Longest Post Ever?
I finally found my camera and (even better) cord to upload photos. Let's start at the very beginning, shall we? My mom's old storage room. You entered through the downstairs (at that time, only) bedroom--past the closet. We used all that storage area to create 2 new bedrooms for the boys.

Your basic cement floor and walls--no windows at all. Seeing the frames go up was wonderful and allowed us to start picturing what the bedrooms would look like.

Zinabu's room on the left, Carver's room on the right. In between we added a linen closet and small landing area.

Lily's room now. This was the existing bedroom in the basement, so the only work here was sealing off her closet that used to enter into the storage area. She loves blue. Loves it. I plan on painting some big circles on her walls in coordinating colors, and a big circle with chalkboard paint.

Lily's craft supplies. She is not into dolls or girly toys at all. She loves all things dog (um, you should know that by now) and crafts.

A reading chair! Every girl needs one.

Zinabu's room! Hard to believe this was once a cement room. When they put the windows in it was amazing how beautiful the room became. It doesn't feel like a basement room at all, because the windows are big. His reading chair--and you can see I went with an orange wall. The other walls are a light grey. I love the colors.

A beautiful view of the trees from Z's window.

Zinabu's bed and old desk. We have an old school map of Africa we'd like to frame and put on the wall.

Quite possibly my favorite features of the entire house. Double closets in both boys rooms. One holds clothes. One holds toys. Full of shelves and hanging rods, it makes me want to stand on a mountain top and sing Julie Andrews songs and spin around with joy. I am, uh, a bit of an organizing freak and get excited about closet space.

Carver's room. It's actually a big room that looks dwarfed in this photo. He has a ledge that runs around half his room, and he loves to put Star Wars action figures up there in various poses that reflect light saber duels gone bad. His room is also grey with one orange wall.

He got some built in bookcases that used to be the entry to the old storage area. On the other side of the bookcase is Lily's closet. Carver is a voracious reader, and when he's not reading with his eyes, he is listening to an audio book from the library. I love that he has a fantastic book collection already. It was with great sacrifice on my part that I allowed him the right to keep the Harry Potter books on his shelves.

In my room, the bathroom is being worked on. At least we have a toilet!!! David and I inherited the smallest bedroom and smallest closet, but we gain a bathroom. Remember at our old house ALL 5 OF US SHARED A BATHROOM!!!!! David and I feel like we won the lottery! (Cue more Julie Andrews.) Zinabu wanted to know what the plunger smelled like. What?

I am tired, but I am content. Tonight my mom cooked dinner for all of us. We love being together. And because we've renovated a lot of the house, it feels like my house too. It feels like we're living with my mom, but not that we're living in her house.

We're pretty happy.

i
am
still
alive.......

barely.

3 Things I've Learned This Week

1. Do not drink 3 glasses of wine the night before you move. No, no, no, no, no.

2. Do not promise your better half hanky panky in any form whatsoever when you are exhausted from moving.

3. You can put anything on the curb with a "FREE" sign and someone will take it. Anything. I almost put Zinabu out there just to test the theory but thought better of it in the end.

2 More Days

I haven't updated much about our renovation/move because it's all I think about and I would just keep repeating the same thing over and over... that it's pretty crazy around here. We had hoped to have moved over to the new house last Saturday but the house wasn't ready yet. Well, it still won't be ready when we move, but it will be clean. Last Saturday there were still framing part of the back porch and there was sawdust everywhere. Most of the inside is 80% done. It's enough to make me start biting my nails again (which I'm doing) and not be able to sleep at night (again, I'm doing). It's 2 steps forward, 1 step back. For example, the light fixtures arrived with broken sconces so we have to replace them. The kitchen cabinet pulls I picked out don't work with some of the drawers that are close together. The bathroom vanity is on order. Bathrooms are not done at all. But the kids have their rooms and the office/guest bedroom addition is done and the upstairs living room has a new wall and patio door, so we are getting close. Our contractor promised that his cleaning crew would be there Thursday night and Friday morning to clean up what I'm sure is pounds of sawdust that is on everything. Our moving van is coming on Friday afternoon to load up our heavy furniture and beds. David and I have slowly been moving clothes, books, and small belongings to the new house all week, but as of Friday (that's 2 more days people!!!) we can begin sleeping there.

The kids are tired of it all. They're bored and I'm swamped. I haven't spent quality time with any of them in days. I feel terrible. Carver is in day camp this week, and the boys have baseball in the evenings, but Lily and Zinabu have suffered the most. I'll be happy when July rolls around and we're all settled in and the renovation is finished and I can wake up, make pancakes for the kids, and say "What do you want to do today?"

Our local thrift store has benefited greatly from our move. We've unloaded so much and been able to donate all kinds of items that we either don't need anymore or would be a duplicate of what my mom already owns. It has also been fun to begin putting things away in the new kitchen cupboards in the new kitchen. If you know me at all, you know that I tolerate cooking. Not really my thing, but I do it because my family needs to eat. But baking.... well, that's another story. So having all my baking supplies ready to go is wonderful.

I've promised to post pictures, but I need to actually take photos first. Maybe on Saturday? We'll see. In the meantime, think of me fondly while I slowly go insane.

these two.
best friends since age 3.
call each other "twin sister" and literally mean it.
do not see their skin colors.
see only how they are alike.
are blessed to live in a time when they are allowed to swim together.
thank you Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, and Jackie Robinson.
from the bottom of their hearts, thank you.

No Pressure

Yesterday we started setting up Lily's new room. Here is the note I received from her:

You rock.
Thank you for putting the stuff in my room and you did a asome job!
But now,,,, Buy me a dog!!!!!!

At least I rock.

Guess what the First Lady and her daughters are doing today???? Touring the Harry Potter movie set, meeting the actors, and getting the dish on all things Potter. Apparently the girls are "big fans." I knew they had great taste. I KNEW it. And I'm so happy that really great children's fiction is being read in The White House.

Conversations With 10 Year Old Boys

That sounds like the title of a depressing movie, but it is actually the state of my life right now. When your child becomes 10, you have them start really working on their phone skills. Carver is constantly calling friends to see if they can play, and they, in turn, are constantly calling him for the same reason. While we have attempted to teach the best phone manners possible, not all his friends have had the same tutorial. So when our phone rings and I answer, I am dealing with a lot of this:
________________________________
"Hello?"

silence..... "Um, Carver?"

"No, this is his mom. Would you like to speak to Carver?"

silence..... "Uh, yeah...."
________________________________

And so on. I also get this:
________________________________
"Can Carver come play?"

"Who is calling, please?"

silence.... "It's Nathan."

"Why hello, Nathan. I think Carver can come play. Is it all right with you mom?"

silence.... "Uh... um, yeah, I think.... Let me ask her."
________________________________

Whatever. This is bringing back the dark days when Zinabu first arrived and he spoke only Amharic. I was home alone with him all day having meaningless and confusing conversations. My summer reading list needs to be more inspiring because I won't be having intelligent phone chats anytime soon.

Movin'

Excellent news: the inspection is done and we are all agreed on the terms before closing. Everything is set and I don't foresee any problems at this point that would cause our contract to fall through... which means we are MOVING! We can begin moving some of our things over starting Wednesday (fingers crossed). We had the entire basement renovated and added 2 bedrooms down there, so that's where the bulk of the work has been recently. On Monday they are scheduled to lay the carpet and flooring. Once that's in we can begin filling up those rooms with all our things. All 3 kids will have their bedrooms downstairs, so I plan to move their things first. Maybe even by next weekend, we can move the beds over and begin sleeping there. As far as the upstairs part of the renovation... there's still more to do but at least we're on the last stretch. We can live with it, certainly. I cannot even begin to tell you how ready we are to get going. This past week Carver and Lily and Z acted horrible. There is nothing to do here because things are getting packed up and they are ready to move to their new home but it's not quite time yet. That resulted in a lot of whining, crying, poking, hitting, sneering, time-outing. They are pretty desperate for their new routine and new home. I'll try to post some pics soon.

Hardships On The Job
Humor me for a minute. Let's say you are a librarian and you're busy shelving books and a naked person walks up to you and begins chattering and bouncing around. You'd freak out, right? Or pretend you're a waitress and you approach your assigned table and all the customers are naked. You'd have a hard time concentrating, wouldn't you? Or perhaps you are a Target cashier and someone decided to sit on the checkout conveyor belt without a stitch of clothing. I'm guessing you'd run away as fast as you could.

Most days I enjoy my job of stay-at-home mom. But here's what I get when I try to put clean sheets on the bed. Where is the compensation?

He wanted to know if the president's hair felt like his. It does.

Do you know how much this means to my children?

The Best And Worst Of Colorado

On Saturday, David and I decided to take the kids to the Sand Dunes National Park here in Colorado. Even though it's a big drive from our house, it is so worth it. The Sand Dunes are exactly that: sand dunes. They lie in a valley where the wind has, over time, blown hills of sand up against the mountains. The best part of the year, though, is when the snow melt from the nearby ranges runs through the dunes and creates a Colorado beach. The water flows directly over the hot sand, making the water temp. feel like a bath. Also, the water flows in currents so you get the wave effect, but it is never deeper than your shins, so it's impossible to drown. All in all, it is a family paradise and very worth the drive. Here are some photos...

Building a dam. I heard my kids say the word "dam" way too many times that afternoon.

Lily's personal spa treatment.

My view from the beach chair. Love it.

Mountains and water and sand. Gorgeous..

The day was warm, even though we had a few clouds block the sun from time to time.

"Aaaaaaayyy!"

David enjoying a moment of relaxation while watching the kids run.

Now, to cap off our perfect afternoon, we drove about 15 minutes to the horrible tourist trap called Colorado Gators. It began in the 1970s as a Tilapia fish farm, and they bought an alligator to eat the dead fish. Someone, after a late night drinking too much beer, decided to turn the place into an alligator farm, so they acquired more and more gators. They also added turtles, snakes, various reptiles, emus, and donkeys. It defies logic, I know, but that's what it is. However, it is horribly obvious that they have not spent one nickel on maintenance or safety. I think whenever they have an extra $50 lying around they buy another snake. The place is falling apart and is a hodge-podge of corrugated steel buildings with alligators walking around. Needless to say, the kids LOVED it and had their moment of glory each holding a small crocodile (or was it an alligator? who knows!) The fact that the property backed up against a dump and tire heap completely escaped their notice. Ahhh, to look at the world through a child's eyes. Sigh.

A lovely family photo in front of a rusted out tank for snapping turtles. Too bad Carver was taking the picture because I look at this and it just screams "Christmas Card" at me!

Zinabu standing in front of one of the many gator pools. Can you see the rickety gate being held closed by a couple strands of wire? Lots of gators in the background, and though it's hard to see, there is an alligator right behind the gate.

Possibly Carver's favorite moment of his entire life! Guess who was scared out of his sneakers? I'll give you a hint: His name starts with "Da" and ends in "vid."

Only the best for this place. High tech signs at every turn, telling us where to go.

This sucker was huge. You could buy buckets of "gator food" to throw at it, too. You know, I've always found that throwing things at dangerous animals is a good thing.

David looking at me. You can't see the despair in his eyes because of his sunglasses, but it was there. Multiple "gators" on the other side of the fence. Discarded tire pile to our right. I wish I could make this picture a scratch and sniff so you could get the full effect.

Lots of big turtles walking around. They must be able to defend themselves well because they were on their own.

We pulled into our driveway at 10 pm and collapsed.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

I just convinced Lily that if the dog is a girl we should name it Elizabeth!!!!!

Frozen!

I am in the in-between these days and I am about to tear my hair out. I've packed just about all I can pack and we're living as minimalists. But I can't really pack anything else because we need it. Also, once my mom's house is mostly ready for us to move to, I can bring things over in the back of our van bit by bit--I don't actually have to pack the rest. Every time I go to my mom's it feels as if nothing has been done, although I know that's not true. The workers spent several hours over the last few days staining doors and trim. Whoop-de-doo. But they have to get the trim in before they can lay the carpet, and they have to lay the carpet before we can start moving. So there's a lot of waiting around for the pieces to fall into place. I am also falling out of love with our current house. Knowing we won't be here any longer, I can fully appreciate all the issues it has. Each quirk drives me nutty and grates on my nerves. I walk through the rooms and feel the weight of how much I need to do to get out of this place. Multiply that by the multiple rooms I walk through and you can tell I'm like a homeless wanderer in my own home. All this "not getting things done" came to a head today and I went at my eyebrows rather aggressively. So although my life feels disorganized and in shambles, my eyebrows look fabulous! Good thing too, as I have a feeling I'll be with my kids in the ER tonight given their current activities: light saber duels and climbing on the ladder (see it in the background?) to look at the baby birds in a nest by our gutter. The odds are in my favor that someone will require stitches, so it's a good day for well-groomed eyebrows.

The last day of school was Friday, and Carver and Lily had a great day with their friends and teachers. Part of me hates the last day of school because it means my children are getting older and moving up to the next grade. Why do they grow so fast??? Memorial weekend for us was spent inside, as Colorado is having some unusual rainy weather. Lots of rain and cool temperatures. Since that rarely happens here we don't know what to do with ourselves! The buyers for our house have scheduled their inspection for Friday at noon. If that goes well, I think I can start breathing easier and continue packing. David still has loads of commitments for work and school, but at least his summer schedule will be easier than--well, easier than what it has been.

*51 days until Harry Potter opens in theaters.

Food For Thought

Read this.

lucky, indeed!

Funny how I was joking about the lucky shirt, but something went right yesterday. The couple that loved our house after seeing 9 others put in an offer late yesterday. It's a decent offer, especially given the market right now. We shall accept and if all goes well we can close on June 30. Perfect, perfect, perfect! Oddly enough we have another showing this morning at 9:30, which we will keep just in case. And I'll clean the house, I really will. But I don't feel the need to be obsessive-compulsive about it. What a great feeling. Extra bonus: Lily got herself some new shorts so she doesn't have to wear sweatpants to school today.

lucky!

I'm wearing my favorite shirt today. I'm feeling lucky--which is ridiculous because I don't believe in luck. Today I need to find shorts for Lily. It's 87 degrees today and the child is wearing sweat pants because she's outgrown all her shorts and I couldn't bear to send her to school wearing something that rides up her bum. I also need to pick out light fixtures (prepare to be overwhelmed, Cathy), bathroom cabinets, mirrors, and towel bars. So instead of saving the world and eliminating hunger, I will be picking out towel bars.

Update on the buyers: divorced dad said no. Gee, you'd think in this day and age when parents are more and more permissive he would have just bought the house because the kids wanted it. But he was a dad with a backbone, which restores my faith in humanity. The other potential buyers, it turns out, looked at 9 houses on Sunday and ours was their favorite. Can you imagine looking at 9 houses in one day? I am exhausted just thinking about it. They are scheduled to look at more on Wednesday and Saturday. I can only hope they get so sick and tired of driving around and walking through strange homes they say, "Let's just buy the house we liked the most--the one where the mom has the lucky shirt."

*this photo has absolutely nothing to do with my post, but I just love it! many thanks to anne who turned me on to the White House photos on flickr.

Still Hoping...

for the house to sell, that is. It has been on the market for 17 days (as of today) which is really not very long. It just feels long to me. I am so ready to move I can barely contain it. The kids are ready too. I hope to meet with the contractor today to talk about getting the new flooring/carpeting in and the walls painted in the kids bedrooms a.s.a.p. As soon as that's completed, we can start moving our things over. Living here (in our current house) is fine but our hearts are really at my mom's and waiting is no longer exciting. It's just plain grueling.

We had three showings yesterday. One I don't know anything about yet but our realtor will give us an update today. The second showing was great, but our house was the very first house they had looked at and they have to sell their own house before they buy anything. So unless we want to wait for them to make an offer in December, we'll keep plugging along. The third showing had the most potential. A recently divorced man who has been renting but is now ready to buy. He has custody of his kids on the weekends, so he brought his kids along and according to early reports the kids loved it! If the children could have made an offer, they would have. The dad was concerned though about fitting his king-sized bed up the stairs and finding the right wall for his gigantic plasma tv and shelves. But his kids were literally begging. It was sunny and warm yesterday, and because we live across the street from a large park, they were salivating at the thought of "all this someday being theirs."

So pray for Divorced Dad #1 to want to do whatever his children want. And pray he'll just figure out he can buy a smaller bed and new furniture if he wants.

Boarding School Is Suddenly An Option

This photo was taken after I had cleaned the house for HOURS before a showing. I went outside and found these two dunderheads up to their necks in wet, gloppy sand. Z actually had it in his mouth. I wound up throwing some of their clothes away--it was that bad. And don't be fooled. They were positively filthy. Their brown skin makes it hard to see all the grime, but it was there. Trust me. It was there.

A Teaser...

Before...

Before...

Halfway there...

Cutie pie.

The kitchen is about 75% done, and I couldn't resist showing a few pics. We (meaning not me but our contractor) have a few more cabinets to install, hook up the water and hot water tap, add hardware and other bits and pieces. But hopefully by Monday it will be in working condition and within another week completely finished. It is looking fine, in my opinion. I picked out a gigantic sink. It's so huge you could put 3 Thanksgiving turkeys in it to thaw. It would actually be the perfect sink to bathe a baby in, which makes me think about having another baby.

Um. Excuse my while I go laugh hysterically in the corner.

(wiping eyes) All right. I'm back. I can't believe I just said that. What the heck is wrong with me?

Today was interesting. It was Zinabu's last day of preschool and because he could not wrap his head around the fact that it wasn't Friday, he asked me 2.5 million times what day it was. My beloved mother offered to watch him this afternoon so I could hit Home Depot and look at paint colors, bathroom sinks, kitchen cabinet hardware, and a new microwave. Turns out I am a home improvement slut--I'm easy. Very easy. The appliance man looked startled when he told me about the microwave he said is a good choice and I said, "Sold!" No dilly-dallying here, no ma'am. I grabbed 300 paint swatches, 297 of them being greyish tanish neutralish. Lily wants her room to be turquoise, and I am considering some orange for the boys' rooms. How do you settle on the right shade of orange?

Then, since I had a few extra minutes I stopped off at the mall to buy some birthday gifts. I can't remember the last time I was at a mall, by myself, in the middle of the day, no less. It was just me and several high schoolers playing hooky. I winked at them conspiratorially, but they sneered back. I guess they don't like old ladies like me making eye contact with them when they're trying to be rebellious. Grabbing the bull by the horns--that's what living dangerously is when your kids aren't with you, right?--I had a chocolate milkshake for lunch. Yum. I even got to browse through the bookstore, where the Twilight books were assaulting me from every corner and Robert Pattinson's face glowered at me. It's hard for me to remember LBT (Life Before Twilight). I scanned some decorating books to look for orange rooms, but that must be so 1970 because I couldn't find any. However, I heard a Jackson Five song that made me smile. Gets me every time.

Anyone have suggestions about the many shades of orange?

Mother's Day


Guess what I got for Mother's Day? Sand in every orifice of my kids' bodies. They buried Lily, then they buried Carver, and because he couldn't resist...they buried Zinabu.

I also got the sweetest hand-written notes from them, which completely made up for the sand. Zinabu wrote: Thank you for making me good food!
Lily wrote: Thank you for helping me make muffins. I love you.
Carver wrote: Thank you for loving us. I know it is hard sometimes but you do it anyway.

I said to Carver, "Oh honey, it's not hard to love you!"
Carver said, "I know it's not hard to love me. It must be hard to love Lily and Zinabu."

Humble, isn't he?

The Dog Update

People (and you know who you are) keep giving me digs on Facebook about getting a dog for Lily. They send me photos and ideas and dog breed suggestions. The latest helpful advice was sent by Lauren (who really should know better!)

Go HERE to see what she exposed me to. Photos of a young girl getting a dog for her birthday. You can see she's totally shocked and overwhelmed with joy and starts crying with elation.

It kind of makes what we gave Lily for her birthday a little less... um... sweet. No dog, but a dog toy. The ball thrower.

At this point in our negotiations with Lily, I have pretty much given up on being able to name the dog Mr. Darcy--though I WILL call it that when Lily is not around. She has picked the name Arucho. What??? But I am still working on her to skip the puppy phase and get a Lab that is a year or two old. I understand the desire for a puppy, but I just don't want to live through that. So my plan is to wait until there is a good selection of Labs at the Humane Society and when the time is right, just take Lily there. I know for a fact she will not be able to leave the place without a dog, and the thought of a puppy will go right out the window.

Mwwaaahhahahahaha!

Sorry. Bad parenting moment, there.

Update

The quickest way to write this post would be, "It's crazy around here." But where's the fun in that?

Here's the long version. You know when someone gets an organ transplant and they have to take loads of medicine and they're monitored closely in case their body "rejects" said organ? Well, I think my body is rejecting life right now. It's acting in odd ways. I pulled a clump of hair out of my head in the shower this morning, I have heartburn that my doctor told me "requires a prescription" (ominous, isn't it?), my appetite has not been seen since sometime last week, and I do things like forget to put on deodorant, so I am socially-repulsive by 4 pm.

There are 11 school days left in the school year, and then I somehow have to keep our house clean every waking moment. We've had some big issues with one of our kiddos lately, and I am starting to feel like I don't think I can parent anymore. Taking care of my kids has been a breeze compared to the roads we're going to embark on in the next few years. There's a big, bad, yucky world out there and I don't like it one bit. How do I navigate that? I mean, I used to worry about my kids not out-growing their new shoes too soon, and lately I've begun worrying about bullying, Internet porn, drugs, and shoplifting. Let's just say I'm not sleeping very well at night.

How do other parents do this?

David, bless his heart, gets the husband of the year award. I call him at random times throughout the day and leave him cryptic messages like, "Honey, I am really concerned about Lily being a perfectionist. What if she can't ever let herself make a mistake? What if she develops an eating disorder?" or some other such nonsense. He probably dreams of slipping me some Benadryl to mildly sedate me. And to think I actually want to add a 4th child to our family!

We had a lot of interest in the house the first 3 days it's been on the market. One couple seemed sure to put in an offer, but the husband felt that there wouldn't be enough storage here. Huh? What does he have, a yacht collection? Oops, there went another clump of hair. I best quit while I'm ahead.
____________________________________________________
Surgeon General's Warning: For a good laugh, go HERE.

Put A Little Chicken Dance In Your Weekend

To say I'm exhausted would be putting it mildly. Keeping the house spotless is hard. Uber hard. There have been some not-so-pretty moments when I chased after the kids with cleaning wipes. We survived both open houses where we could not be home from 2 to 5 on Sat. and Sun. Saturday we were hosting Lily's birthday party at the roller skating rink. Sunday I wandered around town aimlessly with the kids. We got some playground time in and hit the library. Carver feels especially offended that we have to leave our house when strangers want to come look at it. He takes it personally. It would be amazing if we could find a buyer in the next few weeks because I'm not sure how long I can live like this.

Here's a video of part of the birthday fun. 10 points if you can find the Ethiopian on skates.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LILY!