Procrastinate Much??

So here we are TWO days from closing. We've got until Sunday at 4pm to be out of the house. The clock is ticking and I should be packing.....

but,

I'M NOT!!

Well, not very fast anyway. See, I packed up a lot of things a couple weeks ago before the hiccup in our closing happened. Now that things are settled and I have a good amount of stuff packed, I'm under the false impression that there's not much to do and I've stopped doing ANYTHING! UGH....I know myself. I need some sense of urgency to get things done. I'm far enough away from actually moving on Saturday that I don't want to pack up something I'll potentially need in the next several days, but I'm too close for comfort to still have as much as I do unpacked. I keep telling myself, "Oh, I'll throw my entire closet into one garbage bag and head to the apartment." It's still such a weird time of year here---one day warm, one day snowing--that I don't want to get rid of my winter clothes and be more organized just yet. SO I plan on taking everything with me and worrying about organizing later (which will mean never).

Today, I've packed a few more boxes and will probably pack more before the end of the day, BUT I seriously need someone to light a fire under my butt. I'm MOVING---IN.A.FEW.DAYS!!!  What's wrong with me?

Because I know myself enough to predict the future, behold what will happen in the next few days.

Today--I've got time to finish packing, la-de-da-de-da. I'm just going to play with Bug, check facebook, do some cleaning, and blog when I should be packing.

Tomorrow--We close tomorrow (Thurs), BUT I don't have to move until Saturday. SOOO...I've still got some time, right?? I've gotta go sign the lease and check into our apartment for the next 3 months. Maybe I'll take a couple garbage bags of clothes to throw in the closet while I'm there. Now THAT would be productive, but only somewhat.

Thursday--We close TODAY! But...I've still got time to pack, right?? The buyer's agent is coming today to do a walk-through to make sure we haven't punched holes in the wall. I guess I should kind of make it look like we're actually attempting to move out of here. Hmmm, maybe I'll pack a box or two.

Friday---We closed! My dad and his friend are here from NY to help us pack. Oh my gosh...that means I'm moving--TOMORROW!!!! What in the world? I've got so much to do!! Couldn't someone have told me we were moving sooo soon? How am I supposed to get things ready in time? I was going to start taking trips down to the apartment today, but I've got so much to do. Is that a panic attack I'm having???

Saturday---My friends are here to help me move and Darling Dearest has picked up the Uhaul. Does this mean I'm supposed to be organized and prepared?? I stayed up until 4AM last night to get things done and I'm still not ready. Why do I look like such an unorganized mess?? I had everything else checked off my checklist, EXCEPT this whole packing thing. Darnit....procrastinate much??


Someone please stop the insanity and explain to me that I need to get a move on. Just because I'm mostly packed, doesn't mean I'm totally packed. Will someone explain this to me? Am I in thr 4th  grade trying to convince my mom to let me play outside because my homework is MOSTLY done or my room is MOSTLY clean?? Can the grown-up verson of myself please give me a swift kick to the butt??

Well, Bug just woke up and I'm probably off to more procrastinating....

Please tell me I'm not the only procrastinator out there!

FINALLY...

Things are no longer "up in the air" with the housing situation---I hope. Things got a little crazier this past week. We started off last week with our design appointment for our new house. We were there for around 3 hours, and I'm really happy with the decisions we made. Cleopatra joined us for some moral support when we needed more input. Bug was with us for the first part of it, which made for an interesting time. She got droplets of milk on their granite tables that Mommy had to clean up with her sleeve. She begged to be let down to check out the design center. When Cleopatra arrived, we finally let her. Darling Dearest and Cleo took turns chasing her around and seeing that she didn't fall flat on her face after standing up. Lately, she's been all about pushing herself off the ground and standing up. She's gotten pretty sturdy, but refuses to independently take a step from that position. So no walking yet...except behind a walker or with Mommy or Daddy. She's such an independent little thing that if she's in one of these standing positions and she starts to fall, if I try to steady her to keep her upright, she immediately lifts both of her feet from the ground and forces me to put her on the ground on her butt. She is NOT getting any help from anyone. She wants to do it on her own. hehe!

So yeah...we were letting her do it on her own at the design center. Up she'd go...she'd stand there for a while so thrilled with herself (you'd think she hadn't been doing this same trick for a month or so), then she'd plop down on her put after a little while. Well, one of the times she was standing, she attempted to pull both arms back and take off her cardigan which landed her straight on her face. I didn't see it, but Darling Dearest did. Poor Cleopatra was with her at the time and didn't expect her to fall on her face. That was the first time she DIDN'T fall back on her butt. Darn that cardigan she wanted off so badly. Poor Bug's mouth was bleeding, and she was frantic. Mommy and her boobies to the rescue-------We headed into the bathroom, I sat on the toilet in my jeans and whipped out a boob as fast as I could. Nothing a little nursing won't cure. :-)

Thankfully, another one of my besties came soon after the facedown with the floor and took Bug for the rest of the time in the design center so we could concentrate. We stuck to our initial budget and made some good choices for our house, most of which I'm still 100% happy with. The only thing I'm second guessing is the tumbled tile (it's rough and looks like it's been tumbled--very textured and raw) as the backsplash for our kitchen. It looks beautiful, but I'm wondering how it'd be to clean. I need to do more research there. Anyone have experience with this?? I'm just SOOO excited to see it all completed and to get in our new house in June.

Yes, things started off perfectly last week UNTIL..........

We got the word Wednesday or Thursday that our buyer's first lender fell through even though he was pre-approved. I guess he's got good, clean credit, but he's young (like out of college a year) and doesn't have enough or as varied of credit as they'd like. So the same lender that previously approved him, now denied him---right before our financing contingency ended. Ugh---that's annoying on SO many levels. How are lenders getting away with that and getting people's hopes up (and by "people" I mean US...surely, the buyer's hopes have nothing to do with this...hehe! j/k)?? Well, the ended up finding another lender, and they spoke to the head of their underwriting team who was 98% sure the problems they had with the first lender wouldnt happen with them. Needless to say, we had to extending our financing and appraisal contingencies until this week. They had until yesterday evening to get approval from the second lender.

Last week when I heard the first thing fell through, I was bummed--to put it mildly. I'd already taken everything off the walls and had packed a good chunk of stuff. I was NOT ready to have to have an unpacking party and restage our house to sell it...AGAIN. I knew God had a plan and trusted His plan for us...but I wasn't sure that His plan lined up with MY plan and involved an amazingly spectacular house being built at a ridiculously low price--creating a situation that we'd normally NEVER be able to afford. Surely, He orchestrated all of that last minute housing miracle. Surely, that house was His plan for us....RIGHT?? I started to think, maybe He wants to take it away from us, have us go through a disappointing time, and teach us about trust. Maybe He's got a lesson we need to learn. But NOOO...please teach us another way. Don't let us lose our beautifully-designed house!

So after that brief freak-out period, I decided to just give it to God this weekend and hope that His plan corresponded with ours, and what I thought was His plan for us. Not to say I didn't think about it or wasn't worried....I was, but I was determined to trust Him either way.

Well, we got the call yesterday that our buyer got approval from the second lender, so assuming things work out fine with the appraisal (which no one is worried about)....we should be all set to close on our house with this buyer. Closing got pushed back a week to March 25th. My dad and his friend are coming down to help us move that weekend while we still have possession (along with however many friends I can wrangle into helping us for a little while), and we'll be signing a 3 month lease to get us til the end of June in an apt. until our house is done. I'm just SOO relieved that things worked out that way, but won't be breathing easy until the closing is complete.

So onto more packing.....

This weekend will be hard-core packing while Darling Dearest is home to help me with Bug. The next weekend, we'll be moving into an apt, and the following one we'll be in FL with family. YAY!! Let's say some prayers that everything goes smoothly. :-)

Pooped

I feel as though I've hit a brick wall. All of th adrenaline from the past couple weeks---the late nights on the internet searching for houses or checking email, the time making sure everything is in order with the selling/buying process, the stress that went along with it---it's all come to a head and I'm POOPED!! We had our inspection Tuesday (which was delayed...twice) so that day pretty much consisted of cleaning like a mad woman. So what?? I had let things go after the house was "off the market"...much like one does once the wedding band hits the finger. It was now taken. It didn't have to get prettied up for anyone---the true colors (and dirt) were able to shine, as it showed its true character. But when inspection day came around, I couldn't give the buyer a reason to break off the engagement---so on went her lipstick and mascara, not to mention a little spritz of perfume (a mixture of water, vanilla, and cinnamon thrown in the oven for a little while to make it smell oh so domestic). Once she was looking presentable, Bug and I left to go drive around aimlessly in the snow. At one point, I had planned errands to do on inspection day, but it was so snowy, slushy, and wet out....that we were just wanderers. We went to lunch by ourselves then drove around. Come to find out....the buyer didn't even show up. Just the inspector!

Anyway, all's well that ends well---we only had a metal brace to put on the garage door because a certainly nameless F.T.M. didn't pull the car in far enough when the garage door went down and it slightly bent the rib of the door. I don't know who would do a thing like that, but it appears that a tennis ball from the ceiling may be in order for the next house. :-) Wednesday, we got the pretty immaculate inspection report and I had someone out around lunch to brace it. DONE and DONE!!

In the meantime, we had Bug's 12-month check-up and we went for a drive to our new neighborhood to take pics of some house exteriors we like for our design meeting on Monday. Turns out, Bug's still as petite as ever (at least the dr wasn't worried due to her activity level)---but other than that, she's meeting all the milestones and seems to be doing well. We only got one of the three vaccines. I've done my research, and I'm holding off on the live virus vaccines for now---especially because she's so petite. She's home with me, so unless a measles, mumps, or rubella outbreak occurs----we're putting that guy (along with the chicken pox) on hold until she's a little older.

Today is the first day in a while that I didn't have anything official on the schedule (other than making some calls about loans), so I know I should be packing now that due diligence is officially over (I thought it was until Monday, but I guess it ends after inspection). The thing is....I'm POOPED! Wouldn't you know, Bug doesn't seem to get the picture because she's been all over the place today.

She.Won't.Stop.

At warp speed, she's in one room taking everything out from her drawers, then I turn around and she's in another room pulling everything out from somewhere else. She's a mad woman, this girl. She's got energy to last an eternity, and at the moment, I don't. I know I should be packing now while she's finally tucked in for her nap, but I don't feel like doing that either. I've been so on top of things for the past few weeks, that I need some time to decompress.....but really, I don't have time. I have things to do. So I guess what I really need is some motivation. Someone to remind me that I'm closing in TWO weeks and I don't have a single thing packed.

How do you all get yourselves motivated when all you really want to do is sit down and do nothing???

A Housing Miracle

Ok, I know I've been M.I.A yet again. But if you even knew the story I'm about to tell you, you'd forgive me. Let me just say that yet again God provided in the most unexpected, miraculous, and VERY last minute way possible. So sit back, grab a cup of coffee (ok, maybe a full meal---it's gonna be a long one), and get caught up on our housing miracle................

Last weekend was Bug's first birthday (I'll put pics up of the fun once I get them from one of my besties....hint, hint, N!). :-) In the craziness of getting ready for that, I got kicked out of my house THREE times for a showing the day before the big party. Needness to say, that weekend we were in contract negotiations on the sale of our house that had only been on the market for 2 1/2 weeks. CRAZY! So yeah---house is currently "under contract". My realtors already did a lot of stalking on the buyer, so it looks like it's a pretty solid deal. Inspection is tomorrow, due diligence period is over next Monday, and we close on the 19th--with the weekend to move out. That, in itself, is a crazy miracle, especially when there's like 10 other houses for sale in my neighborhood priced the same or lower than ours. So these next couple weeks are going to be CRAZY trying to get out of here.

On to our other housing miracle....

We'd been looking at this this one community (well call it Dreamland). I was IN LOVE with dreamland the second I drove through it. We loved the houses, the hilly landscape, the amenities with kid stuff (tennis, pool, playground, kiddie pool with mushroom), GREAT schools (I know because I taught in one of them). We heard amazing things about this neighborhood from the people who lived there--lots of young families and community events. This was our dreamland. The thing is, the old builder (a regional builder who did good work in a lot of communities in this area) foreclosed, so this brand new builder was finishing some lots. We hadn't thought about building really because I wanted to have the security of being in an already-established neighborhood--didn't want to run the risk of builder short-sale and now there's all these empty streets with 2 houses. Well, in Dreamland---it WAS an established community--just a couple years old--and it had only a few lots to finish. PERFECTION! The only thing was this new builder didn't have his act together quite yet because he thought he'd get more time before people wanted to build with him. He figured he could get some of his pricing together (taking quotes from various places) while building his first inventory houses. Well, that didn't turn out that way--he got more action than he thought. Totally understandable situation, but it made for a lot of frustration when they didn't have their pricing on lighting, carpet upgrade, etc. Makes it very hard to figure out the final price of what things will be. Regardless, they were working on getting that info to us and we were going to have a 5 bedroom house on a basement for less than what one of the formerly built foreclosure houses were on a slab. It would've been a good deal. Unfortunately, it was creeping up beyond the top of our price point and we weren't getting very many upgrades. Still, we loved this house and this neighborhood. The only things (other than the price--but that wasn't going to change much) I would've wanted to change about this house was that I didn't want a corner lot and I didn't want a 2-story living room again. The corner lot was the only basement lot they had that was relatively flat and of good size. It was better than the vast majority of the other basement houses we'd seen. Adding a lot to the 2-story living room (just makes it more usable space for us) was going to be another 12K from this builder---and we were WAY out of our pricepoint. But we were a little love drunk, were still getting a relatively good price, and were going to stay with our first love (especially since I could name EVERY single house for sale in our area--literally).

To add a little stress to the mix, a friend of mine (cleopatra) told me that her neighborhood was promoting free basements. At first, I didn't pay much thought to this because we were in the midst of b-day party/selling house stress, AND I thought that even a slab house in her neighborhood was out of my price range. Well, Thursday night, I decided to look up that neighborhood---just in case things didn't work out in Dreamland and got too expensive. Sure enough, their lowest slab price started at just below our highest price point, but they were extending the free basement promo until that weekend (ended last night). Not to mention, they were throwing in free granite in the kitchen and all stainless steel appliances (including a fridge).Oh my gosh!!! I could get into this neighborhood. So Bug and I rush down there, see the houses, check out the lots, etc. I LOVED the houses and the floorplans, mostly because they didn't have any 2-story family rooms, which allowed for bigger bedrooms, etc. Her community also had some great things in the work. It was going to connect to the greenway (a HUGE  paved biking, walking, whatever trail that runs from our city to the one below it---they're in the process of connecting the areas). Not only that, her neighborhood was going to be a 5 minute drive from the biggest park they're building (in phases)---85 acres of skatepark, tennis, soccer & football fields, bball, a track, a dog park, walking trails, etc. WOW---that would be a great perk too. The lots in this neighborhood were also nice and flat, and wooded (yay for no corner lot), so they'd be private. The only things I didn't like was the fact that this neighborhood still had the vast majority of it yet to be built. It was started by the same foreclosure builder as Dreamland, but was bought out by a wealthy national builder very recently. I knew the community would be finished, but there would be years of construction until then...and I didn't love that. Also, the school that community fed into wasn't as good as the other one (mind you, none of the schools in our area are bad). The other thing was, this community had double the HOAs as Dreamland, but didn't have nearly the same amenities (only a pool and playground--no tennis or kiddie pool). The reasoning for that was because the big park would be built in a year or so and it would be close by. We were torn---I was cheating on my first love, Dreamland.

SO Saturday, I asked other friends of ours to come and see BOTH places to help us weigh the pros and cons. After seeing everything, they didn't know what to do either. Both places would've been great investments regardless and would've been around the same pricepoint. I knew I could probably get more upgrades from the national builder since the other guy's pockets weren't as deep--being new and all. I was just wishing we could take the builder in Cleopatra's neighborhood and some of her perks and put them in the other established neighborhood with the better schools. In the end, we decided that we needed to go for Dreamland and base our decision more on education than upgrades and parks---we could still drive to that future park and visit Cleopatra. So we started negotiating with dreamland. The problem was, they weren't budging as much as we wanted and they weren't offering too much in upgrades. Also, any additional upgrades we wanted, we were having to put nearly 50% down on and they were only paying 2% closing costs IF we used their lender. Ugh---this was not as fun as we thought and I was STRESSED. Prices were getting higher and higher, and we were cutting out a TON of our upgrades. Basically, the only thing the builder would've covered was a structural upgrade (turning study to 5th bedroom and changing powder room to full bath) and hardwood flooring in SOME of the areas downstairs. BUMMER!

Unfortunately, I still felt the "free basement" time crunch of the national builder and knew I had to make a decision by Sunday night. I didn't want us not to come to a reasonable situation in Dreamland and wait too long to pass up the free basement in Cleopatra's neighborhood---then I would've ended my top choices (and really, the ONLY ones I was interested in).

So, in tears, I start trying to search again. This time, we upped our search to a higher pricerange to see if they'd come down to what we would've been paying (still higher than what we wanted) at Dreamland. I wasn't seeing much. I was so stressed than Darling Dearest made a bubble bath for me and forced me away from the computer--he insisted on a mental break.

Come Sunday (yesterday morning), we decided we had to skip church to get things all figured out by that night. We had 6 houses to look at (most of which were out of our pricerange in hopes that if they looked ok and we liked them, they may come down). So Bug, Hubby, and I decided to do a drive by on these houses to figure out if we wanted to have the realtors show us them. Four out of siz had crazy yards--complete drop offs in the back or on crazy hills in the front. One had a decent yard, but was in a community that was a little older and didn't have any kid ammenities. There was only ONE from this list that was actually in one of my former searches--it was in our original budget. I even saved it. I don't know why I didn't look at it before when I looked at all the others, but I didn't. Turns out, this house was in a beautiful neighborhood. Pretty hills, nice lots, GREAT ammenities (kiddie stuff, tennis, pool, AND bball). I was loving it. As we drove around more, we saw some empty lots...and wouldn't you know, national builder (same from Cleopatra's neighborhood) with all the same promotions (basement, SS appliances, granite) was in that neighborhood.

So yesterday was crazy! We got a friend to watch Bug, Hubby and I did some investigating. The floorplan that we liked in this neighborhood (totally different floorplans here than in Cleo's place) was the SAME floorplan as in Dreamland, with a free basement...and was 40K less!!!! Not only that, but it was in the process of being grated and was already scheduled for a BASEMENT, on a nice, flat lot on a cul-de-sac with WOODS in the back. No corner lot here! And what's that you say?? We can add a loft for just over 2K, not 12K?? AND you can turn the study into a 5th bedroom and powder room into a full bath??? Oh, and out of SEVEN different elevation choices (what the outside of the house looks like), they had already planned for it to be elevation G---the same one Darling Dearest and I wanted?? Let me just say that if we had found this house later, they would've already ordered materials and we wouldn't have been able to customize some things (particularly the structural changes we wanted to make) IF we wanted this lot. This was honestly a gift from God---at the last possible second. We had the best of both houses. Private, wooded lot, the builder, the great promotions, and no 2-story living room like Cleopatra's (although it'll be slightly more square footage than the house we would've had in her neighborhood with the loft). BUT, we got the established and slightly hilly neighborhood, the kiddie amenities PLUS tennis and bball, the cheap HOA (less than 1/2 of cleo's), the floorplan but WITH the loft of Dreamland. Not to mention, this community will also be connected to the greenway like Cleopatra's. Just when I thought things couldn't get better, this particular house was supposed to be an inventory house, so they already planned some upgrades specific for this one that we wouldn't have to pay for. In the end, they threw in all structural upgrades (loft, 5th bedroom, added full bath, free basement), and cosmetic upgrades (SS appliances, granite, canned lights, wrought iron bannister, and more)--some of which we hadn't even planned for. Oh, did I forget to say they gave us 10.5K in whatever other upgrades we wanted and that if we wanted more than that, we'd usually have to put a 50% deposit, but our realtor got it down to 20% (which would actually end up going toward our down payment). They agreed to 3% closing cost and took 2.5K less in earnest money as well. We had their realtor and our realtor come to our house last night just so we could get the promotions that ended yesterday. Their realtor had been working for that builder for 4 years and knew that they wouldn't give it to us if we did it in the morning.

Honestly, I'm on cloud 9 right now. God had a plan for us and people around us to help us out. He had it all worked out for the last possible second. Isn't that how he always works??? We ended up getting a better house (the house I would've built if I could've afforded the loft in dreamland), with WAY more upgrades, for what would've ended up to be over 40K less. Oh, and they've broken land on a brand new elementary school across the street that will be done by the time Bug's there. It's truly a miracle. We went out Sunday morning with no hopes of finding anything...much less finding the perfect scenario at MUCH less than we had planned to pay. And we got in JUST before the ordering/construction so if we go to our design appointment this week (which we will), we'll get to pick out everything--including the brick. We're scheduled to close in June, but an actual date will be determined once the house is in drywall. Oh, and did I mention that a 4 month lease (which is what we'll end up getting to take us into mid-July) was actually cheaper than a 5 or 6 month lease (which we would've needed if we were building with this same builder in Cleopatra's neighborhood since we would've been picking a new lot and nothing was in the works)?? Yes, it could go later, but we do have an option of doing month to month if that happens.

Our week at a glance looks like this:
Today--walk the lot with the builder--we can walk if we want to---but probably won't
Tomorrow--inspection on OUR house, so Bug and I have to be out of here for 2-3 hours
Sometime between now and Friday--go to the design center to pick out stuff for our house, and get loan application done (we have 5 days to complete from yesterday's contract date). Maybe, we'll be able to do the design center tomorrow while our house is being inspected.

Oh, did I forget that we have to pack up and move in the next few weeks too??

This has been chaotic, but it's been such a blessing to see God's hand throughout. "The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." James 5:16b Thank you, God for all You've done for us--for always providing MUCH more than we could ask or imagine and for putting the right people and situations in line and the right time. "He makes all things beautiful in HIS time."

So much to do..the big 0-1!!!

Just when I thought things surely had to slow down around these parts.............

Bug got sick a couple weeks ago. She had a terrible cold and horrible cough. Poor thing was miserable, and it lasted for nearly two weeks. Needless to say, I wasn't getting much sleep with her being such a little sicky. Like any generous sweetheart, she shared her illness with Darling Dearest and I. He didn't really get it too badly and was under the weather for maybe a couple days. I, on the other hand, was feeling the worst I have felt in a LONG time for week or so. I'm still sick now, but feel 100% compared to how I felt before--constant headache, burning nose and eyes, sinus pressure, never-ending snot, achy body--just horrible. I would wake up in the night because my nose burned so bad or because I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't fall back to sleep. So really, I have been going on a little less than 3 weeks of not-so-hot (putting it very mildly) sleeping. I long to feel caught up on sleep, but that's not happening anytime soon because.......

Bug's turning ONE!!!

Her actual birthday is on Wednesday (the 24th), but we're having her party this Saturday. With me not working and thus, the cash not flowin', we really wanted to keep her party extremely small---just the closest of friends who have been involved in this past year of Bug's life. I feel badly, because if I had the cash to drop, I have a million other people that I would've loved to invite (ok, a million may be a slight exaggeration, but there are several others)---but I guess we'll have to wait for another year for that. Bug's not going to know what's going on this year anyway. I also decided to keep it just desserts and a couple appetizers. I made my own decorations, and still have more to finish before Saturday. I'm SOOOO not a party planner/thrower, but there will only be about 10 people coming, so I need to convince myself not to worry about it. For the record, even though that's the sane thing to do---that will NOT be what I'm doing. I will be running around like a chicken with its head cut off until the party is over and done. Although, I really hope I can be organized enough to take a deep breath and ENJOY the party and this milestone in my daughter's life--not to mention, OURS (we DID make it through a whole year as parents and she's still here to prove it)!

After consultation with some friends and my cousin (all great party-planners), I finally feel good about the menu and party in general. I have taken on the responsibility of making the cupcakes and her smash cake, so I'm just praying I don't mess those up. Can't have a birthday party without a cute and tasty cake. I'm sure I'll have a million and two things to do the day of, but I'm hoping to get as much as I can done before Saturday while keeping my house in tip-top shape in case someone wants to see it. UGH! We'll see how that goes. It's been an extremely slow week with showings, so maybe no one will interrupt my party-planning mode.

ANYWHO...Just thought I'd tell you all that I'm still alive and kickin'. I've just got a ton to do in the next 48 hours (not to mention squeezing in time to go see a lot and model homes in the neighborhood we're considering building), so you won't be hearing from me until after the party. I'll have lots of pics of my Bug and her first birthday party.

Until then, I'll leave you with some pics from our minor (huge for GA) blizzard and snow that lasted all of 12 hours. Glad I forced Bug to go out and play (when she should've been getting ready for bed) so I could get some pics of my sweetie rockin' her Walmart bag snowsuit. We "southerners" (ok, wanna-be and currently-located 'southerners'), have not invested in a snowsuit for the one time a year it snows here. The only thing prettier than snow in GA (and it did look beautiful) is the sweetest snow bug IN the snow in GA. hehe!

Jumping for joy at the sight of snow!

Cheezing for the camera

Hmmm, I can pat it OVER and OVER and OVER again.

My favorite Walmart purchase

After crawling in the snow and realizing snow is C.O.L.D.

Daddy makes it better!

Finishing up dinner after our fun in the snow

*Until next post.....wish me luck on my turn at being Cleopatra (if you don't understand that reference, you've got a lot of reading to do on my blog. hehe!).

Mommy Meeting....I did it!!

I went to my first meeting-with-complete-strangers, Mommy group Saturday morning. You have to go to a public event before you can do private play dates at someone's house (for obvious reasons), so I bit the bullet...and went. Not only that, but I went without Bug. I had planned on bringing her as a distraction. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so busy interacting with my daughter that I'm slightly anti-social and not wanting to talk to you complete strangers." I thought Bug would help break the ice. I'm SOOO not about going to meet strangers, which you wouldn't guess unless you knew me. I'm an outgoing and social person. I make friends really easily, BUT I need to be in a comfort zone...like a school or something. Yeah, I don't do the coffee outings with a bunch of women I never met. The outing was at Starbucks, so I knew I would be tempted to go in...check out the situation, and immediately turn around. These people don't know who I am. As I waited in line for my Chai tea, I saw a group of women with the tables pushed together. Ugh. I wanted to get my cup of warm deliciousness and hop in my car. I've got enough great friends of my own, who needs to make any more?? BUT, I came here for a reason. I wanted some mommy friends in my area who I could meet up with, join for play dates, and enjoy getting advice from. So I sucked it up, and went. I'm SOO proud of myself. There were only a couple people there since I went toward the end, but the girls there were really nice. I'm now looking forward to my Forsyth Mommies group. YAY!

I can't hear you...I'm going through traffic???

So this week has been a busy one. Our house is officially on the market. YAY!! The sign went in our yard Tuesday afternoon, the pics were taken, and we were up and running on the internet by Wednesday. I found myself feeling extremely anxious when we were officially "for sale". Not worried like we made a bad decision---just worried in general. I was more anxious then excited, which I did not expect to feel. Maybe it's because we've been in this house for 5 years and I've got used to being here, maybe its because I like this house, maybe it's because our Bug has spent the first year of her life here.....I don't know, but I kind of felt sad.

I also started thinking of all the craziness that could happen these next several months. What if our house sells and we haven't found a place?? What if there's a period of time between this house and the next?? Where would we go? I started mentally going through my friend list---nope, they don't have room for us, nope, they already have a dog (or dogs in some cases) and would definitely not want us with our 2 dogs, nope, they don't have a dog...for a reason. They hate dogs and wouldn't want us. We would have NO WHERE to go! Then I started looking up apartment complexes (seriously, this is how far I went with this fear that hasn't happened) and couldn't find any that did a month-by-month situation. After looking into a handful of apartment complexes, I realized I'd lost it. I didn't need to be worrying about something that hasn't happened. So yeah, initially, I wanted to run right back out in my yard and take down the For Sale sign. Sure, we could happily fit all 4-5 kids we hope to have, plus all the family visitors we like to have in our 3 bedroom house with no basement. We can stay here! I don't want to be homeless!!

The house has been on the market for just under a week, and I've calmed myself down. Well, at least about the issues I mentioned above. Instead, my crazy energy has gone toward the showings. It was raining and really crappy the days right after it was listed. Saturday, though, was beautiful. I met for coffee with a Mommy Group (tell you about that next post) after an hour and a half of attempting to put Bug down for her nap. She's SOOO sick. She's got the worst cold. She can't breath, or nurse well. She's coughing all the time. She's had a fever and has actually lost her voice from coughing so much. Poor thing is miserable. It breaks my heart to see her like this. It's taking me forever to get her to sleep without her waking up from coughing her lungs up. After I got home, I had to get my sick Bug ready to head to her best pal's 1st bday party (yes, I told the mom (one of my besties) that Bug had been sick...we were only going to be there for a while).

This is Bug and Cleopatra.....this picture shows exactly how she felt the past few days--MISERABLE.

After the party, Darling Dearest, Bug, and I were going to get some lunch with Cleopatra and her hubby. On our way there, I was trying to do a on-the-go nursing session as we cruised down the highway. This was when we got our first call for a showing!! Oh my gosh! Was the house ready?? We had just been working on a project the night before and the house smelled like glue. Did I have things put away? I don't think so...we were in such a rush to get to the party. Not to mention, Hubby accidentally answered the phone when he was fishing it out of my purse. I picked up to someone saying, "HELLO, HELLO??" Oh my gosh, who is this?? Should I recognize this voice? I was panicing and completely out of sorts. My boobs were out and about. This lady is asking to see the house and she's RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT. I'm frantically racking my brain to recall the condition of our home. You would've thought I'd never spoken to anyone in my life. In my attempt to buy time and mouth to Hubby "What does the house look like??", I was trying to tell the lady to repeat herself because I had static on my end. What did I say instead??? "UM, I'm sorry. Can you say that again? I'm going through TRAFFIC."

WHAT???? TRAFFIC?? DID I SERIOUSLY JUST SAY THAT?? SOMEONE SHOULD TAKE THE PHONE FROM ME NOW!

Did you think that was bad?? Well, it gets worse! Hubby tells me that he DID crate the dogs (against his will because I was being "optimistic"--his words--for thinking someone would come see our house so soon). "Yes, realtor lady you CAN come see the house." Oh what?? Darling Dearest NOW remembers that he set the alarm system. OOPS! "Nevermind, realtor lady. You will be treated like an intruder and the police will be called if you enter our house. We need to run home and turn off the alarm (aka, spray Febreeze everywhere and do last minute cleaning right before we turn off the alarm)".

So we make a quick turn back home. I call Cleopatra to let her know plans had changed and they'd have to come for lunch by my house. We got the house in tip-top shape in 2 minutes and left (Cleopatra and her hubby helped too). I was a frazzled mess. This is NOT an exaggeration. If anyone who saw me in the midst of this shinanigan was writing this post...they would concur that they'd never seen me such a hot mess (and trust me, I can be the definition of "hot mess" so that's how bad this was).

Yep, it was bad...really bad. How can I expect people to come see my house when I can't seem to speak coherently to the realtors?? Well, you'd be happy to know that we had another showing yesterday (Superbowl Sunday) and another today. I actually remembered that I had NOT been living under a rock since birth. That I had actually gone to school, even grad school for that matter. That I, at one point, TAUGHT proper English and grammar usage. The 2nd and 3rd time around, I saw that the number was unfamiliar, picked up expecting a realtor, and scheduled a showing like a real life human being. IMPRESSIVE!!

So yeah, that's the update. I told you I'd be better about blogging and now that I've written a book, I have zero time (or desire) to edit it *SURPRISE, SURPRISE*. Please forgive me in advance. I already told you I don't speak English. I'm sorry, I can't hear you...I'm going through traffic!