Easter Funday

Today was Easter. I made tons of eggs for Will that had jelly beans, peeps and animal crackers. Him discovering them and getting into it was one of the best parts of today. The worst parts of today were: no masks for the dirty project, finding mold growing on the garage ceiling, very sad mail, a deck that slants, possibly finding a dead bat in the light fixture of the stove and soaking wet shoes.

My shoes were soaked for the majority of the day due to morning dew. Quite uncomfortable. I tried drying them in the sun at the house but it wasn't quite strong enough and I kept needing to put my shoes on. I tried drying them in my mother in laws dryer but her dryer just kept rejecting them. I put them back in the sun and just stayed barefoot for a few hours. It finally worked.

We woke up this morning and went and got coffee from a very pregnant bitter barista. We went to the house and did our Easter egg hunt with Will. So sweet. So cute. That boy loves jelly beans. Not so much a peep fan and likes his animal crackers but would rather have a jelly bean. James went on to scraping and I watched the kidlets. After a while we convened in the garage. We are giving away these 6ftX10ft fence pieces that came with the house. We are looking around and then I spot it. Mold. Something is wet up there. James thinks its the master toilet. We aren't allowed to use it until its fixed. Joy. I have a husband in over his head with this laundry room re model, he starts school on Tuesday, he commutes by ferry now and we have to wait for him to find time to fix a lord knows what.

We decide to leave and go have lunch and nap time. Even though I have had 2 coffees, I am beat. It's amazing how much stress can exhaust you. For funsies we check out our mailbox. Wow. Nasty. Barely hanging on. Needs replacing stat. There is though tons of mail. We pull it out and drive to Bobs. I look through the mail. There's a letter in there, open, from someone that obviously cared very much about the previous tenants. It expresses great concerns about their whereabouts and their wellness. It's ends with a strong desire for them to call. The other mail is stuff for the beneficiaries of the male homeowner. A couple pieces for a son, whom James of course knows, and possibly something about being laid off. By looking at postmark dates we can gather the house has been empty since at least January of 2012. Long Time. So sad.

After getting to Bobs very tired and slightly emotionally drained we hang out in the sun with Toby and Catie. Then James takes Will to nap and I take Kiki to nap. Kiki isn't sleeping. I get a text that Will pooped and isn't sleeping. We get up and go play some more in the sun. Will spends hours running around butt naked in his grandparents yard and house. He is simply sublime. We are all greatly entertained. Toby and Cate made everyone Easter dinner which we had at 3. So fun. Then we all piled into cars to be to a hardware store before 5. We had 20 minutes to get there. We made it, James got his tool and back to the new house we went.

Toby and Cate took a tour and left soon after. Bob sat in the chair he brought and James got back to work. I took the kids upstairs and had my most happiest moment ever. Before I had my moment though I went downstairs only to discover that James' new tool was creating a dust storm and neither Bob nor James was wearing a mask. I made James stop and asked if he had a mask. No, he didn't. I gave him a shirt of mine to wrap around his face and gave Bob Wills triple 7 shirt. Whatta pair. Back upstairs I made Will a bottle of apple juice. I put Kiki in her toy and we all sat on the deck. It was sunny and warm. Kiki was happy. Will say in my lap and let me just love on him. Eventually he turned around to face me. He rested his sweet head on my chest and let me just hold him and love him. Pure Bliss. Nothing is better than loving your children. Nothing. Kiki squealed with delight and I held Will in my arms. In the sun. On the deck we owned. The deck that we noticed isn't level, but that we owned.

We returned inside when Kiki lost it and needed to eat. She let us know she was done eating when she went to tackle Will. After playing a minute I got down to cleaning. I need to clean the hardwood floor and am at a standstill as to how to do it. So instead I cleaned the stove. I put Will up on the counter and we explored the stove. After wiping down the stove top we turned on the stove light and looked at it. There was something very large sitting on the light cover. It looked like a bat. I called up James. He messed with it for a minute, tacked another project to his list and told me to keep the light off so we don't cook it.

James was able to finish the first part of his laundry room project. We finalized a carpet choice. We really like the tile we chose. We tried to catch the ferry back to Lynnwood but it was 2 hours long. We went back to Bobs. Kiki screamed the whole way. Thank goodness tomorrow is Monday and James goes to work. We shouldn't have any more house problems until Tuesday when I come back to have the house measured for carpet.

The Most Popular House On The Block

Day two and this place is a mess. Poop on the floor, dead wasps, a leak, a nasty, nasty hot water heater, stinging nettles, no chairs, and a laundry room that has rot in it.

I am exhausted. It's exhausting taking care of two kids when you have no where to put them. We started the day fine. James made breakfast, we hung out with Bobs caretaker Bonnie and then hit the road. I took James to the house then took the kids to an Easter egg hunt. We were supposed to meet friends but that didn't really work out. We got there just in time for the hunt. Will got 4 eggs and decided to ride the toy plane. It was fine by me. My instinct was to have him keep looking but there were SO many kids and I had to remember the point of going. That point was to have fun. So will had a great time playing. I surprised myself by how much I let him do on his own. I had Keely in the front pack so I was severely limited in what I could do with him. I watched a ton of kids fall and a ton of kids get run into. It was a battleground. Thankfully Will never hit or got hurt by anyone. We got to check out the fire truck, we got to sit in it and we got a cool hat. He was all set for nap time. We went to Bobs and fell asleep.

Once we got up we gathered some stuff, got Bob and headed to the house. Things were moving along. James had the laundry room pretty much pulled apart. He introduced me to our neighbor (Aaron) with the awesome play set. Our new neighbor said it was cool if Will wanted to play on it. WIN!! Also met his pregnant wife Rachel. I met another neighbor (George?) who was mowing our lawn. George apparently gets a little confused. His son owns the property next to us. He thought Aaron was my husband.

Once inside I put a naked Keely on the blanket while I made James and Bob some sammies. Keely was starting to lose it by the time I delivered the sammies and it turns out she shit the blanket hard core. Her legs and feet were covered in poop. There was poop chunks everywhere. I actually ripped open the wipe pack because I couldn't get them out fast enough. All the while so pissed at myself for letting this happen again. I cleaned her up, cleaned me up, cleaned the blanket up and then found two huge turds under the blanket.

I take the kids onto the deck and feed Keely while Will plays with chalk at my feet. Things are good. When Keely is done I stick her in a toy, bring her on the deck and Will and I garden. I knock the old wasp nest off the roof. It hits the ground and all I see are bees. I let out a good Oh Shit and slam the windows shut. I go get Keely and realize there's no bees. I go look, they are all dead except for one living bee. I sweep everything off the deck. Next thing I tackle is the potted plants. I realize the best thing to do is throw them off the deck. I take the dirt out and Will and I toss it over. He loses Dino in the process but is surprisingly cool about it. Now Keely is tired and Bob has taken my one chair on the deck. I go downstairs and take over his wheelchair. Kiki falls asleep quickly.

About this time the neighborhood slowly converges on our house. Our friends Gunner and Ahna have come to say hi and help. Ahnas mom comes over too. People aren't exactly quiet, but it's not terribly loud. Personally, if it was me and I saw a mom in a wheelchair holding a sleeping baby I may have bailed. Kiki managed to get a decent sleep and all the cooing over her was no problem after all.

While I had her asleep James and Gunner were investigating the hot water heater. Turns out that thing was NASTY. They pulled up some plug thingy and it had lots of white growth on it. It looked like chunks of laundry soap. James was over it. This quick project turned into finding rot on the floor, needing a $1000 water heater and several tools and phone calls to finish the first part of the project. He went outside to hack the multitude of stinging nettles we have. While doing that Steve and Mimi come by. They are the parents of the girls we met the previous night. Well, James tells them our problem and what do you know, Steve is a plumber. He can get us a new water heater for $250. We found out he likes Crown Royal. I had given Kiki to Ahna and went outside to meet these two wonderful people. After a few minutes Kiki started to cry and I went in. Turns out there was water all over the floor. It had been covered by the huge cooler Gunner brought over. This massive leak was actually the result of water dripping out of a pipe that was connected to the water heater. Major disaster slightly averted.

Holy Jeez. Buying a house is whack. The problems, oh the problems!

The First Day

Our house is now legally ours! YES!! We actually own a whole home. It's freaking ours. When we are done with it we have to actually SELL it. No telling a landlord we are vacating next month. No, no, no. $10,000 dollars and a buyer are all we need.

After a little wait we got on our ferry. It was a gorgeous day. The kids were content. There was peace in our world. We stopped off at the Red Apple, piled into one car and drove to Shellie's property. Wow. She's got a nice place. They had a bonfire going, James talked to her husband for forever and a day. Shellie showed us a tree frog she caught. Will and I wandered around and took pictures. Finally James was done talking and Shellie handed us two plants and a bag full of goodies with our key attached to the bag. She put it on a Whidbey Island key chain. She is the best!! We took off for the Red Apple and got our other car. Then we took off for the new home!

When we got there the place was open. The lock was gone so we just turned the knob and let ourselves in. Will rode his trike around the bare floors and had a great time. We opened every window because there is a funky smell. We think its the carpeted stairs. I put the plants Shellie gave us (mints) in the sunny window to combat the stink. We unpacked our cleaning supplies. I swept up all the dead flys and moths. We put a huge blanket down for keekers. We said hi to a neighbor and got down to moderate business.

As I was getting things out of a car, James had Keely and some guy with a 5 pack came up. He was gushing about how cute Keely was and I immediately hated him. T R A S H. He talked to James, went on and on about our kids and finally left. Turns out he never even offered James a beer. I started to feel bad about my first reaction of him. I thought to myself "Jamie, he was probably just being neighborly, sharing a beer, letting us know he was there to help if we needed it.". No. He is trash. Our friends Gunner and Ahna were at her parents house, literally a few houses from us, and they brought over some neighbor girls.

We all went inside, not trashy man, and hung out for a while. I found out the neighbor girls don't like trashy man either and call him "the high schooler". I also found out I will be photographing Gunner and Ahnas upcoming wedding!! We found out our heater in the new house kicks ass. We found out there are Mosquitos. The girls told me they used to play in our yard when the house was empty and I told them they still could. We had an excellent pow wow and we are excited to own that place!

Home Depot, Landslides And A Legal Obligation

Yesterday we signed a slew of papers. I was only half listening to what I was signing because Keely was on the brink of losing it. My mom luckily had taken Will for the day so I didn't have to completely ignore everything I was agreeing to. I did gather a few key things.

1. We have a legal obligation to pay back our loan. (Can you believe they make you sign a paper stating that you understand this? Someone somewhere really effed with a bank)
2. Our loan is going to get sold to another bank no matter what. It's probably being sold as we speak. (Laymen's Terms: don't bother worrying what bank to get your loan from. It's getting sold to a big bank no matter what.)
3. It's going to cost us $10,000 just to sell this house if and when we go to do it. The fees and taxes get you real good. (When you low ball someone just take into consideration they are not necessarily making any money on this deal.)

After we signed all the papers we called up the Home Depot in Oak Harbor to get someone to come measure our place for carpet. 4 phone calls later we had an appointment. Not looking like a good sign. The other day the family took a trip to our local Home Depot and picked out tile. We then went and picked carpet. We then put a carpet sample next to the tile and were horrified at the two together. Our beautiful white carpet looked dingy and drab compared to the tile. We then grabbed a slew of sample carpet and picked one out. On the phone while making our appointment, the extremely soft spoken man wanted to know what carpet we wanted. I told him while James freaked out about wether it was "the one". James kept telling me not to pick it and the guy kept telling me he just needed to put something in the system. Meanwhile I can't hear either of them and just keep asking what? what? I have to leave the hub bub and retreat into the back bathroom just to hear this tiny mouse I am speaking to. I then get questioned by James about what I snuck off to talk about with the guy.

Very early this morning I get a random text from a relative asking me if my house was in a landslide. I joke back, stating maybe it was. The house we bought is in a neighborhood association which gives us private beach ownership. Well, the beach side of the road looks great. Across the street though, oh boy, major landslides going on there. It's a giant hill going straight up and packed full of trees. The land is sliding. It's only a matter of time before one of those beautiful houses gets it. Our house is fine. It's up the hill and a good distance from the hill dip. A road that accesses the house could get washed out but that most likely won't happen. My relative didn't write me back and towards the end of the day I learn about the Whidbey Island landslide that made national news. I even got a call from my worried grandmother. Awesome. Whidbey never makes national news and the day after we buy a house out there it's on the news. This stuff is whack.