Living arrangements...

Lately, it seems that well-meaning friends have taken to worrying about my living situation. That we should really get on the stick and try and buy a house, or we should see about that $8000 tax credit from the government. Why would we want to continue living in an apartment, townhouse, etc...? Why would we want to throw money away on rent? Then we part ways for the day, and they go back to their homes and I go back to my apartment, wondering if I'm "good enough", or if somehow I have failed.
Now, we have had so many ups and downs with money. When my mother died, 14 years ago, there was no will and sadly, a lot of arguing ensued as to who would get what, who would live in her house, etc... As the only adult child at that time I ended up making alot of the decisions, but emotionally I was a wreck and ended up selling everything just so I didn't have to deal with it. I ended up walking away with a bunch of money, but no home and a lot of bad memories that would take years to heal from. If I knew one thing about my mother, she didn't want her house sold, and I felt the money was tainted. I went through it pretty quickly. Zachary was born 2 months after my mother died, and I was dealing with alot. In the end, we bought a house in Florida. The most beautiful yellow house on a half acre of land. 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, garage, indoor patio, and the best yard ever. A huge tree that Zachary would climb, spots to plant orange trees, put a pool up, garden, whatever. We were 24 then. Alex came home to that house after he was born. It was too much though at that time. We ended up getting in over our heads and had to walk away. Alex was 6 weeks old, and we didn't have any type of support system, just the two of us, trying to make things right. The house went into foreclosure. I don't like to talk about it because it's very painful, still is. I have a couple of pictures of that house and about 5 years ago, on a familiy trip to Florida, we drove by. The what if's were palpable, and we quickly got out of there.
After that, we moved to different apartments, but living in Florida just wasn't the same. So, we decided to move to back home to RI and live next door to John's mom. Slowly, we were starting to repair our credit situation, even got a good credit card, a car, etc... At that time, we decided to homeschool- well actually, we had decided that in Florida, but were determined to stick with it. Now, alot of people we know who homeschool, then and now, already have all their ducks in a row, a house, computers, plenty of money to spend on extra classes, lessons, etc... Everything seemed to be such a struggle for us, but we were determined. Sadly, the situation at home turned scary when my mother-in-law's alcoholism got out of hand. She began threatening us over the internet. John worked nights, and one night she threatened to break the door down and kick my ass, then she'd call DCF and have my kids taken away because I homeschooled. I was terrified, being new at homeschooling. The next day, I packed my bags for us and the kids, and we got the hell out of there. We ended up moving into a duplex house that a friend of John's had just bought over the border in Connecticut. It was a lucky break, but we had to wait two weeks before we could move in. We lived in a motel during that time, and there went whatever good credit we'd gotten back.
So, after Connecticut we came here to Minnesota to try with a different section of John's family, his father. That went better, but since they hadn't known each other growing up, they realized they didn't have alot in common. Eventually, we left the St. Cloud area, 2 hours north of where we are now, and moved to Chaska. Up north, we bought a mobile home, but that ended up being damaged in a hailstorm and we decided to unload it.
Now, we are in Chaska and find we really like it. We've made alot of friends who all have their own life experiences, and it's been great getting to know everyone. It just gets hard when people think they know what you should do because it's what they would do, only they weren't around me for the first 34 years. They don't really know what has brought me to this place. For now, we are content. When the right opportunity comes up, be assured we'll go for it, when it's the right time. My husband works two jobs so I can homeschool, but there's alot of guilt I feel for him doing that. I feel like if I put the boys in public school and got an outside job, then we'd have alot more "things" and probably a house, but we've come this far that I want to finish what we've started. I can always get a job later and a house too. Life is full of so many difficult choices, but in the end I promised myself that being the best mom I could be was the most important thing I could ever do, so in case I ever had to "leave them", they would know how I much I loved them everyday of their lives.