I woke up this morning dwelling on how I want to live somewhere else…how I think it would be better to live in the cohousing development a friend of mine lives in, as everything’s new and energy efficient and the whole community takes care of all the little things that we ourselves cannot seem to handle as independent home owners in this run-down house we currently own. Thinking how I’d like to move…thinking how I’d like to get the hell out of Fresno…thinking how I wish things could be different…Pricing homes in the San Jose area (oh yeah, RIGHT!! good GOD they are high, even in this crappy economy!)…looking at how little our house is worth currently (less than our mortgage, like so many houses these days)…wondering when the market will be better, and thus enable us to sell…thinking about all the crap that needs fixing around here…realizing we’re stuck with this place for some time to come…
Then just now I thought…you know what…things are truly going better lately…I need to stop dwelling on what we don’t have and look at what’s actually going on and revel in the GOOD. That’s really really hard for me. I do tend to be an optimist…but when it comes to life in general, I get really bogged down by all my what-ifs…all the dreams of a better life.
So I’m going to force myself right now to look at the facts…we are stuck in Fresno right now. And its looking like it will be quite some time because we couldn’t sell our house right now if we wanted to. We’re not ready anyway…but the fact is that until its worth more than our mortgage again…its just not worth even thinking about because we canNOT afford to lose all the money we’ve put into this place! So I am going to stop, for now, all the dreaming and googling of a better life elsewhere and make do with where I’m stuck…and think about all the good that’s been going our way lately…
I have the kids in a fabulous homeschool charter program that is REALLY going WELL! For the first time in our homeschool career (and I’ve done this since day 1 with both of them…neither have ever been in school, always been homeschooled…) I am actually feeling like I’m getting in a groove and things are going WELL! With just a little bit of accountability I have started turning into the homeschool mom I’ve always wanted to be. I’m not completely there yet in the sense that I have a lot of tweaking still to do…but I really am feeling like things are going well. And while its not super-happy-fun every day…everyone is adjusting well and we are not fighting day and night about what needs to get done…The kids are mostly cooperating (still some struggles but surprisingly less than I had anticipated) and I am mostly staying on the track I’ve set.
Also, since Maeven’s birthday party, when we cleaned the HELL outta this place…we’ve managed to maintain a lot of the neatness. Not all of it…but we’ve kept on top of dishes and a lot of the clutter. Kids are doing better about clearing their spaces at the table and so are the grownups. And Adam and I have slowly gotten into a dish routine that is working. Adam actually initiated it and its really been a wonderful surprising change in how much he’s helping around here lately! Makes our lives a lot easier. This has been a difficult thing for us…we’re just not good housekeepers. I think it just does not come naturally to some people and we are just that kind of people, sadly. So, even though we still fall behind here and there…we are doing WAY better than we ever have, so I’m quite happy about that!
Also, we made a decision to do our damnest to not eat out…and I’ve actually been menu planning and, for the most part, sticking to it. We ran out of money to buy all the ingredients on our grocery list recently but I am making do with what we have and trusting that the money will come. (Still don’t have a clue how we’re going to pay for Xmas, but trusting that will come too). So this has been a HUGE change, as we all know how much I HATE HATE HATE to cook, and all the things needed to lead up to it (plan, shop, etc).
So we are doing really good. I hope I didn’t just jinx us by writing all that but I really needed to do some thinking about how things are looking up around here lately. Kids have even been doing chores more often, yay! 🙂
Well, I must now go and get our morning started as we have a lot to do today.
Leave a Reply