Archive for January, 2006

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

It’s the deck

Ok, so the main problem with the new house, the one that everything is pretty much hanging on, is the back deck. It is enormous, two story, and it is basically the only yard there is to the house right now, as the house sits on the crest of a steep hill, and the rest of the property is currently unusable. The property can be terraced and built up to make a yard, and we’ve seen previous bids to do it, but as it sits right now, the deck is the only playspace the kids will have for awhile.

And it’s rotting and sliding down the hill because it wasn’t built properly.

So, before we finalize anything, we need to find out just what $$$ amount we’re looking at to replace it. So far, there have been vague numbers thrown around by the inspector and the contractor I took out there yesterday. And the numbers were in the high 20 to 30 thousand dollars.

Mercy.

So, we’re looking at options. I’m heading out with another contractor this afternoon to get hopefully more of a specific bid, and to look at re-building a smaller deck.

The sellers will meet us part way on the cost, but they aren’t going to hand over no $20,000. Certainly. And I don’t even want to build that much of a deck, particularly if I’m paying for it, because we do want to put in a yard at some point, and possibly even an addition down the road, and I’d hate to have to rip up an expensive, perfectly fine deck that we had built to do it.

See?

Lots to think about. Lots to do.

Plus, the attorney that is working on my car accident case has started calling again, so things are beginning to happen there, and have to be wrapped up or filed by March 27th.

So there’s one more thing on my plate suddenly.

We hired a roofer this morning, who thinks he can start replacing our current roof beginning next week. Thank heavens.

And I’m trying to lock down the contractor that was out here yesterday as to when he can start on the other home repairs we have to do before listing our house.

Which I’m not even going to DO, (list our house) if this other house deal falls apart, because I’m NOT going to put myself in a position of having to move with nowhere to go. Or, having to buy something I don’t particularly like because if we don’t, we’ll be homeless.

Not gonna do it.

Happy knitting to you all. I’m amazed I still have fingernails.

Monday, January 30th, 2006

Oh! The Rain!

You know, and I’ve said this before, it really bugs me that I can’t just settle in and enjoy the rain. I get all cozy in massive amounts of rain, normally, but since the roof started leaking a couple years ago, I stopped being able to enjoy it. Now, the rain just means delays in doing what needs to be done to sell our house. Like, replacing the roof. Touch up painting outside. Backyard cleanup.

We are getting tons and tons and tons of rain.

And my week is going to be spent calling, arranging, and meeting a zillion contractors both for our current house, and the new one.

On the new house, the sellers don’t want to deal with all the stuff that came up in the inspection, so they offered a dollar amount. Now I get to deal with the contractors, to get a bunch of bids, to see if the dollar amount offered will come close to doing the important things.

And I’m getting a sinus infection.

Also, I have my baby doctor appointment a week from Wednesday, at which point I start going in every two weeks.

WHY IS ALL OF THIS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW???

Moving on… guess what we did on Saturday?

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Recognize him? Here’s another clue…

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This ought to give it away…

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We went to the Children’s Museum for a special breakfast and preview of the Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood exhibit that opened this weekend. We had no idea that Mr. McFeely would be there. He’s a very nice man. The girls had a great time.

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And, I got another picture of the VCC! I’ve been wearing it a ton, and I still love it.

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Saturday, January 28th, 2006

Health Group- Year 2, week 34

Good afternoon. My tummy is bothering me today, and I don’t know why. But it sucks.

I’ve been very active this week, packing and moving things around. I’ve been working on drinking more fluids, and I’m trying to eat relatively well.

This doesn’t mean I haven’t succumbed to stress-induced ice cream fests, with all the house buying stuff going on, but on the whole, I’m pretty happy with how it’s going.

I didn’t weight myself this morning, so I don’t have an update there, but it isn’t critical right now either. I can tell the baby is growing, so I’m sure I’ll be putting on some pounds at some point.

Sleeping sucks. I’m not getting a lot.

How are you?

Friday, January 27th, 2006

Why is it,

that no matter how many piles there are, and despite the fact that the piles have not been publicly named, THE pile that the girls are the most interested in is the pile that is the throw out/give away pile? The stuff they’ve shown NO interest in at all in the last year. The stuff that we’re NOT keeping?

And now that pile is gone, and the stuff that was in that pile is all over the house again.

Stomp, gripe, yell, pout.

On a lighter note, I’m making great progress. I’ve lost count of how many boxes are packed, and I’m on a roll.

But now I’m out of packing tape.

I’ve been homebound all day, waiting for a roofer to come and give a bid. He was supposed to be here sometime this morning, which has come and gone, and I’m left to sit here, waiting, without packing tape or soymilk.

Thursday, January 26th, 2006

30 weeks pregnant

Here’s a preggo picture I took this morning in the bathroom mirror.

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It’s the first one I’ve taken because as you can tell, I’m not showing that much. (Although I waddle with the best of them). So instead of looking like cute pregnancy pictures, they’d look more like fat pics. And there’s nothing fun or cute about that.

And here’s the mountain of boxes I hauled in today from the back of my truck.

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That’s my torn apart (sort of) living room. It’s not really torn apart yet, it’s just where we’re dumping everything that needs to be packed away before we list our house. And now it’s full of collapsed boxes. I’m really hoping we make some significant headway this weekend, starting today.

Nate spent the morning packing 7 small boxes of books out of his office, and really, he hasn’t made a dent.

We got the inspection report faxed over today. I’m hoping the sellers will play ball. Mainly, we’re going to ask for the things that aren’t safe pertaining to electrical code and the gas furnace. We’re willing to do a lot of the other stuff ourselves, and then there’s the big issue that we don’t know how to approach yet.

I’m not being cryptic on purpose, but until we know what our plan is, I don’t want to get into too much detail. It may all change tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 25th, 2006

Inspections and roofers and school projects, oh my!

Life is as it is, isn’t it? We had the inspection on our “new” house this morning, and it’s actually still going on, but I had to come home and meet a roofer to get a bid on a new one, which he’s working on in the driveway right now. In a half hour, I head off to the school to help with a particular art project they’re doing that requires a lot of parent help.

What a day.

When I left the inspection, we had found one major issue, and a bunch of smaller ones. Dangit. And who knows what will be found while I’m gone. Nate and the realtor are still there, fortunately, so I’ll hear all about it. And my stomach is in knots in the meantime.

The baby hat was a big hit at the shower last night. That’s always satisfying, knowing it’s appreciated. Plus, the mom-to-be is a knitter, so she understands the value of a hand made gift. And everyone else there wanted one, whether or not they were done having babies.

I told them all that I’d teach them how to make their own. That never gets a good response, but I try. Oh great Ambassador of Knitting that I am.

Monday, January 23rd, 2006

That was fast

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(It’s a doll).

Can you even stand it? It’s so cute! I knit this little baby hat for the shower I’m going to tonight. I used Tahki’s Cotton Classic, and the pattern is in this book.

I made the preemie size because I wanted it to be a truly newborn hat, not that 0-6 months size that is way too big for a new baby.

In house news, we came to verbal mutual acceptance on the house last night. No, seriously. We put an offer on the house sometime after 6pm, faxed it over, went to look at it again with the in-laws, came home, and got a phone call from our realtor with a counter offer, which we accepted. So, as of 9:30 or so last night, we have mutual acceptance, although right now it is still just verbal. We will sign everything today, and we’re trying to get the inspection set for tomorrow morning.

I can’t believe how fast this has gone! A little over a week ago, I had no idea we would even be looking to move, and now, we have an offer on a house that has been accepted.

Here’s hoping ours sells as quick.

I need to pack.

V was so sick yesterday. I couldn’t get her coherent until late afternoon, when her eyes finally stopped rolling back in her head, and her fever dropped. I made her drink some Gatorade.

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Fortunately, she is feeling better today, so I’m going to take a shower then head off to my sister-in-law’s to get boxes.

Monday, January 23rd, 2006

Anyone want a piano?

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We’re selling ours. Here’s a link to our web-ad if interested.

I was expecting to have to say this when the baby came, but with the impending move/house selling nonsense, it’s happening sooner than I had planned. Basically, there isn’t going to be much in the way of knitting news around here in the near future, but I’m going to continue to blog. I love writing, it’s good for me. So while it may not be overly exciting to you to read about moving, packing, cleaning, house selling, etc., that’s going to be my life for the next couple of months, and thus, I’m going to be writing about it.

Although I have to say that I still want to knit that Superman baby blanket for junior, and a wee little hat. And I have two friends delivering babies soon that I need to make gifts for. (One of the baby showers is tomorrow night, ahem, and I need to get going on something).

So there will be some knitting content, but I promise you it will be more of the “hey! look at the 1/2 inch of sock I knitted yesterday!” variety. Not too exciting.

Sooooo, today I called the roofing company about roofing our house as quickly as possible, the waste management company about getting a huge dumpster delivered, the fitness equipment store about moving and re-setting up my weights when the time comes, the building inspector (we love him) about his availability, and I can’t go and pick up the mountain of boxes from my sister-in-law like I’d planned, because poor Veronica is so sick, she can’t even utter a coherent sentence or keep her eyes focused.

Lame.

We’re planning to place an offer on the house we love tonight. I’m making a zillion lists of things we need to do before listing ours. (Wanna cute house? email me). And I’m starting to pack unnecessary things to de-clutter for showing.

The plus side of all of this?

I NO LONGER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT MAKING SPACE IN OUR LITTLE BEDROOMS FOR THE BABY’S STUFF!

I was going to have to get rid of furniture I didn’t want to get rid of. I was going to have to move, sort, throw away, reorganize, etc. just to get a dresser in there to hold the baby’s stuff, and now, I can spend that energy on getting ready to move. So really, it isn’t that much extra work than I would have had to do anyway.

Ok, ok, so it’s a TON more work and stress, BUT, there is a lot that would be overlap. So I can feel better about that.

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

Health Group- Year 2, week 33

Hey all. Another busy day. Two birthday parties, Nate had to speak at the University of Washington, I had to help set up a quilting service project at the church, and we spent an hour and a half looking at the cool house again, this time with the kids. Right now, the realtor is in the living room with Nate, planning and plotting on how we can get our house ready to sell (we need to put a new roof on) and make an offer on the new one. And we’re looking at closing dates, which are freakishly close to delivery date….

Yes, it’s insanity.

This morning, I weighed in at 234, which is a total weight gain of 10 pounds thus far. And I’ll be 30 weeks on Wednesday. Why I’m not gaining any weight is beyond me, but I’ll take it.

No exercise this week. Not enough water.

But it looks like I passed my glucose test!

How are you doing?