Lost and found

During one of our many Home Depot/Lowe's trips the week we moved into the house, we bought 2 shower curtain rods. The existing rods are metal and closing the shower curtain makes an awful noise.

It took us a few days to realize, hey, where are the shower curtain rods. Since it was such a minor detail, we would wonder and move on. As time passed and we got more settled, we realized we weren't finding the rods. Not in the basement, not in the garage, not in the car. Where the heck are they?!?!

Finally we concluded that they'd been left in the cart. Bought and abandoned.

I was getting the stroller out of the trunk of my car yesterday for our trip to the aquarium. I grabbed my cargo cover to pull it across the opening. Hark! There are the shower curtain rods! For nearly 2 months, I'd been driving around with them laying on the top of my cargo cover.

I pulled them out and showed Micah. He cracked up. At least that mystery has been solved. The rods are now in the upstairs hallway, waiting to be installed.

Noisy Siding and Food Bullies

Did you know that on a windy day, vinyl siding will creak? I had no idea. I've lived in an asbestos shingled house, a townhouse, a condo, back to the townhouse, apartment, and then a stucco house, so this is my first experience with vinyl siding. Noisy. Not to mention the house is on a hill, with virtually no trees, so we're hit with wind pretty hard. I think I'm getting used to it. Judging by the snoring, I'd say Micah's there already.

We went to my ILs for dinner yesterday. The food was great, I'll give them that, but they are food bullies. They won't rest until you consume something. The table was full of food: pot roast, potatoes, carrotts, green beans, 2 kinds of bread... you get my drift. They still pointed out everything on the table. And if you didn't have one of everything on your plate, they nagged. Then they kept mentioning that there was more of X or Y in the kitchen. Good Lord! Evan didn't want to eat. I don't care. The kid weighs 27 lbs, he's not wasting away. That really sent them spinning. And my MIL, who will put food away before everyone's actually finished, was getting mental by leaving his plate out for him. Food bullies!!!

It's always quite an experience there. Micah kept dozing off. I started throwing things at him to wake him up. Don't fall asleep and leave me alone with your family, buddy! I told him it was tacky to fall asleep at someone else's house, because, well, it is. Unless you're >2 or <80, it's tacky! My MIL disagreed. WTFever. It's tacky! I realize he couldn't help it. He'd been working 10+ hr days since Thursday and his parents do tend to suck the life out of people.

Then you've got the smoke. Ick, ack, choke. Ok, I'm an ex-smoker so I'm not perfect, and I do still partake on occasion. But not in my house and not around my kids. Every inch of us smelled when we got home. I had to put the kids' coats in the dryer. My ILs are completely oblivious to all of this, except to place nasty air fresheners circa 1975 around the house, along with "air sanitizers". Hey guys, guess what? NOT WORKING. They also think that since they're not smoking in the same room as the kids, it's OK. Yeah, sure. Smoke has never been known to drift on the breeze.

Micah complimented me for "hammering" out the laundry. Thanks, babe. I try. I hate putting laundry away on Wednesday or Thursday, only to sort again on Friday. I think my Maytags are helping me out too. These machines are so efficient. With my Whirlpool, or whatever the hell it was, I'd have a backlog of things waiting to be dried. Now I go down to pull a load out of the washer and the dryer's done.

They're calling for 70 degrees at the end of the week. I should paint my toenails.

Hit and run, in more ways than one

The store where Micah works is being remodeled. In addition to the regular employees, enter the remodeling crews. Apparently, the female employees find these new faces irresistible. Micah told me that there are several love affairs going on. On Monday, Micah saw one of these couples head sneakily into a back room. She by a direct route, and he, a few moments later, by a more stealth route. My devious husband creapt up to the door and locked it from the outside. He then moved some shelving in front of the door. He went back about his business. A few minutes later, he went back and threw a large roll of labels at the door. I told him he should take the camera to work and walk in the room the next time it happens.

Yesterday, I happened to see my friend Cindy on the way home. As I passed her, after riding next to her unnoticed, I saw her mouth, "where are you going?" I grabbed my phone and called her. We were on the phone together, in a convoy in the middle lane, when the left lane suddenly braked hard. Right outside my window, I saw a car get rear-ended. I said, Oh! You see that? Cindy said, Uh-huh. OH! He took off! The hitter did not stop. He gunned it around the car he hit and took off. The hittee stopped his/her car right there in the left lane. In my rearview mirror, I could see the smoke from brakes trying to stop to avoid another collision. Cin described the hitter's car and said, he just took that exit, and she recited the license #. I told her she needed to call it in to the police and gave her the speeddial code. Hopefully, when she called it in, they matched her call with the call from the hittee (I'm sure he/she called it in) and will track down the hitter. Well done, Cindy Lou!

The house is coming along quite nicely, although it still feels surreal. On my way home yesterday, I imagined coming home and in my mind, it was the old house. I quickly cleared that and when I pulled into the garage, the door to the house opened, and there was Hannah's happy little face.

Most rooms are complete, although we're still waiting for some furniture, including the entire dining room. Micah's off today and will be working on the basement. He's got most of it framed and maybe be starting sheetrock soon. He also put my treadmill back together and hooked up the TV for me. Now I have no excuses not to get my fat ass back in shape. Thanks honey!

The redeemed

Micah redeemed himself last night after getting me nothing for Valentine's day. I came home from work to find a sampler pack of candles and a dozen roses. That'll do.

He was excused on Wednesday because he had to drive to New Jersey with some bosses to check out another store. Tuesday, well, there's no excuse for Tuesday. Although he was working on finishing the basement so he does get points for that.

Hannah is going to a bowling birthday party tomorrow. 4 and 5 year olds bowling? This I gotta see.

Empty boxes

It's done. We moved. [enter sigh of relief here]

I can't believe it was just a month ago that we listed our old house and here we are, all moved in and decorated. Micah and I both had last week off which helped enormously. We both go back to work tomorrow. I just don't want to leave this house for 8+ hours.

Friday, moving day, dawned rainy and cloudy but shortly before the truck was due to arrive, the rain stopped and the sun broke through. Yippee. Then the truck shows up later than we expected and much smaller than expected. We say to the movers, truck's pretty small. The one mover says, we'll make a few trips. Um, not a huge problem since we only moved 1.8 miles but we had no access to the new house until after settlement at 4:00. After a few panicked phone calls to the realtor and the moving consultant (an old friend of my stepdad), we were able to get into the garage of the new house and another truck was on the way.

My mom stayed behind with the movers while Micah and I went to settlement. That was a breeze. With the selling settlement at 3:00 and the buying settlement at 4:00, Micah and I were technically homeless for about a half hour.

We met the trucks at the new house after settlement and started unloading. We had them take the big items to the appropriate rooms and leave everything else in the garage. The kids went home with my mom since their beds were nowhere near being setup.

Saturday morning, our army showed up. MIL, FIL, SIL, BIL, my mom (w/kids in tow). FIL brought breakfast. My friends Cindy and Tina showed up a little later to take the kids off our hands. It's amazing what we managed to get done.

On Sunday, we went shopping. I've never spent so much $$ in one day in my life. Furniture, ceiling fan, groceries, storage items, it goes on and on. We even got a call from Citi's fraud hotline. Guess they thought our card had been stolen. Micah's already paid it off from our profit check from the old house.

The old house. I thought I'd miss the old girl. I don't. The new house is way better. She's in good hands now.

Sign here, initial here

We have a contract! A valid contract. On both houses. Whew, what a relief.

In the week the house was on the market, we showed it 11 times and had requests for more. At one point, we had 3 offers on the table. I guess everyone else likes it as much as we do.

The sellers of the house we want actually got a better offer. Luckily we were within our 72 hour contingency window so we didn't lose the house. That offer came with an earlier settlement date. We offered to up our date. Now we might settle as early as February 3. Holy moly! I've got some packing to do.

One of the requests for a showing came yesterday. I had the day off and was killing time until Micah came home. I heard a car door shut and looked out the window. 2 guys were standing in the street in front of my house, checking it out. Drive-by, I thought. As I watched, one of them pulled out a cell phone and dialed, while looking at my for sale sign. He wants more info, I thought. A few minutes later, my realtor calls. "Elaine, there's someone outside your house." I said, I know. Our realtor said that one of them was a Long & Foster agent and they wanted to see the house. I said, are we sure he's an agent? Jan, my agent, said, "Good point. Do they look like agents?" I said, I don't know, one is wearing a baseball cap and the other is wearing a turban. I told her I was not comfortable letting them in. I was all alone and had no proof they were who they said they were. Jan agreed and told them to call the showing service. As it stands now, there will be no more showings. Good, I won't have to make my bed.

Current house:

"New" house:

Drive by

Yesterday we had 3 showings of our house. Our realtor also had a call and someone stopped by the office asking about it. The last showing was with the realtor from the 1st showing. Obviously, the house made an impression.

We also had a drive-by last night. A van came down the street as we were saying good-bye to the ILs (totally forgot they were coming - LOL). The van stopped in front of the house and looked for a minute, went to the end of the street, turned around and came back. After they drove away, Micah and I hustled to the back of the house to see if they stopped on the street behind the house. They did!

Hopefully there will be some calls today for showings tomorrow or Sunday. I guess I'll have to find some reason to get out of the house.

I have to say that my house looks fabulous! We spent all day on Tuesday cleaning. We cleaned everything. We vacuumed, we scrubbed, we dusted. I even washed and ironed some of the curtains. Every light fixture was washed. We also put away a lot of our stuff. It's amazing how much bigger the house looks without all that stuff everywhere. It's hard to not have all my pictures out but it's only for a few months, so I'll live. Micah says we'll need to pack anyway. [sigh] I hate it when he's right.

I left my 3 candle warmers on all night Wednedsay night and all day yesterday so the house smelled really good. The living room smelled like Vanilla Caramel, the family room like Pumpkin Pie, and the back of the basement like Summer Fresh. Thank you, Yankee Candle!!!

Oh, and the sellers of the house we want signed our contract! Woohoo!!!! It's got a contingency so we could still lose it. Needless to say, I'm anxious for a contract on our house. Buying a house the first time was way easier.

Back to my pins and needles, where I sit, waiting for the phone to ring...