My husband is a nut case

Dropped Sam off at a birthday party yesterday and had a few hours to kill. So we're driving to the paint store to choose colours for our newly finished basement (the completion of which was a three-year oddessy!) and as a whim we decided to stop and look at some new model homes in our neighbourhoud. We absolutely fell in love with a home not much bigger (300 sq. feet) than our own, but a bungalow rather than a 2-storey. Therefore, on a much bigger piece of property – huge basement as well.

 

Gorgeous.

 

Oh and it could be ours for a mere quadrupling of our mortgage.

 

In this economy, we could quadruple our extremely manageable mortgage to move to a house that we don't really need. This house is worth on paper – more than DOUBLE the assessed value of our current home. Can you hear the hysterical laughter?

 

Daniel isn't working. Daniel hasn't worked since last February really. He had a week and a half I think in July but that was it. We're doing fine on my salary (better than I thought we could). Yes, I've had some stomach tightening, headache giving moments as I examined our finances. Yes, I've thought winsomely (greedily?) about all the things we could have if DH was pulling in even half my salary. However, without sacrificing too much we're doing fine and I'm thankful we have it so good.

 

But no – we are not going to buy a new house. I knew that. He knew that.

 

So there he is with the poor real estate lady – asking all these really tough questions. The questions you ask when you are going to buy the house. What's the slope of the property? How would the house be positioned on the property. Where will the utility boxes be (ie. Would they be on our property of the neighbours). She's getting out plans and blueprints. She's chatting up Kamryn, who was along for the ride. She's telling us all sorts of wonderful things about the neighbourhood (we're in walking distance of our own house). We left loaded down with flyers and price lists and plans. Geez... louise. I kept giving him these looks and he kept going. Talking about how it would be a good "garden plot" and what we could do with the basement to build and in-law suite for my parents. Nuts I tell you!

 

As an aside, as I write this entry Sam is playing with a little bell he got from preschool a gazillion years ago. Playing with it the way a cat plays. Swatting it with his "paws." He's been at it the whole time I've been writing. It's a little disturbing. My son the kitten. At least he has stopped the never ending play-by-play that was driving me nuts.

Feast or famine that's me ...

Like the baby Dino said in that short lived show in the '90s: "Gotta love me." :)

Cause I'm a redneck woman

And I ain't no high class broad
I'm just a product of my raisin'
And I say "hey y'all" and "Yee Haw"
And I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Charlie Daniels song
So here's to all my sisters out there keepin' it country
Let me get a big "Hell Yeah" from the redneck girls like me
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah

The good news is Santa came down!

Santa has adorned the front of our house since late November. He was strapped to the window of the Master Bedroom in all his glory. He has lights and his lights have thankfully been extinguished since January 6th but he remained as a reminder of why I so love winter.

In order for him to come down two things had to happen the snow had to melt off the roof over our garage (so when Daniel climbed up the steep slope he didn't plummet to his death) and the ice had to melt off our driveway (so when Daniel put the ladder up to climb on the slippery roof the ladder didn't slip plummeting him to his death). With a south facing exposure this normally happens at some point in January. This year - no January thaw (one of only three times this has happened in 50 years). So Santa stayed up there a not so silent hostage, pounding loudly on my window -- whenever the wind got strong -- for entry into the room. 'Cept he couldn't come in because I couldn't open the window with his swollen body leaned up against it.

FINALLY on Friday we had a thaw that wasn't immediately followed by a snow storm. And on the 28th of February Santa was liberated. I can not put into words how much pleasure this gives me. Until next year ...

Okay so I feel off the face of the earth… completely… AGAIN.

To be honest I wasn’t going to write again. But I felt guilty. Katia reads faithfully and always drops me a line when I disappear like this. I expect there are other friends out there who silently wondered where in the world I disappeared to as well. All is fine. I was just a little overwhelmed and a lot tired and didn’t feel like writing. Life continues to trundle along. The kids are good and are growing like all good kids. Daniel and I are still happily married. Really things are boringly banal. You want details of boringly banal? Let’s start with Kamryn – cause she’s the easiest! She’s trundling along just fine, coming out of her shell and really quite a delightful little kid. Those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting Kamryn would laugh at the coming out of her shell part but in all seriousness this has been a worry. Kamryn is ebullient, funny and friendly but she is horribly insecure. She doesn’t want to stand out in ANY way. She's happy as long as she’s in the background and she works very hard to stay in the background. As you might expect this is a bit of a problem at school where it took the teacher two months to get Kamryn to smile and much longer to get her to talk. We’ve worked so hard at boosting her self-esteem and her confidence levels and trying to show her that being different is not only common but good! Slowly we’re making progress. Piano has really helped there – much to my shock because as an adult I still have a horrible time performing where others might hear me. Even hidden away inside a band I get horrible performance anxiety. Kamryn flounces onto the stage and plays without any visible nervousness whatsoever. I will keep encouraging and hope that she stays that calm for years to come. This January she took up hockey. Her choice. She’s a late starter (because she begged and begged and it took her parents forever to cave). Other kid’s her age have been in hockey initiation programs for two years now. They skate twice a week and are leaps and bounds ahead of where she is. So we have some catch-up to do. But she is working hard and catching up well (IMHO). We make sure to get out to the rink as a family once a week and we also have her in a class that meets once a week. The class ranges in ages from 6 – 12 so her skills probably are a bit more advanced than they seem as she’s being compared to kids who are in some cases years older than her. We will see what starting late really means when she has tryouts in September for a real team. She will be assigned to either A, B, or C division depending on her skills. Daniel is pretty certain she will be a C. I’m hoping that she makes B – not because I want her to be the next Hailey Wickenhauser (I was actually hoping she would hate it and quit – it’s REALLY expensive) but rather because I want her to be challenged a little bit and being in the middle division would contribute to that. C catches the dregs, everyone from the kid who isn’t all that good (Kamryn) to the kid who put skates on for the first time a week ago and has problems even standing on the ice. As I mentioned, Kamryn isn’t aggressive, on a team where she isn’t being pushed she won’t advance. No matter, wherever she ends up she seems to love it and is always excited to strap on the equipment. The only problem we’re having with her is it seems her health. She has missed so much school this year. Nothing serious just a little thing here and a little thing there. Eventually it adds up. Our latest problem has me doing the should we call the doctor or not dance. She had a virus (flu virus maybe?) about three weeks ago. High temp (102/103). Off school for the week. It resolved and she returned to school. By Friday her temp was up again and she was complaining of her ear hurting. I dragged her in to an urgent care clinic – likely prematurely. The doctor showed me how her ear canal was red and inflamed but cautioned that he didn’t think this was they type of infection that needed to be treated with antibiotics. He gave me a script but suggested I didn’t fill it. I didn’t and just like he predicted by Tuesday her temp was again normal and her ear was on the mend. On Saturday, her temp was up again (just at the 100 mark). So it’s been a month of her running alternately a high fever or a low-grade temp. She’s muddling through but I worry that there may be something underlying all this that is making her so susceptible to EVERYTHING going. This isn’t helped much by the fact that her little brother is NEVER ill. He’s yet to miss a day of school in this, his first year of school, and first year of exposure to real germs. Boggles the mind. Okay more on us to come … as the spirit (and thus the cursor) moves.

By the Way

I do have a post relating (not explaining as there isn't much to explain) to my prolonged absence. The post is at work though and I'm at home. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get my act together and put it up (still have major problems with posting from work - not the least of which is a complete absence of ANY time).