When things go sideways: The vacation from hell

Crow Creek, Curt Gowdy State Park, 5/30/14

Robert Frost once said that the road less traveled makes all the difference…

Well no offense to ol' Bob, but in this case, the difference made by the road less traveled wasn't fun. In fact, it plain old sucked!

My family and I went on vacation last week; a road trip up to Washington to visit family and friends. The week leading into our trip, we pretty much had our plans laid out. We knew what days we would be driving through which states; we knew which days we would be seeing specific friends and family members; we had everything arranged and had set our expectations accordingly.

And then life happened. Griswold Family style.

At first, the hiccups were minor. Friday morning we had planned to leave by noon, but my oldest son ended up with a horrendous nosebleed that took over an hour to stop. I sat with him in the bathroom, changing out the tissues and reassuring him that he wasn't bleeding to death (something that genuinely freaked him out, poor dude). So that prolonged the packing process, and we ended up leaving shortly after 1:00- not bad by any means!

We stopped for a quick lunch and then hopped on I-80 West, hoping to make it at least to Ogden, Utah, if not farther.

For the first leg of our drive, we ended up making excellent time, and by the time we hit Ogden (around 9:00 that night) we were feeling pretty pumped and decided to keep on going to Twin Falls, Idaho. We fed the kids a quick dinner and had them get ready for bed, that way when we finally stopped for the night, it would make bedtime much quicker and easier. We got back on the road, and about 30 minutes later, as we're cruising along nicely up I-84, chatting about how great the drive had been thus far and how we would be able to make it to Seattle a day earlier than we'd thought… BANG!!!

Husband and I both looked at each other in shock, and he pulled the Suburban and trailer over to the side of the freeway. The sound we'd heard made us both think we'd blown a tire, so we hopped out and starting checking for a flat.

Nothing.

All the tires on the Suburban and trailer were fine.

But smoke was pouring out of the engine compartment….

Husband popped the hood open, and we fanned the smoke away and used the flashlight on my phone to look inside.

Carnage.

Ruin.

Badness of epic proportions.

Now, I may not be an automotive expert… but my spidey senses told me that seeing big chunks of metal and oil sprayed everywhere inside the engine compartment is… not a good thing!

We immediately called State Farm, whom our insurance is through, because we have their roadside assistance coverage. After being rerouted multiple times, with no one bothering to make a note of our call and forcing us to start from scratch four different times, we were finally told that they could dispatch a tow truck for the Suburban and two passengers, but that we would have to call a taxi for the rest of us (I guess they wanted us to pick favorites?!?) and pay out of pocket for both the taxi and the separate tow for the trailer.

They also were "unable to locate" the MAJOR FREEWAY upon which we were stranded.

Um…. so how are you assisting me on the roadside then? When I have three young children stranded in a broken vehicle on the side of a very busy freeway late at night?!? And when I gave you my exact mile marker location, and the cities both north and south of me?!?

Needless to say, we quickly became utterly disgusted by their version of "roadside assistance". I also quickly learned that these claims of "agents available 24/7" is… complete BS. Though our agent's office voicemail said they were available 24 hours a day, she didn't call us back until regular business hours the following day.

This whole debacle is something we will be discussing in person with her this week; while we have been loyal State Farm customers for well over a decade, we will likely be looking for a new insurance company without some serious ass-kissing and reparations on our agent's part. Because damn.

So during Husband's third attempt to get any sort of useful help from State Farm, I went ahead and called AAA. The woman I spoke with was able to find our exact location, find and dispatch a tow truck that was big enough to tow both the Suburban and trailer AND all five of us (no picking favorites!), and she expedited it because of the obvious safety issue of us sitting on the side of the freeway.

Finally, a competent human being and a company that gave a crap!

We got towed the 10 minutes south to Brigham City, Utah to a Chevy dealership that the tow driver just happened to work at. We spent the night in the trailer in the dealership parking lot, listening to the service department's radio station being played through the outside speakers… not exactly conducive to a restful night, but at least we were safe.

The next day, we got the initial assessment on the Suburban's engine. We had blown at least three pistons, which had shattered the oil pan and caused other shrapnel-style damage. It would take at least a week to repair, at a starting cost of $7000…

Not only did we not have $7000 just sitting in our pockets, but that also didn't include the cost of a rental vehicle (something State Farm also wouldn't cover) to tow the trailer back to Cheyenne, and then the gas to drive all the way back to Brigham in a week to pick up our newly rebuilt Suburban.

We were completely screwed, and spent half the day just trying to wrap our heads around what the hell to do next.

(And I may have cried a lot. Like, a lot. Like, probably embarrassed myself in public but was too distraught and stressed to even care.)

While we were wandering around the parking lot of the dealership trying to get a handle on the situation, a salesman came out and said that he assumed we were over at the service department, but wondered if there was anything he could help us with. When we told him we were the Suburban, he gave us a look of pity I've never experienced before! We joked that we had a great trade in for him, with perhaps a bit of engine trouble…

The sales guy showed us their used trucks, and we found one we liked. It was a blue diesel GMC Sierra 2500 quad-cab. While I've never had the desire to own a truck, like, ever, it was beefy enough to tow our trailer and could handle anything Wyoming had to throw at it (no more getting stuck in snow drifts!)

The sales guy let us take it for a test drive, and Husband was pretty impressed with it. I wasn't quite as sold, as I was (and still am) fairly attached to my Suburban, and was quite honestly struggling to cope with the events of the previous 14 hours. After driving around Brigham for a bit, we went back to the dealership and Husband went inside to discuss the actual realistic-ness of trading in our dead Suburban for the truck.

In truth, I did not expect them to accept it, and knew we were wasting our time. The sales guy let us take the truck and go to lunch, and said he'd see what he would work out. I wasn't holding my breath.

As we were sitting there eating, not 20 minutes later, sales dude called back and said he'd worked it out!

He said that what they'd do is give us just under Kelly Blue Book on the trade, and put a used engine in the Suburban, making it plausible for them to sell it and make it worth their while. We lost all the equity we had built up in the Suburban, and would essentially be starting from scratch with the truck. But we were pretty much stuck at that point, and this was our best option.

He then told us what the payment on the truck would be, and my stomach flipped so hard I almost puked. We would be tripling our car payment.

Yes. Tripling. As in, three times as much. As in, ouchies to my budget.

After discussing it over the rest of our lunch, Husband and I decided to go for it, because it was the only way (and the cheapest way in the short run) to get us out of Utah. And this meant we could still continue with our vacation, which we had accepted was otherwise totally done-sies.

We got all the paperwork sorted, hooked up the trailer to the truck, and headed back on our way to Washington. Husband was immediately impressed with how well the truck pulled the trailer- no more bucketing in the wind or when being passed by other big vehicles, no struggling to go up even minor hills. It seemed like everything was back on track, and though I was still quite stressed over the looming loan payment, I was starting to shake it off and let Future Sarah deal with it.

We were about 15 miles past where we had broken down the night before, and suddenly the truck lost all power…

The fuel filter indicator, which had just read 100%, suddenly read 0%, and we weren't able to go over 30 mph. Husband immediately called the dealership, and the sales guy was stunned. He told us to come back and they'd take a look at it.

We slowly crawled back to the dealership, where they unhooked the trailer (again) and pulled the truck into the service bay. The same guy who had given us the tow the night before ended up being the one who swapped out our fuel filter (thanks again Juan!) After that, everything looked peachy keen, so Husband and the sales guy hooked the trailer back up (again) and took it for a test run, to make sure nothing bigger was wrong. They went up this steep hill behind the dealership, and everything was looking great until they got about 3/4 of the way up.

The truck lost power again.

Sales guy was baffled, since the dealership prides itself on selling quality used vehicles. He called the owners of the dealership to tell them what had happened, and the owners were there to meet them when they slowly crawled back into the parking lot. Several profuse apologies later (and a near stressed-induced cardiac event on my part), the owners presented us with two options.

Option A: they would do a straight swap of the blue truck for a red one. Same model, one year older, less miles, and one of the owners had just used it on his family vacation to Yellowstone, towing a similar trailer as ours, so they knew it was reliable.

Option B: borrow the red truck for the week and continue on our vacation, while they figured out what was wrong with the blue truck, fixed it up all pretty like, and had it waiting for us when we came back through the following weekend.

Husband and I discussed the options, and I was initially leaning toward doing the swap. However, while the interior of the red truck was nicer, it had fewer features and a little less interior space than the blue truck. It was also a short bed, as opposed to the long bed of the blue truck (something I didn't really care about, but it mattered to Husband). We finally decided to just borrow the red one and fix the blue one.

We unhooked and re-hooked the trailer (AGAIN) and were finally, finally on our way. We made it to Boise that night, and then after sitting in awful Sunday traffic on I-90 in Washington, finally made it to my mom's house Sunday night. A full day after we had been expecting, but at least we made it.

Of course, the unexpected delays associated with our Suburban's catastrophic engine failure shook up our entire week's visitation schedule, so we had to make some last minute adjustments. Some people were… displeased… with our limited time frames, but quite frankly, by that point I had no patience for it. We drove 1200 miles and went through two vehicles; I think you can handle driving 20 minutes to meet us for dinner and survive not eating exactly at your predetermined usual dinner time. Suffice it to say, we found out who some of our true friends are (and are not) this week!

We also got a call on Monday afternoon from the sales guy back in Utah, to tell us what they had found on the blue truck. The injector bank went out. Now, as stated above, I'm not exactly an automotive expert, so to me, that pretty much means nothing. They could have said the phalanges were broken for all I know!

Husband explained that, basically, what happened on the Suburban's gas engine is what happened on the truck's diesel engine (only less catastrophically so). The engine was kaput!

Because of course.

Because Utah hates us.

So they ended up replacing the injector bank (and the phalanges, probably), and we have a warranty on the engine so that we don't have to deal with this again any time soon (fingers crossed, knock on wood).

The rest of our vacation had a bit of a pall over it, though we tried to make the best of it, despite some friend drama and a few minor irritations (because seriously, I fought this hard to make this vacation even happen in the first place, but yeah, let's make it all about not inconveniencing you) and some serious homesickness for Western Washington and my boo-thang Kym.

We left Seattle Saturday morning, with the intention of getting all the way to Brigham that night so we could swap vehicles for our truck and get back on the road first thing Sunday. We only got as far as Mountain Home, Idaho, because it took us 7 hours to even get out of Washington.

7 hours!

I don't even know how that is possible. It was like all travel slowed to a crawl.

Sunday we made better time, and got to Brigham shortly after noon. However, as we were coming back down I-84, about 10 miles or so north of the exit for the dealership? THE RED TRUCK LOST POWER!!! Same effing thing that happened to the blue truck. In the exact same spot as where our Suburban blew.

I swear, Utah hates us. I mean, I know things happen in threes, but come on!

(We did see a lot of other truck and trailers pulled over on the freeway, also having issues, so maybe Utah just hates road-trippers in general?)

After swapping back to our blue truck, the rest of the drive home was relatively uneventful, though still wracked with stress. I spent the entire rest of the drive just waiting for something else to go wrong, because the precedent was set. Our truck has a few quirks on it that we need to get checked out, like weak air conditioning, engine fans that aren't terribly effective, and the door handles have some issues. Plus, it's not my Suburban, and I loved my Suburban.

So now, I have a massive loan payment on a truck that, at the moment, I loathe (though I'm sure my emotions have as much to do with that as the quirks and stress).

This week, we have the joy of dealing with digging out, both in terms of unpacking and settling back into being home, as well as dealing with the financial and logistical fallout of this week. Our insurance agent will be having a meeting with us, which will be non-fun for her. We need to refinance the truck through a local bank so we can get a better deal on the interest rate (and hopefully ease the burden on my budget). And I will be looking into new paid writing opportunities, since Yahoo decided to shut down its contributor side… meanie heads.

So that road less traveled?

I have a gypsy spirit, I'm all for the road less traveled. I mean, hell, I moved to Wyoming of all places, just to experience something new!

But when I'm on a road trip with a predetermined destination, and limited time frame and financial leeway? I'd like to stay on the intended road, and not have any mechanical issues along the way, thank you very much.

Into the mud: Untold stories of the Snohomish County Landslide

Here is an article written by Seattle journalist Stacey Solie. It is a powerful story, and one that has not been shared enough in the weeks since the mountain came crashing down in Oso.

Please read it, share it, and remember it.

Footprints on my heart

I think it is a universal understanding that good friends are hard to come by. In this great big world of 7 billion people, finding individuals who truly accept you for you, warts and all, is tricky. People want you to fit into their preconceived mold; they want to define you, shape you, control you, and turn you into their version of who they think you should be.

It's shitty, but true.

Growing up, I had several friends through elementary school and high school who were like that. I was told who to be, what to think, how to act, what I did or did not like, and sadly I accepted that for myself.

Until one day I didn't.

Needless to say, I have sufficiently lost contact with all of those "friends".

Now that I am approaching my 30s, it has become increasingly clear to me that it's not the quantity of friends you have, it's the quality.

In keeping with that, I really only have three true friends in my life. Yes, I have many more people that I would call my friends, several of whom I know I could call for help in a crisis or whatever.

But only three of them are people that I feel truly "get" me. People I could call sobbing at 3am, and they would drop everything to be there for me. And I for them.

The first is my sister. Growing up, we hated each other. Like, truly despised each other's existence. I was the irritated older sister, she was the spoiled younger sister. We fought. We threw things at each other. We called each other the meanest names we could think of. She bit me. I kicked her. Once she even pulled a knife on me!

(It was a butter knife, and she was about 4 or 5, but still)

(I still give her shit for it)

It wasn't until she was about 15 or so that we started to actually enjoy each other's company. After she graduated high school, she lived with The Husband and I off and on for almost two years, and while that was difficult in some ways, it was also a lot of fun and brought us closer together. She has been there for me through some tough stuff, and I for her, and I love her dearly and miss her a ton now that we've moved.

I don't think I truly appreciated how much I enjoyed getting to spend time with her or talk to her regularly, and now that we're 1200 miles away, I get sad thinking about it. I'm getting a little ferklemped right now actually, so moving on!

The second friend is my dear friend Age. She and I have been friends for 25 years.

Yeah. Saying that makes me feel reaaaallly old...

But we were barely 5 when we met, so the math isn't as devastating as it sounds.

Age was my first (and really only) best friend. She was my other half! We did everything together growing up. Sledding and camping and every single birthday and eight million sleepovers. We would play dress up until the wee hours of the morning, and then her parents would make the best pancakes in the world- still unrivaled by any other pancakes, ever.

Like, seriously, don't even try. Kotyk Pancakes for the win.

She had the cool video game systems that my family couldn't afford, and I developed my love of Super Mario and Donkey Kong at her house. We had a pet nail (one of those industrial sized rail road nails?) (yeah... I don't know... overactive imaginations?) attached to a meltwater runoff pipe on the walk home from the bus stop, and we named her Nailey and dressed her up in grasses and leaves and whatnot. We made snow forts and climbed trees and picked cherries and spent more time on the banks of the Columbia River than I can even remember (though I distinctly remember the intense terror I felt every time we went down there, because of the insane amounts of poison ivy plants and my irrational fear of touching said poison ivy) (which I still have today...) I practically lived at her house, and her parents still consider me one of their daughters.

We certainly had our ups and downs. She was the domineering one (as the youngest of three girls, I think she was exerting her power any way she could) and I was a total pushover. We fought like cats and dogs, but never stayed away too long (even when we probably should have). In about the 6th grade, we had a temporary friendship divorce, but I think it only lasted maybe a month or so? After that we pretty much stopped fighting (unless she was hanging out with one of the Amandas. The Amandas were never nice to me. Bitches) and our lifelong friendship was cemented.

I moved away at the end of 8th grade, and against all odds and expectations (and several hundred miles), we stayed in touch and stayed friends. While we don't see each other as often as we'd like, we still make it work. She is a part of me. She has known me the longest, put up with me and my idiosyncrasies, and accepts me fully (as I do her). Because of her (and her family) I had a happier childhood than I otherwise would have. We have literally and figuratively grown up together. I know that she will always be in my heart and in my life, and I love her and miss her dearly.

(Happy Birthday tomorrow!!!)

The third friend is my soul-sista Kym. I swear, meeting her was like meeting my (blonde, much shorter, much larger-breasted) alter ego. Our husbands find it a little scary how alike we are. She and I clicked instantly, which almost never happens for me. I always feel like I have to put on a facade with people, especially when I first meet them. But with Kym, I was instantly comfortable with her. I can totally be myself around her, and nothing phases her. While we've only known each other a short while, I feel like I've known her forever. We've supported each other through life's bullshit, we've laughed, we've cried, our kids are best friends, even our husbands get along great.

Leaving Kym was one of the hardest parts of moving to Wyoming (besides my family, of course). She was the first person I'd met, in the town I'd lived in for over 6 years, with whom I actually genuinely clicked. Our families instantly bonded, and I could easily see us all growing old together, sitting on our back deck, drinking beers and commiserating about what crazy thing our kids did, or the uber-mom up the street and the bitchy thing she said this time, or the craziness of extended family.

I miss them terribly, my kids miss their kids, and when I get particularly lonely or stressed out down here, I wish I could just walk up the street to Kym's, plop on her couch, play with Baby-Baby, and chit-chat for hours.

What are you willing to do?

So it has been an... interesting few days, to say the least.

Interesting mostly in a crawl-in-a-hole kind of way, but also a little bit in a good way too.

First, we went to visit the State Capitol last week, which was really cool. I plan on posting some of my pics once I finally get around to synching my phone. Clearly I'm totally on top of that... or not.

Anyway, I had never been to that kind of government building before, and the history/political geek in me was in absolute heaven! Beautiful building, cool history, good times.

Front grounds of the Capitol Building

Main Capitol rotunda. So beautiful!

The view from Capitol Street

After the visit to the Capitol, we drove out to where our property is to meet the builders and go over some specifics for our house. In a way it was good, because we finally got moving on all that stuff (they broke ground the next day) and we finally started feeling like progress was being made. On the other hand, we realized that the timeline our agent had given us was not realistic, and that we will likely not be in the house before the lease ends on this apartment. That means that we will probably have to pay more rent (on an apartment we barely like to begin with), and that we will also be cutting it close to have Thanksgiving in our new home. Sigh...

But oh well! At least it means being in a brand new dream home, right?

Well we thought so.

Until Friday.

We had an appointment to meet with a notary public and close on the sale of our Washington house. We were super excited until we started signing the docs, and saw that we would only be getting back half- yes, HALF- of what we had been told.

*cue the panic*

See, even though we knew we weren't going to be pulling in a huge profit on the sale of our house- after all, we had only owned it for 21 months- we were expecting to get back a fairly decent amount, and had based our purchase of the house and land here in Wyoming on that money. We were going to use it as a chunk of the down payment. Without that money, suddenly our down payment, and therefore the house itself, was in jeopardy.

We went from picking out features of our house to watching our dreams crumble in less than a week.

Needless to say Friday was a bad day. Bad, bad, bad day.

Major suckitude.

And lots of tears (on my part, obviously).

Saturday we nursed our emotional wounds. We went up to Cheyenne to celebrate my son's birthday. It was nice to get out of the apartment and put the whole down payment debacle out of our minds for a few hours. We let our son pick out what he wanted to do, and so the plan was to go to the Wyoming State Museum, go to the botanical gardens and outdoor children's museum/water park, eat dinner at Red Lobster (his favorite!), and then go to another park and open presents and have cake.

However, on the drive up to Cheyenne, several emergency broadcasts came on the radio announcing severe thunder storms, rain, hail, lightening strikes, and flash flood warnings for northern Colorado, the foothills, and the Cheyenne area.

That essentially cancelled all of our outdoor plans!

We hit up the museum, then went to dinner and opened presents. We decided to do the botanical gardens and children's museum/water park another day, and we're going to have my aunt and cousins over tomorrow (his actual birthday) for cake and more presents. It didn't go as planned, but it was still fun, and he enjoyed it, which is all that matters.

After dinner, we decided to drive out to our property, kind of as a motivation/inspiration thing. It was amazing how far they've already gotten! The entire basement is almost dug up, and it looks like they'll be ready to pour the foundation pretty soon.

Seeing it in person, seeing the dream start coming to life, made us determined to make it work, even with the lesser profit amount we have to work with. We started crunching numbers, and it looks like we may be able to squeak it out after all.

Hopefully.

We decided that it basically comes down to this: How hard are you willing to fight for your dreams?

Me? I'm not giving up yet.

Greetings from the other side... of the Rockies

Hey hey! I'm back from the abyss.

And by abyss, I mean the internet-less world of moving.

Man has it been crazy lately. Like, mind-bogglingly so. I find it hard to believe that we left Washington only a week and a half ago, it feels like longer (and shorter all at the same time).

So here I am, in a new state, in a new time zone, in a sort of temporary limbo whilst I await our house being built.

The OCD organizational side of me? Not loving it.

The hippie, gypsy, free-spirited side of me? Going with the flow, man.

Cause really? That's all I can do right now.

I'm a little bitter, because the apartment we're renting until our house is done doesn't allow satellite dishes to be put up, so we had to suspend our DIRECTV service for a few months and go with Comcast.

And to be clear: I. Hate. Comcast.

Why, you ask? Because they suck. Exhibit A? The fact that our DVR doesn't work. At all. I can't record anything. I can't pause, rewind, etc. I can't enter in any favorites. Nothing. I get an error message saying that the DVR function is disabled and to call customer service.

And when we called to figure out what was going on, the stupid customer service rep said it was just because we weren't pressing the buttons on the remote hard enough.

Let me repeat.

Our DVR isn't functional, everything we try to do is met with an error message, and we were told it was because we weren't pressing buttons hard enough.

Special kind of stupid, I tell ya.

So after several more phone calls, we finally have a tech coming out on Thursday. I guess my reality TV escapism will have to wait...

Otherwise known as the Real Housewives of somewhere or other

Peace-ing out

Tonight is my last night in my first house. Tomorrow is my last day living in Washington.

(At least, for the foreseeable future)

Goodbye Snohomish. I heart you.

Goodbye Lake Roesiger. You've been lovely and you will be sorely missed!!!

This area of Western Washington is a gem and will always hold a special place in my soul...

Homeless on the range?!?

Hey hey!

So I know I fell off the blogging bandwagon lately. I've been a little busy. You know, that whole preparing to move multiple states (and a timezone) away. It tends to be a bit time consuming.

But I'm back bitches!

So this past weekend we were down in Cheyenne, getting the lay of the land and trying to accomplish certain pre-moving goals. Like establishing a place to live. You know, crazy stuff like that.

Suffice it to say, it didn't go as planned.

First of all, if someone is offering full price to buy your house... take the freaking offer. Don't play hardball just because you can. Shit like that pisses me off. We encountered that when we were buying a home up here too. Builders decide "hey, there's interest in my houses, let's try to squeeze every last penny from them!"

No dice, bro. Unlike some homebuyers, I'm more than okay with walking away if you decide to be a wanker. Mama don't play like that.

So we found a property we liked and we made an offer on it. 3,000 square feet, three bedrooms, two baths, with a full, unfinished basement (that will eventually give us five bedrooms and three baths) on 35.5 acres! For a good price!

The catch?

The house isn't built yet, so we'd have to rent a place for about four months in the meantime. Le sigh.

But for my dream home? Sure, I can deal.

We made an offer- full price, just asking for closing costs. The builders decided to play hardball, and countered. We were unimpressed. After mulling it over, we countered their counter-offer, and made it clear that we were more than willing to walk away.

Because is the house perfect? Yes. Is it worth being put over a barrel for? Nope.

So after waiting until the last possible second before we had to leave Cheyenne on Monday, the builders finally got back to us- they had accepted our offer! So we are under contract. Check one thing off the To Do list.

Did I register my kids for school down there? Nope. Because I was too busy running around trying to scramble and find a place to rent. And that took up an unimaginable amount of time.

Did we leave Cheyenne with a short-term rental lined up? Nope!

*facepalm*

*heavy sigh*

*long drag of a cigarette even though I don't smoke*

Sad Keanu understands

So here's the thing with Cheyenne.

It's a military town. At any given time there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of military personnel in town- all needing a place to live. And many, if not most, of them rent. On top of that, most of the available (and decent) rental houses won't do a short-term lease, and we only need a place to rent for about four months while our house is being built.

*grumblegrumble*

So we turned to townhouses and apartments.

I totally struck out on townhouses. No one called me back. Not a single one. Jerkfaces.

And apartments? Well, all but one of the nice complexes in Cheyenne are low-income, so we make way too much to even be considered. And they're all full anyway.

And the non-income-restricted places? Well there is only one nice, newer complex in town. And it's booked out months in advance. Everywhere else? Run down, outdated... and full.

We did finally get a call back from one complex shortly before we were leaving town on Monday. We went to check out the unit that was becoming available, and... well... there's no way in hell I would allow my children to live there. To put it mildly. It had a very distinct rape-y vibe about it, and I'm pretty sure we would have gotten an infection of some sort from the carpets. We bailed about as quickly and politely as humanly possible!!!

So we left town Monday afternoon totally defeated and dejected and anxious and stressed. Yes, we found a house for our family, yay! But we lacked a place to live until then... un-yay.

Monday night after we got home I went into OCD mode. I google'd every rental option imaginable in the Cheyenne area, and then branched out to the surrounding areas as well. I did find a cute little house in Cheyenne that was available, but the owners were assholes, and after several conversations with them I chose to walk away. You can only take so many times of someone reiterating that they are looking to benefit themselves and not to help you out before you want to tell them to fuck off!

So after numerous phone calls, e-mails, and mini-panic attacks, I am pleased to announce we finally have a short-term rental lined up for when we get down there. It's a cute two-bedroom (plus a sunroom) apartment that'll suffice until our house is done. Not my ideal situation to be back in apartment mode, but whatever. It's temporary.

The first catch? Because we're doing a non-conventional lease, we're paying more per month. To be paying this much for a two-bedroom apartment boggles my mind, but I'm letting it go.

The second catch? It's in Fort Collins.

As in Colorado.

As in 40 miles from Cheyenne!!!

Looks like we're commuting for a while.

*sigh*

Bobbing and weaving

Alright.

So things are getting better.

I mean, they're not at all what I had expected, hoped for, or necessarily wanted.

But I guess life is all about being flexible, right?

So the whole Alaska thing is in the process of being resolved. I already have a folder's worth- yes, a whole file folder!- of documentation in dealing with this nonsense.

We had our appraisal today, which I guess went well? I have no clue. The appraiser said we had a lovely home, so hopefully that translates to it being appraised at a value that does not screw us over on the sales price. It shouldn't, but considering how things have been going the past few days, I'm not believing anything until I see it in writing.

So assuming the appraisal turns out well, then we move toward closing. Our buyers are getting USDA financing, so it's going to take longer than I would like to close, but hey, whatever.

At this point?

I just want to move forward, have a closing date set, and hope for the best. I've given up fighting for things to go exactly my way.

Apparently the universe has decided that me making plans is HILARIOUS!!!

We've all but missed out on the original house we wanted to buy in Cheyenne. I mean, it's still available right now. But by the time we finally close on the sale of this house? Our realtor down there has said it isn't likely the house will still be available.

So Plan B.

We're going to submit an offer on another lot in the same neighborhood. This lot is just in the permit stage, so it'll be approximately four months before we'll get to move in, but it's our next best option.

This of course means we will be stuck renting for a few months once we get down there, but I've accepted that. As long as we have a plan to follow, I'm good. This whole being-in-limbo thing is killing me.

I also realized today that I'm going to be in Cheyenne next week. As in, the last week of Spring Quarter. As in, when all of my major assignments are due!

Fuck.

For some reason this hadn't dawned on me until this morning. So now I have to do a mad scramble to finish everything before next Thursday morning. This includes reading 250+ slides on Islam followed by two discussion questions, the last chapter in my Race and Ethnicity book followed by two discussion questions and a quiz, as well as two term papers- one for each class.

...

Oy vey.

Oh yeah, and my son's birthday party is this weekend, so I have to clean my house and move all of our packing stuff... somewhere...

Solid plan

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way..."

So life has been... hectic lately. To say the least.

That whole 'preparing to move halfway across the country while simultaneously trying to maintain the rest of my life responsibilities' thing.

You know. No biggie, right?

Of course right.

So the first big part of this last week (or the only truly news-worthy part, anyway) is that... WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!!

Inoright?!?

It was listed for a whole four hours, which is nuts. All I can say is thank God for a seller's market!

And the fact that we've owned it for 20 months and managed to make a profit? Amazing. Granted, we're not walking away millionaires by any means, but still. That's a major obstacle that we can take off our To Do list, and that's a huge sigh of relief!

(Of course, now we have to find a new place to live... 1800 miles away... no prob, right?... right?!?)

Beyond that, trying to balance my end-of-the-quarter school craziness, the kids' end-of-the-school-year chaos, keeping my house from spiraling into a tsunami of clutter, and not having a mental breakdown in the process has been... tricky at best.

Who's idea was this again?

Mine!?

Oh that's right.

Crap.

The irony of accidentally ending up moving halfway across the country... Only I could manage something like that.

Overall, I am getting excited about the move. Stressed beyond belief. Losing weight. Losing sleep. Overwhelmed and slightly panicky. But excited nonetheless!

I think it will be fun to see a new part of the country, to explore places I wouldn't otherwise get to see as easily, and to make new memories and share this experience with my kids (although my daughter has convinced herself that a posse of rattlesnakes is awaiting her, and I can't convince her otherwise!) I am looking forward to the opportunities and adventures awaiting us in Cheyenne.

I'm also wishing I could Go-Go-Gadget Magic Packing Machine my house.