Today’s research is looking a helluva lot more promising than yesterday’s and it’s looking more like we may end up buying than renting. Let’s just say I see a glimmer of hope. A light in the dark where there was once none at all for 8 long years. To think that we may own our own place (and it might not necessarily have to be a tiny old trailer after all) in less than a year from when we had nearly both feet in the grave is truly mind-boggling. Even Tom agrees. As he said, he knew things would turn around really fast once he got a job. The problem was that we didn’t think we’d get the chance to turn them around in the first place, and that chance certainly wouldn’t have come had he not gotten a job in the nick of time. We had no more income coming in and our money was almost all gone.

The only negative is that we may not move till September or October instead of July or August as we might need to save up a few more grand first, depending on how flexible the realtor is. Better later than never, though.

The reason it may be easier to buy is that renting, for some reason, may actually be more expensive per month unless we got something attached to others or rented something in the mainstream. No thanks. Secondly, our credit isn’t the greatest. The fucking management company in Oregon says we owe them $200, and then there are the book clubs I stupidly stole books from.

I’ll never like having to pay to fix things, but I’m all for being our own boss again by owning. Management companies rip you off and individual landlords pester you. The only other negative is that even though we should own it outright in 10 years or less, it’ll never be completely “free.” You have to pay for the lot. Lots with trailers usually cost about $500 a month whereas lots with manufactured homes usually cost about $800 a month. But even while we were having to pay $1000 - $1200 a month till it was all paid off, we would still get enough in unemployment if he got laid off. Plus there’s the fact that it should never again take a couple of months let alone a couple of years to get another job. If all he could get were a minimum-wage job, it wouldn’t be for long. Most people with his skills don’t make shit money. Except for a few months, a few times, he hasn’t made shitty dough since before I knew him.

Oh, and one more negative. I still think daytime barking is still likely. But no place is perfect and I just might get my own beagle and bark back. :) Beagles are kinda cute and they’d surely live a lot longer than a rat, though I miss my ratties, too.

Other than my allergies bugging the hell out of me, I’m pretty damn excited! From what we’ve researched there doesn’t seem to be any way we could be getting our hopes up for nothing. Besides, if the absolute worst-case scenario came to play, we’d just buy the cheap single-wide, though there’s no reason we couldn’t have a nicer doublewide with the 2 bedrooms and 2 baths we want. It just may take a little longer. As long as we can make the down payment, they don’t care about credit in these types of places where there’s no loan involved. In a way, the economy has helped us as much as it damn near killed us. These are normally 80K - 100K homes that are now down to 40K or much less. For a while there the economy took so, so much from us. We had one foot (or a little more) in the grave. Then we pulled that foot out of that grave. And now it’s time to collect. We, two proud survivors of what was the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, and I know things still aren’t back to normal.

None of the house dreams I’ve had make much sense. At least not yet. Maybe there’s some small, seemingly silly detail that could mean something and I won’t know it unless it comes to play in real life. But the closer we get to getting something, the more details should be revealed in my dreams. So far I have a possible orange tree in the backyard, a driveway that’s on the right, and the colors blue and tan may mean something as well.

Tomorrow my dad will have died exactly 4 months ago. I really miss him! Funny, though, how after he dies and after years of struggling, Tom finally gets a permanent job, it has great pay, it has great benefits, it has more vacation time than usual because it’s a European-based company, and now we might be “going home.”

They had a picnic barbecue at work last Friday, but he didn’t win any of the prizes in the raffles they had. Too much competition, I guess, LOL. Instead of there being 40 others to compete with, everyone from all the buildings was there, so that meant hundreds of people.

The salt and baking soda concoction killed the tooth that was becoming infected. I’m amazed at how much it’s helped. Now my teeth should definitely be able to keep from becoming any kind of an emergency till after we get moved. Hell, that’s all I can think about lately. I can’t concentrate on Bunny Nose or anything else!

Still posting old journals a little at a time when I get the chance, and even told someone on Thoughts how to backdate entries that was interested in doing this as well. I gotta laugh at some of the shit I wrote way back when. What a sad, lifeless, naïve little idiot I was, LOL. But hey, I was young.

Aira finished my book, A Rainbow in Munich, and said she loved it. She said it cheered her up and made her happy on a day when she was feeling kind of down and gloomy, which happens to the best of us at times. It was nice to know I put a smile on her face. :)