I Fooled Me

What a surprise! First I found a copy of my journal entry in my inbox and thought wait a minute, I didn't post anything today! Then I saw two of the comments and remembered I'd created a Thursday Thirteen last week and set it to publish for today. Ah, the wonders and mysteries of Blogger! I also keep thinking today is Saturday, realize it's not and then think it's Friday. I'm discombobulated for sure!

Well, I'm in a better mood today and that is because we have family here from Tennessee. We also had our Little T for part of the morning into the afternoon. We decided to go to the town beach for a little while this morning and we had so much fun! It was overcast and even rained a bit but there was no thunder or lightning so that didn't stop us.

TB coaxed the younger grandkids down to the water. EVeryone kicked off their shoes and walked along the shore, kicking up water. The lake is clean but the water is brown because of the cedar trees. Little T indicated he'd like to wade out further into the water and I'd come prepared so we shucked our clothes (I was wearing a bathing suit and he wore his pull ups) and went in. It didn't take long for granddaughter Taylor to follow us in. We sort of swam back and forth--more like I towed the younger two but we had a great time.

Michele and David are here through Sunday and it sure is good to see them again--it's been about 3 years! The last time I saw Nik he was just a toddler and now he is almost 4. Taylor will be 8 and Ryan and Brandon are 12 and 13 respectively. Michele and David have their own problems to be sure and so we spent some time commiserating with each other.

I thought TB was going to have a complete breakdown this morning before Michele and David arrived and I'm afraid I wasn't very nice to him. He'd just gotten off the phone with social security and they were basically telling him nothing about his claim. They told him they wouldn't know anything until after September and couldn't even begin to guess how much he might make during the month. We are between a rock and a hard place and need to make some kind of intelligent decision about what to do next. Ted went to pieces.

I came to see what was wrong. I was already feeling enormous stress myself and when he told me what happened, my attitude was this is social security, what did you expect? and I told him he had to pull himself together because I couldn't deal with Tomas alone. I was feeling mean as I said it and then I felt bad because he said he couldn't help it and needed some space. I was going to take Kristin and go to the beach but then TB pulled himself together and we got ready to go. Michele and David pulled up as we were leaving.

So here is what we need to decide: when do we sell the house?

We went to see an attorney to discuss a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. First of all, we can't afford his fee--$1000 down before he'll file any of the papers. Second, he finagled the numbers to make it seem as if we could afford the restructuring plan. I already knew what the reality was and I kept asking him, "But what are they going to do when they see we can't make our basic living expenses until we hear from social security?" and he kept saying, "We make the numbers work."

Yeah. By lying and under estimating our true expenses. He cut our car insurance, electric bill and phone bill in half. I wanted to cry. If this budget is accepted, we'd have to pay our mortgage plus almost $300 extra a month to pay back the arrears. On top of that, we'd have to pay for food, the electric bill, and so on out of the balance...and it can't be done in reality. The lawyer's budget balances but ours doesn't.

We can't afford to stay in our home. It's breaking my heart.

Do we sell now and hope to get a good price in this weak market? Houses are not selling well around here. Do we wait out the forebearance and hope that we hear from social security so that we can work out a new deal with the mortgage company?

A friend of mine wrote to me and said we shouldn't become paralyzed by our fear of what's happening. I think that's what's happened to us. We are paralyzed because we don't know which way to go. I guess I keep thinking naively that by praying and praying somehow the answer will come to us just like that, in the form of a dream or a gut feeling...but it hasn't happened yet. Meanwhile, TB and I try to hold onto our sanity and not turn on each other!