TheRESTofUS

Check my previous post if you're looking for new Noah stuff.
This one's on the "rest of us".

We have been in Htown for THREE WHOLE MONTHS now. Wow.

We are still in the apartment. We gave our "60 days notice" at the beginning of this month, and then took it back just a few days ago. We are half way thru that time and have no place else to go yet! Actually, I re-noticed them, for another 60 days, in hopes that we will have found a place by the end of this month. That's about how much time we have before the craziness of this summer starts. Currently we are taking a two week break from real estate looking. Scratch that. I still wake up every morning and check the internet/email to see what the new listings are. But we have not gone out looking at houses, because frankly we're a bit frustrated with what we've seen so far and there's not much else out there that looks worth dragging Noah around in and out of the car for 3+ hours. We're still hopeful that any day now the perfect house/scenario will drop in our inbox!

Until yesterday, we still had a few houses in the back of our mind we were watching, but on the SAME DAY all 3 of them got offers placed/accepted. (from the weekend, I'm sure). It was a "bad day" as far as houses go. We had pretty much decided to make an offer on one of them. But we are having to wait right now for the church to rewrite their 0% loan offer to follow the new loan laws, and considering our options of going on ahead on our own, without that extra money. And apparently we waited too long. The house we were most interested in was a 4 bedroom foreclosure, about 17 miles from the church in a great neighborhood with great schools. It had been on the market previously, and not moved at all, so our realtor didn't feel too rushed. It's safe to say we feel our first disappointment about a house. I'd love it if this was the last, disappointment, that is, but I know it may not be. There is quite a bit out there on the market right now, but with such a wide range of locations to choose from, and with so many determining factors....it never lines up. If we like the house well enough, it's not in a strong school (economic)neighborhood. Or we love everything about the house, but it has 3 huge trees in the backyard with no extra space for kids stuff. Or we love the yard and community but the master bedroom is tiny. Nothing ever seems to have it all! Oh, that's not quite right, there are plenty of houses out there we love, house, yard, community, school, etc....they are just out of our price range. Of course!

So. We're feeling like we're back at square one. And the clock seems to keep ticking away.

Other things in our lives?

• I'm still working PT at the tutoring place, still haven't started subbing. I got about 17 hours last week which made up for the week before, when I got only about 3 hours (spring break for the kids.) I work about 3 nights a week and Sat. mornings.
• The Beth Moore Bible Study I was attending on Tues. nights WITH BETH MOORE herself is on hiatus for the summer...bummer...but a ladies Bible Study from church has finally begun again, and we're doing the BM Esther series that just came out this year, so that's good. It's on Wed. mornings, and there's childcare arranged, so THAT'S really nice.
• Matt and I just decided to join a co-ed volleyball league at a local fitness center with 2 guys from our church. We start this Thurs. night, and it runs for like 9 or 10 weeks. We are excited about it, but hoping it's not too much of a committment! And we hope Matt's shoulder can take it. He doesn't know how to play half-effort. He's also playing in the church softball league on Friday nights. And comes home in pain every night.
• We have a few things coming up this month with youth: Pie Auction, service project, 30-hour famine. May looks slow (who knows) and then starting June we are busy. 8 day backpacking trip to CO mid of June, Gen Assembly in Orlando end of June/July, 12 day mission trip to OH in July, and Camp the first week of August. We'll take a few personal days after Gen Assembly in FL to see Vero Beach friends, and then possibly squeeze some vacation time in there somewhere. Matt also has in mind to go see his friends in Alabama who are having their first child this May...something about their annual golf tournie...don't know when that's supposed to be...all I know is it will involve 3 plane tickets...ouch...
• We are really enjoying the people in our Life Group. We have been sharing our Spiritual/Life Stories the last few weeks, and it's been great to share with each other.

P.S. Tease Matt when you talk to him about not having his Driver's License for TX yet...I can't nag him anymore, but I sure don't want him to get a ticket for it...we already got a mysterious red-light running ticket in the mail and a cracked windshield this week. TWO car issues are ENOUGH!