God Bless My Friend...

I have spent the last two days of my life trying to tamp down the negative belief that my house in Idaho is never going to sell.  Sometimes, this worry becomes so strong, I almost feel genuinely panicked; convinced that Jared and the girls are going to live without me forever.  The first house we bought in Salt Lake City was a P-O-S.  We lived in it five years and made a killing on it when we sold to move to Idaho.  Our realtor at the time told us houses near the hundred grand mark always sell quickly because there usually aren't many of them and most folks can afford them.  Boy have we seen that work out in Idaho as some of our neighbors in smaller houses have sold in the blink of an eye over the last few months as we continue to wait.

In a moment of desperation, I remembered a pic I had snapped while I was stuck in traffic a few weeks ago:

I tried to believe it, but it just wouldn't take.  Everything doesn't feel ok to me.  In addition to my mental mind games, I tried distraction with a trip to Conneticut for ice cream as well as a visit to see Red Pollard who rode Seabiscuit into infamy.  He's buried in Pawtucket of all places...

Neither trip helped.  Right before I lost my head completely, I noticed this guy is on Netflix:

I forgot how much I love Bob Ross!  When I was a kid, we didn't have cable and I think my folks had a total of four channels.  Three showed soap operas during the day which mom wouldn't let us watch, and news at night, which I wouldn't let myself watch.  The last channel was PBS.  I'd rather watch Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, and good 'ole Bob than nothing, so that station predominated.  My mom is an artist in her own right and loved Bob Ross, so if he was on, we watched him paint together.  

If you've never watched Bob, you should give it a go.  In thirty minutes, he creates a scene and tells you how easy it is the whole time he's painting.  He says all sorts of stupid, calming things, and it's great fun to hear him chatter about his "happy little trees."  Jared calls him an asswipe because it pisses him off at how quickly and well Bob paints.  I have never begrudged Bob his talent because I enjoy him so much, plus, he often shows a video of himself with some random animal.  In the "Wintertime Blues" episode, he shows you his pet squirrel "Peapod," and tells you, "if you've never lived with a squirrel, you haven't lived!"  True words of wisdom.  Check it:

Look closely, that's "Peapod" in his nasty-ass fro!  After two episodes with Bob, I started feeling a little better.  My positive feelings improved when Jared Facetimed me:

It brightened my day when Lily confused period with puberty and asked Jared if his voice changed when he got his period.  I then got to listen to him tell her he didn't have a uterus while launching into a discussion of the menstrual cycle which ended with him warning her that a period finished when the lining of the uterus came out of the vagina.  I don't know why he didn't just say a period ended with bleeding, but it still made my day to know that my old lover knows a thing or two about women and isn't afraid to share it. 

My house still hasn't sold, I don't know what to do if it doesn't, but at least my panic is at a dull roar for now.  Next time I feel it rising, I'm going to bag all my other tricks, and just let Bob Ross tell me that I can do anything I want in my world.  Maybe I can paint my house into selling...