February Snow 2012

 The excitement over the weekend was not 3 fun-filled days with Mommy, it was SNOW!  And lots of it.  Saturday was absolutely gorgeous-- warm weather and sunshine.  Most of Sunday was anticipation and watching snow fall without accumulation;  Sunday evening the sky finally really opened up and we had some good accumulation.  Monday morning we woke to a winter wonderland.

 I love it when E and G buddy up like this.

And here comes trouble munching some snow.......

We enjoyed our snow day.   Move countdown is less than 2 weeks. love and hugs, B

Hobbies

  I promised pics of the quilt I am working on, but let me show you the old one first.  These were my favorite colors for a very long time and the base colors of blue and green ran through most of our house. 

Change is coming.  Color palette mostly changing in the bedroom, though the green is still hanging around in a new shade.

Move countdown is 2 and a half weeks.  D drove down last weekend to begin and said that spring is there and may be finishing by the time we arrive.  Spring here will happen after we go so this may be a year without spring for us.  Last fall M and I planted 200 daffodils and about 150 crocus.  This may be the only little guy we get to see bloom.  Hoping warm weather will bring on the blooms before we hit the road.

 Of course this has to be an outstanding year for my winter pansies and violas--- my front porch looks terrific.  Soon to make some neighbor's front porches look terrific.

  

I received a gardening challenge from D when he called form the new house last night.  Deer are a huge problem in our new neighborhood.  Why do I feel like I may be getting my hunting license soon after we move?  Venison anyone?  love and hugs, B

Who You Gonna Call? GHOSTBUSTERS!

WARNING!!  This is a completely, irrational whining post about selling this house.  It may offend some readers who are true believers in radon gas.  If you are a radon gas true believer you may want to click that little X in the corner and log out now.

With nearly every house we sold there has been something found upon the official inspection that needed to be repaired. 
House 1: nothing.  The poor inspector looked over that house for 4 hours and couldn't find a thing.
House 2: rotten wood.  Not a bit surprised with that report and it was all fixed with minimal time and money since we had a carpenter already on retainer for yearly repairs.  The houses in that neighborhood slowly rotted around you due to no primer on the wooden exterior.
House 3:  We just sold that one a few months ago and it is hard to remember, but I think again we had a wooden crawl space cover to replace and change the filters for the heating system. 
All understandable repairs that we could see, feel, and were fine with having them repaired.  If I can see the problem, I would want it repaired myself if I were staying in the house.  I am not against making repairs for a buyer when I understand them.

So all that setup brings us to this house.  The buyers asked for a ghost test  radon gas test as a part of their  inspection.  We had the monitor downstairs for 2 days and followed the instructions given: no ceiling fans on, all windows and doors kept closed in every part of the house except for necessary entrance and exit. They wanted to be sure to get a real ghost radon reading.  When the ghost monitor radon monitor was removed the readings came back high.  I did some quick research and found that ghosts radon is an odorless, tasteless, colorless gas that can be radioactive in large amounts and exposures.  It creeps through the foundation of your home to haunt you invade the air you breathe. IF you are exposed over LONG periods of time in LARGE amounts (read this as shut in your house with no outside ventilation for multiple decades) you MIGHT get lung cancer. ghost detecting readings Radon readings are higher in the winter than summer: please note that it is winter. I am all for safety (but mostly for getting this house sold) so I hold my tongue.  And lucky for us there are now ghostbusting radon remediation companies who will come in and fix the problem with a big pipe with a ghost sucking radon sucking fan  that pulls the ghosts radon out of the soil under your foundation and pushes the horrid ghouls the contaminated air through pipes and out the roof into the atmosphere to haunt other homes.  So yesterday I sat quietly all day as the paranormal activity eliminator radon remediation system was installed and tried not to laugh as the crew took their ghostbusting job very seriously.    Who me bitter?  Over spending bunches of bucks to fix something that wasn't an immediate danger and something we probably wouldn't have fixed if our own family was to continue to live here?  I probably shouldn't even be posting this yet as the post exorcism post remediation ghost radon testing has not been completed yet.   Hopefully they got all the ghosts.   I do have to say that the ghost comparison was not mine.  When D got out of the car Thursday night he saw this lovely manometer in the garage which tells us that the ghostbusting radon fan in the attic is sucking up ghosts the gases. 

When he turned to me and his first words were "Who you gonna call?"  I lost it.  Ghostbusters.  Absolutely.  We just fixed something that may or may not be a real problem.  At least we got a good laugh for what we just poured into a ghostbusting system.  Thanks for listening to me whine!  love and hugs and remember: if there's something strange in your neighborhood who you gonna call?  Don't call me because I don't believe in ghosts.  B

G's Chinese Program

 Last night was G's Chinese program at school.  It was nice on several levels.  First of all ,I have never met a second grader who greeted all his buddies with a big hug.  G does.  Every kid he came to in the hall he would call their name and give them a big hug-- perhaps it was just the excitement of the evening.  There was clothing that the kids could dress up in to have their pictures taken with the panda posters in the hall (mine chose pics without costumes). 

 The program was not the whole 2nd grade, but only G's class.  They sang their song in English, then in Chinese, and then some of the students added an authentic chinese fan dance to the song.  Lovely.  G can be seen in the top row with the glasses.

 After the class performed there was a cultural dance group who showed us the dragon dance and several others.  Terrific!  All 3 boys were enthralled.  I loved the dragon dance as well. 

One thing I noticed is that the kids know more Chinese language than they realize.  Their teachers seem to use immersion Chinese teaching because as the teacher spoke she would say certain things to the class that they would understand and do or respond appropriately.  As much as the boys whine about going to Chinese class some day they will appreciate it more.  love and hugs, B

The Move is Moving Closer

The move gets closer every day yet it is not close enough to actually do much to prep for it. Mostly so far is handling paperwork and lining up services for the move. D leaves this weekend so we need to make sure we have things we have to do jointly complete or ready for the 2 days of pack and load that he will return for. The kids are doing fine. I think they are happy to have a set deadline for the 'being without daddy' period. The move from Gig Harbor made them a bit skittish since we were basically without him for 6 months. This time they know that after a couple weeks (give or take) we will be together again. No one has had real issues with leaving friends yet-- we know that is coming which is one reason it will be nice to have D here for the final 2 days. In other kids news: E: seems to be doing well in school (we'll know when report cards come out today). Still babysitting a few times a week. His teacher introduced the class to a safe social network site that their class is signed up for; I can see where E would be a real problem on a true social site because he just writes like crazy not looking before he leaps into a topic or conversation--- nothing inappropriate, but I can see where he is going to learn the hard way about filtering what he says/writes. I hope after the move E can make friends as easily as he did here. E is also getting a teenage disease of being hung up on name brand clothing; it is going to be a long battle with this. I never did really care about what tag was on my clothes and still don't. We have already started a clothing system we didn't expect to use until he was much older. We offer him the same amount we would have spent on the base price item and if he wants to upgrade he has to supply the money for the difference to get the item with the fancy tag. On one hand I was proud he saved the money to get the shoes he wanted and he was too. On the other hand I think he got validation from his friends for having the "right shoes". He better find another mother's helper job as soon as we get to Alabama if he wants to get anymore fancy clothes. G: I always say that G is G and it sounds like a write off but if you know him it is true. He is just rolling along for the most part. He rolls along in school and he rolls along with friends and he rolls along with his brothers (though that road gets a bit bumpy). He seems to roll along pretty well though the anxiety about things is also rolling just under the surface. Sleep issues again are plaguing him and he has his fingernails shewed down to the quick. He is such an easy little guy that I really shouldn't begrudge him when he shows up night after night weeping at bedtime. It is hard at the end of the day when we are all tired. G's loves right now include numbers and calculators and anything he can get his grubby (nailless) hands on to read. He just made his First Reconciliation at church and is performing a Chinese song with his class at the Chinese New Year celebration at school tonight. Will try to get a pic of him in his costume. M: went through a behavior rough patch at school (surprise, surprise) but has come out of it. He will not continue preschool after the move as we cannot find a reasonably priced and reasonably close program to attend. I am going to fill the gap a bit with library story times and maybe some classes somewhere. Pray for us. This is a child who has gone to a Mom's Morning Out or other program at least once a week since he was 15 months old. We will work it out. He can always be bribed with computer time or better yet playing Angry Birds on my phone. M loves puzzles. Big puzzles. Anywhere from 100 to 500 piece puzzles. When we arrive to register the big kids for their new school we can go ahead and register him for Kindergarten for next year at the same time. Scary. Sad. Confusing. Only for me though; M is ready for K. Is K ready for him? Stay tuned. I am still working on the new quilt for our room. I am not sure if quilting is a relaxing hobby for me. I think if I used patterns it would be more relaxing. And I wouldn't run out of the coordinating fabrics. I really will put a pic on soon of the quilt in progress. love and hugs, B

Quick Check In

Just checking in with a quick update. All illnesses cleared our home as of Thursday a week ago. Friday D and I headed to Alabama while my parents took care of the beasties. D and I spent a whirlwind day and a half looking at homes and found one (best of the available) in a neighborhood that we think will be terrific for the kids. The kids had my parents snowed----I mean the kids were very good for my parents and had a great time. At points when we called they were unavailable due to chasing beavers off the beach at the pond, driving golf balls, fishing, and going out to eat. My parents got to experience my favorite parenting compliment the "people stop to tell you how well behaved your monsters are"; they took the kids out to eat at their favorite restaurant and a couple stopped to tell them how well behaved the boys were. Again the learning just doesn't stop: with this home sale we have learned about radon and on the buy side we are becoming all too familiar with the dangers of contaminated Chinese drywall. our home on that end turns out not to have it but we have read 2 reports the builder commissioned for our new home as well as hiring our own expert. Who knew you could learn so much about home construction and materials through buying and selling homes. I think I need to begin a career somehow tied to real estate. Perhaps a consulting service that helps you prep your home for listing: staging, de-cluttering, list of quick things to do before a showing. When it is time to look for your new home things you should beware of: music playing in a home (next to a noisy road?), air fresheners (what smell are they trying to cover), streams running through an out of the way closet (no really, a tiny river inside a house-- like that is not a problem). Putting your offer in on a house (good luck-- listen to your realtor because they probably have it all worked out with the listing agent). Inspection (multiple in some cases. Buyers market or sellers market determines if you get any problems addressed). Closing-- we haven't had one go wrong yet, but we are not through this move yet. We are crossing hurdles at a good pace at this point toward eating this move complete. D heads out next weekend to begin his new job and watch over prep on the new house. The boys and I will finish things out here and will get everything arranged for the move. To add to the excitement I am quilting right now--- relaxing no???? Will keep you updated on progress as I get inspired to write or I find a few minutes to pop out a posting. love and hugs, B