get ready! the search is about to begin...

so today . . . a bank decided they could trust us with some of their money.

this is a good thing, because soon we are going to have to move out of the house we have lived in for the last ten years. since rollie has a new job, he isn't the pastor of our church anymore. and since our church owns the house we live in, they are probably going to need it for their new pastor. eventually.

i'm going to have to live in a tent in the park...

we have known since the beginning of the year that we were going to have to move, but it just seems like circumstances have been conspiring against us. rollie had to move to a new office, diandra got married--in las vegas. rollie has been out of town 4 or 5 times. i had lesson plans to write and report cards to do and pre-k evaluations and parent conferences... and the list goes on.

whenever i had a little extra time, i would look at houses for sale online, but i was pretty sure i didn't have enough money in my bank account to buy one. we finally managed to find an afternoon to go talk to a realtor, but that was as far as we got in our search for a house. because she said we really needed to know how much we could spend before we did any looking (duh! well, she didn't say 'duh,' but i sort of think she was thinking 'duh'...) which meant filling out paperwork. which took time... time we couldn't seem to find.

i'm sure there are some nice parks where we could put a tent...

our realtor had planned to be gone for a month on vacation in march and april. she was worried that we might have to move before she got back. but we have a little time to work with here, and besides, we hadn't done the whole bank thing yet. so we told her it was ok--we would just wait for her. a month should be plenty of time to get a loan pre-approved...

and then it was time to do the taxes. and you know how that went... and then suddenly it was time for our realtor to come home--could she have possibly already been gone for a month?!?!? and we still hadn't connected with the bank yet.

i'm starting to really think i might have to live in a tent in the park...

i was worried about the whole bank thing. housing is not what you would call reasonable here in southern california. and we have two dogs that need a yard, and two convertibles that need a garage, and some storage space for all the stuff i can't seem to get rid of (although rollie assures me i will be able to get rid of some of it when we move. he says he will help me. i can hardly wait...) and i am worried we won't possibly be able to afford all of that. so this whole loan pre-approval thing has been torturing me. but our realtor is coming back tomorrow. and really, how can we tell her that in all the time she was gone we hadn't been able to find a few hours to do our paperwork?!?

i was afraid that is exactly what we were going to have to do. and then, miracle of miracles, rollie did it--he got the paperwork filled out yesterday. he faxed it to the bank, and today they said YES! they would love to loan us some money!

of course they would. for a fee. a pretty hefty fee, actually, if you figure out how much interest we will ultimately pay...

rollie is excited. i am a little sick. because now that we have the money, we have to find a house. can you imagine how many decisions are going to have to be made??? that we are going to have to agree on?!?!?!? and the pressure of choosing a house to live in until we die (which is our plan--we never want to have to move again!) and what if, after spending enough money to feed a small country, and moving all our worldly possessions (well, the ones that escape rollie and the dumpster,) we find out that the neighbors hate dogs? or that the back yard floods when it rains?? (that could be 4 or 5 miserable days every year!!!) or that "the last people who lived in that house let all the neighborhood kids swim in the pool whenever they wanted to!" (hey, we could have a pool! the realtor says houses with pools in cerritos are actually cheaper...)

maybe a tent in the park isn't such a bad idea. we already own a tent...