Sunday, November 1

Today I am grateful for:

Mostly just for the chance that things might be better at some point. I've been really struggling this year, maybe even since May 2019 with trying to deal with everything with the house. The sheer logistics of trying to live with all the chaos, all the back-breaking work last year of tearing down the trailer, putting in the basement, moving the house, and all the work cleaning up the yard this year, one thing after another with the animals this year, changing riding barns, now there's stuff going on with our cars, and to top it all off, we still haven't got the new mortgage yet from the bank that was supposed to happen LAST YEAR.

When we knew we wanted to do this house project in 2019, we went to the bank and got everything set up to get a new mortgage that would give us some money to work with to do things like build the addition, windows for the basement, siding, roof, etc.. It was supposed to be activated the moment the house was on the new basement and thus considered insurable and "real" in the eyes of the bank. We had to spend our own money to tear down the trailer, dig and build the basement, do the electrical and the septic, and WE DID EVERYTHING THE BANK ASKED US TO DO. We got everything inspected. The county was happy with everything we were doing. Not the bank. The bank keeps wanting more from us. We already showed them all the required proof of employment, our assets, our credit history, inspections, permits from the county, we've already had a mortgage with this bank for 13 years. The bank THEN said they wanted proper engineer's drawings of our proposed addition, and that stalled us for nearly six months. We gave those to the bank. Then the bank wanted our tax return for 2019, then they wanted a renewed proof of employment and income. So we gave them that. Now they want invoices for all the work we've had done. We did that. Now they want us to book a new inspection. That we have to pay for.

Every time they want something, it's several weeks to a month by the time they communicate their new need, we get it prepared, we send it to them, and we wait to hear from them again. Another month goes by that we can't buy materials.

We've used up all our saved money ear-marked for our house, and we can't do anything more now until we get this mortgage. If we get it. The bank keeps saying we've got it.....but we need one more thing.

My sweetie is very stressed out, I'm very stressed out, and we're losing the ability to stay positive. We could continue living in the house the way it is right now, and we'd be fine, but it would be stressful to have the project completely halted.

So, I suppose I can only be grateful that there is a chance that it might still happen.

I went to see River, and it was a beautiful warm evening for this time of year, and I rode in the outdoor ring for a while as the sun went down, and it was nice, listening to the geese. Then I went into the little arena, and did some fairly light work, and worked on some of the stretching and so on that I learned in my session with R. I'm really glad I could ride River, and that he was calm outside and in the arena alone. I'm pleased that R is willing to keep in touch with me with texts to make sure my ride went okay (her house is in the same yard as the barn, and she doesn't want anyone riding without checking in with her when you start and when you're done. This is one of the big things for me about this barn, is that she's willing to check on you). I'm glad that he was relaxed in the arena by himself, and overall we had a good ride together.

Proust

What is your idea of perfect happiness?