How did that get there?

I was cleaning up the kitchen and I had an empty bottle of creamer, so I stepped outside and tossed it into our recycling bin.

Then my children finished both the lemonade and the juice, so I had two more bottles for the recycling bin. I walked over to it and put them in and...

there was a dead mouse lying in the bin.

This is not something you expect to find in your nearly-empty recycling bin. I haven't seen any mice, live or dead, since we moved in. No mouse poop, no mouse noises, no mice. And now there was a dead one inexplicably lying in my recycling bin. Some water was in the bin... did it drown? It was about a millimeter of water. If it didn't die in the bin... who put it there? There's a random cat who wanders through our yard...

I need my daughter to get her magnifying glass out and look for clues, because I'm baffled.

Oh, There You Are

So when you pack, you're always trying to find all the pieces of something, or all related items, etc., so you can put them in the same box and put on a nice label: Hair Accessories; Little People (the Fisher Price kind!); Napkins.

Then, 15 minutes later, a related item makes an appearance. What! Another hair tie? Where were you 15 minutes ago??

Now, you have a hair tie. But the Hair Accessories box is already sealed, taped, done. You could untape it, put the hair tie in, and retape it... but that seems like too much work for one hair tie. So you put the hair tie in a remotely-related box - Bathroom. You seal up Bathroom and... an hour later... a headband shows up. What! Where WERE you for the last hour and fifteen minutes??

But the latecomer needs to get packed, too. Do you start a box for random items? Do you start a new box for Hair Accessories? Do you just give up and start packing everything in one big mess? Now you're going to have hair accessories in THREE boxes. Gah!

This is the worst part of packing.

Last Weekend

It's our last weekend in the condo. And it's starting to look less and less like my home and more like one of the houses I see on Hoarders. There are boxes from floor to ceiling, the kids' toys are strewn about in between piles of packing materials, and we can't use our kitchen table. I ate my dinner off of a box while sitting on the couch.

My baby finds boxes to be the best!toys!ever! and pushes them, opens them, inspects them, carries them... all over the condo. This keeps him occupied while I try to pack (or make dinner, since I'm trying to use as much food up as possible from our freezer). This evening, however, he thought it would be a good idea to unpack one of my half-packed boxes. Fortunately it was just dry food, and once he had completely unpacked it, he decided that linguini in a box was now the best!toy!ever! and proceeded to drag it around the kitchen for five minutes. I was able to repack the box while he did this (less the linguini).

The really interesting thing about packing is finding out what tiny percentage of your items you actually use on a regular basis. For us, it is frightening that we packed an entire storage unit full of items at the end of February and have missed only 3 things:

-my shorts (all of them)
-some special t-shirts
-the baby's 12-month outfits (I thought we'd be moved in before he turned one)

Then we get into the last month before the move, and I'm packing everything that I think I won't need in the next month. I do a few bags of clothes and boxes of crap and think, "I'm doing pretty good." Flash forward to present and I have yet to wear or use about 80% of the remaining items. Fortunately, now we're into the last week, and I'm capable of discerning what we'll use in a week. I think. Especially now that I've come to the realization that I won't be making that pudding pie or mailing any thank you notes that got lost in the shuffle during January.

In summary:
-babies love boxes more than toys
-I own too much stuff
-Thank you for the Christmas present.

It's Just the Weather

I should have known that it was going to be a day of misadventure, because I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. But I blamed the weather - the grey, not raining, sunless, weather.

So I tackled the laundry, and the dishwasher, and had a shower and an iced coffee, and finally felt ready to leave the house to accomplish at least one of my goals for the day - buying a shower present.

I was ready to walk out the door with my infant when I remembered I had to find out IF and WHERE the gift recipient had a registry. I had to remove my shoes, set down my purse, and appease the infant while my laptop booted up and I searched to see if a registry existed. It did - at Crate & Barrel, one of my faves. Things were looking good! Registries are a blessing - they take all the work out of choosing a gift. They are one of the Best Inventions of Modern Times. So I put the shoes back on, picked up the purse and the infant, and we were on our way...

We arrived at the store uneventfully. Then the misadventure began. I woke up the infant and we headed to the store - and were informed that the store had no electricity and was presently not open. If I were a childless person, I would have skipped over to the mall next door and traipsed around for a bit before returning. Being a person-with-child, I could choose to:

A) Leave in the car and come back later (or not at all - except that the shower was in less than 24 hours)
B) Go to the mall with the child (except I had not brought a stroller and he is getting very heavy) and then come back
C) Go to the Macy's in the mall, where the gift recipient had also registered.

I chose C, even though I hate Macy's, because it was the most efficient option.

So we drove around the parking lot to park closer to the entrance of Macy's, instead of Crate & Barrel (the heavy child prohibiting walking that far), and went in. We actually found a spot close to the entrance, and I felt it might be a sign we were just meant to go to Macy's, despite my hatred for the store. But the signs quickly reversed themselves.

The thing with small children is that they cannot go up escalators. The thing with malls is that they have a lot of escalators. This being my second child, I have learned that they have elevators in hiding in every department store. So we walked the perimeter, hunting for the elevator. It was, of course, on the opposite corner of the store from the doors. And, of course, the registry department was on the third floor.

We meandered around the third floor, searching for a sign that said "Registry". I found one, and it appeared to be pointing at the down escalator. (It is things like this that make me hate Macy's.) Since the map of the store had clearly stated Registry was on the third floor, I deduced that it meant I should go around the escalators. I was correct, and we were able to print off the registry list. It was nicely organized by category, which would have been useful if Macy's was organized by category (another reason I hate Macy's). Unfortunately, they like to scatter housewares, bedding, and fine china throughout the floor in small groupings, the reasons for which I cannot determine. We started to hunt for a peeler. I figured that would be with utensils. We walked through a section of pots and knives, but it was not there. I found another section of dishes, but no utensils. Then I spotted a third section, which was helpfully labeled "The Cellar." This section appeared to have everything from small appliances to plates to... utensils! We found the peeler.

My next object to locate was identified on the registry list as "Joseph Joseph Hmlr" or something to that effect. It was also under the housewares, so I figured it OUGHT to be nearby. At this point, an employee asked if he could help me, so I said - "What is a Joseph Joseph Hmlr?"

He had no idea, either. But he looked it up in his computer and it was a utensil set. So clearly something that would be in the utensil section, too! Wonderful! He procured it and I made to purchase the items when...

I realized I had no wallet. I carry about $5 in cash and no checkbook, so I was now in the predicament of being unable to complete the purchase. I asked them to put the items aside and left. Back down the elevator. Back through the entire store (maybe they put the elevator at the back on purpose?). Back to the car, and back to my house.

I then drove BACK to the mall; however, by this time (3:30?? on a Friday??) there were inexplicable quantities of vehicles on the road constituting traffic. This meant it took 3 times as long to get to the mall. However, the gift has now been procured, and the misadventure over, so at the end of the day... I can say... it was just the weather.

One Month

In One Month we'll be handing over our keys and getting new ones! (And hopefully our buyer finds out quickly for herself that one key opens half the locks on one door, one key opens all the locks, and one key opens half the locks on the other door)

Next week, we have plans that are sure to lead to an adventure...

This week's adventure is finding out what the smell is in our condo. Our agent (and, you will remember, the buyer) thinks it smells like cat pee, but two other independent sources say it smells like our rabbit cage (which smells like a barn because their litter box is hay). I don't smell it; but we have officially verified that I am now incapable of correctly assessing the smell of my living space (this must be how hoarders get accustomed to gross smells - although I would argue I like the way barns smell). I do, however, smell something in the kitchen. So I put some coffee beans in the garbage disposal and emptied the trash. We'll see if I can smell anything when I get home from work tomorrow (this is the only time I notice anything less than a major smelltastrophe).

Let's Sign Stuff!

The good news is in! We're going to have a sale! Only one last hurdle to clear, and that's making sure our buyer gets approved for financing. In this day and age, that's no sure thing. We just spent the last month going back and forth with our mortgage company to prove we can pay a mortgage payment less than the one we've been paying for the last 5 years. First they asked for a brief work and salary history, then they asked for a line item detail with backup paperwork of every deposit in our bank account for the last 6 months, then they asked for our firstborn as collateral... you know, normal stuff.

But this week, we get to sign stuff! Stuff being the purchase and sale ("P&S" if you will). We're aiming for an end-of-July close still, but given the track record of this whole thing, I'm thinking we'll finally be done in August. But hey, that's a Mega Win over going back on the market.

In the middle of the day, I randomly exclaimed, "I GET TO PACK THINGS NOW!" Time to go beserk with the boxes and the tape. Yes! Yes! Yes!

Weekend Waiting

So, Thursday evening we got two estimates finally - from Contractor #2 and Contractor #3. Contractor #4 was actually a no-show... apparently this is normal contractor behavior. We immediately emailed them to our agent, who emailed them to the buyer's agent... and we haven't heard a word since.

I am hoping that either the buyer or her agent is simply on a vacation, this being the weekend of the Fourth and all, and that we'll get a "let's sign stuff!" call on Tuesday.

So it's more waiting and praying all weekend... and it's a LONG weekend... with my husband and his cracked rib moaning and groaning on the couch.