Follow your Brains.

Every year, I try to resist the temptation to make promises about how I'm going to make huge sweeping life changes. It seems inevitable that I will just break all of those promises and then suffer from yet more things to feel guilty about. Usually I just make some generalized aspirations so that I don't have any specific things to feel like I've failed at. This past year, however, has been a lot rougher than anticipated, and with the move behind us and so many new opportunities and possibilities ahead, it has been a little harder to not try to turn over a new leaf. With all that said, here are the aspirations I've made for 2019: I want to be present. My ADHD brain will definitely try to fight me on this one. I have been building up my meditation and journaling habits and am going to continue down that road. Having a cell phone (or two) on me at all times is also a hurdle and in the past I've had success in keeping them stowed, I just need to remember to do so.

Well, we did it, we finally were able to close on the house on Halloween! Of course we had to do it in full costume! (Rainbow Brite & Rainbow Dark) This past month has been a crazy mix of intense moments and we are definitely lucky to have good counseling benefits with our insurance! We did a TON of work to get the house ready for the appraisal. The first appraisal went super well and then I had my first trip back to Oregon for work 2 days later. When I got back, it was discovered that we needed a second appraisal- just due to the house being sold for so much more than the last time it was purchased. That also went well, but we ended up having to add railings to every staircase inside (although I did try to reason that we really didn't need them as we liked falling down stairs ever so often.) Finally, everything lined up and we got the details worked out for a closing. Truthfully- if I had known how long this would end up taking and what kind of emotional toll it w

Oh my dear sweet goodness! I have so much to share and so little time to actually sit down and share it! The appraisal is in a week. And I'm sure I haven't been as clear as I could be about how it came to be that we have a LOT to do before that happens. When we originally made the plan to have AO purchase the house, and our friends in Lansing do the work, we ironed out a budget that made sense for all parties. We would get the house for the amount we could afford, AO would get somewhere definitive to live (and a year of free rent) with folks she could stand for the most part and our house flipping friends would get the profit margin they needed to be sustainable. Apparently the whole budget thing, when it comes to renovations- especially on super old houses, is pretty much a pretty little pipe dream that renovators tell themselves will be something they can actually adhere to before a project begins.   We will return this to its  original glory! By creating a g