It's been a really difficult week. After putting an offer on the lake house, and it being accepted, the seller tells us that he had another buyer willing to pay full price. We had to wait to see if the seller would accept that offer, and we finally got the call saying it was ours. Then, we get the news that we probably can't get 100% financing, and Scott's dad started sounding iffy about whether he was going to help with the down payment.

Finally, by yesterday, we got the contract signed, so at least the home is off the market. We put our $5,000 into escrow - and I immediately started having a major anxiety attack, complete with chest pains, heartburn, headache, etc. Last night, after seeing all of this, Scott ran us a nice hot bubble bath and broke open a bottle of champagne that we had received for our wedding a year ago and which we were holding for a celebration.

Financing still isn't in place, but at the very least, we'll be able to get an 80/20 loan and Scott's dad did confirm verbally that he'll give us whatever we need. We've got the house on a 90 day escrow and we'll close on Scott's favorite holiday - Halloween!

If the sellers find their new home and close escrow in 30 days, they'll let us know and we can turn in notice here where we rent, and move into the new home, paying them rent until our escrow closes.

What was nice was going to get the contract from the sellers yesterday and finding out that the guy that was willing to pay full price HAD come up with the money, but they chose us - because they had already given their word, and because they thought we would love the house more. They're right :)

In the course of all of this, I had gotten down to 178.8 lbs...and now I'm back up to 181.5....grrrr!!

Scott and his dad (Keith) looked at the mobile we were interested in and Keith wasn't impressed. He basically implied to us that if we wanted to buy a mobile home, we couldn't expect much help from him, but if we were interested in a real home, lots of help was to be had.

While they were out running around looking at properties, they found a great house, ON THE LAKE!! I was resistent when Scott told me about it on the phone, but we went and looked at it Friday night and it's wonderful! It's 4 bedrooms, 1 bath, with two big storage sheds in the back that look like little houses, and we'll probably use them as guest rooms. We'll lose one bedroom early on, as we'll knock the wall out between it and the master bedroom, so we'll have one huge master. It has a wet dock and boat house, so when we get our boat, we're set to go!

It's smaller than I wanted and I'll have to get rid of a lot of stuff, but it has lots of room for development. It is 1.5 acres, with .5 acre running behind the guy next door…who desperately wants to buy it. We’ll sell it to him and use that money to build onto the house. It was listed for $145k. We made an initial offer of $130k, but he wouldn't let it go for under $140k....so we accepted it!

It's an hour from my office to the house, so that's a drawback, but it's not a bad drive...I did it Friday night. It's an extra 15 miles beyond what I drive now, but I can handle it.

What's cool is being right ON the water!! Scott and I have always said we wanted to live on the water, and now we will!

We couldn't be more excited and I cried when the word came down that the offer was accepted. Of course, now the hard part comes - making it through escrow and moving...yuck!

As I've mentioned before, I'm a newlywed. Scott and I just celebrated our first anniversary July 11. As a newlywed, even though I'm 49, I do feel compelled to grant my husband's desires...and the man loves for me to wear lingerie.

So, since I've been losing weight, I try to pick up something new here and there, that he likes.

The other night, I met him and his work buddies after hours for an adult beverage...or two....or three. It was over a long enough period of time that I was "happy", but not drunk. So when Scott suggested we go over to the nearest "adult toy" store, I was game. Giggly, but game.

We look over the selection, and I found a couple that I kinda liked, but he found one he really liked. I looked at it dubiously, since it was a "One Size Fits All", and I know that those don't fit me. But what the hell, I'm giggly and wanting to satisfy my spouse. We buy it.

A couple of days later, it occurs to me that we had bought it and the bag was still in Scott's van. I send him out for it and he brings it in, very smiley. I took the bag into the bedroom and started to put the outfit on over my head, when it becomes very apparent that I could drop another 40 lbs and never be able to wear this thing...the...uh...cups on it are like a size A and I'm a C, and there's no pretending my way through it...it does not fit.

What do I do with it now? The adult toy shop isn't going to take it back. I guess there's always ebay, but do they allow adult content??

Mental note to self: Quit buying "One Size Fits All". It's a lie, and they will never fit you, no matter how thin you get.

Scott and I are fairly normal people, other than the karaoke obsession. We're conservative in our politics, Christian in our beliefs, we like to have fun but know when it's time to be serious. All of our friends are good people, 35 years old and up. We're all grown-ups.

As you know, you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family....or who your family marries, or who their friends are.

Scott's sister's husband has a friend named Steven. Steven is kinda out there and not the kinda guy that we like having around us anyway, so Steven has been to our house - once - with Scott's brother in law. While he was here, the flashlight off my desk mysteriously disappeared. It was a nice flashlight...small and powerful enough for looking for things under my desk, and I used it frequently. So the morning after Steven is here, I notice my flashlight is missing. Scott said Steven had been sitting at my computer after I went to bed. Well, I'll be damned. Scott doesn't much care for Steven, so it was nothing to him when I said I didn't want Steven back in my house if he was going to steal things. No problem.

So tonight, Scott's talking to his mom on the phone (he's such a good boy), and in the course of the conversation, she tells him that Steven was at her house and while he was there, her flashlight disappeared....and in the course of mentioning this to her daughter, Scott's sister, it turns out that Steven had stolen HER flashlight as well!

WTF?

So this guy has a flashlight fetish? Is there some sexual overtone to a flashlight fetish? Allowing for a very liberal moment that a flashlight fetish is somehow ok, is there something weird that he's stolen the flashlights of all the women in Scott's immediate family?

Scott says he's gonna go find Steven and kick his ass, saying all the while "what kind of low life steals a woman's flashlight? You like leaving them defenseless and in the dark? You get off on the fact that you have their flashlight? You scum....we're going to your house and picking up every fucking flashlight you've got....see how you like it!"

I admit that my mind extrapolated the sexual fetish thing for a moment, wondering what sexual gratification he was using them for. As my sphincter tightened up, I just decided I wasn't going there!!

So, if there is a sexual gratification for Steven in stealing women's flashlights, are there others out there with this fetish? Is there some supersecret female flashlight fetish club somewhere?

With Google at my fingertips, I'm sure I could research this and find out, but I think there are just some things I'd rather not know.

All I can say is guard your flashlights carefully, you never know!

Scott and I went to look at this manufactured home yesterday and fell in LOVE. This thing is 2,560 s.f., 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 separate family rooms, MASSIVE freaking kitchen, huge laundryroom right off the master bath (what a logical place to put it! where is most of the laundry YOU do put away?), fireplace and 2 car garage. It sits on 1 acre.

We would take it on a lease to own until our credit is cleaned up enough to get an FHA loan (we figure 6 months to a year, although we have up to three). In the meantime, we give the owner $5,000 down, which gets applied to the purchase price when we get our financing. We didn't quite have $5,000 (ok, so we only had $1,000), so we decided to cash in our most liquid asset, and I listed our motorcycle on ebay today. Less than 5 hours later, someone bought it for $4,199 - the Buy It Now price! We now have our down payment!!

Scott's dad (the real estate mogul) is going to come down this week from Oklahoma to take a look at it for us, and to go over the deal with the guy. If he approves, we should be in our new home by September 1. If he doesn't, we'll continue to look, but I really, really love this home. I am SO excited!!

When I was on Nutrisystem in 2000, I got down to 178 lbs and everyone started telling me how great I looked, and many said I didn't need to lose any more weight, so I quit. I shouldn't have, I was still overweight, but being as curvy as I am, it looked good.

I'm there again. I'm at 180-181 (depending on what day it is) and can't seem to get below it. I've been fighting the 180s since May 18. Two freaking months and I haven't broken below 180. I'm frustrated and discouraged. I know it's because my husband is absolutely thrilled with me right now, and has been making comments like "you look great right now, if you don't lose another pound, I'll be happy". I'm wearing the clothes I bought 5 years ago and hearing all the time, "You look great!", so mentally, I'm exactly where I was in 2000.

The problem is - I don't want to stop right now. I don't want to weigh 180. I want to keep going, but I keep sabotaging my diet. It's like after 6 months of being on NS, I want to eat real food. I don't do it at home (much), but we've been going out to dinner more and I don't fight it at all. I try to make good choices, but I'm at this point where ANY meal off of NS will put a pound on me.

While a pound isn't that much, it's that pound that puts me back at 181 and then I have to fight for a WEEK to get it off...and this has been happening now for a month. Struggle to get to 180, one meal out and back to 181 - fight for a week to get to 180 and then another meal out...yada yada yada. It's SO frustrating!!!

Today, we're driving up to Oklahoma to the WinStar Casino and all I can think is "great, another day off program" and worry about what it will do to my weight. I'm just not having fun anymore :(

I found this blogger today. It is called An Audience of One. Another wonderful writer with good stuff to say!

Since this blog features my birds, I'll share some bird stories :)

Ziggy is a 13 year old Quaker Parrot. Quakers are a small parrot, green and grey in color. They're about the size of a cockatiel in length, but much more solid and beefy. They can develop fairly extensive vocabularies. Ziggy came to us second-hand just after Christmas last year. He's the bird on the very far left of the bird graphic at the top of this page.

Ziggy says: Mommy (much like an angry 3 year old child, if you can imagine that), get the lead out, sue the bastards (hey, he used to belong to a lawyer), Jonah (one of his former owner's kids), pet the birdie, bye-bye, thank you. He laughs like a little girl, he "crunches" (like chips), he gurgles (like water), he says meow just like the cat, yaba-daba-do, ok, he squeals like the fridge door opening, he makes kissing sounds, coughs, hiccups, and makes several other sounds that we haven't been able to figure out. When he's pissed, you know it, because he chews you out, even if you can't understand the words.

Ziggy also likes to sing karaoke. No, really, he does. He sits on Scott's shoulder and "sings" while Scott does - if it's a song he's heard Scott do a lot, he'll even hit it on key occasionally. He sings the song by Suzanne Vega called Tom's Diner and sings it frequently. He whistles the theme song to the Odd Couple, if you remember that.

Most of the time, he's only loyal to one of us at a time. If it's Scott's day, I can't get anywhere near him, and vice versa. He spends more time with me, because while Scott plays with him, but I nuzzle him and stroke him, which he loves.

When we bought our newest bird, another Quaker named Katie, part of the thought process was we wanted a bird that we could teach our own phrases to, rather than having it repeated phrases someone else had taught them.

Imagine my dismay when I suddenly heard Ziggy's phrases coming from Katie! He's taught her several of the noises he makes, but as yet, she's not saying any actual words. If she pops off with "sue the bastards", I'm going to cry!

Ziggy is out of his cage 24/7, unless we're going to be gone overnight. Katie is a roamer and so she's pretty much grounded to her cage at the moment, until she learns that she needs to stay on her cage. The past few days, Ziggy has been trying to break her out of her cage, which is cute to watch, but he wants nothing to do with her once she is out. Not quite sure what that's about.

Ziggy is an absolute joy to have in our lives and I hope he lives out his full life span of 25-35 years :)

I was so busy last week, I didn't have time to post, so it's time for a little catch-up.

I've lost the 4 lbs I gained during the BBQ weekend, thank God!

The Alanis Morissette concert was wonderful! She sang every song on the Jagged Little Pill album, plus 4 more. If you get the chance to see her, go for it!

We had Scott's daughter Saturday and Sunday, and it was pure joy. We took her Saturday to see War of the Worlds (good flick, go see it), then we shopped the rest of the day. Sunday after we dropped her off, we headed to the lake for the fireworks. Spent the night up there, then spent most of the 4th vegging out.

We're having a karaoke party this coming Saturday night and the house is still a bit of a mess...Guess we'll spend Saturday morning cleaning!

I'm kinda bummed...got my first application to join the AARP in the mail yesterday...sheesh!

Fortunately, Scott's mission in life is for us to have fun...and that keeps me busy and feeling young - so I may join AARP just for the benefits...heck, it's only $12.50 per year, and McDonald's gives ya a free cup of coffee if you're a member ;)

There's so much more I could write, but I'm tired. Will try to stay more current with this thing!