Demolition

We Own It!

We had a bit of trouble getting into it though, it took some trying and some sticking out the tongue, while the neighbors upstairs looked on, we fin-angled it and finally we were in. Now, time for some demolition!

Here are some before and after shots of the demolition, keep in mind that this was all done in one day, by three and a half guys (and no my husband was not the half-a-guy).

It amazes me! Now time to rebuild...

Things I am Glad to Have 3

I am so glad for my sister... who is a wonderful aunt too :)




I'm also thankful for friends that span lifetimes.


I guess I have a lot to be glad about...

Things I am Glad to Have 2

I am glad for My husband!

We lost nothing in the great hard drive crash! YAY! I love him so much!!! (he gets extra exclamation points)

Pictures we did not lose:



Movies we did not lose:



My husband is amazing!

I am finding it difficult to believe that you guys can comment 5 times on my post about crazy weekends and yet have nothing to be glad about... come on we started at skin and underwear... what are you thankful for?

Things I am Glad I Have

My previous post makes me feel as if I need to be expressing my thankfulness in a more tangable way so here is a very partial list of things I am glad I have. Some of them come from songs that my daughter has discovered this week since we lost Steve. Thankfulness has been a theme here lately.

I'm so glad I got skin, that's what holds my insides in.
I'm so glad I got arms, that's what holds my hands on.

Thanks you God for underwear, thank you God for underwear, thank you God for underwear, right where I am.

I'm just so glad. :)

what are you glad that you got?

Advertising

There has been a rash of giveaways lately in the blog world. I guess the recession has people thinking ... well I don't know why you would give things away because you are being laid off, maybe the thought is that we are more thankful for what we have and realizing that we have more than we actually need and we want to share the 'wealth'. Whatever the reason I have seen more giveaways lately than I have ever seen before. It makes me think I should be giving something away. Something exciting and BIG ... I am moving, closing this next Friday actually YAY! And with that in mind, I have some BIG things (lesson the exciting side) that I am not moving.. like a dining set, a loveseatwould that is extra loved, some fireside wingback chairs, a bedroom set and a lovely white crib from the 50's that has NOT meet safety standards since the 60's. I'm thinking that having a giveaway would be a great way to get rid of these things! :) However, most of my readership (that I know of) has no use for these items, nor do they have space, although miss Ami has an entire roof that she is not taking advantage of. So I will simply have a garage sale next weekend. Come on down, if you mention this post you will receive a free prize!

My Very Long Weekend

And the saga continues. This weekend I am wishing we had taken last weekend off. Being gone every weekend for a month sounded really good before today around 4 o'clock when Jim was screaming obscenities at other drivers and then at our navigation system and I was threatening to throw Claire's happy meal box out my window. How did we get here I wondered. Well, we left at 4am on Sat. to go to my friend Meg's wedding (she was lovely, there are pictures that I will post when I get Steve back) And before that we welcomed Ami to our house on Thursday afternoon, we went to the park, sat around and watched strange 80's movies with Bannana Splits (pictures of this too when Steve lives or Ami finds her camera cord) and generally hung out. So we left Ami on her own at my house during the wedding trip. She did fall prey to our traveling habits.. there was no shampoo in the shower for her to use (I think we caused her to open her trunk!!) (AH) and there were no clean towels. So she washed some and folded all my laundry. She has yet to accept any of my generous offers to become my live-in. I will get her yet, I still have about 17 hrs left with her. Sorry Mark. So After Ami arrives and we leave and go to the wedding (at 4am)(which sounded like a better idea than it was) we stopped off at Aunt Nancy the Great's place. Which is very nice. We plan to visit again. She has clean towels and several kinds of shampoo in her shower. We celebrated Steven's birthday, roasted marhsmallows, saw some chickens (we are still chatting about those) and the highlight of Claire's visit, gathered some rocks from Aunt Nancy's mud room. Kudo's to you Aunt Nancy for providing hours of car-time play for the ride back, who would have thought 5 rocks and a ziplock bag... We are home now, we were going to watch a movie, but we cant find it so the guy on vicodine went to the movie store to find us something... (Ami is still here) (She is planning to leave on Tues now, because Mark has classes so she wants to spend some more time with her sister)(she says I'm lying, again SEVENTEEN hours, I will change her mind) So overall, this weekend was just too long and full of stuff that was wonderful. My plan is to never leave my house again and just continue to relive the events of this weekend over and over and over...
I can't beleive you are still reading this, please get up, go have an adventure of your own and blog about it so that I can have something to do while I live at home for the rest of eternity. But before you go, leave me a comment and let me know you love me.

My husband is the best! Theater experiance for the same price but in a much more comfortable setting!

Revised

So I think my husband read my blog and felt bad about my recap of our weekend. So we salvaged what we could. We went to RI for the day on Sun. and spent it with my in-laws at a house up there. Fun with dogs and bugs and smores around the fire-ring! And then a ferry ride back to Long Island for a send off party for Cousin Joe (the medium one). A walk to the lake provided a front row seat for a family of geese and a family of ducks.. the babies were SO cute! Overall we packed 5 days worth of fun into two and ended up having a blast! So happy Memorial Day. (which doesn't seem like it should be a 'happy' holiday when you think about what you are 'celebrating') I hope your weekend was just as eventful. If you can top prarie dog babies you win.. that's the best thing I have heard of so far.

Sad

Our Steve (that's our computer's name) is not with us. He had to go to the Mac store to get some work done on his harddrive. Actually he needed it replaced :( We will miss him this week. We will also miss the month worth of pictures that are potentially going to be lost because of his harddrives untimely death. :( My husband beleives he can retreive the pictueres.. if he does I will declare my undying love for him (again).
In other news my husband had his wisdom teeth out, the second and last set. He followed his surgery with celebratory nerds and now lies in bed in severe pain and the stiches are still bleeding. He would like me to point out that he beleives the two (nerds and pain) are not connected in anyway. This may be true but I see at least a phone call to the good Dr. if not a trip in our future.
Claire on the other hand had a great day yesterday. She went garbage shopping with her mom and got a new slide for the backyard! She is also in the process of perfecting her whining voice and impatient stomping feet. (thank you cousin Joe for the invaluable lessons you teach us). In Cousin Joe's defense he has taught us other things like chalk drawing and fire engine washing.
Overall a great day. Sad about Steve but happy otherwise. Well Jimmy isn't so happy. So I guess it's just Claire who is defying the odds here at our house and enjoying her days with her Dad; even though he has spent most of it drugged up or sleeping off the drugs or pain. We will do better next weekend when we travel out to Bradford to see Miss Megan tie the knot with Mr Rob!

My Life in Photographic Form

I'm the baby in the corner...

A Piece of Some Peace

Nothing clever to post lately. Nothing really of note. I must take note of that lull because I fear we have passed into warp 5 and will soon be inventing warp 7. This whole buying a home thing is really a process, a long process that we are trying to cram into a little tiny container. We are buying a co-op (see pictures), we signed the contract and the sellers decided that even though they live upstate, and they never lived in this particular dwelling (it is their father's estate), and even though the unit is cleared out of all things except a year old beer and some bandaids and sanitary pads; they would like to hold onto it for another month or two. I say 'Boo Hiss'. My husband makes some calls, and we have the contract signed by the next morning. Amazing. Then we have this co-op board. They are the people who get to sit around and tell you everything they think you shouldn't do, which apparently noone pays attention to. But they are also the ones who decide if you get in or not. We can't talk to them without being preped. We must talk to Linda first. Linda has been described to me in many different terms some of the nicer ones include; nutjob, hard headed, difficult and 'She just has that title'. So several realeste agents and others talked and BAM we are at the head of a list of 20 names and they are holding a spot for the meeting there was no way we were going to get into. Great. Now we must get things in order, things that we can't possibly get in order without time travel. We need to get our mortgage approved and get forms that take weeks in just days/hours. We get it all done, I think my husband whored himself once or twice to our broker but we have the papers. (and the broker will hand deliver them to the co-op for us) I call Linda to set up the 'preping us for the board meeting' meeting. She says, 'sorry, if you had just called a day earlier we could have put you in this meeting but now you'll have to wait for the next one.' (which is next month). This makes me wanna cry, I try to get her to change her (nutjob, hard headed, difficult, ...) mind but no go. OK. My husband calls her and we are scheduled for this morning to meet and we'll make the meeting hopefully. Wonderful. Now all we have to do is get through this step and meet with the board on Monday and have a walk thru of the property and have some renovating done and we can move in. Oh and have a baby. It's a process they say. I hope the rest of it goes smoothly and without bribery and sexual favors which is how I imagine we have gotten this far.

The shortened version of our homebuying process:
We are buying a co-op. Boo hiss. Amazing. Bam. Great. Ok. Wonderful.

Just looking for some peace:

Amen! The skies are BLUE!

What is on your Luke List?

The more I watch Gilmore Girls (one episode every weekday)(probably why I have these problems) the more I find myself wanting a Luke.
*Not that I don't love my husband. I do and I am completely contented with the fact that I have him for the rest of my life on earth. He has given me 1 and 1/2 beautiful children and some wonderful moments to look back on in my old age.*
But I would like a Luke, Cause if you watch the show (which I believe everyone should watch at least once) you will notice that Luke is always there, like he just leaves the diner to fix the window in room 3 of the inn or cook when Sookie (a lovely name for a girl) gets put on bed-rest. Most men are not that handy and don't have that kind of job security/freedom. I would like a Luke and on his list I would put:
Empty the trash in the bathroom and laundry room
Pull out the refrigerator so I can clean up the granola that spilled there yesterday
Move the couch so I can sweep under it (cause I'm not sure anymore what could be under it)
Take out the air conditioners in my room and Claire's room
Just things like that. Things I can't do myself or shouldn't do myself but probably will end up doing. Or things I just don't wanna do.
I guess if I didn't watch so much Gilmore Girls I would have time to get these things done myself....

Never Too Young

Proof that you are in fact never too young to wear heels and hit the mall. :)
Just a little happy to brighten your day...

Days and Counting :)

Today I had iced tea, the kind from the mix (not sun tea like my dad likes cause it was rainy). We also had corn on the cob. For some reason that took me to my grandparent's house. It made me miss summer days eating out on the porch or around their table. I guess I REALLY can't wait till May, even my subconsciousness is anticipating this small family reunion.

Fire Hydrant

Today we a good day, and it is only 1pm. So far we have walked to the park, played there for 2 hours, then walked home to find a wonderful thing; the fire hydrants were open!

Much more fun than the wading pool full of water.

Grandpa and Joe were out too, so we raced sticks and boats down the street,

Got soaking wet and had the time of our life :) Who know what fun we will find after our nap.

This is a post for family, if you stumble across my bit of 'cyber-inter-intra-net-web' and want to give your input too, you are more than welcome, but mostly I am looking to find out if this trait is inherited or my own singular oddity.
I was doing laundry today and as I was folding all of my husbands underwear and then moved onto mine, I realized that, honestly, 'do these need to be folded?' I guess my mother always folded our underwear and encouraged/demanded that we fold the underwear when we folded laundry (rarely). But really, as Claire would ask, 'Why?'
So if you have any thoughts, do you fold your underwear or just throw it in a drawer? Do you fold your significant other's underwear? Does he think it is strange? Do you know why someone would beging this silly waste of time habit? let me know, I think I am going to try to just throw my underwear in the drawer today and see how it feels. I have yet to leave the kitchen after doing dishes without wiping the counters... Habits are hard to break, especially if they aren't yours to begin with.

*ammendment: I tried just throwing them in, and ended up quazi folding the underwear, what is our obsession with underwear drawers?

Come Visit

Ok since I love my mother and miss her SO much lately, I feel the need to fulfill her every request/demand/dream in the hopes that she will fulfill my dream/request/demand that she come out here immediately. So as requested here are some pictures of our 'new' place. (The BEFORE pictures) There are 5 rooms, you see them all right here.

Bedroom for two Bedroom for mom and dad
Living/dining/playroom Kitchen
Bathroom for the queen The queen herself
(not in the tub from the new place) but how cool that we get to keep the pink tile...

That Belly Dancer has nothing on my Claire

We practice 'tea party' today to enhance our hand/eye coordination. Mostly we just played with water. The weather was so pretty.
In other news, yesterday we signed the contract on our new home. YAY! Pictures to come when we have some after pictures, we don't want to scare you with only the before pictures :) Please do pray because timing is gonna be a little tight. (by tight I mean impossible) But since nothing is impossible for my God we are moving ahead, eating out to celebrate being poor, and folks, we are in escrow!

Iovino's Oscar

So we colored eggs...

We colored eggs, I'm still not sure why. Claire won't remember it and didn't seem any more attached to the real eggs than to the plastic ones. Jimmy, well he doesn't have a coloring egg past so he wouldn't have missed it. But me.. well we did it every year, it's like one of those traditions you want your kids to remember as fondly as you remember it from your childhood... So we colored eggs...

Ready... Set... Color...

After coloring eggs, we decided that we NEEDED to see them again,

And give them a second coat of color

Then we were done.

My Dad the Pirate King

So lately I have been finding out tons of things about my parents that I never knew about them. For example, one friend brought to light that they may have sued a man in FL in the '80's. This sounded absurd to me and turned out to be just that according to my mother, however what are the chances that there was another David Havener out there who met a Brenda and got married? Strange.
Then today I find out the my dad is being held hostage on a lifeboat in Africa... who knew, I mean last time I talked to him his phone was cutting out a lot but still there were no 'argh''s in the background or singing. (pirates always sing)
I found some information as I was investigating the pirates holding my father in this absurd manner; who holds hostages against the US navy and FBI and Coast Guard in a lifeboat? a lifeboat. What kind of sissy navy must we have if they can't take over a lifeboat? Anyway, I'm not worried, these pirates can't be very good, first let me remind you of the lifeboat, then there is this lovely quote:

"A pirate named only as Badow told the Associated Press that a "good number of well-equipped colleagues" were heading to the scene to help the pirates escape. "We are not intending to harm the captain, so that we hope our colleagues would not be harmed as long as they hold him," Badow said."

So many things wrong with this;
1. His name is Badow? That's his pirate name? come on...
2. He is talking to the associated press via satellite phone. I guess pirating has changed since Johnny Depp
3. And his language isn't at all what you would expect from a pirate; 'colleagues' 'not intending to harm him' 'we hope our colleagues won't be harmed'? Where are the 'arghs' and the crass nature?
4. They sound like they don't really want a hostage anyway... no walking the plank (can you put one of those on a lifeboat?), no ..? I dont know... I feel they should be more violent or crass....
I feel jipped. My dad is only gonna be stolen (ok he gave himself up) by pirates once in his life, and it's turning out all wrong.
Thanks a lot Hollywood for my unrealistic views of pirating.

Uh-Oh

So my dad called and he wanted some pictures of Claire and our family to put on a digital picture frame for my Grandmother. Unfortunately, I found that ALL of our 'recent' pictures of Claire look like this...

either that or her bottom half is naked. So I guess today we will have to break out the camera and take some decent shots of Claire when she is clothed. Wish us luck...

MESS!

So, we started potty training this last week... we thought we were doing really good, until I started keeping track of things today. So far today (it's only 4:30) we have been thru:
4 pairs of pants
an entire roll of paper towels (I am open and eager for any other suggestions of what is good to clean pee off of floors/ride-on toys that will not kill every acre of rain forest before we graduate to big girl underwear)
2 sippy cups (don't ask why we are on our third, you don't wanna know what happened to the other two)
4 Advil (for mom)
1 lovey bear
1 baby doll (who really just had to go potty but fell in)
and we are growing dangerously low on patience for accidents that happen less than 4 in. from the potty chair because we can't 'aim' (isn't that supposed to be a boy problem?)

So, that's where 'we' are; thinking 'we' may have bitten off more than 'we' can chew but assuring ourselves that 'we' are more stubborn than her bladder.
She really is doing well... But who would have thought that teaching her to pull down her pants would be the hardest part of potty training?!

Thank you for the small things

Thank you #53 for checking to make sure none of my new socks had holes.
Thank you Chinese forefathers for coming to America and bringing egg rolls
Thank you mom for teaching me where pee goes
Thank you dad for letting us play in your garage as kids
Thank you Aunt Jamima for making pancakes easy in the mornings
Thank you Pastor Cope for teaching me that you can put peanut butter on pancakes when you have no syrup
Thank you Ray Plunkett for inventing nonstick pans
Thank you.

A Whole New Look?

First I must apologize to those of you who are male and who read my blog. I'm not sure there are any other than my husband but... if you are male and happen to stuble upon my blog I am sorry that my fitness tip of the day is geared mainly toward women today... Men can also lift weights.. there, apology complete.

Moving on...

How do you like it? The new look? Different title, different colors, for a whole different me. OK maybe I'm not so different, bigger around the middle yes but different? I'm not sure. I thought long and hard about how my life has changed in the past year and a half. I got married, had a baby, got pregnant, took some great trips with my little family, moved to another state (don't tell PA, they don't know officially yet). But for all the external change in my life, has there been any internal change? Still mulling that one over. I'll get back to you.

But externally, how about this new blog?!
Big hand for my designer!

Pap Hat

I have a pap.
He wears a hat.
He wears his hat
a lot like that.

He wears it up
a top his head.
Why like that?
It can't be said.

I guess it's genetic

Depressed or Pregnant?

Symptoms:
1. eating an entire frozen pizza (minus the two pieces your child ate)
2. Problems sleeping
3. irritability
4. Crying spells for no apparent reason
5. Unintentional weight gain
6. eating an entire family sized danish in two days by yourself
7. Feeling worthless
8. Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches

Maybe pregnancy is just depression with a due date...

Claire Fix

For those of you wondering what Claire has been up to lately... she is trying to find something to ride.. a big dog... a stuffed pig... a bunny?

Can a Birthday get better?

I think not...

Gadget of the Day

Today's gadget is a stress reliever, for all those doing midterms, weather grading them or taking them. And for those who are in the work force, still working or looking for work. And for those staying home, weather just hiding from the world or with little ones and housework. So go ahead shoot a smile... wait, that kinda contradicts my previous post, but at least they are related right?

Awfully Chain-letter-ish

What's in a smile? a lot. Today you should try to smile at as many people as you can, cause otherwise you are perpetuating a problem that I have just recently become aware of again. The problem is this; People are so miserable now, (money issues, housing issues, marital issues..ect.) that they don't smile unless someone else smiles first. But since everyone is miserable, no one is smiling.. so start something with a smile today :)

I have been a victim myself recently of the grouchy people. I went to the post office, I place I avoid usually because of the strange bullet-proof windows the tellers sit behind and the strange 'lift this, close that and step back' system they have that makes me feel REALLY far from my little town of Mars. (is it strange to miss the post office?) Anyway I had to go yesterday and the lady was so short and grouchy, and they weren't even busy! I am pretty good at trying to figure out what made them grumpy, like a busy day, pen ink on thier shirt, impatient people yelling at them... who knows? But this lady was just coming onto her shift, it wasn't busy AND she had a stoll to sit on! no excuse for her non-smiling face to snip at me... Of course I did the wrong thing, not smiling back BUT I did hold the door for an elderly lady on my way out.. does that count? And the bird is in the air (Ami you'll get your package, complete with sunshine when you get home)

Healthy and Happy

Ok maybe my blog isn't cut out for a theme... so back to what we know,
cute pictures of Claire:

While I am enjoying this pregnancy, which has been only slightly more trying than my pregnancy with my first, I am NOT enjoying the 'motherly body'. I am having dreams and fears that I will never get back to the body of a 25 year old. (btw my birthday is coming up :) )Please do not ask for pictures of my 'belly'. be content that it is BIG and that there is a baby inside it. I look roughly like Claire does in the picture above^. Which brings me to the gadget of the day, a weight loss gadget... I'm not sure if I should put it up though because then you will be losing weight while I am still gaining.. and then you will look better than me... So I think you should do the opposite of what it says... yeah.. that will make me feel better..except then you'll all be fat and unhappy.. and who wants fat unhappy friends and family? not me... just stay healthy and happy. :)

Things to Ponder

So during this blog renovation I have been giving a lot of thought to what my blog is.. is it a mommy blog? where I post an insane number of pictures of my offspring and share witty stories about my day as a mom. or how about a knitting blog? that's a pretty easy no.. I don't think I've finished one knitting project in my life. how about a cooking blog? where I share all my chef-ly wisdom and pictures of my lovely concoctions. What do you think?

Polling the Audiance

Does anyone know if salt goes bad? like at some point are you supposed to get rid of it? We don't use that much salt, and Grandma bought it in BIG containers... It is still salty, so that's not a problem..but Bible quizzing taught me that. (thanks mom and dad).
See how much better my activities were than my evil sister who danced around in frilly costumes to hokey music?
So if you know if salt goes bad, please pass along the love. Thanks.

How Many Times did You Try to Pass?

OK today we add the parking game in honor of the many times I tried to pass my drivers test.. I think it took 4? tries. The first time I think I failed before we left the parking lot... he said 'turn on the headlights' and I instead made the wipers go. The next time I 'ran' a red light, but that wasn't my fault.. I'm not sure what happened the third time, I think that was just the parallel parking... yes... I remember now, because it was the first time they even let me attempt the parallel parking part of the test, the other times they saved me the humiliation...And in the end the guy giving me the test told me what to do to parallel park the car... Now I am fully licensed and a very good driver with only one accident ever and I live in NYC land of parallel parking, imagine that :)
Anyway since the instructions are for the visually super gifted I'll hash them out here so that everyone can enjoy hours of frustration trying to parallel park a car. After all we here at 'ugly blog central' are equal opportunity time suckers.
To play you must hit the 'continue' on the first page and then you will move to the second page which tells you where you have to park (the yellow parking spot)... then you have to hit 'enter' (on your keyboard). To control the front wheel drive car use your arrow keys to control the wheels and the brake is the space bar... have fun.

A Ploy to Keep you Reading

So while I am in ugly blog purgatory awaiting the proper number of hail Mary's to be sent out for me, I plan to make the most of it... Already you can do so many absurd things on my blog and I plan to add a new one every day until the Great Fix! So far you can play pacman.. go ahead >>> try it. It leaves you on my page so that you can log your blogging time while not actually reading my blog. You can also watch the underside of a frog walk 'up' my blog (at least 2 in. of it). Tomorrow I plan to add the Andy Warhol art of the day.. I don't know how long that will last though I mean he painted many masterpeices but still I plan to blog for a LOOOong time, will they begin to repeat masterpeices? That seems like cheating to me... maybe instead of that silly thing I will add the fashion tip of the day or the worlds most strange hit counter... Stay tuned.

I Did a Stupid Thing

Well here is what happens when you are looking for something to do... While most of my time is occupied with my lovely little one, sometimes she does not require undivided attention. This leaves me looking for something to do, that can be stopped at a moments notice and doesnt require much brain power (I conserve it during down time).
My blog looks like this.... I have been BEGGing! my lovely 'blog designer' to make my blog pretty... she has done some others, Miss Brenda and Amidala are only some. Although she only takes credit for her 'creativity' on my blog (see bottom) my blog is still just the standard template. :(
So yesterday during naptime, I got myself into the biggest pickle... (moment for hot benny)... I decided 'how hard can it be' 'I can stop anytime and come back to it and finish tonight' 'I have photoshop' 'I WILL MAKE MY BLOG PRETTY all by myself'.
This was a bad idea for several reasons: I don't know what I'm doing (I am so out of touch, did you know HTML is obselete now it's all X rated, It's like XMTL or something like that)... it is much harder than you may think it is (at least for me)... you can't really stop anytime, cause you have screwed up your blog so badly it is unrecognizable... and you will live in constant fear, losing sleep over that fact that your blog designer will see this as a revolt and LEAVE IT THIS WAY!! >:O
I tried really hard, I followed all the instructions that were given, I upgraded... peice of advice NEVER UPGRADE!... This is because apparently Blogger wanted to make it more difficult for ameatures like me to update their blogs, so the 'new' betablogger is near impossible to alter and make pretty, I found this out AFTER I hit the little button.. I saw it... I said 'what does this button do?' and my brain (remember it was in conservation mode) said 'PUSH IT!'.. never a good idea, in StarTrek or Blogging.
The only silver lining to this all is that since I don't know what I'm doing my blog designer is still taking the credit for my blog although it looks ... well... you can see for yourselves.