A strange bit of news...

Just over a year ago, my house in Versailles was broken into and vandalized, and about $4,500 in material goods were stolen out of the home. It was rough because that house has been nothing but a constant reminder of a year of my life I'd rather have done differently (save for the few good friends I made out of that disastrous job decision). 

So last year at this time, I was sitting in my little farmhouse miles away from the Versailles house hyperventilating over the outrageous cost of homeowner's insurance following the break-in ($500 for three months). I was literally shedding tears over my grandfather's stolen tools; I was kicking myself for being such a poor steward of something that meant so much to me. I was not sleeping well as periodically panic attacks would hit me over whether or not someone was going back to the house to do more of the same. 

The guys who broke into the house were both caught, and we have gotten all but $130 of the restitution from the kid who was ordered to pay $500. We got a letter in mid-November saying that the kid who was charged as an adult was ordered to pay $4200.  But we hadn't seen any of that money. So I called the probation folks today to ask what was going on, and I spoke to a very nice woman with a very thick accent. She asked me for his name. His indictment number. Then there was a pause.

"He passed away."

"I'm sorry. Do you mean he died?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're serious."

"Yes, ma'am."

What a strange bit of news.

I called a friend from Versailles and told her the news, and she asked me how he died. When had he died? It hadn't occurred to me to ask.

So I went online, and I looked it up. December 3rd--one month after his sentencing in my case. He was driving. And drinking. And he lost control of his car and hit a tree. They had to use the jaws of life to pry both him and his passenger from the vehicle. They airlifted them to the hospital. They both died. 

I read through the comments people made on his funeral page--everyone said he was very well-raised. He was very respectful. He was very caring about other people. People wrote about how well-mannered he was. He had a two-year-old daughter. And apparently, some girl named Lizzie was falling in love with him and wanted to declare her love publicly at his death. 

It presented a stark contrast to what I knew of him. I knew what he did to my house (spray-painted penises all over the walls and refrigerator, burned the carpets, stole my furniture and personal belongings). I also knew that when he was supposed to be appearing in court for his case in regards to my house, he couldn't make it because he was in another jail for having stolen dog food from a store. And he died a violent, drunken death (and took with him one of his friends) on a road where I used to regularly ride my bike.  

I'm trying to reconcile the whole thing in my head. We still have this house for sale, so I can't say that this brings any sort of closure. We are clearly out all the money that we lost, and we can't recuperate it as a tax deduction--he didn't do quite enough damage for us to be able to claim it as a loss. I'll never get to find out where my grandfather's tools ended up (I was planning to speak to his probation officer today to ask him if he might be able to ask about them). I don't feel as if he ever actually had to make amends for all the damages he did. 

And it's sad that his family lost him.

But I have to say that I also had this reaction of, "Well, that's karma." And I don't mean that in an off-the-cuff kind of a way. I mean it in a sincere, when-you-do-too-many-bad-things-the-world-will-spit-back kind of a way. It's hard for me to comprehend that a 20-year old could have done so much badly in such a short life span. But I only knew of him for a year of his life, and I didn't even know all that much of him. But I know that he managed to cause a lot of damage to a person he didn't even know. 

I don't know how to end this writing. So I'll just end it here.

Hopefully holding our breath...

We are about to join the ranks of the folks who have two mortgages. It isn't our first choice. For two years, we've lived in this run-down farmhouse with a sinking bathroom floor, leaky roof, rocking toilet, and no clothes dryer that is an hour and fifteen minutes from my job with the idea that we would move only when the house in Versailles sells. That was our plan.

But giving up 2 1/2 hours a day in the truck, $600 a month in gas, and the farmhouse's limitations were getting taxing. We've not been able to have our wedding gifts (or chosen not to, really), because we've been waiting for a house where we could really enjoy them. Still, we've been waiting.

Then, last Sunday was a bad day. I got up in the morning, got my morning coffee, and was looking online at some houses in Smith's Grove (a hobby of mine), and I discovered that one of the houses that I had been eyeing for quite some time had the price dropped $20,000. Oddly, I was heartbroken. We've been talking about how we were going to take advantage of this buyer's market, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. And suddenly, I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed by it all, really.

I strapped on my running shoes and went for a quick run, but my emotions were just boiling. I have to say that I was well-aware that I wasn't just reacting to the house that we wouldn't be able to get. I also kept thinking that it's really not bad. There are millions of people (literally) in the world who would be incredibly happy to be in our position--to have the opportunity to live in a house with a roof over their heads, jobs that pay well, a family next door, and the necessities--home, clothing, food. I know that because I work with people who don't have those things all the time. And I feel the weight of that knowledge when I get stressed about our situation. 

I stress about not having a house where family and friends can visit comfortably. I stress about not being able to sell that house in Versailles--it feels like I'm still paying penance for deciding to leave Culver and take that job. And I feel like life is on hold...has been on hold. Or at least, I know we've been choosing to put things on hold in a lot of ways. 

Monday morning. I started making phone calls. By Monday afternoon, I had information on the house with the dropped price. I had called our mortgage company to see if we might be able to get one and how much it would cost. I had made an appointment to see the house the next afternoon. I had talked with Kevin on the phone a hundred times. I felt like I had started to figure things out. 

Tuesday night, we went over to see the house. The weeds and grass around the house are grown up so tall that we could probably mow and bale it. But if you can wade through that and imagine the house without it, you can see the potential in the property. The front porch has room for our rocking chairs and a swing. The view is of a beautiful cow pasture across the road. 

The inside is another story. You have to get beyond the incredibly stupid DIY ideas that the previous homeowners tried to implement to see that there is potential there, too. There's damage to the floors--neglected problems with french doors and moisture. There's a doorway that was filled in that should have been left alone. There are the most hideous paint and wallpaper choices throughout the home. But what Kevin and I saw is a home..our own home. 

So we put in a bid, the bank counteroffered, we bid back, the bank counteroffered again, we bid back, and the bank accepted. Now, we're waiting for the home inspection. And we're so excited we're bursting at the seams! But holding our breath that the inspection doesn't reveal anything that we didn't already suspect was there or anything worse than what is there. Please keep your fingers crossed for us, as well. 

News..but not what we were hoping for...

Sounds like we're back to square one. The folks who wanted the house can't do anything for at least another month. So we're sorta at square one. But with the possibility of getting to square two? Disappointment, though. I'm so tired of this disappointment. 

Two in the bush...disappointment...riding the real estate roller coaster

It has been a week of ups and downs. We're (I'm) down right now. We had the one offer. We got a second offer. We decided to not go with the first offer because it was so low that we'd have to dig up $12,000 to sell the house. That's just a lot of money to sell something, isn't it? That's a huge chunk of my yearly salary. The other person couldn't come any higher. If we cut the realtors out of it altogether, we'd manage to then only owe $5000. And somehow that seems more palatable, but we can't cut out realtors--we need them. We tried selling this house on our own for about 10 months FSBO, and we got nothing but nibble after nibble without a serious offer. For anyone keeping track, we've now had the house on the market for 22 months. A house we aren't living in.

The second offer came in yesterday, but it had a couple of glitches in it that made it tough to take...those issues left way too much up in the air. But in looking at their offer, I thought that the up-in-the-air issues could all be solved by asking them to get a letter from their mortgage company since they had a meeting scheduled for today. They, oddly, responded that they would be in touch and that they wanted a response to their offer by 5:00 today. Then, they never got in touch today. So while I thought things would be clarified today, they are now muddied by a lack of communication. And we're stuck waiting with no recourse.

In the meantime, my realtor e-mailed me that another woman who was previously interested in my house saw another house today, fell in love, and is making an offer on that. That easy. Why the hell can't it be that easy for us? WHY? What do we have to do here? 

An offer...

We have one. FINALLY. Someone made an offer. It's low, but it's an offer. Ironically, the woman who made the offer is the same one who wanted the house a year and a half ago when we had the house FSBO. But for various reasons, that didn't work out. She kept in touch, though, until we put the house on the market with a realtor. Then, she got in touch with our realtor. Finally, she made an offer on the house yesterday. An actual, written offer. But it's low. Low as in we'll have to dig deeper into our pockets than we can to pay all the costs associated with the offer. So we'll counter. But keep your fingers crossed for us today. It's a big day.

Last night was the first night that Kevin talked about moving without that "don't put the cart before the horse" feeling in the conversation. I know where he's been coming from--someone has to pull in my enthusiasm when I'm ready to go out and spend money that we don't have. =)

But we might actually get to open our wedding gifts now! (We've been married almost a year).

Two Showings...One Hour...Waiting...

We dropped the price on the house on Friday by another $4000. This actually puts us $2000 under the price that I paid for the house in August 2005; but the house is worth what someone will pay for it, and it isn't worth what I paid for it in August 2005. We'll be digging into our pockets at this point to at least cover the realtors' fees, but we'll gladly do that if it will get the house off our books. 

The news, though, is that almost immediately after dropping the price on the house, we had a showing scheduled for 6:00 tonight. And then this morning I was sent an e-mail scheduling another showing for 6:15 tonight. This means that we could actually have two groups at the house at the same time. This is a dream for us considering the few number of showings we've had in the nearly 10 months we've had it listed with a realtor. I'm excited that there will be two groups at the house at the same time--perhaps that will make one of the groups feel the need to be a little competitive for the place? 

When a showing gets scheduled, I sit and watch the clock. I imagine people walking through the house at the time that they are supposed to be there. I wonder what they are saying. Then I wait...thinking that I might get a call from my realtor. Last time she took someone through the house, she actually called me from the showing to ask me a couple of questions. But regardless of who is doing the showing, I sit and wait. And I hope that our realtor will call with an offer...but I almost dare not let myself hope for that. 

This is hard. Cross your fingers for us. We have to hope, but we almost dare not hope... so our fingers are crossed, too. (And our toes). 

Coughing and running and wishing

Cough, cough, hack, hack, ahem, ahem...

I've been floating through this week. I came back from a weekend visit with my best buddy in Indiana, and I was flat out on the couch as soon as I walked in the door. I actually wasn't feeling all that well in the car on the way home and stopped at the rest stop to take a quick nap, but I didn't realize what was to come. By Monday morning, I was really in the thick of it. And it's been three days of just yuck. It's a miracle, really, that I haven't gotten sick sooner with all the germ carriers that I work with, but I hoped that with Spring coming I'd make it all the way to summer without the hiccup of an illness. I'll try again next year. 

Running

See above. Not much of it happening this week. One of my favorite runs in the world is around Lake Maxinkuckee in Culver, Indiana. It's a nice 10-mile loop, and it's where I got my start. I had hoped for the chance to run it with my best friend last weekend, but a) I wasn't ready and b)the weather wasn't cooperating. I honestly think I could have struggled through a ten-miler by myself, but I didn't want to put Jen through the torture of running such a slow pace with me--I'm embarrassed about my current state in a lot of ways. I'll work back from it, but I'm also very hard on myself, and right now I need to be hard on myself. 

House

After nearly two years of our house sitting on the market...empty...I'd think that the stress would even out. In some ways it has. It's a low-grade stress that is constantly there. Right now, it is slightly lessened by the fact that we have a trustworthy tenant in the house for the next month and a half, but then the house will go back to sitting empty if we don't sell it. And we don't have any prospects even considering the place at this point. I just don't   know   what  to  do. 

I have prayed. I have tried to earn karma points. I have put my time in living in a run-down farmhouse that is so small and falling apart that we have to put out no fewer than five buckets or trash cans each time it rains to catch the water from the leaking roof. Our wedding gifts are now coming up on their one-year anniversary in my father-in-law's basement along with 80 percent of my belongings, and looking at them makes me want to cry. I dream of having friends over for dinner, of living in a place where all the burners on the stove work, of having a dryer (yes, we have no dryer because we have no place to hook it up). I can't wait to cut my commute (currently 1 hour and 15 minutes each way each day). Yet it's been almost two years, and it's starting to feel like it's just never going to happen. It's felt like that for a long time. I just don't know what we can do. 

We are lucky. We aren't like the folks caught not being able to pay their mortgage. I just happened to leave my job at a time when the housing market was about to take a dive. And without going into too much detail, there's a story behind leaving that job that makes this all even more sad... and there's a level of unfairness about that whole situation that I just have to let go of. The boss I had at that job ran her tornado through the lives of me and my coworkers, and while we ultimately found a recourse for that, it was not without a heavy cost to me and my friends. 

So selling that house for me will be finally closing a chapter that I've been working to close for two years. And it will mean a new start for my husband and me. But we're doing alright. Just...wishing. 

ESL

We start standardized testing on Monday, and that will run for the next nine school days. Every morning. Kids will be tested in Math, Reading, Science, History, Social Studies, Arts and Humanities. And our school will get its funding based on their performance on these tests. The thing about it is, though, that there's no motivation for the kids to do well. I'd like to think that their sense of responsibility and community would be enough to make them want to do well, but at the middle school level, the world is all about them. And for a middle schooler to really want to do something just because it's the right thing to do is often a tough sell. 

I had a conversation with another teacher that went something like this:

Me: I just don't understand why we don't tie their CATS tests into something for the kids--hold them accountable for their performance on the tests.

Other teacher: I TOTALLY agree. And we had an expert on testing come in here, and he said that we just can't hold the kids accountable for their scores on these tests.

Me: But aren't we held accountable for how the kids are doing on their tests?

OT: Yes, we are.

Me: So you mean we are held accountable for the performance of kids whom we are not allowed to hold accountable? 

OT: Yes.

Me: [dumbfounded silence]

OT: Yes. 

Me: One other thing, are we also held accountable as a school for the improvement of our students or for the actual level of the students?

OT: The actual level of the students.

Me: So you are saying that if a kid came in here at the beginning of the year, and they were a novice, and they have moved up to apprentice (seemingly as a result of our instruction), that doesn't matter because they aren't proficient?

OT: Right. 

Me: So no matter what we do, if the kid actual shows outstanding improvement, we don't get recognition for that as long as they don't meet that "proficient" standard?

OT: Yep.

Me: [dumbfounded silence]

Annie needs to go out. I've gotta take her. 

A few hours later...running and houses

We've got a tenant in our house for two months. This is an incredible comfort to me. More comforting would be if the people who looked at the house this morning were to buy it, but that's maybe still in the works. Seems lots of people like the house, but few are qualified to own it. The folks who looked at it this morning are in some sort of a credit-recovery program that will allow them to buy a house, and they seemed to express a need to get a house soon. They apparently pulled up in a Mercedes to look at the house. Kevin said that's probably why they are in a credit-recovery program--car rich and house poor. What do we know? If they are interested in the house, and they can get the loan for it, we're totally willing to sell it to them!

10 miler update

As we were sitting having lunch today, Kevin and I came to the agreement that we won't be driving up to Louisville to run the 10 miler tomorrow. There are any number of reasons that we could list. The biggest is that we aren't feeling mentally or physically ready. I know I'm not. I know I could finish a ten miler. After enjoying the sufferfest that is an Ironman marathon--twice--I am confident that I can make any distance if I am willing to slow down enough and suffer enough. The question becomes what I'm looking to get out of the experience. And honestly, weighing all the other pieces of the equation, it just didn't make sense for us to go run that run. 

Reading

I was given a copy of The Freedom Writer's Diaries (or something along those lines for a title) at Christmas, and I just picked it up and started reading it. It's nice to see what a teacher is doing in her classroom that is so inspiring for her students. There's a bit of jealousy in me that I really do thoughtfully seek out opportunities to inspire my students, and I seem to get discouraged and miss the mark more often than I'd like to. But I guess I can just keep working at it. I grow so frustrated b y the state standards that require so much of my kids and take away some of the autonomy that makes a good teacher a good teacher. I seek balance.