Hallelujah and Yeeeeeeehaw!!!!

The house is sold, done, gone, not our problem anymore!!!!!!!!!! After pretty much renovating it twice in five years or so (once when we moved in and once when our tenants moved out), we are no longer responsible for it or its mortgage!!

Two Weeks From Today.....

We are closing on our house!!!!! Yee-haw!

I love my kids

And two random updates: Tyler had a hip ultrasound today and everything looks good! Praise the Lord!!!! We won't discuss the fact that I got lost on the maze of 'turnpike' roads and added an extra hour to the trip home, or how we don't have air conditioning in the truck. And, everything is looking good for selling the old house. We accepted an offer, which we felt was really low. Our first initial reaction was NO!!! Even though our agent thought the offer was low, too, she advised us to 'take it and run.' We accepted the offer, with the contingency that they not come back and try to negotiate later (e.g. 'take $1000 off for the scratch in the floor type thing). The home inspection was Monday, and it came back good. Closing is set for late September!

Sold?!

We got a second offer on the house this week and word is that everything is a go! I am hesitant to get my hopes up considering what happened with the first offer, and what can happen, but it looks good. (well, the offer is not what we wanted but we want to get rid of the stress) The home inspection is on Monday morning, so they really mean business!

Blight, Gluteus Instruments and Randomness

My tomatoes are dropping like flies from blight. Apparently the East coast has been hit hard this year, thanks to all the rain we've been getting. I have no idea if I'll get much of anything in the way of tomatoes this year, which make up two-thirds of my garden. So frustrating! Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I have found various canning recipes for green tomatoes (salsa, chutney, relish). I might actually try chutney, even though it sounds sketchy to me. I just finished canning several pints of salsa, so we'll see how that turns out.

In other news, we never heard back from the original offer on our house, but there is a new guy interested who said (exaggerated air quotes hear) that he is going to put in an offer today. We'll see how it pans out.

And a funny story: James thinks 'shooting buzzards' is so funny. He likes to announce it every time by saying 'I just shot some buzzards, Mommy!' followed by mass giggling. Yesterday I said 'What do you say, James?' (He knows what to say...) and he said, 'Instrument,' and laughed. 'My buns are an instrument.' Somehow, I don't think he'll get credit in band class for that one.

Photos of Deliciousness, etc.

One of Tyler's favorite pastimes.

Just look at those big muscles!

Cheese!

I'm snuggling, Mama!

Kids showing off the monster squash. We found it hiding under a big leaf and obviously it had some time to get HUGE! (The one on the left is normal size)

We are starting to pick things every day!

One of the most adorable pictures of all times! James is very excited to have a brother! He practically mauls Tyler every time he gets a chance. (In a nice, gently 3.5 year old sort of way) 'But he didn't cry or any-fing!'

House Update: The latest is that the prospective buyer is 'trying to work things out,' so who knows. Maybe yes, maybe no. The good news is that in the not-quite month since we have listed our house, a few others in our neighborhood are now pending sale, which means things are moving.

Random Ramblings

• I've found the Mother Land, in the form of a brand-spankin'-new W@lmart. I know some people think that W@lmart is an evil store but where else can a tired mom go to buy bananas, diapers, toddler undies and glue sticks all in one place?! I think I could actually get lost in there.
• We are waiting to hear back on our counter offer. The offer we received was a little lower than we would like, so we are trying to meet somewhere in the middle.
• Tyler was starting to get a little fussy this morning, and James went and laid down next to him and said, 'shhh, its OK, I'm here. I'm here.' He's also come up with a new line to use every time he does something to Tyler (e.g. waving in his face, showing him a book, giving him a kiss, etc.) 'But he didn't even cry or anything!'
  
• Katie has begun to say 'own! own!' about a lot of things. This is her version of 'mine!' We got her 'big girl undies' today and she had to put on all 9 pairs, at once!!! I don't think she's quite ready to potty train yet, but it would be nice.
  

The New Normal

We are settling in to the new 'normal' around here. (Translated means we have no idea what the heck is going on from minute to minute but we try to roll with it.) Tyler is so far a very content little baby, sleeping, eating and pooping as usual. Last night, he only woke twice to eat which was nice! I am very tired, but that goes with the territory. I had to laugh when they gave me discharge instructions at the hospital: limit stairs to one trip a day, don't lift anything heavier than your baby, no driving for two weeks, and take it easy. Ha!!! Maybe that works when its your first kid, but with three? Ain't gonna happen. The kids have been really great overall. They absolutely love Tyler and want to hold him, read to him, show him their rooms (again!), and otherwise fawn all over him. They are very gentle with him too, which is great. Every now and then Katie gets a bit overeager with him, but I really can't complain. They are good with him. They are showing signs of enduring a major change though, being cranky and whiney and such. Hopefully that doesn't last too long. Its definitely busy around here, with lots of baby-gazing, diaper changing, book reading, feeding (three! hungry muchkins), etc., etc.. I can't believe Tyler is already a week old! I am trying to soak it all in because I know that 'the days are long, but the years are short' and he'll be running around before we know it. Not to rub it in, but this is what I get to snuggle with every day: Oh, and did I mention we have an offer on our house?!?!?! We made them a counter offer and we are waiting to hear back from them. And they want to close in one month!!!!!
We are praying it all works out with these people; it would be wonderful to have this off our plates!

Still on Baby Watch

Random Picture Of the Day: Painting with a Toddler

Not much to report here. We had a nice long weekend, celebrated Jeff's Birthday and Father's Day, all while watching my feet swell to enormous proportions. Fortunately the feet have subsided somewhat in since yesterday and made things much more comfortable. The kids loved (as usual) having Uncle Phil and Auntie Rachel come down. The basic formula is my kids dragging Uncle Phil all over the yard, begging him to 'dig to China,' play water balloons, and various other shenanigans. Uncle Phil is a good sport and seems to like my kids just a wee bit, so I don't think he gets too annoyed. :) There is really no way to go wrong in my kids' minds when they are at Grammy and Chappy's house, in the backyard, with all the relatives at their disposal!

In other news, the house has been listed for a week and half and we have had 4 or 5 showings. Hopefully the right person will come along ASAP and buy it! Paying two mortgages is not all that fun. Jeff started school again last night, via an online course. This one lasts six weeks or so, and is 'African American History of the 1900's.' Right up Jeff's ally, considering his college career has consisted of class subjects such as 'Strength of Materials,' 'Chemistry,' 'Building Codes,' 'Statics and Dynamics,' and other basic rocket science-type classes. The really nice thing about this class is that it is considered 'double dipping,' and counts for two different requirements. Can't beat that!

The World Keeps On Spinning….

….And so do our neighbors.

Despite the fact that we live in the same type of neighborhood in the same town as our old house, we feel much closer to our neighbors here. Not only is our yard smaller, but we have only a chain link fence between our yard and everyone else’s. While all our neighbors are very nice, it is a little close. It’s one of those situations where you can hear everything they are talking about and see who has mustard on their hamburger. Until we find it possible to invest in a privacy fence, we will be able to look out our dining room window for our evening entertainment. And I don’t mean watching the squirrels. Last night, we watched the neighbors leaning over with their heads resting on a baseball bat, spinning in circles. Then they would try to run around. Please note that it was not simply the kids: the parents were participating as well. It provided us with some interesting dinner entertainment. Another thing they do, which cracks me up, is practice golfing in their backyard. There is not much space, but that doesn’t stop them. Maybe I need to get out more, but I find it funny that they golf in their backyard. Another neighbor of ours is a sweet older woman and her husband. While it doesn’t appear that there will be any shenanigans happening on their side of the fence, they do have a shrine in their backyard of the Virgin Mary. She is standing under a little roof and there are a plethora of rodent statuary gazing lovingly upon the Virgin. Nothing is quite as touching as a ceramic tree rat (AKA Squirrel) looking admiringly at a statue of Jesus’ mother. Again, why this cracks me up, I am not sure, but it makes me giggle. I guess this is all part of living in suburbia, where you can get involved in everybody’s business if you want to. All I have to say is that hopefully there are no nude sunbathers in the neighborhood.

Contact Paper: A Retrospective Look at the Wondrous Material

All these designs have been spotted at our new house. Aren't they lovely? We also had multi-shade blue flowers and a darling orange and yellow flowered print at the old house. Now, riddle me this my friend. If they have made contact paper in all these glorious patterns, why, oh why do they only have white now? It is 2008, people! In this era of do-it-yourself funkiness, you would think they could come up with something fun and exciting. Oh, well. White will never look this out of style. And while we are on the topic of ugly, check out the lovely paneling we have going up our stairs:

We're Goin' Amish

During the move, we had a few casualties. The door of my hutch broke. The cabinet that my Dad made for my Mom way back in the day broke. Our TV broke. For quite some time I have been saying that I wish my TV would just break. I just want to get a little dinky TV that we can watch movies on. I hate having a regular sized TV. Everyone who comes to our house wonders where on earth our TV is. I refuse to have it in the living room. It’s too easy to just turn it on and veg out. Not that that’s always bad. But it’s just not productive and can easily get out of hand. In my opinion anyway. So……..our TV finally broke. And I am not so sure I am happy about it. Since we haven’t had internet, and we have no TV, I feel very out of touch. No news, no Biggest Loser (I know, I know), no blog (tragic!), no Google, and no weather! I have been forced to rely on the old window method of meteorology. It is highly accurate, but not too great for planning ahead. (Not that the weathermen are right anyway) I haven’t been able to read friend’s blogs, and Google anything that crosses my mind. Instead, I have had to wile away my days baking bread on the hearth and stitching my own petticoats. Not really. I have actually been very busy unpacking, painting, kid-wrangling, etc. I did make some homemade bread, though. I have come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t make a very good Amish person. I think I can live without the TV, but the Internet sure is nice to have. Now if only we can do something about getting a dishwasher…

How Will I Know....

If these pants make my butt look big?

There are certain things you take for granted when you buy a house. Outlets in the kitchen, for one. The new house has only two, neither one near the counters, and one is for the fridge and washer. Another thing you forget doesn’t come standard are smoke detectors. Apparently the previous owner didn’t mind the thought of possibly sleeping through a house fire. There are no fire alarms in the house, nor is there any evidence that they ever had them. Not that that means they didn’t, but it’s a good guess. Other things you take for granted are things like a hose sprayer for the kitchen sink, or a dishwasher, or…..a full length mirror. Who knew this simple device could be so necessary to day-to-day operations. Here’s the deal. If you don’t have a full-length mirror, how will you possibly know if you have a ‘kick me’ sign on your back? How will you know if you have toilet paper hanging from your backside? And most importantly, how will you ever know the answer to the age old question, ‘Do these pants make my butt look big?’ I realize that you could ask your significant other, or perhaps the nearest circus midget, but that is a loaded question in and of itself. There is really no possible way to answer this question correctly. You could say, “No.” which is the least likely to offend, but could leave the impression that you still think that the derriere is big but the pants are flattering. You could say, “Yes.” That answer, honest or not, is just not where you want to go. It’s a line that should never be crossed, unless you want to sleep on the couch for a week and three months. You could also answer, “No. It’s just your butt.” This might be the worst answer of all. It is far better, I think, to gaze upon your ample rump and judge for yourself. Be brutally honest. Now that I think about it, maybe I don’t want a full-length mirror after all. Maybe ignorance is bliss.

See, now haven't you just missed me terribly? I mean, with all this deep and though-provoking nonsense that comes out of my brain what's not to miss? Ha, ha!

Helllllllloooooo out there!

Hi, there, long lost bloggy friends. I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, although I am hanging on to the edge. We have been in the new house for almost a week now. We still have no phone, internet, washing machine, etc. Thus the reason I am over here at the 'rents, doing my laundry and updating the trusty ol' blog. We have been slowly but surely getting things situated. It's a lot of work, especially with two ankle-biters running around. James has been having a rough time of it all and acting like a terror sometimes. Actually a lot of the time. I am having a hard time being patient being under-rested and over-worked. He is even being mean to Katie so I can't leave them alone at all. He has been hitting her, and even dragged her around by her feet twice. See what I mean?! The great news is that we got a rental permit for the 'old' house!!! The inspector went through and nit-picked a lot of things, and then....passed it!!!! This was a HUGE relief! He told us to fix a few minor things and wrote out a permit. Yipeee!!! Saturday we hand over the keys to our renters. While it will be a relief, it is sad too. It's our first house, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into the never-ending remodeling projects we did there. Jeff reminded me that we could always move back if we wanted to. Yeah, like I am going to pack up my whole house again and move back! I miss it, but not that much!

Hopefully soon we'll have some internet up and running so I can get back to the blog. I have plenty of random and bizarre ideas piled up in my head, so look out! I could be dangerous!

Stop the Madness!

Things are crazy around here and I can't wait for things to slooooooooow down. We are still trying to get everything done, both in the 'new house' and this one. Hopefully we'll be sleeping in the new place tomorrow night. That's the plan anyway. Too much back and forth. It's really wearing on all of us and James is thoroughly confused by it all. He doesn't know where his stuff is, and more importantly where he wants it to be. We bring stuff back and forth. 'Me bring measure tape, new 'ouse.' 'Bring Henry my house.' Etc....

I am really looking forward to settling in to the house and getting all our stuff unpacked and decorating it. It's so strange to be able to move into a house and not have to first spend 3 weeks scrubbing the place up first. It's so clean all we have to do is rip out the prehistoric Orange Crush carpet and paint. I say 'all we've have to do.' That's really a farce, but hey, at least we're not shoveling cat poop out of our attic.

Welcome to the Orange Palace

Check out these pictures of our new house:


We immediately fell in love with the orange-ness of it all. NOT! As soon as we got the keys, we went back and Jeff started ripping out the carpet. Anyone interested? It's up for grabs, and oh-so-enchanting! Underneath it all was a lovely layer of tile, and in the case of the kitchen, three layers of tile. Sweet! The carpet padding was so old and squished and brittle that it resembled crushed Fritos. Once all the lovely flooring was removed, this is what we had:



Jeff and Dad have been hard at work since then installing laminate flooring throughout the downstairs. So far, they have completed the kitchen, dining room, living room and hall. Only two bedrooms to go! I have been painting away. We still have a lot of work to do and need to move in ASAP so we can get the 'old house' fixed up and inspected, but it's coming along. Here are a few pictures of the progress:

Don't worry! The orange curtains are not happening. More pictures coming soon!

It's Official

We have the keys. It's a done deal. As soon as the kiddoes get up from their naps we are heading over to join Jeff and Dad in working on the house. Woohoo!

As a side note: Grandma and Grandpa! Send some of that nice upper 70 degree weather our way!! Or at least soak up some rays for us. We miss you guys! James was saying yesterday "Me have two dap-paws, Dap-paw Cheyney and Dap-Paw"

Dinner Insults and James' Theology

"Yu-Tee, Mama"

That's what James said about dinner last night. Tasted fine to me, thanks. This is the first time James has ever actually told me his food was yucky. I am sure it won't be the last.

Another funny James-ism from yesterday:

James: Me in hospi-al, Mommy.

Me: Yeah, you were in the hospital when you were born, weren't you?

James: Jesus make me sick.

Me: No, Jesus didn't make you sick.

James: Jesus make me better.

Me: Yeah.

James: Jesus eats pizza!

And on a side note, tomorrow morning we sign our lives away, uh, I mean close on the house. I am looking forward to unpacking and knowing where everything is again.

Houston, We Have a LEASE!!!

We have, in our grubby little paws, a signed lease agreement! The people we used to go to church with long ago came through. They are very excited to be moving into our house and we are very excited that things will all work out and we won't be living under a bridge. Even though we had the signed lease as of Wednesday, I didn't believe it was true until...

We got the MONEY! That's when I knew if was all for real. It means that indeed, it is not a mirage. I can see and hold the check in my hands. And put it right into the bank. Anyhow, we have a lease. That led to some relief, and also mass anxiety. Having a lease means that we are actually closing on Friday...less than a week away. We were stressing out because we had to do the following all in one week:

-Have the chimney and heater inspected, cleaned and certified
-Spackle and paint in every room
-Paint the laundry room
-Do a bunch of little and not-so-little repairs around the house
-Did I mention packing?
-Do all the work that our realtor is NOT doing
-Get the place inspected and acquire proper rental permits
-Bla, bla, bla....and oh, yeah! The kids still need to be loved and fed and read to and held and squeezed too.

Sounds like a rip-roaring good time, right? Yesterday, we had the chimney inspected and...hallelujah! The chimney passed. The guy said that 98% of chimneys FAIL. Thank the Lord ours didn't. I think I might have sat down and cried. The second fabulous thing that happened yesterday was that Mom came over and helped. We got my beloved lettuce bathroom (AKA Spider bathroom, Jenni :) painted, cleaned and ready to go. We also got quite a bit of stuff knocked out. The nice thing about having Mom around (actually there are lots of nice things) but one of the nicest is that the kids love her and she loves them. She can rock Katie to sleep and play with James, and they get a little extra TLC in the process. And the third great thing that happened yesterday, and brought my blood pressure down 200 points and added years to my life, was that the family who is moving it told me not to stress about getting the house ready by the first!!!! They said they haven't even begun to pack and won't be in here till mid-April. That was a huge relief, to say the least! I still want to get it ready ASAP, because I don't want to have to come back here and clean when I have painting, unpacking, etc. to do at the new house.

I realize that this has become one of the most rambling, boring posts ever. Who really comes here to read my to-do list anyway? I promise that soon enough I will stop blathering on about renters and chimney certifications and life will go back to normal. Now if only I could get my kid to stop saying 'Daddy live un-ner bidge, Mommy live un-ner bidge, Kee live un-ner bidge.' Note to self, don't say things when you're stressed out in front of your kids. They will repeat it incessantly and make you feel like an idiot.

It's The Final Countdown...............

Soon, hopefully in the next day or two, we will know how all this madness is going to end. We have a rental application in hand from the family we used to go to church with. They really want it, so we'll see how everything works out. Yesterday we had two really strange sets o' people come through here. What else is new, right? This guy came through who was a little sketchy to say the least. He sat out in his car looking in for about ten minutes till Jeff went out and waved him in. Then he said he was meeting 'some lady' so he didn't want to look at the house yet. I thought it a little odd that he was meeting 'some lady' he didn't know to look at the house with him. He sat on the very edge of our couch and talked to Jeff. As he talked, I started to figure out that the 'some lady' he was waiting for was me. I don't know what his deal was, but he was confused. I told him I was the one who talked to him on the phone and that I could show him around. In the process, he rambled on about how the reason they have to move in such a hurry is that his girlfriend is losing her house. Always a nice touch when trying to get someone to rent their house to you. He explained how she had an adjustable rate mortgage that kept creeping up, and he finally decided not to pay it anymore. He said to me, quite like it was not a problem, 'You wouldn't believe how quick it is to save money when you quit paying on your mortgage.' To this I replied, 'I bet it's amazing how quick the bank gives you a call too when you quit paying.' He said they don't waste much time. Gee. I wonder why. So him/his girlfriend are getting the boot, and he wants to move in here. By the end of the tour, which was as quick as I could make it, he had also disclosed that he had gone through bankruptcy seven years ago. He also has a dog. When I gave him the application, I noticed that he was shaking really bad. A friend of mine was right when she said that we'll be lucky if we can find a tenant who can pass a UA! ;)

In other news, check this out:

Could it be that spring is around the corner?! The first official day of spring is Thursday, and you know what that means? Free water ice at Rita's! And, if you plan it right, you can hit at least 4 locations within an hour and get yourself a free water ice at each one! Mmmmmm.....