LOST A SOCK

Blog, Interrupted

What better way to start the year with ... a few? ... projects that pulled me away from the internet for a while. 

Now, I won't lie.  It has been a bit hectic keeping up with my three little chickens and taking on a large magnitude of projects, but this has been so much fun to do.

And with fun, you know it must have something to do with paint in my house.

We took down our Christmas decorations a few weeks ago, which somehow spurred a serious cleaning and organizing jag.  Something with feeling my post-pardum-post-pregnancy-post-let's-get-this-show-on-the-road energy return completely to normal in the most wicked-compelling way, but this month has been dedicated to the running start. I cleaned closets and cabinets far and wide, and then decided it was high time that the bunkbedding begin, and Marin have her own bedroom (nevermind the fact she's still sleeping beside me.)  Then I added in a few decorative projects I'd been meaning to take on over the long pregnant year past, and painted my lower level family room.  And in addition to all that?  Marin learned to roll from belly to back, and I conquered the impossible by potty training Jack.  Hallelujah, there will be no jumbo packs of Luvs mailed with his Notre Dame University care packages.

No in-process pictures this time, save you from reading this for exactly as long as I was missing in action.  Just finished projects:

 

The Roommates!  They have been stacked!

With each discussion we had about the boys sharing a bedroom, they requested I use their favorite colors - Crimson Red and Hunter Green.  I had to figure out a way to satisfy all members of the house (read: myself) by steering clear of The Deep Dark Christmas Bedroom, and so I incorporated their favorites with a shade of tan.

And all the world (and the solar system, as well) was satisfied.

 

Likely, this picture documents the last time this room shall be categorized as Clean.  It now houses, in addition to two thrilled little boys, forty-two Geotrax trains, tracks, station and brother airport, seventeen Bionicle men, twelve thousand Legos, four hundred blankets and stuffed animals, two loaded dressers, one bursting bookcase and approximately twelve square feet of play-available floor space.

 

And combining that?  Made room for this! 

And not just a corner of her brother's room, anymore!

 

A full-fledged Neopolitan Ice Cream-Inspired baby girl nursery.

 

With board books to be read and new toys still in boxes, not to be played with or otherwise dismantled until she is ready for them.  

 

...Leaving us the luxury of an un-baby stuff stuffed bedroom of our own, if you can imagine.

 

...Inspiring me to paint and utilize an old basement storm window from our friends' turn of the century home as a picture frame above our bed.

 

And this one in our upstairs hallway, as well, using a doctored form of the Fingerprints poem.   

 

I also gave some badly needed attention to our living room couch pillows by making some new covers for them.  Less than seven dollars of fabric from the discount table and call it a day.

 

All of these projects brought to you by two weeks of on-again off-again snow and thirteen degrees below zero temperatures in the Midwest.

I never did manage to photograph the family room, but take my word for the fact that it was well past midnight, I was still in my paint clothes and highly delirious from fumes when I decided to cover over the lower-half blue walls I never really cared for.  That which was meant to mimic slate actually screamed 1982 COUNTRY GOOSE COOKIE JAR GETS A BLUE RIBBON ROUND HER NECK.  Now it says, "Relax. Dark Green was a better alternative, and free.  See bedroom above."

We finally ended all of the home decor madness with a different kind of madness, by hosting our Wisconsin Twins X Two pals for the weekend (do the quick math: we spent Friday through Sunday as a clan of four adults and seven children.  Seven children ages four months to six years.  Three of whom are barely finishing adventures with potty training, one who does not sleep through the night.)  Remind me to share with you sometime what it was like to take those seven children to the local TGI Fridays during dinner rush.  In my mind these outings are always so much simpler than when actually executed.  Go figure.

Three cheers for a productive January. 

Ohhhhh Eight

With having Jack's birthday right there as we ring in each new year, I noticed that I've not ever written a Year In Review post or a Herrrrrre's What's To Come entry on this website -- even though I am actually a mite bit obsessed with a huge fan of reflecting on the past and planning for the future.  So if you'll allow me to drag the new year celebration on for just a bit longer (sure you can drink champagne while you read) we can take a quick look at my year past, and later the one to come.

When I think about 2008, now that we are all of six days into 09, I need a good cry.  Every time.  First I want to weep big crocodile tears of sobby sadness for the hard road that was last year, then some tears of joy and gratitude, and then back for a good long cry of relief.  We made it through 2008.  And frigging hell it was TOUGH.

I think 2007 was one of those years that makes the surrounding ones pale in comparison.  I felt most myself in 2007.  I had a ton of energy and on paper we really accomplished a lot.  We went lots of places and moved to a new house, Kevin took on a new job and I painted and redecorated and just felt healthy in so many ways.  I assumed that 2008 would be a continuation of the year previous and I could spend the rest of my life gleefully hopping around with two kids Enjoying Every Damn Thing (once we sold that pesky house, of course). 

Why hello Morning Sickness, where did you come from?

As can be imagined, I learned a lot this year.  I learned a lot about patience, and grace, and flexibility.  We chucked our plans for selling our old house and rented it out.  We chucked our plans for being a two-child family and opened our hearts to our new baby.  I chucked my plans for finishing my weight loss and for happily vacationing, and we put off every major purchase possible.  Some things really fell to shit, and some of them were rebuilt.  Some things I will never be able to discuss here, but, well, they played a large factor in The Crazy that this year was also.  I'm glad to see the year come to an end.  I'm grateful for all of the opportunities for learning that I was presented with, and I hope I came away understanding everything I needed to.  And my word, I am thankful for my happy sweet-smelling baby that came from this year. 

So here we go - 2008 In Review - In Numbers.

In 2008...

• I mowed zero lawns, dragged garbage cans to the curb only once, and shoveled snow only twice.  Ahh pregnancy, alas I find your perks. 
• We had 2 baby showers, 15 ultrasounds, 1 surgery, 1 tumor removed and 1 reproductive organ lost.  This year my body happily grew 1 beautiful six pound baby and I continued my long-standing career sabbatical to stay home, care for and educate 2 equally wonderful and energetic little boys (and then 1 adorable baby girl).
• In 2008 I consumed 467 pounds of cookie dough followed by a close second, 462.5 pounds of every variety of fresh fruit, canned fruit, fruit flavoring and fruity smelling non-fruit fruit.  I drank only 1/3 as much coffee as I would have, hosted 6 parties in our home, consumed 2 alcoholic beverages and gained 50 pounds (the calories in the alcohol, I tell you!)
• I changed approximately 4000 diapers in 2008, washed at least 1500 loads of laundry, had 2 houses flood, 1 roof leak, and 2 vacuums died.  I painted only 1 room in 2008, hid from 1 tornado, stepped on 984 legos, pinched 1 nerve in my upper back and fell down the stairs once in the middle of the night (and tore the thermostat out of the wall in the process, way to go on doing nothing half-assed.)  I blew my nose 14,982,227 times through the course of 17 colds. 
• In 2008 I ran the dishwasher at least 365 times and washed approximately 4 dishes by hand.
• Major purchases were limited to 1 larger vehicle, 1 winter coat, 1 television and innumerable pink baby sleepers.  This year we purchased 3 DVD's, no CD's, our first video game system as a married couple, and 1 video game.  I purchased 1 pair of shoes this year and no purse.  This year we went to no concerts, no movies, 1 musical, and paid 18 mortgage payments out of our savings veins pocket. 
• Holding strong, we managed to fully fund 1 IRA, rebuild our savings and close out the year without 1 dollar of credit card debt. 
• I read 2 books that influenced me in a major way, meditated at least 100 times and attended church only twice in the middle of an incredible spiritual journey.  I learned 2 very important lessons in 2008, watched my favorite documentary at least 20 times and claimed my personal stake as 1 huge History Channel Dork.
• I learned to love, appreciate and accept this 1 body that serves me whether it is baby-filled, overweight, well cared for or otherwise.  I quietly celebrated my 11th anniversary with Kevin, proud of its fruits, proud of what it took to arrive there.
• In 2008 we took no vacations but made our way into 4 neighboring states, attended no weddings, 1 wake, no funerals, 1 baptism, countless birthday parties.  I helped coordinate 2 classroom parties and rode a school bus 3 times.
• We scheduled 1 vasectomy and cancelled 1 vasectomy, no longer convinced that two 3 is our magic stopping number.  (Possibly I don't mind changing 4000 diapers a year as much as I think?)  I underwent 1 tumor regrowth check to find myself still tumor free and cancer free, hopefully forevermore, at least until February. 
• I kept up with 67 blog feeds, wrote 144 blog entries of my own and took more than 8200 pictures.  I read more than 1000 children's books, (mostly) potty trained 1 little boy, and taught my 2 boys about charity, hands-on, in 3 ways this year.  I made two sets of curtains, six pillows and my first quilt on my gramma's sewing machine.
• I mailed out 72 Christmas cards this year, and excitedly received 46. I was awful about responding to emails.
• In 2008 I sang hundreds of songs, cried more tears than I care to count, smiled thousands of genuine smiles and thanked God hundreds of times for all that we are blessed with.  Even when those blessings are wrapped up in an easy-to-exit year like 2008.

With the raining and the pouring, both literally and figuratively

So it steadily poured rain in our area for something like two and a half or seventeen days recently, and our town received 9.95 inches. 

On Sunday morning we woke up to the sump pump running non-stop, again, but thankfully keeping up with what was coming in, blessing us with a dry crawl space and lower level family room this time around.  Phew.  Unfortunately, we were not so lucky with the kitchen ceiling, again, which happily gave us a taste of what Mother Nature had going on in the out of doors that day.  You know, the claim with our insurance company that I canceled three weeks ago because they wanted to tear my kitchen apart just before I was to deliver a baby, and for sure I thought it was a One Time Deal - a mere mistake - my leaky kitchen ceiling under the almost new roof.  Let's see how State Farm feels about a changed my mind phone call in the coming days, eh?  (Right after they deal with The Other Claim I made yesterday, just wait.)

Later that same morning we received a call from The Renters - the basement had water - not only leaking in through the hundred year old brick basement walls (as always with heavy rains) but also rushing up through the floor drains down there.  Kevin headed over to assess the situation, and after a few hours of craftily utilizing Aquafina bottles to create vacuums in drains, the problem was as under control as one could ask for in that house.

By Monday morning we thought for sure things would calm down and drain down, although we'd heard that there were nearly no open roads through which we could pass.  Luckily my mom and dad made it up to our house on Sunday night so that my mom could stay the week and help me just as she'd been planning, but early Monday morning we found out just how impassible our roads were.  Kevin called at 5am to tell me he'd driven through a puddle and the car stalled out.  (And herein lies The Other Claim.)

A thirty foot long puddle by forever wide by two and a half feet deep, and the car was dead.  In the middle of this...puddle. 

(Really, he called it a puddle on the phone.  I could not figure out, for the life of me, how a puddle could possibly kill a Ford Explorer.  And then it all made sense when I pulled up in our other vehicle, and my husband exited his vehicle, leaving shoes and socks inside, dress slacks rolled thigh-high, laptop bag safely harnessed around his neck to wade out through knee-deep water.  It was a bit more than a puddle.)

It took forever to find a tow company who was even willing to try to get the car out, for no less than the value of my right arm, and now it sits in front of our house waiting to be towed to the site of either its repair or its declaration of doom. 

In spite of the two major expressways around us being shut down (due to flooding, of course) I did manage to get him all the way to work yesterday morning, and he's been commuting via trusty ol' train ever since.

So this is our town, as of late yesterday afternoon.

This is the street we drive up and down forty-seven times a week, and the dark green rectangle-looking thing in the middle of all that water?  Would be the top of an enormous National Guard vehicle who tried to make it through.

This is the rear of our local library, where my mother-in-law works, which has been sandbagged for more protection in spite of the five feet of water that is filling it.  Actually, what you're looking at is the parking lot, and the lake itself normally has a pleasant brick walking path around it, all the way out past the light posts.

These light posts.

And the apartments and businesses nearby, and the roof of another car parked there.

It is safe to assume that the lake in the middle of our downtown area didn't have the room for all the rain that came down, though now things are becoming more serious and all are hoping the dam will hold.  Schools have been closed for two days now, businesses and homes are under water, and it's unbelievable to think that this is where I live, not something I'm seeing on the news from far away.

To add insult to injury, I also spoke with baby Marin's doctor late yesterday.  The obstruction to her kidney is pretty severe, unfortunately, and surgery is in her not-too-distant future.  He would like to give her a few more weeks to grow since she is so tiny, and then in the second week of October she will undergo the MAG-3 test I mentioned in my last entry, followed by another Renal Scan the next day, and then decisions about when to schedule surgery.  More than anything - more than the water, the damn car, the anything else that could possibly plague us, please do keep her in your prayers.

Random by Number

I really have no excuse for not posting.  It's the same no excuse that I have for wet clothes sitting in my washer for three days, for allowing every floor and every room of my house to look like the aftermath of a Toys R Us twister, and again the same excuse I have for putting my toddler down for his afternoon nap still in his pajamas.  Other than?  I'm so tired, incubating baby hath zapped last of mah energies.  You remember I was once a completely anal-retentive house cleaning painting obsessing perfectionist mostly, yes?  Ugh.   

Have you random thoughts, in no particular order, numbered for semi-organizational happiness:

1. Renters: still there!  Haven't called!  Futon frame still on the front porch!  Who cares!?

2. Drove a solid hour into another state yesterday afternoon for organic whole milk fresh mozzarella cheese and tomatoes and $95 worth of other crap and would consider doing it again today, if it weren't for my pesky doctor appointment.

3. When worlds collide: Pineapple addiction coupled with baby inhabiting esophagus is causing massive heartburn and newfound Tums addiction.  Cannot stop eating pineapple, oww pain burn.

4. I snickered quietly as Jack described our new backyard pool to a woman in Target.  As he explained splashing cold water, pool toys, and even the slide that he uses to go down into it, I am fairly sure she had illusions of our back yard grandeur.  But really, he was telling her all about this:

Aside: Not a word about the length of our grass, which seems to be naturally reseeding itself (because we TOTALLY need more grass to cut.)  We cut the front religiously, but the back?  It's our little secret what things look like inside the six foot privacy fence, mkay?  When I begin losing children in there, I'll add it to the list of seven thousand other things I need Kevin to do.

5. Most of the day (read: the twelve minutes we do not spend in our back yard) young child still in dinosaur pajamas stands at the back door asking to play in the back yard:

And if the answer in return is any form of No, including the one where I say Yes, In Five Minutes, this crying screaming attaching himself to my pajamas clothes is the result:

Damn that 2000 gallon 12 gallon in-ground blue plastic pool with slide.

6. Am having a Tastefully Simple party at my house on Sunday (because I'm crazy) (because I'm hungry) (okay, both).  If you, too, are pregnant, or not at all but feel the urge to eat an entire loaf of beer bread and bowl of spinach dip with me in spirit from across the miles?  You can join my party by emailing me.  It ships to your house.  (I've told you before that I sold this stuff for the two years after KJ was born, right?  The first year I did one party after the next.  And then the second year?  I did just enough parties to maintain my discount, mmmmmmmm need more bread.)

7. I do hope the nurse decides in a fit of miracles and rainbows rained down from heaven to not weigh me this afternoon.  Wouldn't that be swell?  (Ha! Swell! Like my feet and ankles! Ahem.)

8. On very rare occasions where a spot or two of energy hits me, I take on small projects around the house.  Most recently we replaced our green shutters with black (the green coupled with the terra cotta brick was not doing it for me):

painted the formerly green front door with gold fixtures and locks, black with silver fixtures and locks:

and replaced the awful brass light fixtures

with new ones:

New fixtures that I really liked the style and price of, but hated the (rust) color of, so I painted them.  Squee! 

9. All that for under $100, happy happy joy joy, thank you Lowe's coupon. 

10. With Tuesday being KJ's last day of preschool and his (rained out) field day, I volunteered as one of the game moms.  Oddly enough, the other mothers (who clearly had given birth to children before, I assume?) were quite worried for me "in my condition" chasing after runaway beanbags and hoola hoops, and put me on the mystery box game, which involved three hours of overseeing sweaty children digging in a cardboard box for a rubber band and a butterfly magnet.  And while the break they gave me, so as not to go into labor at school, I was told, gave me the opportunity to snap pictures of my son shooting baskets and winning a third place ribbon, it was still a bit odd that everyone was suddenly so panicked about a late second/early third trimester pregnancy?  In a school full of recently born children?

And with that, I'm off.  For it might be nice if I show up to my 24 week doctor appointment showered, and not in pajamas, an hour from now.  Eek!

I believe that if there were ever a time to panic, the time is now

So we are now just days shy of the one year anniversary of having our house listed on the disaster that is the real estate market.  If Me Now could go back and talk to Me Then about what was to come, I would probably just hug my terribly hopeful, naive self.  There would be no promises that things would be okay, no words of wisdom to just have patience.  Keeping the house in perfect order for showings, the treacherous roller coaster that was waiting to hear good news or bad from potential buyers, and keeping my kids in a constant state of clean and run was no way to live last summer.  And when it got to be too much by last September, we took a leap of faith with the offer we had secured, and we bought our new place. 

Of course you know the story, that the offer fell through and we ended up with two houses.  Then the second offer at Christmas time with the same unhappy ending. 

We've been carrying two houses for close to nine months now, and if you're guessing that we're under a bit of stress, you'd be right.  That, coupled with Kevin's awful work hours and the fact that I'll be delivering a baby at the end of the summer has been a lot to deal with, especially lately.

From Day One we tried to keep a positive attitude, always saying that our turn must be right around the corner.  We've knocked 25% off of our asking price, willing to go as far as receiving not a dime should we ever close on this place.  We just want to be free of it.  Last fall we raked leaves as needed, shoveled snow all winter, and now have begun cutting the grass and keeping the yard up again.  We kept the place lighted and heated and cooled as temperatures rose and fell in order to have comfortable showings, and we've cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.

Back in January when we learned that we were pregnant with our third child, I immediately began thinking about what that would mean.  Obviously, it meant re-buying every baby item since we'd gotten rid of everything before the move, sure that we were finished having children, and I also thought about a larger vehicle, having two in diapers, formula, insurance, and so on. 

We realized fairly quickly that, thanks to the double mortgage situation, buying a larger car was out of the question.  We'd have to cram our kids into what we had and hope for the best.  That was almost easy to deal with.

Next went our plans for any more upgrades to the new house, and sadly we said goodbye to the idea of our badly needed summer vacation.  As things got tighter and the baby's birth draws nearer, we've looked into downgrading Kevin's car, though found that not to be an option since we owe more than it would trade for, and thus the decision that if nothing else we could save on the cost of gasoline and Kevin would begin riding the train to and from the city.  This, of course, takes away his freedom to leave work when he's ready as he must rely on a spotty train schedule.  And I can tell you, for a man that leaves at 5am for work every day and arrives home at 10:30pm?  It's a sacrifice to not be able to hop in the car and head home on his own clock.

Going back to work for me, at this point, is not an option.  Teachers in my neck of the woods make little more than one flipping burgers at a local fast food joint, and to swing daycare for two - soon to be three, would barely be covered by my salary.  We'd be lucky to break even.

And so the latest to go has been our application to the private school we'd enrolled KJ in for kindergarten.  More than anything else, this was one "extra" that we wanted to proceed forward with in spite of the house situation.  But from the moment I signed the papers (and payed the three hundred dollar registration fee, EEK) I worried about how we could possibly swing it.  I spent hours re-working our monthly budgets, and I knew that we'd really be risking the last of our financial stability, and we had to create a new plan.  Thankfully, our son has been just fine about the whole thing, happily acknowledging that the public school has not one, but two playgrounds, which sort of makes me glad for him and breaks my heart all at the same time.  (And it's not that I'm saying there is anything wrong with public schools, it's just that we had a preference.)

Which brings us to now.

Now Kevin and I have both been even dealing with the situation in our dreams at night, feeling sort of sick all the time lately - needing something to just happen already.  We really did think that once Christmas passed, once the new year began, once the snow melted, once spring arrived, once the weather warmed up, once the tulips bloomed, that the house would sell.  And so we continued to give it as fair a chance on the market as possible.

But this sick, worried feeling in my gut is one that I cannot shake.  I feel like we're drowning and can't find the surface of the damn water.  I wish that I could detach emotionally from the situation, and put an end to my belief that good things just happen to people who are doing their best.  Because, seriously, it's tripping me up.

I bought a rental sign yesterday.  We originally said that April 30th was our deadline for sitting on the market, but the icy cold feet are playing a prevalent role in my ability to take the next step.  I've been reading a book on property rental and paging through the informative documents that have been shared with me.  And for a million reasons, I still abhor the idea of renting this house out.  First and foremost, I've got enough going on with caring for the boys and getting ready for the next baby, and obviously Kevin has no time to deal with renters since he spends ninety percent of his week in the city.  The roof needs to be replaced, the basement seeps water every time it rains, and the mortgage company does not allow for rental properties.  (Of course in discussing re-fi's with other banks, we have to leave the house off the market for 60 days before they'll even look at us, which would mean more carrying costs.)  I worry that someone will break a window, scratch the hardwoods, or let the cat they're secretly keeping pee all over our new carpeting.  I worry about getting a renter, and keeping a renter, and what to do if they fail to pay.  Those are bigger problems than I even have now, with it sitting there empty.  (Except for the assholes who dumped a large cup of chocolate ice cream all over the floor to harden while I was in the hospital last week.  Thanks.)

I barely even know how we got here, in such a predicament.  But I'm so very troubled about the entire situation.  I don't know whether it's time to rent because every time I think about it, read about it, talk about it, I feel sick.  But I know we can't go on forever blowing ourselves up financially, either. 

I feel like we've exhausted every channel and are at the end of our rope.  We've waited patiently, taken leaps of faith, and held on tight.  And now we're really, really at a loss.

Zero to Sixty

Up until week twelve of this pregnancy, I had just enough energy to feed myself and my children, and run the dishwasher on a daily basis.  On the days KJ did not have school, we found ourselves in pajamas until 4pm.  On days he did?  I returned to pajamas as soon as we arrived home from Preschool pick-up.  Occasionally I would find the energy for activities that did not involve dozing off on the couch while my children enjoyed tv marathons, but those days were not very common.  I was so terribly exhausted all the time.

Cue Monday.

As I started laundry on Monday morning, I decided to run upstairs and take a peek at what we had in Spring clothing stored in Jack's closet - either clothes I had saved from KJ, or stuff I'd picked up over the winter for him.  Once I finished sorting through the containers in Jack's closet, I couldn't resist going through KJ's as well.  I really do love cleaning out closets and dressers.  It's a sickness.

By this time I'd already doubled the piles of laundry waiting for attention in the laundry room, so I figured it couldn't hurt to sort through some of the Rubbermaid containers bursting with clothing out in the garage.  Which turned out to be fourteen of them.

I ended up going through all of my seasonal decorations, four sizes of kid clothes and two sizes of adult clothes, and I even located the container of bake ware I had been searching for since we moved. 

I washed something like sixteen loads of clothes, and found homes for all of it - be those homes dresser drawers or the multitude of bags packed for donating.  I figured I would just keep working until I got tired again, because it was amazing to have energy again.

But then yesterday?  The tired did not come, and I decided to work on a few more projects. 

First I ran out for paint, and painted the inside of my front door blue.  I knew from the moment I painted that room, that I wanted the door blue, and there was no better time than the present. 

I sorted through my newly discovered bake ware and decided what I really needed to keep, and what I didn't.  (I've told you how much I love my dishwasher, yes?)

It's amazing, after not seeing it for six months, what I found I really didn't need cluttering up the cabinets after all.

The boys were doing such a good job of entertaining themselves with vials of glitter, markers,

and paper body parts, that I moved on to yet another project.

For months now, I've been hating the way I originally set up the furniture and toy shelves in the family room, with an area for sitting and an area for toys.  It made sense at the time, but how it ended up was being an area we never sat in, and a constant toy disaster that was much less preferred to what was supposed to be the upstairs toy-free living room.  Both the upstairs and the downstairs were a constant mess, and what I had was not working. 

I moved the couch and chair to allow all of the toy shelves, baskets and miscellaneous stuff to fit together, creating a giant, usable area.  This way the kids can play or watch tv as they choose, and visitors who drop by are not met with Toys R Us the minute they walk through the door.  I removed every last toy from the upstairs living room, again, and made it all fit downstairs.

On the other side of the room, there remains a train table and ten thousand Thomas engines in my workspace, but I'm taking what I can get, and this new set-up really seems to be working.

Today I think I really will kick back and enjoy what I've accomplished, and it possibly wouldn't hurt being as how I've got a doctor appointment this afternoon.  Taking it easy this pregnancy?  Absolutely!

Oh Thank God.

I've spent the last couple days feeling downright euphoric.  Finally, finally, Spring is arriving in the Midwest.  I can assure you that this was the most miserable winter I've experienced, evah, with gray day after gray day, snow and clouds.  Did I mention the clouds?  And snow?  And how glad I am to see the damn sun?

So yesterday when we finally reached the forty-three degree marker, Jack and I dropped KJ off at school and headed out to snap some shots of the morning sun.  Then later that afternoon, once I'd spent more time than I'd care to admit to, cleaning up four months worth of dog poop, we raced to the back yard. 

As Jack pointed out, barely remembering last summer, "Is not snowy, Mommy.  Is all grassy."

And WHAT is that, KJ?

Holy crap, Jack - it's a ball of fire in the sky!

Ahem, that's the sun.

(And actually, it's an airplane they're admiring.  Did I mention our new back yard sits below Midway Airport's flight path?  Talk about the perfect house for our kids.)

So by this afternoon the kids were really getting into the multitude of sports that were available in our new big back yard, and it was then that KJ gave Jack his first lesson in Playing Baseball With An Older Brother. 

This game, when played with a puppy, is also known as fetch.

Okay Jack, the ball will spring up from here, and I have the joy of whacking it across the yard with my bat.  Then your job is to run all the way to the fence, pick up the ball and bring it back to me so I can hit it all the way over there again, okay?

Oh KJ this is going to be so much fun, especially if you can keep from breaking my nose.

Alright Jack, I'll even give you a running start.  Here it comes!

That's right!  Keep going!  Go get it and bring it back to me.

And I'll just get this next ball ready for when you return.

Except the only problem, when training playing with a toddler, is that by the time he nears the ball and reaches the fence, he has become so focused on how he allowed his mother to put a jacket on him in the first place that he forgets all about his job as ball retriever and moves on to removing said jacket in spite of protests from both brother and mother.

He ignores his mother, who is requesting the jacket be returned to his currently healthy body, and he ignores his brother, who has realized that baseball is not quite as much fun when you function both as the batter and the outfielder. 

And then he plays on the slide for a while.

Friday Photos: Second Blogiversary

Two years ago today, with a three week old baby in my arms and a three year old boy yanking at my sleeve, I began blogging.  I wanted to find an outlet for myself where I could plug some adult brain power into, having been a stay at home mom for three years.  Of course, I can't guarantee that you've seen that happen with every entry (ha!) but just the same I've learned so much and come so far in the last two years.  I did not know back then that what I'd really be doing is documenting the young lives of my children as well as the personal transformation I've gone through over the last couple years.  Also, who knew we'd have so much damn fun along the way?

Enjoy a sampling of pictures I've posted over the last two years. 

This was the first picture I ever posted, from my very first entry.

Aah, the infamous Baptism Picture Before The Diet.  Love. It.

Thankfully, there are During the Diet pictures,

And Somewhere Near the End of the Diet pictures.  I imagine you'll be waiting a good year for the end of this thing to roll around, ha!  (Chicken and sour cream, Chicken and sour cream!)

There have been fun pics

of the kids,

as well as fun entries with the kids.

There's been paint (oh my God has there been paint)

and may we never forget the time we built our cat into the wall.

Our poor old house has been Sold and Not Sold more than any other house in the neighborhood,

and thankfully we finally came to our senses and got the heck out of there with my last bits of sanity straggling behind.  (Still not sold thankyouverymuch.)

Which brings us to more paint,

and more home decor.

And finally, a little rest and relaxation with our toys in our jammies,

just as we gear up for our next adventure.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog entry...

Possibly you have wondered what happened to me, and why you have been left refreshing the same blog entry for five days now. 

Well.  I've been waiting to hear something, anything, on the closing for our old house that was originally scheduled for this week, but as it is our buyer and her agent have been MIA since early last week.  I'd be lying to you if I told you that I am remaining completely calm and just letting things happen.  What I am doing is trying to remain calm, and the results of my efforts shall not be discussed.

Also, I tried to write this entry earlier this afternoon, but was interrupted by my five year old's grand announcement that not only was Jack awake two hours early from his nap, but also he is wearing no diaper and jumping in his crib.  And poop is everywhere.

So now that you've been briefed on all that, let's talk about what's been going on while not obsessing over real estate or scrubbing toddler poop out of stuffed animals, eh?

This weekend we hit the open highway and traveled down to Indianapolis for Kara's Christening.  Since the service was scheduled for early Sunday morning, we decided to go ahead and make a weekend of it and stayed in a hotel, swimming to our hearts' content (which for me might have been only three minutes because indoor pool or not, damn that water was cold) and meeting up with our wonderful college friends.

Of course, I couldn't be in the city for more than twelve seconds before I called Bree for an impromptu baby love fest. 

(Jack loved Baby Kara, too - offering her his blanket, then stealing it back, offering his blanket, then stealing it back, and then finally locating almost every toy and blanket the poor baby owns and piling them on top of her.  Also, you may notice that on the occasion of this photo, Jack decided to test Kara's lung capabilities by leaning all of his toddler weight onto her little chest while his mother smiled euphorically at the camera.  Thank you Breain, for not dying on the spot.)

(Kara: Holy crap! Get him off!)

Jack and I would know nothing about the actual Baptism on Sunday morning as we spent the entire time out in the vestibule doing this,

and this.

I've also spent every! minute! of my spare time pouring over my latest read, Eat, Pray, Love.  I received this book as a Christmas gift from my mom (and also gave it as a Christmas gift to my mom...and six of my girlfriends because I was so! excited! about it.)  I've barely been able to put it down, and am not sure if I want to give it up to the handful of people who've asked to borrow it, or if I'd like to hide in the corner of my bedroom for the next week and read it over again, in better attempts at memorization.

Besides all of the Eating and Praying (which, to tell the truth, there's been not much eating going on around here since we're in the thick of Serious Dieting Season, but more on that later this week) I've gotten back into listing ebay, (secretly, that neatly folded pile of shirts does way more for my obsessive organizational happiness than I should ever admit to)

and sewing.

Sewing!

While in process of making our bed for Jack's birthday party last week (which shall be known as The Milestone First Making of Bed In New House) I realized when the blankets are smoothed and the pillows set neatly, our bed looks exactly like every other bed...owned by a fourteen year old boy.  Meaning to say, we are the proud owners of two blankets and four flattened pillows and not much else, and the thought occurred to me that I should pretend we are adults, and have decorative pillows.  (Which I still don't believe Kevin is very much on board with, even after I confessed dropping nearly one hundred dollars at the fabric store this morning to help resolve the newly discovered void in our life.)

Yes, there will be pillows for our bed, pillows for the new family room furniture, and a few new additions to the living room.  We will be the fluffiest, coziest, most comfortable damn house in the subdivision.

I'm even planning some pillows for the children's rooms.  And God help me, no one better poop on them.

House I Can Handle, with a few Friday Photos in the mix

Today I know little more than I did two days ago about the Old House Inspection Disaster.  We agreed to fix everything within our capabilities, promised to pony up a heap of cash at closing for the roof, and declined the buyer's request for her uncle tear apart the attic walls over the Not Sure Whether It's Asbestos Insulation.  She asked us to allow him, instead of some pricey environmental company, to tear out that insulation a week before the scheduled closing.  However, if you've been with our real estate saga for long enough, you'll agree that it is not a far jump to foresee the helpful uncle's foot going through my living room ceiling while gutting the attic that we just finished and then declaring the work too arduous, the asbestos too poisonous, and the deal very dead, goodbye forever, good luck with your walls.

Our real estate agent, who was given to me as a gift from God himself, responded to the uncle offer with a very PC statement about our worries for possible liabilities should the uncle get injured on our property.  Brilliant, she is.  Let's see if it works.

We did offer to move up the closing date, also, if she was hoping to have that job done before she moved in.  She can have the place tomorrow, as well as my dishes, camcorder and iPod if she is just willing to autograph the little dotted line.

Going back to it for a moment, if there is one thing we've relied on through this New Messy Deal, it is the brilliance of our (new) agent.  Not only is the girl a believer in the power of positive thinking, which we have discussed at length, (note: except for in the last few days) (pokes self in eyeball with screwdriver) but she also has a way of talking heart to heart with other agents over the pros and cons of electrical outlets existing in present-day bathrooms, and can persuade these people like nothing we've ever seen.  She's a spectacular listener and incredibly intuitive, and in the midst of sending an eight page fax to Kevin detailing the insane amount of insane repairs to be made to the insane house, she writes on the cover sheet, "Everything will be great in 08!" 

This, of course, could go one of two ways.  If I were not a wounded puppy in this moment, requiring the most tender reassurance and affection a real estate agent can offer (??) I might want to jab her in the eyeball with a screwdriver.  But as it is, Everything will be great in 08! is saving the last drops of my sanity, and I couldn't ask for anything more.

Now.  I think I was going to do something with pictures.  Something with the new house. 

Oh yes, right.  Something positive.  Something that worked out.  Something I like in my life.  HaHA!

Remember the project I told you about a while back?  With the fabric and whatnot?  I pulled it all together earlier this week, and I am overjoyed with the finished product.

These are the curtains I made.  They are definitely my biggest sewing project to date.  I lined them so they would be protected from the sun.  I hand-stitched the black silky ropey part on (look out Martha, here I come...with all of my big words).  I found exactly the drapery clips I'd envisioned, and am quite happy with my new finials.

(Your mom's got new finials!)

For the nearby wall of black and whites, I found a centerpiece that conveys exactly what I feel when I look at this wall -- intense gratitude.  It reads, "Begin each day with a grateful heart."

For several years now, I've been holding the plans for this wall in my mind.  I've been wanting to frame black and whites of our family over my dining room table, where we gather as a family to share meals and stories and discussions and play-doh and coloring book pages.  The space was just never there at the old house.

But now I finally have it -- with the pictures I took, with the table I refinished, with the curtains I made, for the meals I serve, for the family I love.

I am beyond excited for this corner of my new house.  You just might find me snuggled beneath the table in my sleeping bag one morning, basking in my intense gratitude.