One Lucky Mama

Sigh. I dare say I'm the luckiest mom on the planet. My 7-month old, Lucas, sleeps through the night, never cries, and is always happy. He also takes 2 hour naps. A lot of my FB and IVillage mom friends cannot say the same. That's why I don't often post on FB about my baby "STTN" or "not crying all day" or whatever. And food? He likes pretty much anything you put in front of him. Not to say that he doesn't have his favorites, but still! Otherwise I'd be posting all the time about him and it would come across as serious bragging. I feel badly for my fellow mamas when they have trying times. But for those who don't think I'm earning my infant mom badges, I'll let you know that I earned them around 9 years ago with Garrett! As an infant he was VERY trying to say the least. As a kid though, he's hard to beat. So for those mamas with trying babies, it does get better! Now I'm waiting for Lukey-loo to turn into a pumpkin.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted....

Yes, yes, yes!!!! I am on vacation next week and I can't wait! I really need it! Why is it that the last week before vacation is the week where you swear you'll crack? It's really been hard for me to bite my tongue and not say what I want to say back to people but I held back and let me tell ya, it has not been easy! I have lots of fun things to do with the fam next week which includes Lucas' first trip to the beach! Sand, waves, and maybe a lighthouse will be part of the fun. A museum trip is thrown in there for a rainy day(if there is one; if not, I won't be upset!) There will also be a day to veg or to get some stuff done around the house. We have to put our house back together after all the stuff is done to it but I'll save that gripe for another post. This post is about fun!

Mark and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary last Sunday(I know! I've been with the same guy that long and haven't tired of him yet!) with a trip to The Olive Garden with boys in tow. It would have been nice to go by ourselves but it would have been a pain in the butt to find a sitter and we thought it would just be easier to bring them. It was kinda last minute anyway since I said "Hey, it's our anniversary, wanna go out?" so Garrett chimes in with "Yeah, let's go to Denny's!" Sure kid, I'm going to celebrate our love over pancakes. I SO do not think so! (now pancakes the next morning is another story...) Of course Lucas had to charm all the waitresses with his cute babyness.

At this time tomorrow I will be singing "Vacation" by the Go-Go's and doing the vacation dance. Yes, there is a dance. Mark made it up years ago. Maybe I'll post a video, who knows. Catch ya later!

My Dream Has Died...or at Least Been Put on Life Support

In a previous post I was gushing about my new dishwasher. Mark was going to get the guys working on the house to install it. Piece of cake, right? Wrong. Apparently they don't want to do it because it doesn't fit into their time table and while they didn't come out and say it, their doing so would be a colossal pain in the ass; therefore, not worth their time. I don't know a whole lot about construction or the installation of kitchen appliances but I was told it involves taking out the countertop. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense but whatever. Soooooo....since it is that involved, I've decided to get new countertops and a new sink! So it's not all bad, but I will have to wait longer than I expected. I have no idea of the costs involved to do so, so that's why we're waiting on it. No laminates, though. I'm not going cheap on this. I'm getting what I want this time. I'm getting Corian countertops with a recessed sink. Bummer that I'll have to get rid of the built-in glass cutting board with the zodiac underneath though.(hee hee)

Work in Progress

Well I finally figured out the picture thing on here...or actually, I found a way to backdoor the pictures on here. I tried with the image posting button on here but for some reason my computer freaks out when I try that. Then I remembered Photobucket. Yay for Photobucket! So here's our works in progress.

Home Again

Dang, these guys sure can get a lot done in a couple of days! My bedroom windows are installed, the subfloor in the kitchen is down, and the floor/ceiling/walls (the bad parts anyway) in the kitchen are replaced. Oh yeah, they put the new roof down too! I'm a few steps closer to getting my house as I knew it back. Oh, and did I mention the dishwasher? Just thinking about it makes me giddy. So back to the windows...those were done yesterday. I got home from work and child pick-upping so of course the first thing I do is go upstairs to check them out. Gone is the big-ass mirror that was between the 2 windows. Good riddance to that! Seeing myself in all my glory skeeves me out. (little sidebar--the previous-previous owner was a dance instructor so there are huge mirrors aplenty in this house). I proceed to open the windows. They crank open very nicely! Next I noticed that there are no screens! I gave Mark the "WTF" call at work and he said "relax woman, I'll take care of it!" Don't you love how he talks me down? Turns out they were missing so our contractor put in an order for them. Kelly is happy now!

Home Sweet Home

So, when we bought this house in December of 2004 we had a home inspection like all prospective homebuyers do and were informed that 1 of the roofs would need to be replaced sooner rather than later. Sooner came in March of 2006 when Mark saw a hole in the attic with sunlight poking through. Not cool! So...we(and when I say we I really mean Mark) called a few places, got an estimate, and got a new roof. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China, you ask? Well here's your answer: We have 2 roofs. There was an addition put on this house(I don't know when but the guy across the street knows 'cause he's been here forever) and it has a flat rubber roof. We(and again I mean Mark) have to shovel off the roof every time that there's a storm so it doesn't cave in. Living in Maine, this happens at least weekly. The roofing co. looked at the flat roof and said "Hey, it's in good shape." So we opted to have nothing done to it. Flash forward to January of 2009. We had been getting wonky winter weather...mostly ice and rain and sleet with some snow mixed in for fun. We had an ice storm where it snowed, then rained, then flash froze. You just can't shovel that off. Well guess what happened? Ice damage! Our roof then leaked and ruined the kitchen ceiling, the ceiling in the laundry room, the floors in those rooms and the ceiling in Garrett's room. Garrett said that it looked like the cat threw up upside down. He's a funny kid. But I digress. So we (Mark) called our insurance and thankfully it's covered. The contractor that we hired came over to take a piece of our flooring to test it so they could determine its value so we could get an allowance for new flooring. Turned out, the vinyl flooring that came over on the Mayflower had asbestos backing! So an abatement company came in to take it out. During that time we had to be out of the house for a few days(hey, mini vacation in my own hometown! We stayed at the Lewiston Ramada) All of our appliances(washer, dryer, fridge, freezer) are now in my computer room awaiting their placement on our new flooring. Our kitchen now looks like it's in a camp. I prefer to call it rustic. It feels like we just moved in because we can't find anything. I've definitely learned my lesson in hoarding. I now have to go to the(gasp) laundromat!! I haven't been to the laundromat in like 6 years! I had to buy a laundry card because I guess that's all the rage at laundromats now. What in the hell am I going to with the card once I'm done with it? Are they going to refund me the money that's on it? Hell no! Maybe I'll leave it there and someone can find it. I'll have to do the same thing with the laundry soap since my washer is HE and I also had to buy regular laundry detergent. One thing that is cool though...my new dishwasher will be installed soon! I'm practically crying tears of joy as I type this. Well enough for now. Catch ya later!