Happy Birthday, Baby Girl.
Elena has a double ear infection.
Liam is running around like an insane person due to lack of sleep
Aaron is in London.
Fortunately I have excellent help, but this still sucks.
I’m tired, I’m hot, I’m ready to give away the younguns.
I hate it when sweat drips between the girls.
It has been hot here the last few days.
I mean HOT - like with heat indexes of 105+.
I’ve been able to avoid it for the most part since I’ve been working in the house, but today I had to suck it up and spend some time outside; the garage needed a good sweeping and the landscaping needed a little TLC. Actually, I had to find the landscaping first - it was being overtaken by weed trees.
The garage didn’t take very long and I was fortunate to have some help with the kids. Jen came over with Ethan and Jules and we hooked them up with some buckets of water and a variety of random “found” toys that showed up as I was cleaning out the backyard a few days ago. It was all I had, but we made do.
The kids did great with that for awhile, but THEN, Jen accidentally discovered that the sprayer, when turned upside down in the grass, created a wonderful sprinkler-like arc of water - perfect for running through. AND, the dogs haven’t been at the house so there isn’t any poop, AND the lawn got mowed yesterday (Thanks Drue (sp?)) so they were able to play out there barefoot!
Liam might have been a little excited.
I feel like an idiot though. Why didn’t I think of doing that before? We could have had many a painless morning working in the garage. Oh well.
We were supposed to go to Red Robin for lunch, but E ended up taking a nap, so that plan got thrown to the wind. Then we got a call for a showing this afternoon at 4.30. At that point, I kicked it into high gear to get everything done. However, it soon became quite clear that L was starving as I noticed him nudging Ethan away from his stars to grab a handful, but I didn’t have anything to offer the poor kid.
It was a Lunch Emergency.
Soooooo, in order for me to keep working on the house, Jen went and picked up lunch for the kids and Liam ate his first McDonald’s Happy Meal.
I said it was an emergency.
Jen manned the lunch table while I put my weight into yanking out the weeds. I filled an entire trash can.
It took all morning and part of the afternoon, but it feels so good to have it done. And I’m SURE that someone will make us an offer now that we’ve increased the “curb appeal.” Mmm hmmm. Riiight.
The kids came back over to Grandma and Grandpa’s for naps and I treated myself to ice cream before I headed back over to get some stuff organized for craigslist. There’s not much left, relatively speaking, since Aaron and his dad took stuff to a homeless shelter. And whatever doesn’t go by next Wednesday is headed the same direction.
E didn’t take much of a nap, so I came back to the house. I had to shake the sweat off of myself like one of the dogs, (Murph is a much better shaker than Mace.) and then I jumped in the shower.
It felt so good to be clean and in jammies at 4 p.m. I didn’t want to go ANYwhere.
I was just getting ready to cook some green beans and potatoes when G&J asked if we wanted to join them and J, E, G, and S for dinner. I SO wanted to go, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s just too damn hot and I’m too damn tired. So, L went along and E and I stayed home and had a little QT.
She is hilarious. She’s trying to say “elephant” (”EEEEEEE!!!”) and “Liam” (”Um.”) in addition to a number of other things that all sound like “quack, quack, quack.” And the kid loves books. She’ll sit by herself for DEAR time for 20 minutes at a time! It’s fantastic.
Now, I have to keep her locked in Playroom Prison in order to keep her out of the dogs’ water bowl, but she’s happy for the most part.
When they got back from dinner L headed down to work with Grandpa. He probably spent two hours opening and closing the CD drives on an old computer and turning the power on and off on another one. But he’s happy and Grandpa doesn’t care, so I’m all for it.
I talked with Aaron several times. He arrived yesterday in one piece and got to the house only to find some random pieces of furniture in it. Fortunately there’s a bed and he’s been much more comfortable than he would have been on the air mattress. I didn’t ask how the inflatable chair is working out for him.
He spent most of today getting all of the basic crap taken care of:
- Electricity and gas - done
- Water - done
- Council tax - done
- Foxtons regarding the furniture - done
- Sky TV - done
- Bank account - process begun
- Telephone - done
- Broadband access - will be set up next week.
- I also have a place that will let us call the US from our land line for 3p per minute.
I’m impressed. I haven’t even gotten our mail forwarded yet.
But, I decided that I’m going to stick around here until next Thursday morning when we’ll head to OKC to see Heath and the fam. The original plan was to go to Mom and Dad’s on Sunday, but there’s still just too much to do. I didn’t realize how concerned about getting it all done I was until I didn’t have to have it done by Sunday. This way will be a lot more relaxing.
Anyhoo, the kids had a pretty good evening. I’m trying to get into a routine that we can stick with no matter where we are. I need it even if they don’t.
Speaking of routines, I was supposed to be in bed eight minutes ago. That’s it. I’m outta here.
Oh, just one more thing…Liam keeps talking about “seeing McQueen in London.” The kid is SUCH a character!
And so the countdown begins: 24 down, 1200 +/- to go.
AJ left yesterday. It could be two months before we see him again.
Do you think I can lose 10 lbs in two months???
More to come…soon.
Holy crap, everything is packed.
The movers thought it would take two days to pack us, so we were planning on staying in the house through the weekend.
But it just so happens that they got it all packed today and they’re loading everything TO. MOR. ROW. Eeek!
We had to scramble to find a place to stay.
Jenni and Elias won the toss (or maybe lost?) to keep the four of us, and the dogs are at Jeanne and Greg’s.
Mmmm…they’re so lucky. The kids are nuts and AJ and I are exhausted.
Hopefully life will settle down and I’ll be able to check in with all of you in the next week or so.
Until then….
