May 31st winded down to a melancholy ending. There were a million things happening that day and the kids and I were scrambling like mad to get to my step daughter’s play that evening. Clayton had made reservations at a nice restaurant afterward to celebrate the end of school and our families merging with homeownership the following day.

Earlier in the week the anger of the gods unleashed all manner of hailstones on Oklahoma City. In the wee hours one morning I awoke to hail and listened to it land, off and on, for over 2 hours. The longest stretch of time the ping pong balls of frozen water fell was about 30 sickening minutes. I miraculously maintained all of my windows, but my roof wasn’t so lucky.

Last Thursday I raced home to meet a repair man on a honey-do item I wanted fixed before closing on Friday then raced to get my kids from their summer program. Then raced to get a green smoothie and we picniced a late afternoon snack in Classen Curve while I phoned in my hail claim. I promptly called my real estate agent to let him know I’d done my due diligence on the house I was about to sell the next day and he said, “Have you checked your email?”

“No.”

“Well…” he said. Then Peter went into the details as he knew them and it was becoming clear that someone was about to rob me of my third close date. Prime Lending was jacking with my buyer for the umpteenth time in the last few weeks and it was derailing my plans.

I broke it to Clayton then sat down to watch his daughter’s play. We made it through dinner without trying to explain the confusion to the kids but there was no hiding the less-than-celebratory ambiance at the table. I told my stepson later that they must’ve noticed that us adults seemed like we were sitting at a funeral a lot of the time that night.

The house ups and downs had worn us out and this latest news was just about more than we could stand. I was emotionally blown out and I really wanted to give up on the whole thing because I knew that surrender would bring Peace and Certainty, things I hadn’t seen much of lately.

We left dinner, went to our two homes, chatted briefly on the phone, then went to bed. I couldn’t think much more that night. I needed a new day.

I awoke the next morning and after a half of cup of coffee, I wrote a blog post.

Then I opened my email program and went through all my records. I made notes of every soul involved in these transactions, where they worked, their role in that company and their phone numbers. I didn’t write down emails because I was fucking done being passive. I wanted a house, dammit, and I needed real people to talk with me on how to Make Shit Happen.

After I had a list of 8 or so people to call, I started at the top of the food chain: the closing officer at my title company. I was nice, but clear and agressive about my plight. About 9:30 am I learned that I *might* be closing at 3 pm. That’s all the wiggle room I needed. I stayed in constant contact with my realtor, my new house’s realtor, the  lender and the title company. Ran around and signed papers. Ran home to meet the movers. Begged a friend to come sit with the movers while I ran to close. Begged Clayton to stop the packing of his moving truck to come relieve my friend who had an appointment to attend. Screeched into the Bank of Oklahoma and picked up a cashier’s check. Sauntered in to the title company and drank a real coke. Ate a Otis Spunkmeyer cookie. Bought a house. Ran to the new house to direct my movers. Ran to the ATM so I could pay them and to Conoco for twenty bucks worth of bottled water and granola bars while we unloaded Clayton’s U-Haul. Ran to dinner with family.

Stumbled home in a carby stupor to fall asleep on bare mattresses on the floor of our new home.

Our. New. Home. <3

And the days since haven’t been a picnic.

When I started blogging again I gave myself a few rules to keep my touch-of-ADD self better focused, thus keeping the writing a bit more enjoyable for whomever stumbled upon it. One such rule is, “This is not your journal, whine to someone else.”

I’m breaking that rule again to tell you about the hot mess that was Thursday, May 17.

First, the day started out with this: My Yelp review about the experience. By the time that was over and finished I decided to call the day a wash and head home to finish up packing because Friday was Double Close Day! And the movers were coming at 11am! Thank you Universe for sending me home because less than an hour later the wheels were coming off the whole damn thing. By the time I hung up with my real estate agent, Peter, he and I were both in a silent sort of shock. There was a miscommunication with my mortgage company about some recommendations from an engineer’s report I had ordered and this miscommunication meant that I couldn’t close Friday unless I could turn in two bids for the two projects and put the cash in escrow. All this was at about 2:30pm.

I hung up the phone so Peter could put his brain to it and stared out the window of my living room. I looked at my green grass in the back yard and noticed that it again needed a mow. I looked at all the boxes stacked high all around me and wondered where I’d put them on Friday when I had to move out of this house I was selling. I looked at the rug on the floor covered in dog hair from Clayton’s sweet Akita/Lab mix named Shiro. For some reason she likes to stretch in front of me and it always makes me smile. Then I remembered that my yoga teacher often told us that if there was something in a yoga class we couldn’t handle that we could always return to the Child’s Pose.

I slid off of the sofa and crawled to my hands and knees, knees slightly wider than my hips. I laid one of my bare feet on top of the other behind me and let my hands extend as far as they would reach in front of me as lowered my chest to my thighs and rested my forehead on the hairy floor. And I wept for five full minutes.

Buying house is stressful in its own right and I have been holding my breath for months as all the pieces click into place. I never put all my faith in any one part of the proceedings and instead comfort myself in the overall progress. Oh, and I constantly worry.

I cried and cried and cried until it hurt because I guess Child’s Pose puts a lot of blood in your head and once you’re all worked up from bawling then your sinuses shut down air flow. It wasn’t exactly calming but it opened me up and let all that emotion free. The physical pain snapped me out of the pity party long enough sit up, blow my nose and sort of get my shit together. I wandered around my house for a few minutes, checked my email and fielded some phone calls. Clayton touching base. Peter had a plan. Loan processor called to explain some things. Then a person from the title company called to tell me that the buyer on my house had to postpone their closing because they were missing some financial documents.

So. I didn’t buy a house on Friday, nor did I sell one. It’s taken a few days to really process that. Lots of people advise you, “Oh, no one ever closes on the first close date!” But I waited for over a month to even bother trying for a close date. We didn’t even set it until about 10 days beforehand and a couple of days before I heard the phrase, “You have a clear-to-close” from my lender. I was reasonably confident. All the utilities and services were scheduled for transfer or cancellation. House was 90% packed. Blah, blah, blah. It didn’t happen and here we sit, waiting.

Because of my new requirements that involve me writing another big check, we have to wait for my house to sell before we can make the purchase. We think that will happen on May 29. I’m trying to chill out about it.