
2025 ended and to be honest I could not have been happier to see the back end of it. We had to move and the entire process was less than pretty. The entire reason behind us having to move, in my opinion, was just petty and wrong but there you have it. I won’t go into detail because I don’t want the backlash that I am certain would come from those involved. Anyway, we struggled to find a place that was in our budget and that we met all the criteria for. Let me tell you it was not easy and we had to pay between $25-$100 per application fee. There are three of us so each one of us had to pay that plus any other fees just to see if we qualified. We don’t get that back. I am not going to tell you how much we spent. Most of the places didn’t tell us where we stood as far as applicants go. Like were there five people ahead of us? Nope, they just took the money and that was that.
In October we thought we had found a place. It was a little out of our budget but we could manage it. They were working on it and were going to be smaller than what we had. No problem. I began the process of downsizing, selling stuff on Facebook Marketplace, and got a storage rental. As far as we knew we were simply waiting for the work to get finished. November came and there was still some work to be done. We had sold, meaning Uncle R, the four wheeler we had and had the rent for the first month. This was someone my uncle and Ma knew for years so they weren’t charging us a deposit.
A couple of days before the beginning of December we happened to drive by and saw a for sale sign on the place. No word was said to us about needing to find somewhere else and we had to be out of where we were by the first. You can only imagine how difficult that has been. We found a place from someone else that Uncle R knows. It is much smaller which is fine but it hasn’t been lived in for a couple of years. Which means we had to have the county inspect the electrical before the power company would even turn the lights on.
It has been a nightmare and we almost had to stay at the campground in a tent while we were waiting for things. We were able to finally move on the weekend before Christmas. Ma hates this place and I am not sure about it. It is a roof over our heads at the moment and on such short notice. We spent all of my savings on application fees and having somewhere to stay while trying to move. This place needs a lot of work and maybe it won’t be our forever place. Maybe this is God’s way of providing what we need for now with something better on the horizon.
This whole process has been heartbreaking. Ma cried and we had the hardest time getting her out of the old place. I have cried more in the last few months than I have in the last few years. My depression has been at an all time high and there have been some truly dark days. We are struggling to get through each day at the moment.
Yet, in the last week or so there has been some light at the end of our tunnel. Maybe things aren’t as bad as they have seemed over the course of the last few months. This ordeal has been why the blogs have been so wishy washy. Things have been all over the map and every single time I thought things were beginning to look up something else happened.
Where are the Giveaways
I have been asked this a lot and the truth is I set them aside for right this moment. I am working towards finding a replacement for Rafflecopter. there are several out there and I just haven’t had the time to test them all yet. I am working on that though. I do have some news I will be sharing soon about a side project. I’m not calling it a new project because it is not that.
A Picture a Day
One thing I am doing over on Instagram is posting a single picture every single day. Well, unless I forget then I will have to catch up. My hope is to see a change in my pictures as the year goes on and be able to see me living my life for a change.

Hope your 2026 is a beautiful one!