I'm back!

Did you miss me?

As suspected, I didn't have much computer time. But, I'm pleased to announce that not only did we move, baby 3 stayed safely inside through the move. Quite honestly, I'm shocked he wasn't born during all the flurry of activity that surrounds moving. But he kept on cooking, right up to my scheduled c-section this past Monday.

Oh yeah, that's the big news: Mr. Z-Man made his grand entrance on Monday! Everything went as planned, he's a big (8 lb!) healthy baby boy, and I'm recovering just fine, when I remember to take my pain medicine. Which I forgot today, and then was totally flummoxed by the fact that I was hurting. Duh! And I can't even blame it on pregnancy brain anymore...

That's it. My wonderful parents have been here all week, taking care of N-man and B-man (and TK and I!!). They're leaving tomorrow...I suspect it'll be a LOT more work starting then :) But it's all good. We're unpacking and getting used to the new little guy. The big boys are such great brothers...they seem to really like the Z-man.

I'll be back to my regularly scheduled totally random intermittent posting any day now. And looking forward to catching up with reading blogs, too! It was weird to be offline for so long!

37w6d

Today I'm 37 weeks, 6 days pregnant. That's exactly how long I gestated the boys. I have two things to say for myself:

1) Damn, that's frickin' amazing that I didn't just camp out at the doctor's office and demand he remove those two children immediately. I've considered setting up camp already this time, and the only thing holding me back is the realization that I'm being a gigantic baby and to just suck it up because I only have half as many extra people inside me this time.

2) Thank goodness I made it this far. I would have been a little embarrassed if my now-OLD body couldn't make it at least as far with a singleton as it did with twins.

I'm actually getting worried that this little guy will make his appearance early. What were we thinking, moving 4 short days before the baby is due? How is this a good idea? Yes, I love our new house. Yes, in the long run it'll all be worth it. Yes, it doesn't even *really* matter if I have the baby now and miss all the move-related stuff. Well, that will make life much more interesting for TK (hmmm, honey? Do you mind handling two children, selling a house, buying a house, packing/moving/unpacking, a new baby and a wife in the hospital? That's not too much, is it?)

We're in the final crunch now, moving out of our current house in four days, moving into our new house in five days. We've done the vast majority of packing, and I use "we" very liberally, as I've done about five, maybe six boxes total. Mostly I sit on the couch having Braxton-hicks contractions while TK packs, packs, packs. Guess what's on the agenda today? Yep, more packing! (Though we should be mostly done by the end of today...microwaved food on paper plates or restaurants for the rest of the week as we only have the bare necessities out now!)

I'm not sure if I'll be updating my blog or not before the move/baby arrival. Funny to think that next time I blog, it might be from our new house and as a family of five! I should probably try to update, though, as I'm sure it will be hilarious to look back and see a record of the insanity :)

Unfreecyclable

So I'm still on the freecycling kick. It's so funny what goes and what doesn't. I listed 11 mis-matched mugs...got a ton of requests. But a rather nice glass bowl...completely ignored!

Anyway, after my post the other day about freecycling junk, I ran across a hilarious site: Item Not As Described. Basically, it's a site that collects listings where people try to give away things that are clearly garbage. Like our old grill! See, I should have posted it on freecycle, then I could have submitted my own post to the blog as a perfect example of someone trying to give away their trash!

House update, again

For once I finally have an update! Our house finally got an offer! We managed to talk them up to the lowest possible amount we could afford to accept. Are we awesome negotiators or what?

Today is the home inspection. Wish us luck! I'm a little worried that there'll be something that ruins the deal. It could all still fall apart!

Though we found out yesterday that ANOTHER couple wants to put in an offer on our house. Our agent had warned their agent that she thought an offer would be coming in, and they were just too late and we'd already signed the offer agreement with the first couple. But if this current offer falls apart for some reason, the other couple will probably put in an offer (of course, who knows if it'll be a good offer or not, but after so long of nothing it's kind of amazing!)

The only bad part of the current offer is that this couple wants to close while I'm scheduled to be in the hospital delivering baby boy #3. Really? That's crazy! Our agent said not to worry about it, that she'd talk to them today at the home inspection. But the reality is that we'll probably be closing and the new baby will be born right about at the same time. I'm just desperately trying to make sure it's not on the same day, though I guess what will be will be. There's only so much I can control! I was hoping we could wait until after the baby arrives to close, but this couple really wants to close before the end of August, so now we're trying to push up the closing so we can be moved before the baby comes. Who knows, though. I do have a scheduled delivery date, but I think we all know that just means I know the last possible day the baby will come...he could decide to make an early entrance, though! Once more, proof that I can't control everything. Not for lack of trying, though.

So that's it. My kind of update. We'll see if anything actually happens...

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As a related question, has anyone ever had a lag between selling a house and buying a new house? Because in theory, we could close on our current house before the baby arrives, then close on the new house after the baby arrives. We'd have two options: move all our stuff out at closing, and have the moving company store it in their van while we live in an extended stay hotel*. Or, alternately, we could sell the house, then "rent" it back from the new owners for a week or two until we close on the new house.

*Actually, this would probably be if things really overlapped with us being in the hospital. In that case, my parents are already planning to be here, so we'd probably send them and the kids down to my grandparents' house about an hour away, and then TK and I would stay at the hospital the majority of the time, with a hotel for any time that didn't overlap with our hospital stay.

I'm hoping it won't come to this, but just wondering if anyone has ever done something like this where they couldn't get closing dates perfectly aligned. It's amazing house buy/sell transactions ever work out!

I knew all that cleaning was dangerous!

So, N-man got another concussion yesterday. He slipped on the wet kitchen floor and banged his head. We were getting ready for showing the house...one hour notice. On Father's Day. Right at dinner time. Convenient, right? Sorry, homemade Father's Day dinner was canceled!

We headed out to dinner instead. N-man wasn't in a great mood since his fall, but didn't seem too bad when we left the house. We got to the restaurant, and he broke down crying and grumping. TK walked around outside with him (in the rain!), but he didn't calm down, so we got our meals packed to go, drove around until the people were out of our house, and were going to eat at home. We finally got the call from our agent that they were done. N-man was whimpering in the backseat by then. We pulled into the garage and ACK! He vomited EVERYWHERE in the van.

I ran inside, called the emergency pediatrician line, and got new clothes for N-man. TK got everything vomit-related out of the van and onto the floor of the garage. (This is on Father's Day, remember? Do we know how to celebrate, or what?) We got N-man in clean clothes, threw the boys into TK's non-vomited on car, and headed to the ER.

Which was packed.

Full of sick people. Have I mentioned I have a touch of hypochondria? And germophobia? And there were sick people all around? I'm getting skeeved out just thinking of it. Last time we went to the ER, it was almost empty, giving us lots of space to stay away from other sickies. Not this time!

We waited, and waited, and waited, and weren't even being seen by the triage nurse or the check-in people. N-man was getting sleepy, I was getting really nervous. Then N-man threw up all over the floor and started shrieking.

Tip for getting seen immediately in the ER: throw up all over the floor and start shrieking.

My poor little guy! We were put back in a room pretty speedily after that. It was still a pretty long wait to see a doctor, but at least we were comfortable and away from all the sick people. And N-man finally started perking up and acting more like himself. By the time the doctor saw him, he was doing much better, and it had been over 4 hours since his head injury (the amount of time they usually like to observe them after a head bump). So they made him eat an ice pop, and since he could keep that down, we were released at 10pm.

The ER doctor wasn't even sure it was a concussion. He said it might have been a very coincidental virus or stomach upset that just happened to hit at exactly the same time as the head bump. That sounds crazy to me, except that N-man had been saying his tummy hurt even before the head bump. (I try not to spend too much time talking about potty stuff on my blog, but N-man has many issues with constipation so complaints about tummy pain are reasonably common here, which is why it didn't register as possibly related to the vomiting). I still suspect it was a concussion since it was so similar to what happened last time, but luckily it was minor enough that we can't even be sure that's what happened.

This morning N-man seems fine. He's eating, running around, playing normally. I'm worn out by the whole thing.

Two more house showings today. Of course right at dinner time. I'm NOT washing the kitchen floor.

House update

Well, I guess it's time for an update for where we are on the attempts to move. It's been pretty slow going, and boring, and annoying. Not great fodder for blog updates, though it takes up all my time so I don't have much else going on recently.

Oh boy, I've really talked you all into reading the rest of this post, haven't I? Do I know how to sell it, or what?? This blog post is just for anyone who's actually interested in our house search, or who has insomnia.

Okay, here's the deal: we found a house we love. It's out in one of the further-from-Boston suburbs, but it only adds two miles (or about 5-10 minutes) to TK's commute. How awesome is that? Pretty much all the houses we've been looking at add more like 30 minutes to TK's commute, which I was not looking forward to. Plus, it's a beautiful house, in a neighborhood, in a good school district. Just what we were looking for. It's not ridiculously large, but it has plenty of storage space and more than enough living space. Technically, it's not much bigger than our current house, but it's better laid out and has an attic for storage. It's a ranch, so the partially finished basement is also far larger than our current basement...more storage!! Have I mentioned storage yet? Yeah, that's because our current house has almost none. It's the one thing that drives me mad with our current house, so I was absolutely drooling at the thought of an attic and a basement, not to mention closets bigger than 2 feet wide! Mmmmm, closets!

But you haven't missed any exciting posts. We're still dealing with the biggest problem: our house hasn't sold.

Again on the plus side for this house we found: it's not at the top of our price range! That meant we had more wiggle room on what we sell our house for. So we took the plunge and slashed the price of our house. We slashed it low enough that I think it's a great bargain. It's hard to tell. I thought our house was pretty well priced before, but obviously if it's not selling, it's not good enough. Our problem is location: our house was certainly nicer than other houses in our town that were priced the same, but the location is on a busy street, so people were picking not-as-nice houses in better neighborhoods. Which I totally get. So we dropped our price, and now our house, in my opinion, is not only far nicer than the other similarly priced houses, but also in similar neighborhoods. But we'll see if anyone else agrees!

We put an offer in on the house we love. They accepted it, but with a kick-out clause. They're leaving the house on the market listed as "accepting backup offers". If they get a different offer, we have 48 hours to decide if we will match the closing date. Of course, if that happens and our house hasn't sold yet, we're out of luck since we can't afford to buy a new house before our existing house sells. So we need our house to sell fast, or we'll probably lose this house, hence the reasoning behind dropping our house price.

We went ahead and did a home inspection on the new house, despite the fact that it's far from a sure thing. We also have to go ahead with a P&S, which means paying a lawyer. So we've sunk a bit of cash into this house. It'll be a bummer if it falls through.

We had an open house yesterday for our current house, and FIFTEEN couples showed up! Usually we only get 2 or 3. So I suspect that people are noticing that the price is really good. Now one of those couples just needs to fall in love with our house. Someone has already scheduled to come back for a second look tomorrow.

It's just a waiting game, and while it's pretty stressful, it's not all that bad in the big picture. I mean, we don't *hate* our current house. We actually like it quite a bit, it just isn't perfect for us and we figured it'd be a good time to get that perfect-for-us house. I know how lucky we are for this to be our problem! And, I firmly believe things will work out for the best. If our house doesn't sell, it wasn't meant to be and we'll try again next year.

But if this house falls through, we're done for now and will take our house off the market. I'm worn out trying to keep a perfect house. TK has been working crazy hours, I'm tired from the pregnancy/chasing two crazy-busy kids who don't go back to preschool until September (honestly, I'm not sure which is the one wearing me out more!), and if we're going to stay in this house, we need to commit to it and get some stuff set up for the new baby.

So that's it. I know. Pretty boring. Don't say I didn't warn you! Here, I'll leave you with a few funny things:

• We saw a house where they'd paved the ENTIRE backyard to put in a regulation size baseketball court. I mean, they paved it from corner to corner of their lot. Who paves their entire backyard??
• We saw a house that was SOOO country. I expected a cowboy to jump out of the closet. They had posters up of country music stars. It was really weird. We've looked at tons and tons of house (probably at least 100, plus all the houses we looked at before we bought this house we're in now), and we've never seen anything like it!
• We saw a house with a horse barn right next door. I want to get out into the country, but do you have any idea what it smells like RIGHT next door to a horse paddock? I do now. That house did NOT smell good!
• We saw a house where the finished basement ceiling was less than 6' tall. Luckily TK and I are not that tall, but it was incredibly clausterphobic. In that same house, to get to the boiler/heating equip, you had to crawl through a section of the basement less than 3' tall. The homeowner had left a sign to watch your head. We decided against crawling through someone's gross basement, though not before making some Being-John-Malkovich-seventh-and-a-half-floor jokes.
• Someone called up our agent and actually did make an offer on our house. For $110,000 LESS than our asking price. That is not a typo. Now I know house prices in the Boston area are high, but we're not selling a million dollar house where maybe, just maybe, you could see offering a hundred thousand dollars less. No, someone offered a ridiculously low amount. And they were serious. People suck, and that guy can bite me.

That's it for now. I'll try to update with something more interesting soon. Our CSA starts this week... ;)

Odd angles and empty glasses

We've been to see a lot of houses recently. (Not that we need to. Our house hasn't sold yet, or generated much interest. Ah well, we're lucky that if we don't sell, it's okay. We don't HAVE to sell, we just want to sell).

Anyway, in the process of looking at houses, we've seen a fair number that have obviously been staged, either "professionally", or by someone who read a few staging websites and thought they'd gotten the gist.

Here's my advice to stagers: Putting all the furniture at odd angles is not staging. We're not looking at mansions with big spaces. Having a table screw-jiggy in a rather small dining room is just not a good idea. Placing a couch at an angle blocking off 1/4 of a small family room is not a good idea.

Not to mention the fact that there are a number of left-brained folks who find all these non-right-angles incredibly distracting. Okay, fine, I'm talking about me. When I see these off-kilter rooms, I desperately want to straighten out all the furniture. It comes close to being a physical pain when I walk into a room and see it all out-of-whack.

Second piece of advice: empty martini glasses strewn about is not decorating, even if the glasses themselves are kind of pretty. All it does is make me worried that the boys will knock them over. And makes me wonder if James Bond is expected to visit.

Third piece of advice: setting your dining room table is just weird. Did we interrupt your dinner? It doesn't look homey, it looks like a fake photo-shoot set up.

That is all.

I realize that there are probably plenty of houses that have been well-staged that I don't even notice, and that it's only the badly staged houses that are cracking me up. I do have to say, though, that no staging is a vast improvement over bad staging! Of course, some houses, like the "velvet Elvis" house, could probably benefit from even terrible staging...

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Random unrelated thought: Thank you once again to those of you who gave me book recommendations. I've been starting to crack into the books you've recommended. I'll try to mention it, but if I forget, I'll always have brief reviews in my "books read" section on the right column. Some I may even review on The Book Nook...I have a review of Gig up there today! I also read Other People's Weddings by Noah Hawley, which I found to be a quick read, but didn't love. Anyway, I'm loving all these new books to try out, so thank you!

Meat with a side of meat, and back to the house hunt

I'm not big into the "oh men, are sooo different than women" thing. Except sometimes they are.

Like when they grill.

I wasn't feeling well this weekend, and it was beautiful out, so TK said he'd grill. Perfect. He even took the kids to the grocery store to buy something. Here's what he got: lamb kabobs, teriyaki chicken, and hot dogs.

What? Have I ever made meatloaf with a side of chicken cordon bleu and some pork chops?

And it's not just TK. I've never met a guy who grilled who didn't do this. It makes me giggle. And it makes me glad I'm not a vegetarian, or else I'd never eat when he grills!

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We went to some open houses yesterday, checking out some towns we haven't looked at much. It was funny, because the three towns we looked in really spanned the total picture of available housing. We really have to decide what we're looking for!

First, we went to the town "next door". It's very similar to where we live now, but with slightly better schools, and slightly higher home prices. Otherwise, it's very similar to where we live now, and could we certainly afford to upgrade to a nothing-special, nothing-terrible 4 bedroom house. The commute for TK would be similar to what it is now, and the traffic congestion, medium sized lots, and convenience to shopping would be quite similar to what we have now.

Then, we went to one of the upscale, hoity-toity towns very close to where TK works. When we first looked at houses seven years ago, we couldn't afford anything in these towns close to TK's office. Now, we can. But, we'd essentially have to downsize from our current house, facing all the same problems we have now with lack of storage space, plus we'd have to give up our nice kitchen. We also can't afford the "neighborhood" areas in these towns, so we'd be on busier roads. On the plus side, great schools, and extreme convenience of location. However, I think we're about ready to throw in the towel on these towns. While I think good schools are important, I don't think it's worth paying *that* much more for a house, or for giving up things like closet space or a nice yard.

Last, we went to a "way the heck out there" town, further than any other town we've looked at, and at least a 45 minute commute for TK. I believe the directions to get there were "go to the middle of nowhere, make a left, and keep driving". We LOVED it out there...it was so beautiful and idyllic. And the house! First, it was $25k less than any of the other houses we saw. And, it was literally TWICE as big as the house in the hoity-toity neighborhood, with a lot nearly three times as large. In fact, the house was really too big. It was in a beautiful neighborhood, with good schools. I think it was really too far away, though. And there's not much out that way. But boy, what an eye-opener! TK has plenty of co-workers who live out that far (and even farther!), but I just don't know if it's worth it for us.

It's hard, because I think we want to live in the country, but we're close enough to Boston that really, our only choices are degrees of suburb-ness. The less typical suburban setting we get, the further the commute is for TK. And a long commute is a total quality-of-life killer (not to mention the cringe-worthy environmental impact!) Who knows. I guess we'll just keep looking in a variety of areas, and wherever we find a house we like that happens to coincide with when our own house sells, I guess that's where we're meant to live!

What's most important to you in choosing an area to live?

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More book recs coming soon!

WhatACard book recommendation service

Okay, I had so much fun the other day making book recommendations for Luckygirl. If there are two things I love, it's reading books and bossing people around. Giving book recommendations combines both perfectly!

So here's the deal: leave me a comment with 4 or 5 of your favorite books or authors. You can also include a couple books you hated as well, if you'd like. Or not. Then I'll give you some recommendations. We're all winners, you know, unless I recommend books you hate ;)

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Our bloggers night out was a lot of fun. We are all big talkers, so there was nary a silence in the nearly 3 hours we were there. I know, shocking that people who feel compelled to blog constantly have a lot to say, right? Nancy at The Zimmer Zoo has photographic evidence up. And yes, Laura, even of me!

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We lost the house we wanted to buy. Someone else put in an offer, and we couldn't match their closing date since our house hasn't sold. So it's back to the drawing board for us on the house search. Of course, the first step is STILL that our house has to sell. Ugh, this isn't any fun!

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Alrighty, that's it. So get those comments in if you want some book recs!

Tattooed Grandma, Porcupine Skin, and Unsold Houses

Hold on to your hats, this post is going to be all over the place!

My mom got a new tattoo. It's very pretty...she sent us a picture. It's on her shoulder, so the picture just shows a bit of her back and arm and the back of her head. I showed it to the boys with no description, just said, "Hey guys, come look at this picture." B-man's immediate comment: "Is that Grandma?" I love that when they see a tattoo, they immediately know it's got to be Grandma! Then N-man followed it up with "Why is Grandma naked?" Hey, bud, that's just the kind of Grandma you have! Scantily clad and tattooed. (I should have asked her if I could post the picture...it really is quite a nice one!)

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N-man came into our bedroom this morning just as we were starting to wake up. He happily announced, "Bones are hard. Skin is soft. But not a porcupine's." Um, okay? Thanks for the early morning bit of randomness.

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We've made an offer on a house. I'm starting to get a little nervous and have second thoughts. I know, kind of late for that, and I'm hoping my second thoughts are just the nerves I'd be having no matter what. Our offer is contingent upon our house selling by the end of April, and if anyone else makes an offer before then, we'd have to match their closing date (which we wouldn't be able to do, so we'd just have to pass on the house at that point). So this offer is far from a sure thing. We'll see what happens.

We dropped the price of our house, but we're still not getting much interest. Our house is definitely much nicer than the other two houses in our town that are priced the same as ours is now. So if someone is looking in our town in our price range, I feel confident they'd pick our house now that we dropped the price. I guess it's just a waiting game for that person looking in our town, in our price range. Where are you, home shopper?

The Dentist

It was the boys' dentist appointment this morning. They're so different. B-man jumped up in the chair and relatively happily let the hygienist clean his teeth.

Then it was N-man's turn. He didn't want to even sit in the chair. He didn't want to open his mouth. He didn't want to turn his head toward the hygienist. He didn't want her to use any of the instruments to clean his teeth.

It was kind of a trial, be we got through it, with lots of whining but very few tears.

After being given a new toothbrush, two stickers, and some wiki sticks, N-man had cheered up enough that when the dentist came in to check his teeth, he actually let the dentist see inside his mouth. The dentist asked him when his birthday is, and N-man replied, "When I turn 4." Very matter-of-factly, with an implied "duh". The dentist couldn't stop laughing.

Unfortunately, the dentist also said we really need to work on getting N-man to stop sucking his thumb. Um, I can't even get him to reliably use the potty, and now I'm supposed to figure out how to separate him from his "yummy thumby"? Any suggestions?

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Random unrelated thought: We put in an offer on a house. The builder is on vaca at the mo', so we won't hear back until late tomorrow. And even if they accept, we still have to sell our house (pretty quickly).

Not stressful at all!

Hee!

N-man's drinking problem, and a house showing

We had someone coming by tonight to look at our house, and TK wasn't going to be home from work, so I took the boys out to dinner since they were coming right at dinner time and, well, kids have to eat.

I figured these folks might be less likely to buy the house if we were sitting in the kitchen having dinner while they tried to look at our house.

Anyway, the boys got chocolate milk, which I poured into small coffee cups, with those coffee cup lids where a piece bends back so there's a place for you to sip out. They really liked that set up, and didn't want to use a straw, so I let them go to town.

N-man, however, went to take a sip but didn't line up the open part with his mouth. When he tipped the cup, the milk just ran right out, all down his shirt and pants.

"Ah! Ah!", he exclaimed. "Mommy! I tried to get the milk in my mouth, but then EVERYTHING went WRONG!"

I just burst out laughing. Have you ever heard a better explanation for a spill?

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We were out all day looking at houses in a town about 45 minutes away from where we currently live. While we were out, our agent got a call from someone who wanted to see our house tonight at 6pm. Okay, fine, we'll do whatever it takes. Even though our house is kind of messy (you know, kid-messy) and we're 45 minutes away. And TK is going back to work and won't be home to help clean up, or to help take the kids out at 6. And 6 is pretty much exactly dinner time. If I fed them at 5, it would be a race to get the kitchen cleaned up (and to get the kids done eating...sometimes dinner can easily last an hour, an amazing occurrence when you consider that my kids eat almost nothing!) And if I waited until the showing was done, it would be too late given a 7:30 bedtime.

So out to dinner we planned to go. At 5:30, I was getting on the kids shoes. Their agent came in the door. Half an hour early! Good thing I was already getting ready to go. Then the couple pulled in. HALF AN HOUR EARLY! Huh? And, crap, you've blocked my car in!

For a second, I wanted to make them move their cars. But no way, I'm not giving anyone a bad initial impression of us or our house. I smiled, apologized for not being gone yet (even though they were a ridiculous THIRTY MINUTES early), and bundled the kids out.

We actually have a restaurant we can walk to. About 1/4 mile away, there's an Au Bon Pain. The boys really like their mac and cheese, and I've been desperate for their Chicken Rice bowl.

We got in and ordered. They were out of mac and cheese. Gasp! But with little complaint, the boys both agreed that grilled cheese sandwiches would be acceptable.

The buzzer buzzes. I go up to get our food. And they're out of my chicken rice bowl. What? So I went there for mac and cheese and chicken and rice, and they don't have any of it? I got some gross spicy beef rice bowl instead, which I mostly threw away. And the boys didn't like their grilled cheese...it was on hard crusted bread. So they mostly threw their meal away. What a waste of money.

And all because these people couldn't come when they said they would to see our house. Or at least come a more reasonable 15 minutes early. If they had, I would have been able to take the car and go to the pizza place like I'd originally planned. Mmmm, pizza! They better buy our house... (hee! That would be nice, if to make up for this reasonably slight inconvenience, they place an offer. I know they were at least kind of serious as there are footprints all through our snowy backyard. I doubt I'd traipse through someone's snowy backyard unless I was at least somewhat interested.)

In other house-selling news, we have a broker open house Thursday, someone scheduled to see our house Saturday, and another open house Sunday. Let's get this house SOLD!

Running around, completely paralyzed

Fair warning, I'm back on the house buying/selling thing. Yes, I'm completely neurotic.

Here's the thing: I feel like this is such a huge decision that we're completely paralyzed with the fear of making the wrong choice. I mean, it was a big decision when we bought our first house, but we knew it was a starter house...that we'd be looking to move in 5 or so years (it's been 7 years). We were okay with making some trade-offs, like having less closet space than we'd like, or living on a busier road than we would have preferred. We knew that we'd only have to live with it in the relative short term.

Now we're trying to buy our FOREVER house. But as everyone knows, you can never find the perfect house. You always have to sacrifice some of what you're looking for. It just seems like such a bigger deal now, though.

Part of the issue is we're not sure where we want to live. We're looking in the town just north of where we live now. It's very similar in feeling to where we live currently. Very much a suburb...subdivisions and plazas aplenty. We don't dislike this area, but we aren't in LOVE with it, if that makes any sense.

We're also looking in the more western suburbs. It's still suburb-y, but more rural as well. Everything is more hilly and spaced out and...idyllic looking. It appeals more to us. But, to be honest, we've never lived anywhere like that. Would we miss the convenience of having three grocery stores within 10 minutes of our house? Of the relatively high number of restaurants and shops available? The convenience in general of having most of what we need close by?

And then the uproot factor comes into play. If we choose a town close to where we currently live, we don't have to change anything. The boys' preschool, our doctors, our friends: things might be slightly further away than they are now, but not unreasonably. If we moved a half hour further west, it would be far enough that we'd really be starting over. We'd have to change everything. Which is scary, though we've done it a number of times before, and it's always been kind of exciting as well as nerve-wracking.

It's confusing. As I said, we're having trouble making this decision that will have such a far-reaching affect on our lives.

Oh, and I'm also flipping out about taking on a bigger mortgage than we have now.

On the plus side, we found a house we like in the close town. Of course, there are a number of negatives, though: it REALLY would max out our budget, it only has 3 bedrooms when we'd really like 4, it is on well water, it has a ridiculously large master suite (completely out of control, and not at all what we need or want...the wasted space of it just makes me angry!), it only has one garage space. There are actually good things about the house (quite beautiful, beautiful, quiet lot, bigger than we expected to be able to afford), but as I said, we're finding ourselves completely overwhelmed and unable to commit!

Part of me wants to say, "Well, we're having doubts for a reason. Better pass this house by". The other part of me yells, "You're NEVER going to stop having doubts about any house, and you'll never find another house this nice! Don't be an idiot! Make an offer!"

Who knows.

Of course, ha, ha, our current house hasn't sold. It's not getting a ton of interest, either. Only one "second look", and the couple ultimately decided they didn't like that there are duplexes in our neighborhood. What? It's weird the things people will latch onto as a negative.

It'll all work out.

Right?

When I grow up...

Have I mentioned that I'm not awesome at all this preschool/parent stuff?

This Friday is "career day" at preschool. The kids are supposed to come dressed up as what they want to be when they grow up. Um, what? Besides Firefighter or Doctor, how do you even dress kids up as a job?

And, they're THREE! How do they know what they want to be?

So I asked them what they want to do when they grow up. N-man said he wants to move boxes into storage spaces. Can you tell it's not just been me whose been super focused on moving??

B-man immediately jumped on board with this idea, expanding it to "I want to move really, really, really HEAVY boxes!" I think he wants to be a weightlifter/mover.

I just asked them again, and they're still intent on "mover". I think I might get them little boxes and write "N-man and B-man Moving and Storage" on the side and let them bring those to school on Friday.

I will admit that I've been talking up doctor or firefighter, though. Yes, I'm unapologetically choosing future careers for my children based on how easy it would be for me to make a costume by Friday. They didn't bite, though. Putting out fires or curing disease just doesn't have the same draw as toting heavy boxes from here to there!

Yet Another House Update

I swear I'll try to think of something more interesting soon. The whole "sell the house/buy a house" thing has just become so entirely all-consuming, it eats up all my attention!

Okay, so we had our first open house today. Ten couples came through. No one made an offer. Our real estate agent is going to try to get some feedback from other agents for us. I suspect it's primarily things we can't change (i.e., it's on a busy street, or it's an odd layout, etc), but maybe there are some minor things we could fix/change to appeal to more people. Who knows. It's only been on the market for 4 days, so I'm not getting worried yet.

On the house hunting side, I am getting a little worried. We haven't seen anything that would be acceptable yet. Today we saw the nicest house yet, but it was at the VERY top of our price range, and it was on the LITTLEST lot. I doubt there'd even be room for a swing set, except maybe on the side of the house. Oh, and it was pretty darn close to the commuter rail tracks. A lot of negatives for completely maxing out our budget.

Yesterday, though, we saw what was both the most awesome and most depressing house ever. The good: very affordable, in an awesome location (closer to TK's work than most of the houses we're looking at), and it had a frikkin' secret room! Off one of the bedrooms, there was a fake built in cabinet. When you pulled on it, it was door to a rather large secret room! So, so cool!

The bad: it was in a swamp. Literally. The basement would flood regularly. There was standing water right up to the edge of the house. Can you imagine the mosquitoes in the summer?

The best part of a house in a swamp: Monty Python quotes :)

Selling schmelling

We're done. The pictures have been taken, the contracts with the real estate agent have been signed, we're selling our house! Well, you know, if we can find a buyer.

Little things.

Our first open house is this Sunday, which also happens to be TK's birthday.

Here's how I think it'll go, version ONE:

12:00: Open house begins

12:15: Call from agent: "I can't believe how many people are here!"

12:30: Call from agent: "Oh my, there's a bidding war going on! There are THREE couples all desperate for your house!"

12:45: Call from agent: "A fourth couple just threw their name in the mix!"

2:00: Open house ends. People are still milling around outside, marveling at our house.

5:00: Multiple offers, all above our asking price.

What do you think? Am I going to be disappointed on Sunday?

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Here's how I think it'll go, version TWO:

12:00: Open house starts.

2:00 Open house finishes. Agent says: "We got a few looky-loos, but no serious buyers came through. It was a slow day because of x, y, z."

6 months later...

5:00: Finally got an offer, significantly below asking price.

What do you think? Am I going to be pleasantly surprised on Sunday?

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Realistically, I think it'll be somewhere in between those two extremes. Or at least I hope. I know open houses rarely sell a house, so I actually don't have big expectations for Sunday. And quite honestly, we haven't seen any houses we like yet, so the thought of our house selling very quickly scares me just as much as it selling very slowly. Ideally, it'll sell on the very day that we find our perfect new house...whenever that day is...

Oh sorry, fell into dream land again!

Recovered (knock wood!)

I think the whole house is healthy at the moment, though I'm still pretty run down and tired out. Not sure if that's leftover from the sickness, or if it's just normal pregnancy tired, or if it's because I've been cleaning/organizing constantly. I swear, I didn't know our house was such a mess and so disorganized! It looked okay...honest! As long as you didn't open any closets or drawers. Or go into the basement. Or the extra bedroom. Or pay too much attention to the piles of crap on the kitchen counters. Okay, I guess it was a mess.

We're getting there, though there's a lot to still do this week. But if everything goes well, our house will be listed this weekend! Yikes!

So, you know how we celebrated Valentine's Day by moving stuff to a storage space? Yesterday, when we were finally all healthy, we celebrated by...moving more stuff to the storage space. Do we know how to party or what? Super glamorous! I did, of course, wear my Oscar-approved gown for all box moving. So at least there was that.

I got nothin' funny today. Yo, I walk the fine line between sanity and...lack there of...on on daily basis as it is. I'm afraid all this moving stuff has pushed me firmly into the "sane" category. I miss the warm happiness of being just a little nuts.

Off to call a mortgage broker now. Think I should try to tap into my crazy first? I'll try to resist, as I'd like to be approved for more than 3 easy payments of $19.95.

The most (sarcastic) awesome Valentine's Day on record

So, did you all have a nice Valentine's Day? I hope so!

We didn't. Are you ready for a gross story? Here's how mine went:

Well, first I should qualify that I'm not a big fan of the "holiday". We don't really celebrate it. Call us unromantic, but it I'd much rather be kind to one another every day than create some unrealistic demands on a Hallmark holiday.

However, I'd hoped it would go better than this.

We started out our day by...wait for it...renting a storage space. And moving a zillion boxes and furniture! Really, nothing says "Valentine's Day" like a little manual labor.

We got home around lunch time, when B-man started to feel sick. He'd had a stomach bug Thursday night, but hadn't thrown up since then. Turns out he was saving it up for Saturday.

Around dinner time, B-man threw up all over EVERYTHING. I was sitting on the couch with him, and he managed to hit every couch cushion. And a blanket. And me. And N-man. N-man reacted as I wanted to: he ran into the corner, yelling and crying "It's on me! It's on me! Get it OFFFFFFF!" But then running away whenever we tried to get his clothes off.

TK and I started mopping up as best we could the couch and floor, and stripped both boys. TK started a bath and threw the boys in the tub, while I grabbed the blanket, the kids' clothes, and headed down to the laundry. I stripped myself as I was completely covered. I mean, my hair, my shirt, both arms, my watch, my pants, even my socks. It was truly disgusting. I cranked the washer up to hot, and got it going. Then I raced upstairs, completely naked (and still with PUKE in my hair! ACK!)

Now I have a problem, though. What I want more than anything is to turn the shower as hot as it can possibly go, and wash 10,000 times while scalding my skin for about an hour until I finally feel clean. But of course, after the boys' bath, and the hot water washer load, there is almost no hot water left. So I'm forced to shiver in the lukewarm water, desperately washing and washing and washing, hoping frigid water is as good at removing germs as hot.

I went downstairs, and TK and I just stared at the couch. It was pretty disgusting. I finally decided to scrub it with a scrub brush and dishwashing detergent. Probably not the recommended treatment, but it worked.

We got the boys to bed. And that's when TK started to feel sick...

So, I fully realize our Valentine's Day could have been far, far worse. But still, I think that any Valentine's Day that starts out with manual labor and finishes up with half the house covered in vomit deserves a do-over. I hope all of you had a better weekend than we did. And I'm hoping next year we can have a slightly more romantic Valentine's Day!

Random cuteness

The boys have been pretty darn cute recently, if I do say so myself. I thought I'd share just a few of the things that have made me smile/laugh recently:

We told the boys about the new baby coming one night at dinner while we were having soup. We talked about how mommy had a baby in her tummy, blah, blah, blah. Conversation over, a few minutes go by, and I take another bite of soup. N-man looks at me askew and asks, "Why are you putting soup on the baby's head?"

We had to explain about how I have a stomach for food, and a separate spot called the uterus where the baby grows. Now if I talk about the "baby in my tummy", B-man always corrects me and says, "It's not in your tummy! It's in your UTER!"

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We went to an open house last weekend. Not so much with the intent to buy, but to see what was available in our price range. N-man loved it, asking us repeatedly if we could stay there. We had to explain that we'll look at LOTS of houses before we find our house. Not to mention that the house was pretty horrid, so it was especially funny that he loved it!

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I've been looking at online house listings as well from time to time. I found a house in our price range that has a library! I mean, absolutely nothing else about the house would meet our needs, but it has a library! With built-in shelves! I've been talking it up and showing the boys and TK the online pictures. Now whenever we see a house online, B-man wants to know if it has a library. Sorry to break it to you, bub, but houses with libraries are right out of our price range, except this one odd ball! I love that he wants a house with a library as much as I do, though I suspect he thinks there will be a pet turtle and story hours, just like at our town library!

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Potty training N-man is still completely kicking my butt, but yesterday when he successfully made it to the potty, he invented the pee pee celebration dance. It was pretty hilarious, and looked like something you'd see in a Snoopy movie. I hope we have many more pee pee celebrations in the future!

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N-man is super interested in rhyming right now. Everything we say, he rhymes right back to us. "N-man, it's time for dinner," we say. "No it's not," he answers, "it's time for LINNER!" I don't know why, but it cracks us up every time. Which I'm sure is why he keeps it up.

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I've been sitting on the couch more than usual, thanks to near constant morning sickness (it's getting better, I HOPE!). The boys will play near me, and I'll interact by talking to them. B-man has started "mommy breaks" where he stops playing and comes over to cuddle with me for a minute or two. He's just the sweetest, cuddliest little kid!

Meeting with real estate agents

We've been interviewing real estate agents, and have gotten a $40k swing in estimates of what we should list our house for. Isn't that crazy? We'll probably pick somewhere in the middle of the high and low estimate. Sorry if I continue to be somewhat sporadic with my posts...we're doing a TON of cleaning up!

Things we've found so far:

• Two size 18m outfits we were given when the boys were born, tags still on. Hey, maybe we'll have a boy again and can use it!
• Approximately 12,000 empty shoe boxes and other assorted small containers, because I always think I'm going to use them for something.
• Bottles we received as a hand-me-down and never used.
• A bag of VHS tapes (we have no VCR)
• 1 gazillion books of sheet music. Oh wait, we knew we had that. TK has sheet music for basically every song written between 1970 and 1990. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. If it was on the radio, and had any piano or guitar parts, he's got it. It's kind of a joke. In the 16 years we've been together, I don't think I've ever stumped him by asking if he had sheet music from any song from that era. He's got a sizable collection from pre-1970 and post-1990, though not quite as completist.

We've got two closets cleaned out. That's actually a good start...there are only 8 closets in the whole house, and we cleaned out the two biggest/messiest.

We also found a local company with a focus on recycling moving boxes. You buy boxes from them...they're used (if they've got them), or new. Then you give them back when you're done and they reuse them. How cool is that?

I tried freecycle first, as obviously free is best, but since I couldn't get any there, I feel pretty good about this set up.

And I'll leave you with some silly boy stories about things they did while we were trying to talk to different real estate agents:

• Played the drums
• Rode a NOISY ride-on fire truck around the table where we were talking
• Pushed a NOISY car around the table, and then the floor when we made them move
• Climbed all over TK and I
• Ran around like crazy men
• And most importantly, were totally cute and completely adorable, even though they were far, far louder, and far, far more constantly noisy than they've ever been before.

One of the real estate agents said that if we really needed to, we could stay in the house out of the way while people came to see the house. She was trying to say that we didn't have to be completely inconvenienced. As she was telling us, N-man started banging on the drums, and B-man started up one of his music toys. We could barely hear her! I said I thought we'd deal with the inconvenience of leaving the house when people come by.