Four Days

Lots has been going on the last four days, but I think today is the day that I might get mostly caught up. A few reasons last Thursday was awful (mind you, it would not have been half this bad if we weren't so poor): paid $25 to the Dr. to tell them I had Shingles and what to prescribe, went to CVS to get the pills and the sav only to find out the pills were $13 but the sav was $65 for an itty bitty tube. I decided not get get it, got the pills (the PA told me I could take them if I was nursing) and went to the zoo. At the zoo, I read the package on the pills and noticed it said not to take while breastfeeding so I called the pharmacist and she said high concentrations of it go in the milk and it's not safe. I don't want to stop nursing and I wouldn't be able to "pump and dump" so after some convincing from Jason (after he said, "We can always get more money" he explained he meant for health costs, especially something that could affect my vision, he'd take a loan against his 401(k)), I went back to CVS, bought the sav and prayed it would stop the Singles from going into my eye. While at the zoo, I got a call saying we had to have our house in Utah unlisted for 30 days before we could get long-term financing. Fact: our loan matures Nov. 1st. Obviously we didn't have 30 days. I went to Chase and they said that is standard. I called my bank and explained the situation. By the time I called my realtor to tell her we needed to take our house off the market, I was emotionally exhausted and had a 45 minute theraputic phone call with her. She kindly told me, "It's just money." Actually, it's not just money, it's the risk of having a home foreclosed on not because we can't come up with the money to pay for it, but because of standards in the lending industry that very few people know about but them (the bank even admitted that to me). Anyway, long story short, it was all too much.

Since then, these are a few of the things we've been up to... We had our Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday night. I made Clara's Tinkerbell costume (wings, dress & shoes) with no pattern and I think it turned out just darling. Or maybe she's just darling... I borrowed some stuff from Kathryn too, so that helped limit how much I spent. It was a wee bit too tight on her belly so we'll see if I get around to modifying it before tonight. This is as close to a sucker as Clara got. Jason wouldn't let her have one and he even took this one away worrying she was consuming too much paper. Hopefully tonight I can sneak her a sucker.
One of Clara's favorite tricks is to ride the horse. I started it last week when she was super cranky and she LOVES it. I'm sure I look and sound like the biggest fool when I'm here alone with her, galloping around our house with her on my back as I nay, but she loves it, and that's what counts.

Also, we got pre-approved for our long-term financing for our house in Utah, so that is a relief. Hopefully it goes through as expected. If not, we have a willing co-signer, but the last thing I want to do is bring someone else into this disaster. Once it gets finalized, we will know just how poor we will be. Now, we are poor with the anxiety of not knowing how poor that is, so actually knowing will be better. Now we just need to keep bugging people to get it done. I was so frustrated yesterday realizing we were on the brink of foreclosure with this home and it wasn't because we didn't make payments, it wasn't because we couldn't come up with the money to make the payments, it was because the house still isn't done and now we are in a huge pickle of trying to buy (literally) just a few more weeks to get financing. If the house had been done months ago, we could have converted to long-term financing, saved thousands of dollars and not felt the stress of the crunch we're in now. So there appears to be a small light at the end of the tunnel