putting the *move* in moving mountains

It's been a week today since I got home from California, and I must admit it feels more like a month. I can't believe how much I've gotten accomplished in just seven days!

*I have a sized-just-right 200 year old engagement ring on my finger, a hybrid of family rings which cost us $0.

*I found a replacement host for my radio show.

*My house is up for sale and in the midst of a major purging.

*I'm lining up freelance marketing work to take to California with me to hold us over until I can find the right job fit there.

*Mr. Perfect got to meet my siblings and various assorted family members via Skype, which included us singing him our rousing rendition of "Hooked on a Feeling" (ooga chakka, ooga ooga)

*And maybe most exciting--Mr. Perfect and I bumped our wedding date up by five days to November 24, and moved it from California to Utah, where we were planning on being for his big family reunion/Thanksgiving/anniversary/birthday party anyway. This will keep his out of state family from having to travel more the next weekend AND it will allow all our kids to be a part of the whole shebang, which they are thrilled about. A win-win situation, even if it will be 30 degrees colder :) 

And while we couldn't be happier with how smoothly everything is falling into place, there has been some rough news, too.

Those of you who have read my blog for a while know what a love affair I've had with the house we bought and remodeled six years ago ("Providence Cottage"). I thought it would be my carry-me-out-feet-first-when-I'm-dead house.  I cared for it as such and have been so, so grateful that I was able to hang onto it for the 4 1/2 years since the divorce. It was the piece of sanity and stability that the boy squad and I so needed, and it nurtured us as we made all kinds of happy memories inside and out in our new family situation. 

We're ready and even excited, all of us, to leave now and make a new home--but turns out leaving won't be as easy as we thought. Six years ago, right on the tipping point of the real estate bubble bursting when no one was really sure how bad it would be, we took all the money we had in the world--$60,000--and put it down on the house. Now, I've learned that I won't be walking away from the sale with even a penny. The value just hasn't recovered yet, and could be as much as a decade off before it does. Which really stinks. Really, really. Especially since I wanted to use the few thousand dollars I'd hoped to make  from the sale to get us moved, and maybe bring a little something into the marriage with me.

Like I said, things are falling smoothly into place otherwise and I don't doubt they will continue to. This bump is just the last of the rough stuff needed to close this chapter in my life before starting new.

I am marrying a man who is willing to support his two girls, his ex-wife, me, his mother, his handicapped 21-year old sister, one naughty little dog, and my four boys (whom he WILL be solely supporting since I haven't received child support since July).

That's the caliber of man he is.

And, on an artist's salary, he has no idea how it's going to work, but he's faithful it will. As am I. Too many things have fit too divinely together for us to think otherwise. I am willing to work my behind off, too. It will be a crazy first few months of adjustment but it IS going to come together.

All that being said, we have received numerous generous, loving offers for help in whatever form we needed it. I know I will need help packing and cleaning at some point. I know I will need help pulling the final details of our extremely modest self-paid wedding off. But, most of all, we just need help with moving costs which include a storage pod and one-way airplane tickets. I am selling about a third of everything I own and cashing in my life insurance policy, but it looks like we'd still come up short.

In the five years I have been blogging, I have been regularly asked to advertise or set up some type of PayPal account where people could help me during my hardest hit times (like the year my cousin ran off with my school tuition inheritance money from my Grandpa, never to be seen again...). It has never sat right with me, and I have always managed to pull out of jams alright--including with help from some angels on earth. But for now, looking at the Goliath of the problem in front of us and knowing that people *do* want the option of helping in lieu of wedding gifts, Mr. Perfect and I set up an online registry where folks could donate in one dollar increments towards the goal of getting us together.

Again, I know this will all work out regardless. If I can get through a 2 month house remodel with an infant while homeschooling, if I can get through Rheumatic Fever that almost killed me, if I can get through 25 credits in one semester, if I can get through working 5 jobs while single parenting...well, I can totally get through this, too. But, for those who would strangle me if they didn't get a chance to add their two bits (literally) to this happily ever after--Here you go:

http://parkerandjennifer.mydagsite.com/

And have I mentioned today how much I love you? No matter what. Thank you for your outpouring of  best wishes. I can't imagine a finer group of friends who have stuck so lovingly by me through this journey to share all this excitement with.