House Found, Friends Met, Another LID Down (not necessarily in that order)

Our LID was last week while we were leaving to go house hunting and well, at that point in time there were more important things going on. So we're slowly approaching that 2 yr hump with no end in sight as we still have nearly 10 months of LID dates in front of us. Ugh!

On to more important things...

Although I'm still not happy about having to leave my house, my church & Eriks school among other things, I am happy about having friends waiting for me in GA. I have been following several GA bloggers - one who has brought home her daughter and another who is so close to it she can taste it. I met this gal and Mel for lunch this past Sunday and they totally rock. We laughed so hard some of us were crying. Especially over Mel's lunch and the family-size portion she got. She honestly took about 60% of it home. Our cozy little lunch took about 3 hrs. My friend Liz who moved to GA in April also joined us with her son, Lawson. All 4 of us gals along with Doug (Lisa's hubby), Lane (I hope you know who he belongs to by now) and Lawson had a blast and agreed we need to do this more often. Mel's husband was out in the woods doing manly things, ie. hunting. But from what I know all the other bloggy gals whom I follow say he's a really great guy.


We also found a house. It was the 2nd house we looked at. We drove around and looked at a bunch from the outside but we really needed a house with a fence. There was one house we called about that was more in our ballpark as far as rent, but they wouldn't take George the kitty (I guess cats can be known to be more distructive than dogs). None of our animals have destruction issues - thankfully. It's nice and big - about 600 sq ft bigger than our house now. What I fell in love with was the kitchen. When we move in I'll take some photos of the kitchen to show you just how awesome it is. It's a 4 bdrm, 2 1/2 bath. The fenced yard is small but enough room for the dogs to go out. It's about 1/2 the size of our currently fenced back yard. In GA from what we saw, they don't put properties on large lots. They're very minimal. With this house I think the original owners decided they didn't want to spend the money to fence in more yard. There's a pretty decent sized side yard that could've been included with the back. Oh well. For 2 1/2 yrs it will do just fine. So below is the photo of the house.


I realized that I only have 3 more questions to answer and I'm going to answer 2 of them right now. I'm tired of this being painfully drawn out because I have very little time to force myself to blog.

The first one came from my cousin, Mara (her blog is only open to invited readers).

What 10 things are so wonderful about your life, that actually, if you died tomorrow, it would've been enough?

This isn't one of the easiest questions to answer but after some thought I think I have come up with my answers. They're also not in any particular order.

1. I have a huge family and although we don't see eye to eye on everything, no matter what, we still love each other and would probably do anything to help one another.
2. I have a wonderful husband. I never imagined that I would meet someone at a wedding and 6 months later be engaged to him and now married for over 12 yrs!!
3. I became a mommy. For as long as I can remember I knew that bio children were nearly impossible and that our only way to parenthood was adoption. For those who have been in my shoes or are in them now can totally understand that although pregnancy takes a physical toll on a woman's body, adoption takes an emotional toll. The 1st time was hard enough. The 2nd time has been just as hard but I know there's a little girl name Emilija waiting for us.
4. I have owned a house. Not once, but now twice. I love the house I live in now and maybe it had to do with the fact that I'm a mom, but this is the 1st time in all of my marriage that I've lived somewhere that truly felt like a home - not just a physical building to rest my head.
5. I have done extensive traveling. Not as much as I would like and I hope that there's still more of the world that I will be able to see. However, I've been all over Europe and North America and seen things most people haven't.
6. I am debt free (except for my mortgage). I know if I died today, I wouldn't worry about leaving anyone with the responsibility of taking care of any outstanding debt. The only thing is to sell the house.
7. I have faith in G.od. I'll be honest when I was a teenager, I wanted nothing to do with religion. I was testing my faith. Then I met Lane and a few months later, my maternal grandmother died. I was nearly 21 at the time and something inside of me changed. I don't know if it was a combination of Lane coming into my life and my grandmother leaving, but whatever it was made me a stronger person and restored my faith in G.od.
8. I have friends. I'm not one of these people that says I have 30 BFF. I actually have very few of those. However, I do have friends that I know I can count on. There are friends that for whatever reason were in my life for a short time and no longer are here (many for the better). I have friends who came into my life, left for awhile and now are back and I am very thankful for them. Then I have those friends who were there for the long haul and will continue to be. But I have no regrets about any of my friendships.
9. I got to see the Colts win a Super Bowl Championship. I know some of you might think that's a little pathetic but I have been a diehard fan since they moved to Indy when I was 9. Life stops completely when they're playing. I loved the season tickets my parents had and hope that when we retire in a few years, I'll be able to get my hands on season tickets.
10. I have been a survivor. Those of you who know me well know about my extensive heart conditon and the ups and downs it had caused in my life. I have been through 4 surgeries, 2 of which have been chest opening ones. The doctors told my parents that when I had my 1st surgery at 8 days old that I had about a 20% chance of survival. My 2nd surgery was only about a 60% chance of survival. The last 2 were over 90% thanks to the advancement of medical technology but still they were not to be tread on lightly. After my 2nd surgery at age 8, I was still considered sick enough that the doctors didn't expect me to live past age 12. The cardiologists nearly had a heart attack when they found out I was doing PE and when I was 11, I played softball. Most kids grow up very sick if they survive. Unless of course you're a doctor or a nurse, you would have to wait for me to tell you that something's wrong. Or see the scars on my chest if I'm wearing a shirt low enough. We were very nervous that when we went through the review room at CC@@ that they would turn us down, but they didn't because my heart issues affect me very little 90% of the time. That survivor instinct is something I inherited from my dad. I love my mom very much but she's never been a huge optimist. My dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer just over 1 yr ago and went through treatment and thankfully is still in remission. But he like me refuses to give up no matter what. Thank you Dad for instilling that in me.

Whew...that took longer than I though. Because of it, I've decided that I'm going to save my last 2 questions for another time. Look for them this weekend.