Good, Better, Best

The Good:
Saturday morning my MIL took care of Parker and allowed R and I to sleep in until 9:30. OMG, it felt so fantastic. 9:30 is the new noon to parents, isn't it? I felt magnificent all day. To make it even better, we had a totally low key day today and I spent an obscene amount of time lounging about and doing nothing. It's amazing how much some sleep and rest can make a person feel better, isn't it?


The Better:
We had our home inspection on Friday and everything was fine. Of course there were issues, there have to be otherwise you'd think your inspector wasn't doing his/her job. All issues found were minor and we don't have to battle it out with Mr. I'm-Keeping-The-Damn-Refrigerator. Turns out the current owners seem to be incredibly, um, uptight? Anal? Compulsive? All of the above, really, which makes for a fantastic house to be purchasing if you're the buyer. Really the only hurdle left is the appraisal, but as far as I'm concerned, that's more the Sellers' problem than ours. We spent all morning at the house on Friday during the inspection and I have to say that I love this house. I loved our house in Jacksonville and was really sad to leave it, but I think I am going to love this house even more. The layout is near perfect and I cannot wait to move in! We had sold a good bit of our furniture before we moved, thinking we would end up in a smaller house, but that didn't turn out to be true. Ooops. Guess who gets to shop for furniture??! We close on August 21, which seems so far away and is the only downside of "The Better". We have 5 more weeks to spend in Corporate Housing Hell. SIGH. But that leads me to...

The Best:
In order to decrease our misery, Parker and I are traveling to spend the next many days with the one and only Amy. I've read Amy for about 10 years (yikes!) and over the last year or so we have become really close. In fact, I consider her to be one of my nearest and dearest regardless of the fact that we've never met. I'm so excited, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. I am also a little bit terrified that in person my jokes will fall flat, that my laugh will sound more like a donkey braying, and that my kid will turn into Damien. In the end, though, we have margaritas and we have Buffy - what more could we possibly need?



See you in a few!

True Lurve

While I'm all linky linky today, I just have to say how much I lurve Joss Whedon.

Dr. Horrible is amazing!!!

Here Kitty Kitty

Simon's cat is back! I love these. Anyone with a cat knows how perfectly he captures life with a cat.

Bitch List

An Incomplete List of Why I Hate Corporate Housing:


I am going to have to throw away our white socks when we move out of here. No matter how often I vacuum, the carpet is filthy (not to the naked eye) and I cannot get the bottoms of our socks clean. I try not to think about it, but EUW. I am sure this is one of the designated "pet" apartments and I'm equally sure they don't clean the carpets between renters. Oh god, I have to stop typing before I run out of here screaming.


Light - I bought cheap beach towels and thumb tacked them up on all the bedroom windows because Parker was waking up before the crack of dawn due to the light. We also tend to sleep better when it isn't like someone shining a spotlight on you first thing in the morning.


Noise - We are not used to sharing walls with neighbors or listening to people go up and down the outside stairs at all hours of the day. It's driving Baxter insane so he growls constantly trying to protect us from these potential invaders. There is also a lot of truck traffic right outside and it is less than soothing.


We have ants. Not badly since it hasn't rained for a few days, but enough that I notice them. We can't call to complain because we have an extra cat we're not supposed to have, not to mention there isn't anything I can do with 2 cats, 2 dogs and 1 toddler for them to treat the apartment anyway.


One night last weekend R made popcorn. He left it in the bowl on top of the kitchen counter overnight so Parker (who loves popcorn) could eat the rest the next day. The following morning I scooped up the popcorn into a baggy to take with us for her snack. I grabbed a bag that was too small, so I emptied the bag and went to grab another. My dumping revealed that I had also scooped up this little millipedey looking thing that had been feasting on the popcorn all night. My kid almost ate a many legged creature!!!!!


The only room that doesn't cool off in the apartment is our bedroom. I am normally a cold blooded creature, but even I am getting hot at night. We can't turn the air down below 66 or it freezes Parker out.


Leashing the dogs and taking them for walks many times a day is a pain in the ass. & here's what I really want to know (possible gross out to follow) - how is it possible that my dogs' poo is covered with flies almost instantaneously? I mean, my dog squats, poops, and in the few seconds it takes me to bend down to pick it up with my doggy poo baggy, there are almost always already flies on the poo. How is this possible? Do flies have an extra-sensitive sense of smell that enables them to teleport to fresh poo in nanoseconds? Or do the flies actually come out of the dog with the poo? Enquiring minds want to know.


Can I have some cheese with my whine, please??

Pssst....

I hate to say anything out loud for fear of jinxing it, so I'm whispering this.

I think we got a house.

Not only A house, but THE house. The house we lurve. The only house we both walked into, breathed deeply and said "this is the one". You know how you knew your wedding dress the moment it settled down onto your shoulders? It was like that. It's a long story that I won't bore you with, but the Man Owner of the house apparently pulled his head out of his ass, took our slightly increased offer (Offer #3 for us), refused to leave their fridge (as if we care, but I think it made him feel better to say "no" to something) and we're under contract! Inspection is Friday and we're supposed to close on August 21. Of course that means 6 more weeks of corporate housing but at least an end is in sight!!!

A Star is Born

My MIL arrived yesterday. After a few minutes of apprehension at having a new person in her midst, Parker quickly overcame her shyness and decided having a new person for whom to show off was pretty delightful. This is perfectly illustrated by the following which happened last night:

After dragging out her tiny keyboard, "LaLa LAAAA"ing into her little microphone, she looked up at her captivated audience. When the three of us clapped, she bowed and said "Thank you, thank you!!" Her father and I were astonished. I have no idea where it came from and it was so freaking hilarious I about died. She did this repeatedly for the rest of the evening and if you were slow with the clapping after her performance, she would halt, call you out by name, then wait for sufficient applause before bowing.

Oh lordy.



My MIL was brave enough to come stay in this tiny hellhole with us for an entire week. Originally we bought a plane ticket for her to visit because we were supposed to close on the original house last Friday, so her purpose was to entertain Parker while we unpacked. MIL was nice enough to come anyway, even though we're making her sleep on an air mattress in the living room. The things people will endure to spend some time with their only grandchild.


Because my entire life revolves around housing these days, here is a quick update to our situation. We have now put offers in on four (yes, FOUR) houses and have yet to be under contract. I seriously do not know what is wrong with people. For what is supposed to be a Buyers' Market, we are consistently getting jerked around. The guy of our last offer was appalled that we offered less than what he paid for the house 4 years ago, at the height of the market. He said, shocked, "But I would lose money!!!" Well, no shit, Mister. Let me tell you something. We bought at the height of the market, too, but times have changed. We lost $65k on the sale of our house in Florida, and that was after being on the market for 9 months. Did we like it? Hell no! But at some point you have to figure out when to cut your losses and move on with your life, unless you are some freak who enjoys life in the LimboLand that is having your house up for sale. The real estate world is vastly different than it was 4 years ago and if you want to ever get rid of your house, I say you have to be willing to deal. The people we have worked with have not been willing to deal and I don't think we're being unreasonable. The evil part of me hopes their houses sit on the market, unable to sell, while they lose money and by the time they finally sell their house, it will be for much less than what we offered.

We house hunted again yesterday and found one possible. I'll look again with our realtor tomorrow, and after that, we have some real decisions to make. We cannot continue to live in corporate housing for many reasons. We are just going to have to pick a house we sort of like, that we can live with, and just take the plunge. I'd guess we've looked at well over 100 houses now and while it sucks that we've only found one that we lurve (Offer #3), I'm coming to realize lurve may not be in the cards for us here.

Self

I should have mentioned on yesterday's post of the pictures of Parker's face that she is all healed now. Those pictures were taken the day after the incident, thus when she was looking her worst. In less than a week all of the scab had fallen off. The only thing you can see now is that her skin is a darker pink where the scab once lived. I'd take a picture and post it, but I let the USB cable for my camera get packed up.


Speaking of Parker, her new favorite word is "self". You try to do most anything for her and she will get very irritated and announce "SELF!" which means she wants to do it herself. At first I found this to be adorable, now it just gets on my nerves. About 98% of what she wants to do herSELF, she is unable to do, not that it stops her. I am proud of her for being independent and for wanting to figure things out on her own. However, when it takes an hour to get dressed because she has to attempt to do it herSELF first before she allows me to assist, I tend to lose my patience. She has been absolutely obsessed with trying to dress herself lately, even causing a tearful tantrum one night this week right before bed. The next morning she was rummaging around in our closet (where the dirty clothes are kept) and I really wasn't paying attention since I'd just gotten out of the shower. When I went in search of her a few mintues later, I discovered she'd "dressed herSELF" with two pair of my dirty underwear over her head along with one of her pajama tops (she'd managed to get her head in the head hole, but the top was upside down). She was so very pleased with herSELF and looked at me as if to say "I told you I could do it!!!" I snapped a fast picture with my phone, but the quality isn't very good.

About Face

I present you with the physical proof of my first complete failure as a mother.



Could she look more pathetic??



Sure, kid, rub it in.



Still well enough to make out with her BFF, Kate.