So, I’ve been hinting at my rough couple of weeks. While I was feeling increasingly uneasy about our situation, I was hoping to get to today and have good news to share! I can’t go into detail because it is a legal matter, but I can tell you that today was supposed to be the day of my old house closing….my house would have been officially sold and we would finally be free to fully start our life in Washington! I waited three full months for this closing from the time my buyers made the offer and I was SO LOOKING FORWARD to celebrating today.

After a long year of unemployment for my husband, him starting a great new job this past January, the strain of getting our house on the market, looking for a new home and the complications of moving to Washington to start a new life, I was ready to feel settled. I am not feeling settled living in one state and owning a home in another! I was ready to breath a sigh of relief that our long journey to Washington was finally over.

Well, sometimes life stinks and things don’t go like we hope they will. In spite of our hard work, diligent prayers and positive attitudes, things go wrong. Horribly wrong sometimes. God gave everyone free will and they can make some pretty rotten choices that affect other people in negative ways! Today, I am not celebrating. Today, I am sad and bewildered and tired.

After accepting the offer from my buyers three months ago and patiently waiting for their long closing period (meanwhile losing a backup offer!) two days ago they decided they didn’t want to buy a house now and they walked away. Yep, just walked away, leaving us picking up all the pieces. I received their official cancellation paperwork yesterday, the day before closing was scheduled.

Today was supposed to be an entirely different sort of a day. It makes me physically sick to think of all this means and what it could mean for us…we were all set to buy our new house next week. A lot of our plans and other people’s plans were affected by their decision.

I am angry, frustrated, disappointed and in disbelief that I have to start over. We moved everything out of the old house so the new owners could move in today. Now? I have to re-stage the house and start over.

Life isn’t always fair. It doesn’t always make sense. It isn’t always easy. It isn’t always beautiful. But I am choosing to continue to trust that God is watching out for us and working all things together for good. Even rotten things. Especially rotten things. I just need to trust and wait.

So many people are hurting far more than I am in life, I feel like my current situation is tiny — for that I am grateful.

I kind of felt like Flat Stanley this week,
trying to keep smiling in spite of that tire looming over my head!
FYI, my son took this photo. Poor Flat Stanley!

It was not a beautiful week for me, but in spite of all that happened, I pushed past my fog of disappointment and found something to be happy about. A great community of people who joined in together to create something beautiful with what we had. Sometimes that is all we can do, isn’t it? — just create beauty out of what we have.

Thanks for joining in and making the procrastinator party such a smashing success. I am BLOWN AWAY by your projects. You are a talented bunch, let me tell you! If you haven’t made your way through the links (I’m still working on it), you are in for a lot of inspiration!

{THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!} In fact, let’s do a prize right now. I have a book to give away called DECORATING IS FUN by Dorothy Draper. It is an old classic that has been recently reprinted. I am going to give you an extra entry if you were one of the party participants. Any of you, even if you didn’t join in the party, can enter to win via the comments. There will be one winner, chosen at random, on Sunday night the 17th at 9PST.