It Can Only Go Up From Here

Marty arrived to our final destination today and began stalking the homes we've picked out. My absolute favorite that I'd fallen in love with, is a complete dud. And let me just say, the realtor's photographer did an outstanding job of hiding the gross neighborhood. 

Tomorrow we head out with our agent to look for our next home. Marty is asking me to be optimistic. I'm ready to pivot. In the interest of marital harmony, I'm optimistically ready to pivot. Marty is optimistically ready to leave me in a swamp. I can't say I blame him. I'm tired of me too. 

I did find this sign as we were driving around through one neighborhood. 

 

A Week in the Sunshine Life

Roosevelt, having opinions.
This suitcase is on top of our unacceptable bedspread, Tessa covered up with her "acceptable" one.  

This past week: 

Sunday: we had a good-bye party for Sherman, who is starting law school in Washington DC.

Monday: we had an accepted offer on hour house and planned on leaving for Florida on Wednesday. Polly helped Sherman pack his apartment and take care of this and that. 

Tuesday: we no longer had an accepted offer on our house and I raced over to Buckaroo's job to tell him not to quit just yet. He said, "Does that mean you will be home Thursday? I'm only asking, because I planned a party because I didn't think you'd be home." I helped Valerie in her sewing class.  

Wednesday: we accepted another offer. Marty and I spent the day staring at homes and trying to figure out where in Florida we wanted to live. Polly helped Sherman get his belongings together. 

Thursday: In order not to infringe on Buck's party, and the fact Sherman and Polly would soon be parting, we took off for Natchitoches Louisiana. It's two hours away and we needed to reset from the crazy week.  It was a French fort back in the day, before the Louisiana purchase and the area is chock-full of interesting history. Polly helped Sherman finalize his move. 

Friday: We came home to the aftermath of Buck's party--a few pizza boxes, a bag of stale chips, and a very full trash can. We also heard from Polly, who was doing a quick turnaround trip with Sherman to Atlanta to visit his folks before turning North towards Washington DC. I went to Corona night, ate way too much sugar and laughed like I'd never laughed before. I got home at 11:30, after coming in third in Mexican Train. Oh yes! I finalized my book. The Redeemed comes out September 22, because why not launch a book in the middle of another major life event? 

Saturday--today: I got up around 5 a.m. Marty and I drove to Quincy Florida, where I'm writing at this moment. Marty is watching some Spiderman movie. Polly is back from her turnaround trip, as she flew into Shreveport today, and a friend picked her up and took her back home. Buck assures me the Overlords are fine and he isn't planning on having a party tonight. I've talked to my Florida real estate agent and we have a game plan for Monday.

I'm tired. 

A few Natchitoches pictures. The last two are Fort Jean Baptiste. A very interesting place, which was settled in the 1700s. 

My Coronas

I sent a note out on Tuesday, saying I wouldn't be at Corona Night. We had a contract on the house and Marty and I were leaving Wednesday to Florida to buy a home. 

Messages poured in. Love notes about how much they would miss me. And how could this really be happening? The text messages were the kind of friendship a girl could ever ask for. Their notes made me feel happy, loved and wanted. 

Then Tessa called and said something along the lines of "Remember that offer? Well, it is no more." 

About that time, Corona Krissy chimed in with a private message about how much I mean to her and how she'd miss me, not only at Corona Night but in general. So I told her we no longer have a deal, I just didn't feel like updating about how life had changed. Krissy asked me if she could do it for me. So, she did. It just said, I'd be at Corona night because I'd just gotten word the deal fell through. 

Tuesday afternoon, just about every Corona reached out to me, offering me love and support. Some notes were private. Some were public on the group thread. All messages were kind and made me feel happy, loved and wanted. It was all the friendship a girl could ever ask for. 

Valerie's Beginning Sewing Class

So my friend Valerie is teaching a sewing class. She is on week two and has 10 students. Normally she has six. In an effort to get out of my home, I offered to come hang out in her class and answer a question or two. That was the theory. The reality was she had 10 Gen Z students, who were expecting Instagram-worthy outcomes on their second day of class. 

Cami latched on to me and was afraid to make a move unless I hovered nearby. Though she is very sweet, it wasn't realistic because there was only one of Valerie and nine others who were having troubles of their own. 

But Cami was nothing compared to the 20-something girl who walked in with a crappy attitude, which screamed, "I am in hell and don't want to be here!" My first thought was, "You are here. You paid for this class? Why?" The girl asked, "What do I do?" I prompted her to thread her machine. "I don't know how." She replied and folded her arms. "Get out your thread..." I started, pointing at the spindle where the thread goes. With all the attitude of a preteen girl who'd spent the night at a friend's house, she complied and rolled her eyes. She asked, "Now what?" And yes, it went like this, step by step, with this grown-ass uncooperative woman rolling her eyes at every instruction. 

Anyway, this chick started out as a nightmare, full of vinegar. At one point she said, "I'm having a bad day." And oh boy! Was that not the moment to say that to me*. I gave her a rundown on MY day and all of the sudden this brat softened her stance. By the time I got back to her after dashing over to Cami who needed a pat on the back, the girl had managed to figure out how to sew the first part of her pillow case. And when I told her she did a great job, she turned into a whole different person. It is interesting that both of these young women were so anxious about sewing and handled it so differently. 

There were eight others in various levels of learning who had questions and needed assistance. We covered them all in two and a half hours and congratulated every one when they completed the project. Everyone other than Cami finished their pillow case before class ended--but Cami has promised to send me a photo when her pillow case is done.   

*I had a really, really BAD day. 

Looks Liike I'm Gonna Miss Next Week's Corona Night

72 hours into this tedious task.

We got an offer on our home. That was the plan, right? We are told we are getting a second offer. Of course an "offer" doesn't mean we are accepting what the buyer is asking for and hopefully the second offer will be a bit more attractive. But, oh my! After three showings, this is certainly news. 

I'm trying to be excited. Instead, I'm sitting in Polly's room--she has the only desk in the house that isn't in storage--working on a few formatting edits (hyphenations mostly), ignoring the world around me. I need to get these edits done because Marty and I, once we accept an offer, need to high-tail ourselves to Florida to go house-shopping. In truth, I doubt even if I wasn't working on these edits that I'd be excited. 

The rest of the family can be excited for me.  

Small Town Facebook

This is so sweet. What's even cooler is the number of responses this person got. All positive. All helpful. I hope the person posting finds her delivery driver. 

Our Home on Arizona Avenue

The house is on the market. As of the time I'm writing this, we've had one showing. Welcome to a soft housing market in a small city. 

To commemorate the tidiness of our home, here are a few pictures. Mind you, I doubt we can keep up this level of declutter (we do keep the place clean). But I thought I'd let you see what the magic of camera filters can do. 

Our grass really is this green, thankyouverymuch.

This originally was earmarked as my sitting room. However, Buck used it as his man-cave up until last week. I'm sitting in that chair right now typing this up because my desk is packed.

Oh, and that green table? Buck refinished it last winter. He's very proud of it and we like it.
I fought Tessa to keep it in the house. That's also my Dad's stained glass lamp on top of it. The table on the other side of the chair was also one of my refinishing projects. 

For the record, that fire is photoshopped. The table in the forefront is solid walnut, and yep, refinished.

I hate that backsplash.

Polly is housesitting for Tessa this week. She brought back the bedspread. 

The greenhouse looks so small. The yard is pretty large. And the grass really is that green thankyouverymuch.