because once again I felt like we were meant to be here. It hasn't been an easy move. Tensions have risen between me and my mom, Jarrett and myself, I'm stuck in the middle. After a huge fight with my mom this week I decided it was time to do something about it. I started looking into a loan restructering of our home and considered renting an apartment. I even called around to a few places. We considered taking out student loans to help through school and living expenses. If I go to work then we have to take out loans because we wouldn't qualify for full grants anymore. So it's like the preverbial "rock and a hard place". What do we do??? Take out student loans so we can move back into a house we couldn't afford without them. This option allows for me to go to school full time and for Jarrett to work and go to school. We would go to school on grant money and use the loans to live on. Or I could go back to work so we could move back into the house(or rent), but then we would still have to take out student loans because we wouldn't qualify for grants anymore. Ugh!!!! Choices. We do have a third choice. A choice I had decided was not going to work at all. Stay where we are at. Graduate owing nothing. But can my relationship with my husband and my mom survive. The twists and turns of life have seemed to make the choice even more complicated and more obvious all at the same time. Yesterday my mom was laid off from her job. This is a little bit ironic because we had been fighting about how she wasn't benefitting in any way from having us here. Even though we do pay her full utility bill and buy the majority of groceries. Now it seems that she will need us here helping out just as much as we needed to be here. Can I leave at such a crucial time for her? If we don't leave can my relationships take it? Double ugh!!!

Puppies

These are the tiny puppies that we have roaming around the house now. It was an awesome experience for the whole family to understand the beginnings of life cycle. When we took Stella(mommy dog) to get bred we had the kids with us. When dropped her off went shopping and then came back to pick her up. When we got back in the car Hayden asked"Stella did you have a good time in there with your boyfriend?" Well she hadn't had a good time and it took several trips until finally we had success. On that day Hayden kept telling everyone"They finally did it, Stella and her boyfriend kissed."

Nudist...boy do they have the right idea

After all the laundry I have been doing today, I have decided that there may be something to joining a nudist colony. ( Jarret calls me a nudist or exhibitionist all the time because I will get undressed in front of about any of my family or close friends.) Laundry is one of my least favorite things to do. The only joy I get from doing the laundry is the smell of warm clothes directly out of the dryer. The clothes have to be straight out of the dryer to get that awesome smell, and let's face it, how often do I get the clothes out of the dryer when they are still warm. Laundry is a chore I would rather not do, but unfortunately has to be done. (unless you were a nudist, hence they have the right idea.) In my perfect home the laundry room would include built in dressers and changing rooms for the entire family. This would also solve some of my other issues. Like keeping the kids rooms clean. It wouldn't solve all the cleaning problems in their rooms, but it would cut down on a lot of the mess. No more climbing under the bed for that out of reach sock.Then there is the chasing down of every ones clothes. If the clothes stayed in that one room, except for when they were wearing them, that would save me so much time when I have to do the laundry. A women can dream!!!

My sister lizzy, The African

My sister Elizabeth is in Africa. Yeah you heard that right, she is in Africa. It still is weird for me to hear myself say that. Don't ask me how she pulled it off, but somehow she always gets things to go her way. So I guess this is kind of her "mission". It cost about the same as a regular mission, but she will only be gone for three months. So what is she doing in Africa you might ask. Well being the spoiled little brat we all know she can be we all decided to send her there and let her see what life is like for those less priveleged. No, not really. It was actually all her own idea, so I guess there is hope for her yet. She has been living with a host family in Lome, Togo, and working in an orphanage. She writes home about the craziest things. Being the type of person she is this last week she decided to take a picture of the U.S. embassy in Lome, even though there were signs posted specifically stating No Pictures she has a fondness for stealing signs, no she didn't steal this one, but she did decide to ignore it. So her camera went click and out rushed the gaurds, and then Lizzy got a very special picture called a mugshot. They detained her for a while and confiscated her camera to erase the pictures. She had to convince them it was a serious lapse in judgement to take the picture and then they let her go. Crazy girl! Besides the crazy stuff she does she says she has found out how much the gospel shines through her. The group she is with (Projects Abroad) has said that she is unlike any other volunteer they have had. She contributes this to knowing that all of these people are her eternal brothers and sisters and so she treats them this way. That one made my Mom cry. It's been hard on Lizzy at times because in the orphanage they can be so mean to the children, they sometimes lock them in closets for being naughty. The children love her because she has a camera, we can't wait to see all the pictures when she comes home. I really admire her for doing what she set out to do and for giving of herself. I can't believe she found a way to pay for it, (but then she has a knack for having things go her way) and for having the guts to just leave this country all on her own and take off to Africa. She truly is one of a kind.