You know, its not every day that a girl has her 29th birthday.  In fact, you could say it happens once in a blue moon!

 

da-dum ching! 

 

 

Our first house is sold.  The new owners have moved in.  It wasn't the big wrenching emotional thing that I thought it would be.  Shawn and I stood together, hugging, at 2:30am the night before the closing, the house empty and cleaner than it had ever been in it's entire existance.  We said goodbye to the house but it didn't feel like our house anymore.  Everything that made it ours had already been relocated.

 

The apartment we are staying in is very nice and will work very well as our temporary home.  We are not entirely settled in yet, I really did take almost a full day to sit on my butt and do nothing!  We should be settled by this weekend, I imagine.

 

During my absence, my mom had a birthday.  Happy Birthday, Mom!

 

My birthday is this Saturday.  Chocolates and flowers are fine.  Email me if you need my new address.  LOL

 

OK I had better go for now.  Wes wants to be potty trained very badly, but doesn't have the patience to sit on the potty and wait for things to happen.  He keeps taking his pants off and running around in the buff.  I will be very DISPLEASED if he pees on the apartment carpet.  I can't wait for the dryer to finish up so that I can put his one pair of overalls on him.  Well, to be honest, he has two pair of overalls, but one has snaps at the crotch and it voids the purpose.  Wes knows to unsnap them and take his diaper or training pants off.  Lord help me.  How on earth am I supposed to teach a BOY how to go to the bathroom.  ACK!!!!

 

OK I will try to write more later and catch up with everyone.  For now it is off to chase down my naked toddler.  HURRAH!

Here is a picture of the calla lily I planted in honor of Lauren's wedding last summer.  If you haven't been reading that long, Lauren is my best friend and she got married last summer.  It is the only wedding I was ever in and she was gracious enough to ask me to be matron of honor.  It was pretty much the most exciting thing that happened to me last summer and since she had calla lilies in her wedding, I planted one to remind me.  Now that we are moving, I am sad to leave it behind, so I took a picture of it today so that I would always remember it.

Check out Coco in her YouTube debut!

 

I don't know how I've done it, but I've given everyone the mistaken impression that I am organized and that I have the logistics of our move firmly in hand.

 

Couldn't be further from the truth.

 

I'm a mess.  The kitchen and the computer room (the two rooms that we are living out of right now) are also a big fat mess.

 

Shawn accused me of throwing out "stress lightening bolts" all over the house.  We aren't getting along in perfect harmony right now.

 

The kids both have colds (couging and runny noses) and we have an "air stagnation" warning, where they recommend that small children stay inside because the air is not safe.  The kids are bored and fidgety and can definitely sense the stress that Shawn and I are feeling right now.

 

I keep looking at pictures of the new house and promising myself that it will be worth it.  It will all work out in the end.  It has to, there is no other option!  I wish I was as organized as people think, then maybe I wouldn't be causing so much grief for my self and my family.

HOLY CRAP!

 

We are moving into our temporary apartment this Friday.  As in... 4 days from now!

 

We close on this house (complete paperwork to sell to new owners) next Monday.  As in... 7 days from now!  Actually, exactly a week from now, down to the time of day I am writing this.  Weird.

 

I am trying to remain calm and collected.  This is almost impossible for someone as high-strung as I am.  I feel like I have had caffiene injected directly to my blood stream.  I can't chill out.  I can't relax.  All I can do is write out to do lists, cross stuff off, re-write the to do list, re-prioritize it, make sub to do lists for various to do list items, etc etc.  The amount of notebook paper and post it notes I am going through right now is staggering.  Oh and pens too.  I am actually wearing pens out with all the scribbling I am doing.

 

At least I think we are on track.  This move has been planned down to the last detail, so hopefully it will go fairly smooth.  Knock on wood.

 

Now if I could only stop myself from having bad dreams about how everything goes wrong! 

 

ACK?!?!?!  Why did I ever want to move?!?!?!?

 

I am TOTALLY re-reading all of these entries if I ever get the idea that I want to move again.  LOL

 

HUGS!  -Jen

 

Hi there!  I hope you read this.  I need to sign up for a google/blogger account before I can leave comments, I'll get around to it soon, I promise!

 

It is going to be an adjustment to think of you as KJ instead of Spoile, but a rose by anyother name... is still one of the nicest bloggers I have known!

 

It made my day to get a comment from you, to find out that you are alive and well and going to get back into blogging!  :D

 

HUGS, -Jen

You know who you are... HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 

Surpise, here are your presents! This year you are getitng a lovely I.O.U. with a few lame jokes thrown in:

 

You're momma's so poor all you got for your birthday was a year older!

 

I wanted to get you something with diamonds.  I hope you enjoy this pack of playing cards!

 

And last, but certaintly not least - a Two-For-One Special combining the best of your birthday AND flag day:

Did you hear about the flag's birthday?

It was a flappy one!

da-dum ching!

 

I love you!

-Jen

This is a post that has been rumbling around in my head for a while now. 

 

Have you ever felt like you were being pushed along in a certain direction?  If so, did you resist and try to talk yourself into maintaining the status quo or did you let go and trust that you would end up where you were supposed to be?

 

Two days after last Christmas, Shawn and I let go.  Letting go involved signing a contract to build a new house, along with signing over most of our readily available cash for a down payment.  Being the worry wart control freak that I am I tried real hard to talk myself into staying put, staying safe.  We had a perfectly good house in a perfectly good neighborhood.  Sure, Shawn's commute wasn't the best part of our days, but we had friends and it felt like our roots were starting to grow.  It made sense to stay put, we bought into an area that is absolutely booming, back before it really took off.  Property values will likely continue to rise no matter what other areas of the country are doing in the next couple of years.  Why sell now when we are most likely not close to the peak? 

 

On the other hand, I had a deep and hard to ignore sense that God wanted us to make this change.  I can't explain why I felt compelled to look at houses (except, perhaps because Shawn was on a business trip and I was bored).  What made me look at the builder we choose?  There were several signs that fate was involved early on.  The floorplan that we loved had just been introduced in the neighborhood (really, we were the first people to choose it).  Then, a week or so after we looked at it, looked around elsewhere and had pretty much concluded that now was not the time and it was best to hold tight... the builder lowered the base price of the house considerably.  It was like someone was knocking on my head, telling me to get moving... what was I waiting for?  Shawn and I talked for what seemed like days and finally decided to go for it.  The fact that I felt so strongly that God was guiding us in this direction featured heavily in our decision.

 

Things were all good for a month or two.  No buyers remorse and I had the fun of making my project plan for getting this house ready to sell.  There isn't much out there as exciting for me as getting to make a project plan and then making that plan happen.  (And yes, I know that this alone qualifies me as a total dork.)

 

Then we hit "The Snag".  That low point where I realized that they poured the front porch 2 feet 4 inches more shallow than the porch at the model.  Then we went and saw all those framing mistakes (which were readily corrected).  We got the run around on the porch for a good three weeks before we were told that the porch was "to plan" (which was just different from the other community because of zoning regulations) and we were told how impossible it was to go back and make our porch bigger.  I was so dissappointed.  I wondered if this was a sign telling me that my first instincts were wrong, that I made a huge mistake.  Then the builder met us halfway on another feature that we were originally told we couldn't have.  After it was all said and done I felt like I knew what it was to have my faith tested.  (Yes, kind of over dramatic considering we are just talking about a house, but if you don't know by now that I am over dramatic then you don't read my blog much!). 

 

Next came the full on panic that was putting this house on the market.  I can't bear for people to think that I am anything less than perfect.  Strangers especially.  I can't help it that I view my house as an extension of myself.  And strangers were going to be walking through it, judging it, judging me.  The effort it took to maintain the house as "perfect" every hour of the day for the time it was on the market was an oppressive strain on me.  And my poor family.  They never asked for a neurotic stressed out perfectionist.  The kids especially were wondering where their fun playful mommy who paid attention to them went.  It wasn't a pretty time and I am thankful in retrospect that it was a very short time.

 

Now, our house is under contract.  Our buyers are moving from out of state and we are still waiting for them to close on their current home.  Things are seem to be going very smoothly for them and I wonder if they feel like this is all fate as well.

 

Colleen is going to be four years old on July 15th.  About 3 weeks ago I started looking into preschools.  I found several possibilities, but I was getting discouraged by how far away they were from our new house or how expensive they were (one was $12,000 a year!).  Then... I found it.  A program run from a Presbyterian church.  Close to our new house, affordable, and the pictures on the web site were adorable.  I started feeling it again... the sense that God was pushing me along.  I made an appointment to visit the preschool, and it was lucky I called when I did.  There were only two positions left for Colleen's age group for the following year, and those only because a family moved.  I called 3 days before the school closed for summer break, if I would have waited I would have missed the opportunity.  And I'll tell you what, the director couldn't have been nicer.  She invited the whole family to visit and while we talked about the preschool, Colleen actually sat in with the other children.  She loved it!  She loved her new friends!  We talked in the 2 year old room and Wesley played quietly with the cars while I concentrated on what the director was telling me about the school and staff.  I felt an immediate connection with the teachers and church personnel that I spoke with.  I felt safe, comfortable, and like I found a place where I could be myself and fit in.  I've been back twice, and Shawn has gone once.  He likes it there too.  The last time I went it was to drop off enrollment paperwork and I got to talking with a lady from the church.  She invited us to Vacation Bible School and you know what, I think I am going to take her up on it!

 

Shawn had the day off work yesterday and we were going to spend the afternoon looking at apartment complexes and choosing a place to live in between selling this house and waiting for the new house to be completed.  Turns out that no one wants to rent an apartment to us for just one month, the minimum lease we found was 3 months.  The apartment complex that we had planned on moving to from the start gave us the phone number for a company that does corporate apartments.  He did not have any available in the complex that we had in mind, but he had a two bedroom furnished model in another community that is closer to our new house.  If this wasn't God making things easy for us, I don't know what is!  The apartment includes all utilities (even premium cable, Shawn is going to be so spoiled!), furniture, allows our two cats, and is cheaper than a teensy weensy studio w/ mini kitchen at the extended stay hotel I was looking at!  The apartment community has a swimming pool, playground, tennis courts, fitness room, club house, lots of fun things to do for the kids while we are there.  I can't describe the relief Shawn and I felt after we had it reserved.  Just knowing we have a nice place to go for the inbetween time is a huge weight off of our shoulders.

 

I could actually go on and on with more examples, like the time we were going to look at the new house and ran out of gas right infront of the gas station we were heading to.  I was able to coast right in and up to a pump.  It was unreal.  Shawn and I were looking at eachother in amazement.  It felt like a giant hand guided us right to the pump.  And no, I am NOT letting the tank get that low again!  There was also the mortgage company, who threw in a special offer for us, and it turns out we used to work with the husband of our loan processor!  Shopping for homeonwer's insurance was another sign.  The agent we decided to go with is very nice and got us great prices on the insurance we wanted.  I feel good about who we choose.  I hope we don't ever have to use it, but I feel good about it nonetheless.  I also have found someone who can do the "structural" changes we want after we move into the house (all drywall stuff, adding built ins, things like that).  He is Coco's best friend's uncle.  How about that?!?!

 

This whole process has gone so smoothly for us.  I've been a nervous wreck regardless, which leaves me feeling like I am being ungrateful for how well it has gone.  I am actually very thankful for it, I just can't seem to turn the angst off.  I can already tell that I am not going to remember all my bad feelings once it is all said and done.  I have already caught myself telling someone that it wasn't bad at all! 

 

I've likened our experiences to a pregnancy, ideal because it is going to end up taking about 9 months from the start of our journey until we are settled in, and also because a new house was created during the process.  Funny thing is, according to family lore, pregnancy took a lot out of me.  I was tired, grumpy, uncomfortable, and just couldn't wait for it to be over.  And yet, when I think back, pregnancy was a breeze for me.  I was happy and excited and full of plans for the future.

 

So, Thank You God.  For pointing us in the right direction and making it so easy for us to follow the plan.  We couldn't have done it without You.

Our home was inspected this morning.  This is another check mark on the list of things that a buyer does before closing the sale of the property.  Although we don't get a copy of the inspection (just like the appraisal!) the buyer's agent will submit a list of requested repairs to our agent within a week, then we negotiate the repairs (either we will do them, or offer money off the price of the home for them to do the repairs once they take possession). 

 

My stomach was in knots prior to the inspection, and I am still not 100% calm even though it is over now.  The inspector told me that all of the major systems are fine (we knew that!) and that he only found a few minor things.  He said that it was one of the nicest "built in 1999" homes he has inspected.  Naturally, I would have preferred for him not to have been able to find a single thing wrong with the home, but I knew that was not the case.  There were a few little things here and there that needed some TLC and I was OK with it before - just one of my inconsistencies that now that it is all said and done, I have a problem with not being perfect!

 

Well, Shawn just got back, he brought me a slushie.  I'm going to go hug him and drink my slushie!  HUGS!

Today my sister, Becky, turns 27.

 

Happy Birthday, OLD LADY!!!

 

Love you!

First:

We had someone come to take a look at the house today.  We are still showing it just in case the offer we currently have falls through.  We don't feel like it will, but just in case...  Anyways, the first time the people show up I had the yard sign out of the grass, propped against my car so that it wouldn't be in my way as I was cutting the grass.  They were a good hour and fifteen minutes early for the appointment!  I said it was no big deal and that they could come on it, but they decided to go look at another house first instead.  I finished up the front yard, made sure that the inside was in "showing condition" and set out snacks and drinks for them.  They were pulling up again just as I was leaving.  Good timing! 

 

Now here I feel compelled to say #1 In the MLS in our showing instructions it specifically mentions our cats and not to let them out #2 Our cats were sitting in the front windows plain as day and I was still here when they arrived back to look at the house.  So then I go on my merry way to run errands.  When I get back there is a handwritten note thanking me for the refreshments along with the statement "Very nice house, very clean!!!"  Clean is underlined TWICE, there were several exclaimation points!  So imagine my surprise when I logged in to check the feedback from the appointment and read this:

 

What?!?!  Excuse me?  If she had a problem with the cats, why didn't she #1 ask for me to confine them when she made the appointment to see the house or #2 ask me to confine them when we said hello to eachother in front of the window they were sitting in before they went into the house?  Both of my cats are aloof towards strangers, unless friendly gestures are made to them.  Even then Tiger usually will not approach people he does not know.  Shadow has been known to rub against people's legs.  He even tries to look up Janice's skirts and nibble on her toes.  He especially loves Janice. 

 

HOWEVER, I know my cats.  They are not like little yapper dogs that might try to bite your ankles and yip, following you as you walk from room to room.  I can't imagine how on earth their presence was distracting for someone looking to buy a home.  All I can do is shake my head and wonder how difficult it is going to be for the client to find their new home when they let immaterial things affect their decision making process.  If you like the house, the yard and the kitchen, why would you pass it up because of two animals that would be removed prior to taking possession of it?  Boggles my mind.

 

The part that is still tripping me out is the handwritten note.  Re-reading it in the context of the feedback comment, I can't help but wonder if they were impressed that the house could be clean with two horrible nasty cats on the loose!  Oh well.  I get defensive about my cats, I suppose!

 

 

 

 

When Shawn is out of town I find myself thinking of him so much more than when he is just down at the office working.

 

I think about how cute he is, how much I miss him, the sound of his voice.  I save his voicemails so that I can replay them and hear his voice.  (Although, really I shouldn't because this is one of my OCD rituals.  I know it is not logical, but I save his voicemails from when he is out of town so that he doesn't die before he comes home.  Added bonus, if he were to die, I would at least have messages that I could listen to and hear his voice whenever I wanted to.  Yes, I know this is bonkers, but knowing it doesn't stop me from doing it.)

 

One thing that I like to think about while he is away is all of the inside jokes that we share.  Things like:

Let's go for it's brain!

Holding up gym class

You bum-bum, I kill you!

Ice cream

The Prizm salute

Purple kool-ade

I wanna buy a year book

Jolt Cola

Leechwoman

Burro

Snarf

Wondertwins...Unite!

(Shawn, you know what this stands for) TSSAJC

 

Tonight Shawn and I were talking and he was telling me the story of how one of his coworkers met his wife.  It was a neat story and I remarked that I wished that he and I had a "story".  The truth is, the beginning of our romantic relationship and even our engagement were very understated, low key events.  They were just natural progressions in a relationship that started back when we were just kids.  As Shawn pointed out to me, therein lies our story.  We met in elementry school.  We had similar interests.  We knew of eachother because of our involvement in band and student council and science club.  We became close friends when I was in the 10th grade, cemented by my choosing "him" over our mutual friend when they broke up (we all went back to being one big happy family a few weeks later, it was high school and stuff blew over quickly back then!).  I know him better than anyone else in the world.  He is the only person in the world that I share my entire self with.  I am very aware of how I present myself to others, even my own family.  I am too concerned with appearing upbeat and cheerful and together with others.  I let it all hang out with Shawn.  I trust him.  I feel safe with him.  He's my best friend in the whole world.  He is the only person that I am willing to fight with.  To confront with issues and have it out until everything is resolved.  With pretty much everyone else I will do what ever I have to do avoid confrontation or discord.  Shawn may not be sure that this is a good thing!  LOL  He accepts all my quirks and inconsistencies (even though he can't stand how hypocritical I can be). 

 

I miss him very much.  I can't wait till it is time to go pick him up from the airport on Friday.

 

Earlier today I read about a recent high school graduate that appeared to have been kidnapped from a Target parking lot in Kansas.  Every parent's worst nightmare.  Something about this case really struck me.  I can't say for sure why, it was just some kind of feeling when I was reading about it.  I just read an update saying that a body has been found in the area they were searching and while there is no positive ID yet, it is likely the body of the missing girl. 

 

Why?

 

I just don't get it.  How do things like this happen?  What makes someone abduct and murder another person?  Now she was on the brink of adulthood, but in my mind she was still a child.  How can human beings kill children?

 

Shouldn't it be against every survival mechanism in our DNA? 

 

Presumably, the people that do kidnap and kill children belong to a family of some sort.  How can they do what they do knowing how much pain it is going to cause to their victim's loved ones?  Knowing that they are unfairly cutting off someone's time on this earth?  Do they honestly think that they will not eventually have to answer for their actions?

 

I feel so helpless in all of this.  The disaster recovery planner in me wants to make a plan RIGHT NOW for what to do if one of my children ever goes missing.  Aside from always having a current photograph of them, I just don't think I could plan for anything else.  No amount of planning is going to change their odds of being taken or killed.  All I can do is be as viligant as possible with them.  Teach them Stranger Danger.  Teach them how to fight back.  Pray to God that nothing ever happens to them.  Keep my head if, heaven forbid, something would ever happen.

 

WHY do these things happen?

 

I think if God were to ever answer a question for me I believe I would ask "Why do humans have the capacity to cause such pain in others?"  If he would be generous enough to answer two questions, I might also ask him what we can do to change or prevent people from doing these terrible senseless things. 

 

 

It's not quite midnight and I still feel far from sleep.  I can't think of anything else to do on the computer, I already read the book my neighbor loaned me and I can't re-read it because I already gave it back to her.

 

I am lonely for Shawn.  He's only been gone since yesterday morning and I have talked to him several times today.  It is hard to believe that we used to see eachother only on weekends (we both had to travel heavily for our previous employer).  He rarely has to travel now and I am spoiled. 

 

Colleen is actually sleeping in my bed with me so that I have a snuggle bunny while he is away.  I can't seem to fall asleep by myself anymore.

 

I dropped off Colleen's preschool registration forms today and talked with one of the ladies who is very active with the church.  I can't recall her exact title, something along the lines of Education Ministry.  Her name is Nancy and I like her quite a bit already.  I feel comfortable and safe there, which is a big deal coming from me.  I plan on becoming involved with the church once we move down that way.  That is also a big deal, coming from me.

 

Things are slowly but surely moving along on our new house.  They still haven't put the brick up yet, but the scaffolding is erected.  The garage doors are also installed.  The cabinet issue has put us behind a bit, but Bob-The-Builder (tee-hee!) is doing as much as he can while we are waiting for the cabinets to arrive so that we don't loose the two weeks completely.  In case I haven't mentioned it before, our design consultant sold us maple cabinets with a cranberry finish and a chocolate glaze (so that they would look like the much more expensive cherry wood cabinets).  Turns out, the manufacturer of the maple cabinets doesn't make the cranberry finish with the chocolate glaze, so they gave us the cherry cabinets instead.  This involved a fair amount of paperwork and all kinds of signitures from all kinds of people, so we are behind while waiting for the cabinets to arrive.  In the meanwhile, they are going to install the interior door hardware, the closet organizers, bathroom accessories (towel bars, toilet paper holders, etc).  They can't install the bamboo flooring or the carpet until the cabinets are in (not 100% sure why, but I think it has to do with not getting them messed up by the installers).  Even with the delay, we should be in the new house before the third week of July.

 

Our current house is being inspected next Monday, and we are scheduled to close on it on June 26th.  I am happy to have a firm date to work towards, but at the same time, it is sad to know that our time here is nearly at an end.  It feels like the end of an era and leaving will be bittersweet. 

 

Our summer book club is officially kicked off now, our first book is Water For Elephants.  It sounds like a downer of a book and I am not looking forward to reading it.  I prefer to read stories where everything turns out OK in the end.  Happy endings.  Characters that aren't too depressed or unhappy or messed up.  Upbeat people with optimistic outlooks on life.  When I read depressing books (Danielle Steele!) I get depressed.  I mope around and cry and loose my temper easily.  A depressing book can put me in a funk for days, weeks even (Kite Runner!).  Yeah, I know that life is not always sunshine and roses, but I prefer not to seek out things that I know will put me in a negative frame of mind.  Is it bad book club etiquette to skip the books you don't want to read and only participate when the book up for discussion is of the lighthearted, good natured variety?

 

OK I'm off for now.  I am going to get some sleep.  Tomorrow I have a big day ahead of me.  I am going to clean out the car (again!) and shampoo the uphostery.  I got some seat protectors from Babies R Us tonight and I am going to put them down to keep the car from getting any worse.  I have fond hopes of one day trading the car in for something I am not embarrassed to drive and I imagine they will want to pay more for it if it actually appears reasonably clean.  :)  After the big car clean up, I have to finish painting the living room ceiling (horrible that it is still undone, I am such a procrastinator!)  Depending on how I feel after those two accomplishments, I may or may not mow the front lawn and vacuum the carpet.  The carpet is the worst, it is new and it gives off this terrible fuzz that clogs up the vacuum cleaner in seconds flat.  I hate it!  I hope our new carpet doesn't fuzz up so much.  Cross your fingers!

 

Love, Jen

We are finally getting some much needed rain, thank goodness!

 

We had to get up very early this morning to take Shawn to the airport, he is on his way to a conference.  I wish I could have gone with him, there are certain activities planned that sound like a lot of fun.  Plus Shawn is giving a talk and I would love to be a fly on the wall to watch him.  He is nervous, but I know he is going to do great.

 

I stopped by the house after the airport to see if they started putting the brick up.  They hadn't.  They also left both doors wide open (the house is supposed to be locked up when people aren't working in it now) and someone left a window wide open.  GRRR.  I went in and closed the window (there didn't seem to be any water damage, but the window sill was wet).  I checked each of the rooms, the only progress that was made since our visit Friday was that the master bathroom tile has been grouted.

 

I'll probably be going back down on Wednesday, hopefully they will have the brick finished by then.

 

Sniff... sniff... I miss Shawn!

 

HUGS, Jen