Archive for the ‘The Hubs’ Category

Where to begin?

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Posted 22 Jan 2014 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category baby business, blog bidnass, house stuffs, motherhood, The Hubs

Two months ago I blogged about how “other stuff was happening” that I would blog about eventually.

Well, yesterday we found out that “other stuff” is actually a boy.

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Interwebs – meet Abby’s little brother. He’s due in early June.

In other news, the hubs was diagnosed as having Celiac Disease. We’ve been working on creating a gluten-free life for him, and slowly are making our house safe as well.

We’re trying to figure out what to do about our house…especially now that we’re adding a 4th member (or 5th, if you count the cat) to our family. And also trying to figure out how to afford childcare, as our current place of care will run about $2400/month for two kids. Which…no.

So…lots of crazy, uncertainty, and excitement in our house. Also THERE’S A BOY IN MY BELLY, which is weird and I’m still adjusting to.

As always, you’re better off following me on Twitter or Instagram, since I’m there way more than here. But that’s what’s up for now. :)

The day I cursed investment companies.

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Posted 06 Aug 2013 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category house stuffs, other people are morons, The Hubs, uncategorized

I wanted to tell the story of our “offer” that fell through, mostly because when I was looking to it myself on the old interwebs, I couldn’t find anything about the company that wanted to buy our house…so…here it is.

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from our realtor, letting us know that she got an email with an offer for our house. Odd for a few reasons…one was that the offer was from a corporation, and another being they’d never even seen our house. They were based out of Illinois, and offered us about $15K less than our asking price. CASH. It even came with a proof of funding letter. Not horrible, but too low for us to accept. Our realtor told us the company’s name, IH2 Property Illinois, so of course I immediately started Googling. I found that they’re owned by Blackstone Group, one of the largest investment companies out there, and are purchasing mass quantities of single family homes across the country. They invest a little money, and then rent the homes out. Immediately the hubs was against even entertaining their offer. While we couldn’t find any information about people who had sold their homes to them, we did find a bunch of stuff on Yelp and other sites – mostly people who thought they were a shitty group of landlords. While I wasn’t exactly happy with selling my house that I love to a company that was seemingly a bunch of jerks…I also wanted to sell my house. (Duh.) And without much else coming in for serious interest in our home, I talked the hubs into a counter offer.

We countered $13K more than their offer, they countered back at the halfway point…which was exactly what we needed to break even on our home. We were STOKED. It was finally happening! We signed their offer with a counter-proposal addendum attached with the newly agreed upon purchase amount, and sent it to them. The next day, they scheduled an inspection. The inspector came and went, and it came to my attention that IH2 had never signed our counter-proposal, nor had they sent any earnest money. That started to worry me, but our realtor assured us that everything was fine, and would let us know when she heard anything. On that Friday, we had been told that the Purchase Agreement papers and the inspection report had been delivered to the buyers and we would hear something on Monday.

Meanwhile, the hubs and I are quietly and excitedly talking about our moving plans, storage units, when to start looking for our home. We both tried not to get excited – we knew this wasn’t finished yet.

Monday rolls around, and finally, by 2pm our realtor calls. Her first words are “Bad news.” I almost fainted. Like, this COULD NOT be happening. Instead of everything being fine, they countered again. This time, at $30K LESS than our agreed upon purchase amount. THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS LESS. May I remind you that our agreed upon amount would leave us with nothing. Breaking even…but walking away with NOTHING. At first I panicked and thought that there was something MAJORLY wrong with our house. What could need $30K in repairs?!

Our realtor emailed their local agent (along with a counter from us for $10K than our agreed upon amount, because EFF YOU JERKS) who responded that they could not work with our counter offer, and that it was nothing that was found during the inspection, but they determined they would need to invest that much in the home in order for the deal to work with them. Okay…first? GREAT! Put $30K of work into my house! Guess what? I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. Second? I hate you. He also mentioned in the email that if we ever want to “work with their offer” to contact them. Sure…when I have a dump truck of money for closing, I’ll give you guys a holler.

So…like I said in my previous post…dead in the water.

We’re pulling our house from the MLS on Thursday while we’re on vacation, and so that we can enjoy the rest of the summer without having to worry about house showings and stress and whatnot. We’ll probably decide over the next week if we put it back up again in September or wait until Spring.

I’m so over all of this. I’m seriously going to find a statue of St. Joseph and bury that shit in my front yard. HOUSE BE GONE.

My rock.

2 Comments
Posted 30 Jan 2013 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category marriage, motherhood, other people are awesome, The Hubs

To say the last two weeks have been hard would be an understatement. I have cried, slept, and been awake more in the last 13 days than I feel like ever. I’ve been crying for good reason, and crying for no good reason. Hormones are a bitch, people. And mine are all over the effing place. People who know me are aware that I’m a pretty solid person. I don’t tend to cry easily, or let things get to me too much. However, when my facade gets even the smallest fissure, the rest of me tends to melt away. I get anxious. Depressed. I can fall apart.

This me has only been around a few times. Like, a couple months after I had Abby. Then when my anxiety peaked last summer. And now.

I hate this me. I know I have no control over my emotions and me without control is like a malt without hot fudge. It just. doesn’t. work.

I’ve had a rough couple of nights. Last night I had a class A panic attack, intensified by worrying about the new strain of Norovirus (have you read about this?!). I was completely gone. But Josh, the awesome husband that he is, told me to back away from the internet, lay down in bed and let him take care of Abby and everything else. I cried (of course, right now it’s my only reaction to anything) and felt so damn grateful to have such a thoughtful husband.

Tonight wasn’t much different. Abby continued her newest trick of hating everything we’ve ever offered her to eat, and flat out refused both pizza and oatmeal. What’s frustrating is that she’ll eat pretty much anything anyone else gives her – at school or at her grandparents house. For us? AS IF. We struggled and fought with her for 45 minutes about eating until she decided she would drink milk and snuggle with me instead, which I allowed. Then bath time turned into struggle number 2, more tears, more acting out. Part of me knows she’s sensing my emotions and reacting to them, and unfortunately I have little to no patience these days. She shaped up enough when she got out of the tub, but cried more during teeth brushing. I’d had enough, and Josh sensed it. He stepped in and took over. Which again, made me cry.

I feel horrible for being this way. For what I feel like is rubbing off on my daughter, for feeling useless, even though I really do feel like I’m okay most of the time. I know this is my hormones wreaking havoc on my psyche, but not being able to control any of it is sending me over the edge.

Through it all though is Josh. Being my rock. Standing by my side when all I can do is cry or lay in bed or stare at my computer. He has done nothing but take care of me for the last two weeks and make sure I’m okay.

People say this all of the time, and I’m sure I’ve said it before too, but I’ve never in my life meant it more than now:

I don’t know what I would do without him.

I keep wishing time away – for when mentally I’m repaired and not disabled by these hormones. For when we can start trying for another baby. For when I’ll be pregnant again. But I feel like the more I’m wishing, the more I’m removing myself from the present. But it’s just so damn hard to be here right now. Mentally. And physically…I guess. I’m rambling.

Anyway. I know I’ll get through this. And I’ll eternally be grateful for a husband that will do anything to make sure I that I do.

This wasn’t meant to be.

7 Comments
Posted 18 Jan 2013 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category marriage, motherhood, not so much, The Hubs

So, this post is going to be personal. And if you know me because we work together or something…maybe you don’t want to read it. It’s going to be major word vomit. It’s going to be TMI. But this is why I have a blog. To get these things out. To find others who can commiserate and make me feel less alone and more like just anyone living their life.

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How did Santa survive before the Interwebs?

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Posted 10 Dec 2012 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category Abigail, I am awesome, motherhood, other people are awesome, retail therapy, The Hubs

On Saturday, the Hubs, Abby and I headed to the blessed Mall of America to do some Christmas shopping. As with any trip to the MOA, we are required (by unwritten law) to take Abby on three rides, at minimum. She talks about these rides pretty much every other day. It’s adorable, but also CAN I GO TO THE MALL WITHOUT GOING ON RIDES? After the rides, we headed to Noodles for Abby’s mac & cheese fix. As we were leaving with full bellies, I went to hike up my jeans, and hulk smashed the belt loop right out of my pants. DAMMIT. Strike one.

We wove our way through shoppers and some of the best people watching I’ve seen since the state fair. We searched through Nordstrom Rack for a gift for my mom, then made our way to Marshall’s and decided we’d had enough of the crowds already thankyouverymuch. It was at our decision to depart that I realized my jacket wasn’t on the stroller anymore. Dear God. Strike TWO. My angry meter had reached about a 9. We backtracked and eventually made our way back to the Rack, where I walked through the areas Abby insisted on pushing the stroller. BY HERSELF, Mama. No! Don’t touch it! I’m doing it BY MYSELF. Aye. Lo and behold, my coat was laying across a rack; apparently someone found it and propped it up. THANK GOD.

We headed home, where I decided to go ahead and get this shopping over and done with. AMAZON, I love you. Santa’s purchases have been made, as well as some other gifts that needed to be in my hands.

(In case you’re wondering what Santa’s got in his sack this year (ha, ha. sack.), we bought Abby a Peppa Pig DVD, some Crayola Washable Mini-Stampers (this kid needs to stamp all the things all the time), Hungry Hungry Hippos, Melissa & Doug Pasture Pals, LeapFrog Explorer Learning Game: Letter Factory (for her LeadPad we bought her last Christmas), LEGO DUPLO Creative Cakes (a Lego cake set? YES PLEASE.), and for the grand finale…a Playskool Classic Sit – N – Spin. SIT. AND. SPIN.) none of those links are affiliate or anything. just an FYI.

ALL of those things I purchased on the Amazon. And I hope all of those things come before Christmas.

I nearly struck-out on holiday shopping. However, I think I’m going to put this year’s attempt on the win list.

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