conversations with invisible pigs and sheep

After two bad starts to our early morning test-runs, Jim behaved brilliantly this morning. Part of the problem was shower in the morning or the night before. Morning showering takes longer, but seemed to get him moving. But he choose to shower last night…

I got Jim up a little after 6.30, after I got my (wonderful alone) shower. I had to wake him up, but the mention of waffles waiting for him got him out of bed, into the bathroom, and downstairs in no time flat. He didn’t eat as much as a thought he would, but he ate. Then it was upstairs to get dressed — putting out the clothes last night was definitely helpful. He got dressed, brushed his teeth, I combed his hair, and he was ready to go.

Notice what’s missing in this morning to-do? I forgot his medication, but remembered after picture taking. I have to remember to get him to take it before he goes upstairs to get dressed.

After Jim got on the bus, we went back home so Colin and I could have breakfast. Then we got the van inspected, did some shopping, and came home and hung out. I gave Colin a snack and let him in a regular chair without a booster. Then he helped me put away some more of the vacation stuff and unpack the last suitcase.

At noon I took Colin out to get him ready to pick Jim up. We cleaned up the garage a bit, and then headed up to get Jim. It was hot, so we hung out in the shade of one of the construction trucks parked in front of the model home. Jim’s bus arrived sooner than I expected, but I had to cross the road and get on the bus to get him, because he didn’t know that it was time to get off. It looks like he’s the last one on in the morning and the first off in the afternoon (which explains why the bus arrived pretty quickly).

According to Jim, kindergarten “was good”, he and one of his friends of last year played, one of the girls from last year rides the bus with him, and a boy on the bus shared some candy with him. His favorite part was having his buddy Gilly (a fish) with him.

Pictures forthcoming, and video too, once I get everything off the cameras.

The marathon is over.

There has not been a day in the last three-plus weeks where I have been able to do what I’m doing now. Sitting in my jammies, eating leftover pizza for breakfast, and relaxing. There are no doctor’s appointment, shopping trips or anything going on for today, and no big events in the foreseeable future.

Not that it hasn’t been wonderful. It was a dream come true to have as much family here for Thanksgiving as we did. Jim’s party was chaotic but fun.

The house is slowly coming together. We’re enjoying some of the new things, like, hey, two people can take a shower (in different bathrooms) at once. We’ve made three trips to IKEA so far — Dad’s office looks great, with built-in shelves and a huge desk. I’m looking forward to doing the same to my office, but I haven’t had time to map it out yet. With all the company, we got alot cleaned up, which is helping out tremendously.

I finally got curtains up in Colin’s room. I’m calling the theme “world music jungle” — he’s got some crazy colorful curtains from IKEA, and safari animals stick-ons on the walls.

Jim’s room is coming along slower, but I got a curtain rod yesterday, so hopefully he’ll get his curtains and shades up today.

Speaking of window coverings, we picked up Levolor blinds from Lowe’s the weekend we moved in — the middle grade aluminum ones, and had them custom cut. They’ve been nothing but a disappointment — difficult to install, operate poorly, and several were bent. They weren’t super expensive, but still, they weren’t worth the money we spent.

Jim had his five-year-old doctor’s appointment yesterday. At 40 pounds, he’s down to 50th percentile for his age (from 75th percentile last year). So, it’s back to fattening foods for him. Apparently a summer and fall of eating fast food nearly once a day wasn’t enough. Otherwise, he’s fine, despite a crazy year. To listen to the doctor read off his list of ailments, you’d think he would be living in a bubble. I really like the doctor that we saw too, because she spent a lot of time with us, and also asked about how his seizures presented, for her own information.

Colin is on the move. He’s fully furniture/cabinet/box surfing — lifting himself up on whatever he can find. He has even been standing a bit on his own, for a few seconds at least, before plopping down again. Sleep is still our biggest hurdle with him — some nights he’s getting up every 90 minutes to two hours. Then, we had one night where he slept four or five hours in a row. Now that company is out of the house, I’m working on several things at once. (A) Getting him to nap in his crib, which is related to (B) getting him to sleep without nursing him first. So I’m trying nurse him, then keep him up for a bit before putting him to bed. I’m also trying to get him to use a sippy cup, so that when he’s a year, we can transition to cow’s milk.

Well, it’s back to cyber-Tuesday for me — time to continue Christmas shopping.

Two signs that this is the country (besides the fact that the house was built on former farmland). Sears only delivers twice a week, which is why we won’t have a fridge or washer and dryer until tomorrow).

And I just filled out my Postal Rural Delivery Form to get the post office to deliver our mail.

Colin’s top two canines came in over the weekend.

Oh, and we’re moved into the new house!

Closing went well, although it was not well run. We were able to get into the house (apparently some people have had problems with keys). The move in went well — it only took about 45 minutes for three guys to pack up the storage unit, and then we had six guys to unpack the two trucks back at the house. There were quite a few mix-ups with the boxes, and we’re still sorting it out. We had a lot of help yesterday, and the kitchen is mostly unpacked, and the kids’ rooms are pretty much together. I’m missing a lot of my clothes.

So today Dad got his TV, and a PlayStation 3. I ordered some area rugs and a new phone that won’t break a wireless connection.

with the annual Halloween costume preparations.

Jim’s costume isn’t all that hard, once I figured out how the shirt went. It just needs two hems, a way to close the front of the shirt, and some trim. Sounds like a lot, but really isn’t.

Colin’s costume is another story. It’s two colors, so I’m finding myself splicing fabric together to achieve the right look. And halfway through the first splice I ran out of the color thread I needed. But, I was able to run out last night and get some, so we’re back on track.

Oh, you wanted to here about the sale of the house? The facts that I know are that the buyer’s attorney wrote up a new agreement that implemented all the changes that we wanted. Our attorney got it, and we signed it. When it’s signed by the buyer, the attorney review period is over. Also, the home inspection is scheduled for this Tuesday. So, while I don’t know it’s fact, it seems that the buyer signed the amendment.

We stopped by the new house Saturday. The carpet is in, as is the ovens and microwave. The countertops were in the garage. We’re looking at closing on the 9th of November.

Two very beautiful words. Dad and I signed the sale contract on this house today. We got an offer on Sunday, but were keeping it under our hat to keep from jinxing ourselves.

So, we’re now 95% there. Still have attorney review and a few weeks to get to closing.

We drove by the new house today, and saw that the cabinets were going in, and the low voltage contractor was there, most likely putting in all their equipment. The sales agent told us that they moved up our closing date a week. It’s ahead of the closing date on the current house, but we can either push it to the same day, or possibly close on the new house earlier.

I contacted movers today, and we’ll definitely be able to afford them even if their estimate is way off, so that’s a big relief for us.

The worst part of this? We had two showings, one Monday and one Tuesday. Until the contract is signed, you have to keep up with them. And today, someone else wanted a showing. It was NICE to tell them that we’re under contract.

Also, it’s good to be able to do laundry again. I haven’t done laundry since last Thursday — there’s not time with showings, etc. Now I have a huge smelly pile of it to get through, and most is damp from wet towels and will have to be washed twice.

Here it is… I think the only thing to note is that the shutters are just primed, as is the front door. The final color will be dark green.

There are three more pics in the “New House / Construction” photo album.

It’s been a while, huh? In the “no news is not good news” category, we’ve had a week that has been testing our patience. There’s been a lot of big financial decisions to make in a short period of time. We’re now progressing with the firm idea that our house won’t sell before we close on the new one. We’re looking at the financing scenarios with the mortgage company, “ordered” our new homeowner’s policy, and also strategizing on how to keep this house looking as good as it does now without leaving the new home bare.

Last week Jim had Red day at school, where he got to wear red and bring in something red to put on a collage the class was making. And then Friday was circle day, where he got to bring in something circle-shaped to share with the class. He choose his little plastic globe, which is now a permanent fixture in the toy collection in the back of my car.

Colin is not crawling yet, although he is getting closer on a daily basis. He does have the ability to get across a room, through scooting and rolling. The other night he only woke up twice, and I thought we had turned a corner, because I had been sleeping with him on the couch since Sunday. But that fourth tooth is about to break through, and he can barely sleep a couple hours at a time.

We drove by the new house yesterday, and it’s nearly all sided, except for some spots over windows, and a patch on the living room side of the house. The garage door and window have nice trim over them. The siding is white, which sets the house apart from those around around us — there’s only one other white house in the development so far. Dad also drove by last night, and said that the garage door has also been installed as well.

For a “day off”, as we will classify Jim’s non-school days, we were mighty busy.

I had been putting off the trip to get Jim’s bloodwork done all summer, so I finally decided that yesterday was the day. He’s fine until it’s time to sit in my lap in the chair, and then he wigs. In the middle of the wiggage, my phone rings. Someone wants to see the house at 10.30. It’s 9.30. Forgetting that I’m completely in the right asking them to wait, because of our two-hour rule, I ask them to wait until 11.30. We rush home and clean, putting Jim’s reward donut on hold until we leave for the showing. We made it home and I got most everything done, too. Of course, I find out tonight that they’re not interested in the house.

So, it was donuts, and then the fabric store. I bought the fabric for Jim and Colin’s costumes — costing me $8 and $12 respectively. Now I just need time to sew them. And a place where I can make the mess of sewing.

Anyway, it was home for lunch, and then we had a major rest, some more cleaning, and then out for dinner because of another showing. If there can be “nice” showings, this was one, because they wanted to see the house between 7 and 8, and asked them to come earlier because of the kids’ bedtimes. And they respected this, obliged me, and the agent left a nice note on the chalkboard about the house. I feel happier just writing this.

We really feel like we’re getting down to the wire, after seeing the new house almost done on the outside. The roof is being shingled, siding is going up next week, and electrical is starting too. Rough plumbing is done. We picked the locations for the low voltage stuff and had our pre-drywall meeting today as well.

With no showings, we had a busy weekend. While Dad worked from home Saturday, the boys and I visited some of Mom’s extended family. Jim loves visiting his Poppy, and we got to go swimming — plus Jim got to play with some dogs, big and little.

Today I finished a knitting project, took pictures of the new house, and tried to rest — my back is bothering me terribly. Probably a physical manifestation of the stress of trying to sell the house, but it really hurts.

The house pictures are in the album. Here’s a peek at the knitting:

And, because this was so darn cute… Jim getting ready for school tomorrow:

Colin’s first tooth broke through sometime in the last 24 hours — this morning I decided to poke around his mouth and found the bottom left tooth. I can only feel it, because he won’t cooperate by lifting his tongue while his mouth is open.

Jim seems like he had fun at school today. We got to do a craft together (we made an Avatar Jim), and he tried to play with some of the kids, although his inherent shyness kicked in.

We just busted our butts to clean the house for a showing, got ourselves to the library, and now, cancelled.

UPDATE: The showing was rescheduled, to 6-7pm. A problem for Dad, who needs to work from home tonight. But we’re sucking it up, and meet at the mall. We leave a little after seven, and Dad calls me at 7.16 to let me know that they just pulled into the driveway! So we end up driving around the neighborhood (no further than 6 blocks away) for twenty. I had a whiny Jim and a fussy Colin to keep me company, at least.

This is the hardest part of selling the house (aside from it not selling)… we’ve had lots of times where agents/buyers have completely ignored the windows THEY select to see the house, sometimes large (two hour) windows, and show up early, late or not at all. We haven’t had as many cancellations as we did in the beginning (until tonight).

We drove by the new house today after Jim’s preschool orientation. Most of the second floor is framed and sheathed, and they were putting the windows in the breakfast room.

I spent a good portion of yesterday and this morning working on this web site. I’m really happy with this look now, and the features that the new version of WordPress has.

So I’ve been moving around the photos on the server, to organize them by year, and then fix the broken links that created. Once that was done, I added the border around all of the ones that didn’t have borders before. Then I went through I tried to track down any missing photos and replace them. There’s only a few missing now, and those are actually drawings Dad was keeping on his site — I couldn’t find them there either.

I reorganized some of the categories and links, which is invisible to you, but since I am going to try and use categories more, it will help me alot.

Lastly, I am testing out embedding videos into the posts. Right now I’m waiting for a test video to process on G00gle’s video website. UPDATE: If you click the home movies categories, you can pull up the posts that now have the video embedded.

Yesterday was pretty lazy, and we went to visit the new house in the afternoon. The first floor is framed now, so we have a good idea of how the house sits on the lot, etc. We met more neighbors too. There’s a number of school aged children running around already, and it was cool to watch them ride their bikes around.

I really wanted the For Sale sign on the yard by the 30th, and it was up on the evening of the 29th. The realtor took pictures, and I’ve seen the online listing and virtual tour she made, and I think it looks great. She really worked with us on getting all the listing details right, and it’s very detailed. We’ll email the MLS number when it’s posted.

I’ve been keeping track of houses in the zip code that are 3b/1.5ba, and one up the street sold in 69 days. It wasn’t on the main road, just off it, no garage, and very dated looking. They got about 95-96% of their asking price. There’s another in the area that I thought was big competition, and it looks like it’s off the market. I’m waiting to hear from our realtor if it sold or not. This is something I didn’t expect a realtor could do for us, and it’s neat.

Anyway, we sort of took last weekend off, and put off making the house active for showings until the 5th. So today is big cleaning day. I’m currently degreasing the stove and cabinets. For the past two nights I’ve been ironing and hemming curtains. Yesterday was another trip to IKEA to get some decorative goods for the basement. Some cool $5 lights really go a long way.

Yesterday we made one of the last “selections” for the new house — low voltage systems. We ended up getting a whole house vacuum (yay!), even though it’s more than I wanted to spend, it is going to be very useful for many years to come. The wand has two speeds, low for curtains and stuff, and high for rugs, and the unit is in the garage, so you can use it for your car. Additionally, we got a security system, really for two reasons — the biggest being one-touch fire/ems/police. No matter how controlled Jim’s seizures are, this kind of convenince will always be appreciated. The second thing about the system is that it will chime whenever anyone opens a door, which will be good with the boys. Lastly, we got an intercom system, which will let someone in the kitchen talk and listen to other parts of the house, plus it’s got a speaker hooked up to the doorbell. All the stuff is linked together in the basement, and will be expandable when that is finished off. We got TV and phone and network in the bedrooms, and a plasma tv setup in the family room. The cables are installed up high and then run down the wall to plug into the components. So we should be set for tv and data for the future.

So, while I’ve been writing this, the stove has been drying, and I’ll pass on my internet cleaning tip — cream of tartar is a gentle abrasive, and combined with dish soap (the handwashing kind), it got all the grease spots off the front of the stove. Onward!

More work on the house before the weather gets nasty and we have to shut it up. I got the bathroom painted last Sunday and Monday, except for the trim, which I haven’t had a chance to do yet. I hung the new light fixture and shower curtain rod. The first mirror I bought doesn’t fit, but the light was the big thing we needed — now I can paint when it’s dark outside if I need too. Also, while spackling the bathroom, I worked on the ceiling by the attic stairs, and by working with many light coats, I got it looking real good. There’s just one low spot that needs finishing before we can start painting the hall.

A big thing I got done Thursdya and Friday was to paint the front and interior garage doors. It takes 24 hours between coats to dry, and being oil based, really stinks up the place. Plus, someone has to be here, because we couldn’t lock the doors — the hardware was off. But they look really good (although I’m skipping the second coat). Besides putting new hardware on the door, I got a cool magnetic door knocker. Also, I found brass spray paint, and I’m going to paint the screen door hardware to match.

I hung new curtains I got from Ikea in Colin’s room (white replaces brown) and over the kitchen slider (white with black flowers). Plus a new black curtain rod in the kitchen slider as well — it really brings together the black accents in the room, and will look good when the table has the tablecloth removed again.

What else? Packing Colin’s room and closet, now I can put his stuff into it and make it look like a real closet. I picked up new towels to stage both bathrooms with, and towel bars, but I have to take the bars back — the metal matches, but the design doesn’t.

It looks like we’re going to be packing a lot of stuff away this weekend — we’re tripping over all the boxes we’ve packed this week. I can take stuff when I go out with the kids, but I can only fit four boxes in the car trunk.

We were busy early in the week. Tuesday I took Jim to a pulmonolgist about his asthma, and I have to say, I wasn’t too happy with the visit. They can’t test his pulmonary function until he’s six or seven, so the best they’ll do right now is a chest x-ray and some bloodwork. We’re going to see a urologist on Monday to follow-up from the kidney infection. I have to say that medical records has come a long way — the hospital was able to give me all the documents I requested immediately — no waiting because everything is computerized now, not just the lab and x-ray results.

In big Jim doctor news, we finally found his neurologist. Actually, I have to say, that BackSheGoes.com came through for us again. A while ago we had contacted one poster who was a social worker at a local children’s hospital to see if she knew how to find him (we’ve been asking every medical personnel we can). Well, last week she was working with a family who was raving about their kid’s doctor, and she got the name and it’s him. So she sent us the phone number. Turns out he opened his own practice literally down the street from where he worked, and stills has priviledges at that hospital, and we’re going to see him this Tuesday.

On the new house front, I took the kids over on Wednesday and got a bunch of stuff done. Got the descriptions of all the appliance options, which is good, because we wouldn’t have been happy with the “base” microwave and dishwasher. I compared the cabinets in the model to a floor sample I picked up, and they look good together, so now we’re decided on cabinet color. Found out that a lot of the lighting in the model is standard, so we will have the recessed lights in the bathrooms and hallway at no extra cost. Then, we got to see a model like our the day before closing, which has an office in it. It’s very nice and bigger than the space Dad has now, plus it has a window and overhead light. We got the homeowner’s documents, and found that the only thing prohibited (so far) are above the ground pools (good) and fences in the front yard.