Category Archives: House Stuff

this month

Posted on by

It’s July. That means we are moving this month. Gulp!

Really, I don’t know why I get so panicked and anxious whenever I think about it. It’s not like there’s that much packing left to do. Our bedroom and the kitchen are the bulk of it, plus sorting out the garden tools and whatnot in the garage. But that’s really it. The movers will be able to handle everything else in no time. A month seems like long enough to take care of those few things, right? So why do I get butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it?

I think part of it is that I don’t know where we’re going yet. Our “representatives” in North Carolina (my faboo cousin Cat and her realtor friend Cara) went looking for houses for us a couple of weeks ago, and they found 3 good possibilities. Our top pick turned out to already be rented. The second pick was 20 miles from Dave’s office, which didn’t seem feasible. I would’ve been happy with the third pick (cute house, nice neighborhood), except the landlord seemed totally shady and kept trying to come up with ways to make us pay rent for July, when hello, we won’t even be living there until after August 1st. So we passed on that place. Cat and Cara are going out to look at houses again tomorrow, and hopefully will find something great. Fingers crossed. And hoo boy, I am going to owe them both some phenomenal gift baskets after all this is over.

I’m also trying to figure out transportation arrangements for the cats, which is giving me a headache. I can’t fly them cargo, because the airlines won’t take them if it’s over 85 degrees, and the odds are pretty good that it will be at least 85 in North Carolina in late July. So I’m looking at pet moving services, and lordy they’re expensive, but it’s worth it if it means that I won’t have to worry about them possibly suffocating from the heat. If any of you have had some experience with a professional pet moving service, please drop me an email and let me know, ok?

Oh, and if you have any spare Valiums lying around and want to donate them to a good cause? I’ll give you my home address. And probably a kiss on the mouth.

rough day (and it's only just started)

Posted on by

Ever have one of those days where your toddler wakes you up almost two hours earlier than usual for no discernible reason, and your house is completely trashed because you’ve let the housekeeping slide since you’ve sold and haven’t had to show the place, and the house also smells vaguely of baby poop because you really should’ve emptied the diaper pail last night, and then when you pull in the driveway after dropping your kid off at daycare, you see a big white utility van sitting there waiting and you remember that oh yeah, this was the day that the electrician was supposed to come?

No? Just me? Ok then!

So yeah, today has not been good so far. Cate woke up at 5:45 this morning, cheerful as a lark and totally wiiiide awake. She’s been getting up progressively earlier and earlier, and it’s driving me insane. I’m not sure if it’s because the sun is coming up earlier, or if it’s because she isn’t eating enough at night so she’s waking up because she’s hungry. (She has been eating less at dinner time, and when I go get her in the morning, she starts signing “milk” before I even get her out of her crib, so the hunger issue seems plausible.) And the food thing is the one issue that I might be able to work on, so I’m going to try to get her to eat more in the evening to see if that helps.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she was still going to bed at a reasonable time, but lately she’s been staying up until almost 10:00 every night. She’s not grouchy, she’s just a whirling dervish of energy and we don’t know how to calm her down other than to let her run around until she collapses from exhaustion.

Ok, cute baby video time! Last night we went out for a walk and I brought the video camera in case we saw the new baby horse down the street (sadly, he & his mama were in one of the back pastures where I couldn’t get a good shot of them). As we passed one of the little gravel side roads, these two dogs behind a fence started going berserk, barking and growling at us, and basically sounding like they wanted to eat us for lunch. Cate screamed “doggy!” and ran toward them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChIREeqmyY

They were a little scary, but she didn’t seem to notice. She does the sign for “dog” in this, or close to it – for those unfamiliar with baby sign language, you’re supposed to pat your hip like you’re calling a dog to you, and Cate pats her belly. But it was close enough, I knew what she meant. She also screams “Patsy!” after she signs “dog,” I guess because Patsy is the only person she knows who has dogs.

I love when she says “hi, baby” and waves at them.

P.S. She has two new words since yesterday, both used appropriately: “ball” and “book”. Right on.

happy Father's Day

Posted on by

This weekend has been pretty fun. First of all, I think we might’ve found a place to live in Raleigh; we’re still waiting to find out for sure, and I really hope it works out because there aren’t any other houses that Cat saw on Friday that would really work for us, and I’d hate to ask her to go house-hunting twice. (But I know she will if I ask, because she loves me, and she’s quite possibly as excited as I am about this move.)

Saturday morning was sort of hectic, since we had plumbers and garage door repairmen here (ah, home repairs, how I won’t miss you when we’re renting). But Cate was in a fantastic mood and we had a great time playing; then she took a three-hour nap, and woke up just as I was leaving to go to my book club with my girlfriends. The book club was awesome. A few girls cancelled, so it ended up being me and three girls who are all engaged. (Linda’s getting married next month, Erin’s getting married in August, and Kris is getting married next March.) So there was all kinds of wedding talk, which was pretty hilarious, and it made me so glad that I’m not in the middle of planning a wedding because hoo boy, that was a stressful period in my life.

Oh, and for the record? Coming home to your husband bathing your 16 month-old toddler and seeing them having their own little conversation and splashing and laughing? That is heart-meltingly awesome.

This morning, since it’s Father’s Day, we let Dave sleep in. Well, I tried to let him sleep, but Cate had other ideas. We had to come upstairs a couple of times to change her diaper or get dressed or whatever, and every time she’d tear down the hall to our room shrieking, “Daddy!!” So, eh, what can you do? After he got up, I let him keep Cate entertained for a while and I went outside to mow the lawn. All two acres. By myself. Because I’m a good wife like that. Also because it’s a beautiful day, so it was no big hardship on me to spend two hours outside.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father’s Day to Dave and all the other amazing dads out there who read this. (And to my own dad too, who doesn’t read this site, but I guess I ought to throw it out there just in case he ever does.)

over-overwhelmed

Posted on by

I have about five or six pieces of paper floating around with various to-do lists written on them, so today I decided to get all organized and type up everything in a Word document. And can I just say? Holy crap, I have a lot that I need to do. I don’t know if the word “overwhelmed” even begins to cover how I’m feeling right now.

I feel like I’ve either been on the phone or meeting with various contractors all week for the ridiculous number of things we have to do to fix this place up (per the inspection report), and I’m wiped out. Oh, and something is blooming right now that is causing me some major allergy issues. So I’m trying to negotiate with contractors while on massive amounts of antihistamines. Good times.

So hey, should I lighten the mood away from my current state of anxiety and panic, and give you some fun baby updates? Sure, why not!
* Cate’s getting really good with names. She knows all the kids at daycare, and yesterday when we were leaving, I told her to say bye-bye to Patsy. She said, “Bass-y, bye!!” (That “P” sound eludes her sometimes. Oh well, we know what she means.)

* She figured how to go down the stairs. It sort of freaked me out at first, but now I let her do it for practice, as long as I’m right there to catch her in case she slips. But she basically lies on her stomach and backs down the steps, the same way that she goes up. Smart girl.

* The food texture issues seem to be starting to let up a little bit. The other day she actually touched a slice of banana and fed it to herself. Y’all probably don’t know how huge this is, but trust me, it’s big. She’s always been totally grossed out by anything with a vaguely squishy texture. She might eat it, but only if you put it in her mouth for her. So the fact that she’s decided that maybe she can stand to touch a non-crunchy food item is a pretty major milestone for us.

Oh, one other happy thing: while I was typing this, I got a phone call from Cat, and I think we might’ve found a house in Raleigh. Keep your fingers crossed. Yay!

random stuff

Posted on by

1. We survived our house inspection yesterday, although we don’t really know the upshot of it. We heard back from our realtor that the major things we needed to be forewarned about are (a) a leak in the roof over the garage, which we wouldn’t have noticed because it’s way up in the eaves, but we’re going to have to get it fixed, and (b) “signs of rodent activity” in the crawlspace under the house. Which is apparently true of pretty much every house out here – I mean, hello, we’re in the boonies, of COURSE there are field mice everywhere. But they’ve done some damage to the insulation down there, so we’ll have to get that fixed too. But overall, it doesn’t sound like there are any humongous expenses that are going to come out of it. Which is great news.

2. The buyers’ realtor told us that she could use a barn cat or two, so she offered to adopt Cleo & Greta. I think that would work well for Greta, but Cleo is really a mostly-indoor cat. She only likes to go out when it’s really warm, and she’s not much of a hunter at all. So it might end up that we separate them and try to find another home for Cleo, which I didn’t want to do, but as long as I can find places where they’ll both be happy, I guess that’s all that really matters. Dave thinks that Greta would be really happy as a barn cat, since she isn’t very social at all, and she’s great at killing small things. Maybe he’s right. Anyone want to adopt Cleo? She’s a super-sweet cuddler and she’s got those awesome paws with “thumbs” (6 toes) that make her look like a little ballet dancer.

3. Even though we’ve technically sold the place, we had another showing this morning. Apparently this guy was bummed to hear that we had sold the house and asked his realtor to make an appointment so he might have a chance to make us a counter-offer. Hmm. Yeah, ok. I’m not holding my breath, and I’m fine with the offer that we got. I was mostly just annoyed that I had to clean up the house again for this guy to come see the place.

4. I think Cate is getting her molars. She has a runny nose, which initially made me think it was a cold, but she’s also been drooling like crazy and trying to shove her entire hand in her mouth. Poor baby, she really seems to be pretty miserable. And she woke up about once an hour last night, so neither of us is what you might call “well-rested” today.

5. My amazing cousin Cat and Cara (the lovely realtor that Cat & Tony introduced us to) are going to act as our representatives in North Carolina and go find us a rental house this Friday afternoon. I’ve told them that I’m relying on their fabulous tastes to make sure we get a nice place. Whee!! I can’t wait!

open house follow-up

Posted on by

We had our open house today, in spite of the fact that our house’s status is “Sold Subject to Inspection” (LOVE that!). Renee had already put an ad in the paper about it, so… eh, whatever. I wasn’t expecting a higher offer from anyone who came to the open house; I really thought only the neighbors would show up.

I was a little annoyed that we were still having it because it meant that I had to clean the house from top to bottom, but then I found out that the buyers are having our house inspection done at 9:00 tomorrow morning, so I guess it didn’t really matter. I would’ve been cleaning like mad for the house inspector too, so better to get it all done at the same time, right?

Like I said before, my plan was to keep Cate awake until the open house began at 1:00, and then she’d hopefully sleep in the car and still get a decent nap. Yeah. So I tried to explain to Cate that I needed her to stay awake until 1:00. And at around 12:30, this was her response:

screw you guys, I'm taking my nap here and now
“Screw you guys, if you won’t put me in my crib and let me sleep, I’ll just lie down on the floor and take my nap right here.”

So she slept about 30 minutes and was wide awake in the car, but she was in a good mood for most of the afternoon. She fell asleep on the way home and slept from 4:00 to 5:00, which is when I woke her up, because oh hell no, child, you WILL go to bed at a reasonable time tonight. Mommy has a big meeting at the Giant Software Company tomorrow morning, and she needs a good night’s sleep.

Oh, while we were out this afternoon, we went to a mall and let Cate run wild and play, which was fun. I was going to take her to get a haircut since she’s looking so shaggy these days, and I’m terrified to try to cut her hair myself, but the kids’ hair salon was closed for remodeling. Rats. Oh well, no biggie, Dave and I hit the food court for lunch and Cate had a grand time rearranging all of the plastic chairs. They also had a kids’ play area that she thoroughly enjoyed. After that, we did a grocery run, and that effectively killed the three hours that we were supposed to be out of the house.

For the record, three sets of people (one couple, two families) came to see the house today. None of them were neighbors, but I don’t think any of them were very serious about the place either. Which is fine, since we already sold the house anyway!! (Sorry, but I’m not sure if that will ever stop blowing my mind.)

our status is now "subject to inspection"

Posted on by

So… apparently we sold our house. I think. They made an offer, we counter-offered, and they’ve verbally accepted our counter-offer, but they haven’t met with their realtor yet to sign off on it. Apparently they’ll be doing that later today, and we’ll be having our inspection on Monday morning.

Assuming all goes according to plan, we’ll be closing – er, and MOVING – at the end of July. Holy crap.

But then, can you imagine if something this major actually sticks to a plan? HAHAHAHA!!!

Obviously, this hasn’t quite sunk in as being real yet. So I’m going to go start making my ten thousand to-do lists and begin my little Six-Week Freak-Out Session. (Six weeks! Aaaiiieeee!!!)

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of a cute toddler in a ridiculously oversized raincoat.

Cate in her ridiculously-oversized raincoat

Cold and rainy weather in June? Yep, won’t miss that one bit.