We think we got it!

but we're not sure! I just got a call from Chris in which he said, "I think we got the house!" Still nothing from the realtor. But, Chris checked his bank account this morning and the check that we gave them for earnest money had been cashed/deposited. Now, call me crazy, but shouldn't have someone told us SOMETHING before this? And the fact that it's already gone through means they deposited it yesterday, if not before. This is the craziest transaction ever. Chris is calling the so-called realtor now (I think...I was thinking so hard about what is going on that I'm not sure what he said). Don't get me wrong, I/we still want the house, but this is mildly anti-climactic!

I got stung on the....

you know what! And man, did it hurt. I was getting into the pool, kind of sitting on the side, and all of a sudden I felt this little sting on my rearous-endous. And, it kept getting worse. Finally I stood up, and there was a dead wasp in the gutter. Dead, and he still got me.

We've had an eventful week at the pool. Yesterday we had a bloody nose. Apparently my lifeguards missed the part of lifeguard class where they tell you to clean blood up with bleach. There's even a question about it on the test. Must have missed that one. A member decided to be funny. His friend was at the end of the board. He hopped up, ran to the and and tackled the guy off the board. All the while, my guard is blowing her whistle and telling him not to do it. I was hot, as it wasn't the first time he's been called down for this. Did I mention he's 19? I seriously let him have it and informed him he was old enough to know better. Had he done it again, he would have gotten kicked out in front of all of his friends. Funny thing is, he's not so bad when it's just his brothers there, but add friends (and especially the girls) into the mix, and it's just trouble.

The day before was an even bigger doozy. I was just sitting down to lunch w/Chris when I got a call. "Um....Jamie? Some kid just had diahrrea in the pool.....and there's a lot of it. What do I do?" There's still some debate over just what it was. Maybe vomit? Then, a kid got his hand slammed in the door. Well, not really slammed, so much as caught a little bit. I've never heard screams/crying quite like that, espcially out of a little boy. Turns out, he's overly dramatic. By the time I was done talking to him, he was already using his hand just fine, but still screaming bloody murder and crying. One of his counselors told me it was the 17th time he'd cried that day. No, that's not a typo. I wonder what Jr. High is going to be like for that kid? What else.........Oh yeah. Some little day care brat peed on the floor. Inside right in front of the vending machines. I kept thinking the boy's room was a terribly stinky mess and had someone check it out. Nope, not that. What could it be? Finally I noticed a yellow tinge to the puddle on the floor. Nice. My boss called to see if I was going to be at swimming lessons the next morning. Probably not since I'm not teaching swimming lessons in the mornings. Oh, well could I? Nope, sorry. He needed a sub, so I figured out a solution for him. I got to clean up a dead mouse. We all know my love of the stinkers. (if you'd like more detail, read this) BLECH!!! And, the day was topped off by a phone call from one of my guards who informed me that she broke her foot the night before and probably woudn't be able to work the rest of the summer. What a day!

We are winners!

We won the PowerBall. Well, to be exact, not the whole PowerBall, but a PowerBall prize. On the 6/21 drawing, we got two numbers and the PowerBall. So, we won! $7. Not much, but still so fun to win something! The bad thing is, we bought it in AZ, so it has to be redeemed in AZ. I guess we'll send it to Chris' cousin Lisa. Either that or keep it as an $8 souvenier from our trip ($1 to buy it and the $7 we won).

We are still NOT homeowners. I'd finally had enough of not knowing yesterday. It was Saturday, we'd made the offer on Wednesday. Seemed like a long time with no word to me. So, Chris called the realtor. Apparently the seller is a moron. Oh, wait, we already knew that.  The realtor faxed him the papers, he couldn't figure out how to make his fax work, so he hadn't gotten the papers. His daughter was going there (Idabel - where it is, I have no idea, but I know it's in OK) this weekend and taking the papers with him. It sounded like he is going to sign them and on Monday the realtor will fax them to the bank (that's after his daughter drives them back to Tulsa and drops them off at the realtor's office). Hopefully we'll know something by the end of the week. That's what she told Chris. The end of the week? Seems like a long time to me. Not that there's anything I can do to speed the process along, but this just seems like a screwed up deal to me! Plus, the realtor didn't have the decency to let us know what was going on. A simple phone call whould have sufficed. I liked her right off the bat, and I'm a pretty good judge of these things. I think this is a small fish for her. I think she usually does transactions at least twice the price of ours, so she's not as into it. I'm just sayin' is all.

I have to apologize for the boring posts lately. There's just not that much going on in our lives. Actually, that's not true. There's a lot going on, it's just the same things over and over. Crap at the pool (at times literally! LOL!!), craziness at Chris' office, house stuff, and......that's about it. Between classes and the pool, I've been working a TON. But, when my paltry check comes in, it makes me wonder why. Why am I working so hard for so little? Yesterday was a good day, though. We didn't have more than 4 swimmers until like 3:00. So, we just played in the pool (and yes, cleaned a little). Chris brought the puppies by and Scooby had a blast swimming with us. He was even able to get out by himself in the deep end!

BTW, I read somewhere that you're "not allowed" to post unless you include a picture. So, I've included a picture from the Tucson Botanical Gardens!

But it's a dry heat

yeah. whatever. it's hot. plain and simple. HOT. Did I mention it's hot? I heard the local weather yesterday. they actually said the words, "It's only going to be 100 today." When you hear the words only and 100 together in a sentence, you know something's wrong. I informed both Chris and his fanily the other day that God did not intend me for this business. Not one bit. Nor did he intend me for the cold. Yep, he meant me for San Diego. We've had an awesome time. Just a great vacation. Not enough sleep for me, though. I've been waking up at 6 (or even pre-6 - the horrors!) and not going back to sleep. We've seen a lot of Chris' family, which is good. We're actually pretty glad his reunion got cancelled. Uncle Juan had everybody over to his house that night and it was just great hanging out with everyone hearing stories. We were supposed to stay with Chris' cousins to save money (house), but we ended up at the Shraton Tucson with a suite. It was quite nice and we spent a few hours by the pool. Very good stuff. Speaking of the house.....nothing. We haven't heard a thing. No news is good news, right? All in good time. Right?

Goin' to Kansas City...

or rather IN Kansas City. We're here in KCI sitting on the floor waiting to go to PHX (Phoenix). Once we get there, we're driving down to Tucson. We're floor sitting because on our last flight we didn't get to sit together. Bummer. Seriously. See, we're flying Southwest and were the victim of their no assigned seating. We're not about to have that happen again. Chris sat between two guys bigger than him and I seriosly missed his shoulder to snore on.

We've put the house situation on hold. Easy to do sine we're going to be out of town 'til Tues. night. We were pre-approved, but the realtor told to check out another lender, so we did. They're going straight to full approval rather than starting off with the pre-, and they won't get back to us until Mon. or Tues. The realtor didn't want us to make another offer until we find out for sure from the lender. Her reasoning? The bank won't accept the offer until the lender says something official anyway. Don't people usually make offers before they get all of the financing settled? It seems fishier and fishier to me. Chris had wanted to make an offer before we left, but I just didn't have a good feeling about it. So, I was actually relieved when Chris told me what the realtor said. If it's meant to beM it will still be availablw when we get back. If not, it won't. And I feel peaceful about that. I just didn't feel peaceful about making another offer just yet.

It's just a land of confusion

and we don't know where to go. This house situation is really confounding us. Actually, me. Chris know what he wants to do, but I'm not sure. I'm very unsure, and I'm not sure how to get sure. Clear as mud? There are so many unanswered questions. And he's leaving for OKC at 6 in the morning. I have no idea when he'll be home. Then, we leave for Tucson on Friday. I'm tempted to just say lets forget about the house until we get back. Maybe we'll have a better idea then. I'm starting to feel like maybe if it's still available then, it's the right thing. But if it's the right thing then, why isn't it the right thing now? I just have so many concerns. And so many questions. Hopefully Chris will be able to get some of them answered tomorrow.

It doesn't help that I'm exhuasted. It was just physically. Now it's both physically and emotionally. The pool is wearing me out and the house is wearing me down. Not a good thing. Speaking of the pool, I found out today that at least 2 of my guards have no idea how much they're being paid. And, one of them hasn't filled out his tax forms. Oops. We'll see what they pay me. Don't know if I mentioned it, but there's a dispute about my pay. Hope it's what they told me in the beginning. If not. Well, let's just say that I don't expect it to be a problem. If it is, we'll go from there. I just realized I don't think I called and confirmed with all of my guards what time they're working tomorrow. Could be a problem. Great.

Maybe....Maybe Not

The offer was rejected. We're not that upset. Yes, we would've preferred it be accepted, but we're not distraught about it. It seems the owner made a deal with the bank. When we made the offer, we were told he had no part in it and the bank was the one making the decisions. From what we understand, the owner convinced the church for which he is a pastor to make the mortgage payments until he sells it, and the bank agreed to let him be the seller. But, the bank has to OK the deal. This is bad for us, b/c the owner owes $20,000 more than the asking price. So, he won't accept anything less than the asking price and has no way to do the $5,000 in closing costs we'd asked for. Even with that, it still isn't a bad deal. So, we're still considering. We're going to see about the loan and then decide. Yes, we already had a pre-approval from another company, but the realtor suggest we look around (the one we'd used is known to pad their closing costs a bit), and she gave us the name of someone she uses all the time. We'll see what she has to say, and then go from there.

On the pool front, we had 9 swimmers this morning for a total of 20 minutes. Mondays we're closed, but in their quest to make $$, daycares are scheduled on Mondays from 11:00 till 3:30. It thundered and rained on and off all day today and was chilly (only 87 for a high - it was over 100 on Sat.), so our two big groups cancelled. Our one small group came, but they had to get out after only 20 minuted b/c of thunder. I felt bad for them, but I was glad to get out of there when we did. Especially b/c they'd told one of the big groups they could come from 2-4 (in hopes of  the weather clearing) and I had a haircut at 4. This way, I was able to go to Sam's (again) and still make my haircut.

Speaking of, I love that Amy (haircutter). She's got such a sweet soul. Just love her. Her girlfriend of like 30 years (their moms were preggo at the same time & were next door neighbors) was there. What a wonderful bond those girls have. They were in diapers together and bridesmaids in each other's weddings. I have to admit, I was a smidge jealous.

I don't want to get my hair wet

I heard a father tell his son that yesterday. I had to do a double take. Not something you hear from the men so often. The pool has been relatively quiet lately. We were busy for us for a Saturday yesterday. Usually we have few enough people that we can go with one guard most to all of the day. (depending on the swimmers, 15 or less) Yesterday, we had to go with 2 for most of the day. When you only have 3 and it's darn near 100 and miserable, it makes for a long day. Chris and I went to Sam's yesterday morning. I have a business card for the pool, so we went before all the regular riff-raff can and bought a bunch of stuff for the vending machines at the pool. That's one of my responsibilities, stocking the machines. It's a new thing for me.

Chris and I have both been nervous about the whole house thing. We're pretty excited. It fits us perfectly. Two story. 4 bedrooms and a bonus room. 2200 sq. ft. The living room is kind of small, and the kitchen isn't what I wanted, but for the price, the size, and the locale, we thought it was perfect. They are trying to keep it from going into forclosure, but the bank is already the seller (don't really get that). We'd found it online and drove by it on Sunday night. Well, on Tues. or Wed., they dropped the price 10 grand. So, Chris went with my mom to see it on Thurs. afternoon. He liked it OK, but she said I HAD to see it. So, we went back at 8:30 that night after I got done with the pool. I thought it was great, and on the 2nd go around Chris loved it.

Friday morning, he called and at noon we made the offer. We never got around to calling anyone about being our realtor. The woman showing it said that because the bank is actually the seller, she could go ahead and write it up for us. We really liked her, so we just had her do it. After making the actual offer, I still like her a lot. She's very objective, and wants to make sure we're OK. So that's the story. Now we wait. Because it's the bank, it could take up to a week, which because we did it on Friday could be a week from this Monday. Which, we'll be in Tucson then. Good timing, huh?  Wanna see pictures? Click here.

Do We Have A Winner?

Possibly! Chris and I just started looking at houses yesterday, and we think we may have a winner. We each looked at one with my mom. She and I didn't like mine, they did like his. Enough that they had me come look at it after I finally got off of work at the pool. No, it's not exactly what I wanted. Definitely not the kitchen I wanted, but for the size and the location, and the price, it's outstanding. So, Chris is going to make a call today, and we'll see what happens. Scary stuff over here!!

In pool news, I got to get in and net out thrown-up pancakes. I've never had so much crazy stuff happen at a pool in such a short amount of time. Why did I have to get in? Welllll.....our big net is about 50 years old, and our smaller, more appropriate net is broken and has to be hand held. When the needed to be netted item is in the middle of the pool, That means getting in with it. Yay for me. I'll take this any day over the "pickle".

I think there's a pickle in the pool

A little girl said that to one of my lifeguards yesterday. She said go check it out. The little girl comes back up and says, "actually I think it's poop." The lifeguard says, "oops." So, we had a total CaddyShack moment. Cleared the pool and you know who got to go in after it. Net wouldn't work, it would have broken up. So, I donned some latex gloves and some goggles and went after it with a bag. It still broke up, but was better than it could have been. Don't get me wrong. It was 100% nasty. Totally and completely. I had a good wash afterwards. I wish it had been a Baby Ruth.

So, today is 6th day of the pool being open. I'm a bronze goddess. Well, on my way anyway. I ticked off a parent on the first day. I had to pull about 8-10 kids out in one day. We had a kid fall off the diving board and hit his foot on the wall (still can't figure that one out).  We've had a turd in the pool. Our chlorinator isn't working so we have to hand feed the chemicals. We've had to close for "weather" twice. It's been an eventful week.