Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! I was able to convince the planning and zoning guy that Mom's place is definitely not in the flood plain and that it's on a different map than he was looking at (the flood plain is down below the high bank, where no house in the town has ever been built). As a matter of fact, I was over there today taking pictures of it and the neighbors'. Mom's place is one of the few that even has a backyard because it's away from the creek more than the rest and has more land above the high bank than the others. The lot is buildable/rebuildable and I got the letter, in my hand, that I needed to prove it. It's been quite a month of crazy bureaucracy, but now we're finally able to proceed. It should sell quickly and easily now that we have proof that it is worth something, and at the reasonable price we will be asking for it.

I'm just glad that we can finally give somebody else a chance to live in it. Sure, we'd all like to keep it for sentimental reasons, but the more I thought about it (and it's been on my mind a lot, especially the last two sleepless nights), I'm positive we're doing the right thing. The way I see it, if the people that owned it before Mom and Dad had kept it forever, we would have never had it for our home either. Why be selfish and keep it for ourselves, empty and un-lived-in? I don't think I could bare to see that - nothing but the ghosts of our past roaming around in it. Give someone else the chance to care for it and raise their family in it too - kids laughing and writing on the walls - filled with life. The little town is mostly a retirement community nowadays, so it may not turn out that way, but at least we are trying to carry on the tradition of it being a "home".