My Crazy Life!!!

I just read the scripture again that titles my blog. All I can say is when you truly embrace trusting, sometimes it means you are in for a wild ride. These past two months have been incredible, and not exactly in the normal context of the word.

This has been my crazy life since I left Washington! Besides being a single mom (Doug is still in Oak Harbor, but only for one more week, hooray!) and dealing with a major culture shock and transition with the 3 little kids, these are the other things that have been thrown at us in the last month and a half.

First, our renter in Kent bounces a check for April's rent payment, then he doesn't pay the month of May either. Our house is two months behind on the mortgage, the septic tank is seriously damaged (needs $4500 worth of work), and the house needs lots of work to clean it up so it is rentable, sellable, etc. Then, we had to decide what we were going to do with the house (facing the real possibility that it might have to go into foreclosure).

Also this week, my computer completely crashes, my car is acting up (we were stranded on the freeway yesterday, hopefully only a battery problem but not sure yet), I misplaced my tithing check at my mom's house - so I wrote another check and repaid it on Sunday. In the meantime, my parents found my other check and turned it in also (which is a problem because we are phasing out that checking account and it caused us to bounce 3 checks with of course $35 charges attached to each one), all the while trying to get a business up and running and attempting to keep my sanity. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Luckily, Doug found a renter that wants to occupy asap. We are able to negiotiate with the bank to put the mortgage payments at the back end of the loan (hopefully they will approve), the tenant left peacefully and is cleaning up most of the mess he left behind (minus the carpet cleaning, of course). We were able to negiotiate with our ex-tenant a repayment plan to pay us for back rent and damages (which means not having to take him to court, cross our fingers).

The business plan is going swimmingly and our marketing plan really is hopeful. The kids have been major troopers, really as good as I could ask for during all of this stress. We have been swimming and have played in water over half a dozen times, because it is already so hot. Ellie even got her first real sunburn because her mom is not used to putting sunblock on to play in the backyard in May. My sister has been an angel and we are building a fabulous relationship that somehow I was too self involved to build when I was growing up. All in all, I think we are going to win the war even if the battles have been hard.

Our website goes live by the end of next week. The web address is www.wholehomecleaners.com , but you can preview it at www.wholehomecleaners.com.previewmysite.com/index.html . I want to add a testimonial section, so those of you that have used our services, please leave me a comment and I will add it to my website.

We miss everyone in Washington! Hope you are doing well!