JentoLose House Hunt Completed

Where have you been Ms JentoLose?  It's been over a week since I have written here, so clearly, I've been having a few challenges.  Where to start?  and where to go?

Last week was crazy!  It was consumed with details and emotions and plans to sell our current home of nine years in order to buy a larger house.  We did some research, crunched numbers, selected a real estate agent, viewed a number of properties comparable to the main house we were considering, met with a mortgage broker, and did lots of talking and planning. 

I feel like our life kind of stopped as we contemplated making this major change for our family.

This entire process was very stressful and involved tons of details.  My husband can be somewhat removed, but it was very hard for me not to become emotionally involved.  On Saturday morning, we contacted our agent and decided to move forward with an offer to present on Sunday afternoon.

As we spent Saturday trying to figure out how it was going to be possible to sell our house, keep our sanity, and maintain our normal family and children activities in the process, things became much more complicated and unclear.  Our kids were kind of crazy--mainly because their parents were preoccupied, and my husband and I became very irritated with each other as we tried to figure out how we were going to make this happen.

By Sunday morning we both decided that we were NOT willing to go into crazy mode just to sell our house!  It just did not feel right.  So we decided to step back and NOT make an offer. 

Actually, as we talked more about it and spent some more time trying to figure out what we really want, we decided that we wanted to stay in our current home.  And that it makes the most sense continuing to build upon the life we currently have in our small but cozy house. 

We made two major mistakes throughout this process:

1.  Skipping a Meal Led to Fast Food Mayhem
On Friday, we went met with a Realtor, and viewed a number of properties.  But we did NOT eat lunch in the process.  We rushed from this activity to a meeting with a mortgage broker.  By the time it was all over, we were just spent, and needed to get food into our stomach.  We could have made wise choices, but we did not!

2. Not Enough Sleep
Because we were overtired through this process, the stress hit us hard, the irritation hit us hard, and everything seemed hard.  Now my husband actually works a job where he worked the midnight shift (10:30 pm to 6:30 am), so his tiredness was understandable, even though it didn't help the situation.  I stayed up late crunching numbers, trying to figure out the finances and details.  Not sleeping just made things seem harder.  It's hard to make the right choices when you are tired.

So throughout all of this, I made the choice to eat poorly.  I could go into the details here, but I won't.  Instead, I want to focus on what I can learn about my behavior.  For that's going to make the difference.

There are always going to be stressful situations.  Where I am too tired.  And too hungry.  And too stressed.  How am I going to act differently?  and choose differently?  and make wise decisions?  I'm not exactly sure about the answers.

But that's what JentoLose is about for me.  A place for me to keep trying to figure it out.  And not giving up.  I'm not even restarting.  I'm moving on with direction. . . trying to identify. . . to understand. . . so I can change.

I think that's an OK place to be.