Teaholic not quite anonymous

Can I just say how impressed I am with my husband? Our house didn't have a garage door opener. (Who doesn't put in a garage door opener? Oh yeah, the same chick who puts in pink carpet.) But anyway, he bought one at Lowes and today, on his own, on a 16 ft ladder (we have a very, very tall garage) he installed it himself--without any little pitfalls! You know how most home projects take twice as long and twice as much money as they really are allotted? Well, this one DIDN'T. I am so impressed that it's already done! I thought it was going to take forever! He was originally going to have Lowes install it, but they were backed up more than three weeks and he didn't want to have to wait that long to pay for it. Now it's done!

He also mowed the grass today, trimmed a tree, weeded and clipped back the hedges. The woman who owned the place NEVER cut it from the time we put a bid on it until now! The bushes were so overgrown. We had thistle plants that were flowering! Anyway, it all looks MUCH better now. I guess he's going to work on installing some of our light fixtures now since he's on a roll and wants to keep working until he's tired.

I had a reupholster come in today. Holy hell that's expensive!!! Our red couch and love seat set would cost 1000 just in labor alone and the family room set would cost 1400. Now add in $30 a square yard for fabric.... wow. He does know his stuff though and is very knowledgeable about fabric. He did tell me that my family room furniture is better made than my living room furniture even though my living room furniture is newer. So I see slip covers in our near future instead. :)

I can't express enough how proud of I am of Maddy. She's been SO SO good at dealing with business. The reupholster was here for about 20 minutes tonight and she didn't make a peep! It was almost bedtime and she didn't have a nap but she just was content watching TV while I did business. And she was wonderful at Walmart today even though it was a long trip and the the long (lost) drive home, too--excellent! She was even great at the house although she was getting into stuff she shouldn't have been. But that was our fault for leaving it laying around. She handled having grandma and grandpa watch her with nary a tear on our leaving and really seemed to understand what's going on. She's handled this move amazingly well so far and all the changes that has been brought about by it. She's truly an amazing kiddo. I keep telling her how proud of her I am.

Tea of the day: Earl Grey

So we received our estimate back from Home Depot today. It was 1700 more than our estimate from Carpetland. So yes, I would say we are getting a GREAT deal considering carpetland's carpet is supposed to be more expensive than Home Depot, we are talking a good price!!! WHOO WHOO!

Also, thanks to CA who mentioned Overstock for slipcovers. So we are five slipcovers richer and about $250 poorer. Oh well, at least it will allow my furniture to be usable at the new house without a lot of clashing.

Maddy and I stayed home today and didn't do much. Well, I did two loads of laundry and put it away. I should have done a grocery store run but Maddy was so content to lay around and do nothing that I didn't drag her out. She's been going, going so it's nice for her to relax a bit. We were planning on maybe going to the house this afternoon for dinner with our neighbors/friends but I was figuring traffic would be bad and dinner would start late and then Maddy would need to leave to go to bed--I thought better of it and just skipped it. I'm missing Matt though. He's been gone since 9 and it's now almost 9. He's been so busy with light fixtures/garage door opener/house stuff while he's been off of work this week that there hasn't been much time to hang out. Once we're settled it will all settle down.

Speaking of settling down, I think I will hit the sack early. I took a benedryl tonight for my very large swollen mosquito bite that's been driving me crazy. I can be very allergic to them, but it depends. Sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not! Yesterday while trimming bushes I had three but two are virtually gone while the third swelled up the size of a half dollar and is hard and warm. So benedryl was calling. But now, of course, I'm falling asleep. So I may as well go get some sleep!

Tea of the day: I had coffee this AM, no tea

Maddy calls our new house the Bernie House. She associates it with him because every time we went to go and look at it, he was with us. So she assumes it's his house or that he comes with the house. I have had to remind her that this is our new house and no, Bernie isn't going to live with us.

Maddy also now has "ideras" all of her own. They are normally 'good ideras' or 'I have an idera!! *with pointer finger pointing up into the air". So yes, she normally comes up with great ideas all the time. Normally it involves eating a Popsicle, having chocolate, playing ball or going to the park. But none the less, she loves her ideas. And, bless me, every now and again, even *I*, the mommy, have a good idea. She so lovingly informs me of this by saying, "Good idera, mommy!"

She has taken to calling Matt, DAD. Matt has no interest in that at all. He would much rather be daddy. If he could, I think he'd go back to being dadda. Maddy has been a mommy's girl lately though. I think it's because she's been spending so much time with me while Matt had off this week working on the house. She's also taken a nap with me in the new house the last two days in the king bed as well since she won't lay down on her own there yet and she doesn't have her bed. I think she views that as quite a bonding experience.

She's had a hard time falling asleep the last couple of days though. I'm sure it deals with all the change and the new house. The fireworks the last couple of nights (just set off by ONE family) has been driving me bonkers and I know that doesn't help either.

Matt and Josh got the track lighting installed yesterday and it looks darn good. They also got the pendants put up over the kitchen breakfast bar area. We picked out cobalt blue shades and they look GREAT as well. I'm bidding on a set of bar stools right now on ebay to go with it. Matt also replaced all the brass contractor grade light fixtures throughout the rest of the house. Now we're waiting on a few bathroom fixtures to be delivered that we purchased on line and we'll replace those as well sometime after we move in. Matt fixed a squeaky stair tonight as well, so when we have the new carpet put in we won't have to worry about it.

This evening was really nice though. Matt, Maddy and I left the house about 5 and went to Lowes to pick up a couple of things (what's new there, either? We've been living at Lowes/home depot). After that we came home to have dinner (I defrosted some chili I made and froze) and Matt helped put Maddy to bed. Most nights lately I've been coming home with Maddy about 7-7:30 to give Joe his food/meds and to get Maddy to bed on my own and Matt's been coming home later. He did go back out to put in the shelving in our master bedroom closet after Maddy was in bed, but at least I had the help while Maddy was still awake!

Ok, off to read for a bit!

Well, today was a pretty productive day overall. I was glad that Maddy's cold turned out to be allergies, I believe. WHEW! I was thinking she was getting sick right before the move! That would not have been fun. It seems much better today though. Thank goodness.

This morning Maddy and I went to Next Day Blinds to pick up the blinds for the house. The guys looked at my car, looked at each other and said, "I don't think it's gonna fit!" I said, "No worries. I've fit bigger and more awkward things in my car than just blinds. It'll fit." They looked at me like I was nuts. Guess what?? They fit without issue. No rig-a-ma-roling at all... just slid right in like buttah! Ye of little faith! I even went to Kmart, Target and Walmart afterward and fit in the stuff I bought there, too!!! (Nothing at Kmart, what a pathetic store....) I found half of what I needed at Target and the other half at Walmart.

When we got home I loaded the truck (Matt's parents let us graciously borrow theirs for two weeks, so we can move stuff the movers won't be moving) with all the blinds and all the stuff that needed to go.

Maddy's nap was atrocious. It took three times and three different cry it outs to get her to go to sleep. And even then she only slept for 1/2 hour. Although it does seem like she went to bed better tonight. I on the other hand, am exhausted. I should not have sat down after she went to bed since I'm going to have a very hard time getting going again on the packing now that I think she could really be asleep.

Matt went over to the house tonight to check up on the painter's work and to drop off the load in the truck. He says a lot of it is painted and that it looks really nice. He's not sure about the color in the master bedroom against one our purple wall, but we can figure that out tomorrow. He says the tile looks great! I'm excited to see that a lot.

Tomorrow morning Matt needs to be at the new house early. We have our carpet coming in! We also have some siding guys coming to do a few repairs near some windows that had some drywall damage to them because of leaks. So that will get repaired tomorrow as well.

I've already started stacking things by the back door that will go with him in his trip tomorrow. We'll load the truck tonight so that way he can be out the door by 6:30 and to the house.

Ok, I should go pack. T minus 4 and counting!

Tea of the day: Earl Grey

Ruthie got her back claws out today. After buying leather couches and chairs we decided it was time. She had her front claws out a while back but they neglected to do her back claws at the same time although we requested it. We never did go back to have them done. She's scratched up our furniture jumping up and down although it wasn't on purpose. We just can't have her poking holes in our new leather couches by jumping. It went fine from what I understand. We are able to get her back on Thursday afternoon.

Our light tan base walls are painted. We still have two accent walls in our main floor that aren't painted (red and dark tan). Our master bedroom is fully painted!!! It has a purple accent wall and tan walls on the other three. I love it! Our tile is also in and it looks darn good! We put a tile entry way at our front door. It was carpet before, but that's looking to get our new carpet ruined.

Matt is there now and so are the carpet guys! The painters should be back today, too!

Becky: Maddy I love this color on you.
Maddy: Yeah, me too!
Becky: Do you know what color it is?
Maddy: Uhh... blue?
Becky: Yes, it has blue in it. It's called turquoise.
Maddy: Tur...tur...turkey-oise?
Becky: No honey, turquoise.
Maddy: Nuh-uh! Turkey-oise. My shirt is turkey-oise.

I'm surprised it doesn't gobble. :)

Well, we have our carpet put in, almost everything is painted, Ruthie is declawed for the new leather furniture. Albeit, she's fighting with her brother which happens every time we take her to the vet. Our furniture comes on Tuesday. My ottomans I bought come tomorrow.

I feel like there's so much more to do, but really we're in the home stretch before move in day on Saturday! I'm off to bed, I'm getting a cold (oh lovely!). So time to get some sleep.

It's been a LONG day! You probably won't hear from me again until at least middle of next week. Going to be busy!

LOOK WHO'S BACK UP, BABY!!! :)

Ok, that being said, man, it's been a long time. Or it sure seems to be that way. Well, my last blog was the 10th so it's been three weeks. That's pretty long for me. In fact it was long enough that I've had the masses clamoring for my return (ok, ok, a few friends asked where my blog was and when it would be back up).

So what's happened in three weeks???? Well, we moved and we settled in. The move went pretty well overall. I thought the moving crew did a great job. We settled in remarkably fast. I still have a few stubborn boxes that need to be emptied and the garage needs to be organized and cleaned out. In due time, in due time. Our rec room is a disaster too, but that will get settled out as well.

Wow, I haven't been around for three weeks and I don't know what to say?

Oh, we're back to having playgroups! I'm thrilled about that as well. We've had one every week for the last two week and am having one next week, too. Maddy loves it and I like that I get to get out with other moms.

Speaking of, we had mom's night out last night and it was just such a blast. I couldn't stop eating snacks though. Oops. But man, they were delicious. It's always great to get out with friends.

Speaking of, we had Josh and Kari over tonight for dinner and Josh helped Matt rewire our server (which is why my blog wasn't up) while Kari and I sat around and chit chatted. Maddy went to bed really well for me dispite being up late and having a lot of stimulation. She's such a good kid.

Speaking of, she's handled the move really well. She went straight to sleep in a twin bed the first night here. She has been waking more in the middle of the night, but goes right back to sleep after we come in and speak with her a little bit. I'm so proud of her though and her ability to adapt to change. What a great kiddo.

Ok, it's 11:11. I need to get off to bed sooner or later here. I hope everyone has had a good July and I'm glad to be back online blogging! I will add some photos to our gallery as well of the new house as well as some of Maddy.

Tea of the day: English Breakfast