We were living in Ohio.

We had a baby that was less than a year old.

We were optimistic about the outcome of the sale of our house.

I never had reason to worry about sending Finn to school in a year and a half.

Now?  Yeah, not so much.  Lots has changed.  

I’m afraid that the current contract on our house might not work out.  It might go back on the market.  I spent ten solid minutes dry-heaving over my mother’s kitchen sink as we received another piece of bad news about our house.  Its second appraisal was even lower than the first.  We are basically bent over a barrel, and we drastically cut the price of the house for the buyers.  One would think that would be a good thing – who wouldn’t want to have a house they are trying to buy drop in price by TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?  But, the buyers want money back at closing, and the prospect of losing another three grand on this whole ordeal is sickening.  Instead of having a nice, fat wad of cash to plunk into savings and get to pay off my school loan entirely, we have to miraculously produce five grand that we don’t have.  All the money is tied up in escrow with our prospective house out in Colorado.  Which, we will have to walk away from if this deal falls apart.

Shitty.

I’m feeling pretty hopeless about things at the moment.  And majorly guilty.  Because even though this is a pretty big doosey for our family, I still have two healthy kids.  At a time when twenty families in Connecticut are burying their six and seven-year-olds, I’m bitching about money.  My heart aches for the families of the lost in Newtown.  Since it is just me and the kids staying at my mom’s, I’ve taken to snuggling with Finny  at night.  Like just about every mommy-blogger, apparently.  Doing this makes me feel – feel better because I have him to snuggle with, – feel sad because I cannot fathom what it would ever be like to lose him.

On the sunnier side of the street, Alice is now a whole year old.  We celebrated last Friday; even though it was really low-key, it was nice.  A birthday party that was nearly free and exceptionally stress-free.  In four words, exactly what I needed.

My mom and I printed out a little pennant banner.  I made a cake.  Decorated it with sprinkles.  Finn and I hung curly ribbons from the ceiling.  We got balloons and ordered pizza.  Sha-zam.

 

We pick Nathan up from the airport tonight, as long as the weather cooperates.

There you have it; it is a bit of a mixed bag over here.  I hope things go up from here. Fingers crossed.