Updates: Still Dazed

Or confused. Or both. It's funny, when you commit to writing about your life candidly on the internet it tends to make you feel like you should stop sucking at it. Even if very few people are ever going to read what you write. The act of writing it down for your own two eyes to even peruse is inspirational in that way.

It goes something like this: Write a couple of paragraphs. Read over them to make sure you don't sound like the uneducated idiot all of your Facebook friends come across as. Start to think about what you've written. Think to yourself, "wow, this guy is really pathetic. What a joke!" Realize that guy is you. Eat a jar of Nutella and a quart of any flavor ice cream. Realize you've responded to the pathos in an overtly pathetic way. Repeat cycle. Click "post."

So after a lot of effort and time and money we find ourselves in the pathetic situation of being in square one again when it comes to finding a home to live in here. This is the result of someone not being able to read English correctly and also because our NM home hasn't sold yet.

It's really hard to own 2 homes without planning to. So when we decided to move on with buying a home here while the NM house was still on the market we were walking a fine line. Not to disclose too much about my personal finances, but I can only float two homes for so long if I'm not renting out one of them.

So when the bank initially estimates a monthly payment that is roughly 20% lower than the actual monthly payment the underwriter gets very nervous about your ability to pay the bills. So does my wife. In fact, if she were to talk to the underwriter they probably would never give us a loan. Talking to her, you'd think we were homeless. For the record, we're not homeless. We're just living 1,500 miles away from where our house was exists.

So after fighting to get into a home, winning a bidding war, convincing a bank to put its own money into a foreclosed property, ordering a trampoline to be delivered at that address on closing day, and setting up work to take care of some things on the house upon closing we find ourselves moving on. Pathetic.

In the meantime, Ben had his first campout in Ohio. It was great for him and probably the most miserable campout I've ever been on. After living in the southwest for 14 years, it's kind of hard to drag some tents out to a city park in the rain and call it a campout. So I slept at home. Then I came back in the morning and pretended I liked standing in the rain all Saturday while 12 yr old Boyscouts tried to motivate themselves to pick up and get dry.

I owe my old Scoutmaster a lot.

Also, nothing makes you marvel that the human race has persevered like listening to bunch of 12 and 13 yr old boys talk for a while. How do they ever get girlfriends someday? It doesn't say much for the fairer race that they settle for it eventually. I'll tell you that.

Then I had a birthday. Yep, you all forgot about it, you no-good, lazy wanna-be friends. I expect this from my siblings. But you guys too? Boy, I am pathetic.

Finally, we went to the first four games of the NCAA tournament. Well, two of the first four. Well, one and a half of two of them. You get the idea. Katie will add pictures to this post later I'm sure, but it was a lot of fun.

Ben and Zack crashed first and Katie took them back early. Kallie and Andrew hung on. As the  night drew on though their enthusiasm definitely waned exponentially. They were all set to watch the whole second game. Eventually, it go to the point where waiting out the last 1:30 of the first half wasn't worth it.

What that did do was expose my kids to a sport that is almost non-existent in NM. We are now the proud owners of a basketball and my kids love to dribble and shoot it just like you'd expect white kids who've never touched a basketball to do. I've failed them on so many levels. Pathetic.