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1. I watched a good portion of the Princess Diana memorial service this morning on BBC World. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Prince Harry is definitely the hot one. And I wish I had more occasions to wear a hat. Nobody rocks hats like the British.

2. Jillian is not quite walking yet, but we’re in no rush. She has a couple of toys that function as walkers and she’ll truck around behind them, but no actual walking yet. Thank GOD. Her balance is getting better, too - we’ve had fewer headsmash bruises these past two weeks. Of course, I’ve just jinxed us and she’ll find a way to give herself a black eye today.

3. Our house is well on its way to being sold! We are out of attorney review and are just waiting for Chuck to get the inspection and his financing in order then we are going to be handing the keys over! AIEEE!

4. As for our house-buying adventure, we’re still hashing out some things on the contract. There are some issues with some wording in the contract regarding “cosmetic defects” which we are taking to mean the siding in the back that has been scratched up by the seller’s two humungous dogs. We’ll try to get them to give us a credit or we’ll have to decide if we can live with it for now. But the whole thing seems to be progressing well enough, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be installed in the new place by the end of September.

5. To that end, we have to start packing. After all, come October 1 we’re going to be moving SOMEWHERE, whether it’s to this new house, or a different house or a hotel or a homeless shelter, so we have to pack. We have waaaaaaay too much shit. Luckily, one of our friends is opening up her house to have a huge yard sale, so maybe we’ll be able to unload some of our crap there. And there’s always Ebay.

6. The job search is coming along. In addition to having the staffing agency look for something, I am also digging around to see if there’s anything else out there that looks promising. My one obstacle is that I cannot do a job that requires me to be on the phone, so that kind of limits me. Sigh. In the meantime, I’m going to start putting together a business plan that will help me get set up to work from home. I’m not sure how it’s all going to shake out just yet, but with some work and some hustle, I might be able to get something off the ground here.

7. I hate the Today show. I think watching it makes me stupider, and god knows I need little help with that. The other morning shows are just as bad if not worse, so we watch Sesame Street instead.

8. Once we get all the house stuff worked out, I’m going to have an actual backyard! I’ll be able to have a real garden! I might have exorcised my brown thumb demons once and for all, since I have managed to keep all my plants alive all summer. I have even been able to eat the peppers and tomatoes I grew, so I have a great deal of hope that I will be able to manage an actual garden. So I need some kind of Gardening Bible, that tells me what to plant and when and what kind of soil and all that stuff. I might even give roses a try, since the rosebush I inherited here actually came back to life. The previous owners of this house probably attempted to take it with them and they hacked the hell out of it. Eventually, it [sorta] grew back under my Benign Neglect regime and actually produced actual flowers that were quickly eaten by the Japanese beetles. So I’m thinking that if I get a rosebush and actually pay attention to it, I might be able to have some pretty, pretty flowers in my garden.

9. The Mets are pissing me off. I can’t believe they got swept by Philly. And yesterday’s game was just stupid. What happened to our relief pitchers? Let’s hope the Atlanta series goes a bit better or we’re fucked.

10. Last weekend we went to the track because they were having a crab cake cookoff. I love me some crab cakes, so we loaded up the family truckster and headed down the shore. It also happened to be Free Chair day, so we got our free little folding chair thingies. They give you a voucher at the gate and then you have to go over to a booth to claim your free chair. While we were standing there, a woman came up and complained that the chair she was given had dirt on the cover. I was like “um, it’s free, lady. Shut it.” God, what a bitch. Even the poor lady in the booth was all “um, what do you want me to do? They’re all pretty dusty.”

10a. I won $31 on the horse that I picked. I suppose I could take some time and learn how to read the racing form and then make a decision based on the horse’s previous stats and stuff, but I pick my horses by name. I usually do pretty well, considering.

11. Go Rutgers!

Hilly Kristal has died at age 75. He’s now the lord and master of the foulest bathrooms in heaven, I’m sure.

Phooey.

A very excellent potential opportunity has come to my attention, so if you pray or offer good thoughts to the universe in some other way, can you spare a few for me today?

One of the best things about looking for a house to buy is the fact that we get to walk through other people’s houses. I’m a voyeur like that, in that I like to look in people’s windows as we drive around in the evening. Not because I want to see them naked (most people are not good looking clothed, much less naked, and besides, looking at naked people is easier on teh Internet, which is why it was invented).

Over the past few weeks, we have walked through around 10 different houses. They have ranged from empty but nice enough to “HOLY GOD, what the hell is this?”

The layouts are the most problematic, since I can always paint. Some houses are intelligently laid out, like the two split-levels that we wanted to make and offer for. The first one had already accepted an offer and the second one was offended by our lowball offer so much (so it would seem), that their realtor told ours “It’s obvious your clients can’t afford this house.”

Whatever, jackass.

But for the most part, the houses are put together in some logical fashion, except the one, which had a full bathroom off the living room (?), and the one where you have to walk through a bedroom to get to the Danger Stairs (steep!), and the one we saw today that had three bedrooms and one bathroom. Which was off of the kitchen.

?

So you’d have to go through the kitchen, through the living room, and then up the stairs? What if you’re having company? Yikes. Plus, the only way to get to the back yard was through the neighbor’s driveway (past their turquiose El Camino, yikes).

The second house we saw today seems like it might be a good fit. We will spend this evening discussing it and the possibilities, then we’ll probably put an offer in tomorrow, if possible. It’s a cute house, right around the block from the one that we “couldn’t afford” and it’s really really cute.

Lots of possibilites, while still being livable. We saw a few houses that had possibilities, but we couldn’t have lived there in their current state. Like the one with NO cupboards in the kitchen. Where would I put all my gadgets? That one was haunted anyway, but that doesn’t bother me. Lack of counter space DOES.

Today’s house has a brand-new kitchen. It’s really sexy, with nice granite work surfaces, new cabinets, and a new double-oven range. Sweet. I could really get my chef on in there. The bedrooms are on the small side, but looking at possibilities, you could bash out the wall in the master bedroom and make it into something really special. It is a VERY cute house.

The challenge now will be to get Mr. Negative to see the house as it COULD be and to get over the small bedroom situation (like we spend that much time in there anyway). He needs to see what can be so he can get over what IS.

Part of his problem is that he is spoiled from living in this townhouse. Our kitchen is HUGE. Our bedroom is ridiculously huge. Much too big, in fact. Plus an en suite bathroom? That’s crazy. For the amount we’re willing to pay for a house, there is NO WAY we’re going to get the kind of space we have here. Sure, the overall square footage might be more, but the layout is going to eat up a lot of it.

So I have to gently steer him away from “it’s smaaaaaallllll” to “oooh, we could add on by a third!”

We shall see.

I’m a parent.

I’m an R.E.M. fan.

We watch Sesame Street.

R.E.M. is on Sesame Street right now.

Jillian is ROCKING OUT.

My work here is done.

Our offer was categorically denied. As in they won’t even negotiate with us denied. We know that this house is on the market because it’s part of an estate and needs to be sold, which leads us to believe that the crazy asking price is more or less set in stone for the seller.

Bitches.

But that’s okay. It’s just Not Our House. We’ll keep looking and in the meantime, that pushes back that sad, sad day when I will have to get an actual job.

It does get frustrating, though, looking at houses and not finding anything even remotely suitable in our price range. I find myself start to wonder just WHY we live in New Jersey. I’ve been VERY good this time around, though, and haven’t started looking at house prices in other areas. That’s the worst thing to do.

It’s long been established that I am a selfish whore. It’s all about ME ME ME all the time, which is why I have this website.

However, there is also my groovy little family. And we function as a unit, so it can’t be about ME ME ME all the time, no matter how much I would like it to be.

That’s why I called my staffing agency contact this morning to see about getting my fat ass a job. In a perfect world, they’ll stick me back in the company I was working for last year, in the same department or similar, so at least I will be with familiar faces and won’t have to start from scratch, which is pretty much the worst part of a new job.

I also called a daycare in the area where we hope to buy a house and have scheduled a tour/inspection of the place for noon today.

This prospect fills me with alarm. I DO NOT want to hand my precious baby over to strangers. Never mind the fact that this daycare wins awards and stuff all over the place. That does not interest me, since they are still strangers.

Plus, if I get a job, that means I’m going to have to shower every day (the HORROR), and put on pants that are: a) clean, b) not purple-and-green plaid, and c) not three sizes too big (or too small). SIGH.

But it looks like that’s going to be the way of it, at least for now. This working-from-home idea is great, but the pool of people wanting to do it is vastly larger than the pool of jobs available. And while I have all the skills necessary to be a great candidate for these kinds of jobs, without the opportunity to go in person and do the interpretive dance that goes with my CV, I can see how it can get lost in the avalanche of similar-looking resumes.

Yeah, I know, oh boo hoo, woe is me. Millions of moms head out to work every day and a large percentage of them don’t have a choice so yeah, I should suck it up. But. BUT. Sigh.

The upside to this deluge is that my plants are getting the love they need instead of me waiting for them to get all sad and droopy-looking.

The serious downside is that the blahs are trying to take over. I need to see some sunshine to help me deal with all the upheaval that we are about to experience. If I’m having trouble getting out of bed, it’s going to be doubly hard to get out of bed and get a recalcitrant pre-toddler together for daycare and THEN go out to a job. Ick.