Rundown on the Lowdown

Good heavens! Remember when I used to blog?

WHAT HAPPENED?!?

Oh yeah. Life.

WHAM!
Bam!
SLAM!!
(can you hear the echo in a blog?)

So much has happened since I last posted.
How can I write about it and make it interesting?

Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Belle and Beast found out what flavor of baby their having..

WAIT!!
Rewind!
WHAT?!?!
Belle and Beast KNOW the gender and I’m just talking about it for the first time here?

Oh man, please forgive me!
We are definitely excited!
I’ve been sooooo tired. And soooooo busy.
But those are terrible excuses for not writing.
So,
YES!
Belle and Beast are having a……

Beautiful
Bouncing
Baby BOY!!!

We had a fun
”Gender Reveal Party”
the day they had the ultra sound.
They averted their eyes during that
“all important time” of the sonogram and the ultra sound tech put the picture
of the bitty parts in an envelope and sealed it up.
Belle and Beast brought the envelope home
UNOPENED
and gave it to me.

So, YES!
I (Granny) was the first to know what they are having!
Cool for me, eh?

I baked cupcakes with a blue center,
and frosted them pink and blue.

Later that evening,
after an agonizingly LONG day of waiting
they fed each other a cupcake to reveal the center.
They were pretty excited.
I’d love to tell you the name they’ve chosen, but I can’t.
Me and my privacy issues.
But hey, maybe I’ll run into you sometime,
or we’re friends on Facebook
or
Instagram
and you’ll find out there.

Let’s see?
What else is going on?

Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I started working.

WAIT!!
Rewind!
WHAT?!?!

I know! I know!
That’s BIG NEWS too!
After all, I haven’t worked outside of the home since Scooter was born.
Ahem…. for those that are counting…
that’s
10 YEARS!

And can I say it’s kicking my trash?

Oh my heavens!

I only work 3 days a week:
Tues, Wed. & Thur.
It’s supposed to be from 8:30 to 3:00.
Nice and easy.
NOT!

Why?
Because I work in a stinkin’
CHOCOLATE FACTORY
during the
CHRISTMAS SEASON!

It’s really an easy, no-brainer job.
All I do is take the chocolates off a conveyor belt and put it them in a box and move them
into the cooler
(àla Lucy and Ethel: ”SPEED IT UP A LITTLE!”)

Very easy.
In theory.
But really, there’s more to the job than
just grabbing chocolates off a belt.
We do chocolate covered:

*Cinnamon Bears (OH MY HEAVENS!!)
*Pretzels (TO DIE FOR!)
*Gummy Bears (I still don’t understand these)

and those come off the conveyor belt like
GREASED LIGHTNING!
I can’t keep up!

And then I get to weighandpackageandwatchchocolatelevelsinthemelters
andkeepthingspickedupandsometimesIgettoputthechocolatesONtheconveyorbelt
andwrapchocolateboxesandpackageothercandiesandsprinklechocolatesprinklesonpiecesoffudge
andhelpputthesignsonTurtlecandies ….
standing on my feet for a minimum of 6 hours a day
with no breaks.

Today?
It was 8.5 hours.
(Granted it was unusual for us to go that long.)

I’M SO TIRED!!

Let’s see?
What else is going on?

Blah, blah, blah, blah
WE think we finally found a bank who will give us a
construction loan
without requiring our first and last child and first grandchild as a down payment!

WAIT!!
Rewind!
WHAT?!?!

I know!
Crazy huh!

That’s what’s been the major hold-up on our move for so long.
We’ve been to bank after bank after bank bank after bank after bank bank after bank after bank
for a construction loan
and each time they say,
“SURE! WE’D LOVE TO GIVE YOU A LOAN!
YOU MORE THAN QUALIFY!
BUT WE REQUIRE
20% DOWN PAYMENT!”
(Cue screeching tires sound effect)

Ummmm…. that’s a ton of cash!
Which we don’t have.

We were at the end.
No hope.
No more options.
No prebuilt houses available.
No way to build.

Brick walls hurt when you run into them!

This was our last hope.
Without going into details that makes this story even longer,
Flynn was directed to a private mortgage company that agreed to give us a construction loan for only
3.5% down!

We feel like it’s a miracle.
We have that amount of cash.
We’ll have to have a smaller house than we wanted.
And it won’t be as nice as we wanted.
But it will have 4 walls, a floor and a roof.
And we can live in it together
AS A FAMILY!!

And that I can live with!

(This is a lot of ground I’ve covered tonight. I hope you’re not too bored!)