Kinda Serious for an April

So first off I got all little girl squealy about Everyday Mommy alerting me that she is giving me the Golden Croc Award...eeeeeeh! Thanks so much! I'd especially like to thank Annie because I started with reading her blog before my husband said, "Ya know, you like to write and all, why don't you just do one of those?" and of course he set it all up for me and now I'm so all blog this and blog that inside my head that it's a bit scary, and I can't remember what I've actually told people and what I've written so I've taken to saying, "stop me if you've heard this" a lot. Oh well, casualties of blogging I guess. So I'll work on my award ceremony speach, oh you thought this was it? No, no, I will need to buy a gown and get my hair done and then sit down and gush about myself some more next week.

Now, I don't usually dish out many mature thoughts on here because I'm more of a keep that serious stuff way down in the depths of your heart kinda girl. In fact I will most likely resort to sarcasm so that I can avert a tense situation and the only things that every truly make me cry are; my children, my husband and sappy country music songs (I know I'm not the only one that gets all choked up when Sara Beth was scared tah death....comes on the radio, please.)

But, I was reading Pretty Funny for a Girl's housing situation and I thought, I know exactly what she's talking about. I was raised in a well to do family. My parents built an enormous, beautiful house when I was in grade school, my bedroom was bigger than any bedroom I've had since, I drove a new car, had gobs of new clothes all the time, I just never considered that my life would be any different than what it was. But, uh, duh hur, it's been like running backwards up a mountain, we keep slipping and sliding down on our rears, in respects to comfortable living. Before our wedding my mom said that we wouldn't have a pot to pee in and of course we've always had a pot, so she was wrong there but, Clay has done so many repairs on those pots that I think he could be a part-time plumber.

So, when we moved out here to the woods and hills eighteen months ago we were testing ourselves. We decided to rent first to see if we could handle the commute, the change of scenery, the lifestyle and of course the people. Well, we can handle the commute, the scenery is breath taking, the lifestyle is serene and the people are precious. I mean precious as in I would let them raise my children if I died precious. By the way, I'm writing as if God didn't let all this happen, so please know that I'm aware that there is a plan far greater than my meek ramblings here and that is why any discontentment is fairly fleeting for me. But, let's get to the discontent part cuz I know you all like the juicy part best.

An Architect. A Design Major. A house. Mix them together and what have you got? Clay and April living in a turd. Why? Why have I always lived in an ugly turd of a house? Well, mostly because Architects that get married when they are in college and start having babies and then let their wife stay home don't get financially rewarded. Or, we just take what we can get and we always settle for less. I'm happy in the house we are renting and I can't complain about it because I am so grateful to be here, but it's not ours so I can't exacly start tearing down walls and pulling up carpet which is what I do in a house. We need a home.

I think I've been having big anxiety about this lately because of my MIL's death, it's brought up thoughts of how differently Clay and I were raised. I've thought a lot about how comforting it was for me to go home during breaks in college and even after our first was born I felt more comfortable and safe in my parent's home than in my own, the smell of the house, the feel of my bed it was home.

Clay didn't have that. His father sold his childhood home the year before Clay left for college and then moved out of state. When Clay went back "home" there was no house, no parents, no siblings, just a town. I remember thinking what the heck happened to your house? Where's your room and all your stuff? It was all in his dormroom. That was Clay, he was a very portable guy. Everything he owned could be stuffed into a Toyota Corolla.

I want a house. I want the house that Clay and April built. I want it to be purrrrrfect and I want it to be right here in this spot and not one more minute down the road, which is the problem. Our land is nine miles from our door, it's an additional fifteen minute commute. I feel like I need to resolve this, get it settled, come to a decision right now. My daughter will be off to college in six years, I want her to know the house that her brothers are going to grow up in. I need a home, my children need a home. I fear if we stay in this rental much longer this is going to be their home and it will be very painful for them to leave this place. I want to grow roots where I'm planted and let my children go to seed. I don't want to be a weed that's yanked out of the garden just when I'm getting all nice and comfy.

That's it. Poor me. I have a roof over my head, two cars in working order in the driveway, a husband that loves me, healthy children and a sovereign God. I guess I'm just looking for that big house that everybody comes back to so I can have it THE QUEEN's WAY!!! And no, that's not a picture of the house I'm renting up there, that's the house I'm looking for except a big yellow Colonial clapboard sided beast with a red barn. But, I live in Rancho-ramaville that is adjacent to McMansion Towne. Okay? There's probably a lot more details and explanations to the whole thing, but I don't know if I want to get all gooey about it. So, if I go back and read this post I'll most likely be embarassed that I complained and you all can leave me comments like this: Geesh! April your a hog!