Oh, Hai.

Hello, my poor little neglected corner of the Internet.  Yes, I do believe I dropped off the face of the earth there for a good 2 1/2 months.  I come armed with lots of good reasons.  I'm going to try to make this a short version, because I am suspicious that the long explanation I felt was needed was part of the stuff bogging me down and preventing me from starting back up again.

In short:  my last post before this one was April 10th.  We closed on our current home on April 26th.  For the two weeks after that post, I packed like crazy and lived in a bare bones home while a.) teaching kindergarten full time b.) single parenting Monday through Friday.  Most nights I would force myself to pack up until midnight after Sam and Anna's bedtime, then get up at 5 am to start my day all over again.  The week before we closed, we had literally next to nothing in our home- no beds, no TVs, no dishes.  I slept on an air mattress and the kids and I ate out every night.

Then after we sold our house, I moved into a friends apartment to finish out teaching the school year.  She was going to be mostly gone during the month and half that Sam, Anna and I stayed there, so it worked out well.  It was fully furnished so we just had to bring toys and clothes.  I also started to focus on applying for a new teaching position for the next school year.  Although I thought things would get a little easier  for us once the house selling was out of our way, it didn't because I was spending evenings applying for jobs with long online applications and working on tying up the end of the school year for my current students.  I was still solo parenting Monday through Friday, while teaching kindergarten until June 7th.  Throw in a little bit of drama with trying to buy a house in our new area, and I had absolutely no extra time for anything.

After that, I ended up having an interview (4 hours away from where we were currently staying, of course) on the last day of school for my current class, but still had to be back to work the following day.  Stressful on top of an already stress-filled and emotionally charged week with saying goodbye to my students and co-workers on top of prepping to move again.  I did not get the position, nor have I gotten one since then for next school year so I am still carving out time to fill our massively long applications online. That's where things stand on the job front.

The weekend after school ended for the year, we packed up our things and left the state we had lived in for the past 10 years and uprooted Sam and Anna again.  This time (since we had not gotten our home we had been attempting to buy since March) we moved in with my parents.  Originally we were going to stay with my in-laws, but after some last minute drama, we had to change that.  (In other words, my step-father-in-law was a jerk and decided he wasn't okay with that anymore. My husband had been staying there Monday- Friday since January 1st, and he was over house guests.)  So THEN, all of us moved in with my parents in their small one bathroom house which is where we've been for the last 2 weeks. But on the plus side, our 6 months of my husband living Monday-Friday in another state and me on my own taking care of our kids during that time is OVER.  That certainly ranks in the top three hardest things I've ever gone through.  #1- still infertility for 3 years.  #2- uncontrolled reflux until 6 months old for twin babies #3- solo parenting twin 2/3 year olds on my own without family support while working full time in a challenging career.  Never gonna agree to doing that again, I tell ya.

On the house buying drama front, we are still trying to buy the house I originally posted a photo of in March.  It is a short sale and has been quite the process.  We have almost bailed several times, but we both love that house, feel like it is supposed to be the home we spend Sam and Anna's growing-up years in and are trying to be patient.  We have not seen another house for sale since December that we like as much or more in our price range.  Really, it is more house that we should be able to afford.  The latest information we have is that we should be able to close in July, and are in the home stretch of the process.  So that's why we are still homeless and staying with my parents.  I just can't let that house go when we know it will be ours as long as we are willing to wait for it.

After having most of our stuff in storage since the beginning of April, I CANNOT WAIT to be unpacked and settled again.  Sam and Anna have not seen most of their toys for months, so I'm sure it will be like Christmas for them as they see everything come out of boxes.  Until then, I have been trying to keep us all busy doing lots of things out and about, since the few toy staples we have with us (and grandma's toys) have gotten really old by this point.  The long winter we had (snow in mid-May!) did not help matters.  Where we used to live was a smaller city area, and now we are staying in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.  The great thing about that is that there is limitless opportunities for things to do with small children.  That also means I rarely have time to hop onto a computer unless to check for new elementary teaching positions or to apply for jobs in the evening.  Plus, all these changes (along with daylight lasting much longer each night and the typical challenges that 3 year olds cause!) mean that sleep for my duo three year olds has been less than stellar so I can not count on much time at naptime or before I go to sleep to be on the computer either.

So that's where I've been, what we've been doing, and why I've been absent for so long!  I'm hopeful that this current waiting period we are in will allow me to carve out some time to post about some of the things we've been doing to keep entertained in the past few weeks!

It's Been a LONG Time

Woah Nelly- In the 4 years I've been typing out words on this blog, I have never been absent from blogging for that long before.  It was not my intention, and certainly not my plan, nor do I want to intentionally quit blogging.  Life has just been a whirlwind like never before these days.

Around Sam and Anna's 3rd birthday we got an offer on our house.  It had been on the market for just under 3 months and in that time we had over 20 showings.  I guess the 21st time's the charm, in this case.  I now truly get the phrase: cleaning with toddlers (preschoolers) is like brushing your teeth while eating oreos.  Utterly futile, but yet I managed to do it mostly on my own 21 times.  My husband is still working a state away and "living" with my MIL Monday-Friday.  I am on my fourth month of single parenting twin three year olds 5 days a week while full time teaching kindergarten.  But we are no longer trying to sell our house! 

Our closing is near the end of April, so instead of frantically cleaning, I am now trying to frantically pack in every spare moment I have.  Which is none.  So it is more common than not that I force myself to just pack one box before midnight on a work night before I get up at 5 am and start all over again: getting the two three year olds and myself out the door before 7 am, teaching all day, and then coming home to do the typical stuff on my own.

For awhile there, it was kind of up in the air about what I would do and where the little ones and I would live after our house wasn't ours anymore at the end of April.  The decision was made for us to temporarily live with a friend until the end of the school year (for about a month and a half) to finish out the year.  This way, I can keep my paychecks and insurance all the way through the end of August even with only working up until June 6th.  However, it also meant that since we would be staying in a different town, we also needed a short term new daycare for the month and a half.  I think we finally have a solution that will work.  A parent of one of my students (who I trust completely) offered to watch them for me.  I hope it works out well and the transitions to a new place and new sitter go better than I think for Sam and Anna.

On top of getting an accepted offer and closing on our current house in less than a month; packing, still single parenting M-F, and trying to figure out what to do after our house sold, we went on a trip to Kauai, Hawaii for a week.  This trip was planned last fall before the interview and new job offer; before deciding to uproot our family and move out of state.  This trip was our 10th anniversary present to each other, and incredibly needed after the crazy year we've had so far even if the timing was poor.  Before last week, we had only left Sam and Anna for one night at the same time, and I had only been gone for two nights (with Daddy home at the time.)  We were gone thousands of miles away for 6 days.  Although I missed them immensely, I tolerated the distance a lot better than I thought I would.  It was a perfect way to recharge my batteries for the marathon I'll be going through in the weeks ahead.

(In Kaua'i, Hawaii last week)

Just because we felt like there wasn't enough going on, the morning before our flight to Hawaii (a 12 hour trip), we looked at a house that I had been eyeing, in the area we would like to move to since we were both in the state together.  There had been others that I wanted to look at in the past month or so, but got accepted offers before I could road trip all the way over to see them.  We didn't want this one to slip through our fingers too.  We promptly fell in love with it and its potential and made an offer on the spot.  (It has a pond in the backyard with a dock! I drool over the kitchen!) The next day's traveling consisted of calling our Realtor during every layover trying to work out the details so we could have an accepted offer before our week of vacation truly began.  It was a very stressful 24 hours and totally not the way to begin a vacation, but by the time we woke up the morning after we arrived in Hawaii, we had an accepted offer on our new house!  It is a short sale, so it might take longer than a traditional sale to close (the seller's bank needs to approve the sale first) but that's okay for now because the kids and I wouldn't move into it until June 7th at the earliest anyway.  We have some time.

(The house we have an accepted offer on)

So that's the craziness that has prevented me from blogging lately.  In short: we have almost sold our house, we are packing most of our stuff into storage and moving in less than a month (to a temporary location first), we are in the process of buying a new house, we went to Hawaii for a week, and I am still single parenting my twin 3 year olds Monday-Friday while teaching kindergarten.  On top of all that, 2 years old was a breeze compared to this 3 year old stuff.  I am trying to be very understanding; after all they are going through the same chaotic transitions along with us - but at the same time, I wonder where my sweet, helpful, cooperative, good listeners went some days.  Overall, I cannot wait until summer days are here again and we can settle into a predictable, slower routine once more.  I think we are all looking forward to that.