In a nutshell, May 2016 was hectic, and it began in March. I haven’t cried yet though! Here’s how it all went down:

March 21, my husband and I celebrated 14 years married; we decided to go camping as we usually do, but it turned out to be a holiday weekend (Good Friday-Easter) and the campground was full. In January I knew I’d have Good Friday off at work, so that was going to be our three-day weekend camping trip to the Gorge. Everything leading up to that weekend was fine, no hitch in our plans at all. At this point in time, we hadn’t told anyone other than our kids that we were ready to buy a house, and were actively looking online. On my brother-in-law’s recommendation we found a realtor at the same company he used to buy his house. So on our way out of town we had scheduled ourselves to see 4 houses that looked good to us. All 4 were within about a mile of each other, and we were very interested in two after seeing them. Our realtor suggested we take the weekend to talk it over and get back to him when we could – he knew we were headed to camp after lunch.

We went on to the campground and after 10 minutes of driving realized it was full except for 3 sites, and none of those 3 were appealing to us. Everyone had neighbors on both sides, and one of the last sites was right next to an outhouse…. We had camped near an outhouse previously so we knew it was not going to happen again! We decided to take one more drive around the loop in the hopes that someone was leaving rather than just arriving – sadly, no such luck. Disappointed, we came back home and along the way decided we would just use this as an opportunity to seriously consider each of the homes we’d looked at, in order to make a good decision. After talking, looking, making lists, and considering everything, we slept on it. The next morning we talked a bit more, and before lunch had decided to offer on the one house we liked most. So, he emailed the realtor with our offer, and we waited.

It was around 9 p.m. before we heard back from him, but in the end our offer was bested by someone else. Again we were disappointed, but realized that maybe the universe had something else in store for us – so, back to looking and waiting. The realty company has an email list buyers can sign up for; we chose the daily email option so we could keep an eye on everything as it came available.

One day about a week later, Husband stumbled upon a recent foreclosure that seemed to have everything we were hoping to find. Our realtor was not the listing agent, and the pictures attached were tiny and blurry, so we asked if he could get us a showing. I figured the worst he could do was say ‘no’ – but he said yes! Two days later, we walked into the house for our first tour.

Long story short – we bought it! There were some hassles we weren’t aware of having to deal with, and lots of chasing paperwork while waiting for The Powers That Be to do their thing (in regard to appraisal and inspection), but so far? Worth it. I’ll have to put together a slideshow of pictures I took the day we first saw it. We bought it without a single appliance in the kitchen, but that has now been remedied and we have a totally modern kitchen! All stainless steel Whirlpool appliances! Seriously, we are still in awe sometimes when we can walk to the fridge, push a button, and have ice or water flow right into our cup. Dude, it is awesome. Anyway, we closed on May 17 and moved everything in on the 27th. Been living here for two weeks now and I can honestly say, this really is my dream home! It’s getting better by the day too, as we update some things and plan for future renovations and whatnot. I have a basement that is already half finished – the previous occupants had started that and one side just needs paint and floor work. The Honey Do list is already long, but working together we prioritized and know what will be finished when. The kitchen had to be first, because food, but every other room has a place on the list.

You may be wondering why on earth buying a house would make just one month “the most hectic of my life”? Well, at the same time that we were dealing with house things, our son was rapidly approaching graduation. And he’s a singer, so there were 4 concerts and 2 recognition banquets all spread out through the month. Add to that: award ceremony for Miss Hurricane (this year she was the top student in Japanese, 7th grade!), Mother’s Day, Miss Hurricane’s 13th birthday, a few other family birthdays, and my own birthday on the 27th – which was graduation day for Mister Twister – all while I work 45 hours a week. I’ll tell ya, some days I felt like it was hard to do much other than breathe. Weekends were full with packing up a household and trying to celebrate what we could when we could. Weeknights still included some homework and a bit of relaxing on the couch with the internet, while coordinating who needed to be informed of our impending move (credit cards, bank, utilities, post office, etc.).

Inhale, exhale.

Tonight is the first night I’ve felt like I’ve had a breather, and I have been planning this post in my head for a month now. While I don’t have the energy to link up pictures yet, I can carve out time next weekend (maybe Friday late in the evening) to do just that. I do want to share pictures of the house, and definitely some pictures of the graduated child! That in itself may actually be its own separate post. A lot happened with that kid this month and I nearly lost my mind over him TWICE. (It was fine in the end of course, but I thought I lost him two times – like, the kind of lost no parent wants. Terrifying.)

As for the rest of tonight, I have to amend our list for a day of shopping at Lowe’s tomorrow! I will be back in a week with a new post and some pictures!