Good-Bye B, Hello One Eleven

Posted on August 28, 2007 by Natalie

Hi Everyone. My sincerest apologies for being absent during such a monumentally bloggable period of our lives. When, in the period of one month you are tasked at selling a house, buying a house, installing over 1000 square feet of wood flooring, packing, moving, having ear tubes installed, keeping a 3-year-old from completely freaking out that you are moving all her stuff and making her sleep in a strange place, preparing for school to start, celebrating an anniversary, attending a weekend-long bachelor party, tending to an extremely short-tempered toddler and continuing to go to work every day, it has clear and direct impact on one’s ability to give you timely and relevant updates.

So yes, we have been in our new house for just over a week now. It is great and beautiful, and needs lots of work. But it is home, and we are all excited to be here. The list of projects is so numerous and sundry that we do list triage everyday – reshuffling item priority based on the previous day’s activities. Example: “Install spring loaded hinges on the two gates” was moved to the top of the list above “Install doorknob and deadbolt into empty holes in backdoor” right about the time that Porter was found wandering in the street…for the second time. Our garage is a warren of boxes and plastic tote bins filled with items we have no hope of ever putting away without a substantial increase in kitchen cabinets. Cabinets, that if the estimate we just got back for the dining room is any indication, we will never in a lifetime be able to afford.

Secondly, today we officially closed escrow on the B Street house. Knowing that this moment was upon us, we headed over yesterday as a last opportunity to take it all in; one final time. I shot tons of pictures, and we each wandered around and soaked up the memories of the life we all lived there. Porter loitered around the berry bush looking for that one last score, Steve walked quietly from room to room, Stella sang songs at the top of her lungs in the empty garage while listening to the echo of her voice, and I took a long hard look at the beauty and splendor of that lovely kitchen. Although I don’t think I could ever adequately convey the overwhelming emotional impact, I can say this: at one point each of us cried. And the overwhelming realization settled in as we all walked away, that it would be the last time we would ever see that house as our own.

It is a little late, but I want to extend a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated their time and physical well being to helping us over the last month: Brian & Andrea, for helping lay floor and negotiate the logistics of the heaviest set of french doors that were ever manufactured as well as the afternoon shift on move day; Dore, for the kid wrangling, heavy lifting and advice on where the bed should go (you win, it’s under the window); Anthony, for the last minute donation of a table saw when Steve’s died halfway through the flooring exercise; but most of all, thank you to Bill and Judy, for continuing to be our benefactors, for dropping everything and driving up to help us pack, move, renovate, wrassle the childrens and even manage to coordinate it so that the two of us could go out in the middle of all this madness and have a nice dinner to celebrate our 7 year anniversary. And, especially for pushing themselves to the brink of complete physical exhaustion. We never could have done any of this without you. Thanks again, to them and everyone.

(click the photo to take one last look…)

Was there even life before technology?

Posted on July 26, 2007 by Natalie

Most people? Yeah, when they decide to sell their current house and buy a new one, they might not choose to go on vacation the very next day. Apparently, we are not most people. Instead, the moment both of the counter-offers were accepted and signed – before the ink was even dry – we were headed south on 101. Not to return for another 11 days. That’s how we do it.

Thusly, we have not ever been too far from a computer, and I have actually managed to keep my cell phone not only charged, but within earshot. Thank the heavens for technology. And lots of it. At the rate we are going, we could feasibly close escrow on our new house before we even got home (even though we have chosen not to). Meanwhile, we have been droning on and on (and on) to anyone who will listen about remodeling and landscaping and miscellaneous repairs. Everyone has had to listen us endlessly discuss the finer details of flooring, windows and the differences between a cess pool and a septic system (we were originally told it was the first, but it turns out to actually be the latter). Yes, everyone, we are the kind of people that, if you see us coming, you should probably run. Run quickly.

Aside from the house ramblings, we are actually doing a bit of vacationing. And by vacationing, I mean leaving our children with whomever will take them so we can do luxurious things like shop, sleep in and ignore their whiny tantrums. Stella is wowing all of us with her aquatic skills (she is practically swimming!), and Porter is showing everyone how his adorable cuteness is only matched by his insanely short temper. And tenacity. And ability to bend metal objects with sheer will alone. But you know, all in a really cute way.

When he is not busy attending to whatever the heck he damn well pleases, he is dragging people around by their index finger. Get me this. Get me that. You can see the look of exasperation in his eyes when you just aren’t getting what Uhn, Ma Gaaaaaa! means. Come on people, get with the program, here!

You’ll notice I haven’t made even one whiny complaint about oppressive heat yet. Mostly, it is because there has been some crazy system following us at each stop that changes the aforementioned oppressive heat from hot to humid, which somehow makes it mildly more tolerable. Not to say we haven’t taken every available opportunity to float in the pool like hippos. Because we have. A lot.

Although we are rounding out our trip, and will be home in the next few days, we have continued to get inquisitive calls and emails in regards to our current housing situation. I thought I’d check in and let you all know how things were going. All inspections are completed (on both houses) and it is looking more and more like this is gonna happen. (Although, I still feel a little awkward saying as much.) If things continue on at their current pace it won’t be much longer until you’ll begin to see a lot of photos of a certain yellow house.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Walston, Sr. (from Mrs. Walston, Jr.)

Posted on April 24, 2007 by Natalie

Sick and Tired of Sick and Tired

Posted on February 26, 2007 by Natalie

Let’s recap, shall we?

My mother arrived a week ago, Thursday. By Sunday, Porter began throwing up more than usual. Monday, he threw up in the middle of the night. Although no other symptoms existed, we began to suspect the flu. Tuesday, we kept him out of daycare. Wednesday morning, Steve began asking me if I thought the house felt cold. Wednesday afternoon, Steve’s parents arrived, Steve puked, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening under 600 blankets. Wednesday night, Stella slept at the trailer with her Grammy and Gramps, and threw up in the middle of the night. By Thursday, everyone seemed to be feeling a bit better. Porter was still throwing up with some regularity, and added diarrhea to his list of tricks. We all of a sudden realized that we needed to go to Costco to pick up more laundry detergent because we had been doing a minimum of 3 loads of laundry every day for 6 days. On Saturday, Steve’s dad spent the better part of the day holding court in the bathroom and on the couch. After being urgently booted from the bathroom by Stella – the girl with ZERO understanding that anyone else’s needs might outweigh her own- he opted to move himself to the trailer to convalesce. We were reminded, for the gazillionth time, that we need a second bathroom.

Although our house is wall-to-wall wood floors, Porter somehow managed to throw up three separate times on the thick shag area rug in the living room. The carpet cleaners come tomorrow at 1:00. After receiving yet another donation from Porter this morning, I attempted to wash our puke covered, king-size down comforter in the washing machine this afternoon. A tip for anyone who might try this in the future: when you have to brace yourself on the cabinets and use your foot to shove the entirety of the item into the machine, it is a good indicator that you may have exceeded capacity. It is currently sitting by the back door in an over-sized contractor bag along with about 10 gallons of water. Stella will be making her first official trip to a laundromat this evening.

Today, as I changed Porter’s outfit for the umpteenth time, and realized that although he has thrown up either in or on his shoes about 6 times, there is no point in buying him a new pair until I am relatively certain he won’t be filling the new ones with regurgitated bananas. And due to the mounting feeling that if I have to clean up puke one more time I am going to lose it, I made myself list the ways that it all could be worse. Remarkably, even with all that Porter has been going through over the last week, he has a.) not had a fever, b.) kept enough fluids in his system to not dehydrate, and c.) been in a remarkably good mood. Oh, and d.) I have set a new speed record in changing a crib sheet, in the dark, while not waking the sibling sleeping 5 feet away. Need I go on?

I guess that probably gets you up to speed on the gist of things, and also lends some explanation to my absence of late. More than anything, though, I’m just hoping that when the realtor comes over on Friday to help us set a list-price on our house, that the overwhelmingly foul smell of bodily fluids will have subsided.

Winter Wonderland

Posted on January 10, 2007 by Natalie

The trip to the cabin went something like this: Stella, this is snow. Snow, this is Stella. I am sure you will both be fast friends.

I have always remarked that I think Stella was born with an impaired fear instinct. As in, she seems to fear nothing but the vacuum cleaner, the hand-vac and the hairdryer. Snarling dog? Doesn’t phase her. Careening down a hill on a toboggan? Bring it. She even went so far as to get mad when the afternoon snow got too slushy to provide adequate speed. I fear she is going to head into her adult life with a dirty house, bad hair style and as a career contestant on Fear Factor.

Building a snowman was a fleeting pass-time until she could once again go out front and scale the snow-mountain that had been created at the end of the snow-plow route. She scoffed at the steps that were loviningly carved into it by her doting Gramps, and opted to scale the opposite side like an arctic mountain goat.

And don’t even get me started on the pleasure she took in getting free reign to throw snow at anyone who would come within 10 feet of her.

As an added benefit, Stella’s need to leave no snowflake unturned provided Porter with ample opportunity to indulge in his favorite pass-time: watching his sister.

As for photos, yes there were many, but here are some of my favorites…