Some Joy

May 18, 2012 By 2 Comments

Considering the last time I mentioned a house, we were going to wait to look for House #5, this may be surprising to hear, but we’re in escrow on House #6. Mmhmm.

Number 5 came and went and then came 6. This lovely place is down the street from what we’re calling Mold House. It’s also a million times more awesome and the BEST house we’ve seen (in about 60 total). We were more than a little surprised when our offer was accepted. We weren’t surprised at all when the inspection was fabulous. THEN…then the appraisal came back at a bizarrely low amount and the whole thing nearly fell apart with our financing. We challenged the appraisal and after waiting on pins and needles for three and a half days, we finally heard back – the appraisal was revised. The house was once again in our reach if the sellers could meet us half way on bridging the gap in financing. And they DID! Yay!

We’re not out of the woods yet. We need the bank to approve our new financing. But we’re damned close! We should know for sure that everything is a go next week. We assume nothing until then!

Amidst this house drama, Jack lost his first tooth – one on the bottom. For some reason this makes us absurdly happy. I guess because it’s a sign he’s growing up even while fighting cancer. He’s living! And he’s damned cute with a missing tooth. He has a slight lisp and has trouble with S sounds at the moment. It’s adorable.

I also had a wonderful Mother’s Day! David and Jack made me breakfast in bed and then we went out to have fondue for lunch. I loved the pampering. We had our celebration a bit early so that Jack could have fun with his dad the next weekend while David and I took off for Sonoma. I got an incentive trip through a contact at work – two nights in a resort hotel plus wine tasting, dinner, and brunch – all free. We sprung for massages, too. I felt like I got two Mother’s Days!

Life isn’t all bad right now. I’m glad I get some relief, even if it’s hard won!

Filed Under: Cancer Mom, Domesticating, Family Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Waiting For No. 5

April 17, 2012 By 1 Comment

The cancellation for our contract on the house was processed yesterday. We were willing to move forward if the sellers would work with us on a credit toward repairs, but they were adamantly opposed to budging one bit. We’re super disappointed. We spent money on the house already, we were supposed to move into it in a few weeks, we were emotionally invested…and after looking at 53 houses and making 4 offers, we were ready to be done looking. We are tired.

So now we sit back a bit and regroup. The housing market around here has dwindled and there isn’t much to look at currently. The bright side is we’ll have more time to save up more for a down payment, I guess…

Filed Under: Domesticating, Family Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Our New Fuzzy Friends

April 11, 2012 By 4 Comments

It’s not been a good week thus far. I went to three different hospitals four different times in less than 24 hours on Sunday/Monday. We drew Jack’s labs twice. And I lost count of the meltdowns Jack had.

We found out yesterday that the house we’re buying has a mold problem. We knew from the initial inspection there were drainage issues but expected those to be fairly easily addressed with a credit for closing costs. Our inspector recommended we get mold testing, though, just to be cautious, so we got a microbiologist out last Friday. Although there weren’t major problems visible to the naked eye, the air samples she took in two of the bedrooms (master & Jack’s proposed room) came back yesterday and showed that mold spores from the wet crawl space are getting into the house through the HVAC. The levels were pretty high and the heater hadn’t even been on!

The house is not habitable currently. The carpets will need to be torn out, the furnace replaced, all of the ducting replaced, and the whole place washed down and retested…oh and the drainage problem that started all this needs to be addressed, as well. If we go super cheap on everything that’s probably $9k.

In a normal sale this could be negotiated to be taken care of by the sellers; however, this is a short sale. That means nothing can be done to the house to correct these issues until escrow closes (April 27) and it will have to be done by us. We can get a credit toward closing costs but closing costs may be less than the cost of the repairs. If that’s the case, we will probably have to walk away from the house having flushed $1k in inspection costs down the drain…

If it all somehow works out with the credit covering the costs of repairs and we close on the expected April 27 date, it will likely be at least a week or two before we can get everything fixed, retested, and then move in. Waiting a couple of weeks isn’t too terrible – especially compared to losing the house altogether. We would just have to hope nothing ELSE shows up when we start pulling the place apart.

Our luck, thus far this year, has not been very good so I wouldn’t bet on things coming up rosy.

Filed Under: Domesticating Tagged With: , , , , , ,

HAWMC: Health Time Capsule

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This is my first post for WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge. If you’d like to participate, please do! You can find out more info on the WEGO Health website.

Today’s prompt is: Pretend you’re making a time capsule of you & your health focus that won’t be opened until 2112. What’s in it? What would people think of it when they found it?

My health focus right now is mostly on the mental and staying sane. My son is battling Leukemia, my husband is back at work, I was given expanded responsibilities at work, and we are moving in a month. That’s enough to make any person crazy. Luckily, I’m already there so I think I have an advantage!

In my time capsule I’d have to put:

  • A picture of my husband and son. They both help me stay healthy. It’s for THEM that I stay healthy. I simply didn’t care about my health before I had Jack and David. I want to soak up as much time with them as possible. They are my motivation, pure and simple.
  • Prozac. This depression medication is not perfect but it has worked well enough for me for over three years now with the health of therapy. It has very few side effects and I don’t feel like a zombie on it.
  • My therapist’s business card. I see my therapist weekly and have been for about two years now (I had a different therapist prior to this). I’ve noticed that when I’ve skipped a week with him, I felt ready to explode.
  • A list of friend’s names and numbers. It’s a small list, for me, but it’s important. I know there are people who have my back at any time.
  • A few of my posts at Band Back Together. That site, and my work behind the scenes, means a lot to me. It remind me how far I’ve come when I read stories of individuals just beginning their mental health journey. I love helping others who are in places where I’ve been, too. If I can help someone else avoid any modicum of the heartache I’ve dealt with in my life, even if I never know about it, that makes me feel good.

I hope that anyone who opened my time capsule would see where my focus lies. I feel that as long as I have my mental health, I can get through anything. And when my mental health isn’t so good, I have resources and people to help pick me up and carry me through.

Filed Under: Getting my groove back, Issues Tagged With: , , , , ,

Where I’m Complainy

March 29, 2012 By 5 Comments

Jack is being a total pill lately. I’m not sure if he has been saving it all up for when things with his treatment weren’t so intense or what but it sucks! Sometimes it’s a matter of snapping at us or demanding that we not say certain things (tonight it was “googly eyes”). Other times he won’t pick up after himself and defaults to “my legs hurt.” It makes it difficult to tell when he is really not feeling well and when he is just trying to get out of something!

This is weird territory for us. I know many of the medical professionals we’ve seen have mentioned to me that discipline should still be in Jack’s life but, oy. Who has energy for discipline on top of all the cancer stuff? And how do I even tell if he’s just being a little jerk or really not feeling well? One minute he’ll dash into his room and the next he is crawling on his knees to the bathroom.

Lord knows I’m not at my best, either. Fatigue has more than caught up with me, it seems. I’ve taken more than my fair share of naps lately. Hopefully I will ‘catch up’ soon.

I have one more complaint before closing out this sorry post. :P It’s become much harder to share the CaringBridge site with Jack’s dad. Aside from it seeming that he has more and more been using the site as his personal blog instead of Jack’s, having that much insight into what goes on when Jack’s at his house is driving me bonkers. I worry constantly that Jack does too much over there and Jack’s recent attitude problems haven’t helped relieve that fear…especially since Jack has been spending more time there since he’s not in school and David is back at work. I have to keep reminding myself that I can’t entirely protect Jack from his dad’s shenanigans – I can only teach him how to speak up for himself – and becoming a stay-at-home mom is not the answer (although it sounds more appealing on the days when Jack isn’t being a jerk to me…).

Alright, there is my bitch session. Time to put the kiddo to bed!

Filed Under: Cancer Mom, Domesticating, Parenting 101 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Doing What I’m Doing

March 28, 2012 By 3 Comments

There is so much going on. In fact, my therapist suggested I’m doing too much. To which I heartily answered YES! I would love to do less! Unfortunately I don’t have that option. Welcome to my life, sir.

David started his new job this past Monday. So far it’s going great (I think). We’re trying to get some sort of routine going and rearrange schedules with Jack going to his dad’s and our dog going to doggie daycare in the mornings and then hanging with me at work in the afternoons. That’s been interesting! I’m having a bit of a hard time adjusting to seeing Jack less and seeing the dog more. :P

Things have certainly heated up in the house hunt! Saturday morning a house popped out of escrow and back on the market. Since it was in the school district we wanted and the neighborhood we had already had our hearts set on, we were all over it (even if we had put an offer on another house a few days earlier). David went to the open house on Sunday and when he got home and told me about it (I had been out with my friend Beth getting a much-needed pedicure), I decided I had to see it ASAP. I couldn’t reach our real estate agent (she was in a meeting) so I called up the agent listed on the flyer David had brought home and made arrangements to see the house that evening.

When we drove up to the house, my eyes widened as I recognized a guy I work with playing with is kids in the front yard of the house next door. Of all the houses we’ve looked at (52 or so) in all of the Bay Area cities (7!), we pull up to look at a house next door to a dude I sit 10 feet from at work? Furthermore, he has two boys, aged 6 and 8 who wanted to show me their airplane right off the bat. I am so looking forward to Jack playing with these kids.

The house itself is great. It’s not flashy but it’s comfortable and more than meets our needs. There are things in it that we all can enjoy! I’m super excited about the indoor laundry room and the fact that it has air conditioning. I haven’t had air conditioning in over 10 years! David loves the view and the double oven. Jack will likely be a fan of all the kids his age on the street and the fact that he gets to ride his bike in the partially paved backyard.

We put in our offer immediately and by the next evening we found out we had a house. WOOHOO!

The inspection takes place this Saturday and we move in a month. I’ll get through this by remembering all the hell we’re avoiding by getting out of our current residence! And the much shorter trips to the hospital with Jack. And the extra room so that we can actually have family and friends visit. And and and…

Jack health has been good and for that we are thankful. He did start into his next mini-phase and that is affecting his mood quite a bit. He’s had some serious meltdowns lately. Mood swings aren’t a noted side effect of the two chemo drugs he is getting, so I’m thinking it has to be a combination of fatigue and body aches making him grumpy. Between weakness and achy bones, he’s crawled to different rooms of the house on more than one occasion. Our Case Manager said we may want to think about physical therapy. It should be interesting trying to fit that in!

I know I’m doing too much (I have the fatigue to prove it) but can’t seem to find a quiet moment these days. I need a pause button on my life…

Filed Under: Cancer Mom, Domesticating, Growing Up

Coming Down the Mountain

March 19, 2012 By 2 Comments

So, it seems I got a mild concussion while (attempting) skiing. Also I hurt my trapezius muscle so my doctor gave me  a prescription strength anti-inflammatory pain killer to help with the neck/shoulder pain. I think next time I go to Tahoe I’ll just head straight to a massage therapist rather than up or down any mountains.

The house hunt continues. We put an offer in on an awesome house in our ideal neighborhood and were outbid. I’m feeling a bit heartbroken over that. It helped me get over it (slightly) when the listing agent came back and asked us for a higher bid “in the 420k range” and when we asked for clarification, she came back with $440k. Um, lady, that is NOT the 420k range. Further, you’re insane mkay byyyye! So we are still looking and feeling pretty dejected at this point. I think we’re up to 43 houses viewed now. The market has stalled so it feels like we’ll be stuck in our shitty rental forever. Not fun! A few people have said inventory will pick up in spring; I surely hope so.

Between those things above and my incredibly stupid idea to try to gradually reduce my anti-depressant intake…I haven’t been doing well. Luckily I realized it fairly quickly and did an about-face with the med plan. It will take a little bit of time for my levels to return to normal…in the mean time I am trying not to get too down about all the stress and craziness (including our broken washing machine, our broken heater, and the lack of a suitable house to escape to).

With that said, things are looking up. David accepted a job and will be starting next week. YAY! We’re very excited! We so needed that change of luck!

Filed Under: Domesticating, Marriage

Feeling Okay

March 8, 2012 By 3 Comments

We didn’t get the house we put an offer on. I’m not upset about losing that particular house – it was a good deal but we didn’t LOVE it. In fact, we’ve seen two better ones since. Unfortunately neither of those is in our grasp, either – we apparently like to pick popular houses. So the search continues…and searching for a house is NOT fun – especially when you see things that you fall in love with and cannot buy!

Other than the frustrating house hunt, things are going well. David actually got two job offers today, even while two other companies were waiting to interview him. Craziness! He’ll be signing the offer letter tomorrow. Woohoo! We are very excited over here!

Jack’s been in decent spirits and has been tolerating his medicines well. He only has 6 days left for one of the meds we give him and then we’ll only have to give him the antibiotic (he’ll go to the clinic for his other chemo treatments). Now if we could only get a break from dressing changes! Although, those seem to be less horrible each time (knock on wood). I hope it stays that way!

I hurt myself skiing last weekend. We went to Tahoe with some friends and stayed in their timeshare. It wasn’t until we were headed there that I realized it’s been ten years since I skied last. And unlike my trips in the past, I didn’t have a refresher training booked. I hoped it would all just come back to me and to some extent, it did. That didn’t happen before I exhausted myself, though. I took a three hour break, then decided to head out again and THAT is when I fell. I fell pretty fantastically, too. Skies, poles, glasses, goggles…everything went flying in a million different directions. I hit my head, my shoulder, and I don’t even know what else. I was dazed. I tried to rally because I was near the top of the run and I knew I had to get down so that I could be DONE, but when I got myself together and got up again, I fell again. I admitted defeat when an employee came by and asked if I needed a ride down the mountain in a snowmobile. The snowmobile was absolutely terrifying, too. Going downhill at a rapid speed without a seatbelt SUCKS. I never want to do that again! In any case, my neck is still recovering after the fall and it’s not so much fun.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m sure there will be more soon as my life never seems to slow down (and that’s not MY fault at all!). I’ll have a new project to unveil to y’all soon!

Filed Under: Cancer Mom, Domesticating

Stream of (barely) Consciousness

February 21, 2012 By 1 Comment

House craziness aside (because, let’s face it, it IS crazy that we are trying to buy a house right now) I’m super behind. I came home tonight determined to do laundry…but I haven’t started yet. I DID put some things in the laundry basket – including some items that we brought home from the hospital over a month ago. Like I said…behind. I won’t tell you about the sheets on our bed…

It’s not completely my fault. I mean, there’s the cancer to blame. And also the fact that our washing machine isn’t working properly. I could call our landlord, probably, but who has time for THAT? Also, have you MET our landlord? He’s as hands off as they come. The roof on our shed out back caved in long ago and we’re too afraid to go out there because of the mold, anyway. Oh and let’s not forget the (poorly patched [sorry, honey!]) hole in the ceiling of our kitchen nook…that must have happened 2 years ago now.

But I can’t just wait around, avoiding laundry until we move into our new house (right?). That’s at least a month away (if we get the house – right now I’m tearing through loads of paperwork looking for David’s tax return from 3 years ago…). I’ve been through all of my back-up clothing and Jack’s moved on from pants to shorts. I need to get my ass in gear. I need to use that washing machine regardless of the fact that the spin cycle doesn’t work!

Instead I am sitting here drinking a glass of wine and writing…

Wanna hear something weird? (No? Oh well!) David had pretty much stopped looking for work to focus on Jack and school. And then a recruiter found him and he had his third interview today. AND then we heard that Joe has an interview this week – after a year of unemployment. So now we’re in a weird position. We were looking at dual unemployment as somewhat of a blessing because no one had to take family leave and miss out on half their income. And, really, this should have been a fine plan because the economy still sucks and there haven’t been job bites in ages. But then jobs just popped up out of nowhere!

When will this feeling of living in backward land go away? What alternate reality am I in that my son has cancer, we’re able to buy a HOUSE in the Bay Area on one income, and jobs fall out of the sky?

I’m pretty sure we’re going to see a zombie apocalypse soon.

If not, I’m just gonna put it out there – I could really use a new washing machine.

Filed Under: Cancer Mom, Domesticating, Parenting 101 Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

We May Have Found A House

February 20, 2012 By 4 Comments

Tomorrow we very well may be putting an offer in on a house. I am freaking out about it just a bit. It takes me so long to decide on how to spend a $25 gift card at Amazon…now I’m looking at something in the $300K range so…yeah. All the questions like, “What if something even more awesome comes on the market after we put in our offer?” are running through my head. I hate missing out!

The house is awesome. It’s located in the East Bay and cuts our hospital commute down by about 20 minutes each way. It’s a 3 bedroom 1 bath house with new EVERYTHING. And I mean everything – roof, electrical, carpet, appliances, heating system, furnace, grass…the house was completely redone under a program specifically for moderate income buyers. The backyard is gigantic. When Jack saw it yesterday he ran around outside – the first time I’ve seen him run in forever. The house is located on a street named after a constellation – how perfect for our Jackonaut.

Jack declared that he wanted the big room with the door to the backyard. We dashed his hopes and he quickly decided he didn’t like the house as much. :P We’ve since let him know that we would build a back door just for him and he’s perked up again.

We came home to San Francisco and starting gathering the rest of the paperwork needed to put an offer in. They want everything – including Jack’s birth certificate – to ensure that we are truly in the moderate income category. If David was working right now rather than enrolled in school full time and staying home to care for Jack, we’d be over the income limit. The timing on this is pretty incredible.

We may not get the house. There may be an offer better than ours or a family deemed more in need than us. In the mean time, we are trying to wrap our heads around the fact that we might be homeowners very soon. Holy crap!

Filed Under: Domesticating Tagged With: , , , , ,
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