Stuff

Today has been pretty productive so far. It's 8:18am, and I've got my second load of laundry going, the dishwasher going, everyone is fed and dressed, emptied the shredder and finished shredding some stuff, scrubbed down the kitchen barstools and looked up an address to mail off a picture for Hannah.

I still need to do school, go to the drugstore and the bank, reserve a storage unit and truck for this weekend, and I'm really, really hoping to sweep and mop today.

Still haven't heard anything on the new house, but we have been assigned our 'negotiator'. Of course, this is the holiday season and he is probably on vacation until next week.

We have 3 weeks left to move. Still no idea yet where we are going. The house is about halfway packed up. There has been lots of organizing and purging projects though. That part feels good.

We want to move all of the already packed stuff, the large yard toys (swingset, play structure) and the garage things into a storage locker this weekend. That will free up a lot of space in the house. Anybody have a teenage boy we can borrow on Saturday?

December 27th

I stayed home from church with the girls today - they are both sick with moderate colds. Should be fine in a couple days. The boys (Daddy & Nathan) went to church together.

While they were gone, I gave the girls a bath, took a shower myself, took down and boxed up all the Christmas decorations, got dinner prepped and in the crockpot, then made lunch.

So now, Christmas is officially 'down' in my house. Since I've also been packing the last few weeks, everything looks quite barren. I took down the decorative items in my bedroom today as well and boxed those up. Most of the deco items in the house are packed now. A few things left in the girls room and kitchen - odd sized things that won't fit into normal boxes. Also need to figure out how to move/store the large decorative pictures.

On the upside, the living room looks huge!

Michael is taking a quick nap, and I've sent the children to their rooms for a little quiet time. Maybe I'll go put my feet up for a few mintues. I'm sure Michael will want to go for a walk before it gets dark. Walking in the brisk winter air works up an appetite, and makes little children go to bed early!

Christmas 2009

It's been a lovely Christmas Day so far. The girls were quite sick last night and I was up several times with each of them. They slept in until about 7am this morning. Then we had breakfast, cleaned up, Michael took a shower, then we opened presents. (I just love that waiting until 10am to open gifts doesn't make my kids nutty!)

Leah got a push popper toy and loves it! Her second favorite item was the rubber chicken from Nani. Go figure! Hannah loved the pink scarf I knit her (at least she pretends to) but I think the Littlest Pet Shop was the hands down fave. Nathan got tools and a model car kit (that Michael has been putting together for him for about 3 hours now).

Auntie K gave the children a Hungry Hungry Hippos game and they are loving it!

It's been a very mellow day. I've prepped the sweet potatoes for dinner, did a load of laundry, took out several bags of wrapping paper/boxes/wire/etc, and even got in a shower. Sigh...all is well. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Two days to go...

Only 2 days until Christmas. Today will be a flurried mix of school, house cleaning, finishing a sewing project, hopefully a quick trip out for that ONE LAST MINUTE GIFT, and some planning of the Christmas Dinner.

I have one sick baby, one Mighty Man starting to sneeze, and a Big Girl complaining of a sore throat. I don't think we're going to make it to the family gathering on Christmas day, so I need to plan a little something special for my own little Christmas dinner.

I have a small ham in the freezer, my dear friend L brought me yams yesterday (a little OJ and coconut will make that yummy), an interesting salad perhaps. Hmmmm...

Anybody have a good recipe for homemade cinnamon rolls?

Playing Together...

Hannah and Nathan are playing together. Some sort of army man/Polly Pocket thing. Here's an exchange I heard this morning:

Hannah: Here a guy and he looks really mean!

Nathan: Kill him!!

Hannah: No, he's a bad guy, but he wants to be good.

Nathan: Kill him!

Hannah: No! You're supposed to say "Do you want to be a good guy?"

Nathan: BOOM!!!!! He's dead.

Hannah: I don't want to play with you anymore!

More bad news...

We were so happy on Dec 1st when we were told that the bank would assign us a negotiator and give us an answer on the short sale we bid on over 100 days ago. They said we'd know by Dec 15th.

We found out today (the 20th) that they have not yet assigned a negotiator. And seeing that it is the holiday season, it's quite likely that every one is on vacation and getting a negotiator won't happen until after the first of the year.

The people buying our house have given us an extension to Jan 20th. After that, I have no idea. Again, the real estate agents are telling us that we're going to know any second now...

Anybody know of anybody willing to rent us a place for anywhere from a week to 6 months?

The last 30 days in review...

This past month has been busy and stressful.

We have sold our home. We have to be out by Jan 12th. But as of yet, the bank has not responded to our offer on a short sale in Rocklin. It's been 98 days now. The bank has assured us that all looks well and they will give us an answer very soon. I guess I need to request that they define 'soon'.

So in 4 weeks, we will have no house. Should we wait another week to hear from the bank? Or go find a rental now? We can't do a lease, it's has to be a month-to-month rental. What if we only need it for 2 weeks? Grrrr....

We have had several inspections on our home (the one we live in right now, not the new one we're hoping to buy). The pest inspection found two 'potential risks' that we needed to fix before our buyers could get their financing. We fixed the 2 completely stupid and petty things, and had the pest guy come back to check it. He was going to charge me $75 to look at a gap in my fence. ?!?!?!?!?

I politely protested using words like extortion and non-disclosure. He came out and did it for free. Pest inspection is cleared and certified!!

Then today I got the renewal notice for Michael's business license. We originally filed in the city that we live in. I called City Hall and asked if we should re-file in the city we will be moving to instead. They said we should have a business license for every city we do business in.

Okay - Michael takes photographs for real estate agents. In 3 counties. Do you know how many cities that is??? Let's pretend it's only 20 cities, and they charge $35 a year for a license. Outrageous!! I'm not going to think about it. LALALALALALALALALA! I can't hear you!!!