When it rains it pours

I'm sure by now everyone is ready to say goodbye to this rain that has been pounding much of the east coast all week.  This wet, dreary weather has not made it easy for most of us to ease into a fall mindset after the Labor Day holiday - we've been thrown into it, like it or not. 

Despite the miserable weather, I have had several big things come about that have been wonderful developments, after a summer of ups and downs.  It really is true that sometimes things happen all at one time.  R had been offered a wonderful new job with a government contractor back in July, one that would take him to a new level in his career.  In order to move forward with a start date, the company had to attain final approval from the government; they asked R to hold off giving notice at his current job, as they didn't know how long the approval would take.  It took 2 months, but R was finally cleared right before Labor Day, and will be starting his job in 2 weeks.  I am so proud of him; he has earned this new opportunity that will bring more responsibility, a nice bump in salary, and virtually no commute, vs his current hour commute into DC. 

A week before that, we accepted an offer on our townhouse.  We accepted much less than we had initially hoped to get, but we are still coming out ahead, and it's not like the offers were rolling in, so we felt that we weren't going to get anything much better, if at all.  We are cautiously optimistic that this contract (the 3rd!) will go through, we've passed through the big hurdles that typically can make or break a contract, so we hope to see a 9/29 settlement.  We will be renting back from the buyers for a month, which gave us a nice amount of time to find a house to move to.  We've been actively engaged in the house hunting process since May, so we have been very familiar with what's available in the neighborhoods we like.  There was a house that I loved from day 1, that went under contract before we sold our house the first time...it was a house that had foreclosed a while back, and was bought by an investor that renovated it from top to bottom.  The neighborhood is ideal - Smiley's dacare is attached to the elementary school in that neighborhood, and I loved the idea of her being able to go there, and eventually to the high school that I went to.  I felt very connected to the house, and was really sad that we weren't going to have a crack at it.

We found out that this house's contract fell through a few weeks ago, right before we had a contract on our house. I held out hope that we'd get another shot at it, and low and behold we did.  As of Wednesday, we have a contract on this wonderful home, in the neighborhood that we love, which happens to be right across from where I grew up.  We are crossing our fingers that things work out, home inspection is Monday...if everything goes as planned, we close on 10/4. 

Yesterday, the icing on the cake was getting to see my younger brother for the 1st time in 7 months.  I mentioned in my first post that I've had a lot of issues with my family since my mother passed away (and even before).  My brother and I are 11 years apart, he was adopted from birth, and was the happiest, sweetest baby we could have hoped for.  He was very young when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and his behavior took a turn as my mother's health began to deteriorate.  I plan to dedicate a future post to my brother, as his story is very relavant to my wavering feelings on adoption.  Long story short, my brother had gotten into some trouble with the law, and was sentenced to a year in jail.  He was fortunate to make parole in July, and after a bit of a paperwork delay, was released yesterday.  We talked very often while he was in jail, and I knew that he regretted missing a big chunk of Smiley's life...but we can only hope that his experience has changed him for the better, and that he has learned from his mistakes.  It was a very emotional day for all of us, and my heart just burst when my Smiley girl went to him at the end of the night, and gave him a hug...someone she didn't remember, but will get to know and love again.

It's hard to believe that just a couple of short weeks ago, we had no buyer for our house, no house to move to, no set release date for my brother, no confirmation on R's job, and now all of those things have seemed to work themselves out all at once.  It brings me hope that somehow, some way, we will be able to work out a plan for bringing another baby into our home.  For right now, I will appreciate this current storm of blessings on my family, and will let them sink in.