Regression

It's definitely true that life is slower on the lake. We putz around more and rush around less. I've slowed down my running schedule out of necessity, with sick kids and paperwork and visitors to focus on in the evenings instead of getting in shape for the half marathon. Trevor's getting home later and later at night -- when the sun goes down, he heads home.

It's odd though, even with our general slowing down, that the girls have backtracked. Marta, my champion sleeper, is needing lots of attention as she falls asleep each night. Covering, telling me "one more thing," another drink, a rock in the chair. When she wakes during the night she has a harder time going back to sleep on her own. I haven't pushed her to cry it out -- I have a hard time doing this at any point in our lives, but I feel that she's especially sensitive since moving in with Trevor's parents. She asks a couple times a day to move back to our Cedar Creek house or the Lake House. It isn't that she's not happy to be here -- she loves waking up to grandparents and a full, lively house. I think she really gets that it's not our place, and she just can't settle. She's also constantly asking me to feed her, when the moment she could feed herself at age... one? 18 months? she refused help forever. Nowadays she melts if I don't give her help, with sandwiches, bananas, full meals, even ice cream.

Berit has wanted to move back to the Cedar Creek house since we left. It's hard to move from house to house, even if the houses are great ones. She always seems to enjoy being at her grandparents' house, but she's started asking for help in the bathroom. We've always helped with the tougher stuff in there, but now she wants help with the easy stuff, too -- or just someone to chat with, or to hand her the soap when she washes her hands. I wonder if she's actually regressing in some way, just getting used to so many people being available to her, or is trying to get my attention, as I'm often chasing after Marta and someone else gets to Berit before I can.

These are all little things, I know, and I'm not worried about them. But I am looking forward to watching how the girls change again after our next move -- into their own home this time.

Findings From Division Street

In the basement:
There's a square about the same size as the kitchen above it -- roughly 10x10 -- made from two outside walls and two 6-foot walls of stone and concrete. It was used as a cistern, with several pipes coming in from the eaves of the house, and a water level line all around, so we know it was well-used.

Confirmation from a woman who worked for the family that:
There was an elevator
The owner enjoyed pound cake (helpful)
The lady of the house died there

The ramp out front, a few doors down, was part of a rail system to take luggage from the trains at the station up the hills to the homes.

Behind a shelf in the master bedroom closet:
Flat cardboard butter packaging, with "Margaret Christopher, New York" written in cursive on the blank side
Petoskey State Bank deposit slips
A bridge score card, with an advertisement for "premium drinking water" in cans that look like beer on it.

The house used to be very dark greenish-brown.

New news:
Windows were delivered today.
The great color debate rages on.

History

Trevor's cousin Chris has been at our house all week, helping Trevor do the dirty work on the Division Street home. Trevor's been so glad to spend the time with his buddy, and I've been so pleased to spend our evenings with Chris, who is genuinely interested in the house. They've found some treasures so far, and Chris even snapped a few pics for us while he was there today.

The entire attic was filled with the oddest assortment of ancient belongings: Beds, teensy, tiny dressers (for grown-ups), metal high chairs, fencing swords, steamer trunks filled with hundred-year-old clothes and shoes. The furniture drawers contain letters, photos and pages from books, and the family name is plated on the back of the dressers, cabinets and vanities. In the basement they found boxes and boxes of French and Chinese china, beer steins, curb feelers for white-walled car tires from the 1950s, antique glass bottles (like, ketchup bottles), and what seemed to be an original Pat the Bunny book. There's even a toilet in the basement, cemented into the floor with a detached tank that hangs on the wall. The inside of the porcelain bowl is painted and carved in intricate detail.

Per our agreement with the seller, all of the belongings need to go into storage so she can look through them and decide what to do with it all. Oh, I wish I could be with her when she discovers each piece and remembers its history.

I may have mentioned before about the little faux panel in the entryway, which looks as if it's part of the woodwork but actually pushes back to reveal a box-like space that'd be perfect for hiding a small child. The guys learned that there used to be one of those elevator chairs up the back staircase, and today Chris pulled away the plastic lining the kitchen walls and revealed a strange rectangular window (see photo) in the wall. It's against the current powder room, which used to be the coat closet. So why the window? Any votes on what it was? We'll be taking that part of the wall out entirely so we'll get a peek into what's above and below it. 

On the roof they found the original shingles, which were red with flecks of blue in a very classic Colonial scheme. They found wood under the kitchen floor and today Chris uncovered part of the upstairs bathroom linoleum and found layers of wood on top of tile that was backed with what looked like tightly woven threads -- like burlap, he said. 

There's the marble sink in one bedroom that is very old -- the seller said she used to watch her grandfather shave there, and it's of the two-fauceted variety, so you have to fill the basin with hot and cold water to make warm. We can't figure out why it'd be in a bedroom upstairs, and the seller didn't know.

Just inside the basement door are two bells -- kind of like old school bells, which have sort of a hammer that clangs against a round bell. Trevor assumed they were old fire alarms, but Chris wondered, after checking out the wires connected to them, if they weren't bells to call the maid. There's also an old laundry chute just outside of the maid's bedroom upstairs that's been boarded and dry-walled over. 

It doesn't seem that the electricity was put in with the house (though the guys did find a few ancient lightbulbs in the basement), because when Chris was pulling the plastic off the walls in the kitchen he noticed that the electric lines were really choppy and wavy and carved into the plaster. The tiles on the front of the fireplace are, according to the guys, several inches thick. They think there used to be another two-way swinging door from the kitchen into the butler's pantry (there is currently one from the butler's pantry to the dining room), and the existing door has a neat foot plate for hands-free opening. 

Four days of treasure hunting. 

So... what's with the window to the back of the closet? Anyone?

Status: BUZZ

We've had a really, really busy week. Who hasn't? In all of this sunshine, I can't believe we found the inside of our house at all.

In addition to the obvious perfection of our everyday life (ahem), we had an exciting trip to Greenville planned, where we saw Gemini, rode the carousel at the mall in GR and visited Trevor's grandparents. During the week, we received our purchase agreement for the new house (we've been waiting at least a month) and a completed home study for the adoption.

I was so heavily in fantasy land after those two major transitions that my brain was on par with, oh, maybe an insect's. Fly here, eat this, care for young, buzz, fly, etc. I made a thoughtless goof with work (forgivable but so completely brainless) and spent the majority of book club spouting at the mouth about various things that may or may not have been insulting to the Marines (of which I am a sincere supporter, duh), may or may not have made my husband out to be a 16-year-old whose only goal in life is to land that sweet trick in snowboarding (which is not necessarily true), and may or may not have had any relevance to life in general, but certainly applied to my adoption of both home and child.

BUT! Week is over. We move on, and into more sunshine and the promise of an early, warm spring. There are no longer shanties on the water-that-used-to-be-ice in front of the house (the last truck has blessedly pulled away as well) and therefore my chances of having a stress-induced heart attack from simply looking out the window have diminished. My focus is coming back through the forced dissection of our finances for both mortgage and taxes, and I've been charged with the task of finding a suitable weekend getaway spot for my sister, brother-in-law, Trev and me.

This next week will also see our farewell to beloved friends who're moving cross country, a serious look at preschools for Berit (and, eventually, Marta) and hopefully a clearer nose and lungs for our littlest girl, who had a bit of a rough weekend full of fevers and phlegm. This weekend will be the first ever meeting of a special kind of book club, one comprised of high school friends who I've reconnected with over a certain social networking site. Break out the Boone's Farm!

Post #879 About Moving

Everything from the old house has been moved into the Lake House or into "storage" (a garage, a spare corner of Trevor's parents' house, etc.). While I was packing up the boxes last week, I opened the top drawer of the armoire we kept in the living room to hold the TV and realized that I hadn't cleaned it out yet, and I was charmed by its contents so much that I pulled a box of books over and sat down to inspect each item.

When Berit was a baby I did a pretty good job of scrapbooking, though I've never been the crafty type. She has two giant, un-closable books detailing every moment of her first 18 months, and thank God because I truly remember about 20 percent of it.

Marta, oh Marta. She technically has a scrapbook, but it only has a few pages inside with my thoughts of her before she was born. When she was about seven months old I started this blog and called it fair. I also make a photo book for them each year on their birthdays, and a family one as well (ahem. I haven't exactly printed a family book, but I am filing photos for it).

The armoire drawer was filled with little scraps of paper that I jotted on before my blog, with "can't forget" moments:

When we drove past the statue of Mary you said, "Hi there, sweetie pie."

You talk so much at 23 months! Here's what you've said today...

Marta ate her first solids today. Didn't like them!

At church you thought the statue of Mary was playing air guitar.

I feel a bit guilty that these won't end up well documented, but I think the girls will enjoy rummaging through their keepsake boxes when they're older, finding little surprise messages from their early childhoods.

Looking at those memories made me realize how happy I am to have this blog, and reminded me to be sure to write in it more often. These days are hectic, with the boxes waiting to be unloaded all over the house and a few new projects I've picked up (that I'm "working on" right now, actually). We're also exploring some exciting new avenues for the business that are just out of our reach, and we're scampering to try to find a way to make them happen. I'm refusing to think we can't do them, simply because we're a small, family-operated business, and yet, how will we do them? It's on my mind constantly.

Poor Marta. She's in her bed bathed in sunlight from these new windows that lack her proper darkening shade (there's no place for a shade to be hung, and as this isn't our house, we're hesitant to rig one), listening to the leaf-blowing and construction happening outside, yet her instructions were to take a nap. Instead, she's sitting up in bed shouting, "I. Want. To. Play. Toys!"

Ah, and now she's saying, "Put the dog poop down there." While visiting my parents' house over the weekend, my mom was getting a bath ready for Marta and let her wander around the girls' room naked. Of course, Marta pooped. She pointed at it and said, "Eeeeew, look! Dog poop!"

Anyway, the move was a big deal for me. I'm not into major change, now that the girls are here and I'm a protective mother hen, especially when we're going to build our own home. Not, of course, that I have any doubt in the actual builder, he being my husband. But I do fear the building process -- it's my first one -- and the inevitable delays, the squabbles between us and who? someone, telling us that what we want isn't what they would choose, or something like that. But opening that little drawer was such a neat thing, because we're doing this for them. We bought the last house for them. We're planning another house for them. We're wondering what they'll be like in five years -- will a claw-foot tub be fun? will they have bigger beds? will they want a basement playroom anymore? -- and it seems both impossible and simple to predict. Simple because, well, I think I know everything about my children and naturally because Marta ate two eggs for lunch today she'll continue to eat two eggs for lunch when she's seven. But completely impossible because of that darn drawer, showing me that they are so different and so similar to their little baby selves and that I had no big hand in making those changes. They are growing, is what I'm trying to say. They are growing and aren't stopping. And if we don't grow with them, we are holding them back.

(Insert long debate with self regarding adding more children to our family here.)

And they will dig it all, I think. Because I am the one who sees the sun coming in the cute but inefficient wood blinds in Marta's room as a hazard to her sleep development, and she sees it as sunshine. (Insert weepy sentence about Marta being my sunshine here.)

Truly, we are loving this move. If I step away from being an organizational and control freak, it's so obvious that it's easier to move and breathe and enjoy life here at the Lake House. So much so that I shun new writing projects (which I enjoy) to feel as if I'm on vacation all day, blogging with the sun beaming around our living room, reflecting off the lake that is STEPS from where I am sitting. Have I mentioned that it's documented as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world? I believe it. After all, it's changed our lives.

The Lake House Is A Sick House

We packed. We moved. We are here.

The children woke up on Friday morning feeling a bit under the weather but in good spirits. As we had heard we would need to be cleared out of the house entirely by the end of this week, we decided to push ahead with our moving plans on Friday and left the girls with Trevor's parents. We made it into the "new" house (temporary living quarters, which we've dubbed the "Lake House") just in time for the girls to come home that evening with full-blown H1N1. (Am I 100 percent sure it's H1N1? No. They haven't been tested. But their symptoms are spot on with those kids who have been tested, and the pediatrician's after-hours nurse says it sounds like it, so we think that's what they have.)

Marta is pretty sick, but not nearly as bad (yet?) as Berit. Berit can't go for a minute, truly, without having a coughing fit, and is therefore not sleeping well at all. She's drawn and pale and barely eats anything. I think Marta's rallying because of her habit of constantly eating, and while she's not taking in as much as usual, she's at least getting nourishment. I bought them a big pile of soy bars and other yummy protein-packed "snacks," along with those fortified milk drinks that are crazy expensive, so when they do snack they're getting a punch of vitamins. I feel just awful for Berit, who keeps saying things like "I'll never get better. NEVER!" and, alternatively (in the middle of the night when she's just a limp little child with a constant hacking cough), "I know I'll feel better soon, Mommy." Tiny Tim, eat your heart out.

To help matters, I spent the day reading all about the viruses that are expected to mutate into veritable plagues over the next few months. So, that was helpful.

Also: I have two deadlines next week.

And: The majority of our house still needs to be moved into storage and our house cleaned inside and out to prepare for the appraisal AT THE END OF THIS WEEK.

Plus: Trevor still needs to finish putting the ceiling up at the old house (part of the purchase agreement). THIS WEEK.

In addition: We haven't technically closed on our house yet, so, you know, we might have to move back if these people change their minds.

Bonus: The dog is sick with a mysterious throwing-up illness in this house that costs more than five of my houses. Think of the rugs. Think of me following him with towels.

The underlying current here, though, is happy and excited to be living in this amazing house (and a bit of terror in how comfortably we fit in these many thousand square feet) for the next several months, and anticipation for the ground-breaking on our land. We also have a meeting next week that is pretty exciting, and I'll write more about it after it happens.

Poor Berit. She's awake again, chanting a random "a-da, a-da," which she's been doing these nights when she can't sleep but isn't entirely awake. I think that means I should get to bed myself.

As Fast As We Can Go In Slow Motion

Well, it's official: We've sold our house. Moments after our counter offer was accepted I was completely sure we had done the wrong thing, and now that we've found a rental, a house plan and are getting things rolling for building our next home, I'm feeling pretty sane about it all. It doesn't hurt that the rental home is one of Trevor's clients' homes, all cozy on Walloon Lake with its many thousand square feet in which to stretch out. Granted, it is furnished as thought it's the resting place for all those model boats and leather loveseats lawyers get rid of when they retire and we have no idea where we're going to fit the kids' stuff, but looking out over the lake for the next few seasons will probably make up for it.

We'll spend the weekend packing and on Monday I'm headed over to pack up the owners' clothing and more rare, er, model boats, and to clean the house in preparation for two kids under four and a dog. I'm bursting out of my seams, I'm so excited to get over there alone to clean and assess the next seven or eight months.

We have about two weeks to get comfortably moved in, as we close on Nov. 16 but let's not forget about DEER CAMP which must be attended the weekend before and on various days throughout the following week. We're headed downstate for a weekend in early Novemeber, and I'm scheduled to take Berit on a little trip down to Ohio to visit my relatives there the weekend after, so even though we have until Nov. 23 to actually leave the house, we technically don't have very many days to move. We have ALOT TO DO.

Conversely, with the past few days of pure rain and wind and with the swine flu breathing down our necks quite literally, we've been cooped up going absolutely stir crazy. After several school districts around us closed due to the flu and after one of Berit's classmates came to school sick, we decided to pull B from school for the rest of this week and possibly Monday as well. So many parents did this that the preschool closed itself until today, and next week will implement serious germ-fighting measures. All the right things to do, but I'll tell you what, it's making us all a little bonkers. With the rain pouring and wind blowing so outside is miserable, and with our whole purpose for getting out of school being to keep the kids away from germs therefore limiting our adventuring around town and to the usual hangouts to NOWHERE, the kids are seriously going bananas. Today I took them for ice cream and they reacted like they had been stuck in a closet for the past three days. On the way home, determined to get them fresh air without getting poured on, I rode for a few miles with the windows down and they gulped at the wind with glee.

I have to wonder if these kinds of days are healthy themselves. I know we're keeping the kids away from germs, but they are truly grumpy and crazy and don't know what to do with themselves. On a typical day during down time they can muster up independent play pretty well, but when the entire day revolves around the living room, the basement and their bedrooms, they forget what to do and wander around yelling nonsensical noises, stripping off their clothes and sweeping entire shelves clear of toys for the sole purpose of sweeping entire shelves clear of toys. This morning Marta was screaming to "go bye-bye" at 7:30.

When we're cooped up I'm always shocked at how long the days are. Whenever I check the clock, thinking that thank God Trevor will be home soon, I realize that it's NOT EVEN TWO O'CLOCK YET. It's days like this that I think it might be a good idea to enroll Marta in daycare twice a week, just for a change of scenery. But I guess we'd have pulled her out, too, so boo on that thought.

Anyway, we're probably going off the radar for a couple of weeks here, to pack up our house and put it somewhere (with the excess boats, maybe?), and before we know it I'll be posting from the new house.

>><<

>> We interrupt this blog to sell our house (check), find a rental (OMG), move immediately and build another house. We will be back shortly. <<

Where In The World Are We? Cleaning Our House.

About a month ago I was planning a trip down to my parents' house, and I was talking to my mom about our weekend. My mom's the Ultimate Planner of All Time. I'm not capitalizing that to be bloggy about it; I think she might have an actual banner or sash or trophy with this title captured on it. At least, she should.

So we were chatting about how to best make use of our time, and I said something like, "Marta will need a nap from about 11-1." And she said, "Well, is that for sure?" And I said, "Yes, she'll definitely need a nap." And she said, "Are you sure it'll be from 11-1? She won't run late, will she?"

Trevor and I giggled for at least a week after that, any time one of us (ME) would say something like, "We'll be there at 3," because we have little kids and really, your very best plan is only tentative until your youngest child is probably 7 or 8. (Parents of 7- and 8-year-olds, feel free to correct me, but you may also keep me naively in the dark until we reach that stage and learn for ourselves.)

I feel an awful lot like my mom when it comes to our house. (And many, many other things involving organization, planning and list-writing. Also brainstorming, grammar, full-service gas stations, keeping tissues in every coat pocket and shopping.) We've had it on the market for awhile now, and while in the beginning we had at least one or two showings a week, the economy took a huge dive the day we were supposed to get an offer and suddenly no one was looking anymore. So it wasn't so scary to have that sign in our yard. But now, with a showing literally every other day, and every other showing is a second showing or a third showing, and with our Realtor telling us that we're at the "top" of no fewer than four couples' "lists" and with an offer expected any day now, I'm feeling the need to run out on the lawn and rip the sign down.

I know this is not news to you, faithful readers. I love our house. It serves us well. I can run three miles and never leave my beautiful neighborhood. My kids aren't confined to sidewalks. I could go on and on, and if you'd like to remember all of my reasons for loving our house, please review my recent posts. (Basement playroom! Don't forget about the playroom!)

Yes, we do want to progress to our land downtown. In order to do this, we need to rent a house while we build, and here is where the wrench is thrown. If I knew we'd have a great rental, I'd be OK. But I don't. And you can't have gone through the past year of SHOWINGS! and NO SHOWINGS. and SHOWINGS! and expect to go search every rental in town possibly wasting your time and the time of the other home owners.

Also a big bummer is the lack of "Rental MLS" on the Internet. I can look at houses for sale all day online and get an idea for what's out there, but when it comes to renting, I'm stuck with a few questionable ads in the paper.

I am happy about the showings and the positive feedback we're getting on the house. But I'm nervous because I can't foresee the future -- I don't know when Marta's going to nap, you know? And there's no way I can know this. I can't research it, can't ask people about it, can't watch a show about it (ha! As if I even know how to work my TV outside of making Dora work).

If you are in fact a faithful reader I do apologize, because you're probably so tired of hearing me blog about this. "Seriously, are you still upset about selling your house THAT YOU WANT TO SELL?" Yes, and my skin is oddly overly dry. These are my major concerns.

I remember when we bought this house, and when we were at the title company I thought I would throw up. I couldn't believe we were leaving our little first home and moving onto a family home that we'd have a family in and be a family of more than just the two of us. The implications were overwhelming.

I think they're overwhelming me again. I've never built a house before. I'm married to a non-frugal person who will want only the fanciest pantsiest stuff in his house (you might remember my week-long shock over his $250 jeans). I have two kids, and we're probably going to have more sooner rather than later. We have no house to move into, no place for our stuff, and no certain plan.

But we turned out pretty well here. We grew into this house and grew out of it (cue: annual garage sale). We fit perfectly again and more and more families moved onto the block. We put in landscaping, built a deck and showed our neighbors that we can be a little shameless when it comes to letting our dog wander. I think we can do it all again.

Regarding The House

To catch you up:

Sunday - Our house is one of eight a couple sees as they plan a possible move to Petoskey.

Monday - They request to see our house again.

Monday afternoon - The wife sees the three houses, and, according to our Realtor, chooses our house.

Wednesday - Realtor calls and tells us to plan on final word next week. Reminds us that our house is "The House."

Wednesday - Realtor's assistant calls us to set up showing with new couple tomorrow.

Status updates:

Trevor - Restless, randomly mad at different people involved for no good reason.

Me - Thinks Trevor is going to jinx us. Nesting furiously; baking pies, organizing refrigerator, freezer, cabinets. Baking hearty foods. Alternately settling firmly into house and whoops, spilling kids' paint on wood (it came out), and thinking of our long day tomorrow and all the driving it will require just to get to area attractions (dance class, library, dinner, etc.) and feeling ready for change. Itchy to research rental homes so we don't get stuck in a dive.

Berit - Messing with my mind by sobbing, "I love our house; I don't want to go to a different house," after I explained to her that we needed to clean up because people were coming to see if they wanted to live in our house. Hey, bonus, we could go to a different house by the library, school, and friends!

Marta - Sick. As. Dog. (Also, wants to be dog, but that is her typical state of being.) Not eating, barely sleeping.

Mosey - Seems to be extra hound-y, surely because we have another showing tomorrow, therefore requiring me to wash the carpets as often as I vacuum them.

And if you're still with me here at the end of all of this rambling, thank you for wondering and for being excited with us.

Pros. Cons. Feelings.

This afternoon I came home from four hours of sorting books for Berit's preschool to find both girls desperate to go somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere FUN, that is. With ice cream.

So I put Marta in the car (Berit being in the stage where she has to do EVERYTHING by herself at negative turtle speed) and ran into the house to grab a couple of disposable bibs. As I did this I noticed my answering machine blinking. "Hi Lisa, it's Debbie from ReMax of Petoskey, we just had a request for a showing of your house for 4:30 today." Glance at the clock: 3:51. Glance around the house. Uh... Think: Girls are already in the car, ready to go. Can I speed clean the house and get a message to Re-Max?

My decision: No. NO! Why the heck was it a no? But truly, I don't think we would have made it. Yes, I probably could have cleaned up in a half hour, but not perfectly. Did I just shoot myself in the foot? Possibly. Probably not. Who knows. The people who were so interested in the house last week (Wife's favorite! Top three!) just made an offer on another house. We have an open house scheduled for this weekend and we're just not excited anymore. Does this mean we should quit the game? We're thinking about it. But there's that damn What If.

So we cleaned the carpets and we're doing the bathrooms tonight just in case they call tomorrow. But truthfully, if nothing happens after this weekend, I think we're going to take a break from the Realty game when our contract is up. Will our house ever be really, really clean again after we pull our listing? Maybe not. Will we be any closer to living in town? No. So why pull it? Dunno. Do our feelings count for anything here, or should we just brush them off? A whole year on the market, which sinks lower and lower.

Take it off the market PROS:

It might be a better market next year.

We might make more on it next year.

We might appear fresh to buyers next year.

No more frantic dustbunny clean-outs at midnight.

No more bittersweet cookies baked for open houses.

No more packing up the family and forcing our baby to nap elsewhere when someone might possibly like our house, maybe.

Take it off the market CONS:

It might be a worse market next year.

We might make less on it next year.

We'd be free from a mortgage in case we suddenly win the lottery and can build our house immediately, or in case new things coming up might force us to live elsewhere for awhile.

Why bother taking it off? We know we want to sell. What if we do? Who cares if it's winter?

No extra cookies.

Any advice? I should have went for the showing, right? I knew it.

Musings, And A Bloody Nose

We've been absent on the blog scene for awhile lately, because we've been busy playing hard in a few random days of lovely summer weather. Visits to Pond Hill Farm in particular, as their two lady pigs had piglets a month or two ago and we've been watching them grow each weekend. The girls love this; they crack up at the little pigs, who chase each other around barking like dogs. Marta calls them "pig-e-lets" and now refers to anything cute or goofy as "silly pigelets." In a twist, all last night she yelled in her sleep, "NO, PIGELETS, NOOOO!"

We've also had a surprising two requests for showings and one open house lately (one showing tomorrow), so we've been cleaning like crazy people. At one point I was scrubbing the carpets by hand at 11 p.m., because when I took the girls outside to let Trevor wash the carpets with our steam cleaner, he decided he'd skip using SOAP and just ran a freshener over them. They looked clean, apparently, because they were wet. They were not. After I hand washed them in a fury, I made him go back over them with hot water. Then, we slept with all the windows open in our room and the fan on high so we didn't die from exposure to toxic chemicals. (Oh yes, it's currently too cold at the END OF AUGUST to sleep with the windows open all night.)

I've launched an attack on fruit flies and ants and am cursing myself for forgetting about two bananas that were hiding under our bread in the basket. Our garage no longer smells like it's home to a garbage can (which it is) and Trevor assures me that the paint he wants to put over a few spots in the walls where our baby gate has battered it will be dry by the showing tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that there is leftover paint at his parents' house. Because if there isn't, we'll have a nice little patch on the corner that's waaay more obvious than the scuffs were.

We're happy about the showings, of course, and are pumping the cute and efficient factors up for our open houses with cookies, muffins, whitefish spread, coffee and light music, and we're folding the toilet paper into points as if we have a cleaning lady (a welcome guest who I do occasionally employ for these events, but who hasn't been by in awhile) (note: drop in price of house) (note: clean your own damn house, stay-at-home mom).

I'm getting nervous, though, as the action is suddenly picking up. It may have a lot to do with my explaining to Berit that we needed to pick up the basement just now instead of tear it apart because people were coming over to see if they wanted to live in our house and, if they did, we would move to another house by the park! the library! downtown! her friends! And she said, "But Mommy, will they want to keep all of my princess dresses?" I'm suddenly very aware that we have two children and no home to move into; that we will rent until we build and that, up until now, we've lived very comfortably with a big playroom basement, a great deck as an extension of our living and dining rooms, and a neighborhood where our kids can run up and down the street without being restrained to a sidewalk. Every day and every night we take leisurely walks, chatting with our wonderful neighbors, picking baby pinecones from a particular tree and gathering stones to toss into the creek, which flows under the bridge that Trevor built. Without the home we have on blueprints ready for us, it's hard to consider this as progress. Especially considering that that home is probably five years away, with unknowns in the meanwhile.

I'm constantly seized with the sensation to run out to the yard and yank down the "for sale" sign. What the heck are we doing?

So, I'll let you know on that one.

I've also been working on a project for Country Lines Magazine, which is taking considerably longer than I had anticipated -- what with the whole "business hours" not quite coinciding with "my hours that I can work uninterrupted" and "the hours that I'm not cleaning my house for showings," and the boatload of research the kind people at the magazine have directed my way for only 1,200 words of end-result copy.

We also have a couple of projects we've been brainstorming and in meetings about (real, actual meetings with people other than family members) that may or may not be coming up. If we go forward on them, they'll be serious and we don't know how we'll survive but it'll be worth it. If we don't, we'll always wonder .... well, what if? So major decision-making happening in our household, which could mean something and could mean nothing.

I'm thinking an apt title for this post might be: Fear Of Commitment. Thank God we're already married.

Speaking of which, next month is our six year anniversary. So, of course, Time Flies When You're Having Fun! And, Only Six Years? Seems Like Forever posts coming up.

Berit is belting out serious cries right now because tonight was her first night sleeping without a Pull-Up -- something she's been begging me to do for weeks, after our friends the Marsmans visited and Luke and Paige wore Big Girl Underwears (even Luke gets the big girl nod) -- and

... right after that "and," which was about an hour ago, Berit really started screaming, and I ran up to check on her. Not the pee in the bed we had anticipated, but a bloody nose. Her first, to our memories. Coincidentally on the very same day my sister had nose surgery, to repair an extremely deviated septum (truly -- not a "deviated" "septum" slash "reconstructive" "surgery" = nicer nose, like some of us may have had, or may have had twice). Anyway, there was much calming, bathing, hot chocolate-ing and worrying going on, and now she's off to bed while Trevor and I hope that it's a one-time occurrence. I had bloody noses regularly since her age until a few years ago, when I had a vein cauterized. She doesn't have dark hair, eyes or skin, but she does have my tendency to bleed from the nose. Luuuuucky.

Now the high-fives we were giving each other over a decent bedtime for us aren't valid anymore, and my rambling post ends on a very different subject than it began. We thought tomorrow was our major excitement for the week; seems as though we shouldn't look past our own noses for that. :)

Curb Appeal

Today we had great expectations, since Trevor took the day off and we had two adults and two kids. Ergo, we could conquer the world! Or, we could walk to the farmer's market, at the very least.

However, today being July 3, the weather was of course freezing and rainy. We bundled the girls into their strollers with coats and blankets and hats, and they still weren't warm. Walking up and down the hills of the neighborhoods by the market didn't even warm my body, let alone my nose or fingers.

But we tried. We even took the dog, who was so pleased to feel loved for once in three years. After the farmer's market, we quickly tried a park, then another, and ended up throwing in the stiff, frozen towel.

Berit and Trevor went to his parents' house, where his brother and family are staying for the weekend, and Marta and I went off in search of curb appeal for our house. Having the ability to only carry one large hanging arrangement in the back, one small hanging arrangement in the back, a big potted plant on Berit's car seat (washing to be done after this post) and a giant hanging arrangement ON my passenger seat (vacuuming to be done after the washing), I wasn't able to get the thousand other things our house needs. Now that we've decided to add about 40 cedars to the front, pavers and plantings, four more big potted plants and three flowering trees to our "landscaping," I'm jumpy and frantic to get it done. Not so much that I entirely want to forego Fourth celebrations tomorrow, but almost. We're also going to re-paint the steps, rails and rocking chairs, and I feel all of this will surely take several weeks to accomplish if I don't force it to be done this weekend.

When Trevor hung the giant hanging arrangement, the weight of it pulled the ceiling of our covered front porch down. As he, the arrangement and the "ceiling" fell, Trevor yelled, "Why'd you get one so heavy?!?" And I said, "I'm so sorry. I didn't consider that a big hanging plant would pull our house down." Which is what I think led Trevor to agree to all the improvements outside, to hopefully lure a buyer in and let us get on with building our house to Trevor's load-bearing specifications.

P.S.: The picture above is of Marta, after she took one of the dirt-filled trays holding a plant and dumped it over her head, resulting in dirt stuck to every teensy part of her body, including, somehow, in her diaper. She then ran around the yard wearing the tray as a hat shouting, "More dirt! Need more dirt!"

Odds and Ends

Well, our house did not pass muster. Apparently it was the couple's second choice; the first being right next to the school that their child will attend. Oh well; nice to have some interest again.

Our current drama of the moment is babysitters, and the seeking of. We had one girl who didn't work out for the kids, and another promising possibility got a better offer in her own city, and driving for a half-hour to come watch my kids for three hours wasn't very enticing. So we're looking and hoping and then when one surfaces, we get nervous, because we don't want to act like they're not trustworthy but still, it's our KIDS. And it's only for three or four hours a week, so it's not as if we're offering them the world. Yet, I can't help but want Mary Poppins. What mother doesn't?

In Sleep News, last night we went back to trying to get Marta to sleep through the night. She gets so worked up when Trevor goes to her that she becomes overstimulated and screams until she shakes. Sigh, we just don't know how to crack this code. 

Sitting On Our Hands

Our house has been on the market for some time now. How long? I can't even remember. Must be around 6 months now. I definitely recall telling Trevor that I wouldn't put a "For Sale" sign in our yard until Marta was 6 months old, and now she's 13 months old. So there, at least 6 months. 

In that time we've had, oh, maybe 20 showings. More? Probably. Less? Possibly. (Though it may seem as though this post is about my sleep-deprived memory, it is not. Please stick with me.) Those of you with children are probably right now envisioning getting the house ready for each showing -- and you can't hide things in closets, because buyers look in those! At times one of us has taken the kids out and the other has cleaned, moments before a showing. Other times, like yesterday, when Trevor was still in Vegas, I've corralled the children into small spaces, vacuuming with Marta in her front pack and making the dog stay outside in the cold while I washed the floors, then yelling frantically as I made the last few touch-ups, "Nobody touch anything!!!" (Though in retrospect I'm now wishing I had instead yelled, "Not a finger!" for retelling purposes.) My favorite times are when we've hired a cleaning crew, and we hit the road. Very satisfying. 

And I know there's just no getting around the toys. I've tried. It doesn't work. I remember before we had children, and Trevor and I were adamant that we'd never let our kids' stuff overtake our grown-up lives. No clutter, no bright, plastic, noisy things in the living room, the fridge clear of clutter and a few tasteful photos hung smartly around the house.

Oh, my. Our living room is our play room, and the dollhouse has its own wall -- a big wall. The lower half of our built-in bookshelves houses toys and kids' books, and the top half contains no less than 15 books about child-rearing. Our kitchen's magnetized surfaces are awash in finger paintings and cute pictures, and a high chair rolls around the dining room. The basement, besides having an office and bedroom set up just for show, really, is F.A.O. Schwartz. We have a slide, a swing (hanging from the ceiling!), a trampoline, two kids' lounge chairs, a kids' kitchen, a babydoll nursery, a bin of dress-up clothes, a mini piano, a whole village of Little People stuff and... and... and... (and really, really, really generous grandparents). Upstairs is no better, but I'm not going to write about it because I think you get the picture. Oh, don't forget the garage, stacked with warm-weather outdoors stuff, and the outside's swingset/playland. It's just ridiculous. 

So I know the odds are against us, no matter how we try to minimize the look of the toys, when people without children enter out house. I always picture them coming in and saying, "Geez, do you think they have kids??" (And then sniffing and saying, "GEEZ, do you think they have a DOG?")

The showings seem to come in spurts. Right when we put the house on the market we had quite a lot. It was warm then, and we could easily head outside and wait the showing out with walks and trips to the waterfront. In the fall we had a string of them, during which our Realtor thought we'd have at least one offer (and of course we fantasized about a bidding war, which would push our price into the stratosphere and we'd be rich, rich, rich). After one showing, which was actually the third time this couple had come to see the house (not counting the time they showed up unexpectedly to walk the property or the time they called my father-in-law, thinking it was us, to chat about the construction of the house and possibly building the same one on a bigger lot somewhere -- what??), our Realtor (who is actually a dear friend who threw Trevor and me our "Up North" wedding shower) called me while I was driving. I turned down the news channel I was listening to on the radio to take her call. She said, "They love it! I think you're going to get an offer today. Stay by a fax machine, and keep your phone on." Yay! I turned the radio back up just as the reporter said, "Today is the worst day in history to buy a house." No offer.

Then, nothing. The market dove, then dove again and again, and the house next door to us and the one next to that were foreclosed on, and nobody could sell anything to anyone. 

And, randomly, on Friday we got a showing request. Last night, long after the kids were in bed and as I was getting out of the shower, our Realtor called to tell us that they wanted a second showing, first thing in the morning, and by the way, she had run into a man driving in the neighborhood who was looking for a house here, needed to be in it in less than a month, and he liked ours. He snapped pics of the outside and she gave him a packet of information (how coincidental is that, that she happened to be out here and he happened to be driving by?). He planned to call for a showing this week. 

So we're waiting, and hoping, and trying not to wait or hope, because we just WANT to move -- we don't HAVE to move. Being a builder who did not build his current house, Trevor needs that satisfaction and perfection. But we know that we have a great house now, and that building a new one will just be plain old expensive and hard work, but oh do we want to do it. So we're staving off the urge to pull out our plans and start the line of self-questioning. (You know, "Where would we live?" "Would we put our things in storage?" "When should we break ground?" And the ever-imposing, "Can we really afford this? Are we making the right decision?")

We're also a little unsure about how we'll keep our house in show condition, with the weather outside so frightful, and a toddler who loathes the cold and would rather spend the entire day cooped up, tearing apart the interior, and a baby who likes to walk around picking things up and taking them to the other end of the house. Best not to even mention the mess the darn dog makes. 

Little by little, though, positive thoughts about this are creeping into our minds, and we're once again envisioning a massive bidding war. To sweeten the deal, we may even throw in the dog.