I just spent the past two hours or so writing a post detailing everything that has been going on in our lives for the past week or two and hit one wrong button and *sha-zam* it's GONE!!! That is just sooooooo wrong!!! ~sigh~ It's 10:00 right now and I'm not tired yet, so I guess I'll start over--but I'm not going to last another two hours, I know that much! (You lucky dogs! Ha!)

~sigh~ Where do I start??? Earlier tonight I posted what I had written about a week ago, but never had a chance to post. You might want to start there. Only if you're interested in a lot of reading, though, between that post and this. :-)

Last Saturday we had a very long day of driving and stopping and driving and stopping, in an attempt to find an office center that could receive e-mails, print them out, let us sign them, and fax them back to our realtor--all for the sake of placing a counter-offer to the owner's counter-offer on House #3. In the end, it was a waste of time anyway since it doesn't look like we're going to be able to negotiate a price that would suit both us and them.

We got to Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry's house that evening and were so grateful to have a nice, quite place to relax. Quiet, that is, until we brought in three children and a dog who had been cooped up in a van for two more days. ;-)

We had a really, really good church service on Sunday and I was soooooo ready for it! Travelling takes it out of you and you feel especially worn when you've had to do without church for most of the time! I was so grateful for such a freedom in the spirit and everybody really seemed to get in an truly worship and get involved. I felt an especially heavy burden for Uncle Jerry--like I haven't felt in a long, long time--and was able to really pour my heart out to the Lord for him. He so desperately needs to be saved! Please say a prayer for him, whether you know him or not. :-)

After church we drove down to Odessa to meet Sam & Tammy and Steven (a new guy they have coming to church now) for lunch at the Olive Garden. Our very own "last supper," if you will (ha!) before moving away. James and I shared the Tour of Italy. Yum. Best fettuccini alfredo I've ever had. The company was great, we had much better service than last time, and we all got our Andes mints before Brother Sam had a chance to steal them all. It was a good day. :-)

After lunch we all went to Christopher & Banks so Tammy and I could check out the sales. We both found a couple of good ones! I really needed some, too. You see, when I packed for Pennsylvania/Tennessee/motel-life-until-we-find-a-house, I thought I had thought everything through well. But remember I was in the middle of frantically packing up the entire house and scrubbing it down (all in nine days, mind you!) and just didn't have TIME to think of everything! I realized after we left Tennessee headed west that most of what I have to wear are sweaters, some of which are a bit on the Christmassy side. That will be a little awkward as we move into February or possibly March before we're able to get settled into a house and get our clothes out of storage again! Ha! Anyway, I was able to find two shirts on sale at C&B that can work as dressy or casual. Perfect! I'm going to need 'em! :-)

That night we had a nice, leisurely evening with Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry. The kids spend most of their time in front of the TV while we're there, which I hate. But Aunt Sue has several seasons of I Love Lucy on DVD, which they all enjoy, especially Katie. (Any why not? She has a lot in common with Lucy, you know!) Uncle Jerry has such collections as Gunsmoke, Have Gun-Will Travel, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and Rawhide. The kids just love it! As must as I hate them vegging out so much, I love it that all of their favorite shows are black and white ones from the 50's and 60's! Ha! Katie loves Dean Martin's Christmas album. I told her today that most kids her age have no idea who Dean Martin is. She was truly appalled.

While the kids watch TV, James visits with Aunt Sue or dinks around on the computer, and I get into some serious competition with Uncle Jerry. He has a pool table in his den and I make the most of it while I'm there! We played about 15 games of 8 Ball the first night, I think! Ha! I won the first game, he took the second, then me, then him, then I stole the fifth. I should have stopped right then when I had the best three out of five. I think I lost the next 4 or 5 in a row after that! Ha! Oh well, it was fun anyway. I've never had much opportunity to play (although Uncle Jerry insists that I sneak out and go to the pool hall regularly or I wouldn't be able to keep up with him! Ha!), but I just love that game. Fun, fun, fun. Uncle Jerry doesn't pull any punches, girl or no girl, which is the way I like it. He does, however, gripe incessantly throughout the game and accuses me of playing by "Smith rules." I'm always sure to inform him that any Smith is proud to be a Smith and no amount of badgering on his part would have any affect on me. :-)

On Monday James had some business to take care of so the kids and I spent the day over at Tammy's house. How great is that?! A whole day with Tammy! It was fun. The only bad part was having to monitor the dogs all day long. Archie is such a puppy (a BIG puppy!) and--I never thought I'd see the day when Hershey could be out-puppied--Hershey is now officially the grumpy old man. Archie pesters him constantly, just wanting to play, and Hershey will have none of it. So we spent most of the day switching out the dumb dogs, one in the house, the other out, then back. Tammy and I got in lots of Eternal Rummy, which was nice, and I think she gained about 4,000 points on me--enough to get real close and maybe even pass me. We don't know for sure, of course, because the official score pad is stored safely in a box somewhere. But Tammy kept the scrap of paper we kept score on and rubber banded it to the fry sauce in her fridge. When I finally get a house and return to Andrews to retreive my fry sauce (and other important belongings, of course), she'll see to it that I have our updated score to add to the official book. :-)

Tuesday we went down to Odessa for some much needed haircuts from Aunt Stacey. The boys were looking really shaggy, but she got them fixed up and now they're looking great. Stacey didn't have time to go to lunch with us, but we enjoyed visiting with her while she clipped anyway!

After the haircuts we drove to Midland so we could stop by Mardel and James could say goodbye to his old boss and co-workers. We ended up staying there for a long, long time, but it was great. I know everybody really appreciated him coming by and James really enjoyed it, too. Even though he hasn't worked there in months you could tell everybody was really sad to see him go (especially his boss!) and were glad we had come. It was fun. And (you're never going to believe this) we came away with 18 boxes of Christmas cards. Is that dumb, or what?! Brian (the boss) was desperate to get rid of them because the guy was coming from coorporate hq to check on the store this next week and it looks bad on Brian and his store to have that much Christmas stuff left. They were 90% off regular price, so that made all of their Legacy cards (those really cute ones with cute envelopes that come in a cute boxes) $1.29 a box. You can't beat that, but still... I kept trying to tell Brian that we have no HOME--we don't even have a place to put these things! Besides that, I already have several boxes of cards that I didn't have a chance to send out this last year!!! 18 boxes. I wound up with 18 boxes!!! ~sigh~ I was able to peddle 4 or 5 to Tammy and Mom said she'd take some, too. So three of us will all be sending out the same cards next year, I guess! Ha! Oh well. It made Brian happy, anyway! :-)

That night Sam & Tammy came over to Sue & Jerry's to enjoy some chicken and dumplins with us (Aunt Sue makes the best!) and play games. We ended up in the den with some more fierce competition over the pool table. Uncle Jerry & Sam took on Tammy & me in 7 games of 8 Ball. Believe it or not, Tammy and I almost pulled it out! We were tied at three games apiece and I had a chance to sinch it up and blew it!!! Sooooo frustrating. But still fun! Sooooo much fun. :-) Then Sam & Tammy and I sat down and made James and Aunt Sue play a game of I Buy with us. What a great night!

Wednesday morning we stopped by our storage units to drop off a few more things (such as bags and bags of Christmas cards!), then took care of some other business before meeting Sam & Tammy for yet another last supper ;-) at Cassidy's. That was nice, too. Then it was off to Albuquerque! Again. But this time it was our "move" to Albuquerque. :-)

We got here at about 6:00 that night and got all settled into our very own place. Kind of. :-) "Our very own place" is room 132 in an extended stay motel, for now! I must admit, it's a little less than what I was hoping for--even for a motel. I guess I just expected a little more than your typical motel because it is advertized as "extended stay." Don't bring it up to James though, since we probably would have been in a different (and better equipped) extended stay motel if it wasn't for the dumb dog. Not very many motels of this nature accept dumb dogs at all and the ones that do want to charge an arm and a leg for them, so this was really our only option. James has really coped with the situation amazingly well. I know he'd really rather just shoot the dumb dog. But he knows how much the kids and I love the dumb dog, so he set us up here without any complaint. What a guy! And knowing that to be the case, I've tried really hard not to complain much myself! To him, that is. So I'll do it now, here, to all of you. Ha!

I was really hoping for more storage space. You'd think that "extended stay" motels would be set up for people who might actually stay more than a day or two, you know?! There is one small dresser (large enough for the TV to sit on) with three drawers, and the nightstand. It's a little tight, but I sorted through our 4 suitcases (two large, two small) and picked out the clothes that we will wear the most at this point in our lives and packed the rest back into the suitcases. James and the boys' each have a drawer in the dresser, Katie has the drawer in the nightstand, and I have the shelf under her drawer. It actually worked out pretty good! There are two little cubby holes in the room where you can hang clothes, so that's nice. We've got both racks full! The corner near the kids' bed is the toy corner. There is a little kitchenette, for which I've very thankful. It has a tiny sink, a little microwave, a mini-fridge and two burners, along with a little bit of cabinet space. There is a pot, a pan, and a tablesetting for three. (We bought plasticware so we don't have to eat in shifts! Ha!)

There's not much storage space in the bathroom either. It has one of those sinks that just attaches to the wall and has NO countertop surrounding it. Even so, I've been amazed at how well we've been able to arrange things and it really hasn't been that big of a deal. The two biggest let-downs were definitely the lack of a bathtub (can you imagine an extended stay motel having only a shower?!) and the lack of an oven. I had really hoped there would be a little miniature oven here. I had envisioned baking miniature cakes and casseroles and cookies. And most importantly, Totino's pizzas! Ha! It's been weeks since I've had them now and I think I'm going through withdrawal! ;-)

The whole room is your average motel size--actually smaller than a lot of rooms--and has a lot less storage space than I would have hoped for. But in the past two days we've found that we have everything we need and I really don't feel inconvenienced at all. It's great! God has blessed us soooooo much! Everytime I look around this room I just have to stop and thank God that we have a good, clean, warm place to stay. A roof over our heads, clothes to wear, beds to sleep on, food to eat and even a little area to prepare it in! We're in a good place.

We went out the first night to do some grocery shopping and stock our kitchen. I think the first thing to hit the shopping cart was a carton of Whoppers! Ha! We picked up just a few things to get us started: bread, milk, eggs, cereal, donuts, popcorn, peanut butter, jelly, dog food (left Hershey's at Aunt Sue's house--she told me I was going to do that!) and such things. We even found a really nice toaster oven on sale half price, so we picked that up. (I gave mine to Tammy, remember?) I was so excited because now I'll be able to cook Totino's after all! Of course, as we were driving away from the store we realized that we forgot to buy any Totino's! Ha! So we stopped at the store just two doors down and James ran in to get some pizzas and some ham and cheese. He wouldn't eat a peanut butter sandwich if his life depended on it and we had forgotten to get any sandwich fixin's for him, too.

On Thursday... Hhmmm... that was yesterday, wasn't it? I hope I can get my days straightened out sometime soon! We did some more looking around at houses and had good ole' Jason take us into two new ones along with one we'd already seen once and wanted to refresh ourselves about. Now we have a real dilemma. James likes one house, I like another. They are exactly the same price. His is much bigger and has a terrific view, but would need lots of work inside including two total bathroom remodels (the WORST!) and lots of new flooring. Mine is smaller, but still very adequate for our needs and has a great kid-friendly back yard. But it is truly dog ugly on the outside. We have very strong negative feelings about the house the other likes, but we've only come to blows a few times about it. Kidding--I'm just kidding! We're both doing our best to be open minded and talk through all the pros and cons and just pray and let God guide us. Jason took us to see two more houses today and they served to strengthen the opinion that the first two (the one I like and the one James likes) are really our best (and only?!) options at this point.

We did drive out to the east mountains again today, just in case. We found a few houses that, although much smaller than what we've been looking at in town, MIGHT be possibilites. I'll call Jason tomorrow and see if he can take us out there on Monday. I'm going to tell him that we are going to work him to death and make him show us every house within 40 miles of here, just to make sure he earns that crazy 6% he'll be splitting with the other realtor. ;-) It's great that we've spent soooooo much time with him now (I wish I knew exactly how many houses the poor guy has taken us to!) that I'm comfortable to truly be myself with him. After trying to follow him through Friday afternoon traffic today I had a few words for him when we finally reached our destination. I slapped my hand down on the top of his shiny burgundy car as he was getting out and said, "For future reference, not all of us drive a BMW, and a van doesn't have the get-up-n-go necessary to catch a guy in a BMW who likes to accelerate rather quickly!" And so on. He just sort of grins sheepishly and giggles. I'm guessing his wife isn't very fiesty because I'm not sure he knows what to do with it. No matter, it's fun and helps me to relax. :-) He really is a great guy and we've enjoyed getting to know him while he's working like crazy trying to find a place for us to live. He was up at 12:30 last night e-mailing us more possibilities. Crazy.

Anyway, I think that gets us all up to date, right?! The only thing I failed to mention (right!!!) is that we bought new school books for the kids yesterday. Katie got a 3rd Grade book, Joe got 2nd, and Sam got a Preschool book. Katie and Joe are completely ready for their new books, but I would like to introduce some history and science kind of stuff, too. And I need to get working with them so they can learn their addition and subtraction tables. They both do pretty good at math, but still have to figure everything instead of just knowing the basics. We have discovered that Joe is an excellent speller. He's 5 years old, but he spells words such as skeleton, telephone, and museum correctly on the very first try. Amazing. Katie still enjoys school for the most part and does very well at all of it--when she takes her time and concentrates instead of trying to rush through it to get to the next thing! Sam, on the other hand, has never learned anything! Ha! That kid. One of a kind, he is. He was influenced by peer pressure when we were picking out the school books and desperately wanted one of his own. I told him I'd buy him a book if he'd promise to learn his letters. He agreed. We'll see! We did school today before going out on the town and he seemed to enjoy himself, so that's good. We'll see how long it lasts!

Okay, I think that's it! If I wrote about anything in the post that I lost I can't imagine what it was! This seems pretty complete to me. Maybe even beyond complete, hu?! ;-) I'm going to TRY to post this without losing it, then join the rest of my slumbering family. Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, but I know it includes school! (We have some serious catching up to do after the past month or two!) I'll do my best to start posting more regularly now that we're "settled." Or at least in one place for a while--I hope! G'night all!

~Rebekah~

RATS. Wouldn’t you know it. “Limited or no connectivity” is preventing me from actually posting all of this!!! ~sigh~ Sometimes I just hate computers. I’ll try again tomorrow morning. For now I’ll just save the whole shebang in Word to make sure I don’t lose it all. It is definitely bedtime for me. Later, ya’ll!