New Year Update

Nearly four months have passed since the foreclosure, and life has gone on. The bank finally sold the house, closing last month for $232,300 according to county records. That is almost $20,000 less than the last offer we had ready to close, about $40,000 less than the original sale price when the house was build in 2003, and $150,500 than our purchase price in 2006. Talk about falling prices...

Mr. Four Walls has so far weathered this late fall and early winter with relatively no down time at work, save for a few hours off here and there for the holidays. That is huge for us, since the last four years around this time, we've been faced with a temporary lay-off. Some that didn’t feel so temporary.

I have started working part-time teaching gymnastics to preschoolers and lower levels, mainly to pay for our eldest’s competitive-team coaching expenses. Jellybeans's heart is gymnastics, and she has really missed it these past couple of years as we cut way back to get our financial life back on track. We let each of the older kids choose one activity to join this fall, though, and of course she went straight back to it. Literally. We expected her to need to work back into it, to regain some skills lost, but nope. Her first day they bumped her to pre-team and within a month they had invited her to the competition team. The gym has had some help-wanted signs up for a while, so I threw my name in the hat, and "Voila!" I'm a gymnastics coach. It’s a work out, I’ll tell ya’! Nothing makes you feel middle aged faster than doing repeated forward rolls, hand-stands, and cart-wheels.

The kids are growing like weeds. This school year has been a bit better for them, as they are no longer the new kids, but I also can't say it's been ideal. Jellybean in particular has still struggled to make good friends, making her involvement in positive, outside activities like gymnastics and Girl Scouts so important. Miss Florida is become really close with one neighbor girl, and seems to be thriving. Peanut is almost unrecognizable, becoming such a little kid instead of a baby. Potty-trained, sleeping on the lower bunk of the bunk beds, the works. Sniff, sniff. Not sure I'm ready for it....

I am so thankful to be home again. Granted, they've driven me batty these past few weeks on Christmas break. But that's what they do, right? It's Christmas, after all. It's back to school tomorrow, so hopefully we'll all be back in the swing of things in a few more days. With only one real income, we're not ever really sure where the money will come from for the next month, but so far we've made it work, only by the grace of God I'm sure.

Life has  come full circle. It's not all wine and roses, to be sure, but we are blessed, healthy, and happy - just like we were this time last year, but with a bit more perspective and experience to recognize it.

Happy New Year!