Summer set

So this is it. Sunday at 2:15 pm. I've got an apartment that's way too expensive and that we can't afford, a quickly depleting savings account, two babies who refuse to sleep (one all day and the other all night), a wife who's got the post-operation and new baby blues, a couple homeless guys that have been coming over for dinner like three times a week (when we really don't have much to feed ourselves), a rat or something in the wall by the fireplace that freaks out Helen anytime it moves and scratches around, grandparents who seem to want to kidnap my daughter and raise her "the right way", very little uninterrupted sleep, a messy apartment, the feeling that I'm failing as a father and a husband, little ambition to do anything about it, and my first impulse is - let's move far far away from here to some place we can afford. So yesterday we went to look at some houses in Moreno Valley just east of Riverside. It was fun and we were able to enjoy ourselves even through semi-screaming babies but mostly they both just slept. It was like a mini-vacation. We are super interested in buying a house now, one because both of us have always wanted to, and two because it's starting to seem like the mortgage would be a bunch cheaper than the rent we're paying now. We found some neato looking houses with pretty big yards for under 100,000. I know that they oversimplify matters but the little mortgage calculator Heather did said that would come out to like 500 something a month. Even with utilities on top of that it would be less than the 1165 we're paying now. I have never wanted to move to someplace like Moreno Valley (although honestly I think it would fit me a whole lot better than where we're at now). My dreams are like coastal Oregon or Montana or Maine. Those places too we might be able to find cheaper housing than we can here, the problem is I don't have a job in any of those places, and moving to Moreno Valley wouldn't totally alienate us from everyone we know. I'm very much the type though that would just do it with the Swiss Family Robinson and Mosquito Coast in mind and then maybe regret it later, maybe not. Just get my family somewhere other than here where we can live and let live and escape drama and negativity and raise our kids how we want to without millions of forceful opinions seeping in from all sides. It could be escape. It really could be. I am known for being an escape artist. When things start to get iffy I like to hide in some fantasy world that no one can penetrate. God help us we don't know what we're supposed to do. I guess making big decisions is all part of growing up. I just feel like if we stick around here no one will let us make our own decisions. We're still treated like teenagers everywhere we go, like our kids are illegitimate and we'd better let a pro take care of them. Those kinds of feelings really affect our self-worth and bring a sense of hopelessness on this house that we can't seem to shake. We're being torn asunder. The lack of sleep could have a lot to do with this too. I would love to just do a short sale on a house somewhere in the middle of nowhere with no people and no cutting remarks anywhere for miles, buy the Little House on the Prairie or something where the only things we really have to worry about are how we're gonna make it through a freezing winter or make sure we don't get attacked by panthers while we're leaving for town on a horse-drawn carriage. People need to lighten up already. Maybe it's us. Maybe we need to lighten up. We're going to implode. This family is in the midst of melt-down. I accidentally scooped up one of my fish while changing out water in my fish tank today, dropping him down the drain through the garbage disposer. He was the only guppy left out of five that the betta didn't eat. I hope the next time I turn the disposer on it doesn't smell like purreed sushi. Poor guy. We watched Better Off Dead last night too. We need a little french foreign exchange student around whose very life is wrapped up in giving us hope and language lessons. Bitterness has been following us everywhere we go. We need a break, sleep, money (or a cheaper place to live), prayer, etc. etc. etc. Maybe all of this is from the heat. Maybe it's just because it's the middle of a hot summer and our brains are tainted by it. The stuffed Captain Kirk on top of the water dispenser says hello. Lord we need a miracle.