A Season of Crazy

The worst six weeks of my life (up to this point) were definitely the six weeks directly following the birth of our son. It was pretty hellish with the pain and frustration of breastfeeding, the lack of sleep, Mr C still being in school and working 40+ hours a week and...its just not something I want to ever experience again. If we are blessed to have a second child, Mr C won't be in school and that alone should make things a little shinier.

All that being said, the autumn/winter of 2014 has been some of the craziest weeks I've dealt with since. It was probably just as bad as the time post-baby, but in a different way. Mr C did start back to school again so there was that. And we have a toddler who's only consistent mode of communication is screaming. Both of those tend to make life difficult but we need to include here the fact that I was waking up nearly every morning in early September with random itchy bites. And I started getting paranoid about bugs. And then...we FOUND a bug.

A bed bug. In our bed. GAH!!!

Let's start this part of the story by tackling the myths--bed bugs are not a sign of dirty or unkempt living quarters. Rather, they live EVERYWHERE. We're the bait. If you are there, they are attracted to your living space. They are master hitchhikers and usually show up in second-hand furniture or in your luggage after you've traveled (especially to a big city!). And if you live in an apartment building like us, bed bugs tend to travel quickly from other people's units. Our exterminator was positive this was our case. Lucky us. (Stupid neighbors...)

Anyway, in order to combat bed bugs we had to de-clutter our condo, pack up almost everything, wash and dry (on high heat) EVERYTHING fabric/linen in nature, and we did it all in 6 days. 6 harrowing days of little to no sleep (and when you are sleeping, you know you are likely to wake up with new bites because the bed bugs are here!!), never-ending work, waaaay too much money spent (well over $1,000) and a lot a lot a lot of tears. The exterminators came and did a great bed bug treatment and we have been pest-free!!

So that happened. And since our house was looking really quite clean and streamlined (we got a storage unit for all our crap), and because one of our neighbors clearly harbored vermin, we put our condo up for sale. Let me tell you that keeping a condo "show-ready" with a toddler around is no easy thing. But we kept at it.

And then we discovered mold in the office. (And the hits just keep on coming!) The good news is we finally got some real use out of our HOA dues with another insane week while the disaster cleanup dudes cleaned up the mold disaster.

All the while we were looking for houses. Anywhere and everywhere. We finally settled on the right house for us. We really liked it, good area, good schools...and our offer was rejected. I went into a solid 24 hour period of mourning because I was certain we would never be getting out of this hell hole we had found ourselves in (Hormones are a bitch). But we did.

A buyer showed up who fell in love with our condo. The offer price was right and things fell so perfectly into place it was meant to be. (It really is a lovely condo, people. Remember that I fell in love with it myself in 2010 and loved it good and hard for a solid 3 years!) But that meant we had to move out of our place only weeks later and we still didn't have a place to go.

But! The day after Thanksgiving we toured a home that had been on the market all of two days. I loved it. Mr C loved it. We made an offer that same day. The stars were aligned and smiling and we are now under contract.

Mid-December we moved into my parent's basement after upgrading to a larger storage unit and packing up the vast majority of our lives (In about 6 days. We like to keep things exciting and stressful especially around the holidays). We are currently sleeping on an airbed. My wardrobe options are tiny indeed. We'll be spending the holidays here which is a nice "button" to the end of this insane period of time that I never ever ever ever want to repeat. Nor would I wish it on anyone. (Even the guy who wrote "Christmas Shoes.")

The moral of the story: We Survived. And we're going to move into our very own "We're real adults now!" home next week. I am thrilled and feeling oh so very blessed. Happy Christmas everyone!

(And my apologies to all who read this and immediately start feeling a little itchy. Bed bugs. GAH!) 

Image from here