All you have to do is sign your name on the dotted line...

So today I said goodbye.

It wasn't just a pile of brick and painted stucco.

We've been in paradise for 16 years and this home has spoke sweet nuthin's in my ear for 6 years.

It was home. Home to me. It was the home that provided a much needed respite from life in WV after the death of my dad and my papaw. It's been 6 beautiful, fantastically FUN years behind these walls.

God, it's been FUN. Every room is full of happy memories, each room decorated with love and polished like a newborn silver spoon. I've *loved* every single second of life in this home. It wasn't just a place to live to me, it was a way of life. This house holds my whole heart.

It was home the minute we stepped foot in it and I've never been more happy in my entire life than I've been here. Seriously, what's not to love about it? How in God's green earth do you leave parad*se? How do I leave the best neighbors in the world?

I'm scared. Scared of the future, scared it won't be me, scared I'll feel like I'm not at home anywhere else, scared I'll be miserable, scared I'll miss home. It feels like I'm getting a divorce from something that I don't want to leave. I feel like I'm about to cheat on my house.

I could take all the B0D bullshit times 10, to have done it again exactly the same way. I've LOVED it here beyond measure. It's been real, real FUN.

Yesterday I pulled the plug on the sell, knowing full well that the buyers may or may not have been aware of what fell out of their Realtors mouth. But like I explained to the buyers on the phone for 2 hours today, I can only go on what the people that they hired to represent them say.

I was brutally bitchy to them and stood really firm, because ultimately I realized that I don't 'HAVE to' sign the papers if I'm not happy & in the end, they sweetened the deal and I really couldn't say no.

I don't really know how the future will play out with me coming back here whenever I desire, but they've said it no less than a dozen times to me & J that the offer still stands even after the drama, so we shall see. However, I did go from 'stark raving mad ripping the damn molding off the walls' kind of attitude to 'maybe I'll just leave the damn molding' kind of attitude. So we shall see.

It's been real. REAL FUN....gawd this day was hard and I'm glad it's over. I never knew that my signature could take so much out of me.

and now I'm done...

Good Lord the drama.

I could seriously use another girls weekend now!

So my fabulous, to good to be true buyers decided to try to screw me over 2 days before our scheduled closing date.

After:

one round of stressful tears

2 One Hour conversations with the buyer, the realtor and the lawyer

one conversation with my very knowledgeable Col friend

6 200mg of ibuprofen

one trip to the dentist

flying solo with 4 kids & all their activities & the stress of that alone

& one really strong cocktail

I decided to tell the buyer to go f@&# himself.

So the short & skinny is:

I've lost the place that I most love and will never return to (as it stands now)

I'm taking all the furnishings with me that they wanted.

I'm willing to NOT sign in 2 days and NOT close.

They will agree to MY terms or I'm NOT closing in 2 days.

I'll find another buyer. period.

f@&# 'em.

Even my realtor knew enough about me to tell the other realtor that "you don't really wanna f@&# with her. She's got enough balls to pull the plug on this closing."

& guess what????

I do and I did!

So after I packed, putty, patched & painted the walls...

I unpacked, rehung, reorganized and reset all the furnishings back to their proper spot. And after today, I repacked and they can be forever sorry that they f@&# with me and they won't receive the reputty, repatch and repaint the wall kind of treatment....

cause this MAMA is not up to bullshit like treatment.

I'm so done. Done. Like never before kind of done.

How dare they pretend to be one person in front of me and my kids and then try to stick it to me in their best *cultural* way 2 days before we close.

I am ridiculously fair and very loyal, but don't try to stick it to me 2 days before closing on a house that NOBODY will ever love like me and act like you are doing me a favor.

I just wouldn't go there with me...just sayin.

Apparently somebody forgot to tell the buyers that this chica doesn't do drama.

Our last hurrah, playing in paradise...

This past weekend was a laugh out loud kinda time.

Mare & Col made the trek down to parad*se to finally be here at the same time. The plans were made before we knew we would be leaving parad*se, so what seemed like a fun trip turned into our 'our last hurrah'...

We consumed a ridiculous amount of calories at all hours of the day & night.

We laughed till our cheeks hurt.

We cried till our makeup was smudged.

We sang till our voices croaked.

& we watched Mare blow her nose no less than 892 times.

Gawd that was a fun weekend that went by way to fast.

Below is a hodgepodge of photos that apparently shows I have no shame in posting ;0)

I love love love my good time girls and it was tremendously sad when they left.

Parad*se will never be the same...

my girl

I took these when we got home from the 'booboo place'

aka: the hospital, where EG has continued to be under testing for her enlarged right kidney.

I'm hoping the last ultrasound will reveal all is normal again, but I'm still waiting on those test results to come back. All this testing has been hard on her and me. I'm in awe of this little girl, who sometimes exudes so much joy, it's easy to forget there's a scared little being in there carrying the scars that nobody else can see.

Her joy

From day one, EG has been my good time girl. She loves nothing more than to have fun!

I guess she takes after me a little bit;0)

& from day one, G, aka: G'itt, has been her hero. What a sweet love they have. I never expected that these 2 would share the bond that they do, but out of all 4 kids, it's these 2 that adore each other the most.

The Pack & Did that meeting really happen that way?!? Really???

So the magic question is:

How many Chiqu*ta Banana boxes does it take to pack up a family of 6?

This picture is very deceiving, because you don't see the additional rows of boxes that are stacked behind these ones. I've been addicted to Chiqu*ta Banana boxes. They are heavy duty and they have handles and my kids can carry them ;0)

Got junk?
My friend, Lisa, made the comment to me that you just don't know how much junk you have till you put it in a box. & boy was she was right!

Yesterday was the scheduled day for the buyer to fly in from NY to look at what he was purchasing. He had never seen our home. His wife did the house shopping and apparently he was just there to witness that it was in fact a house and to write the check.

This was a day I was dreading. I had heard things through the Realtors and was expecting an asshole to show up at my house. I was really not in the mood because we had wanted a later closing and rumor had it, he wanted it ASAP so we could pay him rent with a deposit and all that other bullshit that you pay out when you 'rent'. So with that being said, I was going to try & negotiate some extras for us to stay through the end of school, rent free.

When he came in with his realtor and the inspector, it was obvious we were both uncomfortable. After a few uncomfortable minutes, I just shook his hand and asked him if he'd like a tour of his new purchase. We went from room to room and he repeatedly told me how impressed he was. He admitted how shocked he was, how different it looked in person and how he loved every bit of it, including all of my furniture and what was left of the decor. I have already packed up most of the wall art, frames, mirrors, table decor, plant shelf decor and everything that is considered non essential. By the end of the 3 hour visit, he was inspecting my dishes, silverware, pots & pans and the photos that were previously taken while it was completely decorated. He wants it all, as is. He wants all of the furnishings from the furniture to the bed sheets. I swear to God he might have bought the panties out of my drawer if I'd opened it up.
So today he called with the website I had posted all the photos on for him and his wife to review. He & his wife are going to spend the weekend reviewing and crunching their numbers and I have spent the last 4 hours making a list of every item up for turnkey. I've stressed to him repeatedly that this is not R00ms to G0 junk, that a lot of these furnishings are expensive, so don't insult me with a low ball number. I won't lose money over it. He will pay for the ease of a vacation home that is all ready to go. He has assured me that he knows exactly what he's paying for....so we shall see when he comes back with his number. I'm anxious to see the price tag someone else attaches to my personal slice of parad*se.

The thought of unpacking all that shit that you see in those boxes and putting it back in it's proper place is mind boggling to me. I'm exhausted as it is. I'm single parenting it because J has been moved into another position and they are training him to head up another division. He thought he would be coming home on weekends, but this weekend he has decided to stay in GA because of the quick turn around to be back on Monday morning =0( I'm so tired.
I've got 4 busy kids, all with scads of appointments, because I'm cramming everything in that needs done before we leave and the golf, school stuff, doing one of J's jobs here because the other employee doesn't start till June and now I get to worry with the payroll dudes coming, the new employee coming to my house every day and all the other bullshit that a move entails. I'm so glad the cleaning is over though. I cleaned out the wazoo for the buyer yesterday and now I'm done. They won't be back till after closing.

SO HERE'S THE FUN KICKER!!!
The guy not only offered me to stay for as long as I needed to in June, but that we can come back any time we wanted and stay in the house to visit and do island time =0)
He hopes a friendship can grow out of it. He even said I could just leave the photo frames up with my kids pictures and they'll flip 'em to their kids when they are here, LOL! He met my kids one by one and made sure he repeated their names to me and asked again which one was who. He sympathized with them & that this had been their home for the better part of their lives. He understood our deep roots in the community and that we'd always want & or need to come back home for something.
This is a 2nd house for them and one they will rarely use because they have two kids in high school up north. Can you imagine me hopping down here for a weekend and walking into my house with all of my furnishings exactly the way I left it? The house I decorated and loved may not be gone to me forever after all. We'll see if it all pans out, but before the end of the trip, we were having cocktails and I was introducing him to some people and he didn't want to leave. Originally he had stated that he would probably only use the house twice a year and after he called me today he stated that he just didn't want to leave. That he felt the labor of love that we had put into this house and he knew why we loved it so much, that it was so nice with the salty breeze flowing through all the doors & windows and the kids all outside playing. He said it felt like home....*sigh*....
don't I know it.

leaving parad*se

This is a picture of the shoreline of my favorite *sland in the middle of the Gulf 0f Mexic0. I've openly talked about how bad the economy is in SWFL, one of the hardest hit areas in the nation. We've personally been very fortunate to be in the position we were in when the bust happened, but we did take a hard hit. J was able to start up a new business which has been a huge blessing during this transition of EG adjusting to her bright new world and adjusting to the man that terrified her the most just 11 short months ago. His schedule has been super flexible and he's had to work 1/2 the hours as he did once before. But this fabulous, laid back gig comes at the hands of those who happen to be sitting on the B0D. If you've been a long time reader, then you know how scary our B0D can be . It gives another whole meaning to never shit where you eat.

(a photo of my girl meeting my favorite *sland for the first time)

With all that being said, J decided to take advantage of a job opportunity in Georg*a. It's a place we are familiar with, a place I sort of said I could do, a place we've been to many times in the past. In fact, it was almost one year ago when I did this post, about that damn GA kitchen that I love. I dreamed it because GA was back on the table during that time in our life as well & I was trying to make peace with the idea, but we tabled it because we were waiting on TA for EG.

Over spring break we went up to GA. J was asked to come & do what he does best and to decide if it was something he liked =0) While he went to work, EG, G and me spent 3 days criss crossing the GA streets looking at properties, just in case J came back and said he wanted to take the plunge.

When opportunity came knocking, we heard the call and the decision has been made.
I can sit here and convince myself how this is economically the best move for our family. I can tell you that the school system, from what I've learned, is nothing short of the best of the best. In fact, the school system is what tugged at my heart strings the most. I can tell you that the cost of living is night and day. The opportunity for my kids is much bigger up there than it is down here. I was amazed by the cute little tennis courts for the kids and the miniature size t-ball fields for the little ones. This is an area that values children, unlike ours. There's a lot going on up there and I can't deny that, but what my head and my heart think are 2 different things.

The decision has been made, the house has been sold, the property has been rented and everything is lined up for this move...but yet, I'm so deeply torn between my head and my heart. This parad*se is my home. I've called it home since 1993 and there hasn't been a day in my life that I have not *loved* my life here. Most of you probably can see that through our pictures. We live a very full life and it's one I hold very dear. We have no family here per say, but we do have a very beautiful family of friends that we have chosen. My fabulous inlaws are only 1 1/2 hour north of us and I have no idea how I will survive without them. I already miss them so...

I can barely breathe when I think of leaving my cul-de-sac, the kid haven of fun that my kids adore. My sweet sweet neighbor who would do absolutely anything for my family and vice versa. My boating buddies and dear god, there's the place I long for the most... *sland time.

Who will be my Pr*ncess Ann & sip pink drinks in the hot tub with me after a day of sun & sand? Lordy beans our kids go together like a hot dog needs a bun. & then there's my home...

the place we created & adore.

The place we brought 2 of our babies home to. The place where love grew and memories were made.

I meet the new owner tomorrow, he better be nice, cause I'm in no mood.

I know I shouldn't get emotionally attached to a home, because after all, it is just brick & stucco, but I *really* love my home. It's completely us.

Driving anywhere in this town has become a game Russian Roulette, it's between the road & my tears. This my friends is home.

How do you leave a place you love?

How do you live without the sand between your toes & the salty air that I breathe?

These things terrify me and I'm more than an emotional wreck when I think of not living the life I love...