Whew. What a busy couple of weeks it has been. And what a busy couple of weeks I have coming up! I feel like I’m completely out of the loop with all of my online activities. I’m behind on blog posting, blog reading (so, yes, I am neglecting you), and other stuff. It’s been busy.
For one thing, Jillian is walking. A lot. She walks more than she crawls now, so it’s only a matter of time before she starts the Toddler Running Thing and my reflexes will be put to the test. Thankfully, the house is all on one level now, so no step-down in the living room and no stairs that need to be gated off! All I have to do is gate off the kitchen, close the doors to the rest of the rooms in the house and Jillian is pretty safe. It remains to be seen if the house is safe from her, however.
The job search is still going on. I’m saying “no” to a lot more that I otherwise might, but this is because I don’t want to take just any old job and find out two weeks from now that it makes me want to kill myself. Or my boss. Or my co-workers. So I’m holding out for something that interests me in more ways than simply what it pays.
I’m not panicking, which is a nice change from my normal way of going on. We have enough cash to get us through the next couple of months, and that is very helpful knowledge. Of course, if I don’t find something by the first of the year, I will have to get a lot less picky, but for now, I am still looking. I also have some other things up my sleeve that may solve the employment problem nicely. But these ideas are not yet fully-formed, so they will stay up in my sleeve for the time being. Good thing I put deodorant on.
The move went very well. Jillian hung out with my mom while we did all the icky things like sign our names to loan documents for obscene amounts of money. My husband is a certified crazy person, so we got the bulk of the house unpacked in the first weekend. The only boxes that are left hold things like office supplies, and we don’t yet have anyplace to put them, so they can stay like that for now. We do have to empty out the storage unit, and I am not looking forward to that at all.
But we’re moved, and it’s starting to feel like home. I have to schedule carpet cleaning, because the previous owners had dogs and the office, especially, smells dog-tastic. And there are other things that need to be done here and there, but for the most part, we are comfortable. My only problem now is getting Freddie to calm down about all the work that needs to be done. We plan to be here for a number of years, so all the improvements he wants to make can be done over time. We’re not going anywhere.
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Out of touch
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Busy bees and butterflies
Here is a list of the things I have been doing for the past week:
1. Packing.
2. Moving.
3. Unpacking.
4. Watching my daughter walk.
5. Unpacking.
6. Looking for things that have been unpacked, then “put away” by my husband.
7. Unpacking.
8. Keeping tabs on the escalating train wreck that is Britney Spears.
9. Putting stuff away.
10. Losing the boxcutters.
11. Yelling at the cat: “This is where we live now. Shut the hell up.”
12. Rearranging the furniture, again, some more.
13. Watching my daughter walk with increasing skill.
14. Thinking about painting the house.
15. Wondering just how much pruning the butterfly bush out front can take, because it needs some serious help but I don’t want to kill it. Yet.
16. Trying to get the dog smell out of the house. It’s not dog pee, but there is definitely Eau de Puppy floating around the house. It’s not bothersome, but… oh wait – it is.
17. Not blogging.
Yarrrr!
Do you know what today is? Oh yes – it’s < a href="http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html">International Talk Like a Pirate Day!!
I was going to try to post in Piratese, but I’m only halfway through my first cup of coffee today and I just don’t have the brain power necessary to do that AND sit upright at the same time.
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Perfection is increasingly easy to do, apparently
According to this Yahoo! article, the number of left-handed people is increasing.
Well, duh. We lefties are creative AND good-looking – who wouldn’t want to mate with us?
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Collection
I didn’t do a Friday Random thing last week due to my bone-deep laziness. So I’ll do it today and we’ll start the week of right!
1. We are STILL waiting to hear about this house that we have been trying to buy. We are STILL in attorney review. I’m starting to get tired of waiting. We have continued to look at houses, but haven’t found anything that we like, except for one, but they are considering “multiple offers” right now, so we aren’t even going to bother throwing our hat into the ring. It’s a shame, too, because that house was really cute.
2. Except for the basement. First, you have to go down Danger Steps to get to the basement. At the third-to-last step, you need to bend over at the waist to avoid smashing your face on the support beam. Then, if you are any taller than I am, you have to stoop to walk around down there because the ceiling is so low. I can just barely walk upright and I’m only 5’7″! This confuses me SO MUCH that I cannot sleep for wondering WHY someone would build a house with a basement that you can barely access and use. WHY? That makes NO SENSE.
3. The other house that I really liked but definitely will not offer to buy was built in 1870 and has ghosts. I know this because when we went to look at it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and my ears started ringing [more], which is always a sure sign that I’m not alone. The house itself was actually pretty awesome. Lots and lots of rooms connected willy-nilly by bathrooms and closets. It would be a great house for a bunch of kids. Alas, it would need some very serious updating and love (read: money) to make it truly comfortable. I don’t know that I’d ever be comfortable there, though, considering the fact that I passed by the attic door and realized there was no way in heaven or hell that I would ever, of my own volition, open that door. Nuh-uh.
4. I’ve been putting off washing the car, thinking that surely it will rain soon. Of course, as soon as I can’t stand it any longer and decide that today is the day I will get the car washed, there is rain in the forecast.
5. Jillian threw an entire bowl of peas at me today. It got on me, the fridge, the wall, and the ceiling. So much for letting her feed herself, eh? I am trying to phase out the pureed food in favor of actual pieces of food, but she does the whole gagging Drama Queen act. On the one hand, I don’t want her to starve, but on the other hand, if she gets hungry enough, she’ll eat. I don’t know where on that spectrum I actually am, though.
6. Football season has started, and the Jets are already disappointing me. Nothing unusual there. I just hope they don’t have to get the Reanimated Corpse of Vinny Testaverde again. Actually, I think Vinny is or was under contract to another team last year? I don’t know and am too lazy to look it up. At least the Mets are still in first place.
7. I’m amused to report that the cat is still stupider than the baby gates. This animal can launch himself from the floor to my bed or up through the kitchen pass-thru window, but cannot seem to figure out how to get over the baby gate. He is a stupid, stupid cat. In fact, he fell off the windowsill this morning before I got up, which caused the blinds to click and clack all over themselves and caused me to curse at him and them under my breath. Chester is deeply stupid.
8. The fall TV season is starting up and I have no idea when any of my shows are on. Good thing we have the TiFaux set to record most of them. Too bad I don’t foresee any actual time in which to watch them, what with us about to be homeless and all. We have a maximum of six weeks left in this house, no matter what. This is shaping up to be an interesting autumn.
Random Friday strikes again!
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!
Slowly making my way back
Gah. I never think about how much time I spend online with my friends (both of the Real and Imaginary Internet variety) until I’ve been gone for a time and therefore have to catch up.
I’ve tried to limit my online time in the past, but like Lindsay Lohan, moderation does not work for me in this regard. I will eventually post about the triathlon (with photos! Probably!), but right now I really must be going – there’s laundry to do.
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I’ve returned!
I’ve been away from the computer for a couple of days due to a wonky connection and a desire to stay away from all types of media until I finished Harry Potter. Now that I’m home and done reading the book, I will update with the rest of our Triathlon Adventure just as soon as I finish putting my house back together.
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It’s Friday, you know what that means!
It means an unordered list of things that may or may not be related to one another and may or may not have any relevance to anything at all! YAAAY!
1. I got my nails done on Tuesday. The mommy group went out en masse and got a discount at a nail place. Yay, sorta. Every time I’m getting my feet scrubbed and sanded down, I wonder to myself why I don’t do it more often. But that feeling fades almost as quickly as my feet return to their natural, hoof-like state. I hate spending money on beauty-type things like hair and nails. It shows, unfortunately, so perhaps I should get over myself and get my nails done more often.
2. The only thing I’m pissed about is the nail polish on my fingernails peeled off already. I suppose it’s because I wash my hands about 234 times a day, and my fingernails have never been very strong.
3. Is it just me, or does the Today Show suck? Did it always suck, or is it just the first hour that’s good and the rest of it sucks? It’s so, I don’t know, fluffy, that I’m not sure I’m getting any smarter by watching it. Yesterday they spent a good 40 minutes total on the Miss New Jersey non-scandal. This is news? FOR REAL? Isn’t there a war or something going on someplace?
4. The Mets have let Julio Franco go free. The guy is a thousand years old, but I’m sort of sad, since I watched Julio wreck the place in Cleveland through the 80’s and it would be sort of cute for him to still be playing when he’s 50. That dude that they called up instead, Lastings Milledge, seems like a real dick. I don’t think I like him.
5. I’m going to NYC tonight to see a whole gang of my Imaginary Internet Friends. I cannot wait, because it is going to be Super Fun! Of course, I’m getting old and decrepit so I’ll probably be on the train home by 10PM. Hee.
6. We leave for Lake Placid on Wednesday. We will have three days to fart around the Lake Placid area (including time for me to get my Harry Potter book on Saturday morning as the bookstore opens), then the race is on Sunday, and we return on Monday. It will be fun and exhausting so we’ll spend the week afterwards shoveling out the house in preparation for Jillian’s birthday party! WHEEE!
7. I have yet to replant my peppers and tomatoes. Perhaps I really will do that tomorrow, since I will be baby-free for much of the day. Freddie’s family is celebrating his stepfather’s 70th birthday, so he’ll be down there doing that. I will have some free time! Which I will probably waste on the Internet!
8. I made a banana cake yesterday that turned out surprisingly well. I have a tendency to make banana-related things that are goopy in the middle, but this cake held up pretty well. The middle is a bit sticky but it’s not completely raw, as my things occasionally are. The batter was SO good I wanted to eat it all. I suppose if I used Egg Beaters instead of actual eggs, I could make the raw batter work. Hmm.
9. The Jillian is starting that whole “cruising” thing. While I’m not happy about her picking up gay men in bars, the almost-walking part is really coming along. She pulls herself up to standing whilst holding on to the couch and moves from there to an ottoman. Or to the TV stand, where she tries to smack the TV or open the CD player. Great. I’m going to have to lock everything up now, but you can’t change the channel on the TV if the doors on the TV stand are closed because that’s where the cable box lives. Sigh. Her newfound mobility is going to kill us all – she tried to take the carbon monoxide detector out of the wall twice yesterday.
10. I am still working on my sweater. The knitting actually goes pretty quickly if I sit down and do it but I don’t really have much time to just sit and knit. But I’m 95% done with the back, so all that’s left is sleeves and hood. I’m thinking about cheating totally and making the sleeves and hood single colors instead of stripes. I’m sure it would be fine, since there are three colors in the stripe pattern and I can use one for each remaining piece. But that feels kind of like a cop-out, so I’m kind of undecided.
Friday fun things
I have some other things to write about, but at the moment they are still just fragments of things and less coherent than the stuff I usually put out here. Instead, I will give you a few paragraphs on a whole bunch of unrelated things.
1. I made a peach pie last weekend that was totally awesome, if a little goopy. It set up nicely in the fridge and was more pie-like the next day.
2. Today I made a Key Lime Pie. Ridiculously easy. I’m not a huge fan of the lime pie, but Freddie likes it and I had a whole bunch of limes that needed to be used, so… PIE!
3. I also had a bacon and tomato sandwich for lunch. Bacon is the #1 reason why I will never be able to go kosher, despite the fact that I think we ought to try, for Jillian’s sake. It might be too late, though – I gave her a piece of bacon.
4. I had to do cowboy surgery on Freddie’s toe last night (Says he: “Is this going to end up on your blog?” Says me: “Yep.”). He recently got new inserts for his biking shoes and they are rubbing up against his toe in an uncomfortable way, making the skin around the nail swell so the nail painfully digs into the skin. He’s not at all good about cutting his toenails (indeed, he’s got talons to rival a falcon) so they end up pointy and jagged and whathaveyou. So I busted out the rubbing alcohol, tweezers, and nail clippers and went to work. Early reports indicate success.
5. My child actually crawled in the grass! On her own! With no screaming! We went to a July 4th BBQ and there were about six billion kids there and Jillian was happily punching other babies in the face, roaring at the top of her lungs, and crawling around from toy to toy. She’s pretty big compared to the other kids around her age and she doesn’t know her own strength. Thus, the punching. But the crawling! In the grass! I am totally amazed.
6. My husband bought himself a pair of Crocs. They are foul. Now, I am just about as unfashionable as a human being can get, but even I will not wear Crocs. There is something about them that just screams “juvie prison!” Plus, I lived through the jelly shoes era and until those things come back, I’ll stick with my Chacos.
7. Speaking of my Chacos, they need to be re-soled. According to the website, I can ship them off to their home base and get them resoled for about $36 + $7 for shipping. This seems to be a good deal since they retail for about $90. However, I would be without my shoes for about a week (maybe more) and I don’t know if I can do that. I have other shoes, SURE, but they’re either flip-flops (which fall off) or shoes that require socks (which… it’s summer, dammit). Maybe after we get back from Lake Placid I’ll send them off. Or I’ll just go buy a pair of Birkenstocks, which I sort of want anyway.
8. Lake Placid is in just over two weeks! I have a lot of planning to do. I need to pack, figure out where the local grocery store is so I don’t have to travel with a shit-ton of baby food, and I have to find a bookstore so I can get my Harry Potter book. Sure, I could wait until we get back, but that would mean 100% media silence for like, three whole days, and I don’t think that’s possible. I would have to avoid TV, radio, newspapers, teh internets (the HORROR!), billboards, skywriters, and smoke signals. I just don’t think I can do it. So I’ll be finding a bookstore. Besides, Sunday is going to be a LONG day and I will need something to do, right?
9. That reminds me, I have to order Jillian’s birthday cake.
HOLY SHIT MY KID IS ALMOST A YEAR OLD.
10. I went to one of the local farmer’s markets today and bought purple green beans. I have seen these at Whole Foods before but I’ve been hesitant to buy them. But at $1.50 a pound, why not, right? So I’ll be scaring my family with them at dinner tonight. I want to do a whole purple dinner someday, with the purple green beans, purple cauliflower, purple tomatoes, purple carrots, and purple potatoes, but I’m afraid my family will revolt (in more ways than one).
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