Anyone have an extra clue?

There are a lot of people around here who seem to have lost theirs!
Good morning, I'm grumpy today.

I am resisting the urge to take a picture of the paperwork for our house. We're submitting an offer today and I'm waiting for our realtor to come by and pick up all of the papers. It would be really dumb to take pictures of it, right? Sitting there all official and cute.

I'm just a little excited.

Andie and I saw The Illusionist last night. It really is a good movie - and I really do love Edward Norton. A lot. Oh, and did you know that Jessica Biel can act? Well, sort of. All of the drama and subtle emotion of the movie comes directly from Edward Norton and (of course) Paul Giamatti. She just stood around looking either sad or willful. She doesn't even really say much, which I think probably helped. Phillip Glass does the score, and it's probably the most narrative score I've ever heard from Glass. (Plink. Plink. Plinkplinkplinkplinkplink).

While I'm in critic mode... anyone breathe a little easier Wednesday night when the creepy old guy (finally) got kicked off Project Runway? I thought that I was never going to be able to have sex again - every time he said he got "turned on" by his own ugly-assed dresses I died a little inside. And what the hell was up with the yellow plaid number? Ick. (Again, smiling at the irony of a chubby Midwestern girl with wet hair and sweat pants criticizing the fashion on PR).

And we're getting so close to the start of all of the new seasons of my favorite shows... Gilmore Girls and Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives and E.R. and The Office and My Name is Earl and (who am I missing??). From that list it looks like I have a lot more TV time than I actually do. Bean and I do make the effort to be home and together every Tuesday night at 7 to watch Gilmore Girls. It's sort of our thing. Everything else gets recorded or else I go to Television Without Pity for updates. Have you ever seen this website? It's fun... when I was in my Dawson's Creek phase I would watch four or five episodes and then read them on TVWoP and laugh my ass off.

Anyone remember the show What About Brian? from the end of last season? They aired, like, three episodes and then said "wow, hope y'all liked it, stay tuned for the next season in the fall." Is it coming back? I liked it... despite that three-episode teaser crap. And did they cancel Windfall yet? Christ. I've been watching it, but it's such a train wreck.

I just got a call from the husband. He really is a smart, fairly self-sufficient man. I promise. So he calls and says, "There's a problem."
"Ok," I'm alert now, in mommy mode, "what's wrong?"
"We're out of milk and Bean wants cereal." (And this involves me because.....)
"So she can eat toast and drink juice, or you can go to the store." (You know, that big tan building that sells potato chips? They also sell milk. Oh, and vegetables).
"Well, she wants to go to your mom's"
"Is her room clean and ready to pack up?"
"I don't think so"
~~Silence~~
"So you don't want her to go?"
~~Silence~~
"Ok, well, I guess we'll work on breakfast and then go to the store and get milk for lunch." (Good boy).

Do you ever feel like you're the only one in your house with a clue? Does that thought ever fill you with dread and despair? Maybe it's just me.

So far I'm the only person who is going through the house pile by pile throwing shit away. That's either going to change really soon, or the husband and Bean will be missing a lot of stuff in the new house. I'm trapped at work until 6 tonight and so I will not get as much done as I want to today. Tomorrow, though, I'm supposed to get off at 9 and then will have all day to work on cleaning... and you know that when I say "work on cleaning" I mean clean for a bit and nap for a bit and clean for a bit more, right? If I were a "clean until it's done" kind of girl we wouldn't have so much crap to go through.

I'll let y'all know when we hear back from the seller. Keep fingers and toes crossed for me!!

The Sixty Thousand Dollar Question

So did we put a bid on the house??

Nope.

And while I can not say whether or not we have decided to buy this little house (we have) I can say that I will be calling my realtor on Friday to tell her when we want to close on the house that we haven't made any firm decisions about yet (yes we have).

Here's the cool thing - one of our options for a closing date is our second anniversary. Is that too sentimental?!? We would be paying more in interest than if we closed on the last day of this month, but waiting until October gives us until December before we have to make our first house payment and if we could get out of this nasty renter's hell during October that would leave no rent and no house payment in November. Found money, baby! That's a new refrigerator right there. Yup.

So while we have not yet decided (yes we have!! yes we have!! we are totally buying a house. this house. this house that i totally love...) a-hem... while we have not yet decided about the house yet, stay tuned because I have this feeling that I just might have some house-type news. Probably on Friday.

I am NOT sick.

I'm not. I don't have time to be sick.
My throat does not hurt, my head is not full and spinning, my body does not ache.
I am not craving chicken soup and grilled cheese. Mmmmmmm. Grilled cheese.

I don't have time for this. I'm going to Walgreens after work for Tylenol Severe Cold... one of the nurses at Hospice swears by it. I'm thinking it's a sinus issue, as opposed to a germy cold issue, but that also means if I don't kick it pretty soon I'm going to have to find time to see my doctor. I used to be able to call her and say, "Hey Terri, I think I have a sinus infection, help a girl out!" and she'd call my pharmacy and in a few hours I'd have an antibiotic (and usually new nailpolish and some cough drops and a couple of magazines and some chocolate. Walgreens rocks). Now I have to drive all the way out there, pay the $20 co-pay and wait with all of the sick people for her to look in my ears and up my nose and say, "I think you have a sinus infection."

Maybe I'll make some potato soup for dinner tonight. I love fall. LOVE fall. And it's almost fall. I love that I can wear capri pants with a sweater and sandals in the daytime and fuzzy socks at night. I love that it's warm enough to drive around with the windows down and cool enough to make soup for dinner. I love that people are in a better mood because it's not a hundred and fifteen degrees outside. I love that fall feeling - it makes me want to make soup and crusty bread, it makes me want to knit a blanket, it makes me want to... I don't know, buy a house.

Here's the coolest thing about this whole house-buying thing... if it goes as planned we will be closing on this house very close to our second anniversary. That's pretty cool, right?
I hope we get this house. I hope it's the right house for us. I'm such an idiot though... I called an insurance agent to get a quote and didn't have the address in front of me. I feel like a total moron because I have to call him back with the house number. Jeez-o.
I'm not very smart. But not very smart people buy houses every day, right?? And not very smart people buy houses that aren't money pits all the time, right??

I need lunch (and a nap) and some cold medicine, and I need to go sit somewhere quiet and read for a bit and then I'll be fine.

Seriously. I'm making soup for dinner tonight. Soup and grilled cheese. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Bleh.

I'm up, I'm at work, but I feel like doggy poopy. I had a pretty bad headache yesterday that shifted into a migraine last night. My migraine medicine isn't really working anymore - it takes the edge off but doesn't really touch the focus of the pain. This morning I feel hung over and sick. My head was still hurting so I took some over the counter migraine pills - basically tylenol, aspirin and caffeine. But I'm dizzy and feel off balance - like when you stay too long on the merry-go-round, or have just one drink too many at a party. (Yes, mother, I did eat something with my medicine). Bleh.
There's a story on Weekend Edition right now about drinking and driving... I doubt I'd pass anything but the brethalyzer right now. I can't sit a straight line, let alone walk it. Anyone want to be my designated driver?? With one (glaring) exception I have never driven home when I've had too much to drink, but I have driven home too sick, too tired, too full of migraine medicine. Isn't that all the same thing? Don't we get comfortable thinking we're being responsible when there are lots and lots of times when we shouldn't drive or go to work or be responsible for anything more taxing than napping and watching Judge Judy? But who stays home? Who has that luxury? Certainly not me. If I think about it too much I can't do things like, oh, go to amusement parks or fly anywhere or drive on the highway behind (or beside) big trucks. I mean, every job becomes routine after awhile, and we all make stupid mistakes at work. At my job, if I make a mistake somebody's underwriting message doesn't make it on the air. If Bob the roller coaster guy makes a mistake people get hurt.
I have things I want to do but I might be better off going back to bed when I get home. Usually that's a great plan, but today I wanted to go to Wal Mart and I wanted to start going through the junk in our front room. I am serious about this whole "less is more" approach to my house. I have drawers in my hallway that are full of ribbons and expired allergy pills and who knows what else... I ought to just dump it all into bags and throw them to the curb. There is a LOT of stuff like that in my house. I am not going to have a garage sale. I repeat: I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE A GARAGE SALE. I am going to make three piles: keep, toss, give to the YWCA Women's Shelter. Hopefully I can be disciplined enough that the "Keep" pile is much smaller than the "Toss" and "Give away" piles. One of the other social workers at Hospice goes through her house every two months and does the big purge and clean that most people do once or twice a month. Yikes. I would ask her to help me be ruthless with my stuff but I would be too embarrassed to have her (or anyone else) see my house right now. I am seriously going to have some kind of cleaning crew come in to out house before we give the keys back to the landlord.

Shhhhh....

I don't want to jinx it... We looked at that house today. My mom liked it. My dad liked it. My dad (god love him) is practically bursting with things he wants to do to the house. He owns a marble and granite company and was all, "We've got some scrap granite that would work really well in here. We'd just pull this out and..." At that point I stop listening. I have complete trust in my dad's ideas and execution.
My husband was not so sure about the house... He did say that it had "potential," but would not say much else. He is still not completely convinced that now is the best time for us to buy a house. It is a scary step... but to me it's not any more scary than getting married or being a parent or going back to school or changing careers. Except for the getting married part, he hasn't really done any of those other scary things. He became a parent seven years into her life - a relatively calm time in childhood... old enough to be relatively self-sufficient but not old enough to scare the crap out of us with weird hair or clothes or boys.
Anyway, he had time to think about it and (finally) admitted to me tonight that he really liked the house too. A lot. He said he's ready to think about the next step in the process. For my husband that is a HUGE thing.
Seriously. You could offer him ten thousand dollars and he would say he had to think about it. He is a creature of habit and his biggest habit is pessimism. I am practically dancing on the ceiling.
So I'm going to call the realtor this week and find out what our next step is...
The people living in the house right now will be out by the end of October. We could be fully settled in by Thanksgiving.
Holy shit.
Now it's time to start the grand cleaning out of the crap.
I am a notorious pack-rat and I have the housekeeping skills of a fifteen year old boy. I am determined not to move anything into that house that I don't really need. I want to give myself the opportunity to have the kind of life and house that I can feel really good about - because I actually have a few boxes that I have been moving from house to house and have not actually opened in years.

Pardon me while I whine for a moment....
It's soooooo early!!! And I hate early!!!!

OK. I'm better now. (Sort of).
Yesterday was actually really nice... I slept in and read in bed (yes, I finished my book before the book club). Andie and I had lunch (and ice cream) and I knitted for awhile. I finished (again) the first sock from the Wick yarn I was going on (and on) about. I finished the first sock about two weeks ago and when Bean tried it on it didn't fit. I am constantly underestimating how big she is... (yes, I could use a tape measure, but then I could no longer be in denial about how big she is!) Anyway, I worked on the sock while my sister was in labor and was in the "Just keep knitting" mode, so NOW it might be a bit long. She'll grow.

The book club was nice - French book = French food. And everyone loved the book. This can have the potential to make the discussion really (really really really) boring, there was a lot of lively discussion.

After the discussion I was trying to slip out and got "caught" by a woman who had been to a couple of the discussions. Her name sounded familiar but her face was not familiar at all and now I know why. We talked for a few minutes and then somehow we started talking about where and when we went to high school... which turned into the "who do we have in common" game. (Yes, Lia, this is exactly why you move 3000 miles away from home after high school.) Turns out, she knew Bean's stepmother (among others) before I did and got caught up in her drama like I did. It was sort of creepy... we had a lot of the same stories about a lot of the same people. Toxic relationships suck. She also knew my friend M's husband and our new engineer in high school. It really is a teeny tiny town. I had heard stories about her - but from the toxic people. Toxic people tend to lie... to reinvent history to suit them. I wonder what kinds of stories are told about me. I wonder if it really matters.
I liked her, though, and we had that "shipwreck survivor" thing going on... It's always reassuring when a third party has the exact same impression of someone - especially if it's negative. It makes you feel like you really are the sane one. I hope she's not a crazy person. I called M's husband and left a message about her. Hopefully if she is a crazy person he'll call and let me know. We talked about the importance of the drama-free zone, but if she is a crazy person her idea of drama might be different. Hell, maybe I'm a crazy person.
Speaking of crazy...
Why does everyone think I should crochet?!? I can't pull out my needles anywhere but home (and KIP) without someone saying, "Is that knitting or crochet?" (Which makes me crazy, y'all know). When I say, "Knitting," and make some sort of gesture that means "See? Needles you idiot," they invariably say, "My mother (sister/best friend/cat/neighbor) crochets and she says it's a lot easier than knitting. You should really try it." "Oh," I say, "I've tried crochet, I'm hopeless. For me, knitting is much easier." And then they argue. "You should let my mother show you... she can teach anyone." "Oh," I smile, "Do you crochet?" Which, of course, they don't. Someone who crochets would know the difference between knit and crochet.
Here's the thing, I don't hate crochet. I really don't. It's just not my thing. I wasn't very good at it and I didn't ever enjoy it. I am adequate at knitting and I really enjoy it. Why is that such a problem?!? To me, knitting vs. crochet is like Coke vs. Pepsi, Chocolate vs. Vanilla, left side of the bed vs. right side of the bed. It is possible to like both. It is also possible to like neither. It is also possible to lean more strongly toward one, to identify yourself with one and eschew the other without judgment or negative thoughts... it's just preference. With knit and crochet perhaps preference and ability. If I go to a restaurant and ask for diet coke and the server says (in that hopeful way) "Diet Pepsi?" I will smile in an equally hopeful way and say, "Diet Dr. Pepper?" and if there is no Diet Dr. Pepper I will drink Diet Pepsi. If I am trapped somewhere and somehow do not have anything to do, and a nice woman asks what I need I would say, "Knitting." If she smiled at me in that hopeful way and said, "Crochet?" I would say, "Cross stitch?" and if she didn't have that I would crochet something. Badly. See what I mean? It's exactly the same thing.
We're going to look at that house today. I'm nervous. What if they hate it? Or even more scary, what if they don't?!? What if this is the house? What if it really is time?!?

ACK!

Sleeping in...

Look at me having a day off... sort of. Bean doesn't have school today or Monday so I took time off from Hospice and then she decided to spend the weekend with her dad. So all I have to do today is finish the book for my book club. (Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky - it really is an amazing book). I've finished the narrative part, and am on the notes at the end. I wouldn't ordinarily worry so much about the notes but I know that there will be some discussion about them.
But the important part is that I am still in bed. It's after eleven in the morning and I've been out of bed twice.
Andie and I are going out for lunch today but otherwise I don't have any plans until about 4. I have to go to work for a few hours and then the book club meets for dinner at 7.
So my sister had her baby. They broke her water Thursday evening. She called to tell me they were going in and I asked her if she wanted me to go and she said her usual, "It doesn't matter." So the husband and I went out for dinner. As we were leaving the restaurant her friend called and asked if I was coming. I said no, that she didn't seem to want me there. Her friend said, "well she asked me to call you again." So I went. I said I wasn't going to but I did anyway. I don't want to abandon her but I don't want to get involved and I went anyway. Our parents were out of town and her mom lives about three hours away so I was really the only family there. He was there, of course, hangong all over her and acting like a good guy but, really it was just sickening. He didn't say anything to me and I managed to pretend that he wasn't there. It was scary at some times - her blood pressure was pretty low at times and she was really uncomfortable. We talked about nothing... just mindless, inconsequential stuff - school and the kids and The Young and The Restless.
I stayed long enough to see the baby (he is, of course, beautiful) and to tell her goodbye. Whatever function I served for her during the whole process I still had to get some sleep. I still had to get up and go to Hospice in the morning. I picked Bean up at school yesterday afternoon and took her to see the baby on the way to her dad's house, so I did my job there too.
And, of course, the parents have hatched a new plan. Her mom, T, is coming for the weekend and they're going to try to get her to go back to stay with her mom while she recovers from the birth. Our mom said she'll take care of my nephew and get him to and from school and bring him up on the weekends and they can take the babies to T's house. They're hoping that getting her completely away from him will help her see things more clearly. I'm hoping that she just moves in with them and stays away for a long time. I'm hoping that she gets her shit together, for herself and her three kids. I'm hoping that she figures out how to grow up and be strong.
The whole thing makes me really tired.