On the Homefront

We had another house showing on Sunday.
I'm not sure how it went. No offers yet.

Interestingly, I checked on the web for the median home prices in our town. I was ASTOUNDED by what I found (no wonder the current market is in turmoil)
It seems that the median price is around 538 THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!
I know the main reason for that is the lake property. Nothing around the lake goes for much less than a million and there's plenty listed for 3, 4 or 5 million.
Believe me, our house is no where near those numbers, but it's amazing to see. Makes me feel special :)

I just did my daily check on the real estate site for 'Perfect House #1' and "no search items matched my criteria" which means it's probably off the market. boo!
When Jeff and I looked at it again last Thursday, we found some things that we didn't notice the first time and kind of came to the decision that maybe it wasn't so "perfect" after all. TREMENDOUS curb appeal, but you can't live on the outside of your house. So, whatever.
(the daily web check for 'Perfect House #2' did reveal that's it's still on the market....for now. whew!)

I guess maybe we shouldn't have gone house hunting yet at all. Especially during
'THE WORST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE EARTH TO SELL YOUR HOUSE'.
If we hadn't found these perfect houses, we wouldn't be in such a hurry to sell. (and yes, Jeff DID try to warn me)

Oh well, whatever is meant to happen will happen.
Remember, we're the people that started our adoption at
'THE WORST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE EARTH TO ADOPT FROM CHINA.' so we'll deal with it.

I'm sure there'll be 'Perfect House #3' out there too.
(although Jeff made me promise not to look for it until we actually SELL our house)

Happenings...

No word on Ralph.
To be honest, we love him, but life seems a lot easier without him (is that terrible?) He had become incontinent in his later days and it took a lot of time and effort to clean up after him. We also don't have to have any gates in the doorways of our house. No barking either. So, while we miss him, we're dealing.

Yesterday Jeff and I went house hunting again in the same area as last time. We found 'Perfect House #2'.
'Perfect House #1' was visited again yesterday. Our realtor did tell us that there was supposed to be an offer for that house, so as we figured, it probably won't be our house. :(
'Perfect House #2' is FANTASTIC!!! I'm sure it won't be there for us either, but it sure is perfect. If we could move today, we would. It's been 2 WHOLE WEEKS since our house went on the market! C'mon people!! (patience, Nikki, patience)

So, that's about it. I'm at work, decorating 'our' new house in my mind.
Not very productive.

(did you notice this post is green? the color of money) :)

Ralph

Ralphie Renard is gone.

He escaped from our fenced in backyard yesterday morning around 5:30.

Jeff looked for him, I looked for him. We don't know where he is.

This is probably the 10th time he's escaped from our various yards over the years. Each time we've been able to catch him. Not this time.

The last time he escaped I was able to track him down thru the local Humane Society. Some nice family took him in and they were very sad to give him back.

We're hoping that maybe they were there again this time.

Ralph is almost completely deaf, mostly blind and has like one tooth left in his head.

He's been through a lot with us. Moving to 3 different houses in 2 different states. Welcoming a baby, 2 other dogs, 2 cats and another kid. All taken in stride.

Yesterday was his 15th birthday.

Jeff and I can't believe we've been together long enough to have a dog in high school.

We've come to terms with Ralph being gone.

Maybe we'll find him again..........

If not, here's to you 'Babala', our first born furry son.

We miss you.

Arrr...Mateys!

In honor of national "Pirate Day" I went here: http://gangstaname.com/pirate_name.php to see what exactly our names should be if we should ever decide to terrorize the high seas....

Nikki: Scurvy Gums Ramona

Jeff: Barnacle Breath Iggy

Brett: Legless George Bellamy

Lili: Pirate Bianca the Engorged

Even little Lola is now: Armless Misty Sparrow

Lili's First Ice Pack Incident

Lili got her first ice pack at school today. She told me the tale on the way home and I thought it would be cute to get it on video. She was so serious.

Well, as you can see, the chick sees the camera and it's ALL drama! geesh. She's something else, isn't she? I'm happy to report that she is fine and she will survive (although I'm sure it was touch and go for awhile)

By the way, we had our first house showing yesterday and we have another one scheduled for Friday. yay.

Yesterday I got home from work at 1:45. I checked my messages and found out that our realtor wanted to show our house at 3:00. 3:00!! So I had ONE HOUR to clean the place up. Normally, that wouldn't be such a big deal BUT! the night before Jeff was putting crown molding in the dining room, so we had a ladder, tools, molding, saw and sawdust, 6-8 cans of paint, a half dozen brushes and drop cloths ALL OVER THE PLACE!! So I threw everything in the basement, swept, mopped, vacuumed and threw everything we own into various drawers around the house. I also had to take Lola and the kids and be transient for about an hour. yikes. Who's idea was this?......

sigh...

I just realized that this past Saturday marked 2 YEARS LID !
Wow. 2 years of our lives that would've been spent waiting and waiting with no concrete end in sight.
I can't imagine. I really wonder if we would have stuck with it to the end. I just don't know.

The most heartbreaking part is that it's looking like it would be another 2 year wait.
Right now I think they've referred into the first part of February 2006. That means that they're still 7 MONTHS away from our LID of September 13, 2006.
Currently it's taking about 3 months to refer each month, so 7 x 3=21.
TWENTY ONE MORE months of waiting. I just can't imagine.

It's been 6 WHOLE DAYS since our house went on the market and I'm DYING waiting for it to sell!!
(patience is obviously NOT one of my virtues)

My heart goes out to all those still waiting and waiting for their children to come home and to all those children waiting and waiting for their forever families.

All I can do is thank God in all His wisdom for brining Lili to us when He did. You always hear that 'He won't give you anymore than you can handle' and I'm sure that's true. I really don't think I could've handled a 4 year wait.

We are so blessed.

Excited, Nervous, Scared, Happy, Sad....

There's a "For Sale" sign in the front of our house. ack!
Every time I catch a glimpse of it I feel like I'm going to throw up.
It's so real .

Jeff and I decided a while ago to start looking at houses in different areas. For the past 12 years he's been driving almost an hour to work each way and I think he's just about tired of it. That makes for an 11 hour day. Not a lot of fun for any of us.

We went to another city in our area last week and looked at about 1/2 a dozen houses. Of course, we saw ONE that we just instantly fell in love with. And, of course, we know it won't still be available by the time we're ready, but for now it's nice to dream and plan and decorate it in our minds.

We love our house, our school system, our neighbors! but we've just never been crazy about our town. We would just really like to be close to, well....anything !! So, we're torn. If our house, our whole block, were placed somewhere else, we'd be happy.

Brett is in turns excited and nauseous (I think he gets that from mom!) and Lili of course doesn't suspect a thing.

We have NO idea how long it'll take our house to sell. It seems like most are sitting around for a good 6 months or so. Which is hard, because Jeff and I have already half moved in our minds. We repainted the kitchen last night and didn't hang anything back up on the walls or anything, so I'm kind of lost because there's no calendar.
We took all the pictures and papers off the fridge, so it's just so stark. (and so BIG and so WHITE!!)

We really are very excited about this next phase in our lives.
We have no idea what God has planned for us and that really is exciting.

And the profit we stand to make is AWESOME! :)

WooHoo!! The BEST Weekend Ever (if you like the teams I do!)

How 'bout them Cowboys? (AND!! Troy Aikman in the booth? Yay!)

How 'bout them Bears?

How 'bout them Irish?

Huh, huh, huh??

What a wonderful, winning-football-team-filled weekend!

Hip, hip hooray!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

So, are you ready for the onslaught of football posts?

Can't wait, can you?

I swear to you, football almost makes up for summer being over.

almost.

Ahhh...Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer...