Dearest Nicole!

First of all... Yes!  We can still be friends.  I worry about the same thing.  I think gosh, I hope they know I still like them and don't think I'm a big jerk.  It really is hard to get together but the desire is definitely there.  I want, NEED to get together with some friends, desperately.

Next item of business:  Your house and yard.  I think your house has turned out beautifully!  About the yard question...

On one hand, you have the gift of long vision.  (Is this one of the spiritual gifts?)  And I envy your long vision.  I can hardly see or plan into the next week and I feel mildly retarded.  I keep thinking Brandon and I should have our acts together by this age but... we don't quite.  And a yard is a necessity...

On the other hand, you have a yard!  A fabulous yard!  Coming from someone who spent her entire childhood without drywall, floors, and certainly without grass, I can tell you that kids don't care. 

I didn't even register inside my own brain that it might have been odd to have exposed insulation for 7 years or what people must have thought when they came over.  (Are you worried neighbors will think you're ghetto?)  The downstairs floors were concrete and upstairs was particle board that gave me slivers.  We did have one room with carpet, the living room.  We had a full-size swing mounted in the hall and we colored on the walls.  The big kids threw a party while my parents were out of town and someone rode one of our horses inside the house without hurting a thing.  Granted, it was the mountains and no one had a lawn but I think kids would always choose dirt and mud and manure over grass if given the choice.  I seriously didn't know it was weird.  That's not a figure of speech or anything.  I truly, truly didn't even register this until I was about 13.  I was like, wait a second, there was NO drywall.  And then I was like, oh that's awesome!

Also.  I've realized it will always be something.  Pretty soon the kids will want expensive camp or lessons or who knows what.  Then what?  There will always be something that seems like the end-all.  If we only had this or that, we'd be done...
 
But.  I am not advocating being an idiot like myself.  I planned for nothing.  Haven't saved a penny in my entire life.  Haven't planned ahead my entire life.  And we're paying for that lack of vision.  And my kids are screwed with a few square feet of sweltering concrete.  Remember when I told you I took Anika to Lake Arrowhead for the first time?  The big pines were shading the highway and Anika was like, "Mom, why is it dark?"  And I was like, "It's called shade, honey."  And she was all, "Oh, like under the umbrella on the porch?"  Sad.

I guess...  Life is always about finding a balance between the long-term and short-term.  I might die tomorrow but I might not.  Finding where to draw the line between living for today or living for tomorrow is hard.  And only you can decide.

I think.... Brandon and I have faced a similar decision lately.  He has been working his usual 12 or 13 or 14 hour days but in the last few months he has been taking extra jobs on Saturdays too. We made a plan to pay off our debt and that's what it would take.  Just last Saturday I cracked and said, "You know what?  Screw it!  I can't do it!"  Come hell or high water, bankruptcy or foreclosure, I can't freaking do it.  I think it hit me the other week when we all went on an errand together.  Me, Brandon, Ben and Anika.  Anika was so excited and kept asking, "All of us?  We're all going together?"  So last Saturday we actually did something as a family and we're keeping it up.  We'll do what we can about the business end and the pieces are just going to have to fall where they are going to fall because all the kids really want is to spend time together as a family.  If we continue with our debt plan, she will be 9 before she goes fishing with her Dad on a Saturday.  (Literally!)  That was the plan but we're crammin' it.  The kids are growing up too fast!

I hope I don't sound like I'm giving you advice.  I freakin' hate advice!  I must feel like chatting, judging by my long response.  And that's all it is, just chatting.  Hope it doesn't sound advice-ey.  I sincerely, truly don't judge any decision of yours.  Like I said, it's hard to know where to draw the line and we have struggled with the same line-drawing decision.  We've decided to live for now but likely... we'll pay later and still be stuck with no shade.  Or pet cat.  Or goat.  (I just cried a little inside realizing I may never have my dream.)  But when it comes right on down to what my kids really want, they just want us, Mom and Dad.  I think Annie would choose you.  (Actually, what my kids really want is a time machine so their Mom and Dad can travel back in time to correct all of their stupid financial mistakes and buy them a little ranch house.)

But your house makes me jealous.  Can I have it?

Let's do dinner and a movie, like, SOON!