Biting My Nails 'Til They Bleed

Our other house still hasn't sold.

If we were awash in money, this might not be a huge issue, but buying this house was a financial stretch and since we bought it, we've been hemorrhaging cash at an alarming rate. If this continues, we won't be able to afford to fix the things on this house that our home inspector told us we really couldn't ignore (like the roof -- don't want to ignore that, no sir).

Until about 3 weeks ago, I was content to let it ride -- the non-selling other house, I mean. I figured we simply listed it at a bad time and the weather, which was horrid this winter, just conspired to make house-hunting unappealing. But now...now I'm starting to feel mildly panicked.

It's not that we don't have nibbles. We've had a ton of traffic through the house in the last month. For a while there, people were choosing to go with new construction, but we've lowered the price to the point that we're now beneath the tier of people who can afford either our house or new construction. And still, people have complained that there aren't 2 full bathrooms.

No, there aren't. The house is nearly 40 years old. People didn't pee as much back then.

And of course, there's no master suite, and the basement isn't finished, but the kitchen is competely updated, as is the full bath, all the flooring is new and nice -- I went for broke on the flooring because I thought we were going to be there longer. And there are beautiful mature trees font and back and a newly re-sided 2 1/2 car garage, albeit unattached. I don't know. It's not perfect, but it's a darn sight better than it was when we bought it, all mauve and forest green on the inside as it was.

This is the problem with the slowing market: you can suddenly afford houses you never thought you'd be able to touch, but at the same time, you can't get nearly what you thought you could from your old house. I just hope we come out of this without completely draining our savings.

Laundry Theory 101

I used to like laundry. You know, back in the day when I was only washing my stuff. And why wouldn't I like it? It took me all of 3 hours to complete and since I usually did it while watching TV it barely even registered as a chore, per se.


But now...

Now, I do laundry for 5 people. Three of them are world-class mess makers and all three of them like to spread the mess around to other people's clothes. Like mine. I can't tell you how many times I've had someone use me as a human napkin. It's so gross, I don't want to think about it.

Anyhoo, it struck me this week that I have been doing a better job with laundry lately. And by "better job" I mean the laundry actually gets finished in the same week it is dumped by the washer. I have slightly altered my laundry routine and I think that's what made the difference between the light at the end of the tunnel and the never-ending story.

What I did was simply devote Monday to sheets. That's all I wash on Monday. I strip beds and wash the sheets and make the beds on that day and I don't do anything else laundry related. And I don't even do all the sheets: I alternate kids' sheets one week, our sheets the next, although I'm going to have to change that this summer when the kids are sweatier and dirtier than they are in the winter.

So, I start Tuesday with a clean slate, laundrywise, and that's when I sort and start all the other loads. And I do those loads in triage order: most important stuff first, least important last. I start with jeans and end with towels. I ususally have about 8-9 loads and it will take me 2-3 days to get it all done, mainly because of the driving I do and because I can't do any loads while the baby it sleeping for fear of waking her up. I mean, I want to get the laundry done, but I'm not stupid.

The other thing I do is I pile all the folded clothes on my bed. This makes it so I have to deal with the piles before I sleep. On that night. The same night. Okay, sometimes I just move the piles to the floor, but I dealt with them. Not well, but I dealt with them. And in this manner, I get through the laundry by Friday at the latest. Usually. Once I finished on a Wednesday and felt sort of dizzy -- what would I do with myself, in the absence of laundry?

I took a nap, of course.

It's bizarre, how a minor success with a trivial, mundane task can make you feel like a Nobel Scientist.

Smells like Team Spirit

Today I made a difference.

I was at Target to pick up some odds and ends that I couldn't get at the grocery store, one of which was a 75-watt compact fluorescent bulb for the garage. Lo and behold, CFLs were on sale this week -- up to 50 cents cheaper than normal. So I bought them out of 60-watt mini-twists and 40-watt globe lights. All told, I bought 31 CFLs -- and yes, it was a big outlay (about $175), but since we have 55 light bulbs on our 2nd floor alone, the energy savings should be exponential.

Just replacing the 10 globe lights in the kids' bathroom should save us nearly $50 this year alone. The 21 mini-twists should save us $147 over the next year. That's a pretty good combined savings. In fact, I am feeling motivated to replace even more bulbs, like down in the basement where we have a gazillion lights which the kids never turn off. CFLs have an additional bonus: they run 75% cooler than incandescents, which means they won't make the rooms as hot this summer. Should mean that the air conditioner won't have to work quite as hard. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one. The CFLs might not make our power bills go down this year, but they might keep them from going up.

I've been flirting with CFLs for a while now, but have always balked at their size and the cold nature of their light. However, the mini-twists were labeled "soft light" and once installed, they are considerably warmer than the old CFLs. That being said, the globe lights are definitely a cooler light, but not so bad that you feel like you're about to undergo surgery.

If you're wondering about CFLs and aren't sure whether they really make that much difference, this article on WalMart and the Fluorescent Bulb Revolution was a good read. Not that WalMart should be the yardstick for anyone's behavior, but kudos to them for doing something not designed to screw people for a change. The part of the article where they discuss their own savings as a result of switching to CFLs in their stores (and just a tiny portion of the store at that) is impressive. The government has a site that also explains the benefits of CFLs which I found mildly helpful, especially where they delineate the shapes, sizes and types of bulbs available and which works best where. Also, they explain quite clearly why you can't just chuck CFLs in the trash when they burn out in 8 years or so (mercury) and what to do if one should break in your house (special clean up procedures).

So here's the deal -- if everyone just put one CFL in their home somewhere, we'd save an absolutely ridiculous amount of energy. Enough energy to close down two coal powered energy plants (or prevent two from being built). If you just loathe them, as I did for a long time, consider putting them where you won't be bothered by them: an unfinished basement, the garage, your porch light. Put them in your closets, if your closets have lights. Find a place where you can use one -- just one. And then feel good about yourself for the next 8 years.

Saving the world, baby. Not bad for a Monday.

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLL!

He scored a goal today, his first one ever. His father, the coach, was so excited. I, who can only attend 2 games this season because of a scheduling conflict with older daughter's dance class, was miraculously on hand to see it. I would have photographed it, but I was so busy being in the moment, cheering and all, that taking a picture just slipped my mind. It was awesome, and it made standing around in 40 degree weather with a sharp, damp wind totally worth it.

Another family, watching their son, was not as happy. They yelled at their boy repeatedly: things like "Stop farting around out there!" and "Pay attention!" and let me tell you that they were mad. All this irritation, and their kid scored 3 goals. Heck, my kid scored once and it was almost certainly by accident, and his father and I were thrilled. This is, after all, pee wee soccer, three on three with no goalie. Half the time the kids don't even know which goal is theirs, let alone how to get a ball into it. Watching these parents and their tension over this game was really off-putting.

It does go a long way toward explaining why our team has had so much trouble with this boy shoving his own team members. 'Cause you know, it's tough to score with all those pesky teammates in the way. Forget building skills and understanding the fundamentals of the game -- can't be a star with all those other kids hogging the ball. To me, in my little pollyanna reality bubble, it seems too early to get so worked up over a sport, but some friends of ours just pulled their 8 year old out of our soccer league because the game had become so competitive that their son couldn't move around and try new positions for fear they might lose a game. And they were 8. As in eight years old. Holy cow. Remember when sports were so that kids could get together and have some fun?

Lighten up, people.

The Hundred Years' War

Or, How I Can't Seem to Decorate My House.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm lacking some critical girl-gene. I look at fabric swatches and wallpaper samples and furniture catalogues and instead of feeling a huge rush, I feel hugely intimidated.

No, more than that: I feel a surge of desperate frustration coupled with a sense of impending doom.

Right now I am living in what still feels like someone else's house and although we've put paint on some of the walls and most of our furniture lives here now, none of it seems to quite fit like it did in the old house. I am in the nether hell of having to find a new couch and chair for the family room so that the denim one (which is only 3 years old) can go in the basement because it's just a skosh too big for the family room.

I thought I'd found the perfect sofa: right size (about 10" smaller than our current one)right style (no back cushions for the kids to smash down) right color (came in a lovely carmel tan chenille herringbone that is about 2 shades darker than our walls). Then my sister, who shall hereafter be known as the Destroyer of Dreams, told me that with three kids and our future dog, chenille would make about as much sense as family night at the opera. The couch would, she swore, be rubbed bald in about a year. And naturally, I can't get it in any other fabric. Just the chenille. Just that perfect shade of butter soft chenille that will never survive the onslaught of my semi-feral children.

So, seething with frustration, I am at square one. Again.

The problem is that I have trouble committing. If I buy the chesterfield-style roll arm, I can't also have the flirty, slipcovered french settee. And yes, I like them both. And if I get the big farmhouse table, I can't also have the sleek, duncan phyfe reproduction with empire chairs. It boils down to this: I don't want to marry my furniture, I just want to date it.

See? Lacking the girl gene. Sadly, I still have the gene that is screaming at me to do something with the house, so I keep at it, in spite of feeling wholly inadequate. This weekend I am going to make myself crazy and go couch shopping some more. And maybe even order a new table. Why not? I haven't had a panic attack in at least 2 months. Time we livened up the joint.

It's a Different World

than the one I grew up in. Back in the day, when we rode ye olde stegasaurus to school uphill both ways in the snow, all there was for kiddies on the idiot box was the very wonderful Mr. Rogers and the equally wonderful Sesame Street. Now, there's this:

Can you tell what it is? It's a Yo Gabba Gabba video from YouTube. My sweet baby sits at the computer and says "Mommy, I want Party Tummy?" "Mommy, carrots cryin'? Green Beans cryin'?" Since we don't have cable (thank God) this is the only way she can get her Yo Gabba Gabba fix, short of moving in with Grandma full time. I am glad she can get a little taste of this completely bizarre show without me having to pay the cable company's extortionate prices.

And what is Yo Gabba Gabba? Beats the heck out of me, but I noticed that for whatever reason, it has spawned a lot of overdubbed videos on YouTube, some bad, some good. This is one of the good ones:

It's Elijah Wood doing the dancey dancey thing overdubbed with a really nifty song from a Romanian pop band. My 6 year old can't get enough of this.

Defining Moments

Husband: Did you notice on that show we were watching last night that the baby had the exact same sippy cup as our baby does?

Wife: No, but it's a Platex cup. They're pretty much everywhere.

Husband: Really? I was thinking it made us kind of cool.

Unfair Kharma

Sick child wakes us up at 5 a.m. with mild vomiting. After this is dealt with, husband immediately goes back to sleep with that extremely enviable talent he has for attaining a state of complete unconsciousness no matter what the circumstances. I lay there, wakeful, until I hear the baby at 6:30, because if I have to do anything more complicated than go to the bathroom I can never again achieve sleep on the night in question. I have crashing headache by 10 a.m.. I call husband and inform him that I will be going to bed early -- lights off at 10 -- and he'd better comply. He informs me that it's the NCAA final and the only way he's going to bed before it's over is if aliens land on our deck, break in, and forcibly sedate him.

I know this is not going to turn out well, but I accuse him of being mentally ill. Choosing basketball over sleep? Definitely not right in the head. He advises me to take a nap in the afternoon.

I laugh. Take a nap? With a sick child on the couch who has inherited her father's propensity for moaning? Fat chance. Still, I will give it the old college try. Pip pip and all that.

Older child falls asleep on couch at 1 p.m. I lie down on floor (we only have one couch and the bedroom is too far away for me to hear her) but cannot get comfy. Just has I am starting to feel relaxed, baby wakes up after what can only be described as a really bad nap.

Middle child comes home and begins yelling at the top of his lungs. Because he is a boy and this is what he does. Baby is cranky. Older child is feverish. I am starting to feel desperately tired.

I make dinner amid total chaos. It's a wash: all three kids reject it as poison, when in fact it's a lovely egg and cheese concoction that literally melts in the mouth. Whatever. They won't eat it. Bedtimes start rolling around beginning at 6:30 (baby) and continuing until 7:45 (oldest child). Finally everyone is in bed. NCAA game starts and husband immediately loses all contact with his environment. I go upstairs and realize that if I want to sleep, I have to fold and put away about 5 loads of laundry which are currently residing on my bed.

I finally get into bed at nine and watch an hour of TV alone. It is the only hour of the day in which I have not had someone to take care of or something to finish. Naturally, this is when husband comes up and decides to have a conversation with me. So what if he interrupts my program? -- geez, it's not like I'm watching BASKETBALL, for pity's sake.

Husband realizes that halftime is over and bolts back downstairs. I lay in bed from 10 to almost 11, reading and trying to achieve maximum sleepiness. I am almost there, so I turn off the light. This is when husband comes to bed. He is very quiet, almost considerate, but as I am lying there, I realize he has neglected to take the middle child to the potty, something we do every night because middle child has been known to get up and potty in the night, but not necessarily in the bathroom so we try to make sure he does it in a toilet before we sleep so we don't find it in the hallway (bedroom, stairs) in the morning. His father does this chore because his mother can no longer lift him. But tonight, being dazzled by BASKETBALL, husband decides to avoid this duty.

Now, I could let this go, but since I will be the one to have to clean it up in the morning should middle child have an incident, I decide to remind husband of his job. He gets up and does it, but unfortunately, this starts a cycle of extreme annoyance which eventually gets so strong I can't lie still anymore. Instead, I get up and pick a fight with said husband and end up storming off downstairs to cool off.

About 30 minutes later, he comes down and apologizes for being a basketball-watching freak with absolutely no sense of human decency. All is well, but it's now midnight of the day that began at 5 a.m. (Okay, technically it's 12 a.m. of the following day. So sue me.)

This seems to be the way my life goes -- wake up extra early, get kicked in the can by BASKETBALL, stay up extra late, feel rotten.