Cheap

Last night, I went out for a night on the town with my friend, Monica. We were in South Lake Tahoe for the weekend. Our husbands snowboarded for the day and we stayed at the cabin with the kids. To make the "vacation" a little more fair for us moms, we went out for the evening once the kids were in bed.

Our first stop was K-Mart, where I found a couple really cute tops on sale for $4 and $6. Not able to pass up the great deal, I shelled out the $10 hoping that they will not fall apart after one washing. This is still to be determined.

Later that evening, while walking the strip, I noticed a Patagonia store.

"My sister is so different from me. She's such a big spender on her clothes and shops at expensive stores like Patagonia and Banana Republic. She says that she wants her clothes to last her for a while so she spends more money upfront."

Monica quipped back, "She probably tells people how you are different from her. 'My sister is so cheap that she shops on the clearance rack at K-Mart.'"

Oh. Good point.

Putrid

Lucas found something that looked familiar behind a tree in the yard the other day. It was a discarded toothbrush with ragged, brownish bristles. And he did what any other 2 year old would do. "Toothbrush!" he exclaimed before shoving it straight in his mouth. When I realized this and took the nasty brush away, I felt the urge to upchuck.

Who knows what that brush has touched/scrubbed?

Now that is grosser than gross.

And what do you do with your kid after they have done such a thing? Brush their teeth immediately with their real brush? Make them rinse with rubbing alcohol or bleach;-)?

He's still healthy and happy, so it must not have been that contaminated.

Moving Again?

Well, our old house has been on the market for over 6 months now with no serious action or interest. We need to make a decision soon as we can't continue paying two exorbitant mortgages indefinitely. In fact, we've had to look at all of our options including: trying to rent the old place out (the problem is that we would only be able to collect 1/2 the amount of the mortgage payment in rent), foreclosure, and now putting the new place up on the market to see what happens.

I truly don't want to pack up and move again. This new place is our dream home. But the dream is not going as we had planned/hoped. We expected that we would sell the other home with relative ease (it's a great house) and that we would have approximately the same mortgage for so much more home. It's not looking like that will be the case anymore, though, as we've had to lower the price of the old place about $50K over the course of these months.

I feel a pretty defeated over this situation. We knew that we were making a risky financial move, but really prayed about it and researched it beforehand and felt led to go through with it. We are now trying to sort out what God's plan is in this situation. What is He trying to teach us? Did we make this move out of His will? Did He want us to move only to bring us back a few months later?

So, we don't know where we will be living in the upcoming months. Stay tuned for an update or perhaps a change of address and prayerfully it won't be to a box somewhere down by the railroad tracks (or van down by the river).

Turning Tricks

Emily has finally mastered rolling over from her back to her tummy. She'd been flipping from her tummy to her back for months so we were eagerly awaiting the roll in the other direction

Now that she has this new skill down, she wants to practice it constantly. It's nearly impossible to keep her on her back long enough to get a diaper on her and every time I get her from her bed these days, she is on her tummy grinning up at me with satisfaction.

She is starting to stick her dupa (her bottom) up in the air and move around a little on the floor, too. Any day now she will be off and army crawling.

I guess that we should think about childproofing again. But will we need to at this home?

Mission Impossible

My life as a mom of two little kids (one who just turned two and a five month old) is really KICKING MY BUTT!! Saying that my days are hard would be severely understated. It doesn't help that I am living on way too little sleep lately. I have insomnia again-where I am waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning and can't get back to sleep. I bought earplugs which is helping a little (at least I don't hear Lucas waking up early anymore or Emily stirring). It's nice to be oblivious at night and not thinking "Oh crap, now what?" whenever I hear a noise out of them.

My normal break during the day is the 30 or so minutes when they are both sleeping. And then I breathe my biggest sign of relief when they finally go to bed at night around 8. By that time, though, I am pretty fried and exhausted and don't have much energy to do much of anything.

Lucas does nap for a glorious 2-3 hours a day, but Emily tends to take these little nothing 30 minute catnaps all day long. What the heck can I accomplish in 30 minutes?! It actually seems like a really long time surprisingly, though.

Anyway, just bellyaching. That is why most people don't hear from me anymore, why my house is completely dirty, and why I really, REALLY want my family or Michael's to move out here.

Sigh.

We have such precious, wonderful times, too. Like this afternoon when we were getting ready for naps and Emily kept squealing, grinning and grabbing at her brother. They love each other so much. It's awesome.

Now if I can only survive the stress and lack of good sleep a couple more years...

Coke Bottles

I picked up my new glasses yesterday. Let's just say that I should probably go with plastic frames in the future. I went with wire ones for a change. Boy are my lenses embarrassingly and nerdily thick all hanging out behind the wire. When did I get that blind?

Snort.

I am even nerdier because I actually considered taping my other pair when they broke a month ago. But opted to wear a 5 year old pair that I could hardly see with instead.

What is Your Number?

Tonight we bought a Select Comfort sleep number bed that we found on Craig's List (my addiction for the past few months) for a steal. We'd wanted one for awhile and Mike has been complaining that our mattress hurts his back every night, so it seemed a good time to get it.

Here is the problem, though...we got it home all set to pick our individual number (I think that I am a 30 and Mike is a 60) and discovered that it has just one air chamber for the both of us. Not one on each side of the bed. This means that we have to agree on a number/setting for the whole bed.

It kind of defeats the purpose of a sleep number bed, doesn't it?

That's jacked up.

No wonder it was such a bargain.