Dylan just told me I am his best friend...it was a supersweet moment. Of course this week his best friends have included Blue (the dog), Kolby and Kolby's mom Shana so I take it with a grain of salt. Other cute thing he had done? Memorized the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" which he now reads aloud himself. Check it out...
As time moves on so does progress on the new house. The dollars dwindle from our once more abundant bank account, and as they do we can see ourselves more as potentially living in the house and carrying on our lives from there. The drywall finisher and painter guy, Raul, is scheduled to come a week from Monday, so in the meantime everything from sheetrock to crown molding to cabinetry must go on.
A couple days ago...
(say hi to Karen and Paul, our pseudo landlords!)
And then today when I left I had done some drawers (you know, girl work) and been shamed by the fact that I screwed up ordering for two things and have to, gulp, return to Ikea tomorrow. The boys were hard at work on crown molding, which in my opinion is the single best way to truly jazz up a space. I love, love, love it. Here's some more greatness...
and my favorite frickin tool in the whole world...
I know, I've been keeping everyone in suspense!! The new home!
Basic info: this house is a 1919 sq ft 3/2 with an additional converted garage with another full bath, a studio in the back and a covered, enclosed sunroom. I realize now that of all the pics I've taken these last couple days that none are actually of the front of the house, so another day perhaps. It has much of the typical issues you would expect of a 50 year old house, which we were both expecting and ready to take care of. This isn't the first time we've done this afterall, though the fact that the house has stood empty for many years has caused some of those issues to be a little worse. No prob, Team Cumby and their trusty project manager/FIL Paul have it under control.
We expect to gut the kitchen, remove wood paneling and replace with sheetrock, hang crown molding, gut remodel the hall bath, install vinyl, double paned windows and paint the entire interior as our first big projects. We call that Phase One, with the idea being that after Phase One is complete we can move in without being in a war zone. Phase Two gets into staining the concrete in the sunroom, wood and sheetrock repair in the converted garage, tiling of that after removing carpet, minor remodel of the full bath in there, and exterior wood replacement of the entire garage (the house has all new, but not the garage). We will paint the entire house at that point because we are not in love with the blue-grey. Phase Three involves that studio which is a mess at best. We will likely knock it down to foundation and use the roof to build an exterior lounge area perfect for when and if a pool gets in (which is the Phase Four hope!) Basically we go as far as our budget will carry us and do more jobs as more money trickles in.
We closed on the house on Wed at 10, got to the new place around noon. Took before pics and then got to work...here is a Flickr album so you can see the progress five days in the house has made. Some might look uninteresting if you don't know what is going on, esp electrical and stuff like that, but just know it is all awesomeness. You may have to hit the plus sign on the right to see all the pics or you can drag the bar at the bottom, they are in order over the course of the last five days.
Yup, we have finished seven years as a couple, me and Jason. What a couple too, dubbed the storm cloud of doom from the start because of our sarcastic, caustic wit. Ironically, we are a happy, smiley family now and while the sarcasm is still there, it is mostly directed outwards to the world and not each other. I would share the hookup story, but it is a lame one so I'll skip it and tell you how we did spend the day.
Jason went to the work nurse to get some aspirin for some chest pain and as a precaution she made Jason go to the St Luke's clinic a block over to make sure he wasn't having a heart attack. Dylan and I brought him over and it was muy exciting. It actually wasn't, but the place was nice and the people were cool and we got a couple funny shots of Jason pretending to be sick and me and Dylan pretending not to be bored. The plus was that I had my copy of the Kite Runner with me and it is a fantastic book so far. Unfortunately I was reading it in the waiting room and my eyes were a little misty. The doc came to talk to me and I looked up with tears in my eyes -- naive doc seemed to think I was actually concerned about my DH and not just involved in a really good book. I decided not to crush his soul and reveal the truth, that I wasn't really concerned that something was wrong, but Jason and I shared a laugh about it. Because, oh yeah, everything's fine!
Tune in tomorrow for an actual update on the house! Lots of progress being made, lots of pics to share!!
I've been dying to share this story, it is beautiful.
Sunday after going to Dolores' for the Cumberland Summer in the City pool party, we decided we would have a Fat Boy Moment (term trademarked by the Cumberlands, lol) and we went through the drive through of Jack in the Box. Being on new turf, we went to one close to the new house, but soon learned it is worth the effort to just go to the old one. We order our Fat Boy Moment Meals (jumbo size it, homie!) and that much carb and fat takes a bit to cook so we are told to go park up front and wait for our bounty.
We park and I see a young-ish man with this crusty old blonde chick, hanging out outside. I'm bored, so I narrate what I decide is going on between these two. Now he's just dancing on the corner, like some hip hop song is going through his head (hmm...like Three Six Mafia...) and crusty McHerpes is stumbling around with her matted up blonde hair looking like life has ridden her pretty hard in her forty some odd years. I decide they are Pimp and Hooker. Pimp tells Hooker to go in and do something. She isn't gone very long, even if she is total pro, but she comes back with money. Then they start hugging and kissing and I think to myself, now you're just being judgemental. They're just a couple and here you are calling them Pimp and Hooker...until he pushes her away and he has the money in his hand. Oh hell no!! She then sits down with her 40 that's been sitting there the whole time. Classy too!
In conclusion, what some might call being judgemental, I call good instinct. The best was when we pulled away and a cop went by. Pimp practically hit the ground and I laughed in my soul. Then I buried that feeling with fries and it was good. Since I like to always have pics with my blog posts, enjoy watching this pimp get shown what is up...
We had a weekend of celebrating this boy and while I am certain he had a frickin blast, I am uber glad it is over. I just get so worked up over all the details, about making sure people can come, making sure they have a good time, making sure about this and that. And I wasn't super impressed with the Little Gym we did it at, so I was just a bundle of anxiety. I tried to ignore the cake that melted, the fact that they only served water (really, not even like gatorade?!), all the stuff that was glaringly not right to me and focus on the really cool people we have in our lives. There are the families we see all the time and the ones we literally only get to see for birthdays, but I dig them all. My favorite quote of the day came from Rachelle's little lady, Maddi. I asked if she liked the cake and she answered, "Yes, I do. You really should try it" like a perfect lady. I know she's not since her mama has told me the things she has said that were less savory, and that made it twice as cute.
Today we had a pool party over at Jason's Aunt Dolores' as a sort of happy summer and happy birthday party for Dylan and his cousin Annie Rose. More cake, more presents. And then we got to come home, play with presents and finally rest.
This week will probably be the closing on the new house. We were supposed to technically finish before 6/15, but it will be 6/9 tomorrow and I don't know if that gives all parties involved and the title company enough time. We are starting to get super anxious and just want to start ripping bathrooms and paneling out already!! Will update all as soon as we know more!
I realized when I saw Heather this week that I hadn't let everyone in on this, but since I spent last week with food poisoning from Hades (thank you, Uncle Billy's in Austin) I missed my chance. Dylan is potty trained and wearing underwear everywhere he goes (except to sleep, I'm not crazy). I was so afraid he was going to turn 3 and be peeing himself, but it happened. I get what people say when they say one day it will just click with the kid, but not emphasized enough is the amount of months of extreme effort that finally lead up to that magical point. It's like some singer who explains that they are an overnight celebrity who has been playing gigs for the last fifteen years.
Being at MIL's has been good for the process, he just wandered around naked for weeks and weeks and would go use the toilet himself. Put underwear on him though and he'd pee right on it. And again. And again. Until the one day he suddenly didn't. And then suddenly picking out underwear was interesting even though the million times before he had no desire. What an exhausting process, who the heck wants to have another kid after that?! Maybe that's why a lot of kids are close in age, parents don't get to this point before fertilizing another egg. Or maybe I have no patience at all, which is much more likely accurate. So glad though, go Dylan.
Other than that, looks like it is a go ahead for living on the same street as the in-law's, we just need to set a closing date. All inspections are done, all should be well. I am ready to just get in there, do our renovations and then get the heck on in! If I had to guess, that won't be until August, but who knows. Gotta go now, looks like Jason might be getting Mario Kart of the Wii ready to go. Shan, you'll know when we're ready to take you guys on...
