So you know what's been driving me crazy? Just sticking a knife in my gut while I've been down? Christmas. Yep, Christmas, my favorite time of the year. Why? Because I made a wish, just a wish, and somehow in my subconscious it grew into a hope. A real-live hope. Growing, seething, wanting, desiring. And now... it's all been dashed to bits.

Sometime early this year, I decided that we should have a home by Christmas. So we could have a tree this year. And have our families over to celebrate with us. And decorate like mad. Because I was upset that we didn't have a tree last year.

And here we are, mid-December, no house. No tree. No decorations. Just some wrapped presents in the backroom. Everytime I see Christmas lights, I either grin with delight or sigh with a sense of loss. It's just a toss-up which emotion comes up first. Of course, once the sigh starts, I try to reach for that grin, but it's just not in me by then. The gut reaction got there first.

It's just so amazingly depressing to have been waiting so long for your dreams to start coming true, and realizing that you make more than alot of people your age, you make more than lots of home owners, and you still can't afford it.

So I went online today and looked at a bank site for the 5 millionth time in the last year. And this time I looked at specific loans that they have available, because I saw a flyer today that said that they offered loans for people without downpayments. And sure enough, they do. They have 2 or 3 different kinds for people with little or NO downpayment available, with NO cap on salaries. You generally have to have sterling credit, which makes me nervous, because that would define Sweetie's credit history, while mine would be more categorized as "down in the sewers". Ick.

But we'll never know till we try, right? And right now with the economy struggling and the buyer's market, they're really pushing to sell to anyone, so that can only help, right? So I went over to my favorite real estate site. And found 5 houses that I could see myself living in, that are all LESS than the minimum the bank's site said we could afford with our income. That's pretty good to me. Now all I have to do is convince Sweetie that West Seattle is not Hell, and to take a shot and we'll deal with his company failing when it happens.

Coz walking into his CEO's place for Christmas dinner pissed me off. This man is struggling just as much as we are, and HE has a great place with room for 2 kids. And the president (yes, they have a CEO & a president. Kinda silly, esp. now that there are only THREE of them!!!) has a really nice condo that he OWNS in the middle of Bellevue, which has gotta be hella expensive.

So if *they* can own, why can't we??????? Yes, I really want to smack Sweetie with these flyers when he gets home. That little voice in the back of my head is telling me "you can still have a house by Christmas!!!" Yah, right. But maybe soon. Maybe real soon. I could slave away at my job for another few years if I had my own damn house. Yeppers.

Anyway, that's all I got right now. The rain was *really* nice today, very heavy, just the way I like it! It makes a mess of the roads though. The cable just went out, so I better finish this up before the lights go out too!

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