Waiting...

Well, I'm finally doing it.  The boys are both napping, I can't remember anything more important that I'm supposed to be doing (for the moment... it'll come to me as soon as one of them wakes up... shhh, no, not laundry).  I have time to blog in peace and not at bedtime, and all I can think about it our house hunt.  So here's the saga (so far).

The waiting is the hardest part

Every day you see one more card

You take it on faith, you take it to the heart

The waiting is the hardest part

I don't know what it is, but I love Tom Petty (as long as I don't look too closely at the lyrics).  And while I'm pretty sure he wasn't pining away to own his own home, this chorus has been my theme song for the last year.

Year?  Yep, this week marks an entire year since we moved in with Alex's parents.  It was only supposed to be for a couple months... just long enough to finish saving up a down payment and find the right house... we were going to be happily and comfortably settled in said house long before the baby we had just found out we were expecting was born...

And then it was August, and Alex was back to school and our window to move in and fix up and stuff during the freedom of summer was over.  And then it was September, and the clock was ticking down to our November 10th due date.  And then it was October, and we found it!  We found the house, for the right price, in the right neighborhood, and everything.  It was a short sale, but that was no big deal.  By this point I was resigned to the fact that we most likely wouldn't move before Liam was born (and in those last weeks of pregnancy it was more a relief than anything to put the idea of moving on the back burner).

So we put in our offer, received the counter offer from the seller with the minimum price the bank would accept, and agreed to that.  Then we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And then the bank wanted another $5000, and we thought that was dumb, but we wanted this house and it was still within our price range.  So we agreed, and we waited.  And waited.  And signed a million documents declaring that we, our children, our parents, our parents' dog, and the bunnies living under our parents' deck did not now, nor had they every, nor would they ever work for this bank (apparently it has something to do with mortgage fraud and it's a big deal; whatever, I think banks just like making people sign pieces of paper).

And then it was the middle of December and even though we wouldn't be moving in to our new house before Christmas we were expecting to close any day.  And then the bank sold the mortgage to another bank, and we essentially had to start the process all over again.  So we signed some more papers and waited some more.

And then it was the middle of February.  And the new bank wanted $40,000 more than the first bank had demanded.  And there was no way that was going to happen.  We were devastated (and I think we'll always kind of hate all banks because of it).  Four months of waiting, dreaming, planning, hoping, all centered around this house... and back to square one.

I don't know how many houses we've looked at through this whole process... it's been an average of at least three per week for the last six weeks, I think.  There was another perfect house a couple weeks ago, but we lost the bidding war.  St. Joseph's feast day came and went without any closure to this whole ordeal, despite multiple novenas (I know that's now how it works, but it would've made for a nice, neat little story).  I feel completely worn out and drained with the searching and the waiting and the constant string of disappointments.

And yet this situation is God's will for us right now.  I know there's something (a whole set of somethings, probably) that I'm supposed to be learning during this season of waiting.  I wish I could just hurry up and figure it all out so God could give us our house.  And as hard as it has been to wait and wait and wait, there have been so many blessings along the way as well.  Michael has had a lot of extra attention as he adjusts to sharing his parents with a (very demanding) little bundle of joy.  We've been able to save quite a bit more than expected since the process has taken so long.  I think (hope) I am learning a lot about patience, even though I don't generally feel it.  I also think/hope I'm learning about trusting in God to provide, even though it's generally a pure act of will (with gritted teeth and sometimes tears) and not a nice warm feeling of trust.

So that's the saga.  I think I've been waiting to write this blog post in hopes of having some sort of good ending to it.  You know, like a house.  Or at least a more coherent reflection on how the lengthy process has been a blessing in disguise and how I've learned so much from it.  It has, and I have, but the overwhelming mood surrounding the whole thing is just exhaustion and discouragement.

Maybe the right house will come on the market when we're in Lincoln for Easter, and we'll buy it without even seeing it.  That would make a fun ending to the story too.

Didja hear me God?  I've got the ending all worked out... your turn.

Oh right, it doesn't work like that either.