Oh, and I forgot!

I forgot to add this to my house-selling comments in the earlier post.

We met with a real estate agent who has been literally calling me for months. He calls me once a week or once every couple of weeks, so I told him when we were maybe considering getting professional help (for the house, at least. I know we need professional help in other areas. =) ), we'd give him a call.

So he comes out Thursday to check out the old house, and really has nothing nice to say about it at all, with the exception of the fact that he liked the knotty pine wall that was upstairs. The rest of the time he is saying, in essence, how bad our yard looked and how we had a lot of prep work to do to it. You know what? I know it's his job to tell us what we need to do, in regards to selling the house.... But he didn't say, "Oh, this is nice... I like this...." I didn't like him, anyway. I won't name names or real estate agencies, but I wasn't impressed. Maybe I don't need to be. However, if I was looking for a house, I'd be more into a house from someone who at least acts like they like it. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but maybe I'm just oversensitive about it and taking it far too personally.

This was, too, before we did the leaves or moved any of our stuff out of the back yard. That stuff's all done now, so maybe his tune would be different. I just wasn't feelin' it, though.

Sleep is for the weak!

Okay, so it's 5:38 a.m. as I start this post. I have gotten roughly five hours of sleep, and it's all thanks to my lovely puppy. Well, it's mostly thanks to her. Billy had to drive to Toledo last night at about 10:30, so he didn't show up until like 4:30 a.m. I woke up just enough to notice there was a weird smell going on in my house, so I asked him to check and make sure the dogs were okay. Unfortunately, they weren't. Poor Izzy is really sick as a dog. We've had to scrub out her crate twice in the last hour. I mean, I went through an entire roll of paper towels.... Anyway, my thought was to leave her in the garage with the door partially open so she could at least go outside to do her business, but Billy decided to let her in anyway. I hope I'm not looking at a round 3. My stomach is in knots already.

The old house is officially for sale "big time" as of today's paper. We put in a week-long ad in the Oakland Press, so hope to hear some news on that. We're also having open houses today and tomorrow from 2-5. Which leads me to my next point.

Did anyone pay attention to what the weather was like yesterday here in Michigan. In short, it SUCKED. High 30s, MAYBE low 40s, raining at a good clip. Just nasty. Guess what I was doing? (C'mon, you'll never guess!) Raking leaves. I kid you not. We still have leaves down at the old house. My husband is never home, and when he is, he is working on projects at the new house (which is not a new phenomenon; it's been this way ALL summer long, which is why I get angry with him at times). So guess what suffers? The yard at the old house. It looked horrible. And now, there's not much grass in the back yard. Anyway, it took a good 3-1/2 hours or so to get the leaves moved over to the driveway from the back yard and ditches. There is one spot we've not raked yet, but my guess it's not going to happen before the open house. It was horrible, though. Gordy and I were doing it, and we were soaked and gritty and about ready to pummel Billy. I still have no good things to say about him, so don't ask me right now. =P I came home and literally peeled off my clothes and put on the only thing I could (my legs were numb because they were frozen). Yes, you guessed it: Adidas warm-ups. And can I tell you, my whole entire body is sore. BUT--and this is a very big BUT--Gordy did tell me that I finally had true grit, which, if you know him, is a pretty high compliment in our family. Hahahaha.

I guess I will just go with the fact that I'm still awake and get some of my typing done. Sigh.

Please pray that our house sells ASAP. We are ready!

That's what it's all about.

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world right now, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed a few weeks ago. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey", peacefully passed away at age 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his right leg in. And then the trouble started.

God's message to me today is: You should not go swimming.

Really.

It started at 4 p.m., when mom and I decided to go to Lakeland HS to swim. We have been toying with where to swim for some time now. Lakeland has nice facilities, and is cheaper, but you have to work around gym class schedules and team practices. The Y doesn't have those problems, but is more expensive and.... well... we haven't found one that isn't at least 25 minutes from us in either direction. Anyway, to get to the point, we decided to try Lakeland to see how the pool traffic was in the evening. Driving up, we could see there were a lot of people there. Swim practice. "Come back at 6 p.m.," says the lady in the office.

We hop in the car and make a bee-line (kind of. Mom's sense of direction is off and we somehow ended up in Walled Lake vs. Milford) to the Y in Milford. We swipe our cards and peek into the window that overlooks the pool. Gah!!!! It is open swimming, but this means the water slide is on and the kids are splashing down into one of the would-be lap lanes. The ladies at the desk say, "You can swim laps in the warm-water pool!" The pool they are referring to is miniscule.... Probably sufficient to do about three strokes then turn around. No good! The regular pool is not much bigger, either. It's all very disappointing.

By this time, it is near 6 p.m., so we decide to drive back to Lakeland. We don't get lost this time, but I must say the fog was very thick and made it really exciting to drive through all the curvy roads and try to stop at all the stop signs in downtown Milford. Yipes! We get to the HS unscathed, and just decide to go for it--and deal with whatever/whoever is in the pool.

The good news is that there were two lanes open. Okay, well, one lane and the side of the open pool nearest to the open lap lane. The rest was taken by yet another swim team. We did get to swim for about 25 minutes, but by the time we were done most of the open pool was full of people trying to do laps. In other words, this was a no-go.

We got home at about 7:30. A 3-1/2-hour turnaround is not good for only 25 minutes of true exercise.

We should've taken all these things as signs that we weren't supposed to be swimming (at least not tonight), but we didn't. Now we're totally baffled as to where to go swimming. Mom really didn't want to go to the nice new Y in Auburn Hills (the one I love!) because it's so far away; now it's looking like it wasn't that big of a deal because at least they've got a sizable lap pool and you don't have to work around gym classes/swim teams/a splashdown pool.

Sigh.

To make up for this, I came home and jumped on my elliptical machine and my Gazelle for another 20 minutes. Now I am sleepy.

Saying goodbye, why is it sad? Makes us remember the good times we had.

Just thought I'd steal that line from "The Muppets Take Manhattan." Good flick, lotsa kid memories.

Well, PR preached his last sermon last night. I missed most of it because I went out to visit the bathroom, then ended up helping Chris carry in the cakes, then took Eko to the potty (yes, it was not my place, but she kept pulling her pants down in the middle of the nursery and her dad didn't understand nursery policy. It's okay.). By the time I came out and actually changed Eko's diaper, things were done and I was helping clean up the nursery--did I mention it wasn't my service?

The send-off meal was nice, and I thought I was going to get through things without being emotional..... until I hugged Pastor. I don't know if he was crying, but it felt like he was crying, and it sounded like he was crying. He said something about it having been a pleasure, and I didn't say a word. What do you say? I thought I would make it without getting emotional. Really. I almost lost it. Almost. My eyes filled up with tears, but I didn't actually cry. I mean, I guess it never hit me until that moment all the life situations he's been through with us. He was the one there when I came home from college with this devastating news that, yes, I was pregnant and not married. He was the one who counseled and married Billy & I. He has seen Hunter. We have been on many youth camping trips together. It is strange to think that he won't be there when we come back next week. I am a different person now than I was then; am I a better person, I don't know. I am most assuredly different, though. I still struggle with the heartaches from seven years ago, they just affect me in different ways now.

I made the comment to Billy that maybe it won't rain the next youth group camping trip we take. Billy thought that was mean, but I didn't mean it like that. =) And I would think that PR would probably get that. I am sure the rain curse will follow them to California.... It is his lot in life. Heh.

Don't get me wrong. I am happy that we have a new pastor and family I am familiar with and also very comfortable with. I just never could have guessed that seven years ago we would've had a pastor and pastor's family that would feel like family. People you could joke with and not feel like every moment was being analyzed. People who had struggled, and did not emit the "I-am-holier-than-thou" vibe. Good people. Friends.

I know that our new pastor (he is Mr. B to me from my high-school days, as is the reason Pastor Rod is PR) will be much the same. We will miss these family members, though, and will keep them in our prayers.