Nice and Pretty

Scrolling through my instagram during work yesterday, I noticed how nice and clean my life looks. I noticed all of the handsome pictures of my husband being helpful and thoughtful. I noticed all of the pictures of Feeny looking all snuggly. Social Media is not real life.   By that I mean this...   This is not our cat:

Our cat is a high energy, 50 mile per hour running, furniture ripping, scar leaving cat.  He is rarely calm and quiet and napping, yet those are the photos I choose to post. (mostly because bleeding battle wounds aren't as cute).   This is not my weekend:

My weekends are jam packed full of running and driving and doing.  There is rarely a moment for us to pause and just be together by ourselves immersed in the great outdoors, yet these are the photos I post.

 

This is not my kitchen table:

My kitchen table is a home to four chairs, each filled with jackets and bags and random things we don't have a place for.  The top is filled with bills, apartment notices, mail, and sometimes laundry; yet, this is the picture I posted.  If you look close, you can see the straggling bobby pin left over from my "throw everything in the floor for this picture" sweep.

 

Our real life is messy and busy.

I don't take or post pictures of the messiness because no one wants to see that. 

No one wants to see that we went over our grocery budget for the fourth week in a row. No one wants to see the makeup ground into the carpet because the cat stepped in my eyeshadow then took off running.  No one wants to see the awful things a childish friend drew on our chalkboard. But that is our life, and I'm doggone proud of it.

 

Here's to living real life and not sugarcoating it for an audience!

   

Little Bit of Learning; Whole Lot of Loving

I'm a Type A... about everything. Trips. Money. Our next five years. You name it, I plan it.  That's my biggest fault, honestly.  I have a hart time going with the flow, having fun, and being spontaneous.  It keeps me from doing a lot.  Friday night, Jackson got together with the kids from church and our new youth minister and had a nerf gun war.  He texted me from Target and asked if he could buy a new nerf gun.  I was typing out a "can't you use the one you have?" and realized that he is always working so hard and deserved it.  So I did some thinking and sent him something I've taken our whole marriage to learn... "Sometimes it's okay to throw caution to the wind and buy a new nerf gun.  Or take a trip.  It's okay to be a little reckless sometimes.  We are managing just fine. " I have learned that life is way too short to make money a priority... and planning financially down to a T leaves little room for fun. He called me and told me how proud he was of me and how much he loves me.  I thanked him for being so patient while I learned that huge lesson.  This brings me to our awesome weekend.  Last week , I was itching to get away.  Monday, I sent Jackson "Holiday World?!" and that was that. We left about 7:30 Saturday morning, hit Indiana about 10 and spent six hours or so in the park.  Lines were short because kids are still in school.  We rode the new Thunderbird three whole times! The commercials don't even get close to doing it justice.   Here's our photo dump of our day. 

I think at this point he said "Say I've been good this year!" and neither of us said anything and he goes "oh, silent night, eh?" 

 

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend with family and friends celebrating those of our military who have given their all so that we may be free! 

That Time I Almost Got Scammed Out Of $500

Time to time, I scroll on Trulia. I love looking for good deals on places we could move since we're paying for a house and have a teensy tiny apartment.  Couldn't hurt, right?   Wrong.   I came across this house. It's a beautiful 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house for $700! It's close to where I grew up, close to where my daddy lives, etc.

  We fell head over heels. I sent an inquiry through the website and got an e-mail back from the owner of the house. He had bid on petroleum land in California and was tying up loose ends back home.  It seemed legit... if you miss the big warning that says "Owners who claim to be in another state may be a scam". I missed that big warning.  Utilities were included and we would be taken out of our rent payment.  Too good to be true? No! It's our home! We were so thrilled. We would be saving so much per month that we could save for our own downpayment!!   Anyway. I go for days talking to this guy about this house, how beautiful it is, and arrange to send the money via PayPal for him to send the keys and the documents. Jackson was questioning it all along, but I had the answers, and I trusted him, so it was ok. (That is the part that makes me want to vomit)   He never replied. Looking back, huge red flag that he didn't reply after I said we didn't like mailing checks.   Monday morning, I woke up and went to work, started digging a little further and found a real estate agent's number.  He told me I would, however, they decided not to go with a realtor because their tenant may not get along with a realtor and it would be hard for them to be in California and have to be the gobetween.  Legit, right? I called the phone number, explained what happened to the young girl, and she informed me it was a scam.  Of course it was. The listing is gone, everything is gone. What was I thinking?   I have never felt more violated or taken advantage of in my life.  Never. Even when my purse was stolen and my credit card was used. Never.  I trusted whomever I was speaking to, and I gave information I thought would be used to check references.  Now, a creepo scammer knows where we live, knows our occupations, and he knows about my cleaning schedule!   Silver lining: I trusted my gut and called to check it out before we sent money.   Lesson learned: If it seems too good to be true, it's too good to be true.