The stockings were hung

by our new chimney, with care!  And cheering!  And lots of exclamation points!  We got access to the new house today and rushed over to take care of first things first, like hanging our stockings.  I think we all feel better now.  In addition to our stockings we took over some fragile items (lamps) and some that would be overly difficult to pack, like my stand mixer.  It sure gives me a mental boost to know that my stockings and my stand mixer are waiting for me over at the new house!

Our stockings each have a bit of a story.  Mine (first) was a gift from Rob during the Christmas of our engagement.  Rob's is from his childhood.  Dorothy's (ivory with the silver tree) has eighteen silver hooks sewn on it.  Each Christmas Santa brings her a sterling silver charm representing something special about her year, and he hangs it on a hook on the stocking.  By her eighteenth Christmas she will have a nice collection of meaningful charms that she can choose to leave on her stocking, or put on a bracelet if she wishes.  I like this tradition because it takes up less space than ornaments, and can double as something functional (wearable jewelry) instead of just (pardon me) a box load of crap that she feels like she has to keep until one of us dies.  Not to be all anti-sentimental, but I just am not in favor of traditions that burden people with lots of stuff they must store.  The cat's stocking is next, and then Worth's.  I had a hard time thinking of how to adapt the charm tradition for him, but I did come up with something.  His stocking has big circles on it, and eighteen of them are well-centered on the stocking.  Santa has purchased a good supply of silver letter beads and will string one word in the center of a circle each year.  It's not wearable, but at least it will never take up more room than a stocking.  Santa still hasn't decided what word will sum up Worth's first year, though--for some reason "victuals" keeps coming to mind, as that boy is such a big fan of his dinner!

There's no place like...

Worth met Santa this week!  I don't like screaming pictures with Santa so I opted to be included after it was clear Worth would not willingly participate in a hand off.  I have a similar picture of Dorothy, Santa, and my arms from her first Christmas.  I have no pictures of Santa with Dorothy since then, what with the unwillingness on my part to hand a screaming child over to a scary stranger in a red suit, and her unwillingness to get anywhere near him.  (The picture looks like an old Polaroid because I downloaded this software and am now slightly addicted to using it on my photographs.  You should try it--it's fun to watch the picture develop over the course of two minutes!)

And the packing continues.  Poor Rody Pony, getting squashed into a box!  We were sure we'd have the keys to the new place by now but we don't.  There was a problem on the seller's end with one of the repairs we requested taking longer than expected.  I'm trying not to feel excessively frustrated about it, but it is frustrating to have thought we'd have access to the house by now but not.  My plans to move everyday items (like most of the kitchen and closets) by tote and unpack them directly into their new spots have fallen through, so now we need many more boxes, much more packing paper and a lot more takeout than we'd thought.  Still, I'm trying to focus on the merry Christmas we're going to have around our new hearth, and being glad our conscientious seller is taking care of everything at the new house.  I'm thankful for the Vietnam Kitchen down the street and for disposable diapers for one week only!

Sweet feet

Most of the sweet baby booties I made when I was pregnant are no longer in use at my house.  Now that Worth can pull himself up he needs grippy-footed soft-soled shoes to keep him from skidding all over our hardwood floors.  This one pair does still work, though.  Since I'd made this pair to fit a bigger baby, I'd had the foresight to also do something about the slipping issue.  It doesn't work perfectly well, but really neither do leather soles, and it's too cold for bare feet.  I sewed a felt sole onto the bottom of these booties, then used rubbery puffy fabric paint to paint little paw prints on the bottoms.  The paint provides some traction on the floors and keeps Mr. Baby from whacking his head for any reason not related to his own nascent motor skills.  These booties stay on with the help of red leather cord laces and are very cutely U of L-y, but unfortunately I did not think to put them on him when he made his first trip to the new stadium last week to see his first basketball game!

The real estate project is progressing nicely.  We've taken care of our buyer's inspection repair quests and our seller has responded positively to ours.  We're hoping for a Merry Early Christmas closing in about two weeks.  In the meantime, *I think* (and I almost hate to jinx this by even blogging about it!) that our buyers are going to allow us to have a key very soon to start moving in some of our things.  I'm so excited!  I couldn't resist popping in on Early Bird Thursday today at my favorite thrift shop to see if I could score some goodies for our new digs, and I totally did!  A yellow bed skirt for Dorothy's new room, a little knick-knack shelf for our crafty studio, a vintage Christmas tablecloth, a rug for our studio, a mirror to hang over our dress-up box, and this little bell for my vintage Kentucky kitchen.  $18 well spent, in my opinion.

Looking ahead, I think Dorothy must have an owl pillow similar to these in her new vintage-floral bedroom.  I'm pretty sure there is a sheet in that pile just crying out to be an owl pillow.  How cute are they?

The caterpillar

A few weeks ago I was trying to figure out something nice to do with a particularly cute caterpillar drawing of Dorothy's and this is what I ended up with.  It's a custom t-shirt from Cafe Press that we will give to Dorothy's cousin for Christmas.  I hope it isn't too redundant with the joint venture Dorothy and I made for the same cousin last winter, but since that gift was appreciated, this gift in the same vein probably will be too.  Dorothy really enjoys feeling like she contributed to the making of any gift, and the benefit of a professionally done t-shirt is that it should wash nicely, unlike (unfortunately) the print-at-home transfers, which require fussy care to stay nice.  I removed the white space from the caterpillar image using Photoshop, then saved the file as a PNG with a transparent background to make the design.

I took advantage of the warm weather this morning and did some more camper painting.  I still have not had the chance to finish what I started with the handkerchief paisleys, but this morning I made solid progress on the opposite side.  I purchased new, good quality brushes and they make all the difference in the world.  Maybe I should have thought of that before, but the difference was really amazing.  It was like I was trying to chop vegetables with a kiddie knife before!  This time the paint went on much better and the lines look more smooth.  It was faster going, too, so if I get another golden moment while both children are asleep or occupied and the weather is right I will get back out there.  Otherwise, the camper may have to stay incompletely decorated until the spring.

As for our housing situation, who knows.  We're working on a response to a set of nit-picky repair requests from our buyer.  We made a fair offer on the Good Memories house, but have no particular confidence that the owner is ready for the kind of reality check that would mean taking our reasonable offer.  I'm sure something will work out (Renata clutches at optimism), but at this point we're certainly curious about just how that will look.

Boxes

The boxes, oh the boxes!  We had to clear out much of the basement for yesterday's home inspection.  The buyer's agent at least sent us a warm message of appreciation after the fact, which helped us feel better about all the work.  (Full disclosure:  by "we" I mean my husband and my mother.  I think I mostly ran around like a crazy chicken picking up and dropping off children, nursing a baby, and looking at houses while they cleaned out the basement.)  The main level of our home now looks like the basement threw up all over it.  The inspection reportedly went fine; if they decide to request minor repairs we expect to hear about it Monday.

Meanwhile, we have not yet found a home to move into, and time is ticking towards a closing date.  Ouch!  The house that was not for sale did not work out.  We're developing a plan (subject to change after I see a few more houses) that I think will involve a fair offer on the Good Memories house with the caveat that we are not willing to waste time negotiating on our fair offer, and that it will continue to sit lonely and empty while we pursue other options if they do not take it.  Our other options are to choose one of the good and decent houses that we would not want to live in for more than, say, five years.  Another five year house is fine in some ways--it leaves us open to pick a house we feel will make us more comfortable than our current cramped quarters without having to make a longer-term commitment, but it also raises issues of resale value and move-in readiness.  We don't mind putting effort into a house we'd stay in indefinitely but don't want to sink much investment (time or money) into another five year house.  We'll see...

The waiting is the hardest part

Housing inspection tomorrow; the buyer needs everything moved away from the walls in the basement.  That's rough, because our basement is crammed full of stuff.  Crafty supplies can unfortunately take up a lot of room, and we've been hanging on to miscellaneous stuff that we intend to put in our next (bigger) house, and it's all been stashed in the basement.  In the midst of all the basement chaos I am intent on acquiring and wrapping Christmas gifts.  While it seems like one of the less pressing things we've got going right now, it is near the top of my mind.  Santa must be able to find us, wherever we are!  I typically do my shopping gradually, and I'd ordered a number of things just in the last week or so since it started looking like we'd be moving, so now most of our Christmas things are simply and hastily wrapped and sent off to Nana's to hide in a closet until we need them.  Having at least one thing under control makes me feel a little better.

Dorothy and I also made spice cake (we skipped the pecans) from this month's Cooking Light to celebrate selling the house.  I guess I overcooked the maple part of the icing a bit because it hardened too quickly and is more like fudge, but it still tastes good. It was nice to take the time for a mother/daughter project in the midst of all this housing hustle.

And speaking of the housing hustle, we still don't know where we're going.  I'm starting to, ahem, sort of lose my s#!$ about it, and I'm tired of waiting to know where my family is going to be sleeping next month.  The short version of the story is that we made a verbal offer on a house that is not for sale.  It is none of the ones I described in my last post.  As you might imagine, there is slightly more to the story than that, but I don't feel like detailing in the blog.  I don't want to live in the knives and lizards house (besides, did I mention the kitchen there?  Bleah!), the good memories house is overpriced, and the dilapidated charmer is really just too dilapidated.  We've been waiting since Monday afternoon to hear back, and at this point I'm jumping every time the phone rings.  I need to go back and read my own post about not wishing my life away!  But housing is a basic need, and even though I realize and am thankful that we are not actually faced with homelessness, with every box I pack in the basement I get more anxious about not knowing where these will be unpacked.  Please send me good housing vibes!

The choices

So we saw one more house today and will see two tomorrow.  For your amusement (and as an exercise in working out my own feelings about them) I'll describe our strongest options.

The Bad Karma House
The bad karma house is practically right around the corner from our current home.  It's a very attractive home on a pretty street.  I like the way there is a good play space for the kids right next to a good sewing space for me.  It's a totally respectable and nicely maintained home that is probably the "smartest" purchase on our list.  Your mother would approve.  But why the bad karma?  I don't know if you'd call it karma or "vibes" or what, but even though I'm not a superstitious person I still feel like I need to have a positive feeling about the home I buy.  If I am going to lay my head down in it every night, I want to feel some positive association with the space itself.  When we walked up to this home and Rob was inspecting the exterior he found (this is no joke) a butcher knife in the immaculately well-kept front bushes.  A butcher knife in the landscaping.  Was it left over from Halloween?  Was it being used as a hedge-trimming tool?  I have no idea.  Strange, but we went inside anyway, toured the upstairs and the main floor, noted the acceptable floorplan, etc., then headed down to the basement where there was a small neighborhood lizard writhing miserably in the middle of the floor.  In our very path through the basement, there was a lizard dying.  I think it actually died while we were down there.  So on a tour of this otherwise totally respectable home we a) found a butcher knife in the hedges and b) witnessed the death of a small reptile.  I don't need to be a voodoo practitioner to feel like maybe that is just not the house for us, right?  Plus, in such a respectable home, could I ever feel comfortable rocking out to classic outlaw country with my family while we cooked and I drank gin?  It just didn't have any grit to it at all.

The "Good Memories" House
This is a house we've had our eye on since we put our own on the market.  A young couple built it in 1940, raised their family in it, and lived in it until their own deaths, the most recent of which was five years ago.  It was well-maintained and has a sunny, cheerful feeling.  It's also got the worst 1970s wallpaper you've ever seen.  In every single room.  Crazy floral patterns in every room, all in shades of yellow and gold except the kitchen where there is (drum roll please) a wallpaper mural of a wharf scene.  Still, you know me, I like vintage things and I really love the floorplan of this house.  I can totally picture the happy hum of home life my family would have under this roof.  I also love the idea of taking up the banner of life in a house that grew old with one loving family.  So the problem (besides the damage to my fingernails that a full year of peeling off wallpaper would cause) is that the daughter who grew up in this home and now owns it is completely delusional about what the home is "worth."  She loved it, she grew up in it, she watched her parents take good care of it, and now she's asking a completely nutty amount of money for it.  So it has sat empty, lonely, cold and unkempt for three years while no one buys it.  Someone has cut the grass but not much else.  A shutter has come loose, and who knows what has happened to the pipes.  I guess we could make a low offer on the house, one that is more in keeping with what the actual real estate market says the home is worth, but we don't have much confidence she'd take it.  Then we'd have wasted precious time making an offer that has almost no hope of being accepted.  That would leave us in an even bigger hurry to find a house and kind of sad, too, because when you actually make an offer you can't help but to get a little emotionally involved.

Dilapidated Charm
Last but never least, there is a very beautiful home on a very lovely street.  We toured it at an open house last winter.  We were amazed at how pretty it could be, and our jaws dropped at the amount of work it needed.  The kitchen is horrifying, the basement leaks, the roof looks shoddy, the home needs new windows.  "What a labor of love," we thought, "for someone who doesn't mind living though all that work."  "What a beautiful and charming home for someone who can give it the love it needs."  And we walked back out.  But the house is on the route of our daily family walk, so each day for approximately eight months we've walked by it.  "That house needs someone to love it," we'd say.  Then, gradually, a funny thing happened.  We hardly wanted to say it out loud, but it became increasingly clear that maybe we were falling in love with it, just a little bit.  "We could rent the upstairs apartment," one of us would suggest, "to help with the cost of the renovations."  Or "I guess buying a house that needs a lot of work would mean that the people doing the work would get to choose how it turns out, which is much nicer than buying a nice house that is imprinted with someone else's taste."  And slowly we realized we were trying to talk ourselves into it, that we did love the house, and that it was at the top of our list of places to move.  Then, a few months ago, the real estate sign disappeared from the yard.  We were shocked and sad, like the house cheated on us somehow.  We asked around; it appeared the house had found a buyer.  "At least someone will give it the love it needs," we said, and told ourselves it was for the best.  Every day we took our walk, and every day we watched for there to be lights on in the house, or some sign that work had begun, but nothing happened.  Then, two weeks ago, right about the time we were deciding to take our home off the market the for sale sign went back up.  I swear I'm not superstitious, but just as much as knives and lizards make me feel uncomfortable with the respectable little stone house around the corner, there was a funny flow to the set of events that brought us from "should we take ours off?" to "oh look!  The sign is back up in the yard of that beautiful fixer-upper," to "OMG!  We've finally got an offer!"

So the knives and lizards house would be a smart buy, the dilapidated charmer would be stupid.  Who buys a house they know will be a money pit?  Shouldn't transactions like real estate be made with the head more than the heart?  So we'll take our final looks at our options tomorrow and then figure something out.  A home inspection might shed light on our charmer, and maybe a serious offer would sway our Happy Memories owner more than we think.  It might be a nice middle ground?  In the meantime, I'm off to pour myself another margarita.

House house house house house house

The house that is soon to be someone else's!  She offered.  We counter-offered.  She accepted.  OMG!  There will be an inspection late this week, but I feel pretty confident it should go well since we know of no problems with our little home.  (Other than the size of it, if you are a family of four, which she's not.)  She's on board with a pre-Christmas move, but there is now the not-so-small detail of finding a home for us to move into.  We looked at a half dozen places today and I'm afraid they were underwhelming.  The boring cape cod, the house with the terrific sewing space but closet-like kitchen, the home that is lovely but in a bad location.  Hmm.  We have a few more to see yet, so we're hopeful.  This isn't really the best time to be looking for a new place, calendar-wise, but I'm sure something will turn up.  In the meantime I'm having a bit of trouble sleeping.  I can't even mentally plot out furniture layouts or curtain plans since I have no idea where we're moving!

We pass the time

I really don't like it when people say "this too shall pass."  By which I guess I mean people who aren't really going through horrifying circumstances--I guess if someone living in squalid conditions in a refugee camp said it, or someone suffering from cholera in Haiti, then I'd be on board.  But in general, the people I hear say this are American parents with relatively comfortable lives who are simply wishing their lives away.  I prefer to not wish my life away.  Life is already short (and we never know exactly how short it is, so it's probably best to assume it's shorter rather than longer), and I want to live it fully, not to pass the time wishing it were tomorrow.  So I'm trying to remember this while we wait for our housing situation to be resolved.  Today is just as much one of the precious days of my childrens' lives in my care as yesterday was, and it counts against my total just as much as any day next year, no matter what my address is.

In light of that, here is my beautiful daughter, a person I treasure, being beautiful.  She is reciting a book from memory ("reading" it) to her doll, who is (over)dressed just like Dorothy.  And while my daughter is being her beautiful self, and my son is learning to crawl, talk and wave bye-bye, we are also having housing "adventures."  The potential buyer made an offer.  We are countering, but our counter is not far off of her offer, so it seems likely that a sale will work out.  We have some non-monetary terms to agree on such as a closing date, etc, and there will be an inspection, but things seem to be moving in the right direction.  Wow!  So my husband and I will spend the weekend interviewing new homes for us, which is very exciting.  Where is the kitchen in which Dorothy and I will be baking bread in just a couple short months?  I'm curious, but I'm going to take a deep breath and remember to fully enjoy our last loaves here.

Carbs and a calendar

For various reasons that I cannot blog about yet, we have decided to take our house off the market next week. I don't mean to be secretive (can one be secretive and have a blog?), but there is a Major Life Change coming to my family that simply cannot yet be discussed in public, but it effects our plans to move.  (It is, for the record, absolutely NOT a new baby.  So please don't start rumors!)  After much pondering, heart-searching, bookkeeping, and discussion, we concluded that the house should either be sold or off the market by November 15, almost 11 months after the for-sale sign first went into our frozen yard last winter.  So I've been making plans for how to live in our current home better.  I've poured over the IKEA catalog, Craig's List, fabric swatches and organization web sites.  I've plotted out which furniture we will keep, which will go, what needs to be moved around in order to make this little house work more efficiently for our family.  We also agreed to have a last-ditch open house, so we at least felt like we fought the real estate fight to the bitter end.  And I'm afraid it was bitter--I had already buried the idea of moving, and I did not want to clean and vacate the house on Sunday.  I left our spotlessly clean house with a very grumpy attitude.  Then a very surprising thing happened.  Our Realtor called and said she expected an offer from someone who came to the open house.  What? 

We're trying not to get our hopes up, since the last time we thought an offer was pending things didn't work out so well.  Still, it's been three days and things seem to be progressing.  The potential buyer has been back, asked questions, reportedly gotten a mortgage pre-approval.  We'll see.  A written offer is still pending.  I'm trying very hard not to dissolve into an emotional mess, but it's tough.  Should I carry on with my plans to change our house?  Should I be scouring the real estate websites trying to find a house for us?  Should I quickly finish and wrap all my Christmas shopping in case a sudden move disrupts Santa's progress?  Eek!  So everything feels up in the air, my stomach is quavering, I jump when the phone rings, and I'm craving (and eating) carbs.  The picture above is the first of two "cream" sodas I drank yesterday (in a glass Dorothy decorated).  Fill a glass with ice, then 3/4 full of plain seltzer, then a dash of vanilla syrup (like the kind coffee shops sell), then top it off with whole milk or cream.  Yum.  Sugar.

 

And while the real estate mess has been stressful, this totally made my day!  Mama Shell, of Shell Shares Recipes, sent me an amazingly fabulous calendar.  It's twelve super-cool pages of illustrations of vintage campers and I love it!  My first thought was to put it in the camper, but then I wouldn't get to see it as often, so it's going in my own kitchen (wherever that may be?) so I can drool over how cute they all are every day.  Thank you Shell!

Crochet is perfect for fidgety, nervous fingers.  I've also found that I have three or four minutes each morning and afternoon to crochet while I'm waiting (parked) in the carpool line for Dorothy.  It doesn't seem like a lot of time, but it adds up.  I just keep a project ready to pick up in the passenger seat.  I'd purchased this fun shiny coat this fall but wasn't sure what kind of accessories to wear with something so...shiny.  I decided to go for contrast, so I ordered some really fuzzy alpaca blend yarn.  I like the fuzzy with the shiny, and the scarf and hat are warm and soft.  I didn't use a pattern, they are both just very simple.  I made the hat big enough that it will (hopefully) just sort of sit down on top of my hair without squashing my curls.  It's hard for curly girls to wear hats, but this really warm yet lightweight yarn should help.

My house is a mess and the newspaper pissed me off

The stomach virus is gone, but we're not fully operational around here.  Everyone is still tired and we've all just lost a little momentum.  The house is a mess and we have a real estate open house tomorrow--yikes.  The table I photographed happens to be covered with 4-year-old girl ephemera, but my own desk is just as overflowing, with mail, stamps and a stamp pad from an old paper project, a shirt that needs mending, and three different yarn projects in various stages of completion.  Somehow we will get all this cleaned up and the Halloween decorations put away by tomorrow midday.  (So this morning blogging takes the form of procrastination.)

I also just have to comment on this ugly article that met me at the breakfast table this morning.  I don't understand the so-called "mommy wars" at all.  It seems to me that some people take others' strong commitments to a parenting philosophy personally, and feel indicted if they don't share one, whereas the focus of most parenting philosophies is actually on children, not other mommies.  If a mother doesn't like a particular philosophy, perhaps she should just avoid using it, instead of suggesting that its existence is undermining decades of progress in women's liberation.  Jong seems to miss the point that if a woman disagrees with a philosophy (in this case, attachment parenting), then she is free to ignore it and move on.  It is only if she actually finds it compelling and thinks in her heart that she should be following it (or doing something differently) that it has any sway over her at all.  If she does not find a philosophy compelling, then the fact that other mothers practice it should not even be on her radar--parenting is a very personal quest, not a contest, and mothers do not have to register their commitment to any particular set of values anywhere.

I am grateful for a community that allows me to parent the way I feel is right.  Sometimes that is an accord with one particular parenting book or another, and sometimes it is not.  I know women who largely share my parenting views and work full-time at demanding jobs. I know others who stay home and share none of my philosophies.  I am glad that in this garbled world of feminism, post-feminism, and feminism-yet-to-come that I can stay home and tend my family's metaphorical fires without feeling like I have something to prove.  I stay home because that is what feels right to me.  I enjoy contributing to my family's economy in the kitchen, at my sewing machine, and out of my crochet bag.  I hold a masters degree from a prestigious university and if I felt like that piece of paper forced me out of the spot that makes me happy, then that would be enslavement.  To each her own.  I can't imagine any child would be better off staying home with a mother who felt stranded in the role.  Nor do I think women should work outside the home just because that's what they thought they would do when they were 22 and made expensive educational choices.  It's a big world--can't we make room for all the choices that are as varied and ever-changing as the individuals who make up our current generation of mothers?

Pumpkins

Another busy week around here.  Lots of fall fun, including a trip to the pumpkin patch.  We've had several house-showings, which is driving us a little crazy at this point.  I think we've given up hope of actually selling, and just wish people would leave us alone.  Why do we keep giving free tours of our home to people who will just say things like "oh, it's so cute!  We just love it!  But we needed an extra bathroom."  Or first-floor bedroom, or extra square footage, or garage...it's always something that we clearly didn't have based on the information in our listing, but for some reason people want to come see it (and not buy it) anyway.

This photo was an accident--he looked away as I was taking it, but isn't his hat adorable next to the real pumpkins?  I made that for him last year.  I'd just made a similar one for Dorothy and she insisted the new baby would need one too.  Obviously she was right.  Speaking of her being right, today she was putting on her ruby slippers and talking to my mother-in-law.  She said, "when I wear these shoes, people always say, 'are you Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz?' But I'm like, 'ummmm, no, I'm Dorothy from the city.'" 

When did she become such a teenager?  She also seems to have a particular interest in a boy from school, in a way that seems to indicate to me that she's got a budding awareness of "special" boy/girl relationships.  She always tells me what he's up to, talks about him often, and last night after church choir (which they also both participate in) she said, "C. sat next to me at choir, then I patted his back, and he went [ insert giggle silly face with tongue sticking out and full body wiggle].  Then after choir I gave him three different hugs."  Oh my!

Today we made cookies, without boys.  (Except Worth, I guess, who was kept happy with pea crisps while we baked.)  The last few years I have tried several different recipes for pumpkin cookies, but to be frank they all sort of suck.  I mean, the are edible, they made from butter and sugar after all.  But they aren't good like pumpkin-bread-in-cookie-form or anything.  Today I thought I'd try a different route and make a recipe for applesauce cookies, but sub in pumpkin.  I also added pumpkin pie spice, and substituted chocolate chips for the recommended raisins.  They taste good but are too chewy, and the bottoms basically scraped right off when I severed them from the cookie sheet they were stuck to.  Parchment might have helped with the release, but not the texture.  I think it must be hard to develop a pumpkin cookie recipe because of all the moisture in cooked pumpkin.  If anyone has one, please let me know!

In between house-showings and pumpkin patches this week I did something that makes me feel really smug and obnoxious--I ordered my Christmas cards!  I know it's early, but it was this gorgeous afternoon, the kids were playing out front, and from the basement I'd just unearthed the holiday dress I'd purchased on clearance last year for Dorothy.  It has a matching dress for her doll, which is always extra special.  Dorothy saw it and had herself and her dolly dressed in no time, so I popped the baby into this little fleece Santa suit left from Dorothy's babyhood, and clicked away.  I got adorable photos of both kids in their holiday get-ups, so I figured I might as well finish the task while I was on it and selected a pretty photo card online.  Now bring it on, season-accelerating commercial world, I'm ready for you!  Before you even change your displays from spooky to Santa, my holiday cards are done.  Pow!

I am a dork, but you are reading my blog--please love me anyway.  :)

A busy week

When we arrived home after our camping adventures last weekend we noticed the refrigerator was making an odd noise, sort of like a zombie.  Being the (apparently) stupid and ineffectual people we are, we just noted the noise and moved on, not stopping to check on details like are all the frozen foods thawing?  And unfortunately they were, but we didn't realize it until it was too late and much of the frozen stuff had to be thrown out or cooked.  So we bought a new refrigerator (with some odd combination of an Energy Star rebate, appliance disposal fees and a Columbus Day sale making it more cost-effective than buying used), and we've also once again lowered the priced on our house.  Perhaps someday so the new buyers, wherever they are now, will use the new 'frige for something beautiful like leftover wedding cake or champagne to toast something wonderful and we will stop banging our heads against the wall over our housing situation.  A girl can dream, right?  In the meantime we're eating meals of baked chicken with a side of fried fish, since both fish and fowl were saved from the freezer, and being glad it's not worse.
Then on Wednesday, the very busiest and most hectic day of the week, as I was recovering from the new refrigerator blues but beginning to suffer a sore throat, Dorothy informed me at approximately the halfway point on our drive home from preschool that IT WAS THE DAY, the very special and most important day, that she got to take the traveling classroom gingerbread person home, and that she had accidentally left [him? her?] at school.  I considered making the gingerbread person wait until we were already back at the very same building for choir practice later that night, but instead I rallied my inner good mother and turned the car back around.  "Gingy" was fetched, along with [his? her?] tote bag, and brought on home with us.  Gingy listened to our daily chapter from the Little House on the Prairie book, then settled down with Dorothy for a nap.  A couple hours later it was time almost time to leave for ballet lessons and I realized I should look in Gingy's journal to see just what was expected of us with regard to this plush traveling pastry.  About a half dozen of Dorothy's peers had already brought Gingy home (Gingy visitation being determined by drawing names), and those students' caring and creative mothers had written long and lovely essays about Gingy's stays with their families.  Things like "in honor of Gingy, we made gingerbread cake!" and long tales of Gingy-inspired adventures.  Those bitches, I thought.  Never mind that enthusiastic parent involvement is actually one of the things I treasure about our preschool.  All the mommies who get Gingy after us will love me, though, because I took things in the journal down a notch or two out of necessity.  We sent Gingy back today with just a few brief sentences about our busy day and one potentially embarrassing (given Gingy's uncertain gender) home-printed photograph of Gingy wearing a pink tutu.

Returning to my regular blogging business, these Lego cufflinks were a Christmas gift to Rob last year.  They are Legos from his own childhood, and I glued them to cufflink platforms I purchased from a jewelry supply store online. He loves wearing unusual cufflinks, and there aren't very many opportunities to make gifts for him. I snapped a picture of them when he was on his way out the door this morning.

And who can stay mad about houses and refrigerators with this juicy baby around to squeeze on?   He's wearing a t-shirt I did before he was born, an inkjet-printed lobster applique on a plain white tee.  He's turning into some adorable little butt-scooting backwards-crawling cherub-demon, and I'm afraid I'm having to babyproof this house already, even though I'd hoped to just do that in the next house!

For the freezer

Our carefree days of summer are coming to a close. Rob and I attend preschool orientation tomorrow and Dorothy begins next Tuesday. Today the girl spent all day with my husband's parents swimming in their neighborhood pool, which will close after this weekend. She told me emphatically she was not planning on doing flips in the water today because she has a runny nose. Somehow I doubt she maintained her position on that issue. I spent most of the day in the kitchen getting ready for our new routine. I made some chicken tortilla soup for the freezer, for heat-and-eat lunches at the weather gets cooler. I love soup for lunch in the fall, but I have never found any canned soup worth eating that doesn't have tons of sodium, MSG, or both. (If you know of one, leave me a comment!) So homemade soup in freezer jars it is.

Then I spent some time sprucing up Dorothy's room, since though she won't take it with her, it seemed like a nice thing to give her a pleasant and orderly jumping-off-spot. I laundered, pressed and rehung her curtains, washed her bed quilt, and tidied up her space a bit. Then I made a double batch of oatmeal pancakes for the freezer so I can feed her breakfast quickly without resorting to packaged food. I put freezer paper slips between them so they won't become one solid pancake brick in the freezer--it will be easy to grab just one or two.

I've prepped a Moroccan-style stew for tonight, with bread from the bread machine on the side, and I when I went to pre-cook my chickpeas I realized, ugh, that my pressure cooker was among the things I had to pack away when we put stuff in storage a couple weeks ago. Bummer. Fortunately I had canned chickpeas in the pantry, since you never know when you'll need an emergency batch of hummus, but it's rather frustrating. We did have a showing last weekend, but the prospective buyers claimed disappointment regarding our lack of a garage. And I have to say this is a bit confusing to me, since it states very clearly in our listing that the house has no garage. Maybe they thought we didn't mean it?

Bonding and packing

Dorothy told me the other day that "it is hard to have a brother who is always here. I liked it better when he was inside your belly. I liked feeling him kick. I liked that better than seeing him kick." I managed not to laugh out loud. In spite of the fact that it truly is "hard" sometimes for Dorothy to make the adjustment to being one of two, she also in reality totally loves her brother. I'm confident she'll realize it later. She is almost losing the ability to play contentedly on her own--she spends the majority of her free time singing to him, playing with him, loving on him, abusing him, putting him in mortal peril. He rewards all of the above by thinking she's the greatest thing on earth. If she walks away he sobs. I caught this picture of them today, and I love the way they are enjoying each other.

No crafting for us today. The new realtor has ushered in an era of Major Change that is starting with us rearranging our lives so the house will show better and will hopefully end with us unpacking joyfully in a new space. "It is hard," to quote my daughter, to pack up useful items from our overcrowded kitchen without knowing when we will see them again (my Cuisinart!), but fortunately my experience volunteering with refugees has taught me that I'd basically be a complete asshole spoiled brat to feel too sorry for myself over a relatively minor inconvenience, knowing it is is ultimately part of the privilege of being able to move to a more comfortable home. Hopefully sooner rather than later. So today was spent packing. Appliances, gadgets, mixing bowls and the play kitchen are all destined for storage in an attempt to make our kitchen look larger. And guess what? It totally does. I'd almost buy it myself.

A jar cozy

This isn't a new project, but just one I was using and enjoying. Last summer I crocheted cozies for the repurposed glass juice jars we use for water. I put little handles on them and they are very cute and portable, and they both insulate the jar and keep it from getting broken if I want to grab one on the go. It felt like a nice way to use up (gifted) scratchy acrylic yarn I wouldn't want to wear or put on my babies. I just crocheted a little mat the size of the bottom of the bottles, then did double crochets in a round all the way up the side. I used several stands of yarn together so it would be extra bulky.

In other news, we're really enjoying our hiatus from house-selling. Our goal is to have it back on the market in two weeks, but in the meantime it's nice to not have the constant threat of a showing hanging over our heads. In a funny turn of events, however, the house is actually pretty clean right now because I just bought a steam mop and Dorothy and I are both so charmed by it that we keep using it. I love the idea of being able to keep the floor clean and chemical-free as our little wee one becomes more mobile and has the floor as his new realm. We'll just hope the charm of using the mop doesn't wear off in a couple months. (Ha!)

Taking it up a notch

Our house is now off the market. Our contract expired and we're trying to think creatively about what to do next. Switch realtors? Rent a storage unit? Stay here? Bury Saint Joseph in the yard? It's nice to not feel like we might have to show the house at any moment, but it's kind of sad to feel like we're not getting anywhere toward our goal of living in a house where the baby's bed and all this stuff doesn't seem like a crammed-in, added-on afterthought. In the meantime, this came in the mail. Isn't it great? A friend sent it (a thrift store score, she said) and it totally made my day.

"Faith can move mountains...and homes!!!" I feel better already. We'll sell. It'll feel like the right time when it happens. And then I can start the battles with my little budding interior designer who feels like her brother's new room, in whatever home we eventually move to, should be painted red, blue, green, purple, pink and gray.

Now I think I may go collapse on the sofa, and take St. Joseph with me. My wee ones and I are generally very late sleepers, staying up at night to maximize time with Daddy, but then snoozing in bed long after much of the world is up and buzzing. This week Dorothy is attending Bible School which starts (yes, this is no type-o) at the ungodly hour of 9:00 am. I'm in total denial that we've already paid tuition on a preschool this coming school year that actually starts (choking gasp) at 8:45. AM. Yesterday was our first day of early rising and we did it with the enthusiasm of beginners. "Yeah, we're up in time to catch Morning Edition!" "Look, the cats aren't so hungry when they get fed this early!" "Want to see this wetness on the grass, it's called dew!" But today the honeymoon was over. Baby fussed, Dorothy let out a little strangled yelp and rolled back over, and my eyes feel strangely dry and irritated. I'm looking forward to next week, when I can continue living the lie that this isn't going to become every morning of our lives starting in September.