It’s Been Awhile

Today seems calm so I am sitting, thinking (warning: only a little), and typing.  I decided I’d take time this morning to add to the blog even though I am sure it’s gonna be all over the place.  No real theme here.   

Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On is playing literally through my brain. 

So to maximize my impending fun, I made myself a huge mug of hot cocoa with many mini marshmallows and sat down at the computer just to have everything flicker and the power went off.  The luck!  But then it came back on, so here I am!

Yea!  Even if the hot cocoa isn’t really hot anymore.

It’s still liquid chocolate and that’s fine by me.

So, here it all is, in no particular order. 

l I got flowers last night!  I don’t know if he saw this or just brought them home to make up for something like, oh, I don’t know, maybe being consumed by work too much?, but they did help.  There was the yellow rose added in so, yes, I get the florist shop smell, in addition to the happy color of these crazy-dyed daisies.  If you can notice, the water turned purple.  That would not be your run of the mill everyday bouquet of flowers that does that.  : ) Anywho, I love them and the man who gave them to me. 

l We had all been so healthy for so long!  I knew it had to end sometime.  Caroline saw the doctor Monday and is now on medicine for an ear infection.  Then Sam started throwing up Monday evening and was feverish and that was really rough.  Today is his first day back to school so maybe that’s why today suddenly feels so calm. 

l These little mystery bits show up every morning on my counter top.  But maybe it’s not every morning?  I need to find if there is a pattern; is it from me making/packing lunches?  Or is that just when I notice them?  It’s a little piece of clear hard plastic that’s a 1/4 of an inch long and has a little barb on the end like it broke off from something bigger.  What is that??!  This has been going on for months and months and I never really gave it much thought but today I am.  I did warn you about that. 

l Here are the crazy monkeys before school today.  No one’s looking sick anymore, huh?  

l So, the house has been on the market for a month now.  We’ve had 13 showings, and our realtor has kindly weeded out many by cautioning them about the small size of the house before they actually come look at it, to save us the inconvenience.  That’s good since we typically go out for a meal when we have to vacate for a few hours and that gets pricey feeding six at a restaurant a few times a week.  We are so ready for an offer and may I add, a good offer.  Totally ready to move on!  

One funny story and an illustration of how weird some people apparently are:  One lady had a showing of our place while her husband was out of town.  She scheduled a second showing to bring him.  I was optimistic since it was our only second showing!  She must have really liked it!  So I pack up the kids, have the house spotless, pen up the dog and all that other pain in the butt stuff we have to do to get out of the house by 4:30 when half the kids are just getting off the bus at 4:20 and are starving and have homework, etc.  After all that, twice!, the realtor gave us feedback, that they decided they weren’t finding the house would work for them after all.  That’s fine.  I understand that.  BUT I kinda knew a little background of the couple and found he’s a surgeon and they currently live in an…what would you say, exclusive? neighborhood.  Here’s a little snapshot of a few of those homes where they live, ranging from 450K, 600K, to, yes, 993K. 

Yeah, just in case someone doesn’t know, K means thousand.

The realtor shared that while in our house the lady commented she didn’t know where she’d put her grand piano and “how disappointing we didn’t have a hearth room.”  I was left very confused considering she had been in before, knew its size, and yet had to bring her hubs in to see how small and inadequate this house would be for them.  Weird rich people.  Makes me wish I’d left a little bonus treat for her like the bathtub all grimy or a sack of stinkin’ rotten potatoes in the pantry instead of trying so hard. 

l I discovered this on one of our days off school when the neighbor kids were over to play.  Cracked me up:

Conteract

Promis to work with Joel, Lia, and Sam and fight Jack and Grant.  And do not steell anything.  Yes or No

(Full Name)

I can tell it was written by Sam and it wasn’t signed.  Was it meant for Caroline? 

l I am not ashamed to admit that I have given up on my ongoing New Year’s Resolution that I had not met with success despite trying for since Jan. 2011.  Before this past New Years’ Day, I told Gary that I’d decided to just not even try anymore.  I had put myself into it and gave it a good try for the past two years; really, I came so close!  I’d guess 90%.  But some things are just too hard and you have to admit that and move on.  So what if I don’t have Mexican food at least once a week?!  I am still a good person. 

Sidenote:  I did have this gigantic bowl of soup one night out for Mexican with Gary a couple of weeks ago.  I tried hard to get a picture of it since it was a comically huge serving, but I couldn’t quite capture the perspective.  This is a giant soup spoon and I do not have small hands, but still you can’t really tell how huge and deep this bowl is.  I ate for a long, long time and managed to eat half of it.  It was steak and bean with bacon and cilantro and so delicious.   

I don’t know, now it’s making me rethink the whole giving-up-so-easily.

l This is Sam last night.  Can you guess what he’s doing now on Wednesday nights?  Besides chatting with a cutie?

Smells Great Day

Earlier this week I was at the grocery store, AS USUAL, I swear. Well, they've finally finished the big remodel and moved the floral department to right at the front door. I walked in, breathed, and about fainted from the wonderful smell. It made me thisclose to buying myself flowers that day so that I could just bury my nose right in them until I feel asleep that night. But I resisted, because you know, they aren't free.

Then today I popped in the store again to buy five pounds of strawberries for the chocolate fountain at Sam's Valentines' party today (I know! That was not included in 2nd grade in the 70's) and there it was again, that intoxicating scent of fresh flowers. I inhaled once as deeply as I could and walked hard right past those beautiful bouquets so I could get on to the strawberries and away from the temptation.

So that's been my Valentines' Day so far.

Tonight Gary comes home from a work trip and we'll celebrate by taking the fam to Jack's band concert tonight.

Sa-weeet!

Happy V-day to all!

Ok, So Here’s What’s Up

We scrapped the build-on addition plan in January.  We found a different house we really fell for, had three visits there to make sure, and made an offer that was accepted.  So, now our house is for sale.  We’ve had eight showings in the ten days it’s been on the market. 

No one came the day of the Super Bowl or the Monday following.  Kinda interesting, I thought. 

As though our regular life wasn’t tumultuous enough, we throw this in. 

Keep the house looking spic and span.  Make sure it smells great.  Put away any evidence that a family of six actually lives there.  Lock up the dog.  Turn on all the lights.  Get out of the house quick and don’t come back until the coast is clear.

But today there are no showings.  I am home.  I can take a small break.  I thought that yesterday, though, and then got a message that someone was coming at 3.  This is usually what happens, although I will say we already knew on Monday about one for this Saturday.  That makes it a whole lot easier. 

It sounds like I’m complaining, but I am really relieved and excited that there is this much interest in our little farm.  Now, somebody make us an offer. 

Guess who got new shoes?

And it took less than hour this time. And he opened up to some color thank gah because have you seen all the current tennis shoes? Hello, neon!

He originally started looking only for all black and that resulted in the wide choice of one pair, and they looked really orthopedic. I was secretly so glad he passed on those when he thought they looked "too thick."

Here's Grant, the latest member of the Size 13 Club.

MovieMonday—Silver Linings Playbook

Hey, guess what?  We actually went to a movie yesterday!  “Went!”  As in pay at the movie theatre (except we had free tickets). AND we bought a large popcorn and a bucket of Coke to share and it was romantic and enjoyable.   I really can’t remember what the last movie was that we did that but it might have been Oceans 11?! 

2001. ?  Surely not.  But maybe?  It’s been a long time.

But we did go and we saw Silver Linings Playbook and both liked it.  I stayed wide awake! We were feeling like the youngsters in the theatre (the audience at 1:30pm on a Sunday was coming in with walkers and I am not kidding), and we both were expecting comedy. 

Whoa, it was not comedy.  

It had some moments to make you laugh, but mostly it was dramatic and uncomfortable but completely drew us in, bringing you the realization early on how not normal everyone really is, diagnosis or not. 

There’s some rough language (one foursome left the movie theatre) and a couple of violent scenes that made me cover the eyes, but it was such an unexpected story with a realistic look into another family’s home and the quirky characters and mental illness that, I don’t know, I just liked it.