Moving update

Quick update before I go to bed. Talked to Mike a little after 8 tonight and he had taken the freeway exit in Phoenix to get to his dad's house. He drove to Stockton, CA yesterday before finding a hotel for the night, then was back on the road at 6:30 this morning. The moving truck will be parked at his dad's for the night and Blackjack and Mike will be in another hotel. Joy's cat doesn't play well with others so they're getting their own room. Hopefully the hotel has a hot tub and Mike can try to ease the backache he has after driving for 12+ hours for 2 days. His plan is to work with his dad in the morning, hopefully get done quickly, go to the apartment and get our keys, go pick up the moving truck, back to the apartment and unload. Sometime in the unloading stage, he'll go back to the hotel and pick up Blackjack. Poor kitty has had a traumatic 3 days. Monday had way too many people in her house for her comfort plus all her cool hiding spots inbetween boxes and stuff in the living room were taken out, stayed the night at a strange house, then on the road for 2 very long days. That had to add about 20 kitty years to her life.

Peanut is doing well. I think he can tell Mike hasn't been here. Tonight when my dad got home and started talking, Peanut perked up and was looking around. And when I talk to Mike on the phone, Peanut looks around trying to find his dad. It's cute but in a sad way. We both really miss him. 8 days and 1 1/2 hour then we'll see him again.

Peanut now has a 2nd food added to his diet. In addition of his rice cereal, he now loves to eat squash. And squash really does make poop turn a uber nasty color of yellowish-green that I haven't seen before. I personally thing it needs some seasoning, but Peanut doesn't know that so he's loving it. One or 2 more days of squash then we'll add something new in. Could be peaches, bananas, or green beans. I'm not sure which yet. Hell, I'm still figuring out how much to give him and am wondering if there's a spot he doesn't get it no matter how hard I try to keep his hands away from his face while eating.

No pictures today. :( I don't have my camera usb cord and Mom doesn't have a memory stick drive thingy on her computer. I'm off to bed. I've quickly learned babies don't sleep as well in a new place as they do at home so I'm exhausted.....still.

TTFN ~Crystal

Zero Hour

It's time!

The boxes are packed, the walls are bare, the rooms are empty.

Getting up at the crack of dawn to take one more load of garbage and stuff we dont want anymore to the dump and goodwill. Then home to do alittle more organizing before its time to go get the truck. Pick up time for the truck is 0930, then people are showing up to help load at 1030. Hope to be done and out of the house by noon, take everyone to pizza, then back here one last time to take a shower. Supposed to call the new owners sometime in the afternoon to arrange dropping off the key with them. Then up early Tuesday morning to hit the road. Woot!!! I'm going to try like hell to do the drive in 2 days, means long driving, but what else do I have to do?

Will try and take some pix along the way and update Saturday, internet getting installed that morning at 0800, going off the grid til then.

Family reunion, it's HOT, and 1 word

HAPPY 6Month BIRTHDAY BIG BOY PEANUT! Yes, so hard to believe 6 months has flown by, but my wimpy white boy is now a whopping 16 lbs 5 ounces and getting heavier by the hour. We had a busy day today and I forgot my camera (bad mommy) so here' s a new picture from last week at my parents. Soon green green grass like this will be a distant, fond memory as brown becomes the new color of choice in my landscaping. Tomorrow 6month photos will be taken and added to the gajillion on my computer that I already have.

Today was my mom's family reunion. I haven't been for 3 years because of the crappy work schedule I had and since we're unemployed, we finally made it to one. Lots of people I don't know and a few that I do. The few that I do make these functions worth it since I rarely see them and most are getting up on the years. 70's and beyond (I think). Grandpa and some great aunts and a great uncle who I only see at the reunions got to see/meet Elliot and Mike. That seemed important to me this year since we pack up the moving truck in 2 days and I don't know when we'll be able to see them again. It was fun - good potluck food, warm weather, long walk with Mike, Peanut in his stroller, and my niece Taylor. And I did a horrible mom thing and forgot my camera. Thankfully, Mom brought hers so we got some pictures out of the day. I have to burn them to a disc since she's in the boonies and still has dial-up. Oh boy, dial-up. Slow as molasses loading pages is what I get to subject myself to over the next 14 days as Peanut and I live at home for a little while before making our move to Arizona.

And what is with everyone exclaiming like we didn't know that Arizona is hot when we tell them that will be our new home?! We know, seriously, we do. Yes it's hot, but so is California, Texas, the south, the east, the midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and Haiwaii in the summer time, but only Arizona get's the "Didcha know it's hot?!" Umm, yes. And yes, everywhere has a/c so quit looking at me like I hate my baby and going to make him play outside when it's 120.

Our house is no longer ours. :( It's almost tramatic for me. I look around as see the day we moved in, the day we put Peanut's furniture together in the nursery he never slept in, the ugly carpet we ripped out as soon as we could, the work Mike has busted his arse to get done, even the stupid fracking dog behind us who barks at nothing and everything. Then I think that we'll have the luxury of raising our perfect child without the help of daycare and we can't do that here so Arizona - here we come and a/c please please I beg of you, work strong and keep my family comfortable when it's hot.

And now here's something for your reading pleasure (not that kind of pleasure you sickos)

One Word for -
1. Yourself: stressed
2. Your partner: dependable
3. Your hair: bobbish
4. Your Mother: quilty
5. Your Father: strong
6. Your favorite item: fabric
7. Your dream last night: weird
8. Your favorite drink: pepsi
9. Your dream home: log cabin
10. The room you are in: living room aka moving headquarters
11. Your pleasure: Peanut
12. Your fear: separation
13. Where you want to be in ten years: mountains
14. Who you hung out with last night: Mike
15. What you're not: toned
16. Your best friend: Mike
17. One of your wish list items: health
18. Your gender: female
19. The last thing you did: put Peanut to bed
20. What you are wearing: old tshirt and underroos
21. Your favorite weather: Autumn
22. Your favorite book: Little House on the Prairie
23. Last thing you ate: yogurt
24. Your life: frantic
25. Your mood: exhausted
26. The last person you talked to on the phone: Mom
27. Who you are thinking about right now: family

Mike just got back with Subway for dinner so TTFN ~ Crys

Cha Ching!!!!

We need to sell houses more often, picking up checks with 5 digits before the decimal point is awesome!!!!

I wont state a number, cause that just doesn't seem cool to do, but believe me when I say, it was a good number. Will be able to support us down in Arizona for about 4 months (maybe a hair longer) if we really needed it, with any luck, we will be able to get set up in Tucson and get some steady income rolling in and use some of the house money to pay off some bills, or buy me some new toys, whichever :)

Crystal bought her plane ticket down today, her and Elliot will be coming down to meet me in Arizona the 18th, so anyone that's here in town that wants to see her and the baby before she leaves, call her and make it happen.

Dad and I, and maybe Joy (last I heard she was still on the fence about going) have a conference to go to in October. Means I will miss Crystals bday, but I have a gift in mind that will hopefully sooth her over :) Much to my disgust (ha, yeah right!) the conference is in Las Vegas (WOOT!!!!) so I used my timeshare to get us a room down there, 2 bedrooms, no view (not that there is much of a view from the resort anyway) but doesn't cost us anything for the 4 nights we are there, god I love that thing, once its paid off it will be soooooo nice to have that thing around. There's even a resort just outside of Tucson, so anyone that wants to come down, get in touch w/ me and I'll see if I can get you a room.

Our good friend Ronda has posted a poem on her blog in our...honor? She is talented beyond belief, and I'm not even considering the fact that she can belch the alphabet in 3 different languages :) just kidding, I think its really only one language, but who's counting?

EDIT: I have been informed that she can also do it backwards, while I'm still waiting for visual and audible verification, I'm going to take her word for it.

You can see her handy work here :

http://rolandaandstuart.blogspot.com/2006/08/ode-to-odor.html

Thank goodness her and Steven are coming down for the Superbowl/Elliots 1st Bday. They are really going to be missed, not to say Crystals family and my lil' bro and his family and big mike or anyone else wont be missed, its just that these 2 hold some very special spots in our hearts...now I need a tissue...great.

Off to do "MORE" packing, good grief, when does it all end! I don't remember buying half the crap we have packed already! Going to need another midnight run to Walmart for boxes I think, oh goodie, as if that place wasn't crawling with freaks in the middle of the day, midnight is even worse, "the night time, is the right time" as my cult used to chant...oh well, that's a different blog entry all together :) 3 days to go!

Last time I do that crap!

Mowing the lawn that is. With any luck, today was my last lawn mowing experience. With only 3 more full days in the house (wow, thats not many) I dont care if some weeds grow now, the buyers can mow it...after all, we are leaving them the lawn mower. And good ridance if you ask me, long time ago I ran over a good sized rock with that thing, and its never been the same since. It has a wicked shimmy to it, I think the shaft going up into the engine is bent, not good...oh well. Its free, so they can like it til it dies...which probably wont be long, hehe.

Got up to the title company today and got our paperwork filled out. Let me just say this about selling a house...doing the paper work when selling is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy easier than doing it when you buy! I think we had a total of 10 pieces of paper that had to be signed, initialed or what have you. By far out weighs the cajillion you do when you buy. Our final number on the house was pretty good, not as high as we would have like (is it ever?) but its enough to get us down to Arizona and have a couple of months where we dont have to worry about money coming in really. Its going to be tight, but I think we can do it. Since it wont take as long as initially thought for me to finish my training, that will help. We can get down into the Tucson area and get our own franchise up and running faster than first thought, then we can get some steady income coming in.

Crystal got a good amount of packing done today, I did a little, but nothing like she did. I just wasnt feeling up to it today, the last 2 days have been brutal allergy wise. Tomorrow, allergy attack or not, I'll be working on getting things into the garage for monday, I figure if everything, or almost everything is in the garage, will make it alot easier to load the truck when the time comes. Only thing we should have to deal with Monday morning, is our computers and the bed. If I have my way, it will only be the bed. I might as well stay up alittle late and get the computers taken down and packed up before bed, wont really need them in the morning anyway. It will be all business that morning, load load load! Looks like a couple people have bagged out on helping me load the truck, doesnt really surprise me...lets you know who your real friends are, they figure I'm leaving the state so what do they care if they dont come thru for me? Oh well, piss on em. It will get done anyway, Steve and Ronda will be here, and those two are the best friends anyone could ask for anyway. John and Lara will be here too, also good friends, wish we would have had the time to get closer to them, but just didnt happen. Oh well, we will be back up here to visit in the future, so we will just have to get together with them then.

Off to bed, my eyes are burning, and for the first time today, I dont think its allergy related.

It's done...

And 2 days early to boot!

Got a phone call today from the buyer, and the title company gal. The loan documents came thru today and the buyers went up and signed the paperwork today at 2 pm. We go in tomorrow and sign our portion at 10 am, woot!

This is such a huge weight lifted off our shoulders, so many questions loomed over us, are we going to have go back to work at BOEC, thank all that's holy, NO!!!

Today was also Elliot's 6 month check up, which of course, meant more vaccination shots :(

He did good though, cried a lot more than last time, but I think that's cause he got the Needle Nazi again today, she wasn't as gentle and caring as his last nurse I didn't think.

We couldn't believe how much he's grown since he was born, its hard to imagine that 6 months ago when we brought him home he only weighed 5 lbs and 3 ounces and was 17.5 inches tall. Today he tipped the scales at 16 lbs 5 ounces, and was a whopping 27 1/4" tall!!!!!!! He's such a big boy! The doctor was really surprised too and told us most premature babies usually take up to 18 months to catch up on the growth chart, but not our boy! Where most of them plateau out at this stage, Elliot is continuing to climb thru the charts in both weight and height. He makes us proud...think how much prouder we'd be if he hadn't decided to get up at 4 freaking am this morning for the day!!!!

We got home from the doctors appointment and decided it was time to start trying some food other than mom's milk, so he got his first real bowl of rice cereal. We'd tried to give him a little before in the past, but he just wasn't having it, today was a total different story though. It was as if a switch had been thrown since we talked to the doctor about starting him on food. He took to it like a champ! He loves the spoon, its fun to hold onto and chew on, mostly cause he is starting to teeth also. After a couple weeks of cereal we will move onto bigger and better things.

Just a bit more...

It's really getting close now. More and more boxes are getting filled. Stress is building. All good things in the end, but getting there is proving to be a task.

The title company says we should be going in either tomorrow or Thursday to sign our portion of the paperwork, then the buyers will be in Friday to sign their part. Which means Friday we get our money too :)

It's a busy week for sure. Crystal off to the dentist later this morning for a filling that broke on her. My mom and Grandma coming up from Eugene sometime today, we were going to try and drive down there today, but Elliot just hates his car seat if he's in it for any length of time. We went down to the Lloyd Center area yesterday to have lunch with a pal of mine at the Red Robin, we decided to take I84 to get down there. It took us an hour to go 80 blocks. There was a big wreck involving a semi just before the exit we needed, and it had the whole freeway blocked up for miles, what a mess.

Tomorrow is Elliots 6 month check up, which means more vaccination shots for him. Nothing, and I mean nothing, sucks more than watching him get those things.

I think Thursday and Friday are pretty open for us, other than the aforementioned possibility of going to sign paperwork and pick up our check, so will likely spend most of those 2 days finishing up the packing.

Saturday is the Domke Family reunion, Crystal keeps telling me that her family will be the most normal ones there...I dont know if she expects me to take comfort from that statement or not :) just kidding. I'm sure its going to be alot of fun, if nothing else, it gets us out in the fresh pacific northwest air one last time before the move.

Sunday nothing is planned either, so that will be our last day to pack, if all goes well, it will be all done before we go to bed.

Then Monday morning off to pick up the moving truck at 0930, and at 1000 my helpers will be showing up to get cracking on loading the truck. If my typical moving Nazi mood comes out (thanks pop) then it should only take an hour or 2 to load the truck, then we will take everyonen out for pizza. Looks like I'll be parking the moving truck outside Crystals sisters house over night, then spend the night at Crystals Mom and Dads house, up at the crack of dawn and on the road headed south. Still not looking forward to the drive, but I have motivation now, Dad says if I pull into town early enough on Thursday and we can unload the truck, he doesnt have any jobs scheduled for Friday...so we could go play golf all day :) I hope the truck has overdrive!

I'm freeeeee!!!

I left for work today, in the time it took me to walk from the front door of the house to get into the car, I had a pounding headache already. 4 days, 9 hours to go was all I told myself the entire drive to work.

The first call I took was from some jackass who just didnt understand, no matter how much he bitched, policy wasnt going to change for him. When I got off the phone with him, I decided, "thats it", I'm done. Was chatting with Crystal thru Gmail's built in chat feature and told her I'd had enough. Went and talked to our Operations manager and told her how I felt, and her response was 100% supportive of my decision. Not that I needed her blessing, but it was nice to know that I had it. Then I went and talked to my immediate supervisor Todd and told him I was done and that Toni the Ops manager wanted him to come in the office, he said "bah, calls are holding" and that was the last I heard from him. Oh well. So, Toni went and found the HR lady Dolly and arranged for me to do my exit interview with her before I left. Great, one more thing I dont have to come back for. 30 minutes later, I had my marching orders and out I went.
Damnit does it ever feel good knowing I dont have to go back there! I'm free!!!! More time with Crystal, more time with Elliot, maybe even time for some freaking free time of my own, woot!

4 days, 9 hours....

Thats all I have left at BOEC. Still seems like such a long long time, but I'm going to try and stick it out...mostly cause I'm all out of sick and vacation time :)

Yesterday we had our going away BBQ here at the house. It was a good time, I hope everyone enjoyed being here as much as we enjoyed having everyone. Steve and Ronda again saved the day, the disappeared into the house for about 20 minutes at one point, I figured maybe they were making out or something, but no...they were inside putting food away and cleaning up the kitchen!!!!! IDIOTS!!!! Thats not what guests do!!!! It is however what the coolest friends in the world do. Going to miss them alot, thankfully they have agreed to let us have them down for superbowl/Elliots 1st birthday come february.

Softball is all over, we had our final game Monday night, lost...again. Not sure if we still werent in a good division or what, but we just couldnt hold up as the game went on, started out up 9 to 3, then ended up losing 14 to 9. We didnt do so hot after that first spurt of runs, only went thru the batting order twice, I was walked and had a single.

The house is almost completely packed up. All thats left really is the kitchen, our computers, and bedding/linen. Most of all that will be done the day before we load the truck. Still not looking forward to the drive, but we are all squared away with the new apartment after a minor snafu. Somehow, our application and deposit check have been lost in the mail...not every encouraging since it had our social security numbers on it, and a check...sigh. Thankfully we mailed it right from the post office, so the chances of it getting stolen are alittle less likely than had we used our own mailbox. I'm hoping something was wrong w/ the address or something and it will get returned to the post office box sometime this week. Got a new application faxed to us, filled out, then my dad bailed us out and took them a deposit, the apartment is all ours. Just have to pay them the rest of the rent when we get into town, then give my dad his 100 bucks back and we are good to go.

Crystal had an eye doctors appointment today, but before she left, Elliot was really fussy, it was afternoon nap time, but he was fighting it pretty good. So I took him in and we layed on the bed together, apparently, he wasnt the only one that needed a nap :)

Beer drinking idiot!

So, the other night Crystal and I had just put Elliot to bed. It's been so hot we got a window air conditioner and put it up in our spare bedroom and moved all of our beds in there so we could all sleep at night. It's unfortunately on the front of the house and we live on a well used road. We were getting ready watch a movie on our laptop in bed when I hear the sound of breaking glass skidding along the road. No biggie, I figured some ass decided it would be neat to throw a bottle out the window as he was driving along. Then I hear a car go by, and the sounds of more breaking glass...wtf? So I jump out of bed to go see what the hell is going on. To my surprise (ok,not really surprised) some jerkoff decided to throw out a bag of his trash into our street...right in front of the house! So I throw on some shoes and head out to clean up the mess. It was mostly beer bottles in the bag, and boy did it smell yummy...or at least it would have if I were a transient who had been living on the streets for the last decade. So I start picking up the mess, almost get ran over by at least 8 passing cars...I'm wearing a really light blue shirt at the time, oh and this just happens to be right under a street light..how did these people not see me? So after yelling at all the passing cars various ethnic slurs and general screams of discontent at almost being hit, the mess is cleaned up. Now what to do with it...hey, whats this piece of paper here in the mixture of stink and broken glass? A piece of mail? Hey look, another piece of mail, and another. Would you look at that! The addresses are all the same, someone must be missing these broken bottles and missing mail....I think I'll return it! So in the house I go to google map the address and get my car keys. Off I went to find my new best friends, after all, only a pal would leave you a treat like that with out calling first. Just as I was about to pull onto this meatheads street...low and behold, another bag of garbage laying in the street. I should have picked that one up too, but who am I to take away the thrill of the hunt for someone else! I make the final turn onto their road, and my blood pressure and adrenaline go thru the roof, right where this house should be, some shmuck is standing in the road taking his boat trailer off his pick up...its fight time! woo!!! So I pull up and ask the guy all snotty "Is this 4517?", his response comes back to me in this little mousy voice "no, this is 4512, you looking for someone?" No you dolt, I just wanted to see if I could find 4517, yes I'm looking for someone! So I tell this guy what happened, and he says to me "well good for you". Directly across the street from his house, there they are, my nemisis, the evil doer's, the scurge of the earth, and I'm going to make them pay! So I take the box of crap from my trunk (by the way, temperature of about 95 out, dried up beer, and other various bits of garbage, combine well in a confined trunk space for 5 minutes, yields 3 gag reflexes when opening the trunk) and walk it up to the door. Place the box on the front step, ring the door bell about 30 times in 10 seconds, listen to their little P.O.S. dog bark like he is going to come and attack me...nothing. No one is home...or at least not answering the door. Damnit! Right then and there I should have just dumped the box out on their step, but I didnt. Why? I'm not sure...I think I'm going to have to make up for it and go back though...the local grocery store has 5 dozen eggs on sale, and I am moving out of state in a few days :)

Update on Us

It's hot! Today was another day in the upper 90's maybe 100. I haven't watched the news to see the official high but I know it was pretty damn hot. Friday was 105 or some ungodly high temperature like that so Peanut and I went to my parents for the day to hang out in their air conditioned house. We got home about 7:30 and it was still 95 outside. Inside our house wasn't much better, maybe around 90. Gave Peanut a bath and put him in bed, then I was off to work. got home at 4:30 in the morning and it was still 82. House never did cool off and poor Peanut was awake at 5:30, hot and sweaty and could not get back to sleep. So Mike took him so I could sleep but at 7, I needed to feed Peanut. After about an hour napping in bed, we were both awake again, still hot and sweaty. Mike *had* to stay home from work. There was no way we could of made it without him. I finally got some sleep about 10 until 12:30, and then Peanut got a couple hour nap while we got ready for another day at my parents. Before we went there, had to make a Walmart stop for diapers and some snacks and we were going to the checkout counter and see a pallet of a/c's they were just unloading. Like vultures to roadkill, we were drawn. After seeing the tag of $86, and demanding Mike to go get a cart for one, one of the employees plopped on on the bottom 1/2 of our cart and we were off. I think I might of killed someone to get one of those, that's how badly I wanted one again.

My parents are the best. We had a great afternoon with them lounging around in the house. Both of them just love being with Peanut so I hand him off to whoever is frothing at the mouth the moment we walk in the door and I'm not really needed until he's ready to eat again.

My niece Taylor spent the weekend out at mom and dads and here's Elliot and Tay swimming in the hot tub. She was so excited to hold and help him in there.



And when I couldn't stand over the side of the tub anymore and hold Elliot, Mom loaned me a swimsuit and I got in with him. The water was 92 or so and was perfect. Ignore the greasy, oily looking face. Did I say it was hot out? Still was around 93 or so.







And one more photo for today. Elliot's the cheerleader for
Mike's softball team. Here he is last week all decked out looking oh so adorable. The hat never stays on very long. It's still a little too big and falls into his eyes.

And for the grand great news of the day......I'm now UNEMPLOYED!!!!!! Woo hoo! Last night was my last night of work and I cannot be more excited. No more abuse from irrate, irresponsible parents who think the police are there to parent their children, no more having to be nice to the stupid, uneducated, drunk or crazy public. No more having my heart ache for an elderly person who's spouse passed away in the night and they just woke up to find them. No more parents saying their baby can't breath, or worse. No more unfair accidents where I listen to the people crying in the background. No more children calling saying their parents are fighting or worse, hurting or have hurt them. No more working nights, weekends, and every holiday in the calendar. And no more having to leave my sleeping baby in his father's very capable hands so I can go to work, only to be too tired the next day to truly interact with him the way I think he deserves to have his mom interact with him.

This is about all I can handle at my computer for now. Did I mention it's hot?! :o)

TTFN and stay cool ~Crystal

Just one more reason...

To hate my job. It's petty yes, but its the principle of the matter that irks me the most.

Last week for my birthday, I got a card from the ERC (Employee recognition commitee). Inside of this card was a "coupon" good for a "perfect schedule". Now, by sheer definition of the phrase "perfect schedule", doesnt that hint at the fact that I'd get to pick my entire schedule for a whole day? Good, I'm glad you think so too.

I was browsing thru the schedule today and looked at tomorrows schedule, I have a net to start my day, then 8 straight hours of phones...does the phrase "bullshit!" apply? I sure think so. So I send a message up to one of the supervisors asking, "hey, I have this card for a perfect schedule, can I use it for tomorrow?" So I get back the response "sure, you can pick up to 3 nets"....3? Did I get 4 hours off and I didnt know about it? Cause we have 5 shots during a normal day...why only 3? So I ask, I'm told "its only good for 3". Now I'm really confused, "how is it a perfect schedule if I only get 3, that doesnt sound like perfect, marginally better than normal maybe, but not perfect". Turns out this a rule they implemented after people complained when they came in and saw that someone had a "perfect schedule" of 5 dispatch nets and no phones...well hello you idiots, thats why its called a perfect schedule! Did it bother to pass thru the empty voids some of my co-workers call brains that they too have a birthday, minus the few that spawned straight out of hell, and would get a "perfect schedule" when the time came too? No, they are too busy trying to screw someone over and ruin a good thing for the rest of the work force. I'm so tired of working with the old croon's that do this crap I could just spit. Cant you people just freaking get along with each other? No, you cant. Thats why you suck! Thats why no one wants to work in that festering pit of slime and disgust. It takes quite alot to get me to hate something, but that place is and has been at the top of my list for sometime now. Its a damn good thing I'm almost out of there, I'm not sure how much more of the double standards I can stomach. I have 6 days and 9 hours to go, they will be lucky if they see me for half of it. If only the house had sold for just a bit more money, I could just not worry about having to be there for our benefits to carry over thru the month of August, nothing would please me more than to not ever go back. I hope some of you people wake up, find something that makes you happy in life and stop trying to make everyone you work with miserable. Not only does it make life worse for others, deep down inside its killing you. Get over yourselves, your not in high school anymore.

I'm getting off my soap box now, I need to try and go to sleep and this is just raising my blood pressure.

Initiate countdown in 3....2....1

We just heard from our buyers, the appraisal came thru and the house appraised at just over what we sold it for! WOOT!!!! Makes having turned in our notices feel a little better.

Crystal's not sure she's even going to back to work now, I envy her. Elliot sleeps so much better when she is home, we've decided it wouldn't hurt anything to have her just stay home and be with him. This whole situation is a bit stressful on Crystal to say the least, apprehension about moving, leaving "our" home, being away from each other for almost 2 weeks when I drive down there, its all becoming a reality, and with Elliot not sleeping so well, which means we aren't sleeping so well..Its just all adding up. So why not remove the one stressor that we have the most control over, bye bye 911 for Crystal. I still have 7 days and 9 hours to go...when you look at it like that, its really not so bad. If nothing else, I can look forward to the change in view :)

Baby Steps...

No, not those kind of baby steps. Elliot is still along ways from walking (we hope) but we have started a new game where we take him on the bed and let him pull himself up to a sitting position with alittle bit of help from mom and dad. Today we were playing this game (by we, I mean I) and didnt realize Elliot had just eaten, nor that I was putting so much pressure on his little tummy while he was sitting up. So after about 5 minutes of this, he decided that enough was enough. He thinks its funny to get pulled up and put into a sitting position, then to be allowed to fall gently back onto the bed. This time after sitting him up and stepping back, it was over to his left side he went. The best part of it is, he looks drunk...wayyyyyyyyyy drunk, complete with vomit :)


The appraisal was done on the house this afternoon. Supposed to hear back from them by tomorrow the gal said. We had the notification come thru from the lenders today, apparently the buyers have a bunch of money to use as a down payment, so they are only financing 185K, so we are golden as far as the appraisal goes, its just a matter of hurry up and wait now...and I thought I was getting away from that crap leaving the city! ha! Time to get in some more packing, I want to get as much done as possible before the actual day gets here, will make things alot easier.

33

Today is the day, July 15th. 33 years ago, I was born. I can remember most of my life like it just happened yesterday, some good times, some bad. So why do I feel so old? Being a new dad doesnt help I'm sure, but that cant be all of it.

Taking a full day to recover from a night of softball doesnt help either...although I think alot of that is just from being out of shape. Once we get down into Tucson, I'm going to look into finding another coed team to play on, its fun and I enjoy playing. Hopefully we can find someone that can watch Elliot and Crystal can play too, I think that would be alot of fun.

The appraisal on the house is scheduled for next Tuesday. Feels like things are moving forward again after no word on anything. Also got the loan commitment today from the mortgage company, so the buyers are funded and ready to go w/ money. They've decided to just use the inspection that we had done back in October, and are instead going to spend the money on a home warranty instead. Not a bad idea on their part, just keeps them protected should anything go wrong...not that I think it will, but better safe than sorry.

We are still slated to close August 4th, and sounds as though Crystal and I have to go in and do our part of the paperwork either the 2nd or the 3rd. Hopefully its the 2nd cause I have to work the 3rd, but they say we can go in seperately, so no matter what day it happens, we will get it done, then we go pick up our money sometime on the 4th... so very exciting, all the new changes that are coming are going to be tough at first, like having to be apart from Crystal and Elliot for 2 weeks while we move is going to suck. I'm worried Elliot is going to forget who I am, but will spend sometime with him when they get down there and remind him who I am.

Time to get an hour of sleep or so before Elliot wakes up hungry. Happy birthday to me!

Big Boy

Down to 3 weeks before we sign closing papers on our house so I started sorting and packing up Elliot's clothes he's too big for. I put some premie clothes in a bag I'm donating to the hospital and the others I need to keep in a box for memories and possible later use, although I'd love to not have a baby so small again. I put Peanut's coming home outfit in a cloth bag that I'll store for him when he grows up. I layed his coming home pajamas on his body and WHOA! When did my WWB little Peanut turn into such a Big Boy? The photo isn't so great and I'll try to get a better one, maybe on his 6month Birthday for a better comparison. Looking at those pj's and packing around Peanut's 15 pounds sure makes it hard to remember he was no taller than the length of my arm and weighted 1/3 of what he does now. And all from breastmilk! I'm so proud of myself that I'm able to give him all the nutirents and vitamins he needs and that he's growing just like God designed him to do. So, breastmilk really is the best and my Peanut is proof of that.

On another topic, I have been sewing every spare chance I get lately. I've created a purse, a short-trip diaper bag/purse, and a wall-hanging that will go up in Peanut's room. Now, my next project is to do a quick quilting job on Mike's quilt and get it finished so I can get down to only having 3 tops that I need to quilt. Here's photos of my latest lovely creations:

Pink girly purse that has little rhinestones in the middle of the flowers.

Green diaper/purse bag. Have yet to try it out, maybe tonight. Target is always calling my name for something I "need".
Paper-pieced wall-hanging for Elliot . Each square is 4 inches big. Quick meaning for all of them 2nd row, left to right: Flag-cuz we're very patriotic and love the USA, sun setting on the ocean cuz we love the beach, red square surrounded by blue square is a type of log cabin block-log cabin cuz we're rednecks and I want to live on one when I'm rich, green diagonals was just for fun and boyish, yellow house cuz Elliots first house was yellow, sun because he is my sunshine. Bottom row, left to right: orange slices for fun, blue truck cuz he's a country boy and country boys like trucks, yellow flower cuz I needed 1 more block, heart for love, tree cuz he was born in the evergreen state, and embroidered one with his birth info.This was my first wall-hanging. Its for autumn, but I love it so its up year round.
Peanut is uber fussy so, TTFN ~Crystal

You have got to be kidding!

So Monday night we had another softball game. It started out like any other softball game really. We were down after the first inning 7 to 1, thats normal for us. Then our bats started working for us and we made a game out of it. Had it not been for some defensive errors (2 of which I'm not proud to say were mine!) we probably could have won the game. My first error came when I was playing left center (its coed so we get 4 out fielders). I'm playing deep cause a guy is up to bat and their guys were bombing the ball. A looping fly ball takes off heading right at me, but short, so I sprint forward to try and make the catch, I can tell right away its gonna be close, so as I'm running at it, I'm thinking "dive? dont dive? dive? dont dive? The out of shape side of my brain won the argument and no dive took place, if I had, I would have caught it, instead, it hits the ground just below my glove and takes off behind me...damnit!

2 Batters later, another guy hits a ball, this one a screaming line drive that just gets passed our short stop and is rolling along the ground all nice and lazy...so I run at it and go down to one knee, glove on the ground to stop the ball, just when the timing of the ball should have hit my glove, I feel nothing...wheres the ball? I look down, nothing, then look behind me as the ball continues to roll along the ground..wtf? How the hell did that happen? Well, not to make excuses, but the ground out in that park isnt what you'd call "level", in fact, it resembles the moon..with grass. Lots of hills and valleys and bumps and whatnot, my little brother Geoff was playing left field right next to me, and he said it looked like the ball hit one of the many bumps and changed directions and went right past my glove...whatever, bunch of crap!!! With moves like those, no way I'm ever going to be able to fake my way into a special olympics team!

I did have some good moments at the plate though. I had 3 at bats, and went 3 for 3, 4 RBI's that I counted, and scored 2 runs. That was the first game that our bats have been working well enough to allow me to even cross home plate! So we are getting better as a team. I should mention however, that somehow, on my last at bat, I smashed the ball well enough I think I could have turned it into a double, however, the softball gods have other plans in mind for me. After I swung the bat, I took off running for first, somehow, as I released the bat, it came swinging back around and hit my right ankle, forcing my leg out of alignment just enough so that my left ankle came down and hit my right leg, thus causing me to go ass over tea kettle. I got slammed down to all 4's and ended up with this:














I'm gonna kinda miss playing with this group, I have alot of fun playing with them. Probably not as much fun as I'd have on that above mentioned Olympic team, but hey, its fun none the less. Crystal likes to remind me I looked like a tee baller out there trying to field that rolling grounder, isnt she nice?

This too shall pass...

Crystal snuck in a post on me today, shes a crafty one, so if you didnt read hers, make sure you do, it has an awesome picture on it :)

Now, on to my post.

As much as I dislike my job, I have to give credit where credit is due. They have a thing called CISM (which I think stands for critical incident stress management, or something along those lines). How it works is, when you take a particularly nasty call that effects your ability to do the job, you get to go home...and, news to me, you can take the next day off too. It doesnt cost you anything, no sick time, no vacation time, nothing. I've never used it before so wasnt sure how it worked exactly, but thank goodness Shay was working the day I had this call. I dont think I would have been so receptive to the help had it been someone I dont consider a good friend. She took me out on the patio at work and we talked about the call and how crappy it was, then she told me I could go home. So I took advantage of it and left after that call. Shay talked to Crystal at work and told her to tell me if I didnt feel up to working today to call her and she could take care of it for me. Again, thank goodness for shay. What little bit of sleep I did get wasnt good quality sleep, and all I could think of was that call, picturing the poor kid laying there bleeding from every hole in his head, and the sounds of mom vomiting in the background. Needless to say, I wasnt ready to come back to work. I probably should have just called the sup's and told them, but I wasnt in the mood to be questioned about it, not that I think they would have, but still. I called Shay and she took care of it for me and I took the day off. It ended up working out good in several different ways, Crystal got to catch up on some sleep, and I got a ton of daddy time in with Elliot. We watched tv, watched the cars drive past the house, walked around in the yard, had a bottle of milk and just relaxed. Being home was just what the doctor ordered, I'm still spending a fair amount of time thinking about the call, but its better than it was.

After Crystal got up, I decided it was time to let out some aggression, and what better way to do that than pounding nails into wood? So, got the lumber for the new front porch that had some rotted out posts and I knew would have to be fixed before we could close the deal on the house, and got cracking. 2 hours later, the new porch was born:

Monday Steve and Ronda are coming over to help me patch a spot in the roof. Then the house is truly done! All that will be left at that point will be packing packing and more packing.

Oh so sexy

Oh boy it's warm today. Not like it was a couple weeks ago, but 91 is too warm in a house with no a/c. Mike is home today and working on some of the last few things the house needed before we close. Now we're waiting to hear from the guy doing the appraisal and the inspection. After those, we're in the home stretch. Today, I'm ok with moving and having "our" house belong to someone else in less than a month. The excitement of not having to work nights/weekends/holidays and actually getting to have a normal schedule again with normal sleep is glorious and overtaking the sadness.

And now for the picture of the day.... TA DA!
The last few days have been a trial for me and Peanut. Lots of fussiness and he's back to HATING his car seat. Running errands was torture the other day. Cried so hard for the 10 minutes it took to get home he and then was fine once he was able to get out. Today, he seems to be doing ok - but no carseat ride today. Hung out with his Dad while I slept this morning and then again while I napped this afternoon. Mike needed this extra Peanut time today and I'm thankful I was able to get some sleep before working tonight. The last night I have to be up until 4am because of work is going to go on my happy moment list. It doesn't rank up with having Elliot and marrying Mike, but it's on the same list.

This is about all for now. It's too damn hot to sit in the house anymore so we're going outside.

TTFN ~Crystal

Everything happens for a reason....

I'm usually a firm believer in this. Today my foundation was rocked alittle when I took a call that for the life of me, can think of no good reason for it to have happened.

I got the first of 2 calls from an elderly male who said that a car had just backed up and ran over a child...a 5 year old to be exact. I dont know how long it took me to get the call going, but I'm guessing just a few seconds. The caller was a bed ridden man who has an in home nurse come and take care of him. The boy was the nurses child. Since my original caller was bed ridden, he couldnt give me alot of information, so once I had the call going, thats about all I can do, so I disconnected. At this point, it was just another "poor kid, sheesh" and I was ready for the next call to come ringing into my ear. Low and behold, the next call comes from a cell phone, with alot of screaming in the background, then it disconnects. So I call back to try and find out whats going on and see if someone needs help, or its just a bunch of kids out of school with nothing better to do than prank 911...I'm wishing it had been a prank. On the call back, I get a guy who's a nervous wreck and can hardly talk to me. Come to find out, he's on site of the kid being ran over, I still dont know if he had any relation to the kid or not, at this point, I guess it doesnt really matter much. I try to get some info out of the guy and I can hear what I came to find out is mom screaming in the background, screaming and puking at the same time to be exact. The training kicks in and I start asking for the info that the old man couldnt give me, "is he trapped under the car", "is he awake", "is he breathing", the answers to all 3 being no. I try to get this guy to start CPR, I'm not even sure he knew what the initials meant, but he didnt want to try, I know thats his option, he doesnt have to do it, but I'd have given anything to swap places with him right then. Would it have made a difference if someone had tried? Dunno, but I'd have liked to have tried. My caller said mom was trying to do CPR, but with all the screaming and vomiting, I dont think it was as good an effort as someone else could have done, am I blaming her? GOD NO! I would have been a wreck myself had it been Elliot. Ever since he came along, calls involving kids have impacted me in a way they never used to. No call ever bugged me, ever. Sure some are ugly and remind me how evil man is, but they never upset me or anything. The whole time I was on these calls, it was Elliots face I pictured on that kid, it put a huge knot in my stomach which still 7 hours later is still in my stomach. Several times now today I've thought to myself "whats that mom doing right now", she sure isnt playing with her son, or putting him to bed, or giving him a bath. Her entire families lives must be in total turmoil right now, and I'm guessing it will be a long long time before it resembles anything close to what they considered "normal". Maybe this was a sign that my leaving 911 really is the right decision, for my own sanity, I'm going to treat it as such, I could think of alot better ways god could have pointed it out to me, but thats life. Did writing about this help? yeah, maybe alittle.

As little sleep as I'm going to get tonight, I know that mom is going to get alot less.

Like the old country song...

Take this job and shove it! I ain't working here no more!

Today I got to work and turned in my "tenative" notice of resignation from 911. So long as all goes well with the sale of the house, and I know it will cause GOD loves me ( no pressure big guy ), my last day as a 911 dispatcher will be August 3rd. Crystals last day is going to be July 24th (insert naughty cuss words chewing her out here). If I work one day in August my benefits continue thru the month of August, so since the 3rd is really my normal monday, I'll work that day and get our benefits paid for another month and then be free from the chains of city employment! Not that I've been keeping track, but I only have 16 more work days left to go, for some reason that doesnt sound as bad as saying 4 weeks, good god that seems like a long time.

I got my route all planned out tonight after work, looks like its going to take me 2 very long days to get from here to Pheonix. I'm going to try and do it in those 2 days, then again, I may say screw it and just do it in 3. I've never been a good long distance driver, or never used to be anyway, I guess I'll have the chance to re-evaluate that here real soon. Now I have to call Budget and find out the mileage on their big trucks, I'm guessing it wont be much, and am hoping for 15 mpg freeway...I think I'm asking alot, but thats what I'm hoping for. It's going to cost an arm and a leg to just buy the gas for that pig.

Crystal has an early dentist appt. so off to bed, going to try and start getting some packing done tomorrow night, never to early to start.

Happy Birthday America!

230 years old and still kicking!

I like to think of myself as a patriot. I don't know where I got it from, altough I have some good ideas, its just a part of me I guess. So the 4th of July is one of my most favorite holidays. We didnt get to go see any big fireworks this year cause we didnt think those loud noises would do real well on Elliots ears, but also cause its passed his bed time, turns out its passed ours too, Crystal and I curled up on the couch together and tried to watch them on TV, we both fell asleep during the show..sigh. Thank goodness fireworks isnt what its all about.

We got to spend the day up at Crystals inhereted Aunt and Uncles house...you do the math.

They live in this kick ass old house, which they think was built in 1891..or somewhere around there.


It was originally just 2 rooms with a roof, they have a very old picture of the house that I'm kicking myself in the pants for not taking another photo of, but thats another story. Needless to say, the house is OLD! but very cool both on the inside as well as the out. I'm not sure how many acres they have, but its alot, Grandma Hazen (another inhereted realative) said that theres over 77 acres of old Hazen land that has been sold off in small bits and pieces. They've been on the land so long, the road leading to all the houses are on Hazen road. Now thats heritage. I didnt know if I'd ever get back to the house again, so I took a couple pictures of the surrounding area:





And my personal favorite:



All in all it was one of my more memorable 4ths, it wasnt the fireworks, there werent any of those, it wasnt the weather, even though it was just perfect, it was the setting and the company. Good people, good food, good times. I wish Jenny and Dee could have made it, would have been fun to see the other kids for one last get together before we move, thankfully theres still time to get in a family BBQ or something.

Off to start getting some packing done. Only 17 working days left at BOEC :)

I have seen the future, and it is good...

FINALLY!!!!

The house has sold! A very nice cool young couple has agreed to buy the house for 1 million dollars! Ok not that much, but its going to seem like that much to us when we get our cut. Its not exactly what we were hoping to get, but its enough to get us moved down to Arizona and front out bills for awhile til we get some steady income flowing from the business.

We are slated to close August 4th, so my last day of work will be August 3rd, then we'll have that weekend to finish packing and be out monday afternoon. So, if your local, and you have mondays off...you know who you are...be prepared to get asked to come help me load the truck! If I can get 10 people here to do it, should only take about an hour or 2 to get it loaded. Then we will spend the night with Crystals folks and I'll be off bright and early tuesday the 8th. We've decided that driving across the country with Elliot riding shotgun in the moving truck wouldnt be very fun, or productive. He's not a big fan of sitting in his car seat for more than an hour or two, so 12 a day wouldnt go over very well, not to mention having to stop and feed him along the way too. So Crystal will stay here with Elliot for a week or so while I drive down and find us a temporary apartment to live in. Then once things are going well and the money is flowing in, we will go and get a house to rent at first, then in a year or so, we will look for a house to buy, or some property and build a house on it...thats still up in the air. I really like what I see in the city of Marana Arizona, it looks to be about 15 to 20 minutes north of Tucson, but its up in a quickly developing area (what isnt down there?) so alot of my work would be in that general area where people are moving into town. I've noticed that alot of the neighborhoods down there are being built with city parks right in the middle and feature lots of walking paths and stuff thru them, which is a huge bonus. All this last week I had the oppurtunity to do new hire interviews at work, so I was home at night, what a shock. Crystal and I were able to load Elliot up in his stroller after dinner and go for walks, and we loved it, so does Elliot, so thats something we want to be able to have around us which will be nice, then maybe I can lose some of my BOEC gut and slim down some (translated:alot).

More updates to come, I'm working on a name for a new blog to start when we move down there, if someone can submit a name suggestion here in the comments section, and I use it, I'll excuse you from helping load the truck...yeah freaking right!

So serious

Elliot update:
Mr So Serious. Elliot just woke up from a snooze in his swing and didn't appreciate Mommy taking more pictures. He is getting so good at making all kinds of squeals, screams, and noises, along with a variety of faces. He can mimic faces made to him, and can almost let the giggles out all the time.

We're still working on getting good naps during the day, but the last 4 days he's had a late morning nap for about 1 hour and an afternoon nap for 1.5-2.5 hours. And now that my weekend is over and I'll be wanting him to sleep during the day, he won't.

Our house is still for sale. Sigh, it's a pain in the arse to need it to sell before we can move. I want to move so badly, partly so I don't have to work and can become a stay at home mom and partly so Mike can work during the day and be home on weekends and holidays. Working nights and weekends has lost its appeal many many weekends ago. Too bad we're not independtly wealthy and neither of us have to work....damn lotto people for not picking my numbers again.

That's all for now. I'm suppose to be doing school work but social psychology is a pain in my arse, a huge waste of my time and money, and thankfully over next week. Whoever decided an accounting major has to have 2 psychology classes needs to be shot, multiple times.

On another note, Mike bought me a new photo printer. It ROCKS! Love, love, love it. It's an HP Photosmart 8250. And it's quick.

TTFN, Peanut is calling. ~Crystal

The thrill of VICTORY!!!!!

FINALLY!!!!!!!

After 8 games of my co-ed softball team being on the field and getting crushed week after week, we finally got a win!

Our first 6 games we played in a division we had no business being in, and boy did it show. 3 of our games were called due to the run limit, you can only be down 19 runs before they call the game, that tells you how bad those 3 games were. The other 3, we had a couple of good showings where we managed to get more than one run on the board, and then we had another game that we were in control of all the way til the last inning when the other team put on an offensive clinic.

But not tonight! We dominated the whole game, start to finish, and considering the heat was unreal (hit 100) I think we did pretty damned well.

The final score was 16 to 4! Our bats were on fire!!! I got up to the plate 4 times tonight. Usually we were lucky to get thru our batting order twice, let alone 4 times. I was walked once, and had 3 singles. Not to shabby for a fat guy with a pulled muscled in his left quad. I had one shot that I think I could have stretched into a double had the leg been in good shape, but I was happy getting on period and putting one more base runner on board. The only crappy part was that of the 4 times getting on base, I never got to score a run :( Oh well, beggers cant be choosers.

Defensively we did really well, our ringer left fielder wanted to take a stab at short stop, and after seeing him play there tonight, I think we should have had him there the whole time. That guy has a cannon for an arm, he bobbled several grounders to him and still fired it over to first to get the outs on several occasions, now if we could only get him to stop trying to hit home runs everytime he gets up to the plate, it would be even better. The two of us working short and second base made for a pretty good combonation in the infield. We almost got to turn a double play to end the game, but the dirt bag running from 1st to 2nd decided to come out of the running lane and into my throwing lane, being the nice guy that I am I decided not to fire it right into his forehead and ended up over throwing first base, damnit! I should have just drilled him in the forehead and taught him a lesson, next time =:)

All in all we did really well, it was extra fun playing under the lights, in the warm air, gloves working well, bats working well, ahhh..what a great feeling to finally, finally put a scratch mark in the W column.

And when it pours, you get wet...which isnt always good.

So we heard from both parties today that made offers.

The first group, cute family of 4, they have a brand new baby girl and a 4 year old that was an absolute monster, but him running thru the backyard told mom and dad this would have been a great house for them, and they loved the place, loved the colors we've painted in, loved the floors, the kitchen, everything, loved it. Then their bank would only approve them for 190K...sorry man, not even close. They told us they were working on some other ways to get some more money together, and with any luck, they will find a way, we think they were a good match for the house, but it just wasnt meant to be today.

The second group, who clearly had the money to buy the place, turned out to be a couple of people who have apparently been dropped on their head in the last week or so. They seemed nice enough, but they were clearly looking to come in and buy low...very low. How low? try 20% under our asking price. Thats right, 20%. I couldnt decide if I wanted to throw up or laugh. In the end I'm laughing about it now, but boy throwing up sure seemed like an ok option at the time. We called them up to tell them no, and the guys response was "well, we looked at the tax records, saw what you paid, then did a comparison to the other houses in the area". Well good for you, any monkey with a keyboard can look up the tax records, and as far as comparing it to other houses in the area, so did our realator. In fact, he came with a list of about 20 houses for us to consider when we listed ours. Not a single one of them was going for under 215K. Does that mean thats all we should be able to get for our place? Hell no, most of the other houses that were on the list didnt have as big a lot as we have, nor had their interiors been completely redone. Oh well, his loss. I think his wife actually liked the place, she wanted it to run a day care out of and was all giddy about the circular driveway out front, would have been great for parents dropping off their kids. But not 20% under asking price great, what a dolt. Felt alittle insulting to be honest, but we will bounce back, had 10 flyers out in the info tube when we left for dinner, only 4 remaining now, and thats just in a 2 hour time span, so at least we know people are coming to look at it. It will sell, its not a matter of if, just when.

When it rains...it pours

Well, after 2 weeks of having the house on the market to be sold, we've had 2 parties come thru that were both very interested in the house, both have left here saying they would be submitting an offer to us. They have both been back twice to look at the place, and the last couple just left about an hour ago. We are in the "hurry up and wait" process now and are just waiting to hear back from either of them. I'm excited at the fact that we could have a potential bid war going on here, that excites me.

Update to follow as soon as we know something...keep your fingers crossed for us.

4 month check up

Mike is at work, Peanut is playing with a kicking toy on the floor, so I thought I'd try to post a blog that's not about our damn house. Hopefully the pictures I put in here show up like I want them too. And there are new pictures in the photo album.

We've been so busy on getting the house done we didn't post about Peanut's 4 month check-up. He's getting very big and weighs 13 1/2 pounds and is 25 1/2 inches tall. Our doctor says he's growing very well and will be caught up weigh wise with other babies his age in about a year or so. He had to have more immunization shots but only 4 this time. This nurse was much quicker than the last nurse so we only had to listen to Ell cry and scream for about a minute. Once the nurse left and he was cuddled, all was well again.

Peanut has been wanting to sit up so much lately and we didn't have a good chair that supported his back, so we bought a Bumbo chair for him and it arrived yesterday. So far he loves it and will help him develop his back and neck muscles and get better head control.


Other new developments for Peanut are he's found his fingers and they're usually in his mouth. He's working on sucking his thumb and each time I catch him doing it, he's done before I can get the camera. He's also been using a kick toy we're borrowing from Aunt DeeDee. He loves it and loves being able to kick his little legs. And he's becoming much more vocal. He knows what makes Mommy and Daddy smile and laugh and what makes us jump and pick him up. Yes, he does have us wrapped around his little fingers.

I'm back to work part-time. 6 hours a night, Friday through Monday. And boy, it only took 2 phone calls to get right back into the swing of things. I missed being home with Peanut and Mike, hated having to go back to work, but it's a nice break from being Mommy. Now we're working on getting a good afternoon nap in so I can get more than 6 hours of sleep a night when I do have to work. That's not going so well but we're still trying.

Peanut is calling his boob so TTFN ~Crys

Mr. Murphy, I loathe you!

You ever work on a project, doesnt matter what kind of project it is, its a simple straight forward project, a monkey with one hand on a tool and the other on a bananna could pull it off and you're constantly hit with problems? Thats the story of the laundry room bathroom sink so far.

It started last wednesday night, we had gone and picked up a new sink and faucet and all the supply lines and drain fittings we needed (or so I had thought) and I went home to get it done.

I got the old bracket off the wall from the previous gross nasty sink and mounted the new bracket, so far so good. That went pretty quick and I started to fill my head with thoughts of crossing one more project off the list, I was happier than a cat high on catnip.

I grab the sink and go to put the faucet on it and realize, hey, theres no drain fitting in this thing. No biggie, I'll go grab one in the morning and be done with it. So we go and pick up a new faucet, this one comes with a drain fitting also, score! And it looks nicer than the plain jane one we had picked out. So off we go, head home and put on the new faucet and the drain fitting. Get that all done and go to throw the sink on the wall. The lag bolts that came with the sink wont self start, so I decide that I'll use the molly bolts that came with the sink thinking for sure that theres no stud mounted horizontally behind the wall where the sink is going. So I grab the molly bolts and go to test them out on the sink...they wont go thru the holes in the porcelin to hold the unit to the wall. Now besides the fact that these came with the sink, why the hell dont they fit the holes they are intened to go into!? Oh well, yet again, not a problem, just go to the Depot and pick up a few molly bolts. Do I bother to measure the holes on the sink to make sure I get the right ones? Hell no, thats for sissies and girls, men dont measure "its about as wide as my pinky, that will work" Oh boy. I get home, try them out, sure enough...to big...damnit all to hell this sink sucks ass! Ok, lets dry fit the supply lines too and get that part done...son of a bitch these arent the right damned lines either! ARGH!!! Ok, so we get to kill 2 birds with one stone with the next trip to the Depot, thats called proper time management. So, get the new and improved, and much smaller molly bolts, new supply lines, and head home. Supply lines go on like a glove, cool, progress at last! Now, lets drill the holes for the molly bolts to slip in and get this thing done...What the fu...theres a stud behind the sheetrock running horizontally, whoosh whoosh whoosh go the molly bolts flying across the laundry room. So I pre drill some holes for the lag bolts to go into and get Crystal to help me hold the thing up in the air while I tighten down the bolts. Needless to say, the space behind the sink in which you have to work with is not only filled with the supply lines coming out of the faucet that are copper pipe and unmoveable, but its also only about the width of a good book. So I can only get about a 1/4 turn into the bolt before I have to reset the open ended wrench since a damned socket wrench wont get up in there to get the job done. So 20 minutes go by putting in 2 bolts, the sucker is secured to the wall, supply lines are hooked up, lets hook up the drain line....Oh no f'ing way! the drain lines coming off the sink are 1-1/4 inches wide, and the line going into the wall is 1-3/4 inches wide...kiss my beep, you stupid beep sucking beeper beeper I cant beeping belive this beep!!! Ok, I'll go to the Depot, again, in the morning and get the reducer so I can finally be done with this thing. Of course they dont have anything like that back near the sinks and other drain line stuff, no thats up in the actual plumbing section. So I find that isle and what do you know, theres actually an employee down there that knows what hes talking about, nevermind the fact that he has so much grease in his hair he has to stay away from open flames, he gets me the parts that I need and off I go. I get home from work tonight, Crystal leaves for work, Elliot is sleeping, so I go in and finish the sink. Now the reducer makes the drain stick out so far the drain line coming off the sink doesnt line up with it anymore, its off by about a half an inch! So I bounce out of the bathroom like a fat kid playing dodge ball, and have yet to return again to the Depot in the morning so I can get a flexible drain pipe and be done with it once and for all. I'm going to bed now, reliving this tale was almost enough to drive me to drinking! I think I'll get by on some diet cherry pepsi though :)

The morale of the story? Hire a freaking plumber, they get paid to think of all this crap in advance!

Time to list the house...

The realator we bought the house thru last October came out and looked at the house to give us a market analyasis on the house and give us a ballpark number that he thought the house could sell for. It still wasnt the numbers we wanted to see, but it was more than he thought originally after seeing the work we've done. Now its time to list it on the net and see if we get any hits.

We are still tossing around numbers among ourselves to see what we should go with, but I'm fairly sure we will put it on the market sometime this week.

Got the kitchen cabniet doors put back up, so all the big work is now done. Pix of the new hardware and whatnot in the house photo's section. Everyone keep their fingers crossed that we get a quick sale.

Off to get ready for softball...so far we are 0 and 3...the team we play tonight is also o and 3...someone has to come away a winner..could this be the one for us? Doubtful :)

Stupid oregon tax refund!

Well, Crystal made a slight error on her Oregon tax return, so she has to go back to work now starting next week :( I was really hoping that she wasnt going to have to go back before we got the house sold. Well laid plans of mice and men, yada yada yada.

I got a "wtf" from my dad and not posting pix of the new shower enclosure, so they are uploaded now in the house work section. Your welcome pops!

Got alittle bit more of the tiny stuff done tonight when I got home from work, nothing back breaking, all that work is done now :) its all little things from here. Looking forward to having it all completely done this Monday...that means I'll have 2 whole days to do whatever I want....................................Oh boy, this could be dangerous!

And so it begins...

Finally, after weeks upon weeks upon weeks of work...ITS DONE!

Kind of...

I still have some small little things to do, but I'm pretty confident that I can get them done this week after work. The trim is done, the painting is done (mostly, still have the kitchen cabniet doors, and one closet door), the yard is done, the trim is done, and the trim is done! WOOT!

Our realator is coming out monday afternoon to see what he thinks we can get for the house, based on his info from when we bought it, he thinks it will go for about 10-15K less than what we were hoping for...however, I'm hoping once he sees the place in person, that number will go up...I hope.

If not, I'm still confident that we will be able to go forward w/ our move. We are going to look into a small buisiness loan and see where that takes us, 10-15k doesnt sound like alot of money to get a buisiness going, so hopefully we would get it no problem. If not, theres always plan B...Sell a kidney.

I've finally posted new pix of completed projects, I'm kicking myself hard now for not taking any before pix, oh boy, what a dork. Anyway, for anyone thats been to the house before we started doing any of this work, you can see what we've done, and if you hear someone asking, tell them what you think about it and how much its changed. It doesnt even feel like the same house to me anymore. Now after all this hard work I've put into it, its time to move on :( that part is alittle sad...but 90 degrees and sunshine should make me get over it real quick :)

Pix are on the side link under house pix. Stay tuned for more news to come, I'm thinking about starting up a totally new blog too, one thats more focused on the now than the past, we dont have the 3 cats anymore, and Elliot should be driving by next week he's growing so quick. I'm still tossing around some name ideas, so we will see what happens.

Soon as the house sells, we plan on having a BBQ/Going away party, so keep your ears peeled for that one too. Off to have dinner and watch some movies..all hail netflix!

Head for the light!

I can see the end! Its Monday morning and I really think I can have the inside of the house finished this weekend (thats my weekend, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday), then weather permitting, next weekend we can pressure wash the outside and paint the outside and then its time to put this sucker on the market!

Managed to get a few things done yesterday like starting to take down the wallpaper in the masterbathroom. Its coming along alot better and faster than I thought it would, hope to have paint on those walls by the end of the day today. Hallway bathroom is painted, all I have to do now is slap a coat up on the ceiling and put in the bathtub enclosure and its done. Then I can take out the toilet and the sink in the masterbath, throw some paint on the walls, put down the new pergo floor, reinstall the toilet and sink and thats done too. I figure I can get all that done early Tuesday, leaving me the rest of the day tuesday and all of Wednesday to put up trim. Then this week during the work week, I can work on painting the kitchen cabniets which will go quick using my handy dandy air sprayer. All we gotta do now is send out the feelers and see if anyone has a pressure washer we can use. Renting one is an option, but free is always better. Gonna have to rent the sprayer for the house though too. Elliot is starting to wake up and Crystal is off to the dentist, so I'm pulling feeding duty this morning. More updates to follow, and pix will be on the way of the completed house.

No more living in Sin....

We finally did it, we got married!

Sunday April 30th was the day. The weather was fantastic, the food was good and the company was top notch. We just had a small family only ceremony here in the backyard, but it was special to us and those that attended, and thats all that matters.

We couldnt be happier. Elliot is doing awesome, sleeping alittle longer at night allowing mom to get some much needed rest. He's averaging about 4 hours or so between nursing at night now, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but its a step in the right direction for sure.

Things are going well with the house, I think I only have 2 or maybe 3 more weekends of working on it and it will be done and ready for the market. With any luck, we will get a quick sale and pack our bags for the warm sunny skies of Arizona!!! All but a couple people are really happy and supportive of our decision to move down there, despite what they might think, we know its going to be a very big positive for us and our family. It will be stressful starting all over and being our own boss, but its a much healthier stress than the current job is putting on us, or me since I'm the only one working right now. I've just about reached the end of my rope there, everyday its harder and harder not to tell people on the phone to pound sand. All of a sudden lately at work I'm hearing on a daily basis "are you sure?" after I tell someone how a policy works or something...after 6 years, yes, I'm pretty sure I have it correct by now...GOD! Oh well, its only temporary now, but its hard not to have short timers attitude there.

Off to bed, its been a long day.

Operation Desert Siege

Saturday night we left to go down to Phoenix to visit Grandma and Grandpa Grimm. We got in at 10:30 pm so we werent able to see much of the surroundings due to darkness, but Crystal and I were in agreement that the temperature being 70 degrees out at that time of night, must be a good thing :)

Sunday we woke up and headed out to pick up the rental car (future rant entry coming on this experience in the next few days) then off to see what the place looks like. We headed out with G&G and went, um...south? then maybe some west? I dont know to be honest, I was all turned around and had quite the time orienting myself, it will be alot easier next time we are in the Grand Canyon state...and yes, we will be back. The area down there is just gorgeous, did the 80°+ temperature help our eyes see things differently? Perhaps.

Cactus, I've been to texas and Nevada before, but never actually seen any of the Giant Cactus which grow down in the Arizona area we were in. Now, sure, everyone has seen these things on T.V. and cartoons and what not, but they are actually pretty cool looking in person. I'm sure anyone who's been living down there, including my dad, would quickly tire of me being in such of these things, but they are pretty damned impressive...for instance, for each arm that the cactus has, its been around for 70 years, thats right, 70. So, first it grows nice and tall, then when its 70, it spits out an arm...then in another 70 years, it spits out another one, we saw one that had 14 arms on it...I'll wait while you start up the calculator, thats 980 years old! I'm sure it was easily over 1000 since none of the arms looked to be small ones, can you think of anything else around you that you can tell how old it is just by looking at it? I cant. For visual reference, heres the type I'm talking about

This one is about 560 years old, impressive, but doesnt hold a flame to 980! Anyway, pretty cool plant, bush, weed, whatever. I dont know who the guy in the picture is, this is just some photo I pulled off the web.

I got to go and spend 2 days working with my dad. Talk about bringing back some memories, right when I graduated from high school I used to install burglar alarms with my dad, I enjoyed working with him then, and now that I'm grown up, it's nice to know I still enjoy working with him, yet again he managed to teach me things...there I thought I knew everything...oh well. The nature of the work is a blast in itself, you go into peoples homes, the one we were in this week was easily in the 800K price range, probably more, gated community, nanny at home to watch the kid, expensive (and most times ugly!!!) furniture everywhere, then you find the ones that the moving company has totally trashed, and you make it look brand new again. I must have been doing an ok job, cause almost right from the get go my dad turned me loose to work on my own, after all, I'm a chip off the old block, I got skillz! :) At one point, I started working on a piece he mentioned had to be done on my own, then later on he came over and said "we still have to do this one", I responded with "I already did it", he started looking in the area he knew a chip was, and wether or not he was just boosting my ego or not, he actually said "where was it?", that felt good. Like I say, he could have been just boosting my ego, and if he was, it worked, but it made me feel good that this would be a profession that I stand the chance to be very good at. I love doing wood work, so this is really right up my alley. All that has to happen now is to get the house sold, and move our butts down there. I think as soon as the plane got close to home and the temperature changed on board the plane, we knew we were ready to go back, having the pilot announce that it was only going to be 52 when we landed, didnt help. I wanted him to just turn the plane around and go back, but apparently my opinion didnt matter much, so we're back. At least he was nice enough to fly over the Grand Canyon on the way north..that was a cool thing to see.

2 Month check up...

Today was Elliots 2 month check up, he's growing like a weed. He's up to 9 lbs 12 oz's now, and 22 1/2 inches long. Along with his normal check up, he had to have his shots today too, the first of many heart breaking days for mom and dad alike.

So far, up until today, Elliot still hasnt ever really "cried". Sure he's made it clear he was hungry before by letting out what we thought were cries...turns out those werent even a hint at the level to which this boys lungs can produce sound. The nurse came in with 5, thats right, 5 needles to stick him with. Remembering back to the days following his birth I know he doesnt like getting stuck with them (who does?) but I also remembered that I dont handle myself so well when someone is causing pain to my son...today was no different. I managed to keep my mouth shut this time and didnt cuss out the nurse, but I sure did want to pound her face in using her own arm freshly ripped from her body. He screamed so loud and so hard I actually felt pain in my own chest. He cried and cried and cried some more, then she stuck him with the 2nd needle. DIE EVIL NURSE, DIE!!!!!! Ok, shes just doing her job and we dont want him to get sick with anything, so its for the best, but still, it was nerve racking to say the least. We got him home and I held him on my chest for a bit and he fell asleep. Then, a couple hours later, he woke up and remembered he had been stabbed, repeatedly, and it hurt, so he let out some more of the blood chilling screams. After he finally calmed down alittle bit, we were able to get some of the tylenol down him and that made him conk out again. Its time to head out for softball practice now, I'm sure on the way he will wake up and start wailing again in the car, that will be fun in rush hour traffic :)

Stay tuned for picutres of the new improved Kitchen, got started on the counters last night along w/ big Mikes help, still lots to be done, but its getting there.

Wheels of progress begin to slowly churn

So, real quick, for those of you who dont know already...we are getting ready to move to Arizona. Ok, ready might not be a good word to use, its still a couple months away at least. Dad's buisness is really taking off and I have the oppurtunity to move down there and run the same kind of (hopefully) sucessful buisness in Tucsan (hes in Phoenix). So anyway, I'm cracking my own whip and getting the house finished up so we can get it on the market.

Theres still lots to be done, but boy have I made some progress this weekend, and theres still a day left for me to get stuff done before I go back to the job.

Our truly awesome friends Steve and Ronda came up and helped out in a BIG way monday night. I had planned on just having them help me out painting the laundry room and then we would have dinner and just hang out. No such luck, these 2 are working animals! We got the first coat of paint up on the walls in about 30 minutes. Then Ronda said, "what else can we do" so Steve and I laid down the wonderboard in the Kitchen so I could do some tile work in there next weekend. Ronda did the 2nd coat of paint in the laundry room and the next thing we knew, it was midnight and Steve and I were finishing the kitchen floor, in the midst of all that, Ronda came along and did the cutting in for the paint in the Kitchen...ANIMALS!!!! Doing that floor easily saved me a day of long hard work on my own, I cant thank them enough (but I wont stop trying either) for the help they gave. On top of that, they offered to come back next Monday and help me lay the living room parque tiles that we are doing. I'm looking forward to that, its going to be some knee busting work, which reminds me, I need to go get some knee pads for Steve to wear. I got off to a late start today, but did manage to get some work done. The pergo is down in the laundry room, so tomorrow it will be putting the toilet back down on the floor, hanging the new bathroom door, putting up trim, and hopefully painting the cabniet doors so they can be put back up later this week too. Sunday big Mike is coming up and helping me do the tiles in the kitchen, hopefully we can knock out the counter and the floor in rather short order, then maybe late monday or tuesday I can grout them and be done with the hard part of the kitchen, after that it will just be a matter of repainting the cabniets and cleaning them up some. After that, off to the bathrooms, then yard work, then we will put this place on the market and hopefully get more than we are asking for and get on down to some nice sunny Arizona weather!!! I'll get some pix posted up as soon as I have a finished room to show off.

Now the web address of this blog is really dumb...

The same people that took shortbus today called back and said they wanted another cat...so they have Lucy now too. We are going to try and keep blackjack, we figure since she was the least evil of the 3, maybe the attention we were trying to split up between the 3 of them will be enough to keep her happy if we focus all of it on her. Personally I'm just looking forward to only having to scoop 1 box, and have it only be full of 1 cats crap..instead of 3. Still though, they will be missed, but its for the best, for everyone involved. Maybe with only 1 cat my allergies wont bother me so much.

And then there were 2...

Cats that is. We've decided we just cant give the cats the same amount of attention they were getting B.E. (before elliot), so, we put them on craigs list the other day and finally got someone to take one. Shortbus is no longer a part of our home, he will be missed, but for now we still have 2 other demon's to get rid of..er, I mean find homes for. We are actually thinking about just getting rid of one more so we'd still have a pet, 1 is much easier to keep track of and entertain than 3 is. If anyone out there knows of anyone that might like a new kitty, send them our way. Lucy is the next one we want to find a home for, we are thinking blackjack is the more laid back one of them all and would fit in the best here w/ the current situation. Was a busy weekend shopping for home improvment items, should start seeing some stuff get done around here next weekend in a big way. Hopefully the weather will cooperate alittle too, that would sure be nice...bet its not this crappy down in Arizona :)

Stupid rain...

Rain sucks. Yes it cleanses the earth, makes things fresh and clean (or dirty if you believe all that acid rain mumbo jumbo), but in the end, it sucks. I went to Home Depot today to get a new laundry room door and window to replace the old pos ones that are in there now and improve on some of the cold air coming into this place. Probably should have done it sooner, like before winter...but oh well. I pull into the driveway here at home and it starts raining...and its supposed to rain the next 2 days of my weekend...well thats just great! Oh well, plenty of stuff to do on the inside still, but that will require another trip to the Home Depot...I'm liking that new credit card already...this could be dangerous! lol.

Sunday afternoon we went to Aunt Jens house. Shes a professional photographer and does some awesome work. She went and took a ton of pictures of Elliot, shes still working on proofing them for us, but emailed me one, so far its my favorite picture of Elliot, its just awesome.



I mean how cute is that kid???? Pretty damned cute! She does awesome work, if your in the area, and you need pix done, this isnt just a plug for my future sister in law, she really does do some good stuff. Ok, enough plugs for her :)

Anyway, the rain sucks...maybe we should move to Arizona where it hardly ever rains :)~

The force is strong with this one....

An untapped resource for sure.

Tuesday afternoon we decided to go to the mall so Crystal could pick up some things, wouldnt you know, the first store we went into upon arrival, Elliot decided he was hungry. So he and I went out into the center of the mall and sat on a bench and I pulled out a bottle for him...then it happened. It was like we had a sign over our heads saying "free money" or something. Women started coming up to us one after another, I tell you I've never seen anything like it! Back in my single days, I wish I knew then what I know now, babies are an untapped resource for picking up chicks! I'm telling you, if you know a single guy, and you have a baby, let him borrow them for a day, thats all it will take.

We are counting down the days til Grandpa and Grandma Grimm come into town to visit, just over a month to go. We have decided to have a BBQ here at home and get as many of the family over as we can, it will be hard to find a place to sit for everyone, but hey, they all have butt's, and we have plenty of floor space, so I'm sure things will work out fine.

Elliot is growing like a weed, I cant wait to take him to the doctor next month and see how much he really has grown, he's still small, but sure can start to see him change. His little fat rolls are starting to actually fill up with some fat, and his face has filled out nicely. Now if he would just start sleeping alittle better, things would really be good! I shouldnt complain to much though, I'm not the one that has to stay up w/ him every 2-3 hours as night when he's hungry.

Life is good...

Sometimes doing the smallest and dumbest of things with Elliot reminds me of this simple statement. At least daily I get affirmation of it, usually more than once a day. Things like seeing him smile, which makes me smile, which is starting to then make him smile even more. Or hearing him let out huge burps after eating, it makes mom and dad laugh, I cant wait til the day it makes him laugh too. So its not proper etiquitte to burp and think its funny...just call me whatever word it is when you dont have proper etiquitte :)

Today while changing a diaper, it just looked wet, so got that one off and wouldnt you know, the little turd tried to attack me with...well...turds. This time I was ready for his attack, SunTzu said "If once you are defeated but live to tell the tale, never fall victim to the same attack again, for you know already how to defeat it", in this particular case, this meant having a changing pad under his butt, one edge of it folded up over my leg, and a wipe on immediate standby to use as a shield from his "blast attack". This time Crystal was on hand to witness it and thought it was hilarious to watch. I have to admit, having lived thru the first one, and not being proud of my response, this time around it really was kinda funny. The poor diaper pad may never be the same...but its served its purpose in life.

Grandma and Grandpa Grimm are coming up from Arizona at the end of April, thankfully they can be here on my days off so I can get to visit w/ them some too. Elliot is looking forward to meeting his other Grandma and Grandpa, I'm glad they are able to take the time out of their busy lives to come up and see him, it means alot to me that they are doing it. Hopefully we can have a big family dinner while they are here and they can meet Crystals mom and dad too, I'd like that alot.

Your always hearing people say "its the little things that matter most in life", and now that I'm a dad, I can honestly stop thinking those people are crazy and didnt know what they are talking about, I'm a firm believer in that now, it really is the little things. Life is GOOD.