Monday, August 25, 2014

Filling in the Blanks (big news in here)

I came thiiiis close to having a genuine, physical, hyperventilating panic attack this past week.  I just keep telling myself I'm not allowed to internalize my stress too much, because nearly every iota of it is self-inflicted in one way or another.

Finals have done their usual round of damage, only with the bonus rounds of spending 3.5 days right before finals at a family reunion with no wifi, and also, of trying to make up for all the times I was circumstantially forced to slack in my "independent study" efforts.  (Directed Readings and my correlated annotated bibliography)  I'm realizing that working on my thesis "on my own timetable" is going to be a massive battle between me and everything and everyone else that thinks they should be a higher priority than my thesis.  I shall have to carve out adequate time, and guard and protect it with hyper vigilance.

But I've learned, and read, and thought, and made all kinds of interesting things this past term, and that is always good for my self esteem.  Unfortunately compelling blog posts have not really been one of those things I've made.

I completed my 6 weeks of boot-camp this past week, and while in some regards (tracking all my food) I failed miserably (after 3 weeks I thought my head would explode from the added stress of that and other things and the balls started dropping), but HEY!  I attended every single 6am workout session.  That's like, well on my way to establishing a healthy habit.  That's exciting for me.  The complicated part was the several many mornings when I had to wake up at 5:15 for bootcamp after having gone to bed past 2am.   (That's a recipe for really floppy burpees, by the way)

Which is the part where I point out that I am dangerously exhausted.  All the time.  (Also it is summer, so my kids are home.  All the time.) Lack of sleep, and very messy, often rather bored kids are the center of my universe right now, and profoundly affecting how I function every single moment.  Not good.

So, on top of all of those rather boring updates, here's this: we're buying a house!

Yeah, only one exclamation mark, though after a nap I think I could muster two.

Back in February we put in an offer on a short sale and I felt like God was in His heaven and all was right with the world.  The house was a perfect fit for our family and it was just sort of landing in our laps, with an amazing absence of stress and marital discord.  It felt like such a tender mercy.  Then it fell through, and essentially went into foreclosure, and nothing else in our price range looked remotely tempting compared to it (though I kept looking), but prices were on their way up (faster than we could squirrel away money for a down payment), and it was looking like the short sale house was going to be out of our price range by the time it was re-listed (which was going to take up to 18 months).  All of these things led us to the purchase of a house that is perfectly good, if in need of an overhaul, but also pretty lackluster compared to where my expectations were 6 months ago.  So it feels like settling, but it's very comfortably within our price range, so I should be able to actually give it some of the face-lifting it needs, and our kids won't even have to change schools.  But really friends, there is nothing intrinsically endearing about this house.  I shall have to build all of that into it, and it feels like a daunting place to start.

It all makes sense on paper, I just wish I could muster more enthusiasm for it.  I deeply suspect the lack of enthusiasm has to do with the lack of sleep, and the way this house will double my already intimidating to-do list.

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There are still some tender mercies.

We will have a nice big window of time for moving.  We are only moving 2 blocks away, so frequent trips back and forth are perfectly feasible.

And after 10.5 years of marriage, Mr Renn is finally talking about tackling home projects as something we can do now instead of something we will do someday (maybe).  The proof will be in the pudding, but it's a welcome change. There are certainly plenty to choose from, and prioritizing the list will be maybe the hardest part.  Actually, I take that back.  From where I stand right now, trying to pack and move at the same time that I am starting a brand new semester of grad school will be the hardest part.

But we're going to do our darnedest to find the fun in it, and fully plan to overcome all symptoms of lacklusterness.

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