What I Learned This Week, by chele.

I learned that house deals can fall apart very quickly. What you think is true one day isn't true the next day, and where there once was a deal there's not any more. You really can't do a thing about it... you just watch it all come unraveled until you're back at square one and then that's it.

Then you're a little sad about it, and then a little mad at the stupid guy who apparently doesn't *really* want to sell the house you want to buy, and then you regroup and say, "Okay, what happens next?"

That's where we're at right now. We know that, realistically, we might not find a new place AND get our house sold before the holidays start. So, barring any miracles that may occur this week on the house hunting and open house fronts, we'll probably pull ours off the market and RE-regroup.

We've also spent a lot of time this week looking at our current house, trying to come up with ideas that will make it optimally functional for us and add value (and thus dollars) to a sale price. Then the question arises: What if we make it so totally, awesomely, wonderfully functional that we can just stay here? Well, that would be okay, too (and also a lot easier and cheaper in the long run).

Thus: all the emotions, all the feelings, all the scenarios that play out in our heads about a hundred times each day. We've held each other up, comforted each other, and it's just always worked out that when one of us is feeling insane about the whole thing, the other is feeling sane about it. And we've each had our turn in the insane place, for sure.

So, in the end, what I've *really* learned is this: Home is wherever we are together. We could live here, or in Coon Rapids, or in Palm Springs, or in Rancho Cucamonga. Our home is in our hearts, and our hearts are always together. And for that we don't have to put down any earnest money or worry about the FHA. We win.