Holy cow! It’s been almost 5 months since I posted an entry here!

In my defense (I always have a defense) I have been really really busy. Really! First there was the cross-country driving, which included visits to both my family and Matt’s family for Thanksgiving and also for pilfering various items from their houses–some of which we had left behind to be collected later and some of which were donated to the cause of furnishing our new house. We drove back with a big U-Haul trailer which, thankfully, did NOT try to kill us in Kansas like the last one did. In fact, this trailer behaved so well compared to the last one we pulled on the same route that any lingering doubts or guilt I might have carried about taking U-Haul’s money five years ago to repair our truck after their trailer tried to kill us have been laid to rest. Their trailer had a problem. A big problem. And it damaged our car and threatened our safety. And I do not regret taking their money to pay for the necessary repairs. So there.

So we returned with our bellies full of turkey and our car and trailer full of boxes and furniture, and promptly unloaded those latter items into our apartment’s garage, because we had not yet closed on the house. In fact, while we were gone another complication came up to delay things for *another* couple of weeks. In the beginning of December we threw common sense to the wind and cleaned up the leaves in the back yard even though we had no claim to the house yet, because we didn’t want them to be matted down over the grass by incoming snow in case we *did* close. At the most, it would be a few hours of free labor given to a good cause. We raked up 41 big bags of leaves and piled them on the back patio, just in time for a big snowfall to justify our actions. We also cleaned out as many roof gutters as we could reach with our apartment-sized ladder–most were entirely full, and some had plants almost two feet tall growing in them.

Luckily for us, we DID close on the house just after Matt’s finals week in December. We signed all the paperwork on Friday the 17th, I painted and cleaned like a crazy person all weekend, and we moved the bulk of our belongings in on Monday the 20th. In true Whitt fashion, we unpacked and decorated for Christmas in record time, and were entirely out of the old apartment before the end of the year.

After our housewarming party in mid-January, we started in on remodeling the master bathroom. That project is still in process, but it’s closer than ever to being finished. Right now, all we need are trim (baseboards, etc.), tile in the shower stall, and a shower door. The tiling is holding things up at present, because it takes a big chunk of time at once, and we haven’t had a whole lot of that.

The next project will be the half-bath and laundry room downstairs. And the garage doors (only one currently works). And the retaining wall in the back yard. And pulling out the enormo-bush out front. And the dead bushes. And… well, I’ll be sure to keep the photos coming.

Shiloh does, in fact, love her new house and back yard. She’s not too sure about all the service people who’ve come over to work on things and make sure our systems are up to par.

It’s probably worth mentioning that now that we have extra room even after designating a guest room and an office for me, we’re renting our spare room to a college student. His name is Kevin, and I’ll probably mention him from time to time. So now you know who this random Kevin person is.

In other news, I bit the bullet and got a new job. I’m driving for a car service here in Denver, mostly Town Cars with the occasional SUV, van, or stretch limo thrown in. It’s a good job, and I like it thus far. Flexible, good people, decent money. Can’t complain. So if you’re coming to Denver and you need a driver, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll give you the company’s contact info.

Matt is on schedule to graduate this May, barring a sudden descent into insanity as a result of his crazy schedule this semester to get everything done. So May will be busy, as we host several family members for his graduation ceremony, then throw a party, then head out for a week of vacation with some of those family members.

I don’t remember all the other things that have happened in the last five months, but I’m sure things will come to mind as I return to regular updatery.

So? How are things with you? What have I missed? What should I post photos of first? Talk to me, people!

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or are my facebook friends have most likely already seen this news, but we have finally reached a watershed point, and the Super Sekrit Project can be de-sekrit-ized.

Drumroll!
…….

We are buying a house!

Woohoo!

Those paying attention to the duration of the Super Sekrit Project thus far have probably noticed that this has encompassed a fair amount of time and energy in the last few months. We found quite a few homes with listings that looked promising enough for us to see them in person; we debated back and forth between several; we took a very deep breath and offered on a short sale property (this does not refer to the length of time it takes; it’s a type of pre-foreclosure, which complicates things); we waited several weeks for the seller’s bank to get some things together so they could decide whether to accept our offer or not; we looked at more houses before we decided to extend the deadline for our offer; we waited for some more wrangling between the sellers and their bank (remember how I said the short sale status complicated things?); and then we scheduled a home inspection to do everything we could to ensure that the property is in the condition we expected, that we most likely won’t run into something like a cracked foundation or leaky roof in the near future. Any one of those steps encompassed many ways the deal could break apart, so we have refrained from talking about it much in any public format.

Of course, as with anything, nothing is set in stone until after the closing–we haven’t set a date for that yet, but we’re prepared to move quickly and hoping everything will come together so that we can take possession early enough to do some cleaning and catch up on general maintenance before it comes time for us to move. The house has been vacant for almost two years, so there’s plenty to clean, lots of leaves to clear out of the yard, etc. Just to add a bit of an obstacle, we’ll be taking a road trip out east to spend Thanksgiving with our families, so we’ll be working around all of that.

In the last few weeks, I’ve gotten quotes for various home-owning-related things like carpet cleaning, repainting siding, and servicing the HVAC system; I’ve researched costs for home improvement projects like remodeling bathrooms and pulling out juniper bushes; and I’ve combed craigslist for moving boxes, since we’ve finally reached a stage at which packing up items we don’t need everyday actually makes sense.

It’s a crazy kind of thing, buying a house. It takes up all your mental energy, and a fair amount of the physical energy as well. I have a ridiculous number of bookmarks, and it’s hard not to tumble things over and over in my mind, trying to find the perfect solution to any number of challenges.

As a result of everything that’s going on, I have officially decided to NOT participate in NaNoWriMo this year. I will, of course, write as much as I can amid all the other activity, and I remain committed to my goal of querying actively this month. (I did finish my query letter. Huzzah!) And then there’s the packing and the cleaning and the finalizing a home purchase and the driving across the country and back. I think all that should keep me plenty busy without adding the pressure of 50k more words, and the guilt of being behind on my word count all month, as I know I would be.

Since I know everyone really reads the blog for news on Shiloh, you will be disappointed to hear that she remains completely baffled in the face of my house-related excitement. I try to tell her she’s getting a yard–with a fence!–but she just tilts her head to one side and looks at me rather blankly. No response. No enthusiasm. It’s really very disappointing, but I suspect she’ll catch on quickly after she sees the place.

So that’s the Super Sekrit Project, no longer a secret. See? I told you it wasn’t a book deal, a baby, or another dog. But it’s cool!

I promised last time to tell about adventures in milk. Through an acquaintance, we have had a supply of raw milk lately–lovely full-of-fat, cream-rises-to-the-top-to-skim-off-and-put-in-my-coffee, straight-from-the-cow milk. That’s really all the adventure has been, but it’s been wonderful. I do love milk.

In other news, you may remember that I joined a gym last week. This is in part because it’s the cheapest way for me to have access to a lap pool all year round, since the condo complex’s pool is only open between Memorial and Labor Days, and I do like swimming. Also, I tend to be more motivated to follow through on goals if I’m paying something for them–so paying for a gym membership significantly increases the likelihood that I will actually exercise. Nine days in, the theory holds. We’ll see how it does over the course of the next few months. I am doing cardio and I used my free introductory hour with a personal trainer to set up some weight training to help me reach my goals, which I admit is mostly to feel less like a lazy slug. Maybe not the most noble goal, but a goal nonetheless.

Most of the rest of what’s going on isn’t ready for public announcement yet, but it’s taking up a lot of brain space and it’s hard to not talk about. No, it’s not a book deal. No, it’s not a baby. Sadly enough, it’s not even another dog. But it’s cool!

How did that happen? This is craziness. Give me back my year!

Needless to say, life has continued on its “busy” trend. As I told a friend earlier today, I am alternately awash in activity and then entirely free, wondering what I’m behind on since surely I should be doing something. That pretty much sums up the last few months.

So, how are things going? Well, Matt has a stable job that we have every reason to believe will continue beyond his graduation from seminary, which will happen (fingers crossed) this coming May. I finished my manuscript and have made progress on writing a really lovely query letter, but it’s not quite there yet and I keep getting bowled over by things that Need Doing Now, so it’s not quite ready to send out on its own yet. My goal is to get it there by November 1.

Also, I’m pretty sure of what I’m going to be working on for NaNoWriMo this year, which I’ve signed up for despite the fact that I will be out of the state for at least half the month, given the current schedule.

I am a creature of habit, and recently I’ve realized that several of my habits of late are not as productive or constructive as they should be, though it’s better than it could be. Nonetheless I am endeavoring to improve, and on that note I have joined a gym and committed to a regular exercise schedule, thus far with widely varied results. Not varied results as regards working out regularly–there’s only been a chance for two workouts yet, and I’ve done both of them–but varied results in the level of extreme pain I experienced in the hours following said workouts. My hope is that more exercise will lessen the pain factor considerably, which would be good if I mean to continue with the exercising.

Shiloh is doing very well lately, especially since as a result of both Matt and I returning to more beneficial schedules, we’ve re-instituted our former habit of taking nightly walks, and Matt has returned to his habit of getting up early and taking a long walk in the morning as well. She’s loving it. We’re not displeased, either.

In other news, the library had its annual book sale, and then I found a used bookstore that was going out of business, so I bought a bunch of books that I otherwise wouldn’t have acquired because they were cheap! Yay books! Also, I’ve been really enjoying some nonfiction reading that I stacked up for myself alongside my usual fiction consumption.

Last but not least, I’ve been meaning to talk about milk, but I’m out of time for now, so that will have to wait until next time, which I full intend to be much sooner than the middle of November.

Oh yeah, I turned 28 about a week and a half ago; had a lovely quiet day and thus far my 29th year of life is treating me tolerably well. Can’t complain.

Earlier today I had a brilliant idea for something to write about here.

Naturally, I completely forget what it was.

So, no brilliant discourse for you today. Or even moderately amusing discourse.

Life seems to be rolling along at a rather high speed, so I’m trying to keep up. I’ve been reading more non-fiction than usual lately, but I’ve given up on trying to keep track of all my reading this year, so you’re out of luck if you want me to recall them all. The house has almost entirely recovered from our recent parental visits, with the notable exception (as usual) of the kitchen. It’s still a bit of a disaster.

There are also several potential Things in the hopper, which would be rather big Things if I could talk about them, but they’re in such embryonic stages that it would do all of us a disservice if I started squeeing about them here.

Having let myself revel in Being Done with revisions on my manuscript for a few days (and also visiting with my parents, who flew thousands of miles to see us), I have officially begun moving forward with the next steps, which are updating my short synopsis and writing a query letter that isn’t horrible. The former is in good shape, I think, but the latter is one of my personal weak spots, and I am dreading revisiting it. My last attempt was truly terrible. It made my book sound boring. My book is not boring! It’s exciting! Thus, inherently a bad letter.

Shiloh seems to have made a full recovery from her tummy unpleasantness, and has returned to full cuteness. Lately, she spends her afternoons out on the porch sleeping in the sun and watching the birds on the feeder, and chasing off the braver squirrels who venture near the porch railing. A few neighborhood cats have also seemed to hone in on our porch as a good bird-hunting location, so Shiloh does what she can to save her birdy friends from annihilation. The birds are completely accustomed to her presence and are unconcerned with her proximity. They know she just likes watching them. It’s quite endearing to watch.

That’s all I’ve got. Hope all you masses of people who read my blog are doing well. :)

My big deadline? The super secret goal? Completed, with 6 hours to spare. It’s amazing what one can get done, amidst distractions, when one has resolved to do it anyway. We’ve had multiple visitors, a sick dog (she’s doing much better now, thanks for asking), car troubles (new clutch, and it’s making a HUGE difference, thanks), all my kids going off to college (no, not my biological kids, but they’re still mine, and they still all left to save the world), and the various other bits of craziness that normally make up life in the Whitt house.

My novel is done. The novel that I finished a long, long time ago, and then pulled apart a big section of because I figured out what was bugging me, and it was a big enough problem to warrant the pulling apart and putting back together. The novel that got rather abandoned because Real Life Took Over And Exploded this year.

That novel.
It’s done.
Again.
Finally.

That was my goal: to finally complete all the revisions needed to make it a whole story again, worth submitting.

There are, of course, always things I *could* keep fiddling with. But I will not. I am backing away slowly, with my hands in plain sight, leaving this manuscript just as it is, because it is finished.

I’m not even going to talk about the next steps until tomorrow, at least. Tonight, I get to enjoy the fact that my manuscript is complete.

Take that, August!

Sometimes, when I go to bed, my brain keeps trying to think of things I should take care of. Some nights, I just tell it to shut up, and it does, and I go to sleep, and if it’s important I’ll remember it in the morning.

Tonight is not one of those nights. I have been trying to tell my brain to shut up for quite some time, and it is not obeying my demands. I got up and wrote down things I need to take care of tomorrow, including taking a payment to the dentists’ office (quicker to drop it off than mail it) and exchanging the jeans I wore once before the seams started pulling in a rather unfortunate location (no, I did not get the wrong size; there seems to be a fluke in manufacture).

Not even my clever going-to-sleep trick is working. I would tell you about said clever trick, but that’s beside the point and rather confusing to explain at any rate.

The point is that I have decided that I have a goal for August.

I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you. I have a goal, and I will complete it before the month of August ends. It’s demanding. If it wasn’t, I could tell you more about it. But this way, I retain the element of surprise AND the possibility of evading the acknowledgement of a crushing defeat if I don’t quite reach it. Which won’t happen, but it doesn’t do to be unprepared.

There will be smaller goals associated with this large, demanding, quite-honestly-rather-frightening-and-makes-me-want-to-cower-in-a-hole-rather-than-think-about-it goal, and those I will very likely talk about and, (*gasp!*) even ask for some accountability on, but the end goal? The thing I will announce that I have accomplished by September First in the Year of Our Lord’s Grace 2010?

That will remain a secret.

And now, I bid you all good night.

I actually wrote this on June 14th. Well, as long as we assume that “this” means everything in this entry after this paragraph, which I am writing today (July 19). Which means that even though I am posting it now (more than a month later), I am still behind on keeping anyone at all up-to-date on what’s going on. I can say, however, that thus far my predictions about how the summer would continue have been pretty much spot-on. Last month’s news is better than no news!

It’s been an appallingly long time since I posted an entry here. In my defense, I did predict that busy-ness would overtake our life before I went dark a few months ago. (No, really, I did. Except now I can’t find the entry. Drat! I still maintain that I predicted it.) What I didn’t predict was how very busy I would be.

You see, stuff with Matt’s job sort of blew up a little bit, with the end result being more responsibility for him to shoulder in the middle of an already very busy semester. Thus, my job search was aborted before it even really began, and I have spent the last several months being the wifey-est wife you ever saw. I have even been doing the dishes. Sometimes. I have also been cooking and cleaning and chauffeuring and running errands. I did pretty much all the research for buying the car we added to our family, and then took care of all the ensuing complications that having a new-used car presents.

I planned our vacation (we stayed in Pagosa Springs, CO, and explored a big portion of the SW corner of the state) and did a lovely job of it, if I do say so myself. Four or five days after we got back, I flew out to the east coast to surprise my brother for his 30th birthday and had a nice time visiting with family at the North Carolina beach. And I got a tan. Sort of. As much of a tan as I ever get. Seriously, my freckles are closer together. I swear.

June 4th was our fifth wedding anniversary, and at some point we’re planning to go out to a nice dinner to celebrate. We’ve just been too busy so far. We did cook ourselves a nice dinner that night and had a movie date at home.

Otherwise, I’ve continued with the usual church activities, both worship team stuff and preaching stuff. I also went to a women’s conference with some of the ladies from Bible Study last weekend, which was well worth it. I’ll be chewing over some of the teaching for some time, which is a good thing. I’m also preaching this Sunday, which means sermon prep will take up some of my time this week.

Life isn’t going to get less busy any time soon, either: this weekend a good friend is coming to visit for a few days. I’ll be serving as camp nurse (i.e. I get the first aid kit) and cabin mom for one of the senior girls’ cabins at the church’s weeklong camp up in Wyoming for the week that bridges June and July. My cousin is getting married two weeks after that, and I’m looking forward to flying to Atlanta for the wedding. In August, one of Matt’s sets of parents will visit us for several days, then taking off on a driving trip for several weeks before they fly home, and my parents will be visiting a few weeks later, around Labor Day.

Beyond that, I’m not sure what’s happening, but I doubt it will be any less busy. Maybe one day I’ll actually have time to look for a day job, even if I won’t subsequently have a calm enough schedule to keep it. We’ll see.

In between all that chaos and traveling, I’ve hardly done any writing at all. I’m also behind on several projects that I expected to have made progress on by now. It’s frustrating and a bit discouraging, but thus far I haven’t given up. With any luck, I’ll be able to establish a better schedule that will allow me to get all the housewifey things done AND take care of my own projects without killing myself. Hope springs eternal.

I think it’s about time for me to stop babbling for now. I’ll see what I can do about posting more often. Life is still very busy, but not as insane as it has been for the last few months.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up with some funny stories about my time at the DMV. Which is where I’m sitting as I type this. Unfortunately there isn’t a wifi network here, which means I’ll have to remember to post this when I get home, but we’ll hope it doesn’t take long to finish up here.

Once again, hope springs eternal….

I have a confession to make. I check this blog’s stats almost as often as a published author checks their Amazon ranking. I like numbers, I like seeing trends, and I really like bar graphs that make everything super-easy to see. And the last few days? I have had some record-breaking individual visitor stats–and I really don’t know why.

Are new Dyson vacuum cleaners and massive amount of popcorn so interesting? I really don’t know! But I’m flattered, and I hope I can keep doing whatever it is that’s drawing people in. Because, you know, it’s all about the blog stats. They are like internet popularity crack.

In random news, I’m preaching again this Sunday (Palm Sunday! It’s late on Thursday night and I haven’t actually written anything yet! Panic!) and I got my last two packages today!

This translates more or less to me squeeing with glee over all my new kitchen gadgets, and it also means that everyone who ordered things from my recent Pampered Chef party will be getting those things delivered soon–most likely on Sunday, since I actually think I’ll see everyone by then. Hmmmmm.

Tomorrow? Writing a sermon, lot of laundry, washing the new kitchen gadgets (and the kitchen they now belong to), and maybe a few other semi-top-secret things. Which mostly means I’m too lazy to go into details here, not that anything all that exciting is happening.

Also? I have been thoroughly enjoying Assassin’s Creed 2, and I sincerely hope to kill more people tomorrow. And loot more treasure chests. Really, people are begging to be robbed when they put chests full of money out in the garden or on their completely unguarded balconies. But hey, it works for me!

With any luck, I will still be sane by Sunday afternoon–which would be good, since Matt and I get to tell our life stories at small group that night.

Time for bed! Sweet dreams, all.

I didn’t particularly think about it a few days ago when I posted last, but last week I managed to spend money ordering several things.

You might ask, “What did you order, Betsy? Clothes?”

To which I would laugh and laugh and laugh, because I learned a long time ago that mail-ordered clothing rarely fits me well. I have rather freakishly long limbs, you see, at least compared to my other relevant dimensions, so it’s rather hit-and-miss… with more misses than hits.

So, if not clothes, then what? Okay, so it’s not much of a mystery to those of you who follow my twitter feed or are my facebook friends. Work with me, people!

At any rate, what does someone like me order online and then follow the tracking info incessantly??

1) A vacuum cleaner! Huzzah! Yes, I am excited about a household cleaning device. It has SUCTION, oh yes it does. It pulled dirt from our “clean” carpet–a lot of dirt. And it empties about a hundred times easier than our old one. Matt was walking around in his bare feet after I did the living room today and he said the floor actually felt cleaner under his toes. And he’s right! I’m not even making it up! It’s also accented with super-electric blue, which nobody can be sad about.

Yes indeed, we have a Dyson DC17 “Asthma and Allergy” model, which is apparently just the same as the “Animal” model except you get different attachments in the package and it costs $50 less. No, we didn’t pay the extra $150 for the roller-ball model. Yeah, I’m a little sad, too, but there are better places to spend that money. But really. You should come to my house and put in some time on this vacuum. It’s wonderful.

With such excitement to start out, what else could I possibly have ordered? What can stand up to the Dyson DC-17???

This Christmas one of the gifts I gave Matt was a multi-pack of gourmet popcorns. Three different varieties. One of them in particular was so good that we realized we’d be perfectly happy eating it all the time instead of the popcorn we get from the grocery store–and having looked it up on their website, we realized it wasn’t really more expensive than said generic kernels. We waffled a bit about the very real possibility that we are becoming popcorn snobs, but then we caved to the snobbery and decided to order.

Then life exploded and we forgot. Until last week. When we were out of popcorn. Well, out of good popcorn. So I hopped online to order more of our favorite variety. Matt, upon learning that the company had a number of types of popcorn that we hadn’t tried yet, asked me to see if there was a variety pack of some kind to try a few more. And since we already knew that we loved the one type, I also ordered the biggest container they offer of it–after all, if we’re mail ordering, I’d rather do it less often.

It wasn’t until I’d all but placed the order (deciding shipping options) that I realized that ordering 31 pounds of popcorn kernels might have been a bit much, but I wasn’t about to back down then!

So, along with the vacuum cleaner, our popcorn arrived today. What does 31 pounds of popcorn look like, you ask? Like this!

And just in case you’re shaky on how much that is, here’s a standard paperback (and one you all should read, fwiw) to give you perspective. Also, the lid of the 15lb. tub is open because that is a stinking LOT of popcorn.

So that’s what came on the UPS truck today. Later this week I’ll get three boxes from FedEx full of kitchen gadgets and gizmos for me and my friends. Maybe you’ll get to see pictures of those, too!

So there you have it. This week in the Whitt house: packages galore.