It's a No Go

So we offered the homeowners of the house I blogged about $25k below their asking price, because, in this market, you never know. We expected them to counter and hoped to meet somewhere in the middle, no higher than $10k below the asking price.

They don't want to budge. They only went down $5k and when we tried again, they stuck with it. We're not budging on our max, so...

nobody's moving yet.

And we're continuing to look.

Goings On

I'm 30!

Chuck worked from 7am to 7pm, so I celebrated with a birthday donut with my daughter. It was her suggestion, and a great one at that. Who knew Krispy Kreme could be such a fun afternoon outing? We got to watch the donuts roll by on the conveyor belt and get covered with glaze. (I just re-read that and it sounds like we got covered with glaze. That was not the case, although her hands did end up covered in glaze.) She tried counting them, but got stuck at 8 or 9, just like usual and then would start back at 3. hehe

I met with a landscaper this afternoon who wants 3-4k just to spruce up our yard. Um, no. Next, please.

I made an appointment with a painting company to come give us an estimate on touching up the exterior and should be seeing a guy about our interior repainting tomorrow or the next day as well.

Chuck stained and sealed the deck yesterday.

See a pattern here?

Yep, we're gettin' our butts in gear and preparing to put our house on the market.

We drew up an offer to buy a different house this evening. Things have moved pretty quickly, but we're excited at what the new house has to offer... IF we can get it for the price we want. Here are a couple of pictures of the interior for you to enjoy.

This is the huge living room and archway into the dining room. I've already begun to "decorate" and have decided that there's enough space in this room for a craft area, which is very exciting.

This is the den with opening into the kitchen and french doors to the screened in patio/sunroom. The layout of this house is actually almost identical to our current home, there are just a few key differences.

Some of the important changes from one house to the other are as follows:

The yard of our current home is expansive. Beautiful, but expansive. We do want a yard some day. We both love a big blanket of green to welcome you to the house, but Chuck simply doesn't have the time to maintain it at this stage of our lives. The yard of the new home is small, but beautifully landscaped so it has lots of character.

The deck and playset in our current backyard were part of what was attractive about this house, but the screened in sunroom (I HATE mosquitoes!!!) and the covered patio (the sun is just scorching in the summer... or else it's raining) and the POOL at the new house are going to be the perfect escapes from the heat for two girls and their mommy.

The carport in our current home was the MINIMUM we would accept for parking options and, unfortunately, we didn't even really have the choice of any other homes in our price range with garages at the time. In fact, many just had a driveway with no cover. The new house has a two car garage. Yipee!

The master bath in our current home is a jack and jill with the girls' bedroom and opens to the hallway as well. It's just annoying and we never even open the pocket door to their room. The new house's master bath does open to the hallway and the master, but not to another bedroom.

Our current home is a 3 bedroom. I have been saying ever since we got pregnant with Arielle that I wasn't sure how the girls sleeping in one room would work. We made the switch this month and it hasn't worked out at all. They both began waking up earlier and earlier and waking each other up as well. As soon as we put Arielle back in the guest room, everyone got to sleep later. Mommy is happiest with more sleep, but we need a dedicated guest room with a king sized bed. (My parents bought it for us because they refuse to stay with us if they have to sleep on anything smaller.)

The new house has 3 bedrooms, one for us and one each for the girls. AND a pool house with it's own full bath. Hellooooo guest cottage. HAha! I'm so stinkin' excited about our guests having their own quarters that I hardly know what to do with myself. It's possibly THE best thing about the house.

The offer expires tomorrow at 5pm.

Fingers crossed.

Not a Kid Anymore

It is the day before my 30th birthday.
I am having cheese puffs and wine for my afternoon snack.



There is no party tomorrow.
But we might be putting an offer on a house.
I am not depressed, but I am... feeling... different.



My mother was 30 and just about to have her first and only child, me, this time 30 years ago.
What a huge change for her, and she was already 30 when I happened.
I have two girls, am about to (possibly) own my second house, am married to a doctor, have succumbed to the mini-van mom monster (but I refuse to ever don "mom jeans") and am still coloring my hair red, which I began doing freshman year in college.
Did I mention I turn 30 tomorrow and I'm kind-of conflicted about it?


I might learn to embrace it by the time I turn 31.
I'll let you know.

Homo H8?

I'm about to open a can of worms.  But it's my blog, so if I want worms all over it, that's my prerogative.

I believe homosexuality is sin.  I believe it is wrong.  I do not want gay marriage to be widely legalized.  There.  Now that that's out of the way, this post isn't really about my beliefs on that subject, but I wanted to just go ahead and put them out there, because I don't want to dance around that question the whole post.  Onward with what I really wanted to post...

I go to E! Online and get my celebrity fix every other day or so.  Today, I came across this article about the NO H8 campaign.  It was the first I'd heard of it and was curious.  I Googled it and read a little bit and saw some more of the photos.  I was starting to get perturbed, but decided I needed to learn more before I jumped to conclusions about what the duct tape across the mouth meant.  As I continued to research, my first gut reaction was confirmed and I had to do a quick post.

I believe the photo below is the photographer himself, Adam Bouska, if I'm not mistaken.

There are different interpretations of what the duct tape means, but before I even address that.  I think the  8 in the NO H8 slogan is very clever way to reference to Proposition 8 (The California Marriage Protection Act), but I don't think the creator is being fair by using the word "hate" to describe the result of a fair vote that didn't go the way a group of people wanted it to.  There are always majorities and minorities in votes.  The minority doesn't win.  So that means the majority HATES the minority?  No.  It just means the minority doesn't have enough voices yet.

Speaking of voices, now to address the duct tape.  It can be interpreted a couple of ways.  I read that some people think it means that this is a silent protest of the "hating" that's going on toward gays.  Wouldn't that be kind-of redundant though, since a photograph is inherently silent?  Still others (and this was my gut reaction) feel that it means that the people "hating" need to be silenced.  Once again, I don't feel like this was really well thought through.  I'm going to give the creator the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't mean for me to read into this all that I did.

But what comes to your mind when you think about a person's mouth being duct taped?  Just play the game with me.  First thing that comes to your mind...   Kidnapping? torture? ... these are extreme, but I'm just saying.  When else is duct tape used over the mouth?  I didn't vote obviously, but if I had, I would have been on the side voting against gay marriage.  

I do not hate gay people, but I am labeled as such and (silently) requested to put duct tape over my own mouth (or maybe they wish to put it there for me?) and support something I don't believe in just to prove I don't hate gay people.  Since when is voting on one side of an issue hating the people that vote on the other side of it?  Since when is voting not a fair way to determine the laws in our country?  Since when is it acceptable by a wide range of people, including Cindy McCain (surprising to me) to want one side of an issue to have no voice?

Isn't the problem that gays feel they don't have a voice?  that they don't have a fair say?  The solution is not to wish a different group the same unfairness they imagine to have.

And here's another article that takes a completely different, possibly less controversial, twist on how the whole campaign just seems to be self promotion of beautiful people under the guise of a "good cause."  Really, their cause is getting less attention or effective action since the voters are who they really would need to get ahold of and the voters who voted against gay marriage probably wouldn't be influenced by hundreds of unoriginal photos.  Just sayin'.

Losing It : The Trend Continues

For the latest update on my bravery and determination, go to Two In My Cup and see the stats.

Vacation Anyone?

Vacations don't really seem like vacations with two little ones, do they?  I know you could have told me that, but apparently I had to experience it myself to know.
Vacations are just your everyday routine in a different location... without all the comforts and familiarity of home... with family that want to spoil your child as much as possible every single day.... and with a spouse, suddenly around 24/7, that you are somehow supposed to be able to effectively communicate and plan with even though you usually only get the chance to practice those skills but for a few hours at the end of the day (if that).  Slightly challenging, to say the least.
I don't have the time or the willpower to make a long post about this, even though there's plenty to post.
Suffice it to say, we didn't really adjust to the challenges until MAYBE the last two days of our two week vacation.  I would say that we'll be better prepared next time...
In some aspects, I think we will, but we will never be taking a 6 month old and a 2 year old on vacation again.  Next time it will be a one year old and an almost three year old, which may be a totally different ball game for all I know.
It was definitely a milestone for me and more of an education than a vacation.

Here are a few enjoyable moments from our education.  :)