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!