Tomorrow?! Canada Day is tomorrow?! Good heavens! How did that happen so quickly?? At least this year I know where my flag is. Haven’t anywhere to hang it, but I could just wrap it around myself like a cap and run through the house naked singing the national anthem… couldn’t I? Don’t worry, I’ll wait til the boys are pre-occupied.

Today was one of those days where you’re wanting to get stuff done and feeling entirely too unwanting to do anything. Hate days like this, since it’s a waste but *shouldn’t* be. Ahh well. Some good might have come of today, though I can’t say yet (don’t ask, not telling yet!). The weather was beautiful today – even a tad cold since it barely went above 72F in the house. Sun was shining, though, and the moon is full and bright tonight.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to actually get stuff done. The other side of our mailbox needs our address info (I only got enough letters for one side, oops!) and I need to put up the balloons so Sears delivery can bring me mah washer’n'dryer for our stinky clothes! I’d like to try rearranging the bedroom furniture and maybe..MAYBE.. put our dresser drawers actually *in* the dresser, instead of scattered around on the floor and stacked in the closet. You’d think that’d be an easy task, but when chasing after 2 boys any time spent in the bedroom is brief. We might do some painting tomorrow. Either Ethan’s ceiling (likely, since I’m sure he’ll need the ceiling fan soon) or the office walls.

At least, that’s what this post will be.  Bitching.  Bitching about our eaves troughs, which leak like nobody’s business and hold standing water (mmm, mosquitoes!).  Bitching about the well, which was giving us slightly smelly water (kinda sulfery) so we followed Ken’s co-worker’s advice and dumped a gallon of bleach in it and cycled/recycled (ran a hose from the house into the well and left it running all night) it and now I’m showering with water so chlorine-y it’s like those pools that’re so chlorine’d your eyes burn.  And my hands smell.  Constantly. (we’re using a Brita, which helps).  And doing all this has stirred up iron particles so the water looks all yellowy and cloudy.  I love Brita.  Ken thinks the chlorine and cloudy will pass once we’ve gone through what’s in the holding tank (about a week or so).  I’m pretty tempted to just run the faucet all day to speed that up.  If I had a washer/dryer, boy you can bet I’d have clean… well… every fabric in the house!

I’m all ansy today.  I could be organizing the boxes of books in the office, since it’s nap time and I must needs be quiets, but I?  Don’t want to.  Yet this morning I whined to Ken about being stuck in “do stuff/worry” mode concerning the house and the “get stuff done NOW” mode of selling the old house was continuing onto this house and I want to get everything done.  Yesterday.  I made a list, and it doesn’t even cover every little thing, of stuff we need to do to this house.  It’s so long!  Granted, most of it hinges on money, so there’s not much we can do right now, but oy!

Here, share in my oy:

• finish installing child locks in kitchen
• finish painting all rooms
• put up ceiling fans in Ethan’s room, dining area, office, and raise living room fan to flush-mount
• acquire and install more bathroom hardware (both full bathrooms have only a toilet paper and one towel bar – nothing for hand towels, nothing for more than one towel)
• finish bonus room (wiring, drywall, heating, flooring, ceiling fan, paint)
• finish office (paint, built-in shelving, window seat, ceiling fan)
• finish basement (too much to list)
• plant trees along roadside, along driveway, in front of house
• plant bulbs/flowers/shrubbery to make house prettier
• fine-tune driveway
• build deck/screened-in porch
• remove dead wood from property
• make with the grass!
• fix drainage/erosion problem
• build bench for foyer
• build new, child-proof entertainment units
• build spice rack

I’ll stop there.  I don’t like bitching, would you believe?

Phone’s work, now, and all that’s remaining is the washer/dryer to be delivered/installed on Monday.  That, however, is too far away for clothing options so when Ken goes to the old house to paint the front door he’s going to pick up a load of clothes to wash while he’s there.  I’ll dry them here tonight, but it’ll be nice to have clean clothes on the boys.

The listing is up, but no photos for some reason but only one photo (though it’s the best one). I’m also surprised and disappointed that it doesn’t mention our living room at all, let alone that it has cathedral ceilings; no mention of the walk-in closet in the Mbd, and they list tile and vinyl flooring when we have pergo, vinyl and carpet flooring. Makes me wonder if these listings are a charge-per-word kinda deal.

I suppose it could be worse, right?

It’s the humidity what makes it so bad.  The office is the driest room in the house, I’m sure because the computer keeps it nice and toasty and it’s full of boxes of paper and the windows are shut.  Today is one of those days that I just don’t wanna do anything.  Sucks, since there’s just so much that needs to be done.  I have, however, gotten my kitchen mostly set up, the dining area mostly set up, and the living room mostly set up.  Kitchen needs cabinet locks (which need Ken to install cause they don’t like screwing in for me), dining area needs the china cabinet filled, and the living room needs a ceiling fan.  And there’s the furniture still at the house that we’ll need to arrange once it sells TODAY!  Must needs sell fast please?  We saw the listing our realtor put up and it’s all listed but not registering on realtor.com which bums me out since the pictures make it look so darned cute!  I wanna show off a little.  Seriously, the pic she took of the outside is the best one compared to other houses in our area/price range.  The internal pics aren’t as good, but the inside of the house is more impressive in person anyways.

Since we were busy yesterday night, I’m making Ken his bird day dinner tonight.  It’s a surprise.  I hope I can do it justice (I’ll share if it goes well).  Maybe I should wake the boys and get going on that, now that I think on it…  Ken’s new commute is a bare 20-25mins and I’m sure neither of us is used to it yet (especially since yesterday he didn’t really make it straight to work or home).

Ken works with come truly kickass people. Seriously. We’re so grateful for the help they provided. Vehicles to move small, hard to pack things (like cooking stuffs and lamps); beefy-strongness to move heavy things (like our furniture); and extra hands to watch babies (while I assembled the crib) and even help move boxes/etc from the living room and dining area (and into the office/basement/upstairs) so we could set up the furniture therein and have a semblance of a livable space. They all love our house and it’s layout. They brought beer and left half of it here and only ate half the pizza I had so we’d extra pizzas left to eat this week (good, since the U-haul cut into our lunch money). They even seemed to have a good time through it all and afterward while we sat around and chatted. Awesome people.

Sharon and Rick showed up sometime in the afternoon (naptime was… un-doable)… I don’t know when because we had only the oven clock and I’m not in the habit of glancing at it yet to check for time. Rick seemed surprised at how giggly Victor is. They spent the night at the old house and Sharon was kind enough to vacuum it and scrub the bathrooms some for me. Very much appreciated as I haven’t had much time to clean there (tonight, hopefully).

We’ve spent much of our time here trying to get things set up. Ethan’s still unsure about all this change but he’s adjusting well – having every toy he’s ever had out to play with helps. It’s much like Christmas to him, I’m sure. We’ve got cable and internets, but no phone yet. Phone dude is supposed to arrive before 5pm. Cable dude was done before lunch, though Ethan could care less about the tele because TOYS!! I’ve set up the computer while Victor naps and am now paranoidally waiting for phone dude to arrive and wake him up. Ethan’s had the briefest of naps and I can hear him thumping around in his room but I can’t let him down until Victor wakes up, though I may wake him myself in a bit.

So what’re our impressions of the house? It feels so much bigger. The layout is awesome, such that it feels a good 1-200sqft bigger than the last, though they have the same footage. The boys rooms are the perfect size for them (I’d been a bit worried they’d be a tad small) and the play area at the top of the stairs (previously a vaulted foyer) is perfect for just that. The water will need a system – we’re using a faucet mounted Brita right now – once we can afford it. The water in the sink makes thumping noises and there’s an area of Victor’s floor that creaks REALLY LOUDLY and we avoid at all costs (thankfully it’s off to the side). The Berber carpeting seemed kinda scratchy at first, but is softening up as it’s walked upon. The kitchen…is huge. Hu-uge. And then the pantry on top of all that space has me reeling. It’s going to take a while to get it all “right”. The master bedroom is bigger than I’d expected, has tons of light, and a swallow next tucked above one of the windows.

The drawback is that we look around and see so much to do. The couch stares out the back windows at the dirt hill behind the house making me want to “fix” it with plants. We need storm doors and a water softener system (very hard water) and garage door openers. We need to finish the bonus room and the basement and build a deck/screened in porch. We need to put built-in shelves into the office and a window seat. We need to unpack a 2-car garage-worth of boxes. We need to plant a ton of trees out front to make up for those which were (unnecessarily, much of the time) cut down during construction (partly for noise, partly for appearance). We need to paint (Victor’s room and our bedroom are done, but that’s all we managed). We need to put up ceiling fans and get bulbs for the ones we have (they’re using small base bulbs now, wtf?!).
We love it here.

Moving day is officially tomorrow, but ramps up today.  We’re moving all those little things that you need til the last minute today, as much as we can.  The boys toys, tele and dvd player, pots and pans, pantry items, utensils (save a few to eat from tonight/tomorrow), clothes, etc.  This is mostly my job; to move as much as I can.  I’m doing my best but the wave threatens to overwhelm my small boat.  But hey, this is what garbage bags are for, right?

We’ll be offline until Monday sometime when they hook up our cable.  Even then we’ll be spending every spare minute setting up the new house.  We’d like to have it as organized as possible before anyone (save the move-helpers) sees it.  That’ll take a while, and we’ll also need to keep the upkeep of the old house as well.  Hopefully it sells quickly, and for a good price.

Take care all!  Don’t get into any trouble.  If anyone needs to call our number will be the same, but won’t be switched to the new house til Monday and we’re taking our phones with us before then.  Not that I’m expecting anyone to call anyways.

Today marks our 4th Anniversary of being married, Ken and I.  I don’t really have enough words to say to praise him as a husband, best-friend, lover, father, or soul mate.  He is, though.  The past 4 years have truly flown by and I wish I could relive them, they were so good.  He’s so good.  I feel so unbelievably lucky to have him as mine.  There’s so much he does for me to support and encourage me, to make me laugh and feel loved.

Last night he gave me an all-over oil body massage.  The oil was a bit unusual (especially since he’s not crazy about the scent of it) though nice, but the massage wasn’t.  He’ll not usually do me all over, but on a very regular basis he gives me back rubs.  I don’t ask, I don’t even complain about having a sore back.  He just does it because he wants to.  I asked why, last night, and he said he just likes touching me.  We’re both really touchy with each other anyways.

And so, that thing you do to make me feel loved.  That thing you do without my ever having to ask and just because you want to.  That thing is one that I treasure about you.  One of a million.  One to remember.

This morning we drove Ken into work, stopping at the bank to have something witnessed by a Notary first.  Then we drove home in order to waste time and drove right back to get Victor to his appt.  In slightly less than an hour we’ll be driving in again, dropping some dresser drawers (containing *my* drawers… and bras) off at the house, picking up Ken and having a FAAAbulous dinner at either McPigs or Wendy’s.  Glamourous, I know.  Then we drive back to the New House to put up ceiling fans in the boys rooms and maybe paint the walls of our bedroom (Ken did the ceiling cut-in last night of Victor’s and our bedrooms).  With the kids.  In the “play room” (aka Ethan’s room filled with older toys).  Likely squalling at us because it’s late and they squaller when it’s late.

ToMORROW I drive Ken into work (with kids) so’s he can pick up the U-haul in the afternoon, fill it full of our stuff to take to the New House, and drops the stuff off.  Then, if there’s time, I’m going to the New House to do whatever’s next on our list of “bedroom fix-up stuffs to do”.  Oh how I can’t wait til this is all over.

Saturday is moving day.  Pray for sanity, patience, time, etc for us.  Sunday we’re leaving the kids with Sharon and Rick (who’re coming down Sat afternoon) while Ken and I go to the old house to clean.  Then I grocery shop, hopefully, during naptime.  Ken’s suggested that, during the week next week, I drive him into work then come here to do clean-up stuff.  I think he’s nuts.

28.25″ tall

20lbs 5oz

16.75″ noggin

BIG boy!

Noticing he’s rather quiet, I turn around to look at Victor.  He’s sitting on the floor, reaching out, trying to catch hold of the sunshine shining past him on one side.  The other day he was trying, desperately, to eat a stain off the carpet in the living room.

I keep thinking about the fact that you’ll be 3 years old in two short months. 3! 3 YEARS! Has that much time really passed? Are you really that old? It’s not so much that the time has passed quickly, but it does seem like a *lot* of time all the same.

This past month has been marked with a lot of control and button-pushing and tantrums. Extra long tantrums. The past week, though, you’ve become a bit more reasonable at times so it feels like there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. I hope. Neither your father nor I are very good with willful disobedience, but it’s what you’re “supposed to be doing at this age” so we’re trying to keep it all in context.

The good stuff is that you keep surprising us. “Yeah, toast!” and unreminded “thank you, Mommy”s and the often said “Hey Mommy/Daddy! What’s going on?” never fail to amuse us. You’ve also entered into a “Helper phase” and now inSIST on helping me unload the dishwasher (you’re quite good at it, too), you request I vacuum several times a day (not on your life), you pretend to wash windows, you ask for diaper changes (sometimes), you ask for showers (though you’ve been doing that for a while) and you generally just want to help. It’s terribly cute. The cutest is the dishwasher, which just sends you into fits of happiness and when we’re done and we close the door you completely flip out and scream. Every.single.time. Finally, yesterday, I told you that if you didn’t calm down you were never allowed to help Mommy with the dishwasher again. Generally I avoid “never’s” but I was frustrated. It worked, though, as you stopped wailing immediately and started being a good boy again.

One of your favourite games, these days, is “Giggle-a-boo”. You look Victor close in the face, laugh (which gets him laughing), then run around behind him to his other side. As soon as he’s “found” you you both laugh again. Rinse. Repeat. It’s terribly cute and I hope it bodes well for your future relationship together.

You’re becoming a very big boy, these days. We weighed you a few weeks ago and you topped the scale at 26lbs. Your feet, also, are huge. Huge. Over 5″ long and soon to be outgrown of your sandals. You’ve well outgrown fitting under the peninsula counter in the kitchen, and your head almost reaches the top of the counter now. Such a big boy you’re becoming!

Despite the frustrations running high, your father and I are still so proud of you and love you and find so much joy in our life with you.

Love, Mommy

Last night went well.  I finally got the vinyl blinds up after fighting with the wrong screwdriver for… well… you don’t need to know how long.  I then drove home to get the right one and they went up in a flash.  I’m only a little bitter about that.  I got the ceiling fan blades onto their mounting bracket thingies, and some clothes hung up (instead of draped over a box).

It’s Ken’s night, tonight, so he’ll be home laaaate and I’ll miss him.  We snarled at each other this morning about who knows what, though we’ve apologized since.  I’ll feel better once we’re in physical contact – this is always the case.

Victor, currently, is sprawled out on his side sucking quietly on his thumb.  He’s in the same position I found him in last weekend when, ready to go home for lunch and naps, I went into the boys playroom and found him passed out cold on the floor, half laying on a toy.  He’d fallen asleep all on his own.  I was stunned, went out to tell Ken (who was washing brushes so couldn’t come in to see), then sat and watched him sleep while Ethan played with his popper next to his head.  Victor’s sleeping is getting better and I’m hoping to start napping him in his crib once we’ve moved.

Well, phone and cable are taken care of, mailing address and washer/dryer too.  U-haul is reserved, auxiliary moving help given instructions.  We begin The Move on Saturday at 10am.  Ken hopes to have all the furniture moved by 1pm, at least.  The basics we need set up are the beds, which the crib and Ethan’s bed won’t take long, but our bed will take some time.  We’ll have the u-haul friday-sunday, so I’m inclined to dismantle the crib and move the boys beds before everyone gets here.  We could likely even do them in the car, if we took the car seats out.  Myself and one of Ken’s female co-workers are on kid-duty, and as long as she doesn’t mind watching the boys play for a bit I’ll be assembling Victor’s room/crib asap.  Ethan’s room is just his bed, for now (he’s too inclined to destroy destroy destroy anything else).  I’m hoping they can get the furniture done sooner and come back and move the smaller stuff into the garage during nap time.  Optimistic me is also hoping Victor will, for the first time, take his afternoon nap in his crib instead of propped up on the living room couch.  Oh to dream.
Tonight, after Ken gets home, I’m off to the house to install vinyl blinds in the boys rooms and partly assemble their ceiling fans (attach brackets to blades – I don’t do wiring).  It’s going to rain tonight, otherwise I’d possibly paint some too, given the time.  I’d hoped to paint the front door of the old house today, but it’s going to thunderstorm in the next few hours and I worry about the paint curing enough before shutting the door (don’t want it sticking to the weatherstripping, y’know?).  I expect that it’ll have to wait until Sunday, when either Ken or myself come back to do some cleaning.

Ultimately the highest paint priority is Ethan’s room, at this point.  Victor’s ceiling cut-in shouldn’t take long.  Maybe I’ll tape up Ethan’s room tonight and get that out of the way.

Time time time time!

This cold is just kicking my butt. It’s been a week, and though it’s marginally improved and I do see that end-of-tunnel light, I’m still hating all things cold-y. I’m using advil to fight my sore throat for crying out loud!

On a happier note, we’ve been super-busy-bees this weekend. We’ve spent way too much money, much of it due to the generosity of family (and thank you SO much for helping!), but purchased much needed stuff and done stuff with it. Yesterday and today we spent all day at the house, save for naptime, painting. Victor’s room, excluding one little ceiling booboo and the cut-in around the ceiling/wall edge and the ceiling fan, is done. Our bedroom has the ceiling painted and the trim taped and is ready for paint. Ethan’s room is next, but we couldn’t do it this weekend as that’s where we put the boys with a ton of toys (much of them older stuff of Ethan’s so it was basically Christmas for him). We’ve got ceiling fans for both boys rooms, our bedroom, and the living room. We’ve got bathtub/shower curtains/rods/rings (nice thing, being able to shower) and vinyl blinds for the boys (for now, let’s see if they work). We’ve got some safety stuff, but some I couldn’t find so I’ll order online; almost none of it installed (the elastic bands around cupboard handles are installed, though!). We’ve got a mailbox set up. We’ve got a living room full of misc boxes and stuff that we’re slowly moving from here to there each time we go. We’ve got a nesting bird right above one of our bedroom windows.

We’ve got an amazing, beautiful house that I can’t wait to officially live in yet there’s just not enough time between now and then (next Sat.). Each night this week, alternating, Ken and I will be going over to work on painting. The ceiling fans will have to wait, but if we get the bedrooms done there’s still safety stuff to install and the blinds in the boys rooms. And shower curtains. I’m terrified and excited. We’ll have help from some of Ken’s co-workers, and we’ll be paying them with beer, iced tea, and frozen pizza’s (but good ones). I’m just….. hooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!