Checkin' In

It was kindly pointed out to me the other day by one of my faithful readers that I have been negligent in my blog duties of late and have therefore failed to provide needed procrastination for those that might partake of my ramblings while at work. I didn't mean to be neglectful. It's just that I kind of had this idea that I wasn't going to blog again until I could jump up and down and scream, "we've sold our house," which I cannot yet do. And I guess I kind of thought that if I didn't blog about selling my house, maybe it would sell. You know, I was trying not to jinx things. Alas, 'tis not the season to try to sell a house.
In the meantime however, we have officially acquired another house, because hey, if you can't get rid of one, you might as well have two. I have been feeling a little sorry and worried for us as of late because of the house situation. But then, on Friday morning I heard the Story Core segment on NPR. The segment featured two men who worked as sanitation workers and were telling about their efforts to organize in the '60's and about hearing Martin Luther King, Jr. give his final sermon. One of the men talked about awful working conditions were, how he'd have maggots in his shoes when he got off work. He also talked about how he'd wake-up in the morning and think, "I ain't going to work today, I ain't going." But then he'd see his kids and he knew he had to go to feed his family--he had no options. And in that moment, I decided that compared to that man's life, I have no problems. I've a got a good job. Moses has a good job. Our biggest worry right now is being stuck with two houses. Two houses that, if we are somewhat careful, we can make the mortgage payments for every month. Somewhat careful meaning paying attention to spending, not eating out much, and not traveling. Not really much in the way of a sacrifice there. And, we made the conscious decision to put ourselves in this particular hole anyway. We knew when we made the offer on the Flagstaff house that we might have two mortgages for a while and we decided it was worth the risk. So really, it's time for me to shut down the negative worry machine and quit complaining and live with this decision until this house sells or we have renters. Because either way we'll be fine and there are no maggots anywhere in either scenario, and for that I am grateful.
On a related note, we moved just about everything we own up to Flagstaff this weekend. Our new house looks much better (to me anyway) full of our junk rather than full of somebody else's. We had lots of Flagstaff friends come to help, received invitations for dinner and hiking in the upcoming weeks, and already have visits planned from my brother and parents. I've been having this feeling the last few weeks that after we moved to Flagstaff, I'd be stuck my little home office by myself and cut off from the world (and freezing cold). But after this weekend, I'm feeling a lot more positive about re-connecting with old friends and seeing a lot more of my family (although I still think I'm going to freeze). Next week, we move the last bits of our stuff and we'll be in Flagstaff for good.



We are going home, and I am glad.