Purging & Productivity

I did not intend to be productive this weekend.  In fact, when I woke up on Saturday morning, it was with the intention of staying in bed for the entire day because I lacked both the motivation and the energy to move.  I had been sliding up and down (mostly down) the depression scale for more than a week, and it seemed that it had gotten the better of me again, to the point where I could no longer move.

However, spending the morning in bed may have been exactly what the doctor ordered.

I emerged about noon.  And then I got busy.  Very, very busy.  I made cinnamon rolls and fish & chips.  I made a menu for the week, devised a grocery list and went to the store with Doodlebug (and even stocked up on stuff for a few extra meals in case the weather turns sour later this week… having a few extra meals on hand is not a bad idea this time of year).  I cleaned a few things, tidied up some others, and generally put things in order.  Before the kids went to bed, we played a couple of family games of Uno, and after they went to bed, I spent quite a while discussing tattoo designs with Oz.  I hit the sack late, but it felt good.  *I* felt good.

The productivity continued today.  I had promised the kids I would spend some time with them, and despite Doodlebug's protests that he wanted to do something indoors (i.e. laser tag), I told them that this was going to be one of the last beautiful fall days and that I would only agree to an outdoor activity.  So they put on their skates, and Oz and I walked behind them as they skated down one of the trails of a major park system.  It was a beautiful 2-mile adventure.

We got home, and I tidied up some more and had the kids start cleaning out the game room.  This had needed to be done for a long, long time, but today I found the motivation to figure out what furniture needs to go where and how it all needs to work together.  They got everything cleaned out in a little more than an hour and a half, and Oz helped get rid of some extra furniture.  Then we moved the computer and desk from the guest room into the game room.  Eventually we'll move the chaise lounge and ottoman from the game room into the guest room and get a couch for the game room, but that hasn't happened yet.  I ordered a lamp for the guest room as well, and I'm going to have Oz hang a painting in there.  I need to get a new trash can for that room as well, but one thing at a time.

In the meantime, I started some Guinness beef stew for dinner (it's getting close to being done as I type this) and cleaned out the desk drawer.  I also ordered a few Christmas gifts for the munchkins and started officially planning the giant Thanksgiving that we're going to host here this year.

Next weekend I intend to clean out the attic while the kids clean out their bedrooms.  They'll hate me, but if it can get done before the holidays, I'll be a very happy camper.

I may clean out the bathroom cabinets tonight.  That needs to happen, too, and I figure I should get it done while I have the energy!

Because tomorrow, it's back to work.

The Summer of Blog Neglect

Apparently I can't keep up with this blog during summer.  I'd say I'll do better, but… yeah, I probably won't.  I feel like I should say something like, "It's been 20 days since my last confession…"

But I won't do that, either.

I started seeing a therapist a week and a half ago.  I've only seen her once, for the initial intake, but I liked her.  I go back later this week to start actual therapy, and if the first visit is any indication, I'm going to need a big box o' Kleenex.  At least this time I'm going in with a week or so of decent moods under my belt and not weeks of emotional lability.  It's the little things.  I also have a plan for the future, more or less, and have started working toward it, doing things like putting together a resume and filling in the odd online job application.  Of course, I'm sure I'll wind up doing something through a temp agency because nobody wants to hire a cold-call nobody with an empty resume, but it's a start.  I'll keep working.

I got back from a brief trip today.  A few weeks ago one of my friends announced that her husband was moving his start-up company to some rented office space, which meant that she was going to have a finished garage space to use as a school/game room for her kids, and she needed furnishings for it.  Which meant that she wanted to make a run down to Ikea in Dallas.  Oz and I had been talking about running down there and getting some bookshelves from Ikea at some point (and really, if Doodlebug will ever manage to learn how to take care of property properly, we'd get him new bedroom furniture, too), but he didn't really care if he went, so he agreed to watch the kids, and suddenly I was headed to Dallas.  We also took along some rented muscle - a friend of mine's boyfriend, because my friend wanted another dresser to go with some other Ikea furniture she'd gotten on her recent trip down to the Big D.

Both of them had been to Ikea before.  I hadn't.  We got there when it opened at 10, and Oz texted around 12:30 to ask if we'd left yet.  Nope… we sure hadn't.  We had actually eaten lunch AND made it to the area where we were pulling boxes, which was an impressive feat that no doubt would never have been accomplished if my girlfriend hadn't made a wish list, including aisle and bin numbers, before we even headed out.  That store is an adventure and a half, for certain.

I didn't even wind up getting proper bookshelves… well, not the ones I'd planned to get, anyway.  I got this instead:

It seemed more appropriate to the space, my taste, and the varying sizes of the books and whatever else the kids might want to stash on the shelves.  I like breaking up the monotony a little.  I got home around 6 and put this together before the kids went to bed.  Oz helped a bit when I got frustrated… mostly I hate Allen wrenches and didn't know he had a bit for that in his screwdriver.  That would have been nice to know before I started, but c'est la vie.

Back to reality now and appointments the rest of the week.  I actually booked myself a spa visit for one day this week (using a gift certificate Oz got me for my birthday in April), so that should be an interesting experience in itself!

Monday Musings

I don't usually do this, and I don't think it'll be a typical 'thing' that I do, but I read other blogs whose authors do this, and I'm rather inspired this week.  So…

Outside My Window:
It's sunny and cool today.  It was really quite warm this weekend and very windy for a cookout on Saturday night, but the weather today is more seasonally appropriate.  I'm keeping a close eye on the weather for Thanksgiving, though.  I'd love snow, but I don't want people driving in it for the holiday.  Catch-22.

In My Yard:
The trees are nearly naked.  I dug up my giant rosemary plant and tucked it into the garage before the hard freeze last weekend, and I'm glad I did.  It's actually too big for my biggest pot, but I made it fit for now.  If I can manage to make it live through the winter and can replant it in the yard next spring, I'll probably just try to cover it next winter and see what happens.

In My Home:
Thanksgiving decorations are out, and the cats are extremely hopped up on nip at the moment.  A year or so ago, when we went to Kansas City, I picked up a catnip-stuffed mouse for the cats from a store called Gatos.  The cats loved it.  One of my cats loves this mouse so much she hauls it around all the time and will sit for hours with it between her paws.  Ergo, this mouse is called "Boyfriend Mouse."  Boyfriend Mouse, however, has been looking kind of sad lately, so I got on the Interwebz and hunted down more.  This time, I ordered three.  They arrived today.  That's a lot of happy cat lolling around my living room right now.

The kids are upstairs.  Doodlebug is finishing up school, and Boo is bugging him so he can't focus.  She just requested a sinus rinse because she couldn't breathe.  How they can tolerate those things, I'll never know, but they swear they help.  The drowned-rat feeling deters me.

In My Kitchen:
Turkey pot pie is on the menu tonight.  Over the weekend the kids and I made sticky buns, and because I can't read a recipe, I made two pans instead of three… but with the same amount of dough.  Because of that, they're obscenely gooey… and I had to put some of the dough in individual pie tins just because there wasn't room.  Next time I'll know better.  Later this week I'm going to try some new recipes like beer brat chili and jalapeño cream cheese Philly cheesesteak sliders.  (If you can't see those recipes, I apologize… some of them may be exclusive to Taste of Home magazine subscribers.  I would be happy to e-mail them to you if you're interested, though!)

Crafty Stuff:
I've started a new, giant project.  It's a cross-stitch project for Doodlebug's room.  He wants to redecorate, and now that he's stopped demolishing furniture and scratching tic-tac-toe symbols into the walls, I'm considering it.  He wants a gray/black color scheme - black Ikea furniture, gray walls - and wants this to hang on his wall.  I'm taking bets on when I'll be finished with it.  I've had people suggest time frames everywhere from February (uh… no) to "about the time [Doodlebug's] finished with high school."  That's probably a closer approximation.  I've finished two colors and have started on the third… not that that means much.  I think it'll probably take me till summer to complete, depending on how often I actually sit down and work on it.

In Our Homeschool:
We're about halfway done with our school year.  We'll take next week off for Thanksgiving, and the week we come back will be our second interest week.  Boo has decided she wants to study food; Doodlebug hasn't chosen a topic yet.  We're studying worms in science this week, the New Kingdom of Egypt (i.e. King Tut) in history, and I uploaded Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) onto the computer today.  That turned out to be an epic journey.  I already had Rosetta Stone German on the computer, so I just added the Spanish to it… but when I went to register the curriculum, it didn't give me the option to add the homeschool code.  It just asked me for an 'upgrade' code and then wouldn't accept the homeschool code that I had.  I wound up calling and talking to a very patient (and fairly clear-spoken) tech support guy from India.  It took him a bit before he worked out that the version of Rosetta Stone I already had on the computer (Totale, or version 4) was too advanced for the homeschool curriculum that they still sell (version 3).  So now I have two versions of Rosetta Stone.  *shrug*  Technology.  Not really my gig.

In Our Lives:
The kids are fighting now.  I swear that's all they do.  They can't even pour bowls of breakfast cereal without sniping at one another.  We're still using the respect jar - actually just went out last night for their reward for filling it - but it hasn't helped Doodlebug one bit.  One of my friends said today that her boys have been doing the same thing - sort of a male lion domination thing that her her dad calls "testosterone flashes" - and it's driving me crazy.  He has to be right EVERY time, and if he's not, he'll bully his sister or run his mouth to me and/or Oz until he gets himself in trouble.  That appointment with the counselor can't come quickly enough.  *insert virtual pause here* I just broke up the second fight between them.  Doodlebug wanted to play Monopoly and Boo agreed if she could be banker, which Doodlebug initially agreed to and then decided he thought it would be too hard for Boo.  He thought he was being nice; she was angry that he took the job away from her.  Had to side with her on this one and tell him that he needed to let her try and decide for herself whether it would be too hard or not.  She's perfectly capable of doing the math; she'll just be slower than he wants to deal with.  I'm sure that's where the rub comes in.  Ugh.  Time to bury myself in something else - cross-stitching or dinner.

How are things in your neck of the woods?

House Elves Are Real (and Living in my Bedroom Ceiling)

We've been in our house for more than a year now.  We've celebrated two of Doodlebug's birthdays here, two Halloweens; we're setting up to host our first family holiday dinner at Thanksgiving. (Have I mentioned I don't mind Thanksgiving?  I don't love it, but I don't hate it.  It's far better than the commercial hoopla of Christmas that turns me into the Annual Christmas Grinch, but never mind... I won't go there right now.)  We're technically inside city limits, but between the creek and the actual location of our house on the outskirts of town, we do get wildlife.  We'd been here only a few months when we saw our first opossum, and the kids have sighted rabbits, turtles, frogs, lizards, bats, and snakes.  I'm sure there are raccoons and skunks, too - raccoons for certain, because we have crawfish and perch in the creek, and raccoons love to eat crawfish and small fish for dinner.  Just because I haven't seen them doesn't mean they aren't there.

This spring we hosted a family of birds in our roof.  It wasn't a voluntary thing on our part, but they nested, raised their babies, and left.  We've tried plugging the holes, but I still see them flitting about. 

A month or two ago, I noticed that the cats would seem particularly agitated right around bedtime - midnight-ish in our abode, at least for the adult denizens.  Vixen, our fluffy gray genie-pants of a cat, was especially keen on staring at certain corners of the bathroom.  She would dash from the corner of the jetted tub to my vanity at the opposite end of the bathroom and stare intently upward, tail twitching, as if something was roosting in the corners that only she could see.  Oz and I could never hear (or see) anything, so we just decided it was a case of the night crazies and laughed at the antics.  Over time, when Vixen would start dashing about, I would joke that she was chasing the house elves.

Then Tempest, our not-so-fluffy-but-also-gray matriarchal feline, joined in.  Hm.  Then Kuro, aka Beasticat, aka Fatty Boomsticks, ran into the bedroom one evening, and there were three cats all staring simultaneously at various points in the ceiling, their heads turning in unison as the noises jumped from place to place.

That was a bit much.  I listened hard, and I heard it.  A faint scratching.  Very faint.  Oz couldn't hear it.  When he did hear it a few nights later, he thought it sounded like birds.  I'd never heard birds moving about at midnight before, and so I disagreed with his assumption.  I still do.  The noises don't happen every night, but when they do happen, the cats alert us with their perked ears and upturned faces.  Oz has poked around in the attic a few times but finds absolutely nothing up there... except insulation that would muffle the sounds of most creatures.  So who knows.  For now, I'm just convinced that the house elves have their room right above mine.  Any time they want to come down and start doing the cooking and cleaning and everything else that I thought house elves are supposed to do, I'm okay with that!

And if it isn't house elves... well, let's just say it better not die up there.  I don't mind the noises.  I do mind the smell of decomp.  There are some parts of nature that I don't care to deal with, and Eau de Death is one of them.

Any thoughts on what it might actually be?  And how to get rid of it?  Enlighten me!

Suddenly, Manual Labor!

Just when you find yourself wondering where on earth you can find manual labor for your child to do, The Awesome Husband will take that opportunity to dig, line, and otherwise build a fire pit, and there's plenty of manual labor for a child to do during that project!  Hauling logs, backfilling holes and hauling away extra sand, fetching tools and putting them away - all are jobs that will get morose, electronics-driven boys moving if there's a promise of fire at the end.

As for me, I got to sit down by the fire after it was built and warm my bare tootsies.

I am one happy mama.

Inspiration in Adulthood is NOT the Same as That of Childhood

Yesterday I found inspiration in the Facebook status update of a friend.  It read, in part, "Just purged the upstairs playroom, craft room, and the girls bathroom.  I threw away a whole bag of junk."

It occurred to me as I read this that I'd been unhappy with my upstairs closets since we moved in.  I had instantly unpacked the visible stuff, of course, and the general contents of the closets were acceptable, but when it had come to actually unpacking and arranging everything that was tucked away out of sight, that process... had never happened.  It had fallen by the wayside.  In the back of my mind (and in the forefront of my mind every time I opened the closet doors), I knew there were candles I'd never burn again, decorations the kids no longer wanted, pictures that will never be hung on the walls of this house, and just a bunch of stuff that, in general, doesn't need to be here.  The kids' game room closet was in similar shape.

I don't have any 'before' pictures because, really, I don't know anyone who takes pictures of their closets (except that I really do intend to take pictures of the contents of everything in the house one day, just in case, for insurance purposes, because I'm actually paranoid like that), but I do have a couple of 'after' images.

The carnage of empty boxes, trash box, and giveaway/sale items 

All purdy.  It won't stay like that, but for now, all purdy

The kids are working hard on the game room closet.  It's in even more appalling shape than my closets because A) they're kids and B) I told them that as long as the door closed and things were relatively tidy, I wouldn't gripe at them.  But they're making progress.  They're discovering playing cards that they thought were long gone, puzzle pieces they thought they'd never see again, and various unidentifiable items that I'm just not even asking about.  Ostrich Syndrome.  Part of me wants to sneak up and take a picture of them working, but I'm finally ensconced on my couch with a sense of accomplishment and a stomach full of FreeBird and have no desire to move.

All I know is that we're going to make a massive donation to Goodwill soon.  It feels so good to get everything cleaned out and rearranged into 'final' places.  I did the same to a couple of kitchen drawers a couple of weeks ago and that felt good, too.  I never, ever would have felt this way when I was a kid (I'm sure my kids are mentally cursing my name upstairs), but sometimes being an adult means taking pleasure in the little things.  Like clean closets.

Craftiness

I am not a crafty person.  Even when I look at most things on Pinterest, I think to myself, "But WHY would you want to do that when you can just... not?"  However, I've been in a serious funk lately (I know this because I've been buying shoes and haven't been cleaning the house.  These are not normal Sarah things.  Personality changes indicate a problem.  I know that because I watch 'Perception' on TV and it says so).  Suddenly the idea of sprucing up M2's bedroom walls became a manageable one.  I poked around on Pinterest a bit and found two ideas - making a letter chain of M2's name and making fabric-covered cork pinboards.  Feel free to click on the links and follow them through to their more thorough directions, but I'll give you a brief, simple overview of each project here.

The first project we did was the letter one.

We started with supplies, of course:  wooden letters, scrapbooking paper, ribbon, Mod Podge, a foam paintbrush, and a craft knife and self-healing cutting board (I like the 'self-healing' part.  It amuses me).  Oh, and M2 also found some cute flowers that she wanted to add to each letter.

I traced around the edge of each letter (oh, before I go any further, notice the hole in the M?  I had Oz drill a little 1/4" hole that so that I could tie the letters together with ribbon more easily.  Didn't have to do it on every letter, just the ones that didn't have good ways to tie them) and left some extra room around the edge for cutting error.  I did NOT left wiggle room the first time and, well, let's just say it was a good thing the paper was more than twice the size of the letter.

Trial and error are excellent teachers.  But I got the hang of it.  M2 hung around and directed me regarding which letter went on which paper as well as where on the paper she wanted it to go.

She also wanted to do some of the work, so I set her up with the Mod Podge.

She glued the paper onto each letter...

... and once they were dry, she gave each letter another topcoat so it would be a bit glossy.  We let them dry, glued on the flowers, and I tied them with the ribbon.

She and I both thought they came out beautifully!

Our second project was the fabric-covered pinboards.

I let her paint the hoops with tempera paint - any color she wanted.  She has one pink hoop, one lilac one, and one... well, you can see it in the middle there.  It's multi-colored and very, very M2.

Next I traced the inside of the hoops and cut out the circles with my handy-dandy craft knife.  I did the same with the cork liner I'd bought then peeled the sticky back off of the cork and stuck the two circles together.

Then I shoved it all into the hoop.  Voila!  After that it was only a matter of covering them with the fabric that M2 had selected, putting on the outer hoop, stretching the fabric, and tacking it to the back.

M2 is delighted that her walls now have more decorations on them.  We popped into Mardel this afternoon and picked up some big metallic push pins so she can already put her boards to use.  The girl is one happy little being.  Even she said so... specifically, she said, "Mom, I feel so spoiled!"

It's a good thing, because I think I hit my crafting limit for the year.

It's Amazing What Paint Can Do

M1 is at away camp this week.  I dropped him off yesterday and won't see him again till Saturday.  It is a weird feeling.  M2 has day camp this week as well.  It's five hours a day, and it's five minutes away from my house.

Hear the angels singing?  I do.

When we moved in last year, we liked the color of most of the rooms in our house.  The one room that really stuck out to me (well, other than the master suite) as needing a good paint job was the school room.  Today, I painted it.

Before

After

Before

After

One more 'after' for good measure

As Oz said this evening, "It's a much more cheerful room."  It still needs new curtains, but I'm ready to see M1's reaction... and get back in there and TEACH!

Fire Drill

Ever wonder what sorts of regulation hoops schools have to jump through just to be able to education your kids for a single day?

I do, sometimes.  I know they have tons and tons of paperwork to fill out, everything from the nutritional to the educational.  And I know that they have to do drills - tornado drills, lockdown drills (those bug me the most, I think, because I didn't have to do them for most of my educational career), and yes, of course, fire drills.

But how many of us have done fire drills with our kids?

I've done a few over the years, but only at our old house.  We haven't done any at the new house, though I have purchased extendable ladders that the kids can use from their bedrooms on the second floor.  What good do they do, though, if the kids don't know how to use them, if we haven't practiced?  Anybody would be freaked out climbing down a rickety-feeling ladder in the best of situations, let alone when there's a fire raging in your home.

Tonight as Oz and I were sitting in the living room watching TV, the sound of sirens - LOTS of sirens - came cutting through the noise.  At first I thought it was just the TV, since I wasn't really paying attention, but then Oz asked me, "What do you think it is?"

"Huh?"  I asked, looking at the TV for reference.

"The TV is muted," he informed me.  "Those are REAL."

He stepped onto the back porch, then came back inside.  "You have to see," he said.

I came to look.  From our back porch, we could see a red glow in the sky.  It wasn't far away, either... in fact, it seemed to be coming from two houses away - not the house behind us, but the house across the street from it.  And it was getting bigger.  We could hear the fire snapping and crackling even though it was raining.  We saw a police car block the street and multiple fire trucks come past to hook up to hydrants nearby.  We couldn't see flames, but the glow was ominous, and the fire got bigger before it got smaller; at one point, we could see sparks and large clouds of smoke.

I feel awful for the family that lives there.  I don't know who they are, but does it matter?  Thankfully, when I read the news story, I discovered that they did all make it out safely, but it reminded me that I need to do fire drills with the kids.  Just because they knew what to do before doesn't mean they know what to do now, and sometimes, just sometimes, the schools have it right.  An ounce of prevention is indeed a pound of cure.

The New Digs

My day has been rather surreal.  Life-changing days always are, aren't they?  Getting married was surreal.  Giving birth (both times) was surreal.  Buying our first house was surreal.  Today just adds to the list of days that I'll look back at and think, "How could it be such a momentous day?  Nothing particularly special happened!"

My mother-in-law agreed to watch my munchkins this morning while Oz and I visited our soon-to-be home and did the final walkthrough.  From there we went to the closing company and signed all the paperwork.  ALL the paperwork.  We were out in less than 45 minutes.  We came back to home (heretofore known as The Old House, or TOH) to let everyone know, then hauled the kids, a bunch of boxes, and my mother-in-law to see our purchase (heretofore known as The New House, or TNH).

I've avoided putting up pictures before now largely because I'm uber-paranoid and have a more-than-is-probably-healthy fear of jinxing myself but also because those photos would have been someone else's and I try to avoid copyright issues.  It's a respect thing.

So here are MY photos of TNH... sans furniture, of course.  Those will come later:

The front

The kitchen (the door on the right is the pantry)

Look!  Oz will have an office instead of working from the laundry room!

The living room... WITH a fireplace :)

The game room upstairs

This is going to be the school room... more pictures after it's all set up!

M1's room

M2's room, complete with...

Her own vanity that connects to the upstairs bath

So that's the house in a photographic nutshell.  We filled our van twice today and brought over a fair amount of stuff... boxes of books, extra clothes, bathroom essentials and some kitchenware that I won't need between now and this weekend.  Tomorrow we're going to get a small U-Haul and empty out our storage unit and bring over as much small furniture as the van will hold, provided none of us collapse from the heat.

The kids are absolutely fascinated with the place, even more so now that it's actually ours, and I've already seen neighbor kids stalking the house to see whether our kids might fit their particular gender/age demographic.  It's a big change from living in the country where there are literally no other kids their age anywhere on the street... and you couldn't walk to their houses safely if you wanted!

Thanks to everyone who has put up with all the posts about the house over the past six months.  The journey is almost over, and I, for one, am very glad.

Things That Make You Go AWWWWW...

When we decided to put the house on the market, Oz, the kids and I went up to a nearby greenhouse to pick out a hanging plant for our front porch.  We liked several baskets, but in the end I settled on some beautiful pink double impatiens.  We hung them up, and for a while they did great.  

At this point, though, due to time, the length of the plant roots, and the heat, the whole thing needs to be repotted.

I'm not going to do it.  And when we move, the plant will stay.

Why?

This was the view inside our plant a few weeks ago.  Three perfect little eggs in a perfect little house finch nest.

A week after that, there were five eggs.

Earlier this week, Oz went to check and found this:

The little baby thought Oz was Mama Bird that had come back with food.  I love having the babies on our front porch!  I'm going to miss them dreadfully when we go, though, because I won't get to see them fledge.

Still... photos are better than nothing.  Be safe and grow strong, Little Ones!

Home, Sweet... Oh, Wait

On June 21 (my darling Oz looked it up because I thought it was July - his memory is far better than mine for these details), he and I had officially lived in this house for 10 years.  When we moved in, I was 6 months pregnant with M1.  I thought it was miserable when we moved because it was 90-something and humid outside.

I'm very glad I'm not pregnant this time.  Not sure my system would take the strain under 100+ degree heat.

Anyway, we've been totally content in this house for the last decade.  It's met our needs well, and it's been a beautiful home in which to live.  We took out some gardens and put in others.  We added fences and subtracted trees.  We remodeled the bathroom entirely and updated the master bedroom, the hall, and the dining rooms.  The children have been happy here and we've created some fantastic memories.

Now, however, it is time to go.  We got an offer on our house last week.  It was lower than we wanted, but our realtor suggested that we counter-offer anyway.  We did, haggled back and forth a little, and finally settled on a mutually (mostly) acceptable price.  We will no longer own this house by the end of August.

As soon as we had our offer, our realtor told us that we would be "joined at the hip" until we found a place that WE wanted.  We checked out half a dozen homes over two days, found several that looked gorgeous in photos but weren't maintained at all, found two that we liked, and picked one.  We made an offer yesterday.  Haggle, haggle, haggle... we sign the final contract tomorrow.  We will own that home by the end of July or very early August, giving us several weeks to get in and settled.  (It does also mean that we'll have one month of paying two mortgage payments, which makes me slightly nauseous, but there are worse things in life, I suppose).

Our new house, assuming all goes well, will be twice the size of our current house.  Right now we have the following rooms:  Laundry room (doubles as an office), kitchen, dining room, living room (doubles as a school room), hall, three bedrooms, and the bathroom.  Our new house, again assuming all goes well because I really, really don't want to jinx anything here, will have a laundry room, an office, a kitchen with a casual dining area, a living area, a formal dining room, three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a school room which is actually a fourth bedroom but I need a school room more than a spare bedroom, and a game room.  I can't wait to take pictures.

The kids are of mixed minds about moving.  On the one hand, they're thrilled about all the new spaces and amenities that the new place will have; on the other, they're really going to miss this one.  I will, too.  We're going to talk about it a lot, take a lot of 'final' photos, and make sure they're part of the process every step of the way.

It's a big move.  Bittersweet.  But it's time.  Time for a new home, sweet home!

Stress

I do not deal well with insane amounts of stress.  And I'm pretty sure that having my house on the market is one of the most stressful things I've ever done, second only to giving birth to my son.  (I don't even remember the first three months of his life, with two significant exceptions [going out to eat one evening and bawling my eyes out while sitting on the ramp that leads up to our shed door because Oz ordered me to get out of the house and that was the only place I could think to go].)

Anyway, the house has been on the market nearly three weeks now.  We've had a few showings and we've seen several people stop in front of the house and call the number to hear the recording.  I'm hopeful that the couple that pulled into the driveway yesterday will call, because we actually talked to them a little bit about the place and they seemed enthusiastic, but we'll see.  I'm probably being overly optimistic.

Oz keeps reminding me that it's likely the house will be on the market for months and that we need to be in it for the long haul, but since I'm a SERIOUSLY Type A perfectionist, I can already see the toll that that is going to have on me.

For one, I've started picking mercilessly at my arms and upper chest.  I look like some sort of weird crack addict who uses her forearms and sternum instead of her elbow to shoot up and am giving serious thought to wearing long-sleeved turtlenecks all summer if I can't break this habit.  My eyebrows are suffering, too, from where I keep tugging at them.  Trichotillomania, anyone??

Two, I've been randomly breaking down at various intervals.  After the showing yesterday, we didn't hear back from the realtor until Oz texted her later in the evening, and between him texting her and her reply, my stomach was so upset that I wondered a few times if I was actually going to be ill.  After we finally heard back (the clients needed a larger kitchen and dining area, but they considered the place seriously and stayed a while, apparently), I broke down and cried just from the relief of knowing.  This came after frantically cleaning the house for a good chunk of the morning and a fair bit of the previous day, too.

The kids (and Oz... and if I'm honest, me) are tired of Mommy being all stressed out.  M2 keeps telling me to quit putting so much pressure on myself (that would be the pot calling the kettle black, but I do know she's right) and M1 gets to see the panicked, snippy side of me more often than usual.  Oz is a rock and tries to talk me down, but it's pretty much useless.

I hate that having the house on the market is having such a negative impact on me and, by default, my family.  I really do.  I wish that I could just let things go and have some faith that things will all work out eventually, like Oz does.  But I'm also starting to think that someone just needs to pass the me the Xanax until it's all over.  At this point, I'd take not caring about anything for a while.  It sounds like a lovely break.

For Sale

There is a sign in front of our house.  It is officially on the market.  Before, I was nervous about getting it clean for pictures.  Now I'm nervous about keeping it clean for people.

FINGERS CROSSED!

Ahhhh...

The week is finally over!  I honestly wondered if it would never end.  I have to hand it to my darling hubby - he is truly the only reason that I made it through this week with any semblance of sanity intact.  He brought me drinks when he felt I needed them, gave me breaks when he could, and basically kept telling me, "WE CAN DO THIS."

And we have.  Today he patched the carpet in the hall, and we finished the last of the exterior work.  All we have to do now - literally all we have to do, since we even put the final boxes and furniture pieces into storage - is clean the house.  The realtor is coming on Thursday.  By the end of that day, we'll have a sign in the front yard!

So now, instead of worrying about whether the house will ever make it ON the market, I get to worry about whether someone will want to buy it.  I'm not really stressing about that one, though.  I have hopes that our perfect buyer is out there.  And because I'm feeling optimistic this weekend, we've started browsing different areas and neighborhoods to see if OUR perfect house is out there somewhere.

In between all the house stuff, we've still had plenty of stuff happening with the kids and school.  M2 had a field trip this last week, and she and her classmates had a blast.  I drove - M2 and three other giggly little first-grade girls makes for a fun, if somewhat loud trip - and it was so much fun watching the kids run around.  M2 performed in a talent show on Thursday at the school, too.  It was beautiful to watch her bask in all the applause and shouts of her fellow students.  Since she has another performance tomorrow, she really needed the first one to go well, and it did.  Perfect.

M1 has been doing well, too.  He's still swimming, and he's looking forward to several field trips in the upcoming month.  He's winding down the school year, having already reached his goals in a couple of subjects, but we still have some projects to do - make a piñata for Cinco de Mayo, make a Powerpoint presentation about any research topic he chooses, etc.  He knows about some of these but not others.  I can't wait to see how he reacts.

My sister sent me another thing that got me through to the end of the week:

The Bloggess' first book

That's right.  I have The Bloggess' book.  And yes, it really is that funny.  I got started on it Friday night, and by the time I got to page 30, Oz declared me "touched."  I told him I was not the one who wrote and published the book.  I don't think he cared, since at the time I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing so hard.

So even though I'm PMSing, worried about how I'm going to get it all done between now and Thursday, and really am completely exhausted, it's been a good, productive week.  And I have to thank my family for that.

And rum.  I can't forget rum. ;)

I Don't Have Time for a Birthday

Today is Monday.  Today is a Monday.  Interesting how one little article adjective can change the entire meaning of a sentence, isn't it?  And yes, today is very much A Monday.  I got up this morning - woke up would be too strong of a phrase since I'm not entirely sure I actually slept more than 30 minutes last night because the sheets kept getting warm and while I love warm sheets normally, last night my body desired the sheet temperature somewhere around freezing - and promptly started having a crappy day.  I got up late, for one thing, because I actually forgot that I was supposed to get up at 6:48 when my snooze alarm went off for the second time.

Coherent, I was not.

Anyway, once my feet did hit the floor, I had to strip all the beds (they have yet to be remade, with the exception of mine... which Oz did), make M2's lunch, feed both children, sort and start laundry, empty the dishwasher, and take M2 to school.  When we got out to the car, we discovered that the seats were still folded down from our trip to the storage unit yesterday.  So we had to put seats back in their regular upright positions before we could go anywhere.

M1 and I got back home, and I realized I was almost out of laundry detergent, so I had to start a new batch.  The school binder broke the second time M1 opened it this morning.  The front simply came off.  I know he wasn't yanking on it, so I blame manufacturer error.  If I had the time and inclination, I'd gripe about that, but for now, I'm just sending a large raspberry in its direction and letting it be.  Que sera sera and all that.

The contractors showed up this morning to work on the foundation of the house.  This is a positive, since it's the last big thing we have to do before listing the house (as long as you don't count cleaning, which is a ginormous task that I'm not even contemplating right now), but it does provide yet another distraction, especially since they're amusing me by repeatedly taking photos of the horses.

Did I mention that M1 has his head firmly lodged up his posterior sphincter today?  It took him an hour and a half just to do spelling.  It's 10 a.m. and he's finally gotten to math.  I'm thinking there may be subjects dropped today just to preserve the collective sanity.

So that's today.  So far.  And this entire week has a schedule that would make me crazy at the best of times, and clearly this is NOT the best of times.  M2 has a field trip out of town one day, followed by a 2.5-hour dress rehearsal after school (which I'm not allowed to attend) for a talent show that takes place on the following day.  She has a violin lesson as usual, but she also has a rehearsal on Saturday for a performance on Sunday.  All this means she's incredibly burned out, and I can't blame her.  M1 and I had short-lived viruses over the weekend, and his has turned into some sort of sinus infection.  I need to do a sinus rinse with him and see if that fixes things, because I do not have time to take him to the doctor.

I also don't have time for my birthday.  Theoretically this should be tomorrow.  But since I don't have time to do anything, my good friend C has proposed that I postpone my birthday a week and stay 29 for a few extra days until her husband is back in town to watch the kids and we can go out.  Besides anything else, she said, it'll give me something to look forward to.

I really like her logic.  Because next week will be better.  It's gotta be.  So that's when I'll have my birthday, and hopefully we'll also get to list the house!

Spring Busy-ness

I haven't really had too many chances to get on here and post lately; I've just been busy.  But I wanted to get on and immortalize some of the best times from the past few weeks.

M1 has discovered a love of model making.  He's graduated from models that snap together to models that glue together, and he's thrilled about it.  He loves the painting and the putting together of pieces, and I can't wait to see what the final product looks like.

The kids had two weeks of Spring Break.  The first week was sunny and brilliant, and we spent a lot of time outside.  The second week, though - the week that all the public schools were on break - was rainy.  And that was brilliant, too, because we went to an almost-vacant zoo on a misty day, and I let the kids puddle-duck on a rainy day.  They loved it.

M2 turned 7 at the end of the break...

... and she had a wonderful party at a local pottery painting place.

She doesn't look 7.  It's scary how fast they grow.

This past weekend, the Easter Bunny paid our house a visit.

M1 knows that Mom is involved in most of these sorts of gigs, but he can't for the life of him work out who might be involved here.  (On a completely unrelated note, my sister works for a costuming and drama department at a college in another city.)

The kids always love hunting for eggs...

... and they got to have TWO hunts this year, one at home and one at Granddad's house with their cousins (step-cousins? How do you relate your step-sibling's kids to your kids?)

Mostly, though, we've been doing a lot of this.  Working.  Plugging away.  The kitchen has been completely repainted, and we're waiting on the contractor to get a date set to come do the foundation piers and leveling.  The kids and I did some painting on the exterior of the house today.  I need to steam clean the carpets, Oz has to repair a couple of floor pieces, and once all these things are done... THAT'S IT.  Other than cleaning like my life depends on it.  The end is in sight, though.  I'd love to get the house listed next week!

Fingers crossed.  It's been an eventful spring! :)

I Mowed the Lawn Today

We're still working on the house.  Some days it seems like the end is nowhere near as close as it was just a few weeks ago, but I know we're making progress.  We just have some fairly big projects right here at the end.  The house has to be painted.  We have to level the foundation.  We have to paint the kitchen, repair the carpet in the hall, and clean like our lives depend on it.  That's really all that has to be done before we put the house on the market; it just seems like everything is taking forever.

My perspective may be a bit skewed.

Anyway, since Oz was busy powerwashing and painting trim and working on other bits and pieces around the exterior of the house, I volunteered to mow the lawn.  I haven't mowed the lawn in forever.  We have a riding lawn mower, so it's not a tough job, and I love to mow.  I just haven't done it.  This is usually because either Oz or I has to keep an eye on the offspring while we're mowing because if you look up the word shenanigans in the dictionary, you'll see a photo of my children nearby.  They are imps.  However, M1 was in a particularly benevolent mood today because I promised him that he could have some time on his Kindle if he behaved.  And he didn't want to do anything to screw that up, because it's been nearly a month since he's had any real electronics time (again, see shenanigans, especially those carried out at 3 a.m.).

Oz got the mower out of the shed, and I set to work.  It takes about an hour to mow our entire lawn because of obstacles like trees and a wishing well and a garden plot, and that hour can be incredibly therapeutic.  While I sat there and baked in the sun (my summer tan is slightly evident after today's work), I could think about things.  I don't even remember what I thought about.  I waved to the neighbor who was coming back from a horseback ride.  I waved to our horse lady who was coming back from a different ride.  I'm pretty sure I was singing to myself at one point, something I did all the time back when I was 14 or 15 and mowing was my job.  The one thing I did NOT do was worry about the kids.

And you know what?  That was therapeutic, too.  It's nice to be back in the saddle... er, lawn mower seat.  Oh, whatever.  I may have to do this more often.

And Then I Checked the Mail...

It's a good thing that it's Spring Break.  I have too much going on to be teaching school this week!

I mentioned that the real estate agent had come by and given us a list of things to do, including have someone out to look at the foundation.  The inspector showed up last week and subsequently sent us a report saying that we need to have extra piers added to the back of the house.  This is problematic for two reasons:
     1.  We're not sure that's really what needs to be done. Quite frankly, Oz and I question the entire report because it says that he checked the structural beams in the attic, and we know for a fact that he didn't open a single attic access point (there are three in the house).  I dunno, maybe he can do that from the exterior.  Not sure about any of it.  But we shall see.
     2.  We have a septic tank that is buried not too far from where the piers are meant to be added.  This means that heavy machinery and tons of digging aren't even a remote option in that area.

So there's that, which is frustrating, but there has been plenty of good happening around here, too.  Oz and I got a weekend to ourselves while the kids were at my mom's.  We met friends for dinner both Friday and Saturday nights and got half of the laundry room painted.  On Sunday we volunteered at a 5K race since Oz's company was a sponsor.  We served free green beer.  We had the popular booth, as you can imagine, and my hands were green for days afterward.  The kids got long overdue haircuts this morning.  I took more stuff to storage and a giant box of clothes to Goodwill.  We met friends at the park on Monday, and M1 got to meet a boy his size and one year older.  They got along splendidly.  I'm sure we'll see them again soon.  M2 got her own library card.  We even went to the DMV and were pleasantly surprised to discover NO LINE.  We were the only customers in there.

The heavens rejoiced.

M2 also got a new violin:

It's a half-size.  She'll have been playing violin for three years this summer, and this is her fourth instrument.  I'm grateful that we have a shop in town that believes in quality instruments AND in giving lots of credit for instruments that come back in good shape.  This time around, we actually saved some money over renting because she used the instrument for almost a year!  I'm hopeful that her 1/2-size violin will last her quite a while.  If only she'd quit growing.

M1 needs to quit growing, too.  We had an allergy appointment yesterday, and they measured his height.  He's grown nearly two inches since he was last measured a couple months ago, and I know he's not done yet.  I know this because he's eating like a horse.  Yesterday for lunch he ate three corn dogs, steamed peas, yogurt, and two clementines.  Then he sacked out in the car on the way to swim.  After swim, he insisted he was starving again, so I took him to Sonic and he ordered an entire meal.  And ate it.  And yes, he did eat dinner, too.  Today I took them to a local burger joint for lunch and ordered him a double cheeseburger.  The teen behind the counter gave me a skeptical look.  "You know that's a whole half pound of meat."  "Yes," I said, "and have you ever seen him eat??"  He polished off the burger as well as most of his large fry order but did concede that he probably wouldn't be hungry until dinner.  Oh, and speaking of the allergy appointment, we found out that M1 only has a couple more months of injections left before he hits his maintenance dose.  That thrilled him, since the thicker serum has really been bugging him lately.

So all of this has happened just since Friday.  And yesterday, since Oz wasn't coming home until late, I checked the mail.  

I shouldn't have done that.

I received a jury duty summons.  For the one Monday in April that M2 is out of school.  I sent the form back requesting excusal on the basis that I am M1's primary educator, but I'm not holding my breath.  I will probably have to suck it up and go in.  I just hope I don't have to sit on a jury, because I really, really do not know what I would do about the kids.  Tuesdays mean allergy shots, swim lessons, and violin lessons as well as school, and Thursdays aren't much better, and there really isn't anyone else who can teach the boy-o if I'm out of touch.  I understand that jury duty really isn't convenient for anyone, but still.  We'll see about that, too.  I sure as heck don't have time to worry about it this week - there's too much going on for that!

So...

So...

... the cat, Pepe, has gone to Never-Never Land for felines.  The Great Catnip Patch in the sky.  Whatever you want to call it.  I was there with him through the entire process, and the vet agreed that it was time.  His body temperature was low, signifying that he was shutting down already, and he'd lost 2 lbs. in two months, which is a lot for any cat, let alone one that was only 6.1 lbs. to begin with.  I am at peace with this.  It was sad, but he is not hurting any more.

... Oz and I busted our humps this weekend to get stuff done around the house.  We cleaned, decluttered, and otherwise worked our tail ends off for the realtor to come today.  I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at the list she gave us of things we still need to do, but I think that is because I'm still coming down from a weekend of work.  The list really isn't all that long.  We need to patch the carpet in a couple of spots where the cats have clawed it, we need to touch up paint in a couple of rooms and fully paint a couple more (including the laundry room, which had nearly been on my to-do list already), and we need to get someone out to look at the foundation.  Other than that, we just have to finish cleaning (steam clean the carpets, scrub the light fixtures, etc.) and decluttering.  So it's not a horribly long list.  It only seems like it.  Still, I wish I felt a bigger sense of accomplishment.  Selling a house is stressful.  I want it to be done already.  I'm quite sure I'll have several good cry-fests before it's all over with.  And hopefully I'll never have to do it again. :P

... the kids are going to visit my mom this weekend.  It's been so long since they've spent the night anywhere but at home that I'm almost giddy at the prospect.  Of course, Oz and I are talking about doing the aforementioned painting this weekend, but who knows.  It's very tempting to be lazy.

... M2's school has a lice breakout.  Two kids were apparently sent home today.  The school receptionist/nurse gave everyone else the all-clear, but I'm paranoid now.  Part of me wants to keep M2 home for the rest of the week on principle.  She has Friday off anyway since that's the start of Spring Break.  This is tempting, too.

... it is March.  Since when did 2012 get permission to go by as quickly as 2011?  I don't like this.  Nobody asked me.