Leaving it Up to St. Joseph

I'm not Catholic, but I hope the Saints won't hold it against me. Several months ago, my friend Karen told me about the St. Joseph statue tradition. Apparently, some people believe if you bury a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in your yard and pray to him about your real-estate transaction, he'll intercede for you and bring you good fortune. Then, as a sign of gratitude, you must give the statue a place of honor in your new home.

Karen's sister had just tried it and had success selling her home. Karen tried it and has a contract on hers. So Alva bought us one, and Lee buried him upside-down in our front yard last weekend.

We had two showings, but no luck with those.

Yesterday, two more showings, and one realtor indicated her clients were interested. But I've learned not to get my hopes up.

Today, Lee, Camille and I went for a playdate with baby Sterling and her parents, and we both left our cell phones in the car. Both of us were thinking the same thing -"I deserve an hour or two to relax without interruptions."

After playing for an hour or so, we loaded up in the car to head out for dinner. I had 3 missed calls and two voicemails, and Lee did too. From our realtor. My phone was already ringing again.

Turns out the clients are very interested in our house and one other, and they wanted to look inside again. RIGHT AWAY.

I started kicking myself for not cleaning during Camille's nap. I usually take a chunk of that time to put away toys and load the dishwasher, but we were all drained from a busy weekend and I felt I deserved some down time with a book. In retrospect, that was a bad idea.

Our agent was able to buy us 45 minutes, and we were about 20 minutes from home. We might have broken a few speed limits.

Thank goodness Camille was hungry, because we were able to strap her into her highchair and fill her tray with an obscene amount of goldfish, and she chowed down while we raced through the house making beds, cleaning up dishes, tossing toys in bins, opening curtains, turning on lights, etc. etc. etc. We walked out of the house with 2 minutes to spare.

We ate a fast food dinner while my stomach churned. We finished eating and rode by the house. We could see them standing in our foyer. It felt very surreal.

IF these people want our house, they want to close in about 2 to 3 weeks. We haven't been looking at houses to buy because things have been moving so slowly, much less are we ready to put a contract on one. We would probably have to move into an apartment. And packing. Holy crap, how would we manage to do it all? What if they want to buy this house? What if they don't?

But I had to take a deep breath and remember St. Joseph. From what I read, and I would tend to agree, you're not supposed to use him like you would some superstitious voodoo object. You're not even supposed to demand that you get your way. You're supposed to ask for guidance and for the right thing to happen with the real-estate transaction. Burying the statue isn't a magic trick, but a sign of faith.

Sometimes the idea of moving is so overwhelming, and since we don't have to move, maybe we shouldn't right now. We've talked about taking it off the market, and we may. But at other times I want to move so badly I can taste it. And sometimes I just feel confused. So I'm asking St. Joseph to intercede and help things turn out the way they should. Whatever that may be.