Silence and Snot

Our Realtor called a little while ago, sounding subdued. She said, "I really hesitate to even articulate this offer because it's so low; however, part of my job is to pass on any offer that comes in."

She hesitated and then said, "The client made an offer of $130,000."

Yup. You did your math correctly. That's about $25,000 less than our price which we had already cut to a level lower than we can really afford. Talk about letting the air out of our balloon. I felt so sad and disappointed.

I doubt that a counter offer is in the works, because she's so extremely far out of the ball bark that even a counter offer would be horrendously low.

So. There you go.

In other news, we will tell our church family tomorrow about my upcoming surgery. I'm not really looking forward to that. On Wednesday night, we had our weekly staff meeting ; Steve asked if I wanted to share the news or if I wanted him to. I told Steve that I would do it. However, when the time came for me to say something, I teared up and couldn't get a word out. And as they all prayed for me and with me, I just sobbed.

As soon as we got out of staff meeting, I had to pull myself back together to teach my Wednesday night class. I dried my eyes, powdered my nose and at 7 pm, was up in front of my class. Although I didn't feel like I was at my best, at least I was holding it together.

At least I held it together until the end of the class when it was time to take prayer requests. After a few people had spoken up with their requests, I opened my mouth to start to give an explanation of what was coming in my life. I was fairly calm for all of about twenty seconds and then I was done for. Even before the tears took over, though, Steve had already gotten up from the front row to stand beside me.

I dribbled off into silence and snot (wouldn't that be a great country song?) and once again, he took over the unhappy task of giving our church family the news. The people in my class came up and gathered around me and prayed, and once again, I cried and cried.

And now we come to Sunday and our main church service where a brief announcement will need to be made. Since I seem to be completely incapable of talking about the subject without dissolving into sadness, Steve will be the one tell the congregation. I will be sitting safely on the second row beside Sarah, holding Kleenex with one hand and Sarah's hand with the other.

I never thought this kind of news would make me so so emotional so that I cry at the least provocation. Sometimes I even cry with no provocation at all. (I guess I'm just trying to stay in practice!)

Once again, I want to say thank you to all of you who have been so dear to us during these past days. (I can't say you're "near and dear" to us, because most of you are thousands of miles away.) But your words and prayers and comments have buoyed my spirits in ways I'll never be fully be able to express.

I've also gotten some wonderful cheery things in the mail, which I'll write about later.

For now, I just wanted you to know that the house is still unsold, and our housing future is still a little uncertain. Cancer surgery and a house crisis, all in the same week.

Are we having fun yet?

An Offer!

We just heard from our real estate agent. The lady who had narrowed her shopping down to our house and a fixer-upper got a wee bit nervous when she realized that there was a Realtor's Open House at our home today which brought in a lot of traffic.

And so (drum roll, please), she called and cancelled the appointment she had with the contractor to look at the other house and is in the real estate office right now putting together an offer.

Which is fabulous news!

Unless, of course, she decides that she really wants a ridiculous bargain and offers less than we can afford to accept. (We're already selling the house for $15,000 less than we paid for it five years ago and still have to get together a down payment for the new house.)

When she looked at the house for the first time 6 weeks ago, it was higher priced than it is now, so hopefully she will remember that little bit of information when she puts together the offer.

We're so excited! We should hear something for sure later today, or by Monday at the latest.

Soggy, Saggy Sedentariness

Okay. Here’s the thing.

Although no one has said anything, some of you may very well be wondering, “Is this going to turn into a cancer blog now? Is Becky going to write incessantly about mastectomies and crying and breast surgeons? Is she going to become a Cancer-Obsessed, Oblivious-to-the-Rest-of-the-World Blogger Type Person?”

Nope.

Smithellaneous, in its usual format, will continue. There will be tales about Snowy, stories about the College Dude and Princess Groovy Chick, wacky missives about life at our house, recipes, photographs, humorous pieces, and a few vignettes that might even make you cry.

Yes, I am going to be writing more about cancer now than I have in the past. Because what I do at Smithellaneous is to write about what life is like at the moment—whatever that may be.

And right now it consists of the challenge of adjusting to cancer. That’s not so much fun. But I am not going to let it take over my life—or this blog. Although the next few weeks may indeed be a bit cancer centric, there will be plenty of other things to write about, too. Because life goes on. Cancer or no cancer.

For one thing, I realized just this morning that my one-year anniversary of starting this blog is Sunday, April 11. Can you believe I have written 424 posts during that time? Me neither.

I’ve tried to think of what might be a good way to celebrate the one year anniversary, and the only thing that came to mind is that it would be fun (for me, at least), if you would sign in over the next several days and just briefly mention one particular post over the year that you especially remember. Even if you don’t know the exact title, you could just give a brief description of it.

We writers are always (pathetically) eager to know if anything we’ve written has stuck in any ones’ minds, or if our sweated over, agonized upon choices of words just sail away in the breeze after they’re painstakingly committed to the page.

So if you could humor me and chime in on this anniversary project, it would mean a lot to my stressed little self.

And speaking of stress, one of the best stress busters that exists (apart from chocolate, of course), it to take a walk outside. Now I must confess that my natural inclination is not to put on my walking shoes and head for the great outdoors. No, my most natural inclination is to stay inside—near my computer, my comfy chair, and the soggy, saggy sedentariness that makes up my life. However, I have a husband who is my own personal “get up and walk” coach and he knows that most days, a walk is exactly what I need.

And so I allow him to drag me out the door, spluttering the whole way and muttering in toddler like tones, “But I don’t wanna.” (And I might even throw in a little foot stomp like a toddler would do, too.)

However, said husband doesn’t seem to think that “I don’t wanna” is a legitimate excuse for non-walking and so he asserts his husbandly authority and tells me to get my rear in gear. (Except he says it nicer than that.)

Thankfully, we live less than a block from the town’s walking/bike trail, which runs 8-miles, the whole length of the island.

When I was unceremoniously dragged outside for our most recent walk, I took the camera along to try and dilute my walking misery a tad.

Since Steve loves vehicles of all shapes, ages, and sizes, he thought he would pose for a picture in front of this interesting truck we saw along the way. (I was tempted to caption it, “Sarah’s First Car” but thought you might not believe me.)

Classic truck. Classic guy. (The guy has aged more gracefully than the truck.)

Here are a few lovely sights from along the Smith Trod Walking Path.

This driveway is especially interesting because it leads to Andy Griffith’s house. We walk by his house every day but so far, he hasn’t invited us in for a glass of tea. Which is a good thing. Since I hate tea.

There now. Don’t you feel more relaxed and de-stressed, just looking at those lovely pictures? For the fullest effect, though, you need to set the computer in front of you and gaze at one of the pictures while walking in place.

Doesn’t that sound fun? (I didn’t think so.)

Well, I’m going to sign off for now and get on with the lovely day that is stretched out before me. Steve and Sarah are in Smithfield all day, doing the last of the last minute “house stuff.” That means I have 10-12 hours all to myself, which is lovely beyond measure. And to make life even better, it’s been raining all morning and for me at least, there are few things better in life than getting to stay inside (alone) on a rainy day. I have no doubt you can hear my “ahhhh” all the way from here.

And the best part about today? My wonderful spouse is not home to indulge in any husbandly haranguing about the need for me to take a walk.

I can be walk-less today! I can stay home! I can eat chocolate! I can fully and joyfully engage in soggy, saggy sedentariness.

Happy day.

New Design

Well, the new design is finally up! (In case you didn't notice.)

There are one or two changes I'm still going to make, one of them being to have orange as the background, instead of the light taupe. The overall look just isn't quite bright enough for me. Plus, it will be a nice feel of continuity from the old design to this one.

But it's finally done! What a relief!

House Update 2

Our Realtor reported back to us on the lady who saw the house today. The agent actually didn't have to do any work at all, because the lady's daughter was just walking through the house saying, "Oh mom! I love this and I love that and isn't this feature great?" The daughter is already sold!

However, there is a house ten miles away that is 800 feet larger than ours, but much older and in need of a lot of renovation before it can be moved into. This woman is going to get a contractor to do an estimate as to how much money (and time) will need to be invested before it's habitable. I'm assuming if she isn't happy with that answer, our house will be her choice. We will have a final answer in a week.

House Update

There is a new post below this one, but I wanted to pass on some breaking news.

Yesterday, two people looked at our house. The first family loved the house, loved the price; however, they wanted a downstairs master bedroom.

The second family loved the house and then proceeded to offer $15,000 less than our already slashed-to-the-bone price. No can do.

But the exciting news? Today a woman is coming back to look at the house again, after having looked at it six weeks ago. She has narrowed her selection down to two homes: ours and another one a few miles away. She already has her financing arranged and doesn't have another house to sell before buying another one.

Maybe it will help her decision making process that our house has been marked down even more since the last time she saw it.

These pictures were emailed to us yesterday by our real estate agent so that we could see what she's been doing to try to move the house.

I took one look at the pictures and burst into tears. (I'm a bit weepy in general.) I just loved that house so much and feel like we're putting a "friend" up for sale. Sigh. As hard as it is, I just hope the friend sells soon. I'll keep you posted . . .

By the way, my new blog design should be put up today . . . or tomorrow at the latest. Finally!