Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

Score 1: New Neighborhood

We got new neighbors last week. I had a couple of panic attacks over this.

We moved from our first house because we hated the neighborhood from pretty much the first week we lived there. During the first month we lived at our old house a man from across the street did not for the life of him understand why I didn't like listening to his blaring music. He didn't understand it so much he parked his car in front of my house blaring his music at me and screaming, "Is This Loud Enough!" until I called the police. So that was a nice housewarming.

He moved after I filed a police report or two, because I felt oddly threatened with a large man bellowing at me from the sidewalk. But that was the best thing about that terrible neighborhood. There were always more assholes to replace the ones that left. Like the guy, who it turns out had a raging drug problem, who drove his truck back and forth on the sidewalk outside my bedroom windows. 

Oh and then the rental next door which was filled with various loud people. They'd head to the bar at 11pm, as Logan and I rolled off to bed, having a newborn baby.  Luckily our daughter slept through the night, unluckily our neighbors returned from the bar at 2am and then the real party started. Oh boy that was enjoyable night after night.

Picture it: Middle of winter. Me in my bathrobe, glasses and bed head holding a 2 month old infant on the porch screaming, "DO YOU THINK I LIKE STANDING OUT HERE TELLING YOU TO STOP PLAYING TOUCH FOOTBALL ON MY LAWN AT 3 IN THE MORNING!?"

And don't get me wrong, we tried to be reasonable. When Maddie was 8 days old they asked if they could put us up at a hotel so they could have a party. We spent the night with family just to cut them some slack. But then the next weekend there wasn't a "party" but somehow "not a party" sounds a lot like a party to the sleeping adult.

So you can imagine how scared we were when we sold that house and moved to a new neighborhood. We knew the house we ended up moving to was a quiet neighborhood with other families and people who care about one another. How novel!

Of course that didn't work out well and last year we nervously left moving to another neighborhood totally afraid we'd end up on another block where I'd be standing out on the front lawn screaming at overgrown fraternity boys to stop playing touch football on my lawn.

But I guess I worried about it enough because this is a surprisingly quiet neighbrhood. Maybe not as community oriented as the last neighborhood but quiet and clean and nobody leaves a toilet on their lawn for 2 weeks.

Then Monday someone new moved in next door and I spent the next 24 hours creating various scenarios for how awful they were going to be. Oh and I thought they were going to be awful, let me tell you. Of course Logan was convinced they'd be a group of hot exhibitionistic co-eds who loved naked pillow fights and were philosophically opposed to window blinds.

Pillow fights can be quiet so I'd have accept that.

After a week of spying like Mrs Kravitz, Saturday I made muffins to bring over. 

We packaged them up, Logan made a label introducing our family and we brought the box over.

He kept it more upbeat than I had thought about. You know something subtle like, "Welcome to the neighborhood! Please just don't be loud or you'll have to see me in my bathrobe.

Another sign this neighborhood is not like the one we owned in. Actual families move here, not overgrown fraternity boys. Next up: Neighborhood Happy Hour!

*Edited to add link to recipe: I used this one for lemon poppy seed muffins.

Bike Parade 2009

Let's try this....

On Saturday Maddie and I went over to our old (beloved) neighborhood for the annual Block Party.

There were pinatas, egg tosses, crafts, water balloon fights, a movie outside, scavenger hunts (2), a kid's bake off, candy, 20 desserts and yet...

If we'd only shut the street and let the kids ride their bikes up and down all day long they would have been just as happy with the block party.

No Wire Hangers Organizing

Growing up my sister and I had this friend, Julie Naylon, who was very entrepreneurial. She didn't just have a Lemonade Stand, she ran a Lemonade Corporation. She didn't just babysit, she offered "Babysitting Club" involving several kids, crafts, games and shows in her basement.

She also liked to organize things. She'd come to my house and start playing in the room I shared with my sister only to be overwhelmed by the desire, no, the need to organize our stuff. I know this will sound like a bit of a cop out, or maybe projection. But my sister and my mother are both incredible pack rats, I am not.

My sister's collecting involves a lot of clothes she doesn't wear, along with various small items she may not "need" but they make her smile and so she keeps them. Like a Clash of the Titan's lunchbox, or a collection of Japanese stickers, or a box jammed with 500 pieces of costume jewelry.

I shudder to think what could happen to my sister if she ever decides to have children and/or her dog starts creating art projects.

It's possible all this has changed now that my sister lives across the country and pretends to be an adult. But back when my friend came to play at our house, the bedroom I shared with my sister was a disaster area of massive proportions. A disaster Julie would spend several hours trying to weed through and make sense of.

A little over a year ago Julie, decided to open an eco friendly organizing business based in Los Angeles called No Wire Hangers, and that's a great name for her business for a couple of reasons, not just because it instantly makes me think of Joan Crawford screaming at her children with cold cream all over her face. But also because about 3.5 billion wire hangers are dumped into landfills each year, that's equivalent to 60,000 cars. (Please see Julie's article here for more information.)

Back in March Daily Candy featured her business and since then business is booming. She offered to come to my house while in town for her mother's birthday this weekend to help me organize something in my house.

I honestly feel pretty organized. I don't collect clutter, I wear all my clothes, I buy what I need and use it up before I buy more. However there was kind of an issue with my upstairs front hall closet and I thought I'd have Julie help me with that. As we started to go through what I had, I mentioned I could move some things to the basement. And the minute I said it, I regretted it, because the next words out of her mouth were, "Can I see your basement?"

Logan was outside so I was able to show her the shame that is our basement. If Logan had known what I was about to do he would have stopped us by creating a distraction, like driving our car through the back door. Or setting himself on fire.

A tale of two landlords.

Since we last visited the topic, I have collected $1569 of the $2030 our ex-landlord owes us. It has not been a terribly traumatic process for those of you arriving here after googling, "Ex Landlord is holding my stolen money how do I get it out of his aggravating clutches."

I walked to the courthouse, filled out some garnishment paperwork, for banks we knew he had accounts at (he deposited our rent checks into them), then walked to the banks and delivered the news. The bank then sat around, farting I presume, and then let us know how much money he had in his accounts with them.

The first bank held around $165 (disappointing) and the second a little over $1400 (more satisfying). The biggest expense of this process has been the emotional one where I'm so annoyed I can't just walk around the block and knock on his door every day asking for the rest of my money.

Then again it's been kind of fun to think of him going to his checking account and realizing, "Wait a minute....I had $1400 in here......where did it go??? SUMMMERS!!!!!!!"

Also fun: talking to a lawyer who knows a guy who arranges to have deputies come to the house to seize property. If it comes to that you guys? I will be out there with a lawn chair and a video camera. Jesus, I'll hold a party right there on the sidewalk.

But it hasn't come to that. After you win a small claims judgment you can collect money via garnishments of bank accounts, salary, and income from rental property. So we tried the banks, our ex landlord is self employed as far as I can tell...however, he has new tenants in his house in our dream neighborhood.

So today, for summer fun, we're going to the courthouse! The kids are SO EXCITED! We'll get our garnishment paperwork then on Saturday I'll deliver the paper to the new tenants and they will then be forewarned of the landlord's difficulty in following the law.

Logan's been consulting with a lawyer from work on this issue and in his last note he said, 'For a guy like me, this is the best part of practicing law. Making the bad guy pay." [paraphrased] And I was all, "For a girl like me too!"

I hate bullies in all forms.

Furious. Landlord loses!

This is going to be a really long post.

Years ago when I stopped speaking to my in laws, I was pretty upset about how things happened. It ate at me about 3-5 times a week. Then 1-2 times a week and so on until it really only got me all riled up when I talked about it.

Now, I rarely think about my in laws and when things come up with them I can barely even get my heart rate to rise. And there is definitely no smoke pouring out of my ears anymore. How did that happen?

Well time, of course, is one thing. It heals. But also I told close friends the whole long drawn out and involved story and that also helped. But finally, what finally did it, was throwing it all up in writing on a password protected Vox site. I gave just a few people I knew the password and let them read the whole thing.

The whole thing was a little wrapped up in the story about my father, so I'm sure that was all a little healing too.

I wrote it all down and left it up there for a few months and then one day someone asked to read it all and I suddenly realized it was a story I didn't want to tell anymore. I didn't need anyone else to hear it. I'd put it out there and now I was done with it. It wasn't going to help to know anymore eyeballs looked at it and knew what had happened. So I pulled the whole thing down and I was finally over it.

I'm hoping the same thing happens with the Ex-Landlord when I'm done with this post and we've gone through the two-plus month process of collecting our money from him. Although I think the final step will be publishing the judgement (a public record) so anyone else dealing with this person will know.

I've been so incredulous over the condescending, arrogant and bullying way this man behaves, I've never known someone to be so awful. So reliably awful. As I went through and pulled out emails to print in preparation for our day in court, I was amazed.

I've mentioned most of those emails here.
The one where he told us to shovel snow from the house to keep the basement from flooding and ice dams from forming on the roof (COMMON SENSE FOLKS!).
The one where he told us to remove our Obama sign from our yard.
The one where accused us of breaking his microwave oven ON PURPOSE
The one where he blamed us for the sewage back up in the basement because we....he never said how we did it...I assume he thought we shit too much.
The one about the tile in the bathroom falling off the walls because it got wet (but ignoring the fact that he put up tile using adhesive, not tile mastic).

Logan met with a lawyer a few times to get ready for the case figuring out the best way to handle thing and he came up with a large binder full of emails, notes, and pictures. And on Wednesday night he said, "I'm really serious, I don't think you should come to the courthouse with me. I don't think you'll be able to control yourself."

I said, "But what if I promise not to say anything?"

He said, "You'll still sigh loudly and incredulously at everything he says."

I said, "I'll wear a ball gag and a leash!"

He said, "That won't stop your eye rolling."

And I had just about enough anxiety about even seeing the Ex Landlord (how I want to use his full name) that I finally said, "Fine, I won't go." Instead I went on a Tastefull Tour with my friends to Eastern Market and other Detroit establishments. Supino can really take your mind off your douchbag* ex landlord.

*Only my opinion! Not slander or libel or whatever everyone is freaking out about on Twitter!

I left Logan to go in and present our case and bite his tongue off at the arrogant assholery of our Ex Landlord.

And

He didn't even show up.

He's kept this going for five months and he didn't even show up to try and defend his theft of our money? (Law Note: Your security deposit is yours until your landlord lays claim to it. If you disagree with his claim then he has to defend his claim to your money. Our landlord did neither, which meant he should have been liable for double the security deposit. Apparently the judge in our case doesn't do this unless this is a chronic issue with a landlord.)

We spent hours of time preparing to go in front of a judge and explain how wrong the landlord was to claim we were responsible for $2500 worth of damage to his home. We also wanted a clarification of what we understood to be state law that a landlord MUST send you an itemized list and if he didn't he forfeited our money. (Legal Note: Michigan State Law: 554.609)

And now, we did it all for nothing since when you don't show up for your court date, you automatically lose the case.

So ....we won! We won our money back from the landlord! It was ours all along. The amusing thing to me is that he had a valid claim to a damaged cabinet door in the bathroom (GARY), that we were willing to pay $100 for and he also could have withheld around $300 for a water bill I assumed he'd take out of our security deposit, but didn't mention it in his contractor's estimate or in any communication within 30 days of our move so he forfeits any claim. In that way I suppose we saved ourselves $400 by going through all this.

So now we wait 21 days to see if he sends us a check, he won't. Then we do something else and something else and it takes about three weeks and they get the money from him by going into his bank account or seizing and selling things until he pays us. A sherrif or Barack Obama does this or something.

What I don't understand and what's really frustrating from the perspective of a tenant, is how he's getting away with this obvious fraud without paying any kind of penalty for his horrendous behavior.

What possible incentive does any landlord have for the honest evaluation of damages and return of a security deposit if he faces absolutely no consequences for his illegal and unethical practices?

Okay now here's the part where I tell the whole story from beginning to end so when some poor sap like me is googling "Landlord Is Ripping Me Off" or "Landlord Won't Return Security Deposit" Or "Why do Michigan laws not protect tenants?" Or "My landlord is an incredible douchebag* how do I prove that in court?"

*just my opinion!

It's going to be boring and factual but I want to write it all out because we spent all this time on it and I'm hoping it makes me feel better.

Maddie's Room

In the last house we never made it upstairs to do much of anything to the bedrooms. We were too busy entertaining and loving the neighborhood.

So now that we have the living room painted and settled in we decided to tackle the kid's rooms so they'll feel settled in here for the two years we'll be staying.

Maddie wanted blue for her walls so we had the paint matched to the blue on her comforter. Then I threw the paint on the floor.

I don't recommend throwing your paint on the floor. It's one of those moments where you're faced with a mess of such mammoth proportions you just stand there not sure how to proceed. So I sort of yelled, "I need help!" and then I stood and swore a lot. Magically (Logan) it got cleaned up.

Adding some color to the walls was as satisfying as usual, but more satisfying was putting out Maddie's collections of stuff.

Settling In.

I thought today I'd share pictures of the next new house we're living in. I've come to love the house a lot more than I did when we first left our dream neighborhood to come here. It's truly fun living downtown. The house is a good size for us, it would actually be perfect if I could just tear down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Do you think the landlord would keep our security deposit for that? At least that would be reasonable. We've had a couple of parties and the house works pretty well, not as good as the last house, but on the upside, we're not being told our basement is flooding because we didn't shovel the snow away from the foundation.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the living room, because we still haven't done much of anything else!

This is the front door and stairway. Wouldn't this door look awesome painted black? Kind of like this. We're not going to because this is a rental, but still.

We created a front foyer area using our sofa and book case.

Here's the view from in the room. I love that staircase.

$15 Table, Found On A Run

Logan bought a table one day while on a run. It was a little water damaged and well loved, but we loved the lines of it and it fit perfectly in the front room of our last house.

We tend to buy things seeing what they *could* be. Then we get them home and it's almost like we start to see them the way we imagined they could be if only we'd commit the hours of work to the project. So we see a nicely painted desk in our dining room, you would probably see a shabby and kind of crappy desk. I think redoing our first house, has still sucked our will to work around the house.

While buying paint (around the block!) I saw this product. Howard Restor-A-Finish, it claimed to get rid of scratches and white rings on your wood surfaces by simply wiping it on.

I can wipe!

The thing I like about this table is its clean lines and the marks all over it made me think of a couple just like us who liked to have lots of people over. Lots of people who don't like to find a coaster, just like me!

But it was time to try to clean up the table a little. Logan tried the stuff in a corner, to see if it worked, we were not impressed with the results. So we bought some very fine steel wool, as directed on the container. I spent 15 minutes and ended up with a table that could still be totally sanded and refinished. But it's perfectly acceptable. More pictures. after the cut.

Superstar Furniture.

While I try to keep breathing through the stressful and unknown process of collecting one's security deposit from a man who is notoriously difficult to deal with, I thought I'd share my dining room armoire.

We bought this piece of furniture about 10 years ago at an antiques shop up the street from our first house. It was in the back and deeply discounted to $150. It had no shelving inside and without the inner workings, it was a little rickety.

But Logan put shelves inside, he's good at things like that. For example, since we moved in we've had to tell our guests that the bathroom door doesn't latch, so just put the little kid's step stool in front of the door so no one walks in on you. Oh quirky 1920's houses. I can't say I missed you but here we are! Anyway, Logan took the handle apart and made it work without a step stool.

The shelves in the armoire made it sturdy and it became a replacement for my dresser at the old house. Maybe you remember?

It held my (very small) wardrobe and also some office supplies when Logan's computer was kept in our room. (My wardrobe is so small, I basically have to go naked for half the week. Thankfully I work at home.)

Then we moved to the other house, (sniff sniff) and we used the armoire to store the kids crap in the family room.

And now, it's in the dining room doing duty as overflow storage for the kitchen. The kitchen in this house is very functional but is seriously lacking cupboard space. I mean, I think there are few cabinets than we had at our first house. This is fine since I don't like to buy a lot of food at one time, I have an allergy to unloading groceries. But after having a kitchen with empty cabinets, we needed some extra space.

And here's the inside!

Is it weird that this whole thing makes me feel slightly aroused?

Clearly the best money we've spent on furniture in our marriage.

Waves of Irritation

Wow so it's already Wednesday.

This keeps happening.

I feel a little tongue tied, again, because of the landlord situation. At the legally mandated 30 days after occupation he sent along a bill from his contractor for $500 more than our security deposit.

I assume, though I can't be sure, this is what he's calling an itemized list of damages we owe him for. Though maybe he was just forwarding his contractor's bill to us for fun?

From what I understand from the law we were owed more than a contractor's bill for a bunch of jobs without a cost for each item. Luckily after talking to a lawyer, he agreed. So we're on to the next step of trying to get our money back from the clutches of a man who is so "smart", when we let him know about the massive ice dams forming at his roof line (warning him of potential damage to his property, because you know we cared for his property), he responded, and I quote,

"Folks, we've talked about this before! You have to shovel the snow away from the foundation of the house."

Here's a tutorial: "What are ice dams?"

He's so lovably dim-witted. There's really nothing better than a dim-witted, wealthy, bully. A charming combination.

Anyway I'm sending a (certified) letter today explaining his failure to provide us an itemized list of the damages he is claiming we are responsible for. He has 14 days to respond, maybe he will! Maybe he'll even respond after 4 days! Maybe I'll start talking on the phone and love it so much I become a phone sex operator! (Read: Never.)

He probably won't respond so we'll end up going to small claims court. Where a judge will look at these pictures and wonder how it is that the entire house needs to be repainted and the cabinets are filthy.

I'm wondering the same thing myself.

Should have got my hair done.

The Good Morning America piece aired early this morning. After a night of karaoke and adult libations that ended for me at 1am and for Logan at.....he doesn't remember when.

It's not too cringe inducing. Except for the part where I sing "Uno" like a lunatic.

Logan told the reporter that he'd pay money if they found a way to use that in the piece. And so, they did.

Also there are a couple of times where I just want to climb into the video and fix my hair (Logan of course stopped for a cut on his way home that day....smart guy). But overall it wasn't terrible.

Here you go if you're interested in taking a look.

Watch for Choppable's appearance as they pan through my closet. Fear not Internet, he can't get you. He can get me, but let's not think about that.

Happy New Year 2009.2

Our haphazard move resulted in a lot of things being left behind. And though the things we left behind didn't seem that overwhelming at first, it seemed every day last week we'd go back to grab some more and in our absence our things had multiplied.

Logan was certain we were leaving just one male item behind and it was making everything reproduce. I never thought we'd get everything out of there. In fact we didn't, I forgot our perfect ice cube trays in the freezer and getting those back from The Landlord should be about as easy as extracting our full deposit from his cold, bullying hand.

Now our drinks will be a lot less perfect. Oh Great!

But in the end I got nearly everything out and spent 4 hours on our official move-out date washing the floors from the movers and the painters. I decided as I washed the floors on my hands and knees and tried to think happy thoughts, that when I turned in the keys I would feel better. And when I did finally turn in the keys and drove away I felt genuine happiness.

I ignored the looming anxious feeling I had as I drove past all the houses of the neighbors I've come to love. I pretended none of that part of this mattered. Instead I focused on how good it felt to be out of limbo between the two houses and done doing the work on the old place to get it ready to turn back over him.

(You know things like putting back the bare bulbs he had as light fixtures and removing towel bars from walls, because that's the way he wanted it. For what reason, I have no clue...I assume to "teach us a lesson" and let me tell you! Lesson learned: Some people are really spiteful even when it shoots them in their own foot!)

Since Maddie and I drove away from that old house for the last time I have tried to shift my focus off of giving up the perfect neighborhood I had, with block parties and pancake breakfasts and bike parades.

Hold on a minute. A bike parade? YES! A fucking bike parade!

Instead of focusing on all those wonderful things we're leaving behind I decided to focus on the sublime pleasure of being done with dealing with that person who owns the house in that dream neighborhood. and that has made a huge difference in my mood.

It's also helped being able to focus on putting my things out in this house and arranging furniture and knick knacks without the anxiety of the things, the things that were wildly copulating while we weren't there, we still had to get out of the old place and the things we still needed to do.

On Saturday night Maddie and I walked up to Gayle's to get a hot chocolate, then we walked around the block and went into the bookstore to browse together for a while and finally we went to dinner together. The waiter didn't even bring Maddie a kid's menu, she ordered off the adult menu. Of course she ordered $18 blackened salmon but she also ate it all. So there's the double edge on the food sword.

I think there's a reason we had to do this move. I'm not exactly sure what the reason is yet. I suspect it's the universe's way of making me understand that a house doesn't have a life. You bring a lot of your life in it, but the house itself maybe doesn't matter as much as my heart thinks it does.

I think I'm supposed to be learning about handling disappointment and change. I also think I'm supposed to be helping my kids learn a little about adaptability, a life skill I never quite managed to learn. 

I've moved just five times in 35 years, four if you don't count college. There's of course something to be said for strong roots and raising your family in one spot. Kids who have moved a lot have horror stories of how hard it was for them moving from place to place.

But I think a move across town, within the same school enrollment area is a great place to start showing my kids how to adapt to new situations. So far I've taught them that you deny it's happening, pout about it, sob a lot, and then you make the best of it.

It also helps if you take them to get hot chocolate a few times. (Maybe spike your own serving.)

Do-Over

I think it will be easier to not be so annoyed by this move once I give the keys back to the landlord on Saturday. Before we can do that though we have to spend our evening (with friends, beer and pizza) painting all the rooms back to white.

It will also help when we put some color on the walls in this place.

It will also help when the cleaning ladies can come over.

It will also help when it's not freezing and snowy and so aggravating to clear off my car every morning after living a luxurious 18 months with a garage.

It will also help when we're not frantically trying to get everything done.

I decided earlier in the month I was just going to call a do over on 2009. So on Saturday night, when Logan's gone with Max on a cub scout trip to Kalamazoo, at 11:59 I will be re-ringing in the new year.

On February 1st I will make a more concerted effort to not mentally tally everything that's making me not happy about things right now.

Too bad I threw out those great 2009 novelty glasses from the first New Year's Eve party we had.

and so, its done.

There are good and bad parts about living in denial until you are actually moving your belongings from a house.

I'm pretty honest with you internet. But there were times last week, when I cried. A lot. Like I'd grab a guitar from the Wii and think "I'll just play a quick REM song and I'll be fine!"

Except then I'd think how that house, was the one I loved...and this song was going out to the house I love. And it made me feel like pouring table salt directly into my eyeballs just to make the tears come faster because it was so emotionally painful I wanted to feel it physically.

But for the most part I spent last week packing a box or two and then wondering why I was packing a box because, I was not moving.

Then Friday morning came and Logan flipped our mattress up on its side....inexplicably.

I spent a couple of hours thinking about why my husband would flip our mattress up on its side. And then a moving truck showed up at our house. Next, the moving truck got stuck at the end of our driveway. A moving truck stuck in our driveway made it difficult to practice my brand of denial. Surprisingly, not impossible.

I was still under the impression that this move could not happen. The moving truck trying to climb over a snow bank at the end of the driveway kind of gave me hope that fate was on my side.

The problem with moving when you're practicing Extreme Denial is you don't actually pack anything when you're preparing for a pretend move. You tend to think you'll "pretend pack" when the "pretend move" is closer.

As a result of this denial, we packed our family in the jankiest way possible. We came up with a jingle...."Janky Moving....DOT COM!" it was that janky.

I actually moved a jacket.

No, not a set of jackets. I moved a jacket. A single coat.

In one set of trips I moved a pair of scissors, a globe from Max's room and a sweater. Then I felt bad about moving so few things in a trip so I also brought a spoon.

So we're here. And it's not like a plague of locusts fell from the sky.

So that's good.

For some reason....

There are boxes all over the house and the mattress is against the wall...

And there's a truck outside and three big men are taking things out of our house?

I want to tell them to stop...but they're quite large.

I guess I can live here without furniture.

On the other hand...

There are a few things that are very good about this move and I should probably focus a little more on them as I spend the next three days frantically shoving all our crap into boxes.

If you're in the Royal Oak area I really recommend stalking the Salvation Army Thrift Store on Fourth Street for the next week or two. Because, little known fact! January doesn't really work for garage sales. So I'm just giving a lot of really nice stuff away.

I guess that's a good place to start the list.

*I find it incredibly freeing to get rid of all the stupid things we collect over time. "Stuff" makes me feel claustrophobic and anxious and this is why I can't help but throw away Logan's three year old Runner's World magazines and the kid's broken Happy Meal toys. Although I throw those away because I don't like to admit they eat McDonald's that much. Anyhow, moving is the perfect time to declutter one's life.

*All the money we're going to save is putting me in a really good place emotionally. I don't like worrying about money. I believe money should just be around when you need it so I can worry about more important things like how much McDonald's the kids eat.

(Funny story: McDonald's manager comes over to our table and says, "Hey! I can't believe how old your kids are! I remember when that little guy was sitting in a high chair." Look, I WAS BORED A LOT WHEN WE WERE HOME ALONE EVERY DAY. Don't judge!)

*There's a Thai place around the block.

*The bra store is two blocks away. (I know I'm reaching there...but still. If I ever have an impulse to have a bra fitting...it's right there.

*The church a couple blocks away has lovely bells.

*I like unpacking and figuring out where everything goes.

*I love, more than is healthy, organizing stuff and making things work the best possible way. A small space is ideal for this particular compulsion of mine.

*There's Ice Cream a block away.

*In the summer we can walk to the art fair.

*The banister is really pretty, I'd like to make a baby with it.

*We'll start our own Neighborhood Happy Hour and hopefully there are people we'd like to have cocktails with.

I still don't want to go, of course. And I secretly hoped that after Obama became president this morning he would make all of this better. I mean, he's the president who's against personal responsibility, right? Or is that just a Fox News thing?

Apparently I still have to do everything. Damn.

"I told myself I wasn't going to do this...."

It's kind of funny how uncomfortable being really bummed out about something makes people.

Especially the eternally optimistic people.

I've tried to keep a brave face on during this move. I've tried to remember that there are starving children in Africa. And daily air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

Moving across town to a smaller house in a neighborhood that is not this neighborhood where we like everyone (except that one house) and fit in better than we ever have....it's just not the end of the world.

The end of the world is....well a meteor crashing into the earth. Or a SOCIALIST becoming president. Or having spaghetti with SAUCE on it if you ask Maddie.

The thing that's making it hard for me to wallow in this right now is the fact that I know this isn't all that terrible. I know that in 5 years I'll look back at this move and everything we're giving up and I'll have perspective on it. I'm at least mature enough to know that.

But I'm starting to accept that I don't do this stuff without totally losing my mind. I have to cry and rend my garments and perhaps get the vapors. I am NOT GOOD AT THIS SHIT.

I do not want to leave this neighborhood.

I know we have to for a variety of reasons I'm not going to share with the internet. But I know it's the right decision to make.

And I hate every stupid minute of this.

Last week when I said I was crying about it when I thought about moving? I had no idea that the tears were going to get worse. Now, 5 days before our target move out date, I am sobbing (But only after 10pm when the kids can't hear) in that really ugly way. The crying that would show up on YouTube tagged, "Ugly Crying".

Here's the thing. I don't know anyone who's ever been talked out of being really bummed out about something by being told, "Hey! It's not that bad!" or "Hey! It could be worse...you could be dead!"

Sometimes it just takes time. Sometimes there's nothing you can say that will make it better.

Sometimes it's just really pretty unpleasant. It's not the end of the world. No one's dying (and even if they were, it could always be worse).

I don't want to leave this neighborhood. When I talked about moving here, people asked me if I was being a little silly about how great I thought it would be here. "Maybe you'll be disappointed." "Maybe you'll just never be happy."

I have never once been disappointed with this neighborhood. It has been every stereotypical wet dream of the suburban dweller. It's been the kind of neighborhood friends from big cities come to and said, "Man, we need to live in the suburbs."

I could live in a shack (with a thoughtfully laid out floor plan) on this block of land and be just as happy.

Unfortunately, I can't level this house and be rid of the landlord who owns this particular property he seems hell-bent on driving in to the ground.

So we need to move. I know this is the right thing to do and we're lucky we can do this.

But if you like "inspiring" tales of "doing what's right!" Or "rising above challenges"...I'm going to suggest you close this window right now and don't come back for at least three months because I'm about to become insufferable.

Seriously.

Moving....is a lot different in 2009 than it was in 2007.

Well, okay, this is fun!

There's the knot in my stomach. There's the normal feeling of dread that usually comes with moving. The whole process of moving last time was a walk in a tickle-y field of daisies after the hellish process of trying to fix a house to break even on its sale. This time I know this is the right move but I'm not a fan of intermediate steps on the way to an ultimate goal.

This time I like where I live, I just don't like things like water in the basement and dealing with a man who thinks one should shovel their foundation to keep water out of the basement and dry their tiles after showering to keep them from falling off the walls. Oh, I also don't like paying over market value just because someone put a lot of work into repairing their neglected and damaged home and then the economic bottom fell out of Detroit putting him upside down in his mortgage.

I am also not a fan of sacrifice in the name of a larger goal because I'm not very good at it. I don't really know why that is. Why I'm so terrible at sacrificing what I want right now for what I want down the road. I suspect it's because I'm one of those middle class, spoiled and entitled Americans. I also suspect it's partly because I grew up sacrificing quite a few things.

Not doing what I want and rather what I should be doing, kind of makes me feel like I'm not in control and, if we want to get all Psycho-Analytical, I feel a lot like the five-year-old Melissa.

But we are, in control. We are driving our own ship here and MY GOD Melissa, we're moving across town, and it's going to be fun to settle into a new place. The house is lovely, it's smaller but we don't need more than what it is, it could certainly be worse. In a lot of ways the house itself fits us better than where we live now.

I'm trying to not lose my mind over this whole moving thing because I've learned, over the last 35 years of my life that freaking out doesn't really change anything. It just makes the process a lot less tolerable.

Oh, hey! I'm trying, at 35, to learn the thing my kids are learning over the first 7 to 10 years of their lives. I'm in the remedial class.

So I'm not going to totally lose my shit over this move. I'm not. No. I mean it. I'm not going to freak out about this. For the most part. Maybe just a little.

However, I may be engaging in a tiny bit of denial. It's the denial that keeps me from opening my Typepad window because I know what I'm typing right now is bound to happen....and then probably tears will start happening. And ooph, here they are!

Just like tonight as we packed our first boxes in the basement. My office area took 20 minutes and about a pint, maybe 21 ounces, of tears. Logan's took about 55 minutes and zero ounces of tears. I think he distracted himself with all the tiki mugs he was packing up. Also maybe the grating sound of my constant reminders about how much stuff he collects. I'm a harpy and a crybaby, no wonder he loves me.

Over the last week my neighbors, my wonderful...amazing....sob-inducing-to-leave, neighbors started bringing boxes over to the house to help us out. When they do this I have to fight a few urges. One urge is to wrap myself around their heads and beg them not to let me do this.

The other urge is to pretend I don't have the faintest idea why they're bringing me boxes because I'm not moving.

"Oh these must be for Logan and the kids because I'm just going to stay here. With Gary, the cat. No one will try to remove Gary. I'll have Logan and the kids send a thank you note to you though!"

But seriously, why did he throw out the soda?

I got an email from a friend yesterday. She mentioned how positive I'm being about this move, how she'd be pouting and unhappy. Last night I mulled around that option, pouting, because if you've read this website for a few years you know I am the kind of person who likes a good pouting session. I've even been known to wallow, for weeks at a time.

I don't know, pouting just isn't working for me.

Another thing that hasn't worked is having inane arguments with Logan.

The other night, after we'd pretty much decided we were going to sign a lease on the new place, we sat down with the kids to watch a movie all cuddled up on the sofa and let everything kind of sink in. At the end of the movie, something scared the cat off our collective laps and sent her leaping over the table.

And I don't know, but Logan and I swear she paused mid-air and threw Logan's glass of bourbon all over the rug. Then she flipped us off and ran away leaving our rug reeking like bourbon.

We started cleaning up the mess, full of resentment and unspoken stress.

While cleaning up I noticed Logan had emptied the soda I bought earlier. And for some reason, the tossing of that soda, the soda I was looking forward to drinking the next morning, the soda I hadn't even opened yet, unleashed an inexplicable reaction.

My reaction triggered Logan's reaction and our irritation and stress totally exploded over that stupid poured out soda bottle.

The conversation went like this.

"Hey, why is this soda bottle in the sink? What happened? Did it explode?"

"No."

"What happened to it?"

"MY GOD! Why are you grilling me!?"

"I'm just wondering what happened to it. I was looking forward to drinking it and now it's gone and I'm just wondering why?"

"STOP YELLING AT ME!!!"

"I'M NOT YELLING, WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME!? Where are you going? Don't walk away, I just want to know what happened to the soda!?"

"I poured it out."

"WHAT! Why would you do that?"

"Why are you making such a big deal about this?"

"You threw out a perfectly good soda, I'm just trying to understand why. Forget it, I'm going to bed. No, I don't want to talk about it."

(I may or may not have mumbled, "Stupid Jerk" under my breath. I may have also suggested going to hell as an option.....urrr.)

So yeah, maybe I'm not handling the stress all that well.

But at least I'm not pouting. I mean, having livid arguments about nothing but not pouting. So much better.

Moving. 2009 Edition

Last year as we passed into 2008 I was terrified of leaving 2007 behind. I still think 2007 was one of those high water marks for me. Even with the part where I nearly died trying to remove wall paper from the kitchen walls and spent a couple of weeks using a port-a-john in the driveway while we remodeled the bathroom of the old house. We struggled and succeeded, it was a year of working hard and reaching goals. It felt good.

In 2008 we've been in this great place and almost every day looked around and been happy, thrilled even, with where we are.

Back in September our financial landscape changed a great deal and after looking around at comparable housing in our area, we realized this house is both too much for our revised budget and too much for what it is (even with that lovely water feature in the basement....some might call it flooding. Our landlord calls it "a pool"!) in this housing market. (Plus our landlord is what one might call "delusional".)

Additionally, as I mentioned this week, I have a bigger move in mind and we have to make some cuts around here to make that happen. A move is necessary.

We found a house this week, it's a perfectly lovely home. With all the same 1920's charm we loved in our last house with a new kitchen, a beautiful oak banister and basement we can use as a room for the kid's crap. It's smaller than where we live now, but I've always known this house was bigger than we needed and if we move to a city like Portland we'll probably have to live in something smaller anyway. It's good not to get used to more space.

There's plenty of room to entertain, a great deck in back, and a mudroom off the porch. It's actually in the town of Royal Oak, where we can walk a block to shop and go to dinner. There's a park across the street and our new potential (we haven't signed anything yet) landlords tell us there are a few kids on our block. So it's not bleak, we're not moving to a van down by the river. By a lot of accounts we're blessed (even if there is a McDonald's two blocks down on the corner of our street....almost as good as a puppy according to the kids.)

Best of all we'll save a lot of money living there, and that will allow us to move toward other goals we have a lot faster.

And that is good, really good. Still I drove home crying after we saw the house. Logan kept saying, "Is this the wrong house?" And it's not. It's as good as it's getting right now, but it's not here, in the dream house (even with the water in the basement, it's still a dream house). It's my dream neighborhood, with all the things I've come to love about living in a community with people who, in spite of their wacky political leanings (kidding! Sort of!), make me feel at home.

On the other hand, we're so lucky we get to make this choice. I'm so glad we didn't buy. Logan said yesterday this is just a trial run for when we are able to leave Michigan altogether. It's a good middle step, we're not leaving our friends and family behind, we're just moving across town.

This is going to be a good move.

I know we're making the right move. Sometimes doing the right thing is really, really hard.

Block Party 08

We had our annual block party a few weeks ago. Every weekend since then has been full of some sort of fun activity, I can't keep up. There are, of course, worse problems to have.

I told him everything doesn't have to be white.

I have a few places to share with you today...

I closed out the Camping With Kids guide at Mighty Junior today. I loved putting it together, it made me a little more excited to go camping this summer with the family.

I also shared 5 Fourth Of July crafts at the Buzz Off. I chose these crafts because they're quite lovely and will make your home feel a little more patriotic. But mostly I picked them because they're reasonably easy to do with kids.

Finally, could you help Jennifer at Design Hole tell me what the hell to do with my living room? I would have asked all of you first, but I thought Jennifer could lead the charge. I love what she's come up with, especially given my incredibly limited budget and uncertainty about how long we'll be in this house. We need a focal piece of art, to help us choose where to go with the rest of the room. This is excellent advice.

Also, I can't thank Jennifer enough for the paint mock-up on the desk. It might be the only way I can finally convince my husband once and for all white is not the way to go with that stupid desk.

Good point.

Me: "I know I keep saying this, but I feel so lucky to be living here."

Him: "Don't say lucky. Say fortunate."

Me: "What's the difference?"

Him: "Lucky implies we just sort of fell into this great place in our lives. We worked our asses off. We're fortunate not lucky."

I need all kinds of professional help.

This entire house is painted Fuck It White.

The man who owns this house (who may or may not be reading this website) is a bachelor and he spent a lot of time and money fixing a lot of things which were wrong with the house.

Mainly the second floor which was inconveniently on the first floor. The house was empty, it was winter....something with pipes and water. I'm pretty sure the man who owns this house felt a little about this house like I felt about the old house. Defeated and maybe a little hostile.

So when he finished all the work replacing the floors, windows, roof, furnace, cabinets, counters.......I think he just said, "Fuck it. Paint it all white."

It's Pratt & Lambert I'm reasonably sure.

Painting a great number of rooms at the same time has proven beyond my capability. A neighbor, one of the many we often converse with and enjoy the company of (how novel!), brought us an entire color deck from a certain paint manufacturer. Paint manufacturers make a lot of different colors and it was a little overwhelming.

Logan and I often remark how silly it would be to travel to, say, New York City, and go to a Bennigans restaurant. Not just because Bennigan's is a place void of any local flavor at all, except the manufactured kind, but also because Bennigan's makes food which tastes like average. You go to Bennigans in New York City because you recognize the name and it narrows down your choices when you don't know where else to eat.

However, with paint, I admit it, I need a narrowed playing field. Looking at that color deck on the floor of my den made me briefly consider painting my back room neon yellow. That's not good for anyone.

So I called the same women, from Menagerie Redesign who came to my house before it went up for sale.

I did this after I spent just over $30 on quarts of the wrong paints. I thought I wanted a chocolate brown and I chose first something resembling someone's unpleasant poo and then something which was mostly gray and brought out the gray in the mortar on the exposed brick in the room. Which is like using makeup to bring out the dullest feature on your face.

You can see the colors I chose under the window on the left side of this image.

So Julie and Jane came over and narrowed in on a color. They had the big deck of colors which a month earlier perplexed me and flipped through with precision. They ended up debating 3 or 4 colors as I watched with my mouth hanging open.

They landed on one option with such certainty I was ready to paint every room in my house that color. Instead they recommended I go to the store and buy the little paint samples to try it out. Yesterday I finally put the color up on the wall.

It's true hiring someone to help you choose a paint color is an extra expense but I could have saved myself some money and effort by starting out with the help. We don't hire painters so if I change my mind about the color after it's on the wall, I'm repainting it all. I don't hate painting but I lose patience with it about halfway through. If I have to do it twice, I'm unhappy.

And, since it's my goal to not whine about anything house related for the next year, this just can't be.

Thankfully it worked out very well. It's a color (Benjamin Moore Shelburne Buff HC 28) I never would have chose on my own, but it is the perfect color for these walls.

Best of all it isn't white.

I think I love my landlord.

Right after we moved in to the new house, we realized the washer was leaking water all over the basement. At first this was upsetting because I don't really want to pay for it to be fixed, or worse buy a new washer. But then I remembered the thing about how we don't own this house so we called our landlord and he called back and said, "A new washer is coming today."

And I decided right then I never want to own a house again, except for the tax issues involved. But otherwise, never again.

Then last night, I suddenly realized I was drowning in a pool of sweat. My mother is afraid of using the air conditioning in her house (and her car). In fact she often tells me all about her thermostat settings with great pride. "I set it at around, you know 88 degrees, just to cut the humidity."

When I didn't have central air in my living space I honestly had to chew on my arm to keep myself from slapping my mother. I had to change the subject before suggesting she just get it over with and go live on the surface of the sun or better yet, maybe she should trust the air conditioning and the fact that God invented it so she could be comfortable in her own home and car.

So last night when I discovered myself sitting in a pool of sweat I wondered why because I actually enjoy being comfortable in my own home and often set the thermostat at 70 degrees, or if I'm feeling especially hedonistic 68 degrees.

After setting the thermostat at 32 degrees and noting the temperature in the house was still 88 degrees, I figured out something was wrong with the air conditioning.

Instead of sobbing about money and trying to fit in all our expenses into our income and OH GOD WHY DID WE BUY A HOUSE!!!??? I called our landlord and he's sending someone over to take a look. Of course, this all hinges on a contractor making time for this job in his busy schedule and it's 88 degrees with a lot of humidity and unlike my mother I don't consider this very comfortable.

Madison is doing a little better at school, her teacher is giving her plenty of opportunities to meet people and there were far less tears at the end of the day. I don't think the girls in her class are particularly unkind, Maddie complained no one liked her last year even when each morning I'd watch a group of three girls run up to greet her excitedly at the door.

We'll get through this and I'm just going to have to hope I'm helping her as much as I can (without becoming a helicopter parent) so she can hate me for other reasons as an adult.

As God as my witness she won't hate me because I can't properly utilize air conditioning! I promise you that.

New post about Growth Charts at The Buzz Off and I'm organizing things over at Ordering Disorder as well.

Closing the chapter, officially.

We've been frantically clearing out the last remnants of our life in the old house for the last couple of days. Things like the vodka in the freezer and, oh, half my clothes which were in the laundry room and I'd completely forgotten about. I only mildly registered my three pair of underwear and lone pair of shorts as 'a little peculiar'. This is what home loving mania does to you.

We also found another 40 outfits of Logan's. I know I've moaned before about Logan's extensive wardrobe. I am seriously tempted to take pictures of him every day for the next three months so I can prove to him that he wears the same 10 items over and over and over and so he doesn't need to take up three quarters of the closet, five drawers of an enourmous dresser to my one quarter of the closet and 4 tiny drawers assembled of particle board.

I'd take pictures of each of his outfits, except that he leaves the house at 6 or 7 in the morning and the only reason to be awake at 6 o'clock in the morning is the same sole reason there is for running 26.2 miles. You are being chased by a tiger. And not just a zoo tiger or anything, a very hungry, wild and possibly rabid tiger.

Yesterday I woke up early feeling a little stressed about deadlines and house closings at around 5 in the morning. As I laid there convincing myself to go back to sleep Logan's alarm went off. He got up right away and started getting dressed for a bike ride.

I said, "I can not believe you are waking up at 5 in the morning to go for a bike ride."

He replied, straight faced, "It's not 5.....it's 5:30."

Then I looked for the wild and hungry tiger which must be in hot pursuit. No tiger.

Our closing is tomorrow morning at 10am and then Saint Joseph can come to live with us in our new home.

Whirlwind

No internet. I'm stealing a very weak signal from the neighbors.

There have been 2-7 kids here since we moved in and everyone keeps telling me how sorry they are but this is exactly how I pictured summers for my kids. Also it makes me feel less guilty for all this space when the house is full of people.

We worked hard to get out of the last house. But I'm not sure we worked this hard.

The Golden Spoon

Before we begin, let's see what comes back with this query: Is it normal for the buyer's mortgage company to require an appraisal? I can't remember my mortgage company doing that until we refinanced years after the purchase. I asked around at the block party (!!) and no one else seemed to recall that step in the process.

So yes, we attended the block party on Saturday. Several times I just stopped moving, took a deep breath while watching my kids run up and down the closed street with about 20 other kids and thought, "I could not be happier than I am right now." I spontaneously hugged Andrea and Logan and they both understood where these non-required hugs were coming from.

Then I had an orgasm.

Which brings me to the next item. Many of the new neighbors read this site, in fact one of them knows I, on occasion may or may not give my husband oral sex within the boundaries of a loving and totally legal union. So you know, I may be feeling a bit reluctant to publish pictures of their children partaking in egg tosses, jump rope contests, water balloon fights and talent shows (!!!).

The only thing I have to say about the neighbors worrying about how I'll portray them if I write about them is this: If you walked up to me next Saturday as we moved in and punched me full force in the face, I would come back here, all iced and bandaged and write, "I LOVE THESE NEIGHBORS AND THEIR FUNNY CUSTOMS!!!!!"

It is nearly impossible for you to offend me after the last nine years.

Part of the yearly block party is a Men's Bake Off. Each year a specific ingredient is required for each submission, this year oatmeal. All the guys then submit their concoctions for judging. Logan is a robot and for the most part is programmed very well, but someone forgot the "Time Management' coding and he often bites off more than he can mechanically chew. But this time he made time for baking. He searched the Quaker site and came up with Spirited Southern Sweet Potato Bars. He made the 'test batch' Friday night after we reassembled the trampoline and he attempted to purge his closet. I tested the first batch in bed at 12:43 am.

Guess what? He won!

The one neighbor in our current neighborhood we sort of socialize with said, when faced with the power of the Golden Spoon, "They told everyone else to burn their entries or bring rice crispy treats just so you'd win."

And I'd believe that, I mean really, the robot wins the Golden Spoon? The spoon which dates back to the early 90's? The spoon many men have laid awake dreaming about (or have at least spent 20 minutes in the kitchen concocting an entry for) and he wins before we even officially move in?

Except when he won several men in the neighborhood fell to the ground and cursed The Lord for their incredible misfortune and at least one threatened to steal the spoon. But we won't let that happen. No, we won't.

Our landlord doesn't realize this yet but the Golden Spoon means he can't kick us out even after our lease is up. If he tries, we will beat him with this spoon until he sells to us for the price we can afford.

To quote my realtor, with a very serious tone, "Promise me, promise, you'll never attempt to negotiate a sale on your own. Promise."

I can't imagine what she's talking about.

I think the landscaping is done by the same tiny elves who blow cold air in my registers.

The other day we drove to check on the new house, we've done this about 31 times since we finalized our deal and each time we have some incredibly pressing issue we must address at the new house. Like, I just really think there should be toilet paper there. Or, I want to check and see if my broom will fit in that closet. Or, is the ice function on the refrigerator functioning properly.

It's gotten to the point where I feel a little silly making these incredibly important stop ins, especially since we always see at least one or five neighbors who are most likely at this point thinking, "Just move your stuff in already."

However on Monday we drove by and one of the neighbor's had lost all their landscaping in the front yard. The next day, the day we needed to see if all the doors were still in the same place (they were, Thank God) there was all new landscaping. Like magic.

Or like they'd paid someone to come and put it all in, but you can't tell me that's what happened because I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that people have actual laundry chutes and places for their cars to sleep. I just can't believe it, next you'll be trying to tell me people actually hire people to painstakingly remove years of wallpaper from their walls.

******

This week at The Buzz Off we made a lot of ice cream using an ice cream ball. I wrote about it here, but these are the parts I left out due to language and general streaming off topic-ness. While we were out in our side yard, shaking up our ice cream ball, it got awfully loud once the ice began to melt. Imagine a large cocktail shaker being handled by a 6 and 8-year-old. Gee, I'd like to imagine that.

Ed and Tile Cutter were quietly sitting across the street on their own front porch (they've been awfully quiet lately. I like it.) and once we'd been shaking for about 10 minutes straight they got up, went in the house and slammed the door.

For a minute I felt a little sheepish, because there have been a few play dates, extended playdates in the last month or so which have disturbed the neighborhood. And you know the whole golden rule, I try to give out what I expect from my fellow neighbors. But we've got 8 more nights of sleeping in this house so, you know, we're making ice cream and you can go in your house for once and try to drown out our noise.

******
In other news Brandon sent me this article. Noted without comment.

A growing directory of things to worry about.

Maddie, watching a commercial for an anxiety medication.

TV: "Are you sitting on your couch afraid to leave because you might die on the way to your mailbox." (Paraphrased.)

Maddie: "That's so dumb. It's not like you just all the sudden drop dead or something. Especially not on the way to get your mail. That is so so dumb. What a dumb lady. Why would you worry about something so dumb. I mean that can't happen."

Me, in the next room working, taking this as rhetorical commentary.

Pause.

Maddie: "Mom, you can't just die while walking to the mailbox right?"

*****
We've burned daylight by using our thumbs at The Buzz Off and I've been getting the kids to help in the kitchen a little more over at Ordering Disorder.

****
There are now just 7 days until Move In. I just realized unless Logan takes a day off work we can't actually be moved in until the following Saturday. I also realized that in order to actually move we have to rent a truck and rustle up some strong burly men to help us. This wouldn't be a problem but I just made fun of everyone Logan works with by calling them 13 year old adolescents.

Oops!

It's at least a misdemeanor to be this happy.

I got an email earlier this week from Kathi saying how confused she was about what was happening with our house. At first I felt like, "Internet, take it easy!" and then I realized, "Uh, Melissa you've dragged these poor people through the mud with you for many many months. A year even, of course they're curious about where you're moving."

Two things:

1) I am being far more careful about how much I reveal about where exactly I am living. Not because of any threat but just, you know, common sense tells you not to tell everyone on the internet, especially the person who writes to tell you what a "selfish whore" you are, where you live specifically. I've had a few visitors at my door here because it wasn't so hard to find me and while I love having kind strangers pick up the toilet off my neighbor's yard and also bring me chocolate and champagne and even yarn (!!) if the people doing good deeds can find you so can the people who think you are the worst kind of selfish whore.

2) The dream house is only our 'for now' dream house because we did not make money on the house we've just sold, which is fine all things considered because the sale of this house could have been like being anally raped and instead it was more like being flashed by some guy in his car who likes to show it off to unsuspecting and unwilling people. I mean, no offense to our buyers who have actually left us in a much better position than our worst (anally raped) case scenario, but nonetheless our real estate adventure has turned out to be less than a wonderful dream come true.

We are leasing the 'dream house' and I hate to say it because all day I said to myself, "There's no shame in leasing a house! Lots of people lease!" But there was my grandfather's voice echoing in my ears, "You lease and you throw money in the garbage. Give me that money, I'm throwing your money in the toilet. Here, I'm flushing it. Every month just send me your money."

(He never said this but I remember him being quite adamant about not renting and paying someone else's mortgage.)

I feel a little sheepish about renting in spite of myself. Especially since one of my biggest problems with my current neighborhood has been the rentals and the people who could care less about their property because it's a rental.

But there it is, we can't fathom jumping into the real estate game again after what we've been through. I don't want to commit to another house, pretty much, ever. I would commit to the dream house, but considering how much we didn't make on the house we're leaving behind, it's just not possible right now. In a year? Who knows.

And here's where your head splits in two. I'm letting it go, we only have a contract on the dream house for a year. The house I just spent an hour weeping in and pointing out the laundry chutes (2!) and the bathrooms (2.5!) and greeting neighbors who are genuinely happy to see this part of our dreams coming true. Pure bliss.

And if at the end of the year we still can't buy it, I'm feeling okay with that. I know there will be the right house at the right time for us. Now that we're free of the commitment of a house which is difficult to sell, I believe it will come together with so much less stress when the time is right.

Now, remind me of this post in 12 months.

 

Oh my God I love my inner Pollyanna.

Holy Shit....they're going forward.

August 16th closing. We're aiming for August 1st at the new place.

I don't even know how to celebrate something this huge. To the zoo with the kids? Packing the remaining contents of the basement? Robbing a furniture store at gunpoint? Cocaine bender?

Nothing seems quite exciting enough for something as momentous as this.

The post I truly didn't believe I'd end up writing today.

We had the inspection yesterday.

The buyer is also a realtor, she got a price from us which is almost 25K less than our original asking price. Her final price is $6000 less than any other area comparables. We agreed to this price because we know this house, even though the interior is lovely, still needs a new roof, new furnace and some major help with curb appeal.

All things we didn't do because we were drowning in financial ruin and then spending all our extra pennies on fixing the problems with our interior. You might be familiar with that work because I've spent the last year crying about it.

We assumed/hoped (stupid stupid hope) that this person was familiar with this market and capable of viewing a house with a critical eye enough to realize "If I get a house at a price which is $6000 less than area comps, perhaps I'm going to have reinvest some money into the property to ensure my investment."

Apparently this wasn't entirely the case because when the inspector mentioned the issue with the roof this threw our deal into a tailspin. So that last night, at a party in the dream neighborhood, I got the call which was incredibly like the call I got four weeks ago telling me that the buyers were "overwhelmed" and needed to "think it over". And like the last call I'd expected to hear my realtor's voice bright and chipper telling me the inspection went as expected and we were ready to move forward.

I had fantasies of Logan making toasts to our new life and me laughing at nothing all night long like a psychotic person because after this long year and all this waiting I'd endured, laughing like a psychotic is really the only response I could possibly have. I'd learned that hard work and patience while working toward a goal could work. We'd made it. We'd accept the extra invitation to the annual block party and go home content and happy.

Because in spite of myself I am one of these stupid "Positive Thinkers". Instead we went home at 8:30 fighting about what our next move is, both of us feeling exhausted, tired, frustrated and trapped. Then I took a sleeping pill and slept for 16 hours.

This time I let the ball of anxiety hang out with me, just so I felt like I was doing my part to make things happen. Last time I didn't worry a bit, because I figured anyone with EYEBALLS IN THEIR HEAD can see that this house would be worth another 10K-20K if it had a new roof and furnace. I figured anyone who would buy this house would realize all the work inside had been done but the outside had not and that is why it's such an incredible bargain.

Even after we got the call last time that our buyers were thinking about it, I believed my realtor when she said it wasn't unusual and lots of first time buyers get anxious. I held onto that string for a few hours until we got the call saying they wanted out of the deal.

This time my realtor assures me this is normal, that the buyers are probably pricing out the mechanicals which need replacing. Even though when we got this deal the buyer said she understood the house needed updating and was having an inspection to rule out any structural issues.

Suddenly now the roof is some unforeseen issue? I just don't understand.

But still I say I'm a pessimist, I'm sitting here depressed as all hell but I'm still full of hope. I'm sitting here on the sofa in my pajamas at 3:30 hoping my realtor is right and the buyer will come back and say yes. Yes, I want this amazing deal on this house in a neighborhood where new construction on similar sized lots are selling for over twice the amount this house is going for. Where homes this size with newer roofs, central air and curb appeal are selling in 24 days for 30K more than I'm spending on this one. 

I hoped this buyer was savvy enough to know what new roofs and furnaces cost. I hoped this buyer understood why we were giving this house away. I said I knew real estate deals could crumble twice, but the truth is I have an inner Pollyanna and she was screaming out, "No! It won't happen twice! There's no way it will happen twice. It can't possibly go bad twice. This is the right buyer! The last guys weren't the right buyers!"

That Pollyanna sent us to the U-Haul store to get packing paper and drove us past the house we were once again so close to moving to, it allowed us to start pricing new bikes for the kids to be stored in a real garage and a trampoline to be played with in the backyard, out of the view of the entire neighborhood and any homeless men walking by and allowed us to accept moving boxes from someone we thought would soon be our new neighbor.

Pollyanna is sitting inside my head right now counter balancing the hysterical side of me who fears we're never getting out of here resulting in me feeling numb and half dead.

And like an idiot I'm still hoping tomorrow I'm celebrating moving forward with our lives instead of plummeting into another layer of despair.

Because I'm a moron.

10 years and all you get is tin.

Yesterday was our 10th wedding anniversary. It was a beautiful day, sunny with a nice breeze. Not too hot, not too cold and not at all humid. Perfect.

There's not much to say about my marriage that I haven't said already. We work at it, fight, have great fun together, love our kids and struggle through the hard times. When we were dating sometimes I would stay the night at Logan's place over the weekends. Don't worry, I slept in my clothes on top of the sheets.

Every Monday I'd leave and head back to school and sleep alone with room mates who, left a little to be desired, and wait for the next weekend so I could be comfortable again spending the weekend with Logan.

When we got engaged, the thing I looked forward to most, even more than my actual wedding day, was being able to go to bed, every night with my husband. To wake up each morning with him and to make a home where we both belonged together all the time.

There are a lot of things I love about Logan, things I love about being married to Logan.But I'm still thrilled everyday that I get to be with him. That I don't have to pack up my toothbrush every week and go back to another life he isn't a part of.

I'm happy every day, even 10 years later, that we get to just be together.

I often get panic-y when he's late coming home because I know, considering the way I've handled the sale of this house, I would not be able to pick myself up if I ever lost him.

I've been busy this week worrying about the inspection (still no date!) and a big ball of anxiety has made it's way into bed with me every night. Things are awfully crowded with this anxiety in my bed and I'm ready to be done with this.

Saturday is Andrea's wine party in the dream neighborhood. The wine party I'd planned to stumble home from....to my dream house 5 doors down. Hopefully by Saturday we'll know if that dream still has a chance to come true.

In the meantime, I painted with the kids for the Buzz Off. Not my favorite project so far. I'm also sharing food for busy parents over at Work it, Mom on a blog called Ordering Disorder.

Keep your gentle wishes coming....

I want to say, as I did the last time, "WE HAVE AN OFFER WOOOOOOOO!" but I am afraid to say this until the inspection.

All I'm saying this time is, we have accepted an offer, this buyer is more savvy about older homes and unlike last time I'm going to spend the next 1-5 days obsessing over the house inspection. Last time I thought we'd pass the inspection with no problem and my lack of worry clearly caused the deal to fall through.

I've spent the last 4 weeks willing something to happen through the power of my bad attitude. My bad attitude will continue until our inspection comes back acceptable. After that, my attitude will remain poor until we end up in a conference room signing papers at the closing. At that point I will explode with all the negative energy I've been powering myself with.

Is it really possible that we'll have two offers go bad? It is possible and I've got the email to prove it. I've got an equal amount of email to prove it could work out just fine. In my mind the only thing keeping us all from another month of shitty writing is my bad attitude.

Well, my bad attitude and the three St Josephs buried in my yard.

Please, don't send too many vibes....

because you have all been amazing in hoping things work out. Maybe the universe is overwhelmed with all the attention to my silly little plight of selling my stupid house.

However, this week is going to be the end of the housing strife. One way or another.

I'd like it if the housing strife ended with us moving forward and letting this house go but if not, I'm okay with owning it for another 9 months and not living in it.

Tonight my realtor said, as she took our written counter offer to a potential buyer, "Expect the best and prepare for the worst."

I am hoping our counter offer is accepted but even if it's not, we have another offer on the table to attempt to work with and then, my worst case is still not ideal but entirely feasible. The last time we were in this position I felt like our 'worst case' was hopeless.

This time our worst case is something I can accept as not ideal, but how it's meant to work out.

However, I would really love it if this part of my life ended here. I'm weary.

It's like half the daylight to burn.

Maddie's been gone since Tuesday and this break from two kids is confirming one of the things which eats at me sometimes, I'm not very good at parenting two kids. Maybe I should have stuck with one, but then, knowing me I'd spend all my spare time wondering how I was damaging my one kid by not having two.

Reports from Camp Jenn are reasonably good, but Madison is rapidly showing Aunt Jenn exactly why I go insane all summer long. For example, Aunt Jenn took Maddie to Rivi, the happiest place on earth. Madison loves to swim and has been known to spend entire days in the pool. At Rivi yesterday she'd had enough after 40 minutes. This happens during many of the outings I attempt with my darling Maddie.

We arrive at the park and 5 minutes in, she's sitting next to me on a bench wondering when we're going home or, even worse, what we can do next. Or we go to playgroup and within 20 minutes she's questioning what we'll do after this!

On the one hand it's sort of affirming to see someone else feel the pressure of the unending demands of my little monster. On the other hand, Camp Jenn could be a really nice tradition if Madison makes it easy enough for the love of God and waking at 6 o'clock in the morning to tell Aunt Jenn she lost her tooth (the 10th! NOT THE FIRST!) isn't really working to that end.

One of my features isn't going to work out terribly well since we've had 4 showings in three days and my realtor is on vacation so I can't even get the feedback from the first one until the weekend. Though, judging by the lack of offers, I think we can cross C off the list, thanks for voting you wacky optimists!

I know I should be happy about all these viewings, since the house won't sell if no one looks at it. But all the viewings with no offers just confirm my suspicion that we can't sell this price and pay our realtor which is terribly depressing. Also I'm tired of leaving my house every day, sometimes 3 times a day (!!!) so someone can come judge my basement un-livable.

It's disheartening and annoying and since when we had an offer we'd planned to be all moved into the new house by now, it's especially crushing.

The showings today interfered with me sharing the results of my first Burning Daylight Report at The Buzz Off. This was a fun project, even though Max REFUSED to channel Martha Stewart, I guess he had fun anyway.

New Features!

I'm starting a new feature called "What Will The Feedback Be?"

 

First up:

Feedback For Our July 3, 11am showing (which was supposed to be 10am but they didn't show up until 11:30.....), What Will It Be!?

Your choices are:

a) "It's so cute and/or clean!"
b) "We are trolls and want to live in the basement. Yours won't work!"
c) "Gee we love it and need to buy it now! Like this minute! Here's cash!"
d) "I know the listing says, No Garage, but I really want one so I came here for no reason."
e) "We love it but don't want to make any decisions now."

This is SUPER FUN! I can't wait to find out what the feedback will be. I'm going with, because I saw them walking around the outside, E.

I'm also starting a new feature at The Buzz Off called "Burning Daylight." In this feature I will come up with activities to burn daylight on Tuesday and document the process and outcome for you on Thursday. Including total hours of daylight burned.

We're going to get through this summer, mostly without hurting anyone.

Always something better.

Wow, I've amazed even myself this time with my inability to move on from the disappointment of having the answer to my year of hard labor and 9 years of unpleasantness torn from my clutches.

This week has been full of showings, including one last night which gave me foolish hope when it went on for 30 minutes over the scheduled appointment. She decided to bid on another house, our only real competition in this price range so hooray get it off the market. Then there was the other showing over the weekend where the guy had a 'high level of interest' but surprise! He doesn't want to make a decision now! There was also the couple from last week who were very interested but getting married in two weeks so they don't want to make a decision at this time and, on further thinking, the basement and lack of garage was troubling her fiance.

I should be over it by now but I'm not. I should be taking a deep breath and accepting that we're stuck here at least until the fall. I should have a funny little anecdote about how this is actually a really good thing and how I'm learning so much and how I'm going to bloom where I'm planted. I'm also going to take time everyday to think of those less fortunate than me and then I'll have a good chuckle about how I'm so glad I'm not as screwed as all those people.

I wanted to think all those things except I can't think very well with all the throbbing bass from the kids at the park down the street playing basketball all day with a soundtrack from their cars.

We decided to pursue a lease situation to get me out of here because that's actually the number one priority at this point. We have two girls who are apparently interested, but because I'm still not able to get over it already, I am not holding out much hope for them to actually sign a lease.

If they do hooray! If they don't, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing. Glaring at the neighbors (have I told you about the guy with the dominatrix wife across the street? He met her on the internet and her voice can cut tile and your face off), drinking to unhealthily relieve my stress and trying to not kill my kids.

I'm also going to keep having a really great attitude.

I have a new post at The Buzz Off.

Have you ever worn underwear which doesn't fit?

Years ago Logan and I went to see Eyes Wide Shut at a theater which charged $3 a ticket for movies everyone else has seen. We, being frugal, decided to go see this movie at that particular theater though we'd never been to this particular theater and I will not tell you which theater so the locals can have fun guessing which one.

I don't like talking during my movies. I paid a lot of money to come here, if I wanted to talk I would have spent that same amount of money on 2-4 pints of beer at a pub chatting until my tongue cramps up. This theater's tickets were just $3 so I expected more talking because for $3 Logan and I could have a night out at the dive bar with a single Michelob Ultra a piece. Michelob is like water, only less filling. So sure, some talking is to be expected.

Everyone in this theater was blind. Or at least it seemed that way because EVERYONE (except us) was narrating the movie for their companions. "Oh....There's that guy from Top Gun! Oh man, that dude has a hot wife! Oh my God they are totally having sex! What's with the masks! That is some freaky shit. That shit is freaky, right? Freaky shit! Oh my God! They are going at it!!!!"

And so on and so on.

Now, I realized pretty quickly this was the norm for the theater. I looked around and everyone was talking. Talking about the FREAKY SHIT or on the phone or about how this popcorn is stale! Except Logan who was staring at Nicole Kidman's breasts the entire time with his mouth hanging open.

I spent the weekend with my brother's wife, my Nicer-Funnier-Sister-In-Law, my brother was at the firehouse working. At my Nicer-Funnier-Sister-In-Law's house I went to bed each night and instead of turning on a fan to block out the noise of the neighborhood, I turned my light off and went to sleep in total silence.

I came home tonight and the noise just kept coming. There was Folk Music Night across the street and Air Compressor Night across the other street and I had a moment of clarity.

If our respective neighborhoods were movie theaters, my Nicer-Funnier-Sister-In-Law's neighborhood would be the movie theater where everyone turns off their phones before the film starts and everyone in the theater would agree, silently, "Look, we're all here to watch a film. Let's talk later." If one person decides to break that agreement everyone else says, "Hey! Cut it out." (In so many words.)(This is also what it's like to see a movie at the Detroit Film Theater. FYI.)

Conversely, my neighborhood would be the $3 movie theater where everyone's agreed this film is a spectator sport and we're all in this together so let's all discuss how weird it is to see Tom Cruise act straight in a film and have sex with his wife while we watch.

At the $3 movie theater I realized pretty quick I was the only one annoyed by the noise and stupidity.

In this neighborhood I realized pretty quick I am the only one who cares about the science of sound. Mainly the principle which tells us sound travels. No one cares. Except me.

I've got email from people with their own horror stories from neighborhoods they didn't fit into. Not just neighborhoods where Sunday night is FOLK MUSIC NIGHT, LIKE IT OR NOT. Also from people who live/d in quiet neighborhoods where their choice of ground cover in the front flower bed was a source of major conflict with the neighbors.

Everyone can have bad neighbors, but at some point you look around the theater and realize your ideals are not matching up to the majority of the people surrounding you and at that point it's time to leave. That's true if you're in a neighborhood with perfectly manicured lawns and people named Thad and Muffy or if you're in The Suburban Ghetto with people named Ed and Tile Cutter.

Logan is leaving town tomorrow and I am sure that's why he didn't have all our boxes packed to move to the new place. He's waiting to surprise me until he's back from his business trip so he can really pitch in on the move.

He's amazing. An absolute doll that one.

Negative Reinforcement

Last month when we went to Texas, the weather report called for rain every day of our trip and I whined about it as I am prone to do. But then, on the actual trip it only rained about 1/4th of the time and even if it rained in the morning it passed over and the sun came out allowing the kids to swim every day.

So one might say I wasted my energy being annoyed by the forecasted rain because it all worked out in the end.

It hasn't rained in Indianapolis since Memorial Day weekend. I checked the weather report before I came down and say it was supposed to rain every day I was visiting. Instead of getting upset I packed my bathing suit, prepared for the Joy Of Rivi and told myself it couldn't possibly rain every day I was there.

It started raining Friday morning and is still raining Sunday afternoon as I get ready to head home.

Positive Thinking.

But I'm not going to let that stop me. I'm going to keep thinking positive.

Like when I get home tonight, I'm positive Logan will have a bunch of boxes all packed and ready to go to the dream house. In fact, maybe in the name of positive thinking I'll just drive directly to the dream house because I'm positive we're going to be living there.

I'll let you know how this positive thinking works out for me.

PS: Socks hacked up a hairball in the middle of the kitchen during our showing Thursday night. If that doesn't say "Welcome Home" I don't know what does.

Caution: Website Beats Dead Horses

Yesterday we went to play date at Andrea's house. Andrea lives in the dream neighborhood, which is hard for me at this time because I feel my soul detaching from my body when I realize what I've worked for for a year and had at the tip of my fingertips last week, is very likely not going to happen.

The week before we had play date at Andrea's house again and the way I felt was very different. I snuck away from the back deck a few times just to wave hello to the house down the street which would soon be mine. I walked through her rooms realizing, since the houses on this block are all quite similar, soon I'd be walking through rooms very much like these. I'd have guests over and they could urinate in a bathroom which isn't also the place I am naked each morning.

I thought, as my friend Leslie's baby slept upstairs and the kids loudly played downstairs in the family room, how one day we could maybe have friends over after the kids go to bed without the Sound Police's Chief Officer Madison Summers citing us for disturbing the (her) peace whenever someone laughs.

When we were in Texas we described the house we want to live in to Jean and her husband Joe. Logan told them, with wide eyes, about the refrigerator. "Okay, so it's just like a regular refrigerator and freezer but then, get this, you press a button on the door and ice comes out. It, like, makes the ice for you. And it comes in cubes or chips. I don't know how it does it but it does. All by itself."

This is amusing for a couple of reasons. First, it shows you how incredibly simple our Big Dream is. It's also amusing because right now Logan believes ice is made by leaving empty ice cube trays in the sink until I fill them up because after 3 or 4 days I've sort of accepted that he really doesn't know where ice comes from.

I've spent the majority of the week a little bit drunk. At first I was an angry drunk sending Logan long emails about how AS GOD AS MY WITNESS I WON'T STAY HERE! And, "IF YOU THINK I'M LIVING HERE FOR FOUR MORE MONTHS YOU'VE LOST YOUR MIND!!!"

Now I'm just a sort of a giggly drunk, a giggly sarcastic drunk.  When the skunk sprays, what smells like, directly onto my pillow I just sort of laugh. Maniacally. When Logan gives me the "Pep Talk" about how this is a six month market and that house isn't our dream house or else it would have worked out! Let's just wait and see what happens next! He says.

Instead of shoving him down the stairs I just kind of laugh and scream "Rah! Rah!" And I say, "Hey! I've got an idea! Let's just sit here and do nothing and SEE WHAT HAPPENS! Let's let the right house for now slip right past us and just wait and see what happens. Because for the last 9 years the 'Wait and See' thing really worked out great for us."

Oops! Sorry I thought I was over it. Guess I'm not drunk enough. Yet.

Tonight I'm leaving for Camp Jenn in Indianapolis for the weekend. Camp Jenn is supposed to be for Maddie but I'm going to Camp Jenn so I can buy myself more time before I set fire to this house in order to get out.

When I emailed my brother and Jenn to see if I could escape and hide at their house for the weekend they said of course. I assured them I didn't need babysitting so if they had plans, just go ahead and I'll watch tv and read magazines all day, every day. Jenn replied that she had some work appointments on Thursday and Friday but on Saturday she had no plans other than lounging at Rivi.

I need a new life.

Lounging at Rivi sounds about as good as it can get right about now. Well, unless we got an offer right now. That beats Rivi.

In vaguely related news: I wrote about labels at The Buzz Off, just in case you're sending your kid to Camp Jenn.

One small but important sphere of my life is out of whack.

Dear Melissa,
I think you need to get a hold of yourself and get some perspective. I am a potato farmer and I lost my arms in a freak potato peeler accident. Farming potatoes was my entire life, when I lost my arms I thought my world would end. But I didn't feel sorry for myself. I remembered some people are born without arms and I was thankful for the 30 years I got to use my arms. Instead of feeling sorry for myself I learned to farm potatoes with my feet and I give thanks everyday I have feet to farm my potatoes.

Count your blessings an remember you could be trying to sell your house without any arms and that would be worse. So much worse.

Love, The Internet

Dear Internet,
You are mostly awesome. In the last few days I've gotten email saying, "You're right it sucks balls." and others saying, "Positive thinking is for losers." and "I'm not even going to try to tell you it will work out because that's not what you want to hear right now because you feel like you've been kicked in the stomach." Also, there was the email that said, "Dear Melissa, I have it harder than you. Love, The Internet."

And I wanted to pinch your adorable little cheeks Internet.

I turned off comments for the same reason I haven't answered the phone in the last 4 days. I am pretty much a miserable bitch to be around. I am grouchy and not 'thinking positive' and not really very much fun at all. There's pretty much nothing you can say to me which won't make me want to bite your head off.

Why would I do that to you Internet? I want to be friends, so I turned off comments until I can hear "It will all work out eventually." without feeling the strong desire to disembowel you.

We have showings today and tomorrow. I am tempted to leave the dishes in the sink and the forts the kids made in the hall and all the beds unmade. I'm tempted to leave the cat hair all over and the litter boxes unscooped.

Because if I get one more realtor feedback involving the words, "It's so clean!"

I will disembowel myself.

Love, Melissa

Episode Number 329: The one where she realizes she just spent the last year of her life wasting her time and money.

I was so happy when we got an offer. So happy that it didn't even matter that we'd have to bring money to the table to close the deal. I didn't even care. I simply felt thrilled that the ordeal of the last year would be over.

From the minute I put my mind to getting this house ready to sell I knew in the back of my mind that the margin for sale was too small considering Detroit's unbelievable market. I knew as I peed in a port a john on my driveway and burned my fingers on a steamer taking years and years of wall paper off the shitty damaged walls. I knew we were stuck here.

I knew there was too much 'not good' about the house to find a buyer in this market.

I suspected that we'd had a crappy inspection when we bought this place. An inspector who didn't note some very key errors in construction going on in our basement. An inspector who told us the drop ceiling in our kitchen, third bedroom and bathroom were "probably just there to keep heating costs down...." Never mind that the plaster was falling off the ceiling and no one covers their 9 foot ceilings unless there's something wrong underneath.

i knew a year and a half ago we should have let this property go. I knew it was a waste to pour all our extra money into a sinking ship.

But still, we did what we thought was right. We worked so hard. So. Hard. To make this house sellable. But it's still not sellable. It's never going to sell. I know that for sure. Just like I knew last night when the buyers got cold feet that no amount of praying to St Joseph would make this sale happen.

All last week when the engines revved or the music blared I laughed and cheered and thought "Good riddance you asshole!"

Last week when my friend told me about happy hours and book clubs and block parties in the neighborhood I smiled knowing all my hard work had paid off. It was all coming together.

Today I know that all our hard work was for nothing.

That we are trapped here and there's no way out.

But don't worry the realtors all assure me the house is "cute" and "very clean" and "well priced". Everyone who walks through this stupid house assure me it's "clean" and "adorable".

Today when we got the news it was followed by, "We'll find someone!" "It will sell!" "Don't Worry!"

Logan hung up the phone with the realtor after saying, "Oh well, onward! It will happen. We'll see what happens next."

And frankly, "waiting" for what happens next is what made us dump thousands and thousands of dollars into this heap. "Waiting" is what we've been doing for the last year. Every sentence is punctuated with "If we're here." Or "When we move we can....." Or "Depending on what school you go to....."

I think positive thinking is for assholes.

Our cat has decided he would like to be an outside cat. I don't want him to be an outside cat here because there are too many feral cats outside, but we decided once we're living in a different neighborhood we'd let him be an outside cat.

Gary now spends his days scratching at the screens and running his claws down along the frames of the storm doors. He does this while letting out the deepest moans of cat sadness. Loud guttural moans which make your jaw clench and all your muscles tense up.

The sound of his claws and the moaning of his voice make me feel like I'm going to break something. We all want out of here so badly. But there's no way out.

Wishing I was in a deep drug induced slumber right now.

The inspection happened yesterday. My realtor left a voice mail for me when we returned home and sounded so upbeat I thought for sure she was about to say, "We're good to go, start packing!"

Instead she said our buyer was 'overwhelmed' by the inspector's report and needed to discuss the findings with his partner. Are they discussing how awesome it will be to own an old home and do the work Logan and I never did because we were busy putting our blood, sweat and tears into the kitchen, bathroom and wood floors we lovingly finished all by ourselves?

Or are they discussing how wonderful new construction is, even though it's generally void of all character and is mainly disposable? Are they discussing how maybe they don't want to own a house after all?

We can't really know until later today and, as I explained to Logan, I can let things go if I work through the worst case scenario and feel okay with the worst case. Conversely, when I work through the worst case scenario and I can't accept it as a tolerable answer, I have what those of you who have read this website for many years will recognize as "An Episode".

I am on the verge of An Episode and it all hinges on a decision which involves nothing I have any control over.

I truly believe my brain will split in two if we get bad news this afternoon.

In other news, we spent the afternoon in Detroit to take my mind off the inspection. The inspection I wasn't really worried about until now.

DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DON'T WORRY? Bad things.

My mind is still all buzzy with joy.

We countered with a slightly higher purchase price plus all the sombreros and tissue paper flowers from the party, they accepted. I'm pretty sure it was the tissue paper flowers and sombreros which sealed the deal for them.

We need to get through the inspection but I don't expect any surprises. After that, things should move quickly because all the agents involved and the buyer's financing is all at the same agency. It should take just 2-3 weeks to close. (!!!)

Which means when Andrea has her wine party in July, we quite possibly won't need a designated driver. We can just stumble home semi-conscious. It also means that very soon my brain will start working like a normal person's brain. Maddie said this morning when we told her our counter offer was accepted, "Great, now maybe we can live like a normal family again."

We are now getting ready to deal with the owner of the new house who, unlike us, isn't prepared to give his house away. I have a feeling this could get a teeny bit annoying but one way or another we're getting into that house.

Even if it means I have to break in and live as a squatter.

I think the universe is trying to show me I have no control*.

All right, I felt sorry for myself yesterday. Well, sorry for myself and also unbelievably annoyed with unimaginative buyers. I looked around yesterday at pictures of houses in our neighborhood with brand new roofs and they're tiny inside, no dining room, no new bathroom, tiny eat-in kitchens with old cupboards and they're 5,000 to 10,000 dollars more than our house. So there you go, have at it!

PS: Guess how much a new roof costs! That's right YOU DON'T KNOW BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T HAD A HOME INSPECTION.

But I'm moving on, only I'm not really moving on because you know I don't swing that way. I have a new post up at the Buzz Off and I think I did a decent job digging out inspiration for baby showers. It's rather difficult to find good pictures of parties: Flickr-ites! Get on it! But I found a few sites which make me feel like throwing a party, never mind none of my friends are pregnant.

Tomorrow we're getting on a plane and going to visit my friend Jean, my white, thinner, less screamy personal Oprah. This is big news because we have never taken a trip all together as a family which involved plane travel and 7 days of fun. It's only the third time we've taken a seven day break because my robotic husband is programmed for workaholism. Which is nice since he now has a laptop and a wireless connection which means there will be some work interfering with our trip. Oh well. We'll be away, we'll be swimming, we'll be drinking, we'll be sleeping in the guest house away from the kids (no offense kids). I will be trying very hard to let go of the house, to let the universe take control. Hopefully margaritas help that.

Here are some meaningless vacation photos from our last trip, when I took the kids down for 10 days by myself. Which went pretty well until the way back when I forgot to change Max's diaper and the seat was soaked. I haven't sat on an aisle when flying Northwest since.

*I hate not being in charge of my life.

So close I can taste it.

This is nothing but a boring update on our housing situation.

We had two showings today in addition to the second viewing by the interested couple. There has been a lot of interest in this house in a market where there are about 7000 homes for sale and 3 available buyers.

The Second Viewing Couple's realtor let mine know they are considering making an offer on this house or one which is further north. The house to the north could be a waterfront mansion, it could be a trailer....we can't know. We won't know until Monday when they decide which house to make an offer on.

The difficult thing about being optimistic and swimming with the dolphins in your mind all day is you can't help but wonder what will happen if you're wrong and it's not going to work out the way you're thinking it is. It will work out another way of course, one way or another. But I'm a fan of knowing how things are going to work out as you may have picked up in the thousands of words I've written over the last four years.

You can't help but wonder how your brain will recover if it's faced with another shift in plans. I'm trying not to give that part of my brain very much attention, because that's not the energy we want.

So instead Logan and I spent all morning shopping for the style of furniture we'll be filling our new house with, like this sofa. When we showed Dutch the sofas we're looking at and the dramatic shift we'll be making in our style in the new house he called it, "post deco, pre midcentury", which means only Dutch, Logan and I will know exactly what our style is because that doesn't exactly make a lot of sense.

For now though, I'm going to remain so God damn positive a dozen unicorns are going to explode from my arse and they're going to spear a few boxes on their horns and deliver them to the new house. The new house where we'll put a trampoline in the backyard and the kids will jump on it with cuddly giggling koala bears wearing tiny "I [Heart] You!" t shirts.

"GET YOUR PANTS ON!"

Yesterday we had three showings on the house (another tonight!). All this visualizing unicorns prancing on rainbow clouds seems to be working. Optimism and patience is rewarding? My world is spinning. It's raining kittens playing with yarn!

There were two showings scheduled for the 6:30 to 7:30 time slot. We took the kids to dinner and out for ice cream and came back to the house at around 7:20 because we were tired of killing time and figured the people were finished walking through since once most people see our basement they decide they like living in the earth and can't do a thing with the basement and poof they're gone.

I feel like telling these people about places like Texas where basements are considered a luxury item. Our short height basement is a luxury item!

We got in the house, Logan started a load of laundry and we rushed the kids to get their pajamas on. I walked into the living room and noticed a white SUV driving by slowly and had a fleeting thought, "Gee, I wonder if those are the people? No, it's 7:25! Oh they're stopping! Oh Max is naked! We have to get the hell out of here."

So I started yelling, "GET YOUR PANTS ON!! EVERYONE OUT! OUT! OUT!"

We carried Max out of the house without shoes or socks. I carried the rest of his clothes and he dressed in the car. Logan forgot his wallet and ran back in to grab it just as the people were walking up the front walk. Thank God we have a lot of doors.

As we drove away I said, "Oh, he's tall. They'll hate it."

We parked down the street waiting for them to come running out fleeing from the horror of the Bend Over Basement. But they didn't. 15 minutes went by, 20 and then 35 and they came outside and started walking around the house. Looking at all the concrete which one day they will hopefully be cursing as they shovel snow for 3 hours.

They liked the house their realtor said and they'll be coming back for a second showing on Saturday. They mentioned the lack of garage as a concern and the fact that it's really just a two bedroom because the third bedroom doesn't really have a closet.

Of all the things anyone's said about my house in the last month, for some reason this one has sent me of the edge of my tolerance for these buyers in a buyers market.

When Logan and I bought this house it was a fierce sellers market. We looked for months and months for a home and sellers had offers within 24 hours of listing. We'd show up for a viewing and find a home inspector and a defensive buyer already under contract. We walked through houses where dinner from the night before was left out on the table and dishes were piled high in the sink. Half the homes weren't even clean because they didn't need to clean, the houses were selling anyway. Over asking.

Our third bedroom has a stairway in the closet which leads to an attic which could be easily finished. Since we don't need that closet space we've left it open for easy access to the attic. When this realtor said her buyers were concerned it wasn't really a 3 bedroom house because there was no hanging space in the closet I burst my eyeball open and yelled out loud, "OH MY GOD I AM LIVING IN A HOUSE HUNTERS EPISODE!"

Then I drove to Lowes and spent $12, came home, spent 20 minutes of my time and voila!

This is a three bedroom house, there's your closet, now buy my house.

(*Second viewing Saturday morning. The closet is totally going to make this deal happen.)

My husband: lover of lawn servicemen.

While Logan was with the kids in Indianapolis and I was in San Francisco, the trees finally turned green and the lawn came to life and swallowed our house. When we all got home, there wasn't much time to mow because of the rain and because of our schedules and so we pulled out the machete and cleared a path and left it like that for almost a week.

On Thursday night I was outside taking new pictures of the exterior of our house now that the trees are green and things look alive. My neighbor, not the bad ones, came over and asked how it was going. I told him we'd dropped the price and I was trying to get a better picture with the trees all green.

We both looked at the house for a minute, lamenting the market and he said, earnestly, "Maybe you could mow the lawn."

Gee, do you think the jungle in our yard was deterring potential buyers?

He went on to tell us about his lawn service and how much they charge and on Saturday morning they came to our house and they mowed and weed whacked around the miles and miles of fencing and they edged.....they edged the miles and miles of concrete surrounding our house and our 4 different concrete walkways and the long, long driveway.

And Logan watched and said, "I've never been sexually aroused watching men work before but I'm pretty sure I'm turned on right now."

Then they pulled out the leaf blower and did what it takes Logan and a broom almost an hour to do in 5 minutes, and I think he may have had an orgasm.

***

You didn't think I would miss a chance to talk house did you? Look I put it down here so you could just leave with the image of Logan being sexually satisfied by someone using a leaf blower. But now you don't want that in your head do you? And you can't get it out. Here, read this.

On Saturday we met with the realtors and the owner of the New Dream House, which is right across from the Old Dream House. Dream House is a little overpriced and, even if it were well priced for the market, a little too much for us to afford. But we love Dream House. We love the big open kitchen/dining room and the family room with a doorwall to a brick patio. We love the idea of not living as slaves to home improvement projects and most of all we love the neighbors.

If I could fit Dream House into a Baby Bjorn I'd practice attachment parenting with Dream House, I love it like that. I would never put down Dream House, I would never want him to believe I was neglecting his needs. I wouldn't let him cry it out, I'd hold him until he fell asleep.

While we talked to our realtor after the meeting the neighbors were out and waving over and I waved back and then real live children on bikes (!) rode by and said 'Hi!' and then the sky opened up and koala bears and unicorns and rainbows fell from the sky and I mashed my body into Dream House and told Logan I couldn't leave, this house needs me. He and my realtor physically removed my body from Dream House and my arms ached. As we drove away one of the neighbors said he'd get some holy water to sprinkle on the house to make sure we get it.

I have never been this spiritual in my entire life.

We can't bid on this house or sign anything until we sell this house. I've tried to convince myself otherwise, as you might imagine I would because that's how I am. One-minded. But there's this thing called "Reality" and Reality is cruel. Reality would not co-sleep with me and I would definitely feed it formula and let it cry it out all night long. (Sarcasm Helper: I love my kids and guess what I did when they were babies? All of the above.)

We can't possibly pay for two houses and this market is so fucking annoying soft, (I'm being gentler and more positive) there are no guarantees there will be a buyer for our incredibly well priced house. I tried to make Max look as sweet as I could for the meeting so the owner would fall in love with us and couldn't imagine squashing the dreams of such an adorable little boy, with freckles.

I've decided to live The Secret, no not the one about that thing you do with your ring finger while giving blow jobs*. No the Oprah one about giving power to what you focus on. I am focusing all my energy on the new house, on how wonderful it would be. I'm picturing myself there, shamelessly, without suspicion. Believe it. Achieve It, Baby! (That's a Loganism and one which has caused me to throw a chair at his head in the past.)

I'm picturing the trampoline in the backyard and the kids riding bikes with friends up and down the street and I'm picturing buying more than one cupboard of food at a time and I'm even picturing Mai Tais made with crushed ice directly from our freezer. This could all back fire of course if our house doesn't sell in a month and we can't make it happen because then I'll be spending hours in my mind moving all my furniture out of the place and weeping while I crush ice in the blender for my Mai Tais.

Also the house will weep real tears if we are kept apart any longer.

*I have only one blow job secret and it doesn't involve a technique. Here's the secret: There's really no such thing as a "bad" blow job, especially once you're married. Unless you lick it like a popsicle. Irritating.

**Wow, I thought we were talking house to get any sexual images out of your head. Sorry.