Why I Took a Four Year Hiatus!

Okay, so here I am yet again. Did anyone miss me? Probably not, but that is my own doing. This blog was always my private little spot for random musings on my garden, and even those weren't very many or very often.

I never needed any followers. I mean, to have followers sounds a bit vain, doesn't it? I'd be afraid if I had people hanging on my every blogged word. I might have a bit of performance anxiety and not be able to put down all the randomness I had set out to immortalize in my own little way.

I stopped blogging about my garden and on this blog in general- even though it was never supposed to be JUST about my garden- because as that summer of 2007 wore on and my garden became more prolific and amazing and time-consuming, it became more and more apparent that we were going to be unable to get the re-financing for our house. My garden went from being mine to being temporary. All my hard work would be short-lived and thrown to the fates of the very uncertain future in our home.

We had built the house two years earlier. It was a good house for us with lots of room to grow. I finally had a huge hall wall that was completely painted with chalk-board paint-- this being the true sign that the house was ours. I have always said that my goal was to own a home and be able to paint a wall purple if I so chose with no one to tell me otherwise, but when I finally got the house and the walls, I wanted it all in chalkboard paint with baskets of colored chalk for the kids to make life-sized drawings on whenever they wanted to. We LOVED that wall! We did school and played games and were totally silly on that wall. We did Waldorfy, form-drawing exercises on that wall. I made lists and wrote out Bible verses and decorated for every holiday on that wall.

We had Bridget while we lived in that house.
We had plans for that house.

Our credit was impeccable, beyond reproach. 17 lenders all said, "Oh, Mr. and Mrs. White, of course we can re-finance you!" Our credit score was a pass to the best mortgage lender phone voices, voices dripping with optimism for us and for them. The voices always changed when the appraisal would inevitably come in too low. All because some person at the front of our development had sold his house for far less than it was worth- probably still making good money off of the sale as his had been one of the first houses in the development, unlike ours which was one of the biggest and last houses in the development. We had paid more and financed more and were more vulnerable as the housing market and trends all of a sudden took us for a very scary ride. A ride that gave our house, our mortgage the term upside-down and underwater.

We weren't stupid. We never intended to let the variable rate go up. It would go up in September and we had started to look at refinancing way ahead of time in May. All summer long, we got our hopes up and then dashed by 17 different lenders.

We begged the mortgage company to work with us, but they wouldn't because our credit was too good and our payments had never been late. How backwards is that!? How incredibly messed-up is that!!??

And then? Yes, there's more. They sold our mortgage to another lender-- it was a great package-- never late, etc. However, now, our $20,000 second mortgage was at one lender and our main mortgage was at another and neither would work with us.

The variable rate hit in September and jumped our mortgage up an additional $1100 a month. I wish I was exaggerating. I'm not. Short of selling a child or major organ, there was no way we could swing this. We were sinking fast and could find no help.

We were advised to put the house on the market and attempt a short sale. We were advised to stop paying our mortgage in the hopes that then, then, maybe they'd work with us. It all felt dishonest. We felt sick to our stomaches as the guilt of all the things that you think will never happen to you if you just work hard and budget harder and pay your bills started to happen.

We begged the second mortgage company to release the lien and let us just pay it as a line of credit. They said, no. The stress in our house was palpable and real and affecting everyone.

We finally moved into a rental home in November because I could no longer deal with the stress of trying to keep the house tidy while schooling the kids. We also knew that we were going to lose the house and wanted to get a rental before the loss affected our credit score.

The mortgage company freaked out when they realized that the house would be a short sale if anyone bought it, so they took it off the market making it impossible for us to do anything other than desert our home, our house that we built and painted and lived in and loved in. My garden was gone. It was a small thing compared to everything else, but it had been important to me. It was gone.

In January, the house was foreclosed on. What made me the saddest was seeing it empty and uncared for. I didn't care so much that it wasn't mine as that it wasn't anyone's. When we formally lost our house, I was dealt the shock of finding out that we were pregnant with our sixth little one. I wish I could say that I immediately saw that pregnancy as a blessing, but with how incredibly, terrifyingly ill I had gotten with Toxemia with Bridget, all I felt was fear and despair. Chris was the one who looked at me and said, "I think this is all going to work out." I begged God's forgiveness and prayed, "Jesus, I am sorry, I do, I do trust in You!"

I had a miraculous healing at the beginning of that pregnancy. I was healed in a way that would take more words than I can muster at this late, or should I say early hour.

We kept breathing and doing and parenting and schooling little people and loving just in a different house, a house that I couldn't pain a wall purple or pink or plaid or anything. It worked though.

In June, Sara broke her leg horribly. She got a painful ride to the hospital in an ambulance, and shaved a few years off of my life.

I was very pregnant and in a skimpy preggers nighty attempting to help her get to the bathroom before her leg was casted. This was hard work having to support her broken leg and keep it elevated while helping her to hop along the hall without jarring it all while 6+ months pregnant.

I was startled by loud banging on the kitchen door. There was no way I could get there. i was halfway between Sara's makeshift bed on the sofa and the bathroom! Evelynn called to me and said it was the sheriff. I remember feeling upset because we had had the sheriff visit once before looking for a person who did not live there.

There was more impatient pounding. I got Sara back on the sofa. She was in tears and I was sweating from the exertion. When I got to the door, the look on his face showed what he thought of me. I was lower than dirt at that moment. Nothing is so humiliating as being served papers saying that you are being sued. SUED!!!!

We were sued by the second mortgage company, the same company that we had begged to work with us to remove the lien so we could continue paying them as a line of credit rather than a mortgage! Not only were we sued, but they had nearly doubled the amount, adding in lawyers fees, appraisals on a home I no longer owned, and various other fees.

We talked to a lawyer and our only course of action was to claim bankruptcy. Part of me is embarrassed to tell our tale, but part of me, or maybe more of me is so detached from it. We just kept going as best we could.

Claiming bankruptcy was not easy. We had to sell Chris car back to the dealership and buy him a used car and make sure we only had a certain monetary value of assets. It was incredibly humiliating for Chris.

In September, we had our sixth little one, Sean Kenneth, and just a few days later, were sitting in bankruptcy court in Alexandria, VA.

We knew we were effectively killing all of our good credit and potential for a good credit score for some time. All we had worked so hard for, gone. But then, what remains? That, we found out, as we'd told ourselves all along, but never had to test so strongly, was our family, these six beautiful treasures and the love I share with my husband.

If you had told me in 2006 what would happen to our lives beginning in 2007, I would have thought you were off your meds, had hit your head, or had an incredibly sick sense of humor.

So, no, there are no more garden musings. I expect now that I've gotten this out, I can get back to a bit of blogging. maybe I'll eventually see if anyone wants to read my musings and mumblings and manic moments.

The hiatus is done. Where to from here? Well it's always an adventure!