Writer's Block. And A Short Attention Span.

I have sat down every day this week so far to compose a blog post.  They were good ones, too, all mapped out in my head, complete with beginnings, middles, and ends.  And as soon as I started typing each one, that little window in the corner of my mind opened wide.  And apparently, it's been awfully windy just outside that window lately.  And so, about halfway through the third sentence, I find myself staring at the computer screen and thinking, "Wait... what was the point of this again?"  But I have no answer.  And so I think, "Maybe if I just keep going, I'll remember what I was going to say and I'll be able to wrap this up neatly."  And so I keep going and then realize, "I may not remember what I was going to say, but I'm absolutely certain that I am nowhere near the point anymore... and now I have a whole bunch of rambling, nonsensical sentences that have nothing to do with each other, much less what I forgot I was going to say."  At which point, I select the entire text and hit the backspace button.  I spend a few minutes contemplating whether to try again.  I dig through all the corners of my mind, trying to find something, anything to fill the little text box which, by now, is mocking me in all it's stark-white emptiness.  And I realize that whatever I was going to say is now long gone from the annals of memory, never to be recovered.  (Until I'm dozing off at the end of a long day and way too tired to climb out of bed and write it down.  Because my memory is mean that way.)

This is where I would stick a conclusion, if I had one.

Happy Valentine's Day

I am not lovey-dovey.  Or ooey-gooey.  Or any other phrase like that, that describes a moopy, mushy way of loving.
But, it is Valentine's Day, so I am wishing everyone a happy one.
And, if overpriced chocolate and flowers are your thing, I hope you get lots of them.
If you're like me, and quiet and unassuming are your thing, I hope you have a great day, too.

Reporting To You Live, From The Depths Of House-Hunting Despair

It was decided unanimously between Hubby and myself that there is just no way on earth we're going to manage to squeeze another year of living out of the trailer we're currently living in.  Six years ago it was given to us, free.  There were holes in the floor, a pile of junk 6-inches deep covering every surface, and a terrible smell permeated everything.  We gutted the entire thing, hung new drywall, laid new floors, and completely redid the plumbing and wiring.  But we're not experts.  And a new inside is really no match for a damaged outside.  The older this place gets, the more the exterior flaws are affecting the interior.  I won't drag out the laundry list of issues.  I'll just leave it at: There's just no way we can squeeze another year out of it.

Our original plan was to buy a newer trailer, outright, no mortgage, just money from savings plus maybe a small personal loan from the bank.  (Certainly not a mortgage.  I steadfastly refuse to take out a mortgage on anything with wheels underneath.)  We would get rid of this trailer, move the new(er) trailer here, pay it off as quickly as we could and then go back to saving up money to build a house.  But then we happened to come across a deal on a house that seemed too good to pass up.  It was a fixer-upper, but the repairs needed were the type that could easily be managed by amateurs.  Unfortunately, it turns out there are just too many hoops to jump through in order to get a mortgage on a fixer-upper like that, but before giving up on it, we had already gone through the process of finding out we actually were approved for a mortgage, so we decided to go ahead and continue on in the house-hunt.

We've found several houses in our price range that we liked.  And every single time we've reached the point where we wanted to get the ball rolling on a purchase, the house would get put under contract by someone else.  Most recently, last night.  The realtor called Hubby and told him we had an appointment at 1:00 today to see the house we just fell head over heels in love with.  I mean, it is house perfection.  Everything we were looking for!  And not 5 minutes later, the realtor called back to let us know it had just gone under contract. I cried.  That's not an exaggeration.  I mean, I wasn't sobbing or anything, but I absolutely shed a few tears.  (And if you know me, you know I am so not a crier.)

So, it's back to the house-hunt grind.  Again.  We're going to look at a different house later today.  A nice one, sure, but in a neighborhood we're not crazy about.  And I've just found another that, house-wise would probably place a close second to the house-perfection we missed out on last night, but again, not an awesome neighborhood.  (House-perfection was on 5.5 acres just outside the city limits.  Living out here for the past six years, I've come to enjoy not having neighbors right on top of us.) 

This is feeling more and more like deliberately chasing a migraine.

So, Um... Yeah...

It's been how long since I last blogged? Oops.  I actually don't even have anything of consequence to say today, I just felt that I needed to have something in the archive for February-- it's a short month, and who knows when I'll decide I should do some blogging again?  So, here it is. Just in case it's March before I have a lightbulb moment that screams, "Oh! Great blog post idea!"