Challenging day

Dear Family and Friends,
8:45 pm, just back from shooting comp photos for a driveby appraisal of a little ranch property and dinner at Perkos. Nice omelet with spinach and tomatoes, low fat milk, way too much food. I've found this to be a dreary day, one with little hope or promise. A perfect financial storm engulfed my business account with several medical automatic payments, life insurance, health insurance, data sources, phone bills all hitting at the same time and no checks in the mail for days, it finally all caught up. So I finally moved some funds from my precious reserves which are meager just to keep the account in the black. Every new appraisal order that was COD seems to have fallen through before I could even get started or collect the check and there are still several hundred dollars of immediate bills to cover with no funds. So once again I'm really asking God for His hand and the checks that sometimes it seems He holds in His hand. Please understand I'm not asking for help, I received generous help at the times when we needed it to keep the medical battle going and I thank all of you for that help. Now its up to the Lord and me to find ways to keep the income coming. I know of many people who are really struggling right now, many of them I see in their homes with their fingers crossed that the appraisal will come in to help them.
I finally could not stand it any more so I called Nikki this evening. I know the phone ringing can wake the baby so I try not to call but I was so curious. Well the baby slept a lot yesterday during the day but not much last night. So Nikki and Steve had one of those sleepless nights again. Today she just wants to be held close so Nikki has done little else than hold her. They went to the doctor this morning and everything is good. Kallie has grown 1/2 an inch already and is in the 90th percentile. Her hearing is good and she is on target. Nikki said she had a blowout in the carseat so we know that end is working as well.
I've been slugging away at writing appraisals for two days non stop and I'm making great progress. I know enough to find good comps when I'm out in the field so then its just a process of assembling all the info, printing out the legal record for each sale, locating the photos for each house and making sense out of it all. Each appraisal takes me from 2 to 4 hours to write up and I keep writing until I'm happy with the results. Today I labored over the sale of a little ranchette and no matter what I could not find support for the sale price of $500,000. I felt better at about $450,000. Turns out the lender had not supplied me with the final addendum to the contract and when that was faxed over my prayers to God regarding the appraisal were answered. The final price was not $500,000 but actually $450,000. Praise the Lord.
We've had some very hard news to accept. Dana was set to arrive on Thursday and Nikki and Steve were really looking forward to seeing her and having her help. But due to family complications with Dana's family she won't be able to break away until a week from Saturday at the earliest. We are all very very disappointed. I was so looking forward to having a live person in the house to talk to and to plan meals with and to know Nikki was getting help. I know Dana is caught in a very hard place and is doing what she can to get here. We certainly look forward to seeing her when she can come.
I've loved reading the messages to the blog and am happy to hear our friend in Benicia is back from China. Thanks one and all for your kind messages regarding Kallies arrival.
If you would not mind please pray for me, I'm more than a little down lately and its hard to hold back the fears that creep in from time to time.
Tomorrow Sylvia leaves for a huge trip with officials of the SDA conference to a mission field that sounds very scary. She will be gone for a couple weeks and is the main medical person on the trip. This afternoon Pam called to say she had an accident in her shower and broke her ankle in at least 3 places. She was hurting and was ready right then for a doctor visit, they were deciding to operate or not. Ryan, her 3rd year medical student son, had driven home to be with her. Please pray for Pam.
So goodnight to all,

love

tim