"Did we sell the cats too?"

New house "theater room" New house from outside

The summer blogging series is back! I know, all of you had your calendars marked for Memorial Day or even yesterday and were crushed when you couldn't read my blog. Well, I will make it up to you. I plan to blog twice a week this summer and maybe even once a week during the school year! Huh? Are you crazy? Well, yes, actually, but that is besides the point. Most of that is genetic, not my fault! Anyway, I have a lot to catch you up on from the past year, so let's get started....

Almost exactly one year ago today, we put our house on the market with For Sale By Owner. We had eliminated 1/2 of our furniture and crap by sending it on a truck to Western Iowa...man our house looks better now without that stuff! We had cleaned, and I mean deep-cleaned. We even had a garage sale as a way to advertise our house to the masses. We handed out fliers with a finders fee. At that point, we should have alerted to government of the coming recession. See, it didn't dawn on us that only one customer wanted a flier all weekend, yet Jack's underwear, a broken satellite dish, and everything from the "free" box sold. Huh? You want crap, but not this house? What? Well, that was the beginning of what is now called the "Great recession", which is pretty bad, but made worse by media and our new love of thinking everything that happens to us happens to be the worst event in history. (see Flood of the century, hurricane of the century, and the Royals baseball teams of the 1990s) But we waited patiently all summer showing our house here and there. We dropped the price and we hired a realtor and dropped the price again and again. During this time, the leaves turned brilliant colors and we enjoyed nights on our lovely deck by the firepit drinking cheap wine talking about how soon our house would sell. The snow fell....it was winter and 6 months since our house was on the market. The recession was in full swing and the optimism of an Obama presidency couldn't even change matters...it actually got worse! We started to wonder if we would ever sell our house. On top of that, we were thinking of adding a 3rd child and not having much success and I was about to begin my final semester of grad school, my internship, with a very bleak job market and possibly a pay cut! That was when I invented "the circle".
The "circle" was where my life got stuck going around from January to May. Everyday, same old thing. House didn't sell, job opportunities were nowhere to be found, and my internship drug on. Even my internship assignment to log every moment of my life minus my bathroom breaks (although I logged some just to get hours and I sometimes read counseling magazines while there.) and my Internet surfing time (I probably should log that...yikes, that would be scary!) was just logging the same thing day after day.. I told my co-workers that I needed something to break the circle as I was getting dizzy with boredom. I needed change, but being bogged down by OCD tendencies and anxiety, I am not the type of person to go out and break my own circle. I needed something to happen. I couldn't pick a job without knowing where we would find a house and I didn't want to pick a house without knowing about a job. Something had to give. Everyday was getting worse and the idea of the circle was getting in my head. Then, an interesting 6 weeks happened. Our MS counselor got a job in her hometown, I moved into her job, I finished my internship and graduated Drake with my Masters (only Iowa State left to graduate from for Reagan and I), and then we finally got someone to agree to look at our house for the 2nd time.....and he liked it. He put an offer after "flipping a coin" between our house and another and landed on ours. No word on whether we were heads or tails, but I am betting heads, I always bet heads. We didn't feel confident enough to do a counter offer and we didn't want to lose our first offer in 350 days, so we just accepted and high-fived each other. Jack, still being awake, also got excited and high-fived when I told him "We just sold our house!". He cheered and said "YES!". Then looked sad for a little while and said "Did we sell the cats too?". After laughing, I told him no and he relayed the good news to Bo and Jangles. In the week since this event, we have bid back and forth on a house that we loved since last June and landed that house today. So, the circle is officially smashed and I am proceeding along a line towards my future now. But.....was I really in a circle or have I just come full circle? Reagan and I both grew up on farm land on or near rock roads and our house is an acreage on a rock road. We are moving and starting a new job again, just like 7 years ago for Reagan. And at some point, we will have child number 3 and will go through diapers, sleepless nights, and temper tantrums again. Sounds a lot like being in a very large circle. Say...the "Circle of Life"? With all that said, I think the past year may not have been circles after all as it seems everything we did had to be done in order to get to where we are today. Maybe the circles were just in my head??

Anyway, the school year is done, we are moving in less than 4 weeks, and I have a new job and house to prepare for. I plan to keep you posted of all the interesting details of the past year as well as the upcoming summer with these blogs. I also hope to alert you to interesting facts, favorites, and things I like along the way in my final 3 things section. I thank all of you for the prayers, the communication, and the thoughts over the past year and pass all those prayers and thoughts back to you. Take care and enjoy the summer!

Love&Prayers,
Ben

3 things:
1. Best movies I have seen the past year (haven't seen many): The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire (lived up to the hype and then some), and 7 Pounds (not sure why critics hated this one)
2. Best books I have read....okay....only read 2, but they were good: The Last Lecture and Outliers. Both very thought-provoking. The Last Lecture should be read by every person, including every educator. Outliers is simply very interesting.
3. Best website that I learned about: Facebook. I joined late last year and love staying connected with everyone, including most of you. It is addicting, but already a part of our strange and ever-changing culture.