Perspective

I've been intermittently going crazy lately.

Originally we were selling a house and buying a house, both on Nov. 21. Then we were selling a house Dec. 1 and buying a house Dec. 9. Now, we've sold our house (on schedule, on Dec. 1), but have yet to buy one. We're living with my mother-in-law, as planned, in the intermediate time, and that's going remarkably well, considering we have four people in one bedroom, and lots of different schedules under one roof.

All our earthly belongings are in two moving trucks, parked at our old house. Our Great Dane and two cats are being boarded here in town.

Quick side-story:
On Sunday, I was supposed to drop off the cats at the kennel between 4 and 5. I started gathering them up just after 3, knowing that it might not be easy. I found Katie easily, and put her in the cat carrier. Then I started looking for Janie. I could not find her anywhere. She's quite a stealthy cat, so I checked all her hiding places (that I know of), and then started looking outside. They're inside cats, but I found pawprints around the perimeter of the house, so I started fearing (reasonably, I think) that she'd gotten out while we were moving things out on Saturday, and tried to get back in. I could not find her anywhere. I finally took Katie in without her, my heart almost breaking. I spent a lot of the evening walking the neighborhood, calling her name and shaking her food bowl. Nothing. I went through the house again a time or two. Nothing. We discussed making fliers and/or knocking on doors. It had been brutally cold (wind chill below zero), so we hoped someone had taken her in. We began to realize we might never see her again. We went about our business, cleaning the house, taking the last things out to the trucks, when all of a sudden, Janie walked into the kitchen. Hallelujah! She's an introverted cat, like her "parents", and I guess there had been too many people around for her to want to come out from wherever she'd been. We're so thankful she's ok.

Back to the original point of the post....

We're officially homeless now. I'm dying to live a settled life, to move in, put up pictures, decorate for Christmas, resume our normal life of cooking, laundry (am I really saying this?), living with our animals, etc. I've been hoping we could close on Friday so that we don't have to continue paying by the day for two moving trucks and boarding 140-ish pounds of animals through the weekend. And it looks like we're not closing on Friday. I've been feeling bitter, anxious, hysterical, you name it. Bob keeps talking me down.

Here's some perspective, though: we sold our house, at a relatively small loss, in a time when houses either aren't selling, or are selling incredibly low. We sold our house to a woman we really like, who loves the house, and who allowed us to keep our stuff in the house for a week after closing so we could avoid a storage unit. Our animals are warm and fed and cared for. Our belongings are safe. (I had clients once whose things were in a military storage unit, and EVERYTHING they had burned to the ground.) We have a place to stay that's comfortable, with free child care, meals cooked for us every night, and an open laundry room. Not to mention the fact that my mother-in-law is happy for us to stay as long as we need to. Not to mention the fact that we can watch all the football we want while we're there.