Temporary Post

I fully intended on posting about the bird house today, but it turns out I cannot locate some text I thought I saved from when I first shared the story with a couple of old friends.

That being said, the story is coming -- just not tonight. I'm a little spent right now and must hit the hay.

Maybe Thursday instead...

As Much as I Depend on Them...

I wonder if reading and relating to the stories of other infertile women really does more harm than good. I think that sometimes I'd be better off living in my desolate pain than hearing it over and over, in oh so many variations, from those who suffer with me. At first it was comforting to know that others felt the same (or a similar version) pain. But as the months and years stretch on, I think it just prolongs my pain.

That's my take on it today.

Ask me again tomorrow and I'll probably have a different take.

Abby's Birthday Was Exhausting!

This is a "retro-post" (actually written in November) so I can find it easier next year when I need ideas for #4. I just found an incredible link I want to remember and this is a great excuse to post it here now.

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Marti was a doll and planned the whole thing! He ordered and picked up the cake, and made the reservations, too.

It should have been super easy then, right? Nope. When it was all done and I managed to catch my breath long enough to freak out, he said it felt a little like our wedding where we ran around trying to talk to everybody all evening. (and I don't think the chainsaw incident helped me relax)

In the future, I think I'll check this link for advice on kids' birthdays. I have only read a couple of responses, but already there are all kinds of light bulbs over my head!!!

I'm LOVING the odd year/even year idea!!!!

Party Animus at A Little Pregnant.

Vanessa

Given that his long-awaited return is tomorrow, I couldn't help but think of Vanessa and Barry when I saw this:

Soldier returning home

Welcome home, Barry! I hope your greeting from those you hold dear (both furry and not-so-furry) is just as heart warming!

And from my house to yours: THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU'VE DONE!!!!!

2 Things

I am starting to not like being around a lot of people at one time. We had Abby's 3rd birthday party at a pizza place today and I am SPENT! It was just too much to take in. Marti said it felt like our wedding -- trying to say hi to everyone all at once... It's after 9PM and I'm still not right. The party was at 3:30PM. I had his help, as well as 3 sets of grandparents watching her at one point or another and I felt like I was in a whirlwind. I don't know how single moms (or dads) with no close family do it!!!! Hats off to you, if you fall into that category! Seriously!

Second - we got a new camera last week. We took a few sample shots on the display cameras and decided fairly quickly based on how quick the camera took the pictures and recovered between shots. We're not picky - we just want to catch people when they are still actually smiling.

So, Marti got a text message today from an old friend asking if we bought a new camera. Apparently he saw our pictures on one of the sample ones! We live in a very large metropolitan area, so it's not like we expected anyone we know to see the pictures. That was just kind of weird! I haven't seen this guy in over a year. He must have been cracking up that he found our pictures. I would have been.

The Crib is Gone

Tony came over this weekend to pick up Abby's crib and drop off the keyboard he borrowed a while back.

I helped him get the crib parts out of our garage and showed him where all the different screws and stuff went and how the weird parts worked to make the crib sturdy. I have no idea how it happened, and I think he still probably thinks I did it as a joke (* more on this later), but ONE KEY PIECE is missing!

There are little plastic strips that run up each side of the crib where the front part slides up and down. It's a guide, I guess. Well, for some reason, only ONE of those was in the ziplock bag of parts I gave him. WTF? If one of them was in there, they BOTH should have been in there. How did I not put ONE of the TWO parts away when I took the thing apart????? And, even more important, WHAT would I have done with it now that he needs it?

I told him to look online for the part and I'd keep looking around for it, but I don't have a lot of time to delve into the vast unknown that is my garage. Abby's 3rd birthday is coming up next week and we have out of town guests coming. Also, Marti said he wants to invite people over to the house after the party. Um, doesn't that defeat the purpose of having the party AWAY from the house? Now I have to clean the place SPOTLESS anyway.

Oh well, it will be fun. I'll just be tired.

OK, back to the missing crib part. I joked around with Tony that I was going to withhold one key part as payback for something that I will have a hard time letting him live down. It's just too funny, and he's a good sport, so his little flub is going to live in infamy.

See, my husband doesn't camp. And, at the time, we had a 4 month old baby to make it even more "iffy" to go camping. But, I wanted to give it a try since it had been a LONG time since I had been able to go camping. I borrowed my gear back from Tony and Marti and I made the drive out to the lake to go camping with some other friends.

I immediately started setting up camp and noticed there were no POLES in the tent bag!!!! HUH?!?!?!? WHO packs up the tent without the poles??????

Luckily, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Our friends lived about 30 minutes away, and offered to let us borrow their spare tent. I got their key and made a beeline for their garage! The tent was barely big enough for the blow up mattress and Abby's little sleeping compartment, but it WAS big enough, and that was all that mattered. We were back on track and only lost an hour or so to the ordeal. It could have been worse. As it is, it's just a joke that keeps getting played out.

So, when I let him borrow the crib and discovered there really WAS one key piece missing, you can imagine how sad yet funny it was!

He wanted to set up the crib for his wife to come home to. She's on a trip, so it would be a great welcome home, right? And wouldn't you know it, there's a piece missing. Go figure.

He got it set up though, and as long as there is no baby in it, it LOOKS good for now. We'll deal with the missing part later. I'm sure it will turn up as soon as one of us breaks down and places the order for the replacement part! Ha ha!!!

On a more serious note, it really wasn't hard this time when I let the crib leave. It was REALLY hard the night I told them they could use it, but I must have come to terms with it since then.

Of course, the very next night, Marti tells a friend that we may try for another someday.

HUH!?!?!?!?!

Try?

Someday?

Killin' me, Marti. You're killing me.

House Hunt

A little while ago, the house next door to us was abandoned and eventually went up for auction at nearly twice what it was now worth. (Hey, you can't blame the bank for at least TRYING to recoup the loss, can you? Ha ha!)

I absolutely ADORE the floor plan, but we decided if we were going to keep and rent out our current home, tenants next door would just really be too close for comfort. There were other draw backs, but that one really stopped me from considering this house.

Obviously, at the auction, nobody placed a bid, so I figured it would just sit vacant for more months while "we" (America) all figure out WTF is going on. Amazingly though, someone showed up and cleaned up all the weeds and junk in the back yard, and presumably straightened up the interior. The electricity is back on (evidenced by the AC unit running again and the malibu lights on in the back yard again) and there is a lock box on the front door now. Maybe we'll get new neighbors after all.

I'm sad that we won't be getting the bigger house, but this one just wasn't right.

Fast forward to last night. Marti called and asked me to look up an address on Zillow for him and told me one of his regulars was fixing it up for sale and would sell it to us for a great price. I checked it out and was quite impressed with the satellite picture of the land as well as the street view. It looked very promising!

This morning before work I drove by and went inside. I was so unimpressed with almost everything about it. :( It was SO dated! The light fixture in the dining room was HUGE (too huge for the room even!) and should be preserved in a museum of the 80s.

There were technically 4 different levels to the home, so that was a drawback as well. It looks like the carpet and tile were recently replaced, but some of the tiles were higher than others, so I could feel the edges under my shoes. YUCK! That would drive me NUTS!!!

The kitchen was completely secluded from the rest of the house except for the TINY breakfast nook and the passageway to the boxy dining room. That is exactly what I am trying to get away from in our current home, and this prospect was even WORSE! At least I have a big open "window" in the wall that blocks off our current kitchen.

I thought for a moment that we could lose the little breakfast nook and completely redo the kitchen, as well as lose the wall between the kitchen and the living room, but the living room is like 4 inches lower than the rest of the house.

What was it about the 70s and 80s that people thought that was a good idea???? My in-laws have that little step down into their living room as well as a bedroom and again to the kitchen/dining room/hall to the rest of the house. What's UP (or rather, DOWN) with that???? I wonder how many old ladies have broken hips when visiting friends and family with random steps in their homes?

ANYWAY, back to the house... The back yard was HUGE and there was a pool. Marti said when he looked out at the pool pump he had flashbacks to another house he lived in with a pool and all he could see was a money pit. I did notice the massive assortment of roses, even though they were pruned back to nearly nothing at the moment. There were two HUGE grass areas on each side of the pool, so I told Marti we'd need to buy a lawn tractor! The little push reel mower we used to use wasn't going to cut it on that yard! And, of course, we'd need, uh, a POOL FENCE installed before I'd set foot in there with Abby!

In some ways I could see us making a life there -- enjoying the extra space and relaxing in the yard over the years. We got married in my mom and dad's back yard which isn't quite THAT big, but sort of set up in two halves like this one was, so there was a little "wishful thinking" that we could have another few parties like that and reminisce to the one that started it all.

But, in reality, we'd have to do some SERIOUS renovations on the house before it would be home, and really we're just not up to it. I hate to lose an opportunity to have a nice big yard like that, but then again, do I really want to set us up for months of messy and expensive house remodeling, ALL that grass to mow and that pool to tend to? Uh, not really. Not really.

So, we're passing on it. It's sad to say, but there will probably be better deals coming up soon as this mortgage crisis plays out. It's bad to say, "at least I hope so." I don't really wish it on anyone, but I do hope to find a deal if there is one to be had. I'm just disappointed that this one didn't pan out.