busy, busy, busy!

While it might seem like I've slipped off the edge of the earth ... rest assured, I'm still here. Hanging on by the very, very tips of my fingers.

This week we've interviewed four realtors for the sale of our home in San Diego. We've spoken with one realtor in Virginia who was referred to us by our relocation company. After a seven minute conversation with me - and a ten minute conversation with my husband - we have bid her a kind adieu. Neither Charlie nor I got a very good vibe and we have NO time to waste in warming up to this person and in the process of doing so, hopefully discovering that our personalities will 'mesh.'

What we're looking for in a realtor is a magician. Someone who can make us feel GOOD about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a piece of property. Someone who is genuinely interested in what we want and can see potential in the obscure. Someone who knows all about the hot spots and culture of an area. Someone who possesses enthusiasm and energy and can make us laugh. Someone who has a sense of style and flair. So, although it might be politically incorrect ... we've specifically requested a gay man.

Think Fab Five.

We need a Queer Eye for us.

Our first home hunting expedition was led by a man who was openly gay and to this day, I think it was one of the most fun things we've ever done. We had such a blast shopping for our first house, we were genuinely sad when it was over. When it came time to fork over our deposit and sign our name on the dotted line for a 30-year mortgage, we did it gladly because we felt fully convinced that we were making a SIMPLY! FABULOUS! decision.

On the other side of the spectrum, we've narrowed our home-selling search down to two people who go to church with us. Indeed, we're sandwiched between liberal and conservative but this works. Probably because it's who we are?

So we've been doing the whole realtor thing this week. And the whole lender thing. And the whole figuring out vehicle transporters and movers thing. And also, we continue to peruse the internet in to the wee hours of the morning looking for something within a 10-minute drive of the office that isn't a condo and which doesn't back up against railroad tracks and which isn't located on a busy double-yellow lane road.

What our first home-buyer realtor couldn't comprehend is that we're not at all afraid of a fixer upper. Ideally, I'd love to buy an older house at a good price and in a good location, that needs some work, so we can gut at least portions of it and make it our own. I've got my eye on a beauty right now that is currently being used as a drug rehabilitation half-way house. Sure it's a little funky what with three full kitchens. But I love it and see tons of potential.

(Charlie? Not so much.)

We also found a nice home on 24 acres of wooded land. There is a spectacular river running THROUGH the property. The house is almost 6,000 square feet and there are two barns and a pasture. Unfortunately, it's 97 miles from the office, so that might disqualify it from our short list. Unless, with the money saved on buying something in the middle of nowhere, I could buy a helicopter and take some flying lessons.

With all there is to do transitioning out of my current job and getting the house ready for sale, you'd think I'd be an absolute model of checklists and efficiency. But I'm so totally the opposite. When I'm not combing the internet for properties, I've morphed in to a SLUG who curls up on the couch with the children and watches Flipper and the John Adams HBO mini-series.

(This is what I usually look like. Minus the pacifier.)



(Have you seen the John Adams mini-series? It's FANTASTIC. You can rent the entire series through Netflix. I'm so excited to move back to Virginia if for no other reason than to get our kids totally immersed in American History. I'll bet right now that our children will be dressed up as figures from the Revolution for Halloween.)

Anyway. Despite a much needed reprieve of doing absolutely nothing, I really hope that this inability to self motivate will soon vanish and I'll kick myself in to action. Because approximately three weeks from now, we'll be on the road driving east and hopefully, things will be neatly organized and packed - as opposed to thrown in to random boxes as I'm walking out the door - with one hand clutching a paint brush, touching up here and there.

In other news ... my ultrasound was today. Although I've been doing fairly well "moving on" since this pregnancy loss, I was blind sided by emotions when I was surrounded in the waiting room by the bulging bellies of women who were in for their 20-week ultrasounds. "That would have been me in eight short weeks," I kept thinking. "I'd be finding out the gender of our fifth baby on or about our 16-year wedding anniversary..."

*Sniff! SOB!*

My ultrasound technician told me that her daughter had suffered an ectopic pregnancy three years ago and almost died. Apparently, she was working as a teacher and excused herself to the restroom when she began to feel out of sorts. She wound up collapsing on the floor and wasn't discovered until almost an hour later by a janitor. They rushed her to the hospital where they identified that her fallopian tube had ruptured and she was hemorrhaging internally. Luckily, she made a full recovery. And luckily, my ectopic pregnancy never advanced to that critical point.

Unfortunately, the cysts are still there and larger than before. This is a little disconcerting, but I'm hoping they are linked to all the crazy hormones that are still raging through me. Also, unfortunately - as it turns out, my HCG levels are still in the hundreds, so I'll be going in for my second dose of methotrexate tomorrow.

I suppose now is a good time to reflect on my decision, at the last minute, to not board that plane to South Carolina this afternoon. I had intended to fly back and visit my mom over the weekend as she recovers from her second replacement knee surgery. It was an hour before the plane left that I concluded only a COMPLETE nut would attempt to squeeze in a four-day cross-country trip three weeks before moving cross country and while receiving treatment for an ectopic pregnancy.

(I guess that means I'm only partially nutty to reserve the ticket and pack?)

Last month when all this started, my doctor gave me strict orders that to prevent infection and possible complications, there is to be absolutely no: 1) swimming; 2) consumption of alcohol, or 3) s-e-x until my methotrexate treatment is complete and my HCG levels return to zero.

Isn't that too bad? Because with the warm weather and high stress levels around here, I could undoubtedly benefit from a dip in the pool, a big glass of wine and ...

Oh, never mind.

I promised Charlie I'd really work on filtering what I write.