Random Thoughts of a Wine Soaked Mind

I realized recently that my sarcastic view of life around me has been gone lately.  I know it will return but for now I am in the middle of absolute change.

I sit in a nearly empty room, a room just three years ago we remodeled to accommodate our growing family.  My feet rest on a beautiful hickory floor we picked out and look at walls void of decoration painted in a color I chose.  I do feel a bit of failure.  Failure to make good choices, failure to live up to personal responsibility and failure to provide stability to those who were counting on it and didn’t even know they were counting on it.

This is my last weekend in my house.  If I am honest I can say I never really loved this house.  It wasn’t my dream house, it is a big house, a gift from heaven at a time when we needed a lot of space.  I think the outside of the house is plain and rather ugly.  The kitchen is not functional for two cooks.  The ranch style of the house is my least favorite floor plan.  It is okay that I won’t live here anymore.  Perhaps this change would be easier if it had been my choice of when to leave but it isn’t my choice, it is the choice of the universe.

Everyone worries what the neighbor’s think.  It seems as if other people rejoice in the failure of others because it makes them feel better.  I know it should not matter.  I am proud of our most recent decisions and I am so proud that my husband and I have not taken all the stress out on each other.  Thankfully, we have not had bad days together.  If I am particularly down, he is my rock and when he is down, I try to be the voice of positivity.  More than ever in our 15 year marriage we are learning that we can really count on each other.

Perhaps that is the one thing that most people don’t understand about us.  We have to count on each other because we are all we have.  So often we hear friends talk about hard times and how their parents helped them out.  Other people have been given second chances through inheritance or live off the efforts of their parents.  We see it time and time again and become quite smug with each other.   The fact is we don’t have that magic person to call, it is all on us and sometimes we just have to suck it up and realize our mistakes are our own.

I do have to give glory to God.  The lessons he is giving us are the catalyst for this absolute change.  Not just a change in residence.  Not just the change of going from overly proud homeowner to more humble home renter.  If I really focus I can see how God has given this family exactly what it needs at the exact time when it is needed.

So, as I move through the motions of the worse part of this move I will be happy and content knowing my family is happy and healthy.  As I continually remind my children that there will be no big Christmas gifts this year I will rest assured this will be the year they begin to learn that gifts come in forms other than material gain.

My morning indulgence is over and it is time to get to work.  As I remind my children, I will remind myself, idle hands are the devil’s workshop and only through hard work and challenge and absolute change can we grow in character and become the kind of people who affect change rather than be overcome by change.

On some stress scale they say moving is nearly as stressful as a loved one passing away.  I don’t know about that.  I have lost both my parents and I have moved many times I would have to say the death of my parents was much more stressful.  With that being said, moving is pretty darn stressful.  We are in the middle of a big move.

We may not be moving across the country but we are moving from our home of the past six years to a new home.  Each day when I walk into my “old” house it is more and more empty.  My husband has worked for two days slowly moving furniture and other things to the new house.  It is kind of weird to walk into this house as it gets emptier and bigger.  I haven’t been up to the new house yet but I suspect it is getting smaller as it is getting filled.

I am excited about the move, I love our new house but yes, I am feeling the stress of change.  I am so happy to have a husband who understands my crazy stress and is working hard to make this move as easy and painless on me as possible.  I’m a spoiled rotten wife (this is like a spoiled rotten child only a wife not a child…get it?)

So, I am going to take a drive up the road and look at my new house as it is being filled by my old belongings.  Since tomorrow is Saturday I will work on packing and moving more old belongings into my new environment.

Yep, moving is pretty stressful but all in all it will be a good result!

I had a dream this weekend.  I came home early from work on Friday because I have been ill.  A cold I think.  I have not taken any cold medicine so that would not explain my dream.

I laid down to take a nap and had the most vivid dream about seventeen nails.  Let me first say I don’t generally remember my dreams.  I am usually so dog tired by the time I make it to bed I can’t remember going to bed much less what I was dreaming.

This dream was vivid and I could feel it and I can still, days later.

I took a hammer and seventeen nails, big six-inch silver building nails, and drove them one by one into my lower back.  I couldn’t tell you how many on each side but I did it.  Strangely enough in this dream the nails, being hammered in by my own doing did not hurt.  I hammered them in one by one all the way down.  I left the nails for a what seemed like a good long while but they became uncomfortable.  There was still no pain just discomfort.  I guess there would be discomfort from six-inch building nails in your back.

Then I decided to pull them out.  I pulled them one by one from my lower back and it hurt.  It didn’t hurt as badly as you would expect but there was now pain and blood.  That is what is so vivid from the dream was there was so much blood.  I dropped the nails one by one into a sink and they were covered in blood.

There were people around me and no one said “hey crazy lady why did you put nails in your back?”  Nope they just said “oh, I see you are getting the nails out of your back.”

Not one person helped or seemed concerned and in the dream I was not concerned either.  I just knew I had to get the nails out of my back.  I was also very aware that I had put them there, alone, with no help or influence from anyone else.

I don’t put much thought into dreams and I have no idea if they mean anything to our waking lives but this dream changed me.  I realized that all the turmoil I am currently facing may be nails I have driven into myself.

Now as I go through the painful and messy process of removing the nails I realize it is going to hurt and there might be blood but after it is all done, I will be better off.

I told my husband about the dream and he has taken to saying  “well babe, that is one of those seventeen nails.”

Crazy?  Yep it sure is.

My oldest son played his last JV football game of the season.  It was a Saturday game held at a private high school tucked away in beautiful Orange Virginia.  Woodberry Forrest is boarding school located about an hour and a half south of the Washington DC area.  I don’t know much about this school except they have two Astroturf fields and this weekend was parent’s weekend at the school.

Our JV boys played their game on what I assume is the practice field because the stadium was occupied by the varsity team.  Upon our arrival down the tree-lined driveway punctuated at the end with a guard building, we saw the banner which said “welcome parents.”  It was then I understood why we were playing a Saturday football game at a private high school an hour away.  The school needed to show off for the parents who had come to visit their offspring.  The offspring they had shipped off to boarding school earlier in the fall.

Because our team was playing on the practice field we were up close and personal with the game.  There were no bleachers to sit on and we could walk right up to the sidelines.  This idea has its pros and cons.  The major con is it is very hard to actually see the game past the backs of shoulder pad wearing young men.  There were two small portable bleacher seats but they didn’t offer much improvement in the view.

East Rockingham High School had a good turn out of parents for an away game and we all gathered together and about 500 feet from us were the parents of the home team.  The dichotomy of the parents was interesting.  When I go to a football game I wear blue jeans and a T-shirt or sweatshirt with the logo of  my team.  My footwear will almost always be athletic shoes.  In our area this is the dress code, unless of course you wear your camouflage.   I live in rural Virginia, all in all we are country people, some might call us rednecks.

The parents of the Woodberry Forest students were dressed a bit differently for the game.  As men in khakis and white shirts walked by us, their wives huddled up on the stands with high heels and slacks all topped with orange tops or sweaters to support their team, but no a logo in site.  The women really looked like the cast of The Real Housewives.  With their expensive jewelry and perfect hair I don’t think they understood the game at all.  This was proven when the Woodberry team had the ball and one of the perfect mothers yelled “Go Defense!”.

I did almost laugh out loud when one of the fathers walked by in pressed khaki shorts with little green dogs embroidered all over them.  His perfect green golf shirt matched the color of the little dogs perfectly.  I whispered in Dewayne’s ear that I wanted him to get that ensemble because it was hot!

At one point in the game when Woodberry had the ball some extra time appeared on the clock.  We were all confused by the extra time and one of our parents piped up and said: “That $30,000 a year tuition must by extra time on the clock.”  It was poetic and funny!

As we left the game in our pickup trucks and American made vehicles we passed the Mercedes and Saab convertibles  and headed home.  We did lose the game but our parents had  passion and our boys played a good game.  We were proud of them and thankful that we would see our boys and the end of the day, not just on parents weekend and during the holidays.

When I got dressed this morning I picked out a nice black blouse to wear.   It was one of those moments when you are looking through your clothes and think, “Wow, I forgot I have this, I wonder why I don’t wear it more often.”  Then after about an hour it become abundantly clear why you don’t wear the garment.

In the case of this black blouse it has two flaws.  The first is a scratchy collar.  All day the stitching inside the collar rubbed me wrong and made me itch.  If this were the only problem, I would have a blog to write tonight.  The other issue with this shirt is the buttons.  The buttons are too small for the button holes and tend to easily come undone.

If I had a profession that called for easy access out of my clothing this blouse would be perfect.  Since I sell software from a cubical I have no need for an easy escape blouse in my daily activity.  I spent the entire day making sure the buttons were closed and re-buttoning in hopes that no one saw the peep show.

As I left work I realized my car was out of gas (the gas warning light came on and the annoying beeping made me stop at the closest filling station).  My mind was on a million other things as I stood outside my vehicle and filled the tank with fuel.  The wind has been rather strong all day, possibly 20 or 30 miles an hour gusts.  There I stood at the Sheetz, putting gas in my car, when I apparently caught the attention of a man at the next pump filling his F-150.

I won’t lie, I sometimes (although more often when I was younger) have caught the eye of a man or two.  There was something not quite right about how this man was looking at me.  It was then that I felt a draft.

Imagine my surprise when I realized all but the very top and bottom button of my black blouse had fallen victim to the wind.  There I stood next to my car with my blouse not only unbuttoned but buffed by the wind.  How I did not notice this sooner is beyond me.  It is with sincere hope that this was only a few seconds but somehow I suspect, from the look on the man’s face next to me, it had been a few minutes.

I always try to find the positive in any situation.  I am very thankful I was wearing one of my best bras today.  It is a lovely red and black well constructed push up with some jewels.  Really this little number with it’s great construction and velvet straps is one of my favorites.  The best thing about his situation is this man didn’t look disgusted, when he caught sight of the nearly stripping middle aged woman showing her all together accidentally in the wind.

I say Thank You Mr. Red F-150.  Thank you for possibly thinking that my pretty push up bra wasn’t really a push up and my breasts really are still situated so high on my chest.  Thank you for not freaking out or vomiting.  Thank you for not laughing when I noticed and began to hastily button my blouse.  Thank you for simply getting in your truck and driving away.

My faulty black blouse will go into the closet and in about two months I will discover it again and wonder why in the world I never wear this lovely shirt.

I suppose Spirituality and Religion are two very different things.  Spirituality is an internal belief in power greater than human conception, a path, if you will, toward God, an overwhelming belief in something larger and greater than the individual.  Whereas religion itself seems to be an adherence to a set of rules or dogma set forth by a certain group.   Religion by my definition includes spirituality but also limits it.

With these ideas in place I would define myself as spiritual but not religious.  I don’t go to church regularly.  I have had times in my life when God’s path lead me to church and I enjoyed those times.  Currently I seem to be in a cycle of deep personal faith.  It isn’t a cycle really, I have always had unwavering faith.  Deep inside I have always known God had a plan for me and those around me.  People have come and gone, relationships have begun and ended.  Each experience has left me with more knowledge and experience than when I started.

Faith is the belief in something unproven but for me God and His ability to only love has been proven again and again.  Saying I have unwavering faith that things will work out work in direct contrast with my need for control.  My daily challenge is to let go and believe.  However, faith does not mean “non action.”  Sitting and waiting for a miracle is not a good use of faith.  Actively working toward your own miracle while listening to the guidance of God is active faith.

There have been so many times in my life when the circumstances I was facing seemed overwhelming.  It was during these times when I surrendered to God.  When I had real conversations with Jesus and asked not only for guidance but just handed it over, whatever it was.  Those times were  when real miracles happened.  I didn’t stop trying to move forward but the path seemed to open in front of me and the movement was easy.

As I reflect on my blessings I have faith and pray for guidance.  I do not want to squander my gifts and each day I need to learn how to live more for God and his plan and less for myself.  I think the greatest legacy in life would be to leave an impression that faith is more important than anything else.

These of course are just ramblings of a heathen who isn’t even baptized so in accordance to most Christian religions I’m destined to an eternity in Hell anyway so what do I know?

Yesterday’s mail brought yet another notice from Chase mortgage that the servicing of our loan had been transferred.  It is the second such notice we have gotten only to have Chase send a notice two days later saying that wasn’t the case.  In the interim Chase has denied every effort we have made for a loan modification and at this point we have surrendered.

In an attempt to do the right thing among wrong things, we will be listing our house for sale and praying for a short sale.  We have also been looking to secure a long term rental.  Although the mortgage mess going on in this country would probably allow us the opportunity to live rent free for up to six months, doing that would be wrong.  We want to avoid that if possible.

We have looked at several houses and have been surprised by the beautiful homes in our community that are for rent at very reasonable prices.  The drop in housing sales have made the market ripe for rentals.

We fell in love with one particularly beautiful colonial with four bedrooms and three bathrooms, a sunroom, a screened in deck and an office.  Beautiful cherry cabinets in the kitchen and a formal dining room.  All in all it is nicer than our home and with a rental price tag far less than our current mortgage we thought it was too good to be true.

Today we found out that we will be moving into that very house in December.  Several people were looking at it and we were accepted to take it beginning in December.  This take a huge weight off our shoulders.  The house is beautiful, it is in our community so not much will change for the children and we now have a plan.

The next step in our journey will be the packing and moving process.  We have been in our house for so long and have so much crap in every closet and corner, this is going to be quite an adventure.

Thanks again for everyone allowing me to be so public about this very personal crisis.  I have appreciated the  positive encouragement.  It has helped me cope during a very horrible situation.

When we first realized our fight to keep our over mortgaged home was over we were so disappointed in our own inability to keep this from happening.  We had worked so hard to get our home and spent tens of thousands of dollars remodeling it.  It represented success and hard work and maybe we let it represent too much of who we wanted people to think we were.

I have written previous blog describing how we came to this point.  The economic crisis that hit hard in the fall of 2008 devastated our investments, and our finances.  We began a long process of rebuilding with a commitment to do the right thing.  In our mind we had made a commitment to our bank to pay for our house and we scraped to do just that.  It became impossible and we were so excited when the bank said they would modify our loan and give a more affordable payment.  Those empty promises culminated recently with a denial to modify but not after 2 years of taking a modified payment.  The mess left us holding the bag of past due payments, fees and a ruined credit report.  I want to be very clear, we never skipped a payment.  We are not among the folks who have lived rent free for months or years but it appears as if we could.

There is mounting pressure to freeze all foreclosure proceedings until the banks get their act together and prove they own the mortgages on which they collect.  The fact is all mortgages are owned and this whole paperwork controversy will end and result will be the same.  If you can’t pay for house (regardless of your sad story) the bank is going to sell it and they have every right to do so.

This is where the conservative in me comes out.  Despite the fact that I am smack in the middle of this mess I do not think anyone owes us a free house.  I don’t think we should be able to live rent free for an extended amount of time.  We won’t.  As the latest part of the mortgage crisis unfolds many families will be able to basically “squat” in their homes while not making any payments.  On a small level this may be good for the individual but this is a bad idea for the country and the economy.  These homes must be pushed through the market, they must be sold to new owners.

The right thing to do at this point for anyone facing foreclosure is to put on your big boy pants, realize your situation and move on.  Get going, start over and do the right thing.  Does it suck to lose a house and go through foreclosure?  Yes it does.  I’m not in foreclosure yet (because I have made payments) but we will be.  We are not bad people but we are also not victims.  We simply have a situation in which we must make decisions.  There is no such thing as a free lunch or a free house.

In the long run moving to a rental property is best for us and best for the economy.  The houses we have looked at our very nice and in some cases nicer than our own home and half the monthly nut.  We will provide income for someone who owns but does not live in a property.  We will get our house into the market for sale and hopefully someone who needs this kind of space will find a new home and the wheels of the economy will begin to turn again.

Until Americans begin to take some personal responsibility for this economic crisis and start doing the right thing we are going to be stuck in this cycle of distress.  No one owes me anything.  It is time to face mistakes like a grown up and move forward.  It is hard to do the right thing when faced with adversity.  Sometimes it is hard to define the right thing.  I have always believed the right thing doesn’t keep me up at night and the path it easier to travel.  Faith in God and leaning on a moral compass will guide my family during this time, I just hope others will find their moral compass so we can guide ourselves out of this crisis and back into prosperity.

It has been entirely too long since my last blog post.  Keenan playing JV football, Sassle and his fall soccer and Zeb joining the boys of Fall again this year in youth football I haven’t had much time to even think about blogging.  The last time I posted it was about our house and this post will be about that too.

Last month we found out that JP Morgan Chase was not going to approve our loan modification.  Over the turmoil of four weeks each week brought something new.  One minute they will willing to work with us and the next they were not.  One moment our loan was being transferred and the next it was not.  The final conclusion from JP Morgan Chase is we have now regained most of our income and they are not interested in working with us.  They are willing to take a huge check from us and let us resume regular mortgage payments but no help short of that.  So here we sit with a mortgage on a home that is worth half what is owed, a bank that thinks we have tens of thousands of dollars sitting around to pay them and some decisions to make.

It is time to rip the band aide off and move on.  At first I was very upset and sad.  Honestly I had a hard time functioning for about two days.   Itwas a blow to know that despite our hard work we were still going to lose our house to foreclosure.  Despite not wallowing in our own bad fortune, we worked hard and dug deep and began to see some light at the end of our tunnel there was no way to save our home.  That was until something very interesting happened.

We began to look for a rental.  It was shocking to learn that we could actually lease a home for half of what we pay for our mortgage and these home are awesome!  Our home is our home and it is big and functional.  These homes we are looking at have the amenities we only dreamed of adding to our own home and they are half the price of our mortgage.  This crazy mortgage crisis has created an opportunity for us.  I never thought I would say that.

We still don’t have a complete plan for our house.  With a freeze on foreclosures I think it buys us some time to sell ours but no one is going to buy it, the market in our area and neighborhood is flooded with big houses, but we may try.

I do know that we will be renters soon.  I hope we can move before Christmas.  After finally coming to grips with the failure of loss, we will move on, we will rebuild and we will be better on the other end.

I sure appreciate all the positive and supportive help we have gotten from our friends.  It hasn’t been often that we have been in need.  We are usually the ones providing stability to others who find themselves in distress.  It is refreshing to know we can count on you!

I have a friend and her name is Ali.  I admire Ali a lot she is beautiful and smart and funny and real.  Although Ali is prettier, younger, smarter and almost funnier than me, I see myself in Ali.  I see myself ten years ago and I wish someone would have told me what I’m about to write.

You see the reason I see myself in Ali is because she just became a Mom to her third boy in five years.  I recently met her recent addition and he is perfect and wonderful.  I have to say that Ali is a work friend so I have not had the opportunity to meet her other two boys but I feel like I know them from all our conversations.

If I could tell Ali anything I would tell her to embrace every second right now!  When that tiny baby wakes you up at 3 AM after just having woken you at 1AM, enjoy it even if you want to hit your husband  and make him get up just so you can get one more minute of sleep.  You will be sleep deprived for the next several years just like you have been for the past several years.

Let those little guys get in bed with you in the morning and tickle them and kiss them and love them because before you know it no one is going to be climbing in your bed with you.  It happens in a blink of an eye.  You and your husband will wake up on a Saturday morning and no one will be at the end of the bed waiting to climb in the middle.  At first you will think it is great and then you will begin to miss it.  You will miss having a little person snuggle between you.

Now here is the other news.  Once they become teenager they revert right back to where your newborn is today.  They get moody and would cry if they thought it wouldn’t make them look like a baby.  They also eat every 2 hours.  Yep back to a 2 hour feeding schedule.  The benefit is they can get their own food, the downside is, they don’t clean up after themselves.

Right now leaving the house is huge ordeal.   You feel like you are packing half of your belongings to go out for the afternoon.  Once they grow up and become tweens or teens, you are never in your house.  A mini van that in now filled with baby bags and toys and old french fries will become a storage unit for football pads, cleats, empty water bottles and stinky socks.  You will run from school programs to sporting events and if you think that little baby can pull your heart out when he has a gas bubble and cries and cries, wait until he works his butt off all week on a football practice field and coach doesn’t put him in the game.

If I could tell Ali anything it would be don’t let anything or anyone come between you and your boys.  Being he Mom of multiple boys is a club reserved for the strongest Moms ever made.  We are in that club because God knows we can handle it.