20 Months !!

Yikes, that is a long time. I have been very busy keeping my house ready whenever prospective buyers come by, and we had to do some repairs and repaint rooms. All of you who have had to sell know my agony. I can't wait until it is over. I know people waiting months and months right now with the market so bad. I hope we are one of the lucky ones. With all my pets it makes it a challenge to get the house visitor ready. My home is always clean but I have to lock up the four cats and now they want me to cover the rats cage and the snakes tank because it gives people the willies. Come on! My rats look like fuzzy giant mice. All they do is sleep. How could they have scared anyone. The only thing that they can possibly do that would embarrass me would be -well it is kind of funny. They are both boys but one is a youngster and he is frisky. He humps my older guy. I feel so bad for Walter my big old fat one. Frederick just jumps right on. So I can see if they saw that going on, but really, it is quite funny and I just can't see how anyone would get frightened of them. As far as Pete our snake. Someone saw him-oh my god are you ready for this? He was SLEEPING on a log! Call the animal control. That freaked them out. He is secured in a tank and if you don't know, he is a baby. This isn't something from the movie Anaconda we are talking about here. I get so mad at people. You aren't buying the snake, you are buying the house. It is a very clean cute house and my clean caged animals shouldn't make a difference. So tomorrow I need to hide everyone. They said that if the rat cage is under a blanket that will be ok. So, apparently nobody will notice a blanket on a cage and wonder what is inside? Same with the snake. I don't know. I just guess I am getting a little ugly with this wait stretching on forever. No news in that area. I just wait for that CALL. I know it will come. We are still deciding whether to go directly to Florida if our house sells. It may be easier before the baby comes to make the two day drive with the kids and pets. I contacted FHSA-which some of you know well. They do homestudies and adoptions. I asked how complicated it would be to switch everything if I move to Florida before I bring him home. It is just basically an update with new police clearances and physicals. I would need to pay USCIS $385 to switch to a different state. So in total with the update-about $700. Not too bad considering my homestudy expires again anyway in February and it costs me about $300 to update. So I am paying and extra $400 but we will have the stress of relocating out of the way and rent is way less down there. So if we rent an apartment until the house is ready next August, I can start my girls in their new schools and we are golden. Hopefully if all goes well- yeah right baby will be home with us by May??? Is that too hopeful. A December referral? Maybe June. The funny thing is if I didn't mention- we are moving to Punta Gorda the infamous Hurricane Charley epicenter. All six Charlotte County schools are being re built but my girls' schools won't be done until Dec. 2008, so they will go to new schools in Pods-trailers I think. They asked me what their new schools look like and I said-They got blown down. They aren't too thrilled. The good news is that they will both have brand new schools after completion. That is pretty cool. Wow, I have typed away tonight. I will keep you posted of my many goings-on. My spirits are pretty high right now. So all is good up here in New Hampshire!