Months ago, I talked about buying the cow, which could reference a number of things, but in this case is referring to purchasing the house we're living in.

See, the MOG and I are semi-nomads, although in recent years I have become significantly less nomadic. This is due primarily to the tendency of my mini-nomads to go up on the stage and moon the audience or scream and bludgeon their sister with a Bible during a particularly quiet moment of corporate prayer.

I've always been an apartment kinda gal. New carpet every year, gated front entrance, and most importantly, maintenance. I once called a maintenance man for a malfunctioning dryer, only to find I hadn't pushed the dryer door all the way closed. And there he was, resplendent in his paint-stained khaki uniform, closing my dryer door for me. For free.

It gets trickier, though, living in apartments with little people. If you're upstairs, they can't jump or flap their arms wildly on the floor all day long while watching Toy Story (see: R2). And there's no yard, and parking lot all over the place, and it's just not ideal.

So anyways. We've been living in this house for almost 2 years, and when our landlord offered us a) first dibs on purchasing or b) the curb, (kidding, Mark, y'all are awesome), we decided to try to buy it, rather than clean it and move again. Plus, this house is awesome. I mean, it's old, and it needs this and that, but it's really ideal for us.

Here's the thing, though. When you're 32 and 33 years old and you've never bought a house, this is scary stuff. I mean, lots of money, and responsibility and paperwork and maintenance and holy moly... I'm breaking out in hives as I'm typing all this.

So we're settling in a little bit, for the first time ever. I'm painting over all the wood paneling, which BTW is super time-intensive and tedious, and we're making plans for how to get new tile and change lighting and stuff like that, once our Miracle Covenant Love Gift Miracle comes and pays for it all. I imagine as soon as we close on it and get good and committed, something will happen and Richy will end up in California for 6 months or something. Ah, well. I'll finally get to paint that wall with chalkboard paint.

We've decided. We are going to stop shacking up with our house and MARRY it. (if you loooove it so much, why don't you marry it??) You know, bloggerati, that we have been tossed by the winds and whatnot for the last couple of months. We decided to try to buy this place, and then the mortgage guy was all, like, well, you have enough MONEY, and you are legal, tax-paying citizens, and all, but your debt:income ratio tells me that you are NO GOOD.

So I quit thinking about buying this house. We can pay off this and that, and reorganize, but not by October 1st. Funny thing, though. Evidently my landlord and landlady read my blog. Hi guys! :) And they were gracious enough to allow us another 6 month lease while we get qualified to buy it. That changed everything. There's no question we qualify, it's just lining up all the numbers.

I'm excited. I've never lived in my own place, that I could change without someone else's permission. Of course, I'll still have to get approval from my priesthood head. (New here? I got that term from a FLDS tell-all book and plan to use it as much as possible) I'm on a rampage in my mind, knocking down walls and painting things.

Yesterday, we went to Lowes and bought some handles, and I mentioned offhandedly that I am painting the kitchen yellow, eventually. Back story: anyone who has sat on my couch has probably heard me say I'm painting the kitchen yellow. I have had multiple conversations with the MOG re: painting the kitchen yellow. Still, there he stood in the handle aisle at Lowes, looking at me with scorn and derision. It seems SOME people think I'm not painting the kitchen yellow. I'm so submissive, I shall wait until he goes on tour before I paint the kitchen yellow.

I guess we'll be homeowners in Missouri, and my grandchildren will be idiots.  All of you people, except the psychos, should come visit and bring a hammer and a paintbrush.

You know what else is great about this? We are homestudy approved in this house, so there won't need to be any more paperwork and such to stay adopting-able. Shut up, that's totally a word.

We were driving around a few weeks ago, halfheartedly looking for a rental house to move into.  After a while we found ourselves extolling the virtues of living under a bridge. Lots of fresh air, no commitments, a variety of cars to look at, any amount of cuisine to be collected from dumpsters! Excitement! Free shopping carts! Access to wildlife! Exposure to interesting people! and more!

Despite all that, we made the agonizing decision to rent a house, with walls and a roof. Now, we're just trying to figure out where. We looked at a townhouse yesterday, because the landlord didn't mention it was a townhouse. When you live in a recording studio, sometimes it's a better idea to not live in a house that's connected to other houses. Anyway, we looked at it, and it's really an interesting, artsy space that has a scenic view of like, other townhouses and a parking lot. It might be fun for 6 months, which is the lease we're planning, for now. But it's kinda worn, so maybe not.

We also looked at a real, freestanding house in a neighborhood we like. The lady let us in and then went to sanitize something, and we roamed free by ourselves. First, we went in the basement, as that will be the business/moneymaking space and it has to work. We quickly came to the conclusion that this particular basement would be ideal for torturing people. The rest of the house was equally creepy, with beautiful floors, and so we slipped away with our lives.

Basically, we need the house we have now. Since that's not an option, we're deciding what we're willing to sacrifice, like, do we need a yard when it's about to snow for 6 months... do we HAVE to have toilets? Kidding. So, more houses to see next week and then we move by October 1st. Lord willin.

I've been shacking up with my house. In fact, I've shacked up with every house I've ever lived in. In the olden days, it was because I was being raised by gypsies, and now it's because... I'm a gypsy. Of sorts.

Today, the owner of this house offered to sell it to us at a pretty good price. That makes our options: a)make an honest woman of her and take out a massive loan and learn about mortgages or b) go find another house to shack up with, which is proving difficult. I imagine it's similar to when a man tries to find a new quality woman to move in with. The caliber of female lining up for a shack-up is questionable at best. No offense to any of my friends who are shacking up. But hey! while we're on the subject, maybe you should get married.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I think this ultimatum is making me look a little harder at this house. It's fine for a rental, but do I really want to commit to it? I mean, I hate the kitchen. And there are all kinds of promises floating around the stratosphere, from landlords and husbands, about new windows and breaking out walls and painting things, but when it's all signed, landlords will be living in an RV in Alaska and husbands will be out rocking their ax for Jesus. You see my dilemma. Well, one of my dilemmas.

People buy houses all the time. They buy them and they sell them. It really isn't the same as marriage. I know that. It's just incredibly intimidating to me to think of purchasing a house. That, to me, is all like, then that means I will live in Missouri forever and my grandkids will make fun of Texas, like idiots. My grandchildren will be idiots.

And I want to move back to Texas. Not right this minute, but you know, eventually. So it's just blowing up my brain a little and coincidentally, blowing up my entire body, because I'm stress-eating.

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In other news, I am closing orders on adoption shirts tonight, maybe forever. I mean, if someone decides they want to buy one in the future, I will put their order in a kind of shirt-order purgatory until I have like, 10 in there and then place the order. Consider this the end, though. So go buy some and contribute to Mystery Baby Clark's adoption fund, and also get a ROCKING shirt.

Years ago, we made a decision to "write our address in pencil"... what we meant was to be flexible, to be available to move and follow whatever we felt like the Lord was directing us to do. At that point, we only had one baby, and it was easy to strap him on my back, metaphorically and sometimes literally speaking, and go.

Now, we are a family of 5 and soon to be 6, I hope, and it's a little more complicated. Still, I'm okay with change. We packed up and moved to Kansas City, and while we've been here we've lived short-term in Nashville, and St. Louis, and Houston, as well as touring wherever, whenever the tours were family friendly. I have lost my allegiance to a city, although I will always be a Texan and therefore superior to all other life forms. I was made, in part, to pray for America and whatever part of America I need to live in, fine.

Anyways, right now I live in a house in Kansas City. It's a big, goofy old house and it is not  always aesthetically pleasant, due to its advanced age. No offense, seasoned citizens. You look great.

The thing is, we rent. It's helpful to not have a 100k+ investment when you plan on moving across the country because somebody had a dream. What is not helpful is living in a house that belongs to someone else, because they might decide to sell it. So, here we are, firmly ensconced in this place, using every square inch. I'm not in love with this house, in fact, I am at war with it a lot of the time. The thing is, it is big and it has room for all of us and all of Radiant's stuff and the studio and blah blah. It works.

But they're selling it. Maybe it won't sell. Maybe it will sell to an investor who will keep us as renters. The thing is, we don't know. We won't be homeless, we can find another place. It's just the continual state of transition that is hard. I don't want to do anything else, I'm just complaining, that's all. I think I'm homesick for family. Somebody call the waa-mbulance.