Calm before the storm

** UPDATE: Had a fab breakfast - brie omelettes! sourdough toast! no kids!! - but decided, unwisely, to weigh myself AFTER. Shockingly, I've gained eight (8!!) pounds since the end of the summer. Is it stress? Hormones? My Baked Treat of the Day diet? My commitment to sloth? WTF? I need to do something about it and I'm out of viable excuses not to. **

I am just starting to let myself believe we're actually moving! It still feels a little bit weird, like maybe something will fall through? But M assures me that it's a done deal now, that our buyers are locked in, and I can schedule the movers for December 10-- or maybe the 11th. We're trying to get our sellers to allow us to move our stuff in a few days early. Then M, the kids and I and my parents are going to stay out at the beach for a few days until the closing. It will be a nice break from reality transition to the new house and we desperately need some R&R. Of course, M will still be working and I'll have the commute from hell to get D to school on time, but by December 13 this will all be over. I guess it seems so hectic because we're closing on two houses less than 30 days after the contracts were signed. That's a lot to happen in a pretty short time.

I'm off to a belated birthday breakfast with one of my mom friends this a.m. She's building a new house so it will be a nice break for both of us.

One of those days

Today was the perfect storm:

1) The fourth (or fifth?) week that one or both of the kids have come down with whatever kid-illness is going around. They both had the respiratory thing, D is just getting over the high-fever-and-endless-hacking-cough thing, and now A has the vomiting/diarrhea thing. Yay.

2) House inspections. Today we had the inspection for the house we want to buy. Friday is our inspection (please, Lord, let it pass). It's the culmination of three crazy, insanely busy weeks of showings, cleaning, negotiations, cleaning, late night meetings, cleaning and signing of documents involving numbers bigger that I ever imagined seeing attached to my name. And cleaning. I don't know how our realtor, who has three young kids of her own, manages to hold it together. I could never handle this level of activity on a long-term basis. It's the main reason we decided I was better of as a stay-home mom.

3) A is driving me: up a wall, to tears and, quite possibly, to drink. I think we might be getting close to some terrible two behavior. Besides being sick off and on since early October, he has developed quite the fussy attitude toward food, life in general and me in particular. He fusses if I won't pick him up and cries if I do. He follows me around, whinging. He won't eat anything but bread-y things, pasta and applesauce (the diarrhea thing surprised me -- you'd think he'd be completely stopped up), and when he's not eating, he's crying or throwing chewed-up bits of food around the dining room. But it's the whinging that's killing me slowly. I feel like a horrible mom sometimes -- like he's whinging because of something I'm doing/not doing. I get impatient and yell. I am short-tempered. And I know all of this simply makes me human, not a bad mom, but you still feel bad when you yell at your kids. Although in the end it's probably better than never yelling at your kids and then they grow up never being able to take criticism. These past three weeks have confirmed a couple of things for me:
1) it's quite OK to use TV as a babysitter, especially when you are talking to mortgage brokers. 2) there's absolutely nothing wrong with sticking your 16 month old in their crib when the fussing/whining/crying/dropping of heavy objects on your feet gets too much, especially when you are talking to mortgage brokers. And 3) Children aren't going to turn out to be axe murderers if they eat pasta for every meal for a few weeks.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and congratulations... keep 'em coming. Closing isn't for a few more weeks.

SOLD!

What a roller coaster! What looked like a total washout last week is a done deal this week. We signed the paperwork last night to sell our house and buy the 1925 Prairie style house we've been wanting! Woo hoo!

Here's the virtual tour.


We've got inspections tomorrow, and if they go well we will close on December 12! Gulp. Better get crackin' on that packin'!

On again?

I should remember that I have more faith than I felt last week. This weekend we got an offer on our house AND we've accepted it!! So now all we have to do is go lock up the house we've been after for a few weeks... we came to terms on price, just not on the whole issue of us not having sold yet. So YIPPEEE! It seems like this is all going to work out after all! The buyers want a really aggressive closing schedule - December 12. It's kind of wild to imagine we might be out of here in just a few short weeks. For those just tuning in, here's the house we will probably be living in as of December 13:



It's going to be a busy few weeks but I'm really excited about the prospect of decorating the new house -- especially the beautiful pine stairs. I've never decorated stairs before, but I just imagine boughs of evergreen and huge gold bows and maybe a few gold lights. I'll post interior pictures as soon as I get them, so get your best decorating ideas ready!

Keep your fingers crossed for us we should have final contacts on both properties by tomorrow!

Bummed out

Yesterday sucked.

First, we found out that the sellers aren't willing to wait for us to sell our house. They would rather rent it then get into a contingency contract. I mean, I know the housing market is off right now, but ugh. Back to square one... sell, move or renovate? It's like an endless, hideous game of Monopoly but instead of ending up on Park Place we keep getting stuck on Vermont Avenue.

And D was/is home from school with at 102 fever. I'm hoping it clears up by Friday because her class is doing a Thanksgiving feast and play and I wouldn't want her to miss it. Also I'm chairperson for the event so I'd be sticking someone with my job.

And I have to get my first crown on Thursday morning.

And M forgot my birthday until he saw the gifts my parents and his parents sent and then he said "Oh that was nice. Why'd they do that?"

And we ended up eating Taco Bell for dinner because we had a late showing of the house.

And I didn't even get any cake!

I'm in a crappy mood.

holy moley

What a weekend. I'm pooped.

First, it's been a non-stop cleaning-fest around here. We've had at least 2-3 showings of the house every day for about a week and a half. (Yay!) But, that means I'm constantly, CONSTANTLY cleaning. (Boo!) And picking things up. And hiding things. And etc. I'm tired of it and my hands are sandpaper dry even though I'm careful to wear gloves.

I did some fun stuff too. Friday night I took a few hours off to go out to dinner with some of my high school girlfriends who were in town for the weekend. It was great fun and so nice to catch up with them. But we were out until 12:30 so I will pay for that for about a week.

We also decided to have the interior of the house painted (to go with the general spiffing-up theme) and that meant we had to be out of our house all day Saturday and Sunday. What a total pain in the ass. Although it could have been worse -- I mean the weather was beautiful, D had a Girl Scout thing at school all day Saturday, and M took over baby duty for most of the weekend. But we weren't back in the house until 8:00 last night and spent a solid 2 hours doing a basic clean up. This morning I was back at it with vacuum, mop and sponge since we have a showing this afternoon.

And if all that weren't enough to wear a girl out, M forgot my birthday. I'm not generally passive-aggressive, but I'm going kinda let this stew and see what happens if I don't remind him. I know we've got a lot going on, but really? Completely forgot? Humph.

Somebody watching me?

We have a double corner lot, so our realtor hung two signs: one in front and one on the side. We've had lots of traffic in the last two days. It's a weird feeling to see people -- strangers -- cruising slowly by and ogling us. Guess we better stop walking around in our underwear. Maybe to pique interest we'll walk around nude! Hah! Just kidding. No one wants to see us nude. Not even us.

On our realtor's advice, we bought a new, modern ceramic-top range. (Hey, buyers -- I hope you appreciate that!) Sears delivered it at 7:45 am today, Sunday. Thank goodness for the time change. Seconds, literally, before they arrive D prances out of her room nude (NUDE! There's more nudity for ya!) and asks if she can wear her bathing suit. Ooh. Bad timing sweetie. Mommy is sorry she snapped at you but the delivery guys were pulling up out front. Next time ask BEFORE you take off all your clothes. Also? Probably not on the first really chilly day of the year. It was probably in the low 60s last night. Heaven. It's 10:30 and the a/c hasn't kicked on once! Hallelujah!

Welcome Fall!

For sale

The stress of trying to come up with a way to remodel our adorable little bungalow wore us down. We just made an offer on this:



Ain't she pretty?

Anyway, it's all contingent on the sale of OUR home, so if you know anyone who's looking for a beautiful 1930s bungalow home, let me know!