Twitch, twitch ... Rock

Oh! Hello. Were you talking to me? Sorry, I was just rocking in the corner and noticing alllllll the pretty colors! Do you see them? No? Well, that's probably because you're not on your last frayed nerve and wishing you could swim away like a dolphin. Blink, blink.

Humor conquers stress, right? If so, then I should be hired immediately as the headlining comedienne. It's my coping mechanism, but I think even that is failing.

The house saga continues. The hurdles just keep coming on buying our house. Just when we think we're almost to the finish line, more hurdles get thrown into our path. On Thursday, we started all over with a NEW lender. Yep. No joke. The first one has been yanking us all over the place with not meeting deadlines, promising and not delivering, disappearing and not calling us for days on end. Our offer on the house was accepted on July 22nd for God's sake! A 203K rehab loan is more complicated, yes. It takes longer to close, yes. But this is ridiculous. We're lucky the sellers have been patient and keep signing on extensions, but they're losing patience. Well, yeah. So are we! I'll leave all the myriad details out which led us to this point, but we decided to jump to another (better known) lender. In doing so, we got a better interest rate, lower monthly payments and a *promise* that they can close on the house by mid November. I really don't believe anything anymore, and that's what's bringing me down.

~ I want this house so bad, it scares me. ~

It's much more than getting 'A' house, any house. There is so much more behind it. It represents so much to us, to our lives, to the process that got us to this place. I'm not going to go into that, but there it is. I've tried not to put too much weight on getting this house, but I've obviously failed on that count. There is no logical reason it shouldn't all turn out okay, but ... we all know things in life don't always turn out the way they should. Maybe I'm just worn down by all the delays, possible lies and funny-business on our lender's part, the whole arduous process of this kind of loan. I don't know. But I am worn the HELL out and feeling ground to a paste.

I really try to keep my personal stuff off of here because it's my refuge and escape. But, I've pulled away from most people in my daily and personal life because I just cannot even talk about "what's happening with the house?" anymore. I'm crying, nauseated, not sleeping, not breathing right. Poor Jim has had to deal with me alternating between crying, shouting and staring into space. At least I'm still eating and cooking. If that stops, we'll know we're really in trouble! With all this stress, I really should have lost at least ten pounds by now, but ... well, not so much. Wine has become a food group.

In OTHER news ...

~ The rains have finally returned and, in a weird way, it's comforting. Maybe the familiar sound of heavy October rains will set my little world back on its axis. But then, I've been accused of having magical thinking. It's been freakishly dry in the Pacific NW since August. I mean - dust clouds, huge fires on the west side of the Cascades, brown fields and 20 degree weather in September just do not happen around here. Yesterday was the first rain in 70 days here. I fell asleep to frogs croaking beneath the bedroom window. I'm sure they were grateful for the water. It made me wonder ... what do you call a dehydrated frog? A fraisin? What does a parched froggy do when it doesn't rain? Or the salamanders, for that matter? These are the things that keep me awake at night.

~ Tomorrow is the first meeting of the group I formed, on a whim, last month - Urban Farmers. I think 12 are attending the plant, seed and harvest swap. There are 32 members in the group in the first 3 weeks. Huh. Who'd have guessed?

~ If I had my way, I'd be in Europe right now. I'm usually there at this time of year and I'm really feeling the pull to flee, as you can imagine. I'm running out of ingredients, miss my friends, want to go to my favorite haunts, write more on my novel in the place where it happens and just ... be the ME I am when I'm there. It's hard feeling like you belong in two countries. Overall, it's a good thing, but ... it hurts, too. A constant ache for the other, but never totally immersed in either one. It's a difficult thing to explain. I guess the only thing I can do is ... finish writing my book, get it published and then buy a studio apartment in Germany or Italy and live in two worlds. Yeah, that'd work!

So, that's the story from here. After writing this, I think I need to spend some time in the kitchen, in my art room, outside. Try to leave aside the daily worries and be in the moment. WHY is that just about the hardest thing to do? It sounds so simple, but it's so not. The best way I can do that is to engage in mundane pleasures and focus on tactile things. Cooking ~ Colors ~ Textures ~ Nature ~ Pen on Paper.

I'm going to go slather butter on some turkey parts, turn on all the lights in my art room and see what I create and play some mellow music. Wish me luck ...