When Bad Things Happen to Good People

We just found out Scott does not have a position at his school next year. I am devastated. Scott is a rock. God, he is amazing.

It is really complete crap. They are splitting his current school into 2 schools next year. However, he assumed his job was safe because he is beloved by teachers, students and parents. That means crap in his district. They are losing one assistant principal position in this transition. They have three APs now because the school is so large and split over 2 campuses. Each middle school next year will only have one AP. Scott’s the odd man out. They gave some pretty weak examples of not being happy with his “performance” in the past year and a half, but these are things that were never brought up at the time. I believe it is truly a case of taking care of their own, and Scott wasn’t here long enough to become one of them. He has no job security.

They said they would help him find a new job, but that means nothing when the district has no openings. They promised they would “speak to his strengths” if called upon as references– we’ll have to wait and see.

I’m just reeling. There isn’t a word strong enough to express how upset I am.

I just don’t see how this can happen after all the sacrifices we’ve made to make a life for ourselves here in Colorado. I keep wondering if this is a sign that we made the wrong choice. Then again, I don’t know if I believe in signs. I’m scared and worried. I’m upset and angry.

Scott is amazing. He’s calm and collected and making a plan of action. He’s not taking it personally. I know he is hurting inside, but he won’t show me right now until he knows I am OK. This is one of the many reasons why I love him. I know I need to be better so he can express his feelings, but I just can’t stop crying. I want to be better so I can be there for him. I will be better so I can be there for him.

If you know me personally, please don’t call or email me right now. I just can’t talk about it. Feel free to comment on this site, I will definitely appreciate that.

 

blizzard pictures

blizzard 07
Originally uploaded by soukii.

Here are some of our blizzard pictures I took today.

 

Our 1st Snow

Well, we knew it was going to happen sooner or later. And it happened yesterday and all last night…. SNOW!! We’ve been waiting to see what it is really like, living in the snow, before we decide how much we like living here.

Well, first of all, it is BEAUTIFUL! WOW. Breath-taking!

This is the view of our backyard looking into the ranch behind us.

Then, I learned today that Toby, the Puggle, is really a snow dog! We really thought he was going to have a hard time in the snow because he’s so little and has such short hair. Nope, not Toby the Snow Dog!

He LOVES to just run in the snow. Then, he loves to eat the snow. Then he loves to dig in the snow. The only thing he doesn’t like is to pee and poop in the snow. We’re going to work on that.

Rosie, on the other hand, not so into the snow. She’s tolerating it. But she has found a special use for it- cooling her inflamed annal tissue! She has had skin issues since she was a puppy. Since we’ve moved here, she’s been better. But she still has the habit of scooting her bottom. Her usual favorite surfaces are cement or carpet (I know, ewww, gross. I hate it!) But today she tried the snow. She liked it. At least it seems to me that that should feel good, not like the cement! Crazy dog!

The kids, of course, are loving the snow. All they want to do is play in it. They played in it with Scott for about 45 minutes yesterday while I cooked dinner, so no pictures. But the came in all wet and freezing. But they had a blast. I don’t have the appropriate snow clothes for them right now. Will get soon.

 

A Tale of Two Houses

Who would have thought it would be such drama to have two houses at once? Certainly not I.

Here’s the situation: we have our new, beautiful house with all of our belongings from California that the movers delivered yesterday that I haven’t even started to unpack yet AND we have our rental house, with all of the necessities for daily living (clothing, food, bath supplies, beloved pets, etc), the ugliest , stinkiest sofa ever (our only furniture, well, except for the broken table and chairs), and the most uncomfortable beds and bedding (Hubby says he hasn’t slept for 8 weeks) all wrapped up in a house we hate.

Today I was supposed to start unpacking. The kids begged me to go to the new house before Soukii-girl had to go to school. So I took advantage of the fact that they wanted something and bribed them with it to get their butts moving a little faster this morning. We got to spend 10 whole minutes in the house. While the kids were reveling in "new"/remembered toys, I looked around in disgust. Overwhelmed by all that has to be done. Overwhelmed that I am the one who is responsible for the unpacking, because I am the one who cares about it being done my way, the right way. Overwhelmed because tomorrow they are going to rip up the family room carpet and start to install the additional wood flooring we ordered. Overwhelmed because the flooring installation, subsequent sanding of ENTIRE downstairs wood, and then the subsequent 3 days of ____________ (… what’s it called: varnish? sealant? I can’t remember, but you know, the glossy/protective stuff applied to wood) requires that we can’t completely move in.

As if that isn’t enough, I’m the sole voice of reason in the family. The kids want to stay in the new house. Hubby REALLY wants a good night’s sleep on our mattress, so he really wants to stay in the new house. Heck, I would love to stay in the new house, but it’s not going to happen until this weekend, hopefully. It was really frustrating to have to explain all the reasons to Hubby, while he kept trying to come up with a solution for each reason. Talk about a desperate man. I was quite disappointed to learn that he hadn’t even considered some basic problems with his plan to sleep in the house tonight. I didn’t want to be the negative one, so I started rattling off some things that had to be done if he wanted it to happen. He rushed around like a mad man.

Earlier in the day he convinced me we should cook dinner in new house. So I started to get the stuff together for my planned meal of kielbasa and potatoes, then I realized it was a Pandora’s box. We’d have to bring dishes, silverware, soap, condiments, pans, seasonings, knives, milk, etc. So then I decided I’d cook dinner at the rental and bring it over to the house. Well, after I got everything together, it was time to get Soukii-girl. And then Hubby got home early. Um, why am I going to go through the trouble of packing it up when everyone is here already? So we ate in the rental house.

While I finished cooking, I told hubby we’d need everything for bedtime and morning time and school stuff. So he got kids clothing, but he forgot underwear and socks. He got toothbrushes, but didn’t know where the toothpaste should go because it had no cap. I basically had to talk him through each detail. UGH. I guess he packed fine for himself, I wasn’t about to help him.

"What about the dogs?" I asked. His plan, keep them in the house and leash them to walk them in the back to potty. "Who’s going to do it in the middle of the night, should that arise?" I asked. He volunteered. I’m thinking: "so much for your first night of rest." Can you imagine the dogs settling into their normal routine a couple hours after being introduced to a new environment? A new environment with new smells? I can’t fathom it.

"We don’t have any clean sheets for our bed," I remind him. "How bad are they?" he asks. I shrug. I can’t remember the last time I washed them because I packed them up straight from the bed 4 weeks ago. I wasn’t really concerned about them not being clean, it was more about the fact that when I make our bed, I want to do it right the first time. I want to wash the dust-ruffle, sheets and blankets, so I don’t have to re-do it later- truthfully, so that I don’t get down on myself every time I climb into bed, knowing I didn’t do that chore. Hubby volunteers for the making of the bed, so that way I’ll only be doing it once when I get around to washing it. How can he not know me after all these years??? That’s just it…. I’ll never get around to doing it right.

Anyways, several other issues came up:

Window coverings- Hubby: We’ll go to Home Depot and get the ones we need tonight, before we head over to the house. ME: Um, by the time we eat dinner it’s already 6pm, when are we going to install them?

Breakfast foods- Hubby: We’ll bring cereal and bowls and milk and spoons over when we come to get the dogs and my car. ME: after Home Depot?

Needless to say, we’re here in the rental tonight. Hubby accepted that fact at 8pm, after Home Depot, when we were at PetsMart asking about their dog runs while we bought food for Toby. He accepted defeat graciously: we got ice cream.

Funny thing is, I’m relieved we’re here, not just because the new house causes me so much stress right now because it represents everything that needs to be done, but ironically because this house, this rental that we all hate is home right now. I worked very hard to make this a home so the kids would be OK, mentally, physically, and emotionally during this transition time. Sure it wasn’t our furniture or all of our "things", but the things we needed were all here: each other.

 

Moving Exhaustion

I am so tired right now that I don’t think "exhaustion" is strong enough of a word. However, I’m too exhausted to think of a better word. And I like to spend time thinking of "perfect words" to describe things (a bad habit from being an English Teacher). That’s how tired I am.

"So what am I doing still up (it is 10:30 pm)?" you ask.

Why, I’m doing what every mom has done at one time or another- waiting for the washer to finish so I can put the clothes in the dryer, so my kids will have clean underwear in the morning! (You in the back, shut up if you haven’t! Humor me. Remember, I’m exhausted!)

We spent the whole weekend at the new house. (Side note: yeah, it is ours now!) The movers couldn’t deliver our furniture until today, and since we are buying a "former model" home there wasn’t much else to do, so we painted the garage! Fun times. It was one of those projects that made us wonder what we were thinking when we thought it was such a great idea.

Kind of like today made me wonder, "what was I thinking when we decided to MOVE." It got me thinking that moving is a lot like childbirth. If we remembered how horrible it actually was we would never do it again.

The funny thing is– Hubby and I have moved A LOT since we’ve been together. Each move has gotten progressively worse as we’ve accumulated stuff, animals, kids, kid stuff, etc. And then to get this great idea to move over 900 miles away! WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!?!?!

Well, no need to answer that. I know why we did it. Hubby and I made sure we discussed it to death. And truly, we are all doing great, actually terrific here. But in all of our discussions about money, the kids, his job, his retirement, money, the house, the weather, money, my mental health, our future, our lives, and every other detail, BIG and small, I can’t recall ever talking about what a vile, low-down, disgusting thing the actual ACT of moving is. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyways, because, like I said, we wouldn’t have remembered it accurately. We would have looked at it through those rose-tinted glasses and decided, "It wasn’t that bad. We’ll be more organized this time. How bad could it be?" I just hope, that like childbirth, in the end it is worth it. Talk to me in a month, when the dust has settled and we only have one house that we’re living out of. I just have to get there.

(Damn, that laundry is taking forever.)

 

Tomorrow is IT!!!!

We officially get our house tomorrow. Finally. It feels like we have been in this rental house forever. I know I have too much riding on this house, but not as much as DH. We are all doing well in Colorado, myself included, but things have been rough. DH and I have been super stressed about the selling of CA house and the purchase of the new house… that’s not even counting all the stress of worrying if the kids are doing well and are happy. He keeps on saying, "Everything will be better in the new house." I know that is not necessarily the case. I know a house is not going to make us happy. I have told him so. But he comes back with, "Well, at least it will not feel so temporary and we can make it our home. We haven’t been able to do that here. The kids know it."

Oh, the kids. Night time has been horrible! In CA, they both slept in their own beds without incident through the night. Once in awhile, DS would wake up in the night and come into our bed. But here, HERE, neither want to go to bed. They both stall and cry and whine. One needs to be cuddled. The other needs more nightlights (already 3!!) They don’t want to sleep alone. They sleep together… for about 2 minutes, then they are fighting about the nightlight situation- too bright for one, not enough for the other. They want more hugs and kisses from us. More stories. The TV is too loud. The neighbor’s porch light is too bright through the window. They want to sleep in our bed. The puppy is bugging them. Mommy is snoring. One’s cold, one’s hot….etc.

AHHHHH! I lost my patience with this about 4 weeks ago. I expected DH to take care of it. But he doesn’t do it right. His answer is to wait it out. Meanwhile I’m ready to jump off the roof. It has been horrible. I don’t know how the new house is going to fix this problem, other than the fact that with DS we have been talking up the fact that he gets the bunk bed at the new house in his new room. He IS pretty excited about that, but I don’t expect it to last past the first 15 minutes of bed time. DH says he’ll take care of it. Hide the ladders from me, please.

 

I’m here and I have internet

ahhh, at last, internet. Even if it isn’t working properly. I now feel like maybe this can be home. Ha, there is something sick and twisted about that.

I’ll update more about everything here in CO tomorrow. I’m beat. It only took me 4 hours to put the computer back together again and install the new dsl modem.

By the way, remind me to tell you how much Qwest sucks. (Phone and internet provider… and they want me to use them for DIrecTv and cellular- ha, not after this disaster!) Details to come.

 

Big things happening

Well, we lost our "dream house" and I have mourned its loss appropriately.

We got an offer on our house today, much lower than we had originally thought it would be, but we feel comfortable that it is what the market is determining in our area (there are quite a few other homesellers in our area who better come to the same conclusion- many houses that are considered our house’s "comp" have been on the market 75-100+ days, and many have not dropped their price, or just barely done so). I keep repeating to myself, "A house is only worth what someone is willing to pay." Of course I had already mentally spent the money we thought we would be getting.

DH has been bored out in Colorado by himself, so he has been house hunting. This is the link to the pics of the new house we are excited about: http://soukii.typepad.com/photos/engle_house/. Pretty cool. It’s a former model so it has nice upgrades. I’m not going to get too excited about anything right now. I can’t go down that road again.

Our BIG MOVE is 4 days away. How many boxes packed, maybe about 2% of what needs to be done. I even lied to DH on the phone and told him I had done an entire room already, so guess what room is first tomorrow!! It is a little easier to be motivate now that we have an offer. I’m going to use that as my motivation.

 

Commitment

OK, DH set off today in the MH (motorhome) with the cat. And he was gone. And then it hit me: OH SH**, we are really doing this!!!

I don’t know why it didn’t hit me when he got the job.

I don’t know why it didn’t hit me when the "For Sale" sign went up in the yard.

I don’t know why it didn’t hit me when we were planning how to get out there.

But, he drove off and left me alone with the kids, the 2 dogs, and the house that has yet to sell. And it really, truly hit me. We are committed to this move and there is no turning back now. Lord help me, I hope this is the right thing to do. It has to be, we are committed.