When Life Hands You Lemons......

.............Refuse them. Take those crappy lemons and throw them back in life's face and then proceed to throw urself to the ground crying, wailing, screaming and refusing to accept these horrible how could u hand me these lemons!?! ...... Right? ..... err

That's what I WANT to do and how I feel inside BUT the better part of me is making the most of the Lemons we have just been handed and trying to be super strong and sensible for my Hubby.

Yesterday we just got bad news from the Big bad wolf the BANK. While in the process of researching our finances (bla bla mumbo jumbo technical stuff) and approving the loan for our new house, they have now come back to tell us they want $XX,000 (lots o' money) MORE from us to put down for the purchase price of the house. Closing is scheduled for next week. They tell us this a week before we close, weeks AFTER we've already decided on home renovations and our contractor. They never gave us an inkling of an idea before this could be the case.

We are already pouring every cent we have ever saved into this house so we were shocked as the impossibility of what they're asking here. $XX,0000 more (see all those zeros) is like, ALOT more that we don't have extra of. We didn't think they could be SERIOUS because this $XX,000 happens to be the exact amount of money we have saved for years to get our renovations done. Since we will have a new house and a new baby and a new job for hubs, we will have No time or luxury to do this ourselves. We were just going the contractor route and hiring a superman to coordinate everything we wanted to get done to the new place before we move in and before the new baby arrives (operative word being before).


We were getting so much done too -

•  The whole kitchen redone (new cabinets, floors, backsplash, countertops, the works)
• A kitchen wall knocked down to open into the living room
• French doors installed onto the deck leading out from the dining room
• Arch entryways made into and out of the kitchen and leading into the dining room from the living room
• Raised paneling in the dining room
• 3 brand new bathrooms including a 
• Spa master bathroom for me in the Master bedroom by eliminating the master bedroom closet and carving out a new one
• Wainscoting in the bathrooms and the den
• Wooden floors in the office
• New carpet in the den/kids' playroom
• New laundry floor cabinets and tiles
• French sliding doors installed in the walkout area downstairs from the Den
  
  Oh the list was endless. We finally found a contractor (after interviewing Many!) who was going to work with us and negotiated him down to a VERY reasonable budget for all of this.

CLONKKKKKKKK!! That was a Lemon hitting me in the head.

So now we are being forced to cut out all renovations with the contractor since that money will now have to go towards a downpayment on the house. A few years ago the bank would've never asked this of us - but I guess this is what the whole mortgage crisis has come down to. 


I knew it was all too good to be true. I just hoped and thought - ah it's finally OUR turn, our turn to have a little comfort, a little style, a little luxury in life after years of living in rentals and apartments and terrible neighbor situations and moving all over the country. Guess not. Here's where I can be an optimist or pessimist. 

Upon all appearances I am one of the cheeriest people u'll meet - always laughing and joking. It's really my way of DEALING with things because I am secretly a pessimist  (aka realist) inside. Sigh. I want to curl into a ball and cry and throw a tantrum but because The Hubs is pretty devastated, I can't. For his sake. I have to be strong for him. As much of a Pita I can be for my Hubs, if anything anything anything ever hurts him or gets to him or upsets him - I just lose it. I can't tolerate it. Every ounce of me runs to his side to support him, lift his spirits and do anything to make that man smile and laugh and jump up and down. He is such an amazing person and soul and after how hard he has worked for us, he doesn't deserve this. The reason the Big Bad Wolf Bank is asking us for more money is also due to something that has hurt our credit history that was completely OUT of our control as well - ugh I can't even get into it because it makes me want to vomit. 

ANYWAY, in comes Super Wife to the rescue with my big speech last night.

I told the hubster not to fret!!! That this is life's way of saying - hey u can still have it all - u can still have what u want, the renovations, updates and snazzy touches in the house! Life just wants us to have our cake and eat it too - save lots of money and enjoy doing it ourselves!! (?????) Stay with me here. I tried to convince him how much of a fun challenge it will be to fix the house up ourselves, how we are always watching HGTV and thinking we could do this or that, how he loves to build and create as do I, how we're such HOME people, how much money we could save by doing it ourselves instead of having the contractor do it, how rewarding it will be to see it all come together, how much more satisfied and accomplished we will feel if we put our own hands to the task and put in our own blood sweat and tears in making our new home. 

I was trying to get him excited, pumped, ready for the ride ...............but I am totally clueless how this is going to come together. We've never done something like this before - tiles? cabinets? installing countertops? What??? and on top of all this - right before or right After a NEWBORN arrives? How?

Breathe Candy.

It's alright, it will be ok. I insisted to my sweet hubbers that these things don't matter. We need to keep perspective. We have our health, we have our beautiful babies, we have wonderful family and friends, we have his job still, thankgoodness we had that cushion we saved where it's just renovations we're cutting out instead of actually LOSING the house - life could be ALOT worse - alot. Those are the things that are important and matter in life - not glass tiles and granite countertops. (Altho I will truly miss the idea of those! Sniff Sniff). 

I gotta keep pumping sunshine up his butt. Just have to. He started to come around and felt better about it this morning which makes my heart smile. We're still gonna go for renovations - but gonna do it ourselves - We will just take our time and do it slower. Time to visit more DIY Mommy blogs!! So stay tuned to how this is all going to turn out!! Gulp.

In the words of Young MC -- "We're on a mission.......and we're wishin'" (that this is gonna turn out right)...."So come on fatsos!!!" (which would be US) ... "and Bust a move!!!"