It's so frustrating

New Phone

I think now that I have a new phone blogging is made a lot easier. I hope you hear a lot more from me.

I wrote that probably around Thanksgiving and now it's after Valentine's Day. 

I would be under exaggerating in saying life has been crazy the last few... MONTHS. 

First: Jack accepted a promotion and move to Fort Worth and then found out his start date two weeks before he would be starting.

Second: We have been living in a hotel Sunday night through Thursday or Friday since mid November. 

Third: I got a gym membership that I love but had to abandon for a while as we wait for our home to sell which by the way has been on the market since mid October. 

I love my gym membership. It's with the YMCA and they watch my children for an hour and a half while I take a class and shower. It is awesome and I will continue to go when we finally get moved up there.

I had minutes to friends there and each have a girl Betty Jane's age one will be having a baby in April and the other has an almost 2-year-old boy so it's perfect. 

P.S. I hope I get used to blogging on the phone quickly

Ward Halloween Party

We as a family don't usually dress up for Halloween.  It's not for any particular reason other than laziness.. we don't really celebrate it, and I don't ever really think of anything.  And last night I wasn't really planning on it till about 2 hours before the party.  I got the crazy idea that I could whip something up on the fly.  I nursed Little Brother and put him on a nap then got to work on rolls (lets not forget yesterday WAS my birthday).  Then I started thinking about what I have and what we could do.  I thought ok I could do an 80s workout instructor... I don't have tights, leggings, OR a high cut bikini leotard so that was out. Then I remembered that a while ago I bought eye lashes.... and this is what happened.

Honey and I were Rockstars and Little Brother was our Bulldog body guard.  It wasn't amazing but it was fun and Hey, Honey had a mohawk.  It was awesome.

GoodLooking has been gone since Sunday night when he left for Fort Worth to start his new job.  It hasn't been terrible but I don't know that I can do it for very long.  It's hard to to keep the house in show condition or close to it ALL. THE. TIME. I miss my man and the kids miss dad.  I bet they'll sure be happy to see him tonight.

Our Wish List

I decided to list the dream home 

Before this week I was dead set on not going over 130K BUT having looked at the options and looking at more options online, we aren't going to find what we want in that range so I think we are bumping it up 10K.  That is a lot but I am talking things like a close park, safe neighborhood, and decent home.  Not things like granite, fancy flooring, and huge bedrooms.  You will get the idea with the list I am sharing.

MUST

3 Bedrooms/2 Bath

1700 square feet

walking distance to park

safe neighborhood

resale possibility (cause lets face it, we are geographically unstable)

good sized kitchen

younger than 1960's

sunlight

WOULD LIKE

4 bedrooms

2,000 square feet

close to Lockheed

2 living areas

ceiling fans

no shower pod

AMPLE sunlight

younger than 1990's

No previous pets

No smoke house

Things we can upgrade to help resale

I am pretty sure there is more but this gives a pretty good idea right?

Finding

Lockheed also provides a realtor in the location we are moving to.  We met him a week ago on our "House Hunting Trip".  We've been looking at houses online since GoodLooking officially accepted (and by that I mean he signed a paper committing us to at least a year and giving up his choice of start date which in the end we waited I think 3 weeks for them to tell us then it was less than a month away. First bite of stress right there).  We then decided on a weekend to take the trip and we each came up with a list of houses in our price range that we liked and then we narrowed that down to 15 or so.  We left Lufkin with that list and when we got there, only 8 were available to look at (meaning they weren't already under contract).
Our realtor is nice and shows us any house we want to look at (as long as it isn't under contract).  Not that that isn't something that all realtors do... It's there job but anyway.  GoodLooking wasn't excited about him the first day because the realtor wasn't open about telling us about neighborhoods or giving tips or tricks but the next day he was a little more open and he is ok with him now.
On that first day we went to a house that GoodLooking really likes and so I convinced myself it would be perfect so we called the realtor but he told us that it went under contract late the night that we looked at it. UGH

The trip wasn't wasted though because we got some good "alone" time (we did have Little Brother with us), found neighborhoods that we like, Honey spent time with Oma, and we got to eat at a GREAT fancy Brazilian restaurant.

New Things

GoodLooking was offered a new position in Fort Worth.  It is a promotion that comes with a raise and a move.  Four hours northwest.
He had the interview quite a while ago over the phone and it was a position that someone had told him about.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??
Moving obviously.  That comes with selling our house, finding a new house, packing, hotels, storage, money, sadness, stress, travel time, and with the holidays just around the corner I am going to add even more travel.

Selling our house.
Lockheed is paying a lot of the costs with selling and buying but with that, they provided two choices for selling realtors and one choice for buying realtor.
Selling They sent over two realtors from two different companies.  B came on Monday.  She was supposed to come in the morning but it was kind of raining so she rescheduled for 2 pm.  She showed up around 2:45.  She took pictures and talked to us about her game plan and then left after promising some things.
American came on Wednesday on time (we bought our home with American).  She walked around taking notes then talked to us about her game plan then took pictures.  We were initially more impressed with American but when I found out that the B realtor was the one contracted to sell my friends' house and only showed it 4 times in a year and then when she switched the new realtor sold it in a few months, we were definite on the one we would choose.
American also turned in the report as soon as possible while the B took a week.