game called on account of rain

So... some unusual weather has thrown a wrench in our moving plans. We were going to be out of here by Sunday, but now it will be at least Monday, possibly Tuesday. The POD will not hold all of our stuff, and patience is running quite thin.

I hope to never live in a place with stairs again. It makes moving heavy things even more difficult.

Also, my daughter seems to have become a wee bit suicidal. Or maybe she's just an adrenaline junkie. Between eating styrofoam, getting herself in the most awkward places, and pulling things over onto herself, she has racked up quite a tally as far as most injuries in a day go.

I have had to save her from certain doom more times that I would care to admit. And before you get mad and say that I was leaving my baby alone while I went off to do stuff... I wasn't. I was right there with her, except once and then I was a room away for about 3 minutes.

After this last bump, I've found myself doing impersonations of Professor Moody from Harry Potter-- "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Now that there are even fewer things to try and use to block her path, someone has to be holding her at all times. She crawls really fast, so she could get stepped on or kicked and we don't have a playpen/have room for a playpen that would be large enough to keep her happy.

Tonight we will be sleeping on an air mattress so we have to make sure everything else is out of that room, just in case she wakes up and goes exploring. Like all babies, she is incredibly curious so everything, no matter how silly, is a toy and goes straight in her mouth.

I hope that we will know where we are going to live soon so that we can go back to our closer-to-normal life.

the final countdown

A few days ago, my husband got his official orders and we are set to go. We decided to do the move ourselves to try and get some extra money. Since we don't know where we will be living or how long it will take to find a place (we are still trying to get on base housing but who knows how long the list is) we decided to use the POD system.

I know you've seen the commercials. It's pretty awesome. They drop it off, you fill it, they pick it up and store it until you are able to officially move in to your new place.

Awesome!

The day it was dropped off, it was just me and the baby. I tried to move things into it, but Alyssa has horrible separation anxiety (gee, I wonder why... ) and starts screaming if you leave her alone. Even if you are still in the room.

I tried to get some help from some of my local friends, but nothing panned out. I was frustrated, but I understand that people have their own lives and no one wants to help anyone move.

My husband found out that one of his really good friends was on leave and had gotten back in town a few days ago, so we called him to see if he could help. He said "Sure, I'll be there in 30 minutes".. I swear he was there in 10. And he brought help.

OMG. He is awesome. We got most of the furniture loaded and about half of the boxes. We're going to finish up tonight and then we celebrate with pizza and beer. Alyssa will be having carrots and a bottle.

This guy is a great guy. But if you want to hang out with him, you have to be prepared to hear some things that might offend even the least offensive person. You see, this guy is a slightly alcoholic, racist, possibly sexist, libertarian and he is highly offensive. It's a good thing we aren't easily offended!

I made a Facebook post about how I thought it was odd that he is the most reliable person we know. Whoa, I opened myself up for a shitstorm there.

I got a lot of angry calls/messages/emails over that one. I'm not sure if one incident was related, but I really hope she knows I wasn't trying to bash her. Ashlee, if you are reading this, I'm sorry if that hurt your feelings. It was never meant to. You know I understand that you have a life and if we had been able to bring her to you, it would have worked out perfectly.

Just so that we are all clear for the future, I will never post a passive aggressive, vague message bashing you in a public forum. Even with our old sitter, O, I spoke to her directly about the problems we had and then I used my blog to vent. 'Oh, she doesn't read it so you can say whatever you want'. No... she does read it. In fact, if you click on the link that says "a handy guide to recognizing the people I'm talking about" her picture is listed. She is a good friend.

Just know that I will never say anything behind your back that I won't say directly to your face. If I'm talking about a situation, we've already discussed it and found a resolution. Even if that resolution is to find a resolution...

I wouldn't want anyone to do that to me, so I refuse to do that to other people.

I'm very sorry if I've hurt anyone's feelings or offended anyone. That was never my intention.

ramblings of a housebound mom

We have decided to say no to fast food.

For the last four years, we have relied heavily on fast food since we didn't have the time or energy to cook. Now that I'm a 'housewoman' otherwise known as a stay at home mom, I have time to do a lot of things that I couldn't do before.

Even though I can't guarantee when something will get done, I am able to make sure that I get a few things done. My favorite part of cooking? Leftovers. That is definitely something we don't get through the drive thru and for, like, 4 bucks I can have spaghetti one night, spaghetti sandwiches the next day, and then some left over pasta during the week. It's day two and I think we've already saved twenty dollars.

The biggest perk is, i can plan out our meals so that we don't have to throw away a lot of food when we move.

My husband just got his official orders, so we will be out of here by the 15th of February.

WOO!!!

We're finally going to move and will eventually be in a real home again, rather than a two bed, two bath 950sqft storage room. We don't have a whole lot of packing left to do since we have been slowly getting non essential items packed since August. Why August? Well, we were first told that we would move in June, then July, Then September, then December.

In other news, I'm trying to transition Ally to her crib. Up until now, we've been co-sleeping. I want my be back. I want to be able to roll over and not worry that I'm going to crush someone too small to push me off. Okay, there's another reason. Ally fell off the bed. We were sleeping, then she woke up and crawled right off the edge. Fortunately, she landed on pillows and was fine, but still... it was terrifying.

It took about forty minutes of crying and me checking on her, but it sounds like she may have finally gone to sleep.

They say that tomorrow will be worse.

Fun, fun, fun!

Just another day

I have moved many, many times in my life but this is the first time I'm trying to get ready to move with an infant. It's a whole different ballgame. Packing has been a bit of a challenge since she has my near-constant attention so it's a really good thing I left my job so early. We were supposed to have been moved already but my husband's squadron keeps pushing back his orders.

With a military move, there are two ways you can do thing. Either they will hire a company to come and pack up all of your possessions, then move you to your new location or they will pay you to move yourself. They pay 95% of what it would cost them to have someone else move you.

So far, we have had the Air Force move us since we haven't had the time/energy/interest to do everything ourselves but this time we are going to take the money.

Some of our friends have already moved to the new location and with their numbers we estimate that we can make about 5-7 thousand dollars by doing it ourselves. Woohoo!

Other than actually doing all of the manual labor (okay, it isn't that bad. I've done it many times before. but it's still a pain!) the only downside is that we don't know where we will be living. We are trying to get base housing because it will simplify a lot of things but there are also a lot of drawbacks. We found a house that is well within our price range (the mortgage would be about $200 a month and since it uses an evaporative cooler rather than refrigerated air, the electricity costs would be fairly low.)

As much as I would love to own a house and be able to do everything I want, if there are openings within a reasonable length of time, we will probably live on base.

For the past 6 months (since they first told us we were moving. Thanks guys.) we have been living in a partially packed apartment. It's starting to drive me a little crazy so I can't wait for us to get to the new town and get settled in.

Oh! Look what Ally can do!







She did this all on her own without any help from me. Happy 7 months, Ally!

Update:

Ally is crawling, sitting up totally unassisted and is getting up on her knees to reach things. I blame her monkey toy. It sings a little song that tells her to "stretch up tall, like a giraffe!" No! keep her low to the ground! There are dangers!

She can also open drawers. And is trying to climb up on the couch...

Man, when they get mobile things move quick!

I have some videos to share but it seems that our Flip Video is missing. Hopefully I will find it soon so I can show you the awesomeness. :D

For now, check this out.
This was two days before she learned how to sit up on her own. How cute is that pose?

Uh Oh

So... my daughter is nearly 7 months old. Which means her birthday is coming up. Which means my birthday is coming up.

Aw crap, another year.

At this point, I have to do something freaking amazing or resign myself to the fact that I couldn't live up to my potential.

What do I mean?

Well, you see, when I was in high school one of my friends parents said the most peculiar thing about me. They said that they envisioned me becoming the next George Lucas. In what way? Doing something pretty cool and having it turn into this amazing, life altering thing.

I have had various opportunities to be a part of something huge, but for some reason I couldn't pay attention to anything long enough to actually do anything.

Sure, I have tons of great stories. But do I really have anything to show for it?

Instead of wowing the masses, I got married to a great guy and we have a pretty cool little lady. That's great too, I mean.. I wouldn't trade it for anything... but what if I had followed one of those random, twisting life paths. Couldn't I still have ended up with my husband and my daughter? Plus a fat stack of cash? Er... I mean

I want to do something!

I have lots of great ideas but there isn't much I can do with them. Maybe I can sell them on Ebay?

The biggest thing is... I kind of think that my work/efforts/stuff will be worth way more once I'm dead. What kind of kick in the teeth is that? 'Oh, you were really awesome and all when you were breathing but now that you're dead, everyone wants a piece of that.'

I don't know. Maybe if I throw myself at everything, something will stick.

Okay, I'm an award winning artist. I guess that counts for something. Too bad I really suck at art. The one thing I've been recognized for is the one thing I feel least good about.

Bah. This is probably just the lack of Zoloft talking.

For those that aren't aware, there was an issue getting my prescription refilled. And don't even be all "well you waited until the last minute, you were asking for it." No. I waited until I had 8 pills left, which was more than enough time to get a refill. Then once I realized this was not going to be an easy task, I started cutting them in half and skipping days. Now I'm totally out.

Zoloft withdrawal is rough. I've been working really hard to get a refill or a temporary prescription but I seem to be caught in the middle of this huge catch-22. the earliest doctors appointment is in almost 3 weeks, so I'm just going to have to rough it.

Expect lots of mindless drivel.

Then again, isn't that what a blog is for?

Goodbye, insecurities

Hello, total pre-life crisis.

Okay, so I'm a fairly crafty person. I have sold a handful of things here and there for side cash.

I'm about to take this to the next level.

To fund my stay-at-homeness, I'm becoming a crafter-for-sale.

It won't happen in the next few days, or maybe even months due to the move, but before the year is out you will see pictures of my completed projects and you will hear all about my mistakes.

I'm nervous. I know my work is good enough to sell, but how do you even begin to price handmade goods during a recession?

I'm going to start out working through the crafting supplies I have on hand, and shipping will be charged separately from the item... that way I don't feel like I'm overcharging too terribly much.

I know that my time is technically worth more, but I'll be making things (which I love) and then getting rid of them (which my husband loves) and putting back some money for Alyssa's future (which she will love when she's old enough to appreciate it.)

If I don't sell anything, I can always say that I tried. With any luck (and a lot of hot glue) I'll be able to make a little bit of money.

What spurred this? I saw a poor-quality, not that interesting wreath sell for nearly $75. Apparently, wreaths are expensive! I make good wreaths. I've had people try to buy the wreaths off of my door.

If I can even make $10 over cost, I'll be very happy.

Plus, I can knit, sew, paint... I can do all sorts of things with paper, and I know what moms are looking for when it comes to kid friendly items.

Nevermind that half finished quilt, I've got more important things to do now!

I'd better start small.