Making Progress,Congrats and Happy Birthday!

Hello all!

I made some great progress with the packing last night. My MIL, SR (I'll use two initials here since I refer to alot of S's), came over to help. I got all of the snowglobes all packed up and we got almost all of the china cabinet done. We did pack all of the things that I'll bring up to Mum and Dad's, but there are a couple of things left to pack, probably a box worth. We would have done it last night, but we were swimming in boxes and we're getting stuck since there was no room to move around, LOL. Since most of these things we packed are breakable, I didn't want to stack the boxes so they are all on the floor and under the table. The way the table legs are, it's hard to stick them underneath, they still stick out. After Mum and Dad's anniversary party this weekend, I'll be able to bring the boxes of the most fragile/sentimental up to their house. I just don't want to bring them before since they have a small house too and we don't need to have them in the way of the party guests.

I think I will move the packing operation up to the guest room tonight. I'll be able to pack up the stuffed animals, books and craft and office supplies that are in there. There isn't too much else to pack in there except for the extra bed linens. The clothes that are in the closet will just get transferred on their hangers to one of the cars on moving day to I don't have to worry about those.

One another note, I would like to send my most heartfelt best wishes and congratulations to W and C! They had their baby boy on Monday! I can't wait to meet little N. I spoke to C last night and he said everyone is doing well. I could tell that he was just bursting - the proud new Papa!! He said he is the cutest thing ever. I called Michael to tell him and even though he was working and had his mask on, I could hear him hooting and Yippee-ing! I think "Uncle" Michael is just as excited as C!

And last but not least, I would like to with my Uncle J a very Happy Birthday! And yes, you are still 30 years older than me, wink, wink! I hope you have a wonderful day!

Packing

Hello all!

I took a suvey of the house last night to see what really needs to be packed up for the move. I know I'm probably terribly underestimating, but, I don't think it's going to be that bad. Here's what I've come up with:

Living Room: a few knick knacks, the fish supplies for the tank and the toss pillows and throws. (We're going to move the fish tank ourselves).

Dining Room: a few knock knacks, the snowglobe collection, the china cabinet contents, the table linens.

Kitchen: Pots and Pans, plates, glasses, utensils, table linens, dish towels, cleaning supplies and maybe a few non-perishable food items if we don't finish them off before we move.

Office: Computer, monitor, printer, desk accessories, modem.

Guest room: Video games, books, stuffed animals, craft supplies, bed linens.

Master Bedroom: Bed linens, my shoes and hanging clothes, my make up and hair stuff, a few little knick knacks and picture frames.

Bathroom: Towels, toiletries, shower curtains, bath rugs.

Throughout the house: Curtains, hanging pictures and mirrors.

The rest of the things are can't be packed, like the sofas and tables and such, so I think it won't be too bad. And the movers said we don't have to empty our dressers as long as we just have clothes in them. Yippee!

I plan on purging through a bunch of stuff so that I'm not bringing any clutter to the new house. The main area to purge through is my clothes. It's good that we're moving as the seasons are changing so I can go through last year's spring/summer things and get rid of anything that doesn't work for me anymore. I'll do the same with my winter things. I know there are some sweaters in my drawer that I didn't wear at all this year, so I think it's safe to say I can get rid of them. I'm sure there are some things in my kitchen too that I can pass along. My bff, T, said she'd take any kitchen things we didn't need anymore so I'll need to set aside a box for her.

Wish me luck and if you have any tips, please pass them along!

Where did the weekend go?

Hi everyone!

Well, it's Monday again and as usual the weekend went by too fast. Michael and I got to hang out a lot together since he didn't have to work on Saturday so that was good. His schedule is really getting tough for us and me especially. I miss him so much during the week when he's working these wacky shifts. Hopefully, this job will be finished up soon and we can get back to normal, as normal as packing and moving can be.

I was able to catch the UPS guy on Friday so I didn't end up with mushy boxes. My front hall is barely passable as I've put the boxes of boxes there for now. I really need to move them to the dining room so that they'll be out of the way. Besides that room has been packing central these past few days. I really want to get the dining room all packed up this week. That is the room that has the most things to pack up and of course the most fragile.

We got the insurance and mortgage papers and I remembered (thank goodness) to have Michael sign everything he needed to before he went to work this morning. Note to self: send those off this afternoon.

I'm listening to Flylady right now. I downloaded Mozilla and can use the Flylady toolbar that links to Blog Talk Radio so the shows will stream all day. I couldn't get it to work in IE without bogging down my PC. I hope she'll keep inspiring me to get through this move so that I can start Flying right away in the new house.

I really think I'll feel better once we are settled in the new house and Michael's schedule is back to normal. I've definitely been in a funk these last couple of weeks. These next few weeks are going to be relatively boring compared to all of the excitement of finding the house and all that went with it in March. Let's just hope that I can pack us up really quickly and that once we pass papers at the end of the month that the painting and the few projects we want to do before we move in happen quickly and we can enjoy ourselves in May. Fingers crossed that April flies by!

Yay! It's finally Friday!

This has been a really crazy week getting all of the house stuff in order. Now, I'm just waiting for paperwork to arrive for our insurance and the final mortgage papers so we can finish that up. I have some moving boxes being delivered today and of course I'm at work and it is pouring outside. I think I'll leave early so that I can catch the UPS guy so that my stack of boxes don't become mush on my back porch.

Well, I can't worry about the boxes, I'm just glad it's Friday and Michael will be off tomorrow. We don't have any plans this weekend and that is just fine. We've been running around a lot lately on the weekends so it will be nice not to have to do anything.

S and I went shopping last night to pick up a few things. It was nice. I got a good lay of the land of all the back roads of our new neighborhood since S lives just 4 blocks away. She pointed out where the fast food places are since we like our junk food on the weekends. That was dangerous! There is a Wendy's, McDonalds, KFC and worst of all, a Taco Bell all around one intersection that is very close. After I dropped S off from shopping, I went to Taco Bell. Yum, it was so good. I haven't had it in a while since there isn't one that close to our current place, but I see that changing in the very near future. ;)

Before we went shopping, S and C and I were going through some pictures. I had some really good ones of C when he was in high school - Original Air Jordans and red sunglasses - hee, hee. I suppose I shouldn't talk since there were some goofy ones of me too from around 4th and 5th grade. My permed hair and braces were beautiful, *snicker*... They look silly now, but at the time I was stylin!

Well, I don't have much else to report right now.

Have a Happy Friday!

The packing has started

Well, sort of anyway. I packed up our DVDs and framed photos last night. That's as far as I got because I only had a couple of boxes. I would have done more, but alas, no boxes. Silly me, I stopped off at the UHaul store to pick up some packing tape and blank newsprint to wrap things up. What a scene! There were so many people there....well, duh, it was April 1st so everyone and his brother was moving and renting trucks. Note to self: next time I go to that store, go on an odd day, not an obvious moving day.

I hope to be able to bring home a few more boxes tonight from work. I've got one stashed under my desk and should be able to grab a couple more too once I unpack some office supplies.

As for our insurance, I'm just waiting to hear back from KM at the agency. She was putting the house info into a cost estimator program and would get back to me today. She said it should be no problem to do a binder for us. Hopefully, we'll be able to get the policy at the same company as my car so that we can save a few bucks.

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll have more later!

Whew!

R just faxed over the signed P&S. The grumpy old man signed it. Thank goodness! I was a little nervous about that. What a relief!

Cross that off the list....

Hello all!

I was able to get our mortgage squared away yesterday with the guy that K recommended. I spoke to a few other lenders and this person seemed to be the one I trusted and liked best. Some of the others seemed a little shystery. So that's one more thing taken care of.

My mission for today is to get in touch with my insurance agent and figure out home owner's insurance. Hopefully that will all go smoothly too.

I've started to hoard boxes here at work so that I can start our packing. That's going to take a while so I figured I could do a little bit here and there and get it done. I think I'll pack up the china cabinet first. That has the things that I'm most nervous about getting broken. Mum said to bring those things over to their house so that we won't have to worry about the movers messing anything up. I have some pieces from my Nana, Grandma and Aunt L and I would hate to see anything happen to them.

The other thing to gingerly pack is my snow globe collection. I think I'll bring that over to Mum and Dad's too.

Well, that's all for now. Off to do some work. TTYL!

Yippee!!

With some wheeling and dealing, we got it done! We're going to be homeowners! K and R just need to tidy up the P&S and we'll sign it by Monday. I'm so excited! Now we can relax and start thinking about the fun stuff like paint colors and flower beds.

You could tell that this has had me as a big ball of stress. I haven't been sleeping too well the past few nights, but last night, I slept like a baby. No dark circles under my eyes today, yay!

Well, off to get some work done now that I can concentrate better.

Happy Friday!

Still waiting...

OMG! I'm dying here! I just picked up my lunch but I'm so anxious that I can barely eat it. R said she hopes to hear back by 2pm....36 more looong minutes.

The Waiting Game

Hi folks.

Now, we're in the waiting game.

I met with a contractor yesterday at the house to go over the issues that the inspector raised. He's a good friend of someone Michael works with. I showed him the problems and he put together a quote for me. $22,425, Yikes! With lead removal quote, that means a repair estimate of just over $27k!

I spoke with K and our realtor this morning and we decided that we'd ask for $7,500 of the purchase price. I know that sounds odd, but Tony's estimate included some things that we would take care of ourselves, so we think it's a reasonable number that won't immediately throw the seller off.

Our realtor is now going to talk to the seller and see what they say. I hope that W, the husband, comes to his senses. You should have seen the tirade he went off on in front of us yesterday saying my contractor didn't know what he's talking about and that he doesn't want to sell the house and the deal is off, and on and on. R, our realtor, did a great job diffusing the situation so hopefully they will be amenable to our deal. We're only asking for about a quarter of the total repair costs.

With any luck we'll have this settled this afternoon and then Michael and I can enjoy our weekend.

So now I wait.

Army of Inspectors

Hello,

It's Monday again. Where do the weekends go? Ours was busy busy!

We had the home inspections on Saturday. Man, were they thorough! But I suppose that's what we pay for. There was a little bit of lead paint on the outside of the house, but thankfully, nothing inside. The home inspection revealed some issues with the deck, garage and wacky stairs on the side of the house going up to the second floor. Apparently, the deck and stairs were not made from pressure treated wood and were improperly flashed, so they are rotting. The wacky stairs need to come down completely because they were not secured to the house correctly and could come tumbling down. I'd be fine with them coming down even if they were stable because they make me nervous that someone could sneak into the house upstairs.

I just sent the lead report off to an abatement company and hope to have a quote tomorrow or Wednesday. As for the carpentry issues, Michael, C and Uncle J all agree that it's probably going to cost $8k-10k. I hope we can negotiate with the sellers to have them do some of the work or at least take this amount off of the price. Michael is going to call some contractors today to do the gut check to make sure we're not too far off.

Otherwise, the other issues that were raised we nothing too big. They are things that we could take care of ourselves and with the help of the army of union construction guys that we know. I think that we have all of the trades covered except for a plumber. We've got to work on that one, though thankfully there are no plumbing issues that were found.

We also are having a radon inspection done. That will be completed this afternoon and then we'll get that report today or tomorrow. Hopefully there won't be any issues there. The radon guy couldn't say for sure without doing the test, but he thought we'd be in the clear given the other inspections he's done in the area.

So, it's all moving along. I need to talk to our realtor and give K a call to see how we should proceed.

I'll keep you posted!

Is it time to go yet?

I think I jinxed myself in my earlier post by saying I hope today goes by fast. This last half hour until I get to leave is killing me. I have Easter baskets to do, I just want to get home and do them. These things are important, KWIM? LOL.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Michael doesn't have to work so that's great! His hours have been killing me lately. I miss him!

We have the home inspections tomorrow (in case I haven't said that enough ;)), Thankfully, the weather should cooperate for us. If all goes well, I hope we can get out to celebrate tomorrow night since we couldn't celebrate last weekend since Michael had to work early Sunday morning. Then we have Easter with the family on Sunday.

Well, only 18 minutes left so I'd better wrap up here at work.

Have a great weekend, again!

It's Friday! Yay!

I hope today will go by as quickly as yesterday did. I really want to get home to get my Easter things in order. I have some little treats for Michael and also to bring with us over to C & S's house on Sunday when we go over for Easter dinner.

It will be nice to visit with everyone. Mum and Dad and Uncle J are going over too. We'll have all the experts there to help decipher the home inspection report that we'll get tomorrow. C and Uncle J are both engineers, so they'll be able to tell us if something is disasterous or not (though we aren't expecting anything to be).

L and I are going out for lunch in a little while. I think we might go to the Botega place around the corner. It's yummy!

Well, that's all for now. Have a nice weekend!

It's raining, boo!

Hi everybody,

What a crappy day outside. It's grey and rainy. It was actually snowing a little this morning too. I actually had to pull out my snow brush to clear off my car. WTH? I'm so ready for spring!

I'm going over the see "our" house tonight and show it to Mum and Dad. I say "our" house, because I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic. We need to get through the inspections first, and Michael keeps reminding me that we might find out that something is wrong with the house and we have to be willing to walk away. He's always good like that to keep me grounded. Thanks, Baby! While my intelligent self totally agrees with him, the "I-can't wait-to-decorate-and-all-that-other-fun-stuff" side of me is going crazy here! =) I was able to schedule the inspections for this Saturday which works out great since Michael won't be working so he can be there too.

Right now, I'm up to my eyeballs dealing with mortgage people. I'm not convinced that they are any better than some used car salesmen. Thankfully, our attorney, K, recommended someone to me who does not seem to fall into that category. He's really trying to save us money and so far, seems to be quoting the best rates. A couple other people are quoting me rates and then I say that I can get a better rate and then they come down with theirs. Sneaky! I think it will all turn out well. I don't think we could have timed this better, with yesterday's fed rate drop and such. Fingers crossed!

JD and I had a fun night on Monday. We went out to Sonny's and then to the Blarney. It was awfully quiet at both places. I think people were still recovering from the parade on Sunday. Neither of us went so we were ready to party, but oh, well. We still had fun.

I finally finished the company financials today. Thank Goodness! They really seemed to drag out this month, I don't know why. I think it's partially due to my mind being all over the place thinking about house any baby stuff that I couldn't really concentrate. Well, they're done now and that's all that really matters.

That's about all for now. I need to go see the IT guys about my computer display before he leaves.

TTYL!

We got it!

We got a house!! Yippee! Michael and I had our offer accepted on the house in C. I'm so excited I could burst! Of course we have to have all of the inspections done, but still, OMG! Yay! I knew everything would come together. We have to schedule the home inspection and then we'll be doing the P&S at the end of the month and then closing at the end of April. I hope it all goes well. This house has so much potential and will be really cute once we put our mark on it.

That's all for now. I'll be back more later...

Oh, I almost forgot...Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Did I find it? I think I might have!

Hello out there!

So Dad and I checked out the houses on Saturday. We only ended up seeing two of them since the one in Q went under agreement. Well, the first one was a mess. It really caught us off guard since the pictures on line looked nice. The house was empty except for a lonely cat. Someone must be coming by to feed it since there was a bowl of food on the floor. It was all just really odd. There were a mess of beer bottles on the kitchen counter and there were several punch marks in the doors. Needless to say, we walked out as quickly as we walked in. The second house was much nicer. It too was empty, but was very well maintained. Unfortunately, it was a little too small and it didn't have a dining room. I know that's not a priority for most people my age, but since I have my Nana and Papa's dining room set that I really love, I want a dining room for it.

Yesterday was much better. I went to check out a house in C that just came on. It's really cute and has a great yard and is at the end of a cul de sac. The neighborhood seemed nice and the best part is that it's only a hop skip and jump from my brother and sil's house. Yippee! Michael was working so I went to see it myself. When I told him about it he said to make an offer but I just can't bring myself to make that big of a purchase without him seeing it. So we're going to try to see it again on Saturday and then maybe make an offer! I'm so excited.

Last night, I went out with S and D to meet up with J, who is home from Iraq on leave! It was so good to see him and T. I hope they have a great time together while his is home. Then, thankfully, he should be home for good in July.

Tonight, JD is coming over and we're going to hang out. I realized on my drive to work that I didn't defrost anything for dinner so I'll have to pick something up on my way home. Of course, maybe we'll get some take out or something. We'll see. It will be good to catch up with her and have some girl time.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting with JS again for another dose of acupuncture after work. It seems to be going really well and I'm hopeful that I won't need to find another RE because I won't need it. Fingers crossed!

I'm starving so I need to go grab lunch. I'll keep you posted on the house. TTYL!

TGIF

Hi all!

Yay! It's Friday. This has seemed like a really long week. I'm not sure why, work has been OK. Maybe it's just that it hasn't been crazy busy. Oh well, enough about work.

S and I went out last night for some sangria. Yummmy! We has a fun girls night just chatting. Among other things, I got some good info about the areas we're looking at houses since she teaches in B.

I'm going to check out some houses tomorrow morning. Two are in B and one is in Q. Nothing much has been coming on in C yet. Dad is going to come with me since Michael is working so that will be nice to hang out. I'm psyched to actually go see three at a time since usually we only catch one or two. Also, it's good that it will be during the day so I'll be able to actually see the yard since mostly we've been looking in the dark. It's too bad though, that it's supposed to be pouring tomorrow, but at least we'll be able to see if anything is leaking, LOL.

I also have another appointment with my acupuncturist, JS. I'll head to that before the showings. JS is really nice so it will be a good way to start my day.

I'm in desperate need of a fill-in on my nails so I think I'll do that tonight after work so I'll be good to go for the weekend.

Well, that's all for now. I'm starving so I need to figure out what's for lunch. TTYL!

I remembered my camera cable!

Hi folks,

I actually remembered my camera cable today so I have some pics for you.

Here's the living room with its new toss pillow covers:

This is my little reading nook. I have my fuzzy blanket there with the Kodak frame flashing family and friends' pictures. I've been reading my Daily Guideposts there lately when I get home from work. It's been a nice way to chill after a day in the office.

The next pic is of the sofa. I've had the leopard pillows forever. I actually brought them from my bedroom at home when Michael and I moved in together. Anyhow, I think the blue pillows and the striped pillow look really nice with our light blue walls and the leopard makes it a little funky.

As I mentioned, I also set up my snow globes in the dining room. Check them out:

I'm sorry that the picture is a bit dark, but when I put the overhead light on I was casting a shadow so I went with this one. On the left side are my fancier glass globes and the right side has my kitchy plastic ones. Right in the middle is a sand globe that my bff gave me. It's really neat. I'm so happy to have them displayed again. It's been almost two years since they all been out together. I have about ten Christmas ones too, but those are packed away.

I'll be back later. I've got to do some work right now.

It's Wednesday

Hello everybody.

I'm so annoyed with myself. So the other day I said I'd take some pics to post of the new pillow covers and such. Well, I pulled out my trusty camera last night and snapped away. I arrive into work today ready to upload them and realized I forgot my transfer cable. Grrr! Anyway, I took some lovely pictures of the living room and also of my snowglobe collection that I set up in the dining room on my MacGyver console. They looked so pretty, and alas, I can't share them with you. :( Oh, well, I've already left myself a message at home to remember to bring it in tomorrow, so stay tuned.

I found out yesterday that the house I wanted to look at tomorrow already has multiple offers on it and will most likely be sold. Bummer, it looked really nice on the online listing. I emailed R this morning to set up showings of three other houses so hopefully I can get in Thursday after work. These look good too and are comfortably in our price range, so I'm optimistic. I was watching Chronicle last night and they were showing the best places to live in the area. I'm so jealous of the people who are willing to deal with a long commute. You definitely get more bang for your buck out there, but Michael and I just aren't willing to move that far out just yet.

Let see, what else. Oh, I have a hot date with the tax guy tonight. Hopefully he'll find lots of money for us this year. We still be probably do the standard deduction since we don't own property and have no children yet, but a girl can dream. I'm sure by next year we will. Think positive!

You know how they say that if you bury a St. Joseph statue upside down in your yard that it will help you to sell your house? Well, can I get one and put it on display in my living room to help us find a house to buy? I may just give that a try. :)

Well that's all for now. TTYL!

Hi - I can't really think of a clever title today....

Hello all!

So the weekend was good. Michael made it home early enough to partake in some beer drinking with me and S and D. Then we all headed out for a change of scene and went to Lowies. OMG, it's a total dive and I know that and had been there before but jeez, on Friday it was terrible. We quickly left and headed to Sonny's and enjoyed the rest of the night. We didn't have enough of a crew to play beer pong, so that's why we ended up going out. Anyway, it was really fun. Gotta love the pregame sessions in the kitchen!

Saturday morning I went to the acupuncturist. She was really sweet and gave me some hope that all is not lost on the baby front. It just further solidifies my opinion that my doctor is an insensitive a$$. She did her thing and it seemed like something was happening. Maybe it's all in my head, but at least I feel better and that's all that really matters. I'm going to see her again next Saturday.

Sunday we ran around on errands. We went to BJ's and Walmart. We really need to plan these trips a bit better. We took my car since Michael's truck was loaded up with stock for work. It's not big deal at all, but you have to remember that I drive a Beetle. Now, normally, it wouldn't have been so bad, but since we needed TP and papertowels along with a few other things at BJ's that pretty much filled the car. Then we stopped in Walmart to pick up a few other things but of course they were all bulky too- A cooler, big thermos thing, and Lord knows what else and you can see how we'd have a stuffed car. Anyway, we needed the stuff and now we don't have to worry about paper products for a while.

Oh, yes I am a spazz, but I have to tell you about the steam mop. I used it in the kitchen yesterday and our cream floors are all shiny. It worked really well and really quickly so it didn't take that long at all. I'm sure future moppings will go even quicker because I'm not going to let the floor get so dusty again. I'm happy that it's a green product too. It just uses steam - no other chemicals or anything and the mop pad is machine washable so I don't have to waste money buying refills for it. It's just part of my little bits to save the world. ;)

I know I have to get some pics up as I've been sorely lacking in posting any lately. I am going to try to take some tonight once I finish my weekly home blessing. (That's just a basic cleaning routine for those of you that don't know about Flylady.) That way, you'll see how my house should look rather than the somewhat messy post-weekend state that it's in right now.

Well, that's all for now. I'll talk to you soon!

TGIF

Well, I made it through another week. I'm so glad it's Friday. I get to leave work early today so I can pick up Mum and Dad at the airport so that's making today even better. I just feel bad that Mum and Dad will be coming home from sunny Florida to 9 degree weather and a snow storm tonight that will go into the mid day tomorrow. Well, their flight should be OK since they'll be arriving here at 3:00pm.

I'm feeling a better today. I went out to lunch with L yesterday and then met up for a beer after work with her too. We had fun and she always makes me laugh (though sometimes I don't think she means to ;) ). Anyway, thanks L for cheering me up. I had a good chat with my bff, T, last night too so that helped a lot too. T, you're the best, as always. ((Hugs))

I'm going to go see the acupuncturist tomorrow so hopefully she'll be able to help me/us. At the very least, I'm sure she'll be able to help with the stress of it all.

We went to see those houses the other night. I really like one of them but the location was a bit iffy. The other one that was such a "deal" was a dud. It had tons of room and a good layout, but the nearby new commuter rail and it's associated construction cracked the foundation and it would be waaaayyy too expensive to fix so we had to let that one go. Oh, well, a few others have popped up so at least the market is opening up.

Oh, I put the new pillow covers on the living room toss pillows last night. They look really good. I'll have to take a pic and show you. I also did some MacGyvering and created a console for our dining room to display family photos on. We had these two bar stools that the previous tenants left behind so I pushed them together and then laid the two leaves for the kitchen table on top (since we never use them) and voila! A console. It looks pretty cool. I got a new tablecloth to drape over it so I need to do that over the weekend. I've been using one I had temporarily to get the idea and think this new one will look better. I also got a neat acrylic lamp at Target to put on it. It looks really nice since the frames are all silver color. I post a pic of that too once I change over the tablecloths.

On my trip to Target, I also picked up a Shark steam mop. I know, things are really exciting at our house these days. LOL. Anyway, I've heard a lot of good reviews about it and thought it would be worth at try since Michael's work boots tend to track the gunk o'the day into the kitchen and the fact that we have an off white floor so it really tends to show a mess. Michael swept up the kitchen the other night so depending on when I get back from picking Mum and Dad up, I'll be a steam mopping queen this afternoon. OMG, I'm so lame.

S wants to play beer pong tonight. I just love having neighbors like this. :) It should be fun and luckily we'll only have to go next door.

Well, I gotta get some work done before I leave today so I'd better get to it. TTYL!

It's Hump Day

It's Hump Day. I can't wait for the weekend, I just want to chill out and relax. I got some not so great news from Dr. O yesterday so I'm sad today. I think I want to find another doctor, not necesarrily because of what he told me but the way he told me. He doesn't have the best manner about him. I'd rather work with someone else on the next steps.

Anyway....on a happier note, we're going to look at a couple of houses tonight. I hope we find something we like soon. Thinking about decorating a new place makes me excited. I've done a few little projects around our current place and have a few other things I'd like to do as well. It's looking good and my Flybaby stuff is rolling along.

Well, that's all for now. I need to get back to work. TTYL.

Olive and Feta Spread

Michael made a yummy spread last night that I thought I 'd share. He didn't really measure so I'm just giving approximates.

Olive and Feta Spread

1 small can of sliced black olives

1/2 t. (or so) of minced garlic. (We used the jarred kind)

A splash of EVOO to make it come together

A handful or so of Feta crumbles.

He used our mini processor to whirl this all together. Once mixed, transfer to a serving bowl and serve with bread chunks. We got some fresh Sourdough when were in Maine that we used. OMG - This is so yummy!

Happy Monday!

Hi folks,

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Ours was nice. We met up with some friends Friday night for a going away party for J. I'm sorry to see him go but I'm sure he'll be back for a visit from time to time. Saturday I went to get me nails done and did some house cleaning and then Michael and I went out for a date to dinner at Venezia. I had drunken chicken and it was awesome! It was a huge serving so I took some home. Michael was very happy since he had it last night for dinner. =) We went to the outlets in Kittery on Sunday and got some basics. Nothing too exciting, though I did get a salt keeper and and oil and vinegar set at Le Creuset that matches my fancy pot. Oh, and I did get a cool coat. It's ivory wool with a fur collar. It was only $25 on a super clearance rack. Yippee!

Anyhoo, tonight we're going out for S's birthday dinner. We're going to the same place we went for our wedding rehearsal dinner so I'm excited. I'm just realizing now that I haven't had to cook since Thursday. This is great! I do have my menu planned for the week so I need to get some groceries tomorrow because I think tonight will be the last of the dinners out for a little bit. That's OK, I'm excited to make some soups and my lazy lasagna. Mmmmm!

I have my follow-up with Dr. O tomorrow so hopefully he'll have some good news for us.

I don't have much else to report right now, but I'll be back soon!

I've been slacking

So I realized today while checking out some other blogs, that I have not been doing so well with keeping up with my goal to blog more. Whoops! So I'm back.

The reality is that there hasn't been too much going on, but I'll try to catch you up on the little things.

Well, we're still on the house hunt. I'm feeling more optimistic as we are approaching spring. I'm seeing more houses hit the market and it also seems that the ridiculous bubble is finally bursting around here and we should be able to afford something bigger than a shoebox now. Yippee! I've seen lots of the listing that I've received from our realtor having price reductions so I think folks are getting the point that we're not going to pay $400k for a 900 sf ranch with no basement. I mean really, we're not looking for a mansion or anything, but let's be reasonable. Things are looking up!

Let's see, we went on another trip to Foxwoods with the yacht club on Saturday. Sadly, I think the casino is going to gradually collect back the money I won on our last visit. ;) Oh, well. We still had a blast. As usual, the party back at the club after was really fun. Plenty of food, beer and dancing to make the loss a little more tolerable. =)

I went to a baby shower on Sunday for our friend W. It was really nice. It was at a restaurant for brunch. W's husband, C, was there too. They got lots of nice things for the new baby. I can't wait to meet their new addition. Some of the little nieces that were there thought they were going to get to meet the baby at the shower. How cute!

On the baby front for us, this cycle is chugging along. We had our preliminary tests done and now are just waiting to see what happens. If we catch it this time, Michael may be sharing his bday! Oh, well, I'm trying to not think about it too much because then I'll just start going crazy. So we're just going along and we'll meet with Dr. O later in the month for a follow-up to see where we are.

What else...oh, Michael sent me some beautiful flowers for Valentine's Day. They are so pretty and came in a pretty pink vase with a little picture frame. The smell fantatstic! I got him some fancy Swiss chocolates and we enjoyed our traditional pepperoni pizza for dinner. It was a nice night. I have the best hubby ever!

I can't really think of much more right now, but I'll be back. I promise! Talk to you soon!