My Disgusting Fingernails

I've always been a nail biter, but lately it's gotten to ridiculous levels. As in I can't even open packaging because of how chewed off my nails have become. I need to rely on hubby for everything or just push through the pain and open the darned things myself.

I've been biting my nails extra as of late because of the stress of buying a new house while being self-employed. Yes, I write books and run a marketing business for a living, which means that I can wear my PJs all day, take breaks whenever I want to (which probably isn't nearly enough), and sometimes even enjoy a glass of vino while plotting out my next novel.

But it also means that some things in life are immeasurably more difficult. It took four months–four!–to go from start to finish with the whole home-buying process. Because when you work for yourself, you need to provide a ridiculous amount of documentation to prove your income and you need to go several rounds with the IRS because the whole reason the IRS exists is to make life hard for people like me (that's my theory anyway).

Of course, we sold our house to the first person who saw it, which was awesome but also meant that, right from the outset, the pressure was on. Would our financial ducks be lined up in time for us to transition from one house to another without a period of homelessness in between?

Finally, today, we found out that–yes–they would! Hooray!

 
But those months spent waiting, wondering, worrying… Well, it's enough to make ya bite your nails to stumps! Which is what I did. Now my fingers are next level disgusting, but I'll have a new house to show for it, one that's much more up to the task of fitting our growing family (you heard we're adopting two children from Bulgaria, right? We need all the space we get!).

So anyway we'll be moving soon and my nails will probably continue to suffer as a result, but you know what? It's a small price to pay for having gotten through this and been able to provide this opportunity for my family. Because, yes, I'm the provider, and my husband is the nurturer, and I bet if I asked him to give me a manicure to help with my little problem, he would at least make an effort. But why the heck would I do that? I love our life, warts, stumpy fingernails and all the rest of it too.

Our lives certainly are bizarre, but they're also ours–all ours, and now we'll have a new place to live it. Whether or not I can open my own soda cans is an entirely different matter altogether 😉