The 13th Apostol

I am Officially Pretending To Own My Own Home!

Yes by golly Internet, I signed, or  rather initialed all 27 official documents this afternoon. But the gist of it is this....
If I so much as expel gas incorrectly during the next 30 years of my life on this large spinning mass of bank-owned property called  Earth, I'll be starting a Nomadic Blog called: "How-to-Effectively-Parent-Your-Gypsy-Kid-Within-the-Bounds-of-Societal-Norm.com"
I am not in denial about who actually OWNS the damn house, in fact it feels phony saying "I just bought a house" to anyone who will listen all afternoon thank you very much.
Because there's no way in hell I could have pulled this one off alone. No way. Too many people were involved in this, so many...so grateful.

Now the work/fun begins...

The Beach

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach -- waiting for a gift from the sea.

                                    Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Hot Flash # 62

"Why haven't we been getting any mail?" I asked Mer Boy this afternoon, as if my nine year old (almost) son would have an answer. I do this way too much, the asking of questions and thinking aloud in his presence.
He's quite adept at tuning me out by now.
"OH MY GAWD AL!"

Okaaay, I WON'T go see if Chelsea can play.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I completely FORGOT!"
Forgot what? 
...I HAD THE MAIL FORWARDED BECAUSE WE WERE MOVING!
So, let's just go over to the new house and get the mail.
"We can't, there's no mail box. There's a slot in the front door."
...Oh...sooo can I go see if Chelsea can play?

Xanax with a 'Z'

Soooo...
I'm sitting here with my life in boxes, minus a few pieces strategically placed to resemble a home, ready to close on the house, when the feds change their ...their, whatever it is they changed. I'm so confused by all this.

My first loan app expired, so my lender had to update my file. Sometime during the last week the government changed the credit requirements for loan approval, kicking me out all together.

No shit.

Soooo...here I sit in boxes, I already said that didn't I? Do I have any idea what will happen at this point? No. Do I have faith it will work out as it should? Yes. Is it 100 degrees in this God forsaken state? Yeppers.

I'm not worried, maybe I should be, but I've just been through too much to let this make me crazy. It will either happen or it wont, buying the house.
If need be I'll lease another year, more inner city. Save gas to school.

Here's the deal:
I wasn't on a bridge that collapsed, and I'm not trapped in a coal mine...my life isn't bad, it's just a pain in the ass.

I have a house full of sprinkler-drenched kids armed with balloons and chicken nuggets. Neighborhood plus mine, and they're in the moment. Kids this age don't know any other way, do they?
Not a bad way to live really...

   

Balloons, nuggets, and living in the moment with a script of Xanax...plus 5 refills.

Garage Sale 'o' Rama...Mama!

It's official, were having a garage sale this weekend...jesus (little J) what have I gotten myself into?? It's the kids really, wanting to experience what I'd just as soon Freecycle away.

I owe them this experience after all my barking to "Get to work on Mer's room" so now we have half the living room boxed up ready to relocate, and the other half ready for procurement.

Last night the copywriter in me reared it's ugly head, and in an instant was back in school stunning my instructor with my quickness and witt...Oh that I'd ever progressed farther than the learning institution of my youth!

Translates to a wicked-cool Craigslist addy here.

See, I told you I was really doing it. Maybe it's not all that safe to have my address here in bold print, but it wont be my address for long...whatever. Come say hiya and buy some old damn windows .

The $5.50 Nap

I slept through Harry Potter.
Took the kids, because I'm super-human mama, to the one o' clock showing at Penn Square yesterday, and sometime during the previews fell fast asleep.
This is a sure sign I'm just completely exhausted, feeling like I'll never get us moved all by myself.
If it weren't for seeing Texasgurl firmly planted in London, I 'd have a doubt or two I could make it across the housing edition.
I think I'm just so drained from all of this, the chaos of having your home in shambles, not knowing where anything is, and having to keep this stupid smile on my face for Mer-boy...

Maggie tagged me to play, but... I've forgotten HOW to play.

So last night, The Mer stayed the night at Sidney's house next door. I was alone and my mind started to do that thing it does when it's alone...
What if I had a wonderful man to do this with? What if I didn't have to do it all myself, the moving, the raising of the child?
What if, I could feel excited about life, feel passion again? What if I wasn't so exhausted I got to see the movie too?

Then, because this is what happens when I'm alone with the "What if's"...I began to cry... and cry, and cry, and cry, until my pillow, because I'd taken my melodrama upstairs by this point, was sopping wet, and the cat was looking at me strangely.

Then, I was crying because I don't have the money to color my hair, and the gray is far more of an issue now than just roots.
Then, I've been running again for over a week now - and see no difference in the fit of my clothes...A WEEK.
Then, I knew I'd made a terrible decision about the new house - it was the wrong one.
Then, the reality I'll never have another child. I'm POST menopausal at 42.

How can I be buying a home, if I can't afford to COLOR my HAIR.
How can I be doing this all by myself?
How, will I ever get on top of my demons long enough to see the universe as it truly is?
Without myself, at the center.

How I Came To Believe, I Know Nothing

Have I mentioned I don't qualify for down payment assistance? Nope, not a cent.
Why? Well, I'm gonna tell you WHY...
I do not qualify for down payment assistance because the home I'm buying is in too nice an area. Community Action Agency wont help one bit. Their funding is meant for areas that are in need of homeowners.

The reason I bring this up, is the HQS inspection of the Adobe/Greek Revival was this morning. HQS stands for Housing Quality Standards if your wondering...I like it when I sound like I KNOW something. "Yeah, the HQS blah, blah, blah..."
I know nothing.
Here's how I know, I know nothing:

The troops arrived enforce, my worker from the Assisted Homeowners Program, My Realtor, and the "HQS" Inspector.  We all stood around waiting for one of the owners employees, a guy named Reggie to arrive with the key.
Reggie is his name, yet Reggie is white.
I don't know why this bothers me, except it's kinda like me having a little girl and naming her Latifa...beautiful name, but sacredly OFF LIMITS.

So white Reggie arrives with keys. All I could think was the house would fail miserably based on my previous experiences with HQS inspectors. It DID fail, but only by a few easily addressed items. My worker kept saying under her breath "GIRL...you done GOOD"...followed by "GIRL, you really done GOOD" and then "GIRL. GIRL. GIRL...YOU DONE really GOOD"

Apparently she had to bust three contracts so far this week, due to the DEPLORABLE conditions of the homes...imagine that?

So back to the down payment assistance thing.
The price of the house has been raised to cover my costs, buyers costs they call it.
My Realtor David, is also The Patron Saint of Dwellings, and SOMEHOW has come up with my down payment, so I am virtually buying this home with nothing up front.

Here's where I get goose bumps.
If you'll recall I was physically on my way (as opposed to telepathically) to sign a contract on another home. You know, the one with the gas station and main thoroughfare in the back yard? That one.
And I saw my friend in the parking lot/used car lot of the now out of business neighborhood grocery store that CVS bought out the lease on.

I stopped to say hello, because I'm friendly when I want something, and my friend buys and sells property...'hello' seemed reasonable considering my circumstances. He asked me what I was doing, because that's how Okie's greet each other:
"Hey!"
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"I'm on my way to sign a contract on a house."
"You are? There's one for sale across the street from me"
"I haven't seen a sign"
"There isn't one"
It was at that moment I knew, even before I'd seen the house, I knew I was in one of those eerie Rod Serling moments, where you know beyond the shadow of a doubt, YOU'RE RIGHT WHERE YOUR SUPPOSED TO BE.

No, it's not The Twilight Zone I'm thinking of, it's one of those Michael Landon or Della Reese shows...Highway Angels or something along those lines, but anyWAY ...I left my friend to survey a 03 Ford Bronco and drove by the house with no sign in the yard.

All I could do was laugh out loud and say, "No Universe, do NOT do this to me. This isn't even funny. Your giving me what I've been searching so hard to find for the last two months, AND it's a house I've driven by thousands of times and thought "What a cool house. "Universe, your going to make me stand up and back out aren't you?"  (the Universe didn't answer, in case you were wondering) though I probably wouldn't tell you if it did.

 

These events all rolled up into a little cosmic ball of energy PROVE I know nothing.

Wish in One Hand...Sh*t in the Other

I can't get motivated to finish packing...
I'm like an addict telling myself "Tomorrow, tomorrow it'll be different." Then of course it happens all over again upon awakening.

"I'll pack some after I've had my coffee", turns into "'ll pack some after I run", which is inevitably followed by, "I'll pack more after breakfast, (lunch, and dinner)

Part of the problem is I don't want to leave here, but then you all know this already. It's painful and scary, thinking about leaving someplace that's been so good for both The Mer and I...for something unknown...and unremodeled, is that a word?

So packing is saying I'm OK with all this, which I am NOT  by any means. But for the boy I am...EXCITED (yeah right) and THRILLED (sure) to be going on another fucking adventure...please let this be the last for a while sweet Goddess of everything maternal! (which is the only holy for me now)

I keep asking myself, how I'll ever love something covered in dark wood paneling...it's like a red-headed step child, can I truly LOVE it, deep in my soul, enough to make it MINE?

So here I've sat, for the last week. Not really packing anything more, just in a packing stupor if you will...alone, save for The Mer and the gaggle of children we'll leave behind. All asking the same question of me, with probing eyes like aliens unsure of my intentions..."WHY are we leaving, and WHEN will it be happening, and WHO will be living in YOUR HOUSE?

I am the bad guy, regardless of the grown-up circumstances involving things like money, space-time-continuum's and taxes...it's my fault. I'm breaking up the pack and I must face the consequences.

When did I slip from my little girl skin, into this too-big-for-me-skin of mother? We moved so often when I was a kid, I never learned to have friends, be a friend. Just as I'd make friends with the neighborhood kids...you know the rest. Now here I am doing to The Mer what was done to me.

I wish I could have bought this house for him.
I wish I didn't have to move him into a Cinder-ella house.
I wish I could get paid to fucking write.
I wish I could write without 'fucking'.
I wish I could buy The Mer a Wii...to make up for, of course...being a bad mudda in too-big-for-her-skin.

If I Were A Faerie...

I'm having buyer's remorse and I haven't even bought the house yet.
I don't see any way I can afford home owners insurance. These shysters want upwards of $200 smackers a month to insure a home that CANNOT burn... against FIRE.
Two hundred smackers to insure a home that could withstand an f5 TORNADO... against HIGH WINDS...
I mean it whole heartedly when I say...WTF is this world coming to, when a fire resistant home costs more to insure BECAUSE it's fire resistant???

"Replacement value, blah, blah, barf"

I've never had insurance. I mean, well...the LIABILITY kind yeah, cause you kinda have to. But nary the big guns kind.
Loss of limb and stuff.
Never have I had renters insurance, because I've never had anything worth replacing...or so I figured, until the last several days worth of ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS MINUTES SUCKED OUT OF MY FAT ROLL OVER ACCOUNT.

Insurance people, the salespeople, persons. They enjoy making you feel like an idiot for never having had coverage before, then they give you a hefty DISCOUNT as a result.

Every quote was relatively competitive with another company, it wasn't like "Joe's Insurance Shack" really hooked me up or anything. It made me so sad I decided for ten straight minutes not to buy a house.

What's happening here is this:
If I cruised on over to the hood and picked up an urban blight for $49,500...I'd have no trouble affording the INSANELY HIGH INSURANCE PRICES, based on the fact I am a SINGLE FEMALE, and I have no credit.

Credit I will never be able to obtain this late in the game WITHOUT owning a home. Can ya see what's happening here?

The home buying process reminds me of one of The Mer's PSP games, where you make it to one level and think your safe, only to find out there's some hidden chamber somewhere you didn't know existed.

If you kick seventeen monsters asses, achieve all 42 levels without getting destroyed, are able to morph into the right character at the right time...then and only then does some magic wizard hand you the keys to your new home.

A year ago I was all "It's a MIRACLE, yada yada!"...
Today, yeah maybe, but it's also a helluva lot of work.
If it weren't for each of you cheering me on in your own way, I'd have quit a long time ago. So thank you, and please don't leave me now!

On a lighter less neurotic note:
It's that Magic time of year again...
The Mid Summers Eve Faerie Ball is tonight.

OK-lahoma Where the Wind Comes Sweepin' Through The Isles

The Seller signed the contract yesterday.
I don't even know what to say anymore, this home purchasing thing is more emotionally taxing than having a child. The commitment thing.

I have no business being a home owner. I don't have the money to fix my car, and I'm buying a house. A HOUSE? This is nuts. I should rent a nice apartment, and continue to let others take care of all the grown-up stuff.

I have way too much crap by the way.
Way too much to fit inside this.
What have I done?
I live in Okla HOMA for Christ's sake, not some Mediterranean village.

The Greeks Invented Adobe

I swear to Yawei, we, way, whatever...once I get moved and set up,
this blog is going to explode all over the net.
This is the last time folks, that our lives are going to be uprooted in this manner.
Now I believe I just bought a house, a concrete house that looks something like these do.

Not really, but it feels that way.

Yassou!

Smoking and Signing (not the deaf kind)

I'm smoking my rear end off...(hey, that's an idea!)

Really difficult day with the cigs, and um, OTHER things.
Oh yeah, I signed a contract on The Bunker today.

I must be the only parent alive who sold their kid on a house by saying "But Al, it's tornado proof dude!"

Working Through the Grieving Process

I haven't started packing anything. It's impossible to pack a house when you don't know where your going or when.
Trying to leave the place "put together" so it can be shown, which hasn't been often thus far. When I start to break down a house in preparation for a move, it usually resembles a tornadic event of f3 or higher.

They've only shown the place 3 or 4 times total. She's asking too much in my opinion. If I was spending 125K on a house, I wouldn't want to have the added financial burden of having to replace all the windows. Huge turn off.

It's not the same style of the other houses on the block, so it sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison.

See that window in front of my Pathfinder? That's my office. I love my office, and will miss it dearly. It has everything I've ever needed. It's perfect.
I'm so grateful we got to live here for the last year, it put me in a different mind set.
One I don't want to lose by living in the hood. That's why I'm trying to buy a concrete house right here in Mayfair Heights, so I don't have to don that mental armor again.

All I really need to be happy, is a room of my own (view is negotiable) and a place to create with my child.

These are what the other houses on the block look like. Very Colonial, well coiffed lawns. The legendary style Mayfair Heights is famous for.

The one to the right sold for $110K a little over a year ago. It's gorgeous inside.

Maybe she'll get what she's asking, or maybe it will sit here for months after I move, until she drops her asking.

Honestly, and I've said this before at some point, but had I been pre approved for $125K, I don't know if I'd have bought it. Not with what $125K could buy me elsewhere.

What a load of bullshit that is, of course I'd buy the house.
But I know the neighborhood, know how great it is living here. Potential buyers do not. I wish I could tell buyers how enchanting this place is. If I was selling it, I'd have sold it by now.

I just hope very cool people (with kids) buy it, so my very cool neighbors will have new very cool neighbors to take our place.   

 

Casa de Bunker

i DON'T WRITE POSTS, i JUST PLAGIARIZE FR...how bout that caps lock huh?
I just plagiarize from Facebook.
I can't think anymore, the long lost ability to formulate written word to comprehend (see?)
Combined with Mer-boy being out of school for summer, at an age when NOTHING is right. I simply can do nothing to please his majesty The Mer. Life itself is hideously unfair.
Wasn't this supposed to start when they were teenagers?
He turns nine in August people.

My Realtor will make an offer on a house for me tomorrow. The anxiety is perhaps more than I can stand. The house was literally dropped in my lap, on the way to sign a contract on another property.

The house, if one can call it a house, is more like, well...a bunker.
A concrete bunker (w/ central heat and air).
Not just the external walls either, but the inner dividing walls are concrete.
Foot thick, steel reinforced, poured concrete...walls.
In a concrete house.
Even the roof, is concrete. Flat, concrete...roof.
On a concrete house.
The garage, you guessed it...concrete.

On the outside it appears to be your everyday, run-of-the-mill, contemporary home.
My limited knowledge of the property and it's owners, tells me it was planned that way. The house was meant as a fortress, right down to the facade of a chimney one could take aim, and cover from at the same time.

Built by a wealthy Oklahoma oil man directly preceding "The Bay of Pigs", nothing on the house has been updated or remodeled. (How?)
It has dark wood paneling throughout, is small and ugly as sin, but I'll be darned if it's not right here in our neighborhood at a price I can afford.

This may be the biggest mistake I've ever made my life...
but at least I wont ever have to worry about getting kicked out of this mistake.

One Pill Makes You Happy?

Up from 25mg. to 50mg.
Can Zoloft make the unacceptable acceptable?
Can Zoloft make me OK with having to move away from the safest neighborhood in the city? Back to poverty.
Can Zoloft do this?

In memoriam.

Of Avocado Seeds, and My Reason For Living

But not too ashamed to post this:

This is a gorgeous house (click for additional images), they want $69,900 for.
Why so little? Well let's put it this way, my ex-boyfriend was murdered five houses down...in 1987.
One can only imagine what the last twenty years have done to this fine area of Britton Oklahoma. (At one time an actual town, now annexed)

I drove by the property just to see. What the photograph doesn't show is what's going on AROUND the house.  I don't care how much money one dumps into a remod, you can't change the fact the next door neighbors still have their Christmas decorations up.

I didn't say LIGHTS, I said DECORATIONS, as in a reindeer and a big red bow on the top of the garage. Crap, just tons of crap all over the street, at every house but a few. Cars fill the driveways, and line the street in the middle of the day.

Which means one of two things: Either everyone on the street is financially secure and need not work. Or everyone is living off public assistance, smokin' up those cash benefits.

My self esteems in the crapper, but mainly because I let myself get hustled again by a landlord...AGAIN. Twice in the same year.
Where I thought she was being kind and generous helping me take occupancy last August, I find out she was just avoiding having to pay an additional $1,000 a month on her homeowners insurance due to vacancy.

No one does anything out of the kindness of their heart, there's always a pay off, especially if one's an Attorney. Yes, I'm really this gullible.

Yesterday, I found what may turn out to be "The One".
Except I think I've put my Realtor in a padded room somewhere, as I've yet to hear back from him going on two days now.
I have a tentative appt to see the property at 6 p.m., but what's the point if I don't have the 1% down, necessary?

I can't afford to fix my main seal, and I'm gonna buy a house? OK.

So I pick up my reason for living from school yesterday, like always Al bolts out the door and into my arms, this day saying:

"I have a special surprise for you, but it's way down in my backpack so you have to wait until we get home!"

Thinking about the last surprise, looking at it right now as I type. A dehydrated Avocado seed, neither one of us knew what to do with, but it made a great little sound when shook.

Once home, or "The Over Priced Marketed Property Previously Known as Home", Al dumped the back pack, running to the kitchen with his hands behind his back.

"Close your eyes" he demanded.

"OK now!"...

Emotional Price Tag...Priceless

I am ashamed I wrote the last post.
Ashamed I have become so ungrateful in my fear and pain.

The truth is:
I can't afford this house, couldn't afford the bills from the first month, but kept dipping into savings.
Which ran out after Christmas.
Truth is:
I wanted so badly to succeed, I failed.
I want so badly to win, I'm losing.
Believing if we were here, in this house, in this neighborhood...
the past might not hurt so badly.
I might be able to forget the five years spent fighting for my children...
Here, no one would ever guess one was missing.

Truth is:

We were normal here, except for being broke all the time trying to afford normal. Normalcy, at least in my limited experience, comes with a very high emotional price tag.   

A Woman of Substance Lives HERE?

        MLS No: 288057

Here's one for you.

Click on the picture to show additional images of the property.
I think they tried to get creative with the texturing, er...paint, whatever it is.
It's their choice of color that stuns and amazes me mostly.
In searching out the perfect domicile for the boy and myself, one thing I've noticed is people don't have a clue how to dress up a piece of property to make it's finer points stand out. If it were me, I'd have passed on uploading a front image of this one.
Not to mention the ghastly photo's most Realtors take...just check out Realtor.com for yourself. I could take better pictures with my phone and a flashlight.

Yesterday, I broke.
Admitting to God/Goddess/Flying Spaghetti Monster, that I was spinning my wheels, running a muck, and controlling the situation into a potentially BAD situation. I'll never find a house while I'm comparing every house I see to ours. There is no comparison, not in my price range.

It's called getting into acceptance, of things being just the way they are, BECAUSE. Something I've always done with grace and dignity...eh hem.

What aches my heart, what hurts me personally, because so much of my pain is around my child's loss, but my personal hurt has to do with the self worth, self esteem and dignity that's returned from living in a nice home, in a nice neighborhood again.

Now, I know you'll say "Your self worth shouldn't be tied up in where you live, it's about your relationship with your creator" and then you'll say "Self esteem, true self esteem, doesn't come from external things."

To which I reply "Hooiey!"

Even if I'm wrong children, I have no desire to be a woman of substance, with wicked self esteem, living in THAT.

So there.

I sound like a spoiled f*ing brat.

If I had a BMW, I'd speed of down the street.

"That's Life!"

Click for additional images       

I haven't seen inside it, but it's seriously two blocks from the drug infested street
we came from three years ago. Hey, it's in my price range!

I'm afraid I wont be able to buy a house for Al, not and keep him safe.
Learning about property tax, and what that means, learning about price per square foot, learning I should have married that attorney ten years ago...

The Owners buddy, who's acting as her Realtor, placed a for sale sign in the front yard while we were at church on Sunday. Something she'd promised she wouldn't do.
All the kids in the neighborhood were out playing when it happened. Poor little guys, damnit.

The owner then leaves me a voice message about how she hadn't gotten any calls on it in two weeks, the Realtor was a pro and was going to do whatever it took to sell the property, and she ended her message with "That's life".

(Then she got in her BMW, and sped off down the street)

The urge to request her knowledge of "Life" came over me, but I called on my lamaze technique from years past, took an estrogen supplement, then went out to pull HER weeds.

Realityville...0 Miles East of Crapollaville

I met with my Lender yesterday for 2 hrs.
She helped me to understand just because I'm approved for 90K, doesn't mean I can AFFORD 90K. This is really hard for me you guys, having to take Al back to the hood if I want to buy a home. The hood is the only place you can find a house in the price range I'm looking at.
With mortgage insurance, homeowners insurance, taxes, etc...I'm facing around a 65K home, which if you can FIND any that cheap, means they're smack dab in the middle of Crapollaville.

On a lighter note...the Dandelion-weed-thistle-thing is taller than Al!

This alone should increase property value by a couple of grand.

Realtor T.V.

I feel like someones ripped my guts out from my throat.
There's no way to describe what being in this position feels like.
I did as mush as I could, tried as hard as I could.

She (The Owner) has decided to Market the house for 126K using a Realtor.

I was informed this afternoon, Al and I would have 20 minutes notice prior to the house being shown, at which point we would have to vacate the property until the Realtor gave us the "All Clear".

I'm just weak physically from smiling for my child...it takes so much energy when your  heart is breaking.

Patterns: Stranger Things Have Have Happened

To those of you who've been with me since the Slummy days, the sight of this yellow rose with my home in the background is as sweet as the scent she emits on a cool Spring evening.

Some of you even had a front row seat as this home was miraculously placed in our laps at the end of an exhaustive, and depressing search for a rental last July.

And while ownership was contingent on qualification, she (the owner) allowed us to take occupancy in the mean time.

It's presently the mean time.
The deadline is upon me, and the numbers don't work.
I have done a lot of magic tricks in my life, but I simply cannot turn 90K into 119K.

Last August when we signed the lease, she, being the Attorney that she is, slipped in an addendum at the last minute, which was overlooked by the brainiacs at HUD.

To which it reads:
Tenant is aware the property is for sale subject to the lease and that she has a right of first refusal should a contract be presented within three months of the start of this lease. Landlord shall have the right to enter the Premises to show the property without Tenant's consent.

Hmm. I see a pattern. Do you see a pattern?
What do you want to bet this situation gets really flippin ugly before it's done?

She got the house in foreclosure for 64K, dumped 45K into it and "ran out of money"...she was trying to flip the thing, and she had it listed way high. Like 126K initially.
Not in this area.
If someone can afford 126K, they aren't buying here, they're buying up North, or going more Urban/Inner city...so it sat...
and sat...and sat, until I came along.
I didn't WANT to buy it, I called to lease it, but she offered a lease/purchase and I was desperate for a roof over my kids head.

Pattern, key word, DESPERATE.

Do I love the house?
It needs a lot of money put back into it. The windows need to be replaced, plumbing is shot, the remodeling job was low end and the bills are insane.
Most people shopping for a home aren't DESPERATE for a roof over their kids head.

The question was, do you love the house?
What I love is living in a neighborhood where my son is safe and happy.
What I love is what Al loves...his home, his friends, his back yard.
What I love is the thought of never having to uproot the little guy again.
What I love is restoring his faith in me as his mom and God as God...
It would take a miracle to get Al his home for keeps.

Stranger things have happened.