With our house in Wichita under contract, Johnie and I began to more aggressively search for our own place to live in Kentucky. We loved living with our friends, but felt like a burden to them and were ready to stretch out in our own space again. (Though, admittedly, our own space was more cramped in some ways. Our friends not only gave us a place to live, they most likely offered us space in the nicest house we'll ever call home.)
We were indecisive about which city to settle in, and with me still not sure when or if my unemployed status would change, we were very frugal in our search. Still reeling and raw from the home-selling process, I was not ready to jump back into home ownership.
We looked at rental after rental. The location was wrong. The size was wrong. The price was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. One day I saw a new listing for a three-bedroom brick house in our price range. I checked the neighborhood on Google maps and it looked promising. I called the number and scheduled an appointment.
The location was great - less than two miles from Johnie's work. The neighborhood was nice: small and quaint, but with easy access to the interstate, and Frankfort's meager offering of restaurants and shopping.
The outside of the house was just okay. If it would have been the first house we looked at we probably would have passed. But this was an actual house, not a duplex or apartment, with a yard for Buddy and a landlord willing to accept family members with four legs as tenants.
The inside was less okay. The floors were pretty gross. The walls were painted white but covered with a layer of smokers' dust. The dishwasher was glaringly absent (with not even a spot to be installed). The bathroom was just downright unacceptable: the floor was cracked and peeling, the tub had some very anxiety-inducing stains, and the toilet had a clothes hanger for a flusher.
That sealed the deal. I would not be paying to live in a place where I could not take a shower or use the bathroom. And I was that blunt with the owner.
He was very amiable and said the previous renter had lived in the house for six years. He had no idea the bathroom -- or the house -- was in the shape it was in. He planned on doing a lot of upgrades, including a new water heater, a complete bathroom renovation, a storage shed and an upgraded electrical panel. He thought the repairs would be complete by the beginning of August.
As we continued to negotiate, he also assured me the house would receive a thorough cleaning and that I would be allowed to paint the walls any color I desired.
Did I mention this place was in a great location, in our price range and was a single family dwelling with three bedrooms, five closets and a yard for the best dog ever? We decided to put our trust in the nice landlord and commit to the house.
The owner even agreed to let us move our things in prior to the move-in date -- for free -- to avoid prolonged storage fees.
It became evident pretty early that the August 1st deadline would not be honored. I managed okay because I was holding out for the Labor Day holiday. I had decided many weeks prior that I just had to make it to the first weekend in September. I knew by then my life would be settled. Finally. After a tumultuous year and a half.
We planned a trip to Wichita for that weekend so we could visit friends and family and pick up the remaining items we left behind.
When September came, and I unpacked and re-packed a suitcase in one person's bedroom to travel 800 miles to stay in another person's bedroom, before coming back again to a bedroom not my own, I wasn't managing so well.
I went to Kansas with a knotted stomach and it was still in knots when I returned. I tried to stay positive, but I was restless.
The rental house was still in disarray and I found no comfort in the money I was saving by living rent and mortgage free.
In the final days of September, we were able to move in, sans the shed, sans the thorough cleaning and with uneven, grout-covered tile in the updated bathroom. The cleaning came in the following days, the shed didn't come until the following year. The tile has yet to even itself out.
It was a hard transition from a house I loved and owned and controlled, that had been built in 1923 and by every indication respected every year after, to this rental whose carpet I couldn't rip up and replace, whose cabinets I couldn't modify to fit a dishwasher, whose backyard I really couldn't fence in. I love the freedom of not having to "worry about" the problems that arise, but sometimes I hate waiting for and living with the fixes the landlord provides.
I would have patched that wall differently. I would have moved that water heater to the left. I would have ensured the tile was laid straight and clean. I would have fixed that leaky toilet the day it started dripping. And the list goes on.
It took a while, but Johnie and I did settle in the rental. We've learned to deal with the house's small nuisances, and most days we're quite comfortable. We sometimes have waves of discontent, but we're still not ready to buy and a weekend venture back into the local rental market -- and the thought of packing up and moving to another temporary house -- helps calm those waves.
We also comfort ourselves by talking at length about the beautiful wood floors, expansive cabinet, counter and storage space, state-of-the-art dishwasher and appliances, spacious closets, multi-car garage, finished basement, privacy fence and immaculate bathrooms our next house is just sure to have.
And yes, at the end of the day, I'm just thankful to have a sturdy, safe home and I'm especially thankful it's located in one of my favorite states close enough for me to have dinner any night of the week with some of my favorite people.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
The Baby.
One June afternoon Misty and I were catching up in her kitchen. Even though we were living in the same house together, days would go by without us seeing one another. We had just been through one such stint and had a lot to talk about.
She mentioned off-handedly that she had taken off work early on the previous Saturday because she wasn't feeling well, probably due to a stomach virus. As I listened to her recount the day, I was hit with the realization that she must be pregnant. I asked her and she said she didn't think so, but I was convinced.
At that point it was too early for a pregnancy test, but I shared with Jared that he should probably prepare himself for becoming a daddy yet again because my friend was, in fact, expecting. He later joked that it was that conversation (the idea of being pregnant) that actually caused the pregnancy (the theory that if you speak something, it becomes true in action).
I kept pestering Misty to take a pregnancy test, but she kept saying that she didn't really think she was pregnant. I actually went out and bought tests for her because I just wanted to know. I couldn't take the test for her, however, and she put it off for a couple days (which felt more like a couple weeks to me).
Around the dinner table one night, shortly after Father's Day, I brought up the pregnancy again. Jared still soundly rejected it, unwilling to admit the possibility. In the middle of our spirited conversation, Misty announced she would just take a test and settle the argument. We continued our bickering as she left the table.
Mid-sentence we were interrupted: "Jared..."
That caused my surety to increase even more. When I saw their faces, I knew EVEN more. I hugged my friend, then looked at the two lines for the solid proof. We cried tears of joy together that night. The once reluctant father's face now beamed with pride and smiles.
And suddenly, with that change that wasn't even really a change at all yet for me, I had peace and understanding and purpose. The tumultuousness of the move, the incessant questioning of whether or not we made the right decision, the mystery of why, seemingly all-of-a-sudden, I became completely obsessed with getting back to Kentucky as quickly as possible, seemed to make sense.
Even if it wasn't my full purpose for being back, I began thinking -- even before that night, actually -- of all that I could experience with this new baby. I had missed out on so much with Julian and Abby. I was trying to make up for lost time and not miss out on anything else, but you can't get ultrasound appointments, birthday parties, and evenings filled with laughter back.
This baby was instantly special in a way no other baby ever had been.
Julian was special because he was my first baby. First nephew is much more appropriate, but when the girl you look at just like a sister has a baby, you feel a bit of claim to him, too. Abby was special because she sneaked in my wedding party without any of us even knowing at the time. And, she was absolutely perfect and absolutely gorgeous from the very second she emerged from the womb. She wasn't splotchy or red and I still hold that she probably didn't even need all the usual post-birth gunk washed off her. I've never seen a more instantly perfect and beautiful baby and doubt I'll ever see one to top her.
Even as they grew up, Julian remained special because he was still first and always would be. Each time I played with him, I would marvel at his handsomeness, intelligence, and humor. He would always say something to make me laugh, something endearingly sweet, or cuddle into that special place in my heart that only he can reach. And each time I would hold him in my arms, I was certain he would always be my favorite.
Until Abby would walk into the room -- the most beautiful little girl ever to have lived. She is 100% girl and loves dolls and hair and cooking, but will be rough with her brother and isn't afraid of a little mud and dirt. And each time I would look into her eyes that felt identical to me to the four-year-old eyes I looked into more than twenty years ago when I played with her mother, I was certain she was my favorite.
Just as my 'favorite' depended on which child was in my line of vision at the moment, a little third one got thrown in the mix immediately. When I would think of the new baby and getting to be as involved as I wanted with the pregnancy and birth, and being able to make every single birthday and watch every single milestone, he became my new favorite whenever he was on my mind, whenever we were making plans for him.
Misty had an ultrasound and got pictures of the little one early on. I began counting down the days until the baby would have ears so I could start reading to him and I could be more sure he could hear and understand me when I talked to him.
I celebrated my birthday that year -- for the first time -- with Misty AND her kids, and looked forward to the next year when this new little one would be more physically present.
But that would not be.
Five days later, I came downstairs to find Misty on the couch. I had just woken up and learned via facebook she had gone to the emergency room after work the night before. I needed to question her myself.
She let me know she had been hurt at work, recounted the incident to me, and the findings at the hospital. They thought things were fine with the baby after checking his heartbeat and considering her symptoms, but suggested she follow up with her OBGYN the following day.
After a few minutes of my own quizzing as to how she was feeling, any symptoms she may be experiencing, and exactly what they did to check on the baby at the hospital, I felt relieved. It sounded like everything was fine and an overly-cautious doctor just wanted to cover all his bases with a follow-up.
I prayed for the baby and thanked God for protecting him in the incident.
It was a few hours later when I heard Misty return from her appointment. I could tell she did not get good news. "They couldn't find a heartbeat today," she said.
And that one sentence brought the world to a screeching halt. It even seemed like I was experiencing the loss of gravity as I needed to cling to things more stable than myself. This was not right. This was not the way things were supposed to be. I was in disbelief. Shock.
Babies do not die after freak work accidents. There must be some mistake. There MUST be some mistake.
Misty told me her doctor had said they would do another ultrasound the following day if she would prefer. I was glad to hear it was something Misty had opted for. We were going to have this baby, and I was certain we would hear that precious beating heart the next day.
I immediately started discussing this with God and asked others to pray as well. People believe in varying degrees of miracles. I personally think He is quite capable of re-starting a still heart. Of bringing a perfectly cold, dead person completely back to life. Even today.
I told Him that I didn't know whether or not the baby's heart was actually beating today, but whether or not it was, I was looking forward to hearing it beat the following day. I told Him we could work out the details about how I would talk about it later. That if He wanted me to play it cool, like it was just a technician error that caused undue alarm, I could do that. Or, if He wanted me to climb proverbial mountains and proclaim this miracle work of bringing a dead person back to life, I would share it passionately and unapologetically with every critic.
I never had to work out any details of the beating heart. For it still didn't beat the next day.
And we stood before the thick, unbending brick wall of a dead baby. A wall I wanted to pound on, kick and claw at until I chipped it away and willed the baby back to life. But at the same time, we were being hurtled forward, pushed roughly through door frames we fought against into rooms we never wanted to enter.
I say 'we' like it was happening to me, too. It sure felt like it was happening to me, but I know I was just an observer. With each painful step of the process of losing a baby, I was in near-equal parts grieving and looking to my friend, unable to fathom what her feelings must be. I was just watching; this was actually happening to her.
I remember the evening Julian realized the baby had died. The look of confusion and disbelief at first, then anger and fist pumping and declarations that this just couldn't be. Then a final resignation, sharing tears and an embrace just feet from where we learned of the baby's life what seemed like an eternity ago. And the most poignant summation of the situation I could have imagined. 'But I really loved that baby.'
I agreed with him. That should have been enough. But it wasn't.
The year since has been rancid and overwhelmingly unjust.
Implications on women's rights, moral responsibility and all that goes with it disappear when you learn your once very-alive nephew, your best friend's baby, was not old enough to legally be considered a person. Any reason offered is sickeningly weak.
Medical fact and scientific probability are meaningless when no one steps up to comfort a grieving mother with empty arms. Just because nothing can replace a life, doesn't mean there shouldn't be anything at all offered in its place.
I have managed, I think maybe, to find peace for myself if not for my friend yet. I trust that God has this thing under control. He cried with us -- in joy at the new life and in anguish at the abrupt end to it -- and He's working it all out as He always does. In ways I don't expect. As a friend said a few weeks ago, in ways that feel completely inefficient at the time. But, in the end, that will be perfectly beautiful.
And, for the rest of my story I will carry with me the indelible stamp left by a short-lived life that in the eyes of some never even was. But to me was as real, as significant and as exceptional as any other life has been.
She mentioned off-handedly that she had taken off work early on the previous Saturday because she wasn't feeling well, probably due to a stomach virus. As I listened to her recount the day, I was hit with the realization that she must be pregnant. I asked her and she said she didn't think so, but I was convinced.
At that point it was too early for a pregnancy test, but I shared with Jared that he should probably prepare himself for becoming a daddy yet again because my friend was, in fact, expecting. He later joked that it was that conversation (the idea of being pregnant) that actually caused the pregnancy (the theory that if you speak something, it becomes true in action).
I kept pestering Misty to take a pregnancy test, but she kept saying that she didn't really think she was pregnant. I actually went out and bought tests for her because I just wanted to know. I couldn't take the test for her, however, and she put it off for a couple days (which felt more like a couple weeks to me).
Around the dinner table one night, shortly after Father's Day, I brought up the pregnancy again. Jared still soundly rejected it, unwilling to admit the possibility. In the middle of our spirited conversation, Misty announced she would just take a test and settle the argument. We continued our bickering as she left the table.
Mid-sentence we were interrupted: "Jared..."
That caused my surety to increase even more. When I saw their faces, I knew EVEN more. I hugged my friend, then looked at the two lines for the solid proof. We cried tears of joy together that night. The once reluctant father's face now beamed with pride and smiles.
And suddenly, with that change that wasn't even really a change at all yet for me, I had peace and understanding and purpose. The tumultuousness of the move, the incessant questioning of whether or not we made the right decision, the mystery of why, seemingly all-of-a-sudden, I became completely obsessed with getting back to Kentucky as quickly as possible, seemed to make sense.
Even if it wasn't my full purpose for being back, I began thinking -- even before that night, actually -- of all that I could experience with this new baby. I had missed out on so much with Julian and Abby. I was trying to make up for lost time and not miss out on anything else, but you can't get ultrasound appointments, birthday parties, and evenings filled with laughter back.
This baby was instantly special in a way no other baby ever had been.
Julian was special because he was my first baby. First nephew is much more appropriate, but when the girl you look at just like a sister has a baby, you feel a bit of claim to him, too. Abby was special because she sneaked in my wedding party without any of us even knowing at the time. And, she was absolutely perfect and absolutely gorgeous from the very second she emerged from the womb. She wasn't splotchy or red and I still hold that she probably didn't even need all the usual post-birth gunk washed off her. I've never seen a more instantly perfect and beautiful baby and doubt I'll ever see one to top her.
Even as they grew up, Julian remained special because he was still first and always would be. Each time I played with him, I would marvel at his handsomeness, intelligence, and humor. He would always say something to make me laugh, something endearingly sweet, or cuddle into that special place in my heart that only he can reach. And each time I would hold him in my arms, I was certain he would always be my favorite.
Until Abby would walk into the room -- the most beautiful little girl ever to have lived. She is 100% girl and loves dolls and hair and cooking, but will be rough with her brother and isn't afraid of a little mud and dirt. And each time I would look into her eyes that felt identical to me to the four-year-old eyes I looked into more than twenty years ago when I played with her mother, I was certain she was my favorite.
Just as my 'favorite' depended on which child was in my line of vision at the moment, a little third one got thrown in the mix immediately. When I would think of the new baby and getting to be as involved as I wanted with the pregnancy and birth, and being able to make every single birthday and watch every single milestone, he became my new favorite whenever he was on my mind, whenever we were making plans for him.
Misty had an ultrasound and got pictures of the little one early on. I began counting down the days until the baby would have ears so I could start reading to him and I could be more sure he could hear and understand me when I talked to him.
I celebrated my birthday that year -- for the first time -- with Misty AND her kids, and looked forward to the next year when this new little one would be more physically present.
But that would not be.
Five days later, I came downstairs to find Misty on the couch. I had just woken up and learned via facebook she had gone to the emergency room after work the night before. I needed to question her myself.
She let me know she had been hurt at work, recounted the incident to me, and the findings at the hospital. They thought things were fine with the baby after checking his heartbeat and considering her symptoms, but suggested she follow up with her OBGYN the following day.
After a few minutes of my own quizzing as to how she was feeling, any symptoms she may be experiencing, and exactly what they did to check on the baby at the hospital, I felt relieved. It sounded like everything was fine and an overly-cautious doctor just wanted to cover all his bases with a follow-up.
I prayed for the baby and thanked God for protecting him in the incident.
It was a few hours later when I heard Misty return from her appointment. I could tell she did not get good news. "They couldn't find a heartbeat today," she said.
And that one sentence brought the world to a screeching halt. It even seemed like I was experiencing the loss of gravity as I needed to cling to things more stable than myself. This was not right. This was not the way things were supposed to be. I was in disbelief. Shock.
Babies do not die after freak work accidents. There must be some mistake. There MUST be some mistake.
Misty told me her doctor had said they would do another ultrasound the following day if she would prefer. I was glad to hear it was something Misty had opted for. We were going to have this baby, and I was certain we would hear that precious beating heart the next day.
I immediately started discussing this with God and asked others to pray as well. People believe in varying degrees of miracles. I personally think He is quite capable of re-starting a still heart. Of bringing a perfectly cold, dead person completely back to life. Even today.
I told Him that I didn't know whether or not the baby's heart was actually beating today, but whether or not it was, I was looking forward to hearing it beat the following day. I told Him we could work out the details about how I would talk about it later. That if He wanted me to play it cool, like it was just a technician error that caused undue alarm, I could do that. Or, if He wanted me to climb proverbial mountains and proclaim this miracle work of bringing a dead person back to life, I would share it passionately and unapologetically with every critic.
I never had to work out any details of the beating heart. For it still didn't beat the next day.
And we stood before the thick, unbending brick wall of a dead baby. A wall I wanted to pound on, kick and claw at until I chipped it away and willed the baby back to life. But at the same time, we were being hurtled forward, pushed roughly through door frames we fought against into rooms we never wanted to enter.
I say 'we' like it was happening to me, too. It sure felt like it was happening to me, but I know I was just an observer. With each painful step of the process of losing a baby, I was in near-equal parts grieving and looking to my friend, unable to fathom what her feelings must be. I was just watching; this was actually happening to her.
I remember the evening Julian realized the baby had died. The look of confusion and disbelief at first, then anger and fist pumping and declarations that this just couldn't be. Then a final resignation, sharing tears and an embrace just feet from where we learned of the baby's life what seemed like an eternity ago. And the most poignant summation of the situation I could have imagined. 'But I really loved that baby.'
I agreed with him. That should have been enough. But it wasn't.
The year since has been rancid and overwhelmingly unjust.
Implications on women's rights, moral responsibility and all that goes with it disappear when you learn your once very-alive nephew, your best friend's baby, was not old enough to legally be considered a person. Any reason offered is sickeningly weak.
Medical fact and scientific probability are meaningless when no one steps up to comfort a grieving mother with empty arms. Just because nothing can replace a life, doesn't mean there shouldn't be anything at all offered in its place.
I have managed, I think maybe, to find peace for myself if not for my friend yet. I trust that God has this thing under control. He cried with us -- in joy at the new life and in anguish at the abrupt end to it -- and He's working it all out as He always does. In ways I don't expect. As a friend said a few weeks ago, in ways that feel completely inefficient at the time. But, in the end, that will be perfectly beautiful.
And, for the rest of my story I will carry with me the indelible stamp left by a short-lived life that in the eyes of some never even was. But to me was as real, as significant and as exceptional as any other life has been.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Homeowners no more
Out of respect for all the people around the world who are legitimately without a home, I refrained from titling this 'Homeless,' but I did feel a bit homeless when we sold our Wichita home without a place of our own in Kentucky.
Coming to Kentucky without knowing how long we would continue to pay for a vacant house in Wichita wasn't easy. That no one was interested in looking at the vacant house didn't help.
In some ways I think that if the house would have had more traffic, it would have been easier for me to wait even longer for it to sell. As it was, the waiting was not easy. I would go through each day waiting for a phone call, a text, an e-mail to let us know someone was interested in the house. Only two came.
The first couple who looked at our house was unable to secure a loan for it. The second couple, it seemed, wouldn't have that problem.
In mid-June, our realtor called us with our very first offer. The second couple was relocating from Missouri to Wichita. The husband was retired from the military and had just agreed to take on a six-figure contract position in Kansas. They wanted our tiny house to transition -- to live in until they found a home worthy of their standards and then would rent ours out or let their son live in it. It wasn't my ideal version of the new owners for our home.
The offer wasn't ideal either. It was below what we would need to break even on the house. After an evening of back and forth, though, Johnie and I agreed to an offer from them just below what we owed on the house. The buyers pointed out that if we didn't close on the house in two months we'd pay more in mortgage payments than we would be bringing to the table with their offer anyway.
And that was the reasoning that forced us to cave. It was true. In two months this was only the second couple to look at our house. We didn't know how long it would take another interested buyer to come along. And, on the upside, these buyers wanted to close in two weeks. And they were willing to pay cash.
Except for they changed their mind and decided to get a loan. And the loan didn't go through. And then they asked us to rent our house to them. I don't think I'd ever said no faster than when that request came.
It seemed like the deal we had struck with these strangers was changing by the hour. After we stood firm on our decision not to rent to them (we had actual friends and family that we knew and trusted that we'd rather rent to - not strangers whose cash offer turned into a loan offer that didn't go through), the couple was approved for an FHA loan.
I loved our little house, but it was 90 years old. I had heard FHA loan nightmare stories. I didn't think it would go through.
But, Johnie pressed ahead with the sale despite my fears and we made a whirlwind trip to Wichita the weekend of his birthday. We packed up our house without even being sure whether or not it would be sold.
That was an emotional weekend. I was saying goodbye to the house I loved. To the house I had worked up the courage to change and remodel until I had every room just the way I wanted. And I was passing it on to strangers who I couldn't find the motivation to trust. Who didn't seem to appreciate the house nearly as much as I did.
We packed like crazy with the help of Johnie's family until every room was empty. And then, on Sunday evening, we blew up an air mattress in what had been our bedroom for the last several years. And we spent our last night in our house the same as we spent our first -- on a lone mattress in an empty room in an empty house.
We had several offers to stay with friends and family, but I wanted one last night with my house. I had loved it from day one. (That's why the first night was on a mattress surrounded by emptiness while our belongings were still at our apartment.)
As we got ready for bed that night, Johnie surprised me. Weeks earlier I had shared our lackluster proposal story on this blog. It had prompted Johnie to ask for a do-over. I reluctantly agreed and handed over my much-loved engagement ring.
On our last night in our first house, Johnie brought the ring back out and actually had an extremely sweet love monologue prepared. He asked me to start over with him, and I (of course) enthusiastically said yes. It was the sweet proposal I had always hoped for.
The next day we nervously waited for our home inspection. We met the man who would own our home, and it was not the warm-and-fuzzy encounter I had hoped for. He seemed gruff and didn't make consistent eye contact. He was short with both Johnie and me as we tried to tell him about the house, to the point of being rude.
The experience only worsened my uneasiness. And the would-be new owner opted not to share the inspection findings with us in-person, but to work through our realtor. As we were getting ready to leave Wichita, our realtor passed along a list of requests that resulted from the inspection. This was bothersome to us (green at appropriate home-selling etiquette) because he could have discussed those issues with us in person.
More so, because his requests were not tied to the FHA loan approval (other than a small spot of mold discovered in the basement that we were willing to remediate), and we had been very clear that we were not going to pay for any improvements/repairs/upgrades to a house that we were already losing money on.
We refused his requests and left Wichita with the understanding that the buyers were not willing to take our house and that we would likely be renting it out through a property management company we had already talked with.
Back in Kentucky, we learned the saga was not quite over as we received the threat of a lawsuit if we would not agree to the requests of the buyers. Our realtor explained that the buyers likely wouldn't win any lawsuit they filed against us but our house would be in limbo (with us still making mortgage payments) until the case was settled if they chose to sue.
If that happened, it would be cheaper for us just to pay for the repairs. I refused. These buyers (who I personally felt were big meany-bottoms!) had pushed me to my limit. We had been completely open and honest with them from the beginning about not paying for any improvements. Our house had received the FHA loan approval. They were already getting a great house for a great price and we had given them several concessions (including a gaggle of new appliances).
I hoped that we would not go to court over the house and that the couple would just walk away, also realizing litigation wasn't worth their time, but I was willing to face it on principle alone. Not my most shining moment as a christian or a business-person, but I said I didn't care if I had to pay a mortgage payment on an empty house for a year as we navigated the legal system. I felt like these people were taking advantage of us, and I was done letting them.
I will pause to say I am using "I" a lot, but Johnie was in agreement with me. "I" just remember vividly how "I" felt during this time, and don't remember a lot about Johnie during my rants except for his quiet agreement. And thankfully he was the one communicating with our realtor, so he translated and softened my messages quite a bit during that time.
Shortly after the law suit threat that knotted my stomach even more than it already had been, the buyers agreed to cover the improvements they were wanting themselves, and asked only for access to the house to get them finished before closing. I was actually hesitant to give in even to that, but we agreed.
On July 14th, the buyers signed the papers and took official ownership of the house. Johnie and I went out to celebrate, and while the knots started to ease, it was several days before I began to relax. I think I suffered from a bit of post-house selling stress syndrome. My stomach would flip flop for a few weeks after the closing when the phone would ring, as I worried our realtor would inform us of some new demand and some loophole that meant we'd have to pay more money to make these strangers more comfortable in a home we no longer had any claim to. I would hold my breath when I opened my e-mail worried there'd be a message about them deciding they no longer wanted the house and we'd have to take over mortgage payments again.
Thankfully, so thankfully, we never heard from those buyers again after that day, and the story of our first home ended at the July 14th closing.
Sometimes I wonder if - knowing everything I know now - I would have sold the house. Most days I don't even think I would have put it on the market in the first place. Though I miss it and wish it was still mine, I also know that could have brought it's own set of headaches and an entirely different blog post in which I lamented not just unloading the house when we moved.
In the end, I am thankful to have such positive memories of our first home together. I am thankful to have gotten my feet wet in the home-buying and home-selling process. I am thankful that I built up the courage to undertake (and see to completion) remodeling/improvement projects. And, I am looking forward to our next home ownership experience where I hope we won't make some of the same mistakes we made the first time.
Coming to Kentucky without knowing how long we would continue to pay for a vacant house in Wichita wasn't easy. That no one was interested in looking at the vacant house didn't help.
In some ways I think that if the house would have had more traffic, it would have been easier for me to wait even longer for it to sell. As it was, the waiting was not easy. I would go through each day waiting for a phone call, a text, an e-mail to let us know someone was interested in the house. Only two came.
The first couple who looked at our house was unable to secure a loan for it. The second couple, it seemed, wouldn't have that problem.
In mid-June, our realtor called us with our very first offer. The second couple was relocating from Missouri to Wichita. The husband was retired from the military and had just agreed to take on a six-figure contract position in Kansas. They wanted our tiny house to transition -- to live in until they found a home worthy of their standards and then would rent ours out or let their son live in it. It wasn't my ideal version of the new owners for our home.
The offer wasn't ideal either. It was below what we would need to break even on the house. After an evening of back and forth, though, Johnie and I agreed to an offer from them just below what we owed on the house. The buyers pointed out that if we didn't close on the house in two months we'd pay more in mortgage payments than we would be bringing to the table with their offer anyway.
And that was the reasoning that forced us to cave. It was true. In two months this was only the second couple to look at our house. We didn't know how long it would take another interested buyer to come along. And, on the upside, these buyers wanted to close in two weeks. And they were willing to pay cash.
Except for they changed their mind and decided to get a loan. And the loan didn't go through. And then they asked us to rent our house to them. I don't think I'd ever said no faster than when that request came.
It seemed like the deal we had struck with these strangers was changing by the hour. After we stood firm on our decision not to rent to them (we had actual friends and family that we knew and trusted that we'd rather rent to - not strangers whose cash offer turned into a loan offer that didn't go through), the couple was approved for an FHA loan.
I loved our little house, but it was 90 years old. I had heard FHA loan nightmare stories. I didn't think it would go through.
But, Johnie pressed ahead with the sale despite my fears and we made a whirlwind trip to Wichita the weekend of his birthday. We packed up our house without even being sure whether or not it would be sold.
That was an emotional weekend. I was saying goodbye to the house I loved. To the house I had worked up the courage to change and remodel until I had every room just the way I wanted. And I was passing it on to strangers who I couldn't find the motivation to trust. Who didn't seem to appreciate the house nearly as much as I did.
We packed like crazy with the help of Johnie's family until every room was empty. And then, on Sunday evening, we blew up an air mattress in what had been our bedroom for the last several years. And we spent our last night in our house the same as we spent our first -- on a lone mattress in an empty room in an empty house.
We had several offers to stay with friends and family, but I wanted one last night with my house. I had loved it from day one. (That's why the first night was on a mattress surrounded by emptiness while our belongings were still at our apartment.)
As we got ready for bed that night, Johnie surprised me. Weeks earlier I had shared our lackluster proposal story on this blog. It had prompted Johnie to ask for a do-over. I reluctantly agreed and handed over my much-loved engagement ring.
On our last night in our first house, Johnie brought the ring back out and actually had an extremely sweet love monologue prepared. He asked me to start over with him, and I (of course) enthusiastically said yes. It was the sweet proposal I had always hoped for.
The next day we nervously waited for our home inspection. We met the man who would own our home, and it was not the warm-and-fuzzy encounter I had hoped for. He seemed gruff and didn't make consistent eye contact. He was short with both Johnie and me as we tried to tell him about the house, to the point of being rude.
The experience only worsened my uneasiness. And the would-be new owner opted not to share the inspection findings with us in-person, but to work through our realtor. As we were getting ready to leave Wichita, our realtor passed along a list of requests that resulted from the inspection. This was bothersome to us (green at appropriate home-selling etiquette) because he could have discussed those issues with us in person.
More so, because his requests were not tied to the FHA loan approval (other than a small spot of mold discovered in the basement that we were willing to remediate), and we had been very clear that we were not going to pay for any improvements/repairs/upgrades to a house that we were already losing money on.
We refused his requests and left Wichita with the understanding that the buyers were not willing to take our house and that we would likely be renting it out through a property management company we had already talked with.
Back in Kentucky, we learned the saga was not quite over as we received the threat of a lawsuit if we would not agree to the requests of the buyers. Our realtor explained that the buyers likely wouldn't win any lawsuit they filed against us but our house would be in limbo (with us still making mortgage payments) until the case was settled if they chose to sue.
If that happened, it would be cheaper for us just to pay for the repairs. I refused. These buyers (who I personally felt were big meany-bottoms!) had pushed me to my limit. We had been completely open and honest with them from the beginning about not paying for any improvements. Our house had received the FHA loan approval. They were already getting a great house for a great price and we had given them several concessions (including a gaggle of new appliances).
I hoped that we would not go to court over the house and that the couple would just walk away, also realizing litigation wasn't worth their time, but I was willing to face it on principle alone. Not my most shining moment as a christian or a business-person, but I said I didn't care if I had to pay a mortgage payment on an empty house for a year as we navigated the legal system. I felt like these people were taking advantage of us, and I was done letting them.
I will pause to say I am using "I" a lot, but Johnie was in agreement with me. "I" just remember vividly how "I" felt during this time, and don't remember a lot about Johnie during my rants except for his quiet agreement. And thankfully he was the one communicating with our realtor, so he translated and softened my messages quite a bit during that time.
Shortly after the law suit threat that knotted my stomach even more than it already had been, the buyers agreed to cover the improvements they were wanting themselves, and asked only for access to the house to get them finished before closing. I was actually hesitant to give in even to that, but we agreed.
On July 14th, the buyers signed the papers and took official ownership of the house. Johnie and I went out to celebrate, and while the knots started to ease, it was several days before I began to relax. I think I suffered from a bit of post-house selling stress syndrome. My stomach would flip flop for a few weeks after the closing when the phone would ring, as I worried our realtor would inform us of some new demand and some loophole that meant we'd have to pay more money to make these strangers more comfortable in a home we no longer had any claim to. I would hold my breath when I opened my e-mail worried there'd be a message about them deciding they no longer wanted the house and we'd have to take over mortgage payments again.
Thankfully, so thankfully, we never heard from those buyers again after that day, and the story of our first home ended at the July 14th closing.
Sometimes I wonder if - knowing everything I know now - I would have sold the house. Most days I don't even think I would have put it on the market in the first place. Though I miss it and wish it was still mine, I also know that could have brought it's own set of headaches and an entirely different blog post in which I lamented not just unloading the house when we moved.
In the end, I am thankful to have such positive memories of our first home together. I am thankful to have gotten my feet wet in the home-buying and home-selling process. I am thankful that I built up the courage to undertake (and see to completion) remodeling/improvement projects. And, I am looking forward to our next home ownership experience where I hope we won't make some of the same mistakes we made the first time.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Selling our House
When Johnie's first Kentucky job interview was scheduled in January, we called our realtor. We 'owned' our house in that we paid a bank every month for the privilege to live there and fix anything that broke. All we knew about the housing market was what we heard other people say. Or picked up from a few brief seconds of television news doing a segment on the current state of the housing market as we were changing the channel. We gathered it was bad.
I had nightmares of finding a dream job, a dream situation, in Kentucky only to learn there would be no way we could afford to get out of our mortgage in Wichita. If there was bad news, I wanted it up front.
Our realtor came over a couple evenings after the call to get reacquainted with the house he helped us buy four years earlier. He graciously complimented our upgrades to the kitchen and bathroom, then delivered the news. While not having a driveway (see previous post) hurt us, our house was in a good price range. Our upgrades increased the value of our home. And he thought he could sell the house quickly if we were flexible on the 'profit' we would make.
Profit, schmofit - I was excited. The news was much better than I thought.
So, when we accepted a position in April, I eagerly embarked on the house selling process for the first time. We called our realtor back over. This visit was all business. Crowded bookcases, workout equipment in the office, and a small crack in the dining room wall, not even noticed in the initial visit, were glaring obstacles to a quick sale now.
I took copious notes on all of his advice and we set to work.
We rearranged furniture, applied color-match paint, recruited a good friend to finally patch the wall, decluttered shelves and organized storage. Down on our hands and knees, we scrubbed the concrete floor in our unfinished basement (another project that had been delayed for years).
I read a book about staging a house for maximum results. From what I gathered, I would need to make the house look like some one could live there, but that no one actually did live there, all while trying to live there. In practice, it felt like living in a huge hotel suite that I had to check out of every morning in case another guest needed to check in. And, each morning, I served as housekeeping to prepare the suite for the next guest. Not pleasant.
I wanted potential buyers to feel relaxed when they walked in, so I bought and used alcoholic scents and flavors in air fresheners and refreshments. I even employed my writing skills, per a suggestion from the book, to help buyers see the beauty and potential of our home in a brief essay by pointing out all the things we loved and what we had planned for the house if we weren't moving.
I learned that a house saw the most traffic in the first two weeks on the market and I was ready to welcome the masses through my front door.
I envisioned multiple showings each day of our house's first week on the market. By week's end, at least two sweet young couples would be in love with the house and engaged in a bidding war to make our home their own. Johnie and I would decide who to sell the house to based on their story - based on who we felt would love and appreciate and care for our nearly century old house as much as we did.
Then I could go back to actually enjoying my home in our last days together. At the closing, we would hug the new owners and cry as they promised to love and care for our home.
When the first day passed with no activity, I wasn't discouraged. We weren't even listed on the online sites yet. Day two, day three, day four, day five... all nothing. My anxiety increased as my patience wore thin.
Both our first and second week brought absolutely no showings. I'm not good at math, but I didn't like the result of dividing 'zero' as time went on.
The house I loved, the house I wanted to take with me to Kentucky, sat ignored. Our moving date came nearer and nearer.
I began envisioning defaulting on our loan in the coming months, having our house foreclosed and our credit wrecked, and permanently moving in with my mom.
A month later we decided to leave almost all of our belongings in our unsold, un-shown home to begin our life in Kentucky.
Living at our friends' house in Kentucky that first month, I secretly wondered if I would ever live in my own home again. I wondered how many months or years (they do fall in the best friend category) they would tolerate our camping in their guest bedroom. How the awkward 'we really can't keep you anymore' conversation would go, and then how long we would have as we traveled to each of our other friends' and families homes to inhabit until, in turn, we were kicked out of them all.
In reality, we were able to successfully (successful is a relative term) sell and close on our house on July 14th to the second couple who looked at it, less than three months after putting it on the market. That sounds much more rosy and comfortable than it actually was.
It actually was one of the most emotional and stressful things I have ever done. I'm not sure I've ever felt more ignorant, vulnerable, cheated, ridiculous and embarrassed in my entire life. More on that later.
I had nightmares of finding a dream job, a dream situation, in Kentucky only to learn there would be no way we could afford to get out of our mortgage in Wichita. If there was bad news, I wanted it up front.
Our realtor came over a couple evenings after the call to get reacquainted with the house he helped us buy four years earlier. He graciously complimented our upgrades to the kitchen and bathroom, then delivered the news. While not having a driveway (see previous post) hurt us, our house was in a good price range. Our upgrades increased the value of our home. And he thought he could sell the house quickly if we were flexible on the 'profit' we would make.
Profit, schmofit - I was excited. The news was much better than I thought.
So, when we accepted a position in April, I eagerly embarked on the house selling process for the first time. We called our realtor back over. This visit was all business. Crowded bookcases, workout equipment in the office, and a small crack in the dining room wall, not even noticed in the initial visit, were glaring obstacles to a quick sale now.
I took copious notes on all of his advice and we set to work.
We rearranged furniture, applied color-match paint, recruited a good friend to finally patch the wall, decluttered shelves and organized storage. Down on our hands and knees, we scrubbed the concrete floor in our unfinished basement (another project that had been delayed for years).
I read a book about staging a house for maximum results. From what I gathered, I would need to make the house look like some one could live there, but that no one actually did live there, all while trying to live there. In practice, it felt like living in a huge hotel suite that I had to check out of every morning in case another guest needed to check in. And, each morning, I served as housekeeping to prepare the suite for the next guest. Not pleasant.
I wanted potential buyers to feel relaxed when they walked in, so I bought and used alcoholic scents and flavors in air fresheners and refreshments. I even employed my writing skills, per a suggestion from the book, to help buyers see the beauty and potential of our home in a brief essay by pointing out all the things we loved and what we had planned for the house if we weren't moving.
I learned that a house saw the most traffic in the first two weeks on the market and I was ready to welcome the masses through my front door.
I envisioned multiple showings each day of our house's first week on the market. By week's end, at least two sweet young couples would be in love with the house and engaged in a bidding war to make our home their own. Johnie and I would decide who to sell the house to based on their story - based on who we felt would love and appreciate and care for our nearly century old house as much as we did.
Then I could go back to actually enjoying my home in our last days together. At the closing, we would hug the new owners and cry as they promised to love and care for our home.
When the first day passed with no activity, I wasn't discouraged. We weren't even listed on the online sites yet. Day two, day three, day four, day five... all nothing. My anxiety increased as my patience wore thin.
Both our first and second week brought absolutely no showings. I'm not good at math, but I didn't like the result of dividing 'zero' as time went on.
The house I loved, the house I wanted to take with me to Kentucky, sat ignored. Our moving date came nearer and nearer.
I began envisioning defaulting on our loan in the coming months, having our house foreclosed and our credit wrecked, and permanently moving in with my mom.
A month later we decided to leave almost all of our belongings in our unsold, un-shown home to begin our life in Kentucky.
Living at our friends' house in Kentucky that first month, I secretly wondered if I would ever live in my own home again. I wondered how many months or years (they do fall in the best friend category) they would tolerate our camping in their guest bedroom. How the awkward 'we really can't keep you anymore' conversation would go, and then how long we would have as we traveled to each of our other friends' and families homes to inhabit until, in turn, we were kicked out of them all.
In reality, we were able to successfully (successful is a relative term) sell and close on our house on July 14th to the second couple who looked at it, less than three months after putting it on the market. That sounds much more rosy and comfortable than it actually was.
It actually was one of the most emotional and stressful things I have ever done. I'm not sure I've ever felt more ignorant, vulnerable, cheated, ridiculous and embarrassed in my entire life. More on that later.
Monday, April 9, 2012
The city took our driveway!!!
It was the following week (after the break in) when we arrived home to find a note on our front door. The note was from the construction company doing roadwork on our street. We knew months in advance that the street we lived on was going to be upgraded. In addition to repaving the entire road, a lane was to be added and new sidewalks were going to be poured. We knew that for a portion of this time we would not have access to our driveway. The entire project was supposed to be completed in September.
This first week in November the project reached its half-way point. That was the point in which we would lose access to our driveway. The note on our door asked us to remove all cars from our driveway by 8 am the following day. It also included an updated timeline for the remainder of the roadwork. We were to have a brand new completed road by the end of November.
As we left our house on the way to work the following morning, we passed road workers setting up cones. By the time we returned that evening, the top layer of pavement had been removed and the old brick street was left exposed. The brick street was torn up and dirt was exposed the following day.
With a nearly two-foot-deep trench in front of our yard, work seemed to halt. Warm, sunny days passed with no changes to our street. Then it began to rain. The trench became a moat. Getting from our house to our car took at least ten minutes and usually two pairs of shoes. With sidewalks torn up, it was impossible to avoid the mud. We began buying small amounts of groceries that we could carry in one trip, and planned our days to get all of our errands completed at once.
Even though the city's revised work schedule showed completion at the end of the month, I never let myself believe it was possible. I was shooting for driveway access by the beginning of 2011, and left to celebrate the holidays hopeful that Santa would bring me a new driveway.
2011 began with no driveway. Johnie and I planned for when we would get it back. We had been considering the purchase of new furniture for more than a year and decided that making the purchase while having a mud pit in front of our house might possibly spur some road good will for us. The furniture store delayed our delivery for weeks as we waited. But then we could wait no longer, and we scheduled - and received - our furniture delivery before our driveway completion.
After four months of living with constant mud-caked shoes, dirt-covered floors, and spending as much time getting to our vehicles as it took to drive them to work, my patience wore thin. I began calling the construction company, calling neighbors, calling city officials looking for answers. No one really had any.
By March, the new lane in front of our house had been paved. While I no longer felt as entrenched as before, there was still several feet of mud between the street and what was left of our old driveway. Work halted once more.
This is when I really began to go a little insane. More warm, sunny days passed with no progress. I began studying the gap between the street and our driveway, brainstorming ways to fill it in. I asked, only half jokingly, "What could they do if I poured the concrete myself?" After all, it was my property. I asked my grandfather -- in all seriousness -- how to mix and pour concrete.
During all of this, Johnie was back to juggling another full time work load and full time school load. I had asked too politely that he only take a couple classes during this semester. He hadn't understood that it was a completely selfish request on my part. I needed him more. I needed him to help me more, to spend more time with me. All of that was lost in translation. Each week I asked him to drop a class or two; each week my request went unheeded.
He was also going through what turned out to be a five month application, interview, and negotiation process with the job he has now.
It was all too much for me. What had been mild stress-related stomach issues in January intensified in March, and a few other stress-related ailments followed. I ended up having to spend a week on the couch. It was then that Johnie realized what I was really asking from him, a week too late to drop any classes.
On April 6th, Johnie accepted an offer for the job he has now. We were now on our sixth month with the mud hole in our front yard, and faced with the challenge of selling a house without a driveway. Our friend and realtor enthusiastically crossed the mud and helped us create a strategy for planting a 'sold' sign in the front yard as quickly as possible.
Thankfully, and ironically, and bitter-sweetly, the work to our driveway was completed on April 18th. One day before the house officially went on the market. The remaining yard and sod work wasn't actually completed until after we moved to Kentucky in May.
I was glad to offer a driveway for the house to potential buyers -- with the promise of a nice new yard -- but I was frustrated, angry and sad that we had endured those months without getting to enjoy the benefits from the work.
The stress and craziness that descended in September was still continuing in April. As we planned an 800-mile move still fraught with uncertainty, there was no end in sight.
This first week in November the project reached its half-way point. That was the point in which we would lose access to our driveway. The note on our door asked us to remove all cars from our driveway by 8 am the following day. It also included an updated timeline for the remainder of the roadwork. We were to have a brand new completed road by the end of November.
As we left our house on the way to work the following morning, we passed road workers setting up cones. By the time we returned that evening, the top layer of pavement had been removed and the old brick street was left exposed. The brick street was torn up and dirt was exposed the following day.
With a nearly two-foot-deep trench in front of our yard, work seemed to halt. Warm, sunny days passed with no changes to our street. Then it began to rain. The trench became a moat. Getting from our house to our car took at least ten minutes and usually two pairs of shoes. With sidewalks torn up, it was impossible to avoid the mud. We began buying small amounts of groceries that we could carry in one trip, and planned our days to get all of our errands completed at once.
Even though the city's revised work schedule showed completion at the end of the month, I never let myself believe it was possible. I was shooting for driveway access by the beginning of 2011, and left to celebrate the holidays hopeful that Santa would bring me a new driveway.
2011 began with no driveway. Johnie and I planned for when we would get it back. We had been considering the purchase of new furniture for more than a year and decided that making the purchase while having a mud pit in front of our house might possibly spur some road good will for us. The furniture store delayed our delivery for weeks as we waited. But then we could wait no longer, and we scheduled - and received - our furniture delivery before our driveway completion.
After four months of living with constant mud-caked shoes, dirt-covered floors, and spending as much time getting to our vehicles as it took to drive them to work, my patience wore thin. I began calling the construction company, calling neighbors, calling city officials looking for answers. No one really had any.
By March, the new lane in front of our house had been paved. While I no longer felt as entrenched as before, there was still several feet of mud between the street and what was left of our old driveway. Work halted once more.
This is when I really began to go a little insane. More warm, sunny days passed with no progress. I began studying the gap between the street and our driveway, brainstorming ways to fill it in. I asked, only half jokingly, "What could they do if I poured the concrete myself?" After all, it was my property. I asked my grandfather -- in all seriousness -- how to mix and pour concrete.
During all of this, Johnie was back to juggling another full time work load and full time school load. I had asked too politely that he only take a couple classes during this semester. He hadn't understood that it was a completely selfish request on my part. I needed him more. I needed him to help me more, to spend more time with me. All of that was lost in translation. Each week I asked him to drop a class or two; each week my request went unheeded.
He was also going through what turned out to be a five month application, interview, and negotiation process with the job he has now.
It was all too much for me. What had been mild stress-related stomach issues in January intensified in March, and a few other stress-related ailments followed. I ended up having to spend a week on the couch. It was then that Johnie realized what I was really asking from him, a week too late to drop any classes.
On April 6th, Johnie accepted an offer for the job he has now. We were now on our sixth month with the mud hole in our front yard, and faced with the challenge of selling a house without a driveway. Our friend and realtor enthusiastically crossed the mud and helped us create a strategy for planting a 'sold' sign in the front yard as quickly as possible.
Thankfully, and ironically, and bitter-sweetly, the work to our driveway was completed on April 18th. One day before the house officially went on the market. The remaining yard and sod work wasn't actually completed until after we moved to Kentucky in May.
I was glad to offer a driveway for the house to potential buyers -- with the promise of a nice new yard -- but I was frustrated, angry and sad that we had endured those months without getting to enjoy the benefits from the work.
The stress and craziness that descended in September was still continuing in April. As we planned an 800-mile move still fraught with uncertainty, there was no end in sight.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
The Break-In
We pulled into our driveway that Saturday night after the show. I felt rejuvenated. I was already dreaming of the last day of our weekend off. Buddy met us at our car. He seemed sad, especially starving for attention. We hadn't paid much attention to him in the last few weeks. I was sure he had probably been acting like this for a while and I was just too busy to notice. We gave him a few pats and then headed inside.
Johnie was the first to go in the house. He was in the dining room by the time I was at the top of the stairs in the kitchen. Light was shining through the dining room windows and I just couldn't figure out what was in the floor just a few feet from him. I flipped on the light and discovered it was one of my jewelry boxes, turned upside down with the contents spilled across the floor. My eyes darted to the vanity where the box was supposed to sit. The drawer was open. I was angry.
Why does he have to be so careless? I thought. It would have only taken a second to close the drawer back and how did he knock that jewelry box off?!? It's probably broken. Johnie's back was still to me. The front door looked like it wasn't shut all the way. Had we forgotten to close it? What is that gold thing in the floor there in front of the door?
Something wasn't right. I broke the silence. "Has someone been here?" Johnie's hands went up to his head. "Yes."
With that, I grabbed the phone and dialed 911. As the phone rang it hit me that I didn't know where the burglar was. As I recounted the last few minutes to the dispatcher on the other end, she advised me to go outside to wait for the police. About that time, an unfamiliar car pulled into our driveway. The dispatcher told me to use my best judgement as to what to do.
My judgement wasn't very good. Laughably now, I "hid" - in plain view - in the corner of the dining room. My reasoning was that I should be able to see the burglar come from any part of the house, as well as be protected from any stray bullets he might fire outside my vision.
I'll go ahead and save you the suspense. The thief was gone before we arrived. The car in our driveway turned out to be friends of our neighbor. The police showed up in what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes. After a quick search of the house, they began assessing the damage with us. Initially, Johnie and I were both relieved.
I had left my purse on the coffee table, open, with money visible inside it. It hadn't been touched. The opened vanity drawer stored our passports, social security cards, birth certificates, and several credit cards that we didn't use on a regular basis. All untouched. Johnie's guns were safe. The guy (or girl) had kicked in the door (it was the lock on the floor that I had noticed earlier), taken a pillowcase, and dropped a glove. What a silly criminal! We were ready to send the law officers on their way.
"Please walk through every room of the house with us and look them over carefully for things that are missing," one cop advised. We followed him into our office. Nothing really seemed out of place. Big flat screen monitor was still there. Johnie checked our financial files in there. They hadn't been touched.
I stared at my desk. I almost never unplugged my laptop cord. Even though I would carry my laptop from room to room, I always left the cord in the office. I didn't remember unplugging it. And, I couldn't remember where my laptop was.
It seemed there was a laptop shaped hole on my desk with stacks of papers neatly framing where it should have been. It was odd. I continued to stare. I walked over to my desk and examined it closely. I couldn't remember moving my laptop, and usually when I did the papers around it didn't remain intact for long. "Johnie, do you know where my laptop is?"
His head turned to my desk. "They took it." We described it to the police.
We walked into our bedroom. Nothing seemed out of place. "So, I guess they just took the laptop," Johnie said. My eyes swept past the dresser. I kept all my rings in a little silver heart jewelry box. That jewelry box usually sat in the middle of the dresser. It wasn't there. I racked my brain but could not remember moving it. I needed to go down to the basement to check if I had taken it down there. "They may have taken a jewelry box. It usually sits here. I may have moved it, but I can't remember."
"Wasn't there something else on the dresser?" Johnie asked. "Yes!.... A bucket." I turned to the officers. "We also had a silver bucket sitting there on the corner." I blushed a little. "It just had some letters in it, between us." In a marriage study at church, we were all given a little bucket to decorate and then drop love notes to one another in. Then I remembered what else I had stored in there. "Oh! And it also had some old coins. Mostly half-dollars and silver dollars. About $20 worth."
As a very young child, two of my uncles would give me coins whenever I would visit them. I saved them up in a Minnie Mouse bank from my great grandmother. The previous Christmas my grandfather had asked me to take the coins home with me for safe keeping. I brought them home (minus Minnie) and dropped them in the bucket on our dresser.
And, I also remembered seconds later, the bucket also held a carved arrowhead stone my grandfather had given me years ago. Now this crook was really making me mad! Those coins were important to me! And that arrowhead was one of a kind!
I asked the cops if we should go ahead and change all of our online passwords. Johnie and I had just dealt with a credit card theft a few months prior. It was a headache, and our initial fear was that we were going to have to go through all of that again- with every single card. They agreed it would be a good idea, and I sat down at our computer to do that.
As I began logging into our accounts, I was mentally congratulating myself. Our house had been broken into. We both felt lucky that things weren't worse. I always thought that I would be devastated if my house was broken into. I wasn't crying, and after the whole dining-room-gun scare, I wasn't even nervous or afraid. I was ready to send the cops on their way, bar up our door for the night and go to sleep.
An officer followed me into the room and began asking questions. I described the missing jewelry box for him. He asked about it's contents. "Oh, just some rings," I answered. "Probably about 10 or 12." He asked me to describe them.
My aunt had given me a few diamond solitaires. Those wouldn't really be distinguishable. I remembered my high school class ring and described it. That was a little frustrating to me, but I could always just have another one made. Then it hit me. "And..." I lost it. I began reacting in the way I had imagined I would after being robbed. My hands went to my face as I let out heavy sobs. Johnie came to my side.
I composed myself enough to finish, "a gold Kentucky cluster ring. It was my grandmother's 25th anniversary ring." It was my prized possession. As creepy - or sickening - as it may sound, I had never cleaned the ring. It was one of the few rings my grandmother always wore, and as such, it had much dirt built up underneath it. I clung to the ring - and it's dirt - as a lasting reminder of my grandmother. I was shocked when my grandfather gave it to me, and felt so undeserving of such a special item. And the thief took it!
I morphed from a logical, sane person into a crazy lady ready to scour the city in search of pillowcases and a dirty cluster diamond with a broken gold prong. Much to my dismay, no one in Kansas seemed to even know what a Kentucky cluster was. The police were really nice, but my faith in their ability to recover the ring wavered with this knowledge.
As the reality slowly hit me that I was completely helpless and completely defenseless to a person entering my house and taking my things, my anxiety and fear increased. I sat down in a chair in the living room, exhausted.
I felt so violated. Not only had a complete stranger pilfered through my very personal possessions, but now multiple police officers were walking through and photographing every room of my house. I wavered between asking them if I could tidy up before they snapped the photos, asking them if they could explain to anyone who looked at the pictures that we had been really busy and stressed out these past few weeks and normally didn't leave dirty dishes in our living room (we had eaten dinner in front of TV and left our dishes on the coffee table), and just asking them to leave and let us put our house back in order.
I decided just to stay out of their way and let them do what they wanted. And when it was time for them to leave, all I wanted to ask was if one of them would stand guard on our porch for the rest of the night. When the last officer stopped at the door, turned, and asked if we had any questions, I began grasping at possible queries that sounded less bizarre than my personal cop request.
"Do you know why our house was broken into?"
"It was probably just random. Similar break-ins have been happening all over the city."
"Do you think they'll come back... like they just staked out our house?"
"Probably not."
"Is there anything we can do to help prevent this from happening again?"
"Always keep a light on in your house, and keep your porch light on."
Now I was grasping more frantically. I watered down my request as best I could. "Will there be officers patrolling this street tonight?"
Johnie's dad made it to our house just before the cops left. I felt torn. I didn't want to leave my house, but I also didn't want to stay in my house without someone keeping guard that night. Instead, Johnie's dad boarded up our door and we went home with him.
I spent the night awake, wondering who would have broken into our house and why. In those first moments, I had imagined a hardened criminal watching us for weeks before making his move - knowing exactly where we kept all of our valuables and personal information. As I processed it that night, I began to agree with the cops' assessment that it was probably someone who saw a dark house and wanted some items to pawn for a few bucks.
I thought about where my grandmother's ring would be in the city. How I could find it. I wanted to put an ad in the paper. I was sure I'd pay the burglar more than any pawn shop or gold buyer to have that ring back. I thought about the price of gold and how the ring would probably be sold and melted. The thought still brings tears to my eyes.
In the following days, we filed our insurance claim, our dear friend hung a new - and much more secure - door for us, and we put our life back together. Johnie continued with his classes, we both continued with our jobs. I had another conference that week. I longed for a break even more than I had before the "relaxing" weekend started, but the whirlwind continued.
Johnie was the first to go in the house. He was in the dining room by the time I was at the top of the stairs in the kitchen. Light was shining through the dining room windows and I just couldn't figure out what was in the floor just a few feet from him. I flipped on the light and discovered it was one of my jewelry boxes, turned upside down with the contents spilled across the floor. My eyes darted to the vanity where the box was supposed to sit. The drawer was open. I was angry.
Why does he have to be so careless? I thought. It would have only taken a second to close the drawer back and how did he knock that jewelry box off?!? It's probably broken. Johnie's back was still to me. The front door looked like it wasn't shut all the way. Had we forgotten to close it? What is that gold thing in the floor there in front of the door?
Something wasn't right. I broke the silence. "Has someone been here?" Johnie's hands went up to his head. "Yes."
With that, I grabbed the phone and dialed 911. As the phone rang it hit me that I didn't know where the burglar was. As I recounted the last few minutes to the dispatcher on the other end, she advised me to go outside to wait for the police. About that time, an unfamiliar car pulled into our driveway. The dispatcher told me to use my best judgement as to what to do.
My judgement wasn't very good. Laughably now, I "hid" - in plain view - in the corner of the dining room. My reasoning was that I should be able to see the burglar come from any part of the house, as well as be protected from any stray bullets he might fire outside my vision.
I'll go ahead and save you the suspense. The thief was gone before we arrived. The car in our driveway turned out to be friends of our neighbor. The police showed up in what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes. After a quick search of the house, they began assessing the damage with us. Initially, Johnie and I were both relieved.
I had left my purse on the coffee table, open, with money visible inside it. It hadn't been touched. The opened vanity drawer stored our passports, social security cards, birth certificates, and several credit cards that we didn't use on a regular basis. All untouched. Johnie's guns were safe. The guy (or girl) had kicked in the door (it was the lock on the floor that I had noticed earlier), taken a pillowcase, and dropped a glove. What a silly criminal! We were ready to send the law officers on their way.
"Please walk through every room of the house with us and look them over carefully for things that are missing," one cop advised. We followed him into our office. Nothing really seemed out of place. Big flat screen monitor was still there. Johnie checked our financial files in there. They hadn't been touched.
I stared at my desk. I almost never unplugged my laptop cord. Even though I would carry my laptop from room to room, I always left the cord in the office. I didn't remember unplugging it. And, I couldn't remember where my laptop was.
It seemed there was a laptop shaped hole on my desk with stacks of papers neatly framing where it should have been. It was odd. I continued to stare. I walked over to my desk and examined it closely. I couldn't remember moving my laptop, and usually when I did the papers around it didn't remain intact for long. "Johnie, do you know where my laptop is?"
His head turned to my desk. "They took it." We described it to the police.
We walked into our bedroom. Nothing seemed out of place. "So, I guess they just took the laptop," Johnie said. My eyes swept past the dresser. I kept all my rings in a little silver heart jewelry box. That jewelry box usually sat in the middle of the dresser. It wasn't there. I racked my brain but could not remember moving it. I needed to go down to the basement to check if I had taken it down there. "They may have taken a jewelry box. It usually sits here. I may have moved it, but I can't remember."
"Wasn't there something else on the dresser?" Johnie asked. "Yes!.... A bucket." I turned to the officers. "We also had a silver bucket sitting there on the corner." I blushed a little. "It just had some letters in it, between us." In a marriage study at church, we were all given a little bucket to decorate and then drop love notes to one another in. Then I remembered what else I had stored in there. "Oh! And it also had some old coins. Mostly half-dollars and silver dollars. About $20 worth."
As a very young child, two of my uncles would give me coins whenever I would visit them. I saved them up in a Minnie Mouse bank from my great grandmother. The previous Christmas my grandfather had asked me to take the coins home with me for safe keeping. I brought them home (minus Minnie) and dropped them in the bucket on our dresser.
And, I also remembered seconds later, the bucket also held a carved arrowhead stone my grandfather had given me years ago. Now this crook was really making me mad! Those coins were important to me! And that arrowhead was one of a kind!
I asked the cops if we should go ahead and change all of our online passwords. Johnie and I had just dealt with a credit card theft a few months prior. It was a headache, and our initial fear was that we were going to have to go through all of that again- with every single card. They agreed it would be a good idea, and I sat down at our computer to do that.
As I began logging into our accounts, I was mentally congratulating myself. Our house had been broken into. We both felt lucky that things weren't worse. I always thought that I would be devastated if my house was broken into. I wasn't crying, and after the whole dining-room-gun scare, I wasn't even nervous or afraid. I was ready to send the cops on their way, bar up our door for the night and go to sleep.
An officer followed me into the room and began asking questions. I described the missing jewelry box for him. He asked about it's contents. "Oh, just some rings," I answered. "Probably about 10 or 12." He asked me to describe them.
My aunt had given me a few diamond solitaires. Those wouldn't really be distinguishable. I remembered my high school class ring and described it. That was a little frustrating to me, but I could always just have another one made. Then it hit me. "And..." I lost it. I began reacting in the way I had imagined I would after being robbed. My hands went to my face as I let out heavy sobs. Johnie came to my side.
I composed myself enough to finish, "a gold Kentucky cluster ring. It was my grandmother's 25th anniversary ring." It was my prized possession. As creepy - or sickening - as it may sound, I had never cleaned the ring. It was one of the few rings my grandmother always wore, and as such, it had much dirt built up underneath it. I clung to the ring - and it's dirt - as a lasting reminder of my grandmother. I was shocked when my grandfather gave it to me, and felt so undeserving of such a special item. And the thief took it!
I morphed from a logical, sane person into a crazy lady ready to scour the city in search of pillowcases and a dirty cluster diamond with a broken gold prong. Much to my dismay, no one in Kansas seemed to even know what a Kentucky cluster was. The police were really nice, but my faith in their ability to recover the ring wavered with this knowledge.
As the reality slowly hit me that I was completely helpless and completely defenseless to a person entering my house and taking my things, my anxiety and fear increased. I sat down in a chair in the living room, exhausted.
I felt so violated. Not only had a complete stranger pilfered through my very personal possessions, but now multiple police officers were walking through and photographing every room of my house. I wavered between asking them if I could tidy up before they snapped the photos, asking them if they could explain to anyone who looked at the pictures that we had been really busy and stressed out these past few weeks and normally didn't leave dirty dishes in our living room (we had eaten dinner in front of TV and left our dishes on the coffee table), and just asking them to leave and let us put our house back in order.
I decided just to stay out of their way and let them do what they wanted. And when it was time for them to leave, all I wanted to ask was if one of them would stand guard on our porch for the rest of the night. When the last officer stopped at the door, turned, and asked if we had any questions, I began grasping at possible queries that sounded less bizarre than my personal cop request.
"Do you know why our house was broken into?"
"It was probably just random. Similar break-ins have been happening all over the city."
"Do you think they'll come back... like they just staked out our house?"
"Probably not."
"Is there anything we can do to help prevent this from happening again?"
"Always keep a light on in your house, and keep your porch light on."
Now I was grasping more frantically. I watered down my request as best I could. "Will there be officers patrolling this street tonight?"
Johnie's dad made it to our house just before the cops left. I felt torn. I didn't want to leave my house, but I also didn't want to stay in my house without someone keeping guard that night. Instead, Johnie's dad boarded up our door and we went home with him.
I spent the night awake, wondering who would have broken into our house and why. In those first moments, I had imagined a hardened criminal watching us for weeks before making his move - knowing exactly where we kept all of our valuables and personal information. As I processed it that night, I began to agree with the cops' assessment that it was probably someone who saw a dark house and wanted some items to pawn for a few bucks.
I thought about where my grandmother's ring would be in the city. How I could find it. I wanted to put an ad in the paper. I was sure I'd pay the burglar more than any pawn shop or gold buyer to have that ring back. I thought about the price of gold and how the ring would probably be sold and melted. The thought still brings tears to my eyes.
In the following days, we filed our insurance claim, our dear friend hung a new - and much more secure - door for us, and we put our life back together. Johnie continued with his classes, we both continued with our jobs. I had another conference that week. I longed for a break even more than I had before the "relaxing" weekend started, but the whirlwind continued.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
A storm in the distance
Early in 2010, I began reflecting on time spent with my grandfather. He was experiencing some health problems that made me nervous. Honestly, part of me worried that I'd get a call one day that things had taken a turn for the worse. In thinking about my grandfather's limited time, I decided to do something special for him and planned a surprise birthday party.
Here's my confession. That birthday party was as much for me as it was for him. The longer I lived in Kansas the more homesick I became. I longed for those days as a little girl when all of my family would gather at Christmas. Everyone had made their own Christmas traditions since my grandmother had passed away, but I felt like papaw deserved (and I really craved) at least one more joyous occasion with the whole family.
The party was a great success. Papaw still brings it up and claims it was his best birthday. I had hoped more of his grandkids would be able to make it in, but he had all his children together, and in a strange way that was really important to me.
In the beginning of 2010, Johnie and I began discussing a plan to move back to Kentucky. The move to Kansas was never meant to be permanent, and I was ready to get back home. We thought it'd take about four to five years to actually make the transition back. Johnie had planned to get his degree as quickly as possible and then begin looking for programming positions in my home state. After he was given the promotion at Cox, and was a successful programmer by all indications, we decided to begin the Bluegrass job search early - after that July trip left me even more homesick than I was before.
The true "beginning of the bad stuff" came Labor Day weekend. Johnie was a few weeks into another semester of full-time college work. His department was behind and he was working a lot of overtime. My work schedule was unpredictable. There were mornings I had to wake up at 4 am to travel to a meeting and nights when I didn't make it home until 8 or 9 pm. There was no room for the unexpected.
The Saturday before Labor Day, we planned to take advantage of some free tickets to a Royals baseball game. On the turnpike, halfway to Kansas City, we cancelled the trip and turned around. My young, strong, healthy cousin had died unexpectedly. I was not particularly close to this cousin. Even now, I can't remember the last time I saw him. The memories that I do have of him are pretty generic, and all are tied to other people. Still, his death devastated me.
I have a large family. I could easily name off at least a hundred cousins, without mentioning more than twice as many more. And while I mean no offense to my cousins who don't fall in this category, Josh was a part of a distinct group. Even though we weren't close, and even though we didn't visit, he was a special cousin.
My grandparents had 22 grandchildren. We were (and are) a special group. We had the privilege of being spoiled by several aunts and uncles while enjoying the benefits of two loving and devoted grandparents. They had already made all their mistakes with their own children, and had softened quite a bit, too. And while three boys came after me, I was (and am) the youngest granddaughter.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and, by default, with this group of cousins. I adored them. Some I even idolized. (I'm not confessing which ones.) I only hoped to someday play the sports and games they played, wear the clothes they wore, do the things they did. They were cool. And unlike the cool kids at school who picked on me and made me cry, my cousins always included me. Even when they were cool in school, they never left me out. Even when I was an annoying little brat (who sometimes tattled after we did the fun stuff....sorry guys, I felt guilty), they always let me be part of the group.
As we all grew up, began marrying and creating a new generation of Roses, I still felt a special connection with my cousins. Most all of them were pretty good about checking in with papaw, and I usually got my updates on them through him. For one of us to die so suddenly rocked my world. Even though I am not usually presumptuous, I thought we were decades from something like that.
From hundreds of miles away, my heart ached for my family - my dear uncle who had lost a son, his other sons who had lost a brother. Josh's wife and kids. Between every one of my trips to Kentucky I lost someone. Usually I could predict who it would be. I said long-term goodbyes to an aunt, an uncle, and a great grandmother on trips home. After a year or so of this pattern, I began dreading that part of the trip - the drive to Kansas wondering who wouldn't be there when I came back. I could have never predicted Josh.
I didn't understand then why I was so devastated. Looking back, I think it was a combination of homesickness, an overly busy schedule, and a sudden realization of the mortality of all my loved ones. With everything in me I wanted to be with my family. But I was scheduled to be at a conference in Atlanta the day after the funeral. While internally I felt like I was spiraling out of control, externally I could only verbalize that a cousin had passed away, and no, I wasn't really "close to him." It hardly seemed reasonable to change my schedule to allow for an emergency trip back home.
I immersed myself in a kitchen renovation that weekend. I processed emotions while I peeled wallpaper and painted walls. If any of you are working full-time, going to school full-time, and are married to a person who is out of town for work more than not, never EVER take that spouse to a home improvement store just hours after she learns a family member has died.
We drove from the exit on the turnpike straight to Lowes. Obviously, I wasn't thinking clearly. This was not the time to update the room in the house devoted to a primary need of eating.
Between our busy schedules and our home improvement ineptness, we didn't finish the weekend project until mid-October. While I felt like I had missed my opportunity to celebrate the fall season, I was determined to keep Halloween traditions in tact. I bought a couple pumpkins for us to carve, took advantage of half-price tickets to the Wichita Symphony Orchestra's Halloween performance, and held on for the weekend when I could unwind and relax.
It kicked off Friday evening with friends. We caught a show of the hilarious Shonda Pierce performing one of her stand-up routines. Saturday morning Johnie and I slept in and spent the glorious day relaxing until it was time for the symphony.
Our seats were awesome and the music was even better. It was entertaining in spots, soothing in others, absolutely beautiful throughout. I remember at one point in the performance breathing in deeply and congratulating myself on making it through the trying weeks behind me. I had processed my cousin's passing. Johnie was more than half-way finished with his semester. The work in our kitchen was complete. I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Here's my confession. That birthday party was as much for me as it was for him. The longer I lived in Kansas the more homesick I became. I longed for those days as a little girl when all of my family would gather at Christmas. Everyone had made their own Christmas traditions since my grandmother had passed away, but I felt like papaw deserved (and I really craved) at least one more joyous occasion with the whole family.
The party was a great success. Papaw still brings it up and claims it was his best birthday. I had hoped more of his grandkids would be able to make it in, but he had all his children together, and in a strange way that was really important to me.
In the beginning of 2010, Johnie and I began discussing a plan to move back to Kentucky. The move to Kansas was never meant to be permanent, and I was ready to get back home. We thought it'd take about four to five years to actually make the transition back. Johnie had planned to get his degree as quickly as possible and then begin looking for programming positions in my home state. After he was given the promotion at Cox, and was a successful programmer by all indications, we decided to begin the Bluegrass job search early - after that July trip left me even more homesick than I was before.
The true "beginning of the bad stuff" came Labor Day weekend. Johnie was a few weeks into another semester of full-time college work. His department was behind and he was working a lot of overtime. My work schedule was unpredictable. There were mornings I had to wake up at 4 am to travel to a meeting and nights when I didn't make it home until 8 or 9 pm. There was no room for the unexpected.
The Saturday before Labor Day, we planned to take advantage of some free tickets to a Royals baseball game. On the turnpike, halfway to Kansas City, we cancelled the trip and turned around. My young, strong, healthy cousin had died unexpectedly. I was not particularly close to this cousin. Even now, I can't remember the last time I saw him. The memories that I do have of him are pretty generic, and all are tied to other people. Still, his death devastated me.
I have a large family. I could easily name off at least a hundred cousins, without mentioning more than twice as many more. And while I mean no offense to my cousins who don't fall in this category, Josh was a part of a distinct group. Even though we weren't close, and even though we didn't visit, he was a special cousin.
My grandparents had 22 grandchildren. We were (and are) a special group. We had the privilege of being spoiled by several aunts and uncles while enjoying the benefits of two loving and devoted grandparents. They had already made all their mistakes with their own children, and had softened quite a bit, too. And while three boys came after me, I was (and am) the youngest granddaughter.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and, by default, with this group of cousins. I adored them. Some I even idolized. (I'm not confessing which ones.) I only hoped to someday play the sports and games they played, wear the clothes they wore, do the things they did. They were cool. And unlike the cool kids at school who picked on me and made me cry, my cousins always included me. Even when they were cool in school, they never left me out. Even when I was an annoying little brat (who sometimes tattled after we did the fun stuff....sorry guys, I felt guilty), they always let me be part of the group.
As we all grew up, began marrying and creating a new generation of Roses, I still felt a special connection with my cousins. Most all of them were pretty good about checking in with papaw, and I usually got my updates on them through him. For one of us to die so suddenly rocked my world. Even though I am not usually presumptuous, I thought we were decades from something like that.
From hundreds of miles away, my heart ached for my family - my dear uncle who had lost a son, his other sons who had lost a brother. Josh's wife and kids. Between every one of my trips to Kentucky I lost someone. Usually I could predict who it would be. I said long-term goodbyes to an aunt, an uncle, and a great grandmother on trips home. After a year or so of this pattern, I began dreading that part of the trip - the drive to Kansas wondering who wouldn't be there when I came back. I could have never predicted Josh.
I didn't understand then why I was so devastated. Looking back, I think it was a combination of homesickness, an overly busy schedule, and a sudden realization of the mortality of all my loved ones. With everything in me I wanted to be with my family. But I was scheduled to be at a conference in Atlanta the day after the funeral. While internally I felt like I was spiraling out of control, externally I could only verbalize that a cousin had passed away, and no, I wasn't really "close to him." It hardly seemed reasonable to change my schedule to allow for an emergency trip back home.
I immersed myself in a kitchen renovation that weekend. I processed emotions while I peeled wallpaper and painted walls. If any of you are working full-time, going to school full-time, and are married to a person who is out of town for work more than not, never EVER take that spouse to a home improvement store just hours after she learns a family member has died.
We drove from the exit on the turnpike straight to Lowes. Obviously, I wasn't thinking clearly. This was not the time to update the room in the house devoted to a primary need of eating.
Between our busy schedules and our home improvement ineptness, we didn't finish the weekend project until mid-October. While I felt like I had missed my opportunity to celebrate the fall season, I was determined to keep Halloween traditions in tact. I bought a couple pumpkins for us to carve, took advantage of half-price tickets to the Wichita Symphony Orchestra's Halloween performance, and held on for the weekend when I could unwind and relax.
It kicked off Friday evening with friends. We caught a show of the hilarious Shonda Pierce performing one of her stand-up routines. Saturday morning Johnie and I slept in and spent the glorious day relaxing until it was time for the symphony.
Our seats were awesome and the music was even better. It was entertaining in spots, soothing in others, absolutely beautiful throughout. I remember at one point in the performance breathing in deeply and congratulating myself on making it through the trying weeks behind me. I had processed my cousin's passing. Johnie was more than half-way finished with his semester. The work in our kitchen was complete. I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
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