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I guess it made a lot of money

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John and I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture last night.  The theory (not counting the new reboot and its sequel) is that the even-numbered Star Trek movies are good, and the odd-numbered ones are bad.  Before last night, the only one I’d ever seen was the one with the whales (the fourth one – one of the supposed good ones).  Question: if the first one (the one we just watched) was so bad, why would the studio ever agree to make a second?  And I have to say, it wasn’t very good.  It was the slowest-paced movie I think I’ve ever seen.  Not a lot of plot going on for a movie over two hours long.

I’m trying to distract myself from the fact that it’s a beautiful sunny October Saturday and no one is coming by to look at our house.  I keep reminding myself that it’s okay.  Really.  I got out this morning to do some bridesmaid dress scouting for Emily (found some nice ones), and I want to go for a run this afternoon (it’ll be a nice change to run in daylight again), and I have a whole list of things I’d like to do today and tomorrow.  Distractions abound.  I just need them to work so I can stop obsessing.

What’s the rush?

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I’m running out of steam on this house-selling business, which is silly, really.  It’s only been seven days, and the only thing I have to do is leave work occasionally to take the dog for a walk while people look at our house.  Hardly taxing.  We’re not in any hurry to sell – we don’t have any deadlines.  It would be nice to get rid of the mortgage, but I’m okay with putting off the actual move (that’s hard work).  I’m not sure how I have any steam to run out of, actually.  What would the steam be for?  If I have steam, I should put it to better use (like to Step 4).  This steam metaphor is putting Kylie Minogue’s “Locomotion” in my head.  After years of silence, I’ve heard it twice in the last few weeks – once on my mix tape and once at IHOP (we had pancakes for dinner on John’s birthday).

Now that I’ve established how little use I have for steam where the sale of the house is concerned, I will take a deep breath, enjoy the quiet of a clean and uncluttered house, and relax.  Om mani padme hum.

Free time? Is that really you?

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I’d been hoping this would happen, and it finally has!  Kind of.  Keeping the house clean is easier than emptying it, rearranging it, and cleaning it, so after what feels like forever (and what was probably only a little over a month), I’m enjoying some time to myself.  Well, restful time with John, but when we’re both happily ensconced in our own activities, that’s basically the same thing.  We spent all of Saturday hanging out together – the morning (pre-open house) cleaning, the afternoon (during the open house) having a family photo taken, and then having a cupcake and coffee at a little cupcake place with outdoor seating, so Riley could drape himself over our feet and enjoy all the attention he got from passers-by.  What’s this about a family photo, you say?  We donated to our local volunteer fire department, and as a thank you, they brought in a photographer and gave all donors the opportunity to get a free family portrait taken.  They do it every year, and even though we’ve donated every year, we’ve never remembered/bothered to go.  They allow pets, so we took Riley.  It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Sunday we had NO plans.  It was wonderful.  There was an afternoon showing, so we disappeared to the park for half an hour, but other than that, our time was our own.  Actually, since it was John’s birthday, our time was his to do with as he wished.  And he mostly wished for free time, so I call this birthday a success.

Open House

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Typing “Open House” up there made me thing of Full House the TV show, and man, are those two things not at all related.  Unless John Stamos (now, not then) is going to come over to help sell the house.  Or move in and help us raise our sassy but cute dog.

Then

Now

Anyway, we had our open house yesterday.  Our agent said we had really good turnout.  One family stayed an hour, and other another family stayed for TWO hours.  The two-hour people are the ones who lingered for 40 minutes on Thursday, the first day we were on the market.  No offers yet.  (Be pessimistic!  Your optimism is scaring them away.  Don’t tempt fate!)  We had another showing this afternoon, and we have one tomorrow, too.  I’ve said (and I keep saying) that we’re not in any hurry here, but now we’re in limbo, and I don’t want to stay in limbo.  I should be putting this time to good use (see Step 4), but I figured I deserve a couple of days of relaxing before I start obsessing over the next thing.  It’ll come soon enough.  (Also, it’s John’s birthday today, so no doing not-fun things.)

I’m trying not to be too optimistic

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The house has been officially listed since Thursday morning.  Which I just realized was only yesterday.  Feels like forever ago.  It’s been shown four times now – three yesterday evening (day 1 on the market) and once this afternoon (day 2).  When our agent told us about the three showings yesterday, I was (still am) trying really hard not to get overly excited and be all “we’ll have a contract by the end of the day and we won’t even NEED to have an open house” while twirling around the kitchen.  That’s not likely (the quick contract – the twirling is all too likely).  Then when I come down from the over-optimisticness (and the dizziness), I go too far in the other direction.  “We’ve had four showings already and no offers yet – NO ONE is going to want to buy our house.” I mean, come on.  It’s been two days, and we’re not exactly in the middle of a housing boom.  It’s too early for the doom and gloom.  I need to find a calm, centered, serene middle ground where I can keep the house clean without obsessing over whether leaving the dog bowls out or not cleaning the windows again EVERY morning is driving potential buyers away.

Maybe I should go clean the windows again.

The open house is tomorrow.  Cross your fingers!

I didn’t think it through

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I had a very productive Monday, right up until I painted the door.  John had to work (he doesn’t get all of the federal holidays off like I do), so I was on my own to get a bunch of things done before the photographer came over on Tuesday to take the pictures for our MLS listing.  (MLS listing – is that redundant?  Multiple Listing Service listing?  Maybe not.)  I took all of the window screens out and took the screen door to the deck off (put them all in the basement), and then I got the ladder out and washed the outsides of all of the back windows (on the first floor – the second story windows have to remain unwashed – I’m not risking my life by hanging out those windows or off the roof to wash them) and the sliding glass door.  (I did the insides of all the windows in the house the day before, when it was still pouring down rain.)  Then I took the doorknob, the deadbolt, and the kickplate off the front door, cleaned it, and painted it black (it was already black – the HOA wouldn’t let me just randomly choose another color).  I’ve never painted anything black before, so maybe this is typical, but it took me completely by surprise.  The wet paint on the door looked navy blue, not black.  I checked the paint can at least three times while I was painting (it said black every time).  Of course, it dried black, but for a few minutes, I wasn’t sure I’d bought the right paint.  Stressful! (Except, not really.)  So then I had a door covered in wet paint.  That I couldn’t close because of the wet paint.  And even if I could close it, it didn’t have a doorknob or a lock on it because of the wet paint.  I knew going into this project that I wouldn’t be able to leave the house until the paint dried and I put the hardware back on, but I didn’t picture exactly how that would work.  I hadn’t really thought about how I’d have to leave my front door wide open for a couple of hours…  Conveniently, it was a comfortably warm day.  The next thing I had planned to do was make another run to the donation center, but that plan was out.  I found things to do, of course, but it wasn’t what I planned.  Don’t screw with my plan!

Fun fact: I wore my midshipman coveralls all day, so I looked like quite the little handywoman hauling my ladder around, washing the windows, painting the door.  Next time, I’ll get a tool belt.

Sunshine is a wonderful thing

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It has come to my attention (again – this is something I realize anew every so often) that I could never be a vampire.  After four days of nonstop rain (it started Wednesday night and didn’t stop until Sunday night) and constant gloominess, the sun came out on Monday, and I couldn’t have been happier.  I could never live in a world where I never saw the sun.  (Also, I don’t want to drink blood or be dead.)  I don’t have to see the sun all day, or even every day, but four days in a row without it – that’s too much.  I enjoy the rain, I like listening to it, I like falling asleep to it.  I don’t particularly want to be out in it much (I got fairly well soaked running errands on Friday – I had to buy mulch in the rain – and then we did our yardwork on Sunday in a constant drizzle.  Felt very British.), but it’s nice to look at, nice to be snuggled up warm and dry while frantically prepping your house for sale.  And then came the sun.  Monday was a perfect October day, all blue skies and leaves changing colors.  Days like that make all that rain worth it.

The cat is out of the bag

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Our plans have been made public.  In the neighborhood, anyway.  There’s a For Sale* sign in our yard, with our real estate agent’s picture on it (I wonder how many pictures she had to take before settling on that one?), so now all the world can see what we’re up to.  And now it’s real. It was always going to be real, of course, and it was never a secret, but as long as only a small number of people knew about it, it wasn’t scary.  Now…it’s a little scary.  The guy put the sign up Friday afternoon – he just appeared, and I didn’t even notice until he was done (Riley didn’t notice the stranger hammering a giant sign into our front yard, either – good guard dog), but seeing it put butterflies in my stomach.  I didn’t expect that.  They’ve mostly gone away, but I imagine they’ll be back.

*Actually, it says Coming Soon – we won’t be officially listed for a few more days.

 

THIS is why I’ve been ignoring everyone

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The house is in turmoil.  We turn rooms upside down and inside out, box things up and stash the boxes or makes piles of things to get rid of, and then we do our best to put the rooms back in some sort of order so we can get through each day without feeling like we’re living inside a hurricane.  The dining room that turned into a library has been turned back into the dining room.  The family room that turned into the dining room has been mostly turned back into living space, although it’s also doubling as the dog’s room for now.  And it’s kind of empty.  We’re not moving the couch and TV back in there (they’re staying in the family room that used to be the formal living room), so we only have two cabinets in there, the two ugly green chairs, that big-ish desk we could never find space for, Riley’s food and water, and his crate.  Sounds kind of a like a lot, now that I’ve listed it all out, but it’s a big space.  Lots of open area left that won’t get filled.  The house looks weird.

We still have a couple of projects we’ll probably try to start once we get the house on the market.  We want to get the rest of our CD collection converted to mp3, and we want to scan all of the pictures we’ve developed and accumulated.  Both are time-consuming and mind-numbingly boring, but we should be able to do them while doing other things.  And that will leave us with portable backups.  Should have done that a long time ago.

We’re clearly a little obsessed.  House and dog, dog and house.  My dance classes started back up, but we have too much stuff to do in the house, so I haven’t gone back.  I had to miss zumba the last two weeks because I had to work late, and I’m planning to miss it tonight because there’s too much to do in the house.  I haven’t been to yoga in months (first dance class, then house stuff).  We’ve done the big obvious things (pack up the books, stash the bookshelves, switch the rooms), and now it’s getting a little harder to focus.  Lots of little things need to be done.  Like, hey – we haven’t gone through the coat closet to see what we can get rid of.  I know I have at least one coat in there that needs to go.  I want to box up the rest of the fiction (what’s left on that one shelf next to the TV – we’re keeping those shelves up through showing the house – we’ll just have other stuff on them), but that’s only going to fill one box.  I can make another pass through my dressers and closet for stuff to get rid of, and failing that, I can certainly box up the summer stuff and possibly even separate it into clothes that I’ll keep with me and clothes that I’ll store.  And THAT decision may (really should) prompt me to get rid of the clothes I would store.  If our plan really works out, anything that gets stored will be stored for at least a couple of years, possibly longer, and will I really wear those clothes then?  Well, maybe – I have (and wear) clothes that I’ve had for that long and longer, but still.  I should probably not plan to store a lot of clothes.  Seems silly.

Well, this has been helpful.  I think I have tonight’s to-do list all ready.  Thanks, guys!

State of the Rest of the Household

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People, our plan is in motion.  It’s still fairly nebulous, but that’s okay.  We have steps to take, and then steps to take after that, and at each point, we can (and will) revisit our decisions and change our direction, and yeah, okay, we’ll probably be flying by the seat of our pants a little bit, sometimes, but that’s okay, right?

Step 1: Get the house ready to go on the market.

There is SO much to do for this step.  We met with our real estate agent, she brought over a stager who made a ton of notes for us to follow to make our house look as perfect to prospective buyers as possible, and then we spent last weekend getting of SO MUCH STUFF.  The Salvation Army truck came by Saturday morning to pick up that extra dryer we’ve had in the basement since we moved in and about 30 boxes of books.  We did a sweep of the entire first floor and filled up my car with stuff for a trip to the Salvation Army Donation Center near us, and when we got back, we made a sweep of the entire second floor and repeated the trip.  Sunday, John worked on his car (because it needs to be able to go with us), and I started packing up OUR books for long-term storage.  We finished that project last night and moved all of the books that were in our dining room AND all of the shelves into the basement.  Tonight (or possibly this weekend), we’ll do the same thing with the library (the room that used to be the dining room).  The stager says we should switch those rooms back, and losing the bookshelves will make the rooms look bigger, so okay.  It’s possible that we would have ignored that advice, but those things will need to packed up in the near future anyway to go in storage (they can’t come with us!), so it helps us to get them packed up now.  We’re going to use that crib we never managed to get to Erik and Margaret (sorry, guys!) in our guest bedroom to make it look like a nursery, so we need to get the full bed that’s in there down into the basement, and once we’ve finished moving furniture around, we can call the painters and have them fix and paint the ceiling by the stairs and paint the walls and ceilings in the upstairs hallway and the stairs.  Oh, we need to paint the outside of the front door, and we need to get the guy in to paint the railings of our deck.  Those are the big things, I think.

Step 2: Put the house on the market.

We’re aiming for mid-October.  Might make it.  Once it’s listed, we just have to keep it clean.  We’re going to have to figure out what to do with Riley, though.  Maybe we run home and take him for a long walk?  Maybe he’s fine in the backyard?  He’ll make a ton of noise, though.  I don’t really want to have to crate him in the basement every day, but that might be the easiest thing to do.  We’ll talk about it.

Step 3: Find a place to live.

Once the house sells, we’ll need a place to go.  We’re planning to find an apartment or some sort of rental in the area, near enough to commute to our jobs.  Rent has to be less than our mortgage (shouldn’t be difficult), the lease needs to be short-term, and they have to allow dogs, of course.  I’ve done some preliminary searches – those places exist not far from us.

Step 4: Find portable jobs.

We’re not going to stay in the area (that is NOT the plan) long term, and we’re not ready to settle in any one area right now, so we need to have jobs that will let us work remotely 100% of the time.  Once we find those jobs (John’s current job might let him do that.  Mine will definitely not.), we can leave the area.  The job search can start any time, but will certainly start in earnest once the house has sold.

Step 5: Decide where we’re going next.

The sky’s the limit.  We have some ideas, and it will depend on our timing, but we can go anywhere.

I’m sure there are other steps, and I’m sure there will be other steps, but I think those are the main ones.  We’re doing all of this even though Riley just had his leg amputated, and even while he’s going through chemotherapy.  Dogs are portable, too, and he just wants to be with us.  It doesn’t matter where.  We’ve run out of reasons to delay – we are ready to go.

I’ve probably just jinxed the summer weather – it’ll be cold now

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I worked from home today because the guys came to replace the HVAC system (and because it was my turn – John stayed home when the painters came).  Now we have a brand new furnace and A/C!  Very exciting.  And they’re pretty, as these things go.  Shiny, anyway.  Unfortunately, I now have a giant, horrible, throbbing, not-at-ALL fun headache.  To go with my stuffy nose and watery eyes.  They ran the heater for a while to make sure everything was working correctly, so it got really hot and stuffy in here, and I’m tempted to open the windows because it’s so pleasant outside, but I think that would be a mistake.  A HORRIBLE MISTAKE.  And I’m not that dumb.  Today.  Ask me again tomorrow.

I flaked on Jess and her mom about the 5K tomorrow because I feel crappy.  It’s not so much about the 5K as it is about not being very good company and being away from home when I feel crappy.  Nobody likes to be away from home when the highlight of your day is the 15 minutes spent feeling slightly less crappy because you were standing under wonderfully hot water in the shower.

I think staring at tiny letters on a screen is not helping my headache, so I’m going to stop.  Also, I need to congratulate myself on finding the end of the work day.  Is it stupid to drink wine when I feel crappy?  Because I think I would like some wine.

I think I’lll have some wine now

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There’s a new pope, and I don’t really care, but I did think this description (from a reporter I heard on the radio) of how he was going to spend his time in those first couple of days was telling: “The new pope will have some time to himself.  He’ll use it to pray, meditate, talk to himself…” Yeah, I imagine he’ll be talking to himself a lot.

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I should probably be doing something useful to prepare for book club this Friday (like plan the appetizers or iron the new curtains – can I get away without doing that?), but I don’t want to.  I want to play on the internet and read my book.  Especially now that I’ve just spent entirely too much time looking for a tablecloth that will fit our dining room table once the extension is in.  Tablecloths are not that exciting.  Not like curtains.

Happy Place

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During the meditation part of yoga class last night (my favorite part), I was thinking* about doing yoga at home.  I always mean to do it the rest of the week, but I never do.  Then last night, I realized that since we put the desk away (the one I had the puzzle out on – the table wasn’t big enough and the puzzle was going nowhere, so I quit), there’s a ton of open space in the library (that used to be the dining room).  It gets all of the morning and midday sunlight through the east window and the bay windows, so it’s a cheerful, sunny room, and ZOMG I’m going to do yoga in there!  Isn’t that just disgustingly perfect?  Yoga in a room with sunlight streaming from windows all around?  So I tried it this morning.  At 6:30.  Flaw #1: it’s still dark at 6:30.  Flaw #2: it was pouring down rain.  Actually, Flaw #2 was just fine with me.  I found a yoga station on Pandora, and that kind of music combined with the rain beating on the windows was very relaxing.  Then I lost all my zen peacefulness when I kicked the baby gate on my up the stairs and pulverized the toenail on my second toe.

*I don’t think I’m supposed to think during meditation, but it’s hard to just be.

 

I expected better of you, Target

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John and I have finally gotten our asses in gear with regard to doing house stuff.  It’s about time, too, for a number of reasons, the most pressing of which is the imminent arrival of 10 ladies he’s never met and I barely know who live in big, beautifully-decorated houses.  (I’m not sure about my deployment of commas in that sentence, but I can’t look at it any more.)  I’ve had lots of conversations with lots of people about what food to serve, and John and I are using this opportunity to do a few things around the house that have been on our minds for a long time.

1. Do something about the hole in the door to the basement.

Why was there a hole in the door to the basement?  Because it used to be a cat door.  Did we ever own a cat?  No, but the previous owners did.  Why didn’t you just call it a cat door?  Because Riley stuck his head through it, broke the door flap off, and left the hole.  And how long ago was that?  About seven years.  yes, we’ve had a hole in our basement door for SEVEN YEARS.  Long overdue.  John considered just covering it with a kick plate, but apparently doors only cost about $30, so while I was at the bridal shower last weekend, he hung and painted the new door.  It looks very nice.  No hole!  So exciting.  You know what’s more exciting?  Riley can’t reach through the door to knock the trash can down the basement steps any more when he’s angry with us for not getting up early enough on weekend mornings.

2. Replace the drip pans on the stove.

Again, something John did while I was gone.  He bought beautiful new brushed metal drip pans and threw out the disgusting, crusty, rusty, drip-covered drip pans that have been on that stove since before we moved in.  It’s lovely.

3. Take the blinds down from all of the downstairs windows and replace the curtains.

We did it!  There are officially no more blinds on any of our downstairs windows, including the sliding glass doors.  It’s amazing how much more light there is, even compared to when all the blinds were up or open.  We went to Target yesterday, found curtains and rods we liked (simple black rods, simple white cotton curtains – yes, they’ll get dirty fast.  I’m on top of it.  So fresh and crisp!), and then ran into our problem.  We needed two sets of long curtains for the front window.  No problem.  We needed one set of short curtains for the kitchen window (which looks fantastic) – no problem.  We needed twelve mid-length curtains for all of the other windows on the first floor (these don’t come in sets of two).  Problem.  They only had two.  Well, okay.  We’ll buy those two, put them up on one window, make sure we like it, and then order the rest.  We still have two weeks before the book club ladies come over.  That’s how we spent the rest of Saturday, and we’re really happy with how the curtains came out.  Unfortunately, when I went to Target.com to order the rest on Sunday, I found that they do not exist.  Not that they’re on the website but only available in stores, no.  They don’t exist on the website at all.  Not by description, not by item number.  So I called one of the other nearby Target stores and asked them if they had any (by item number).  One store said they might have some in the clearance section, but they couldn’t check for me.  I’ll called another Target.  They had three.  I need ten.  They put those three on hold for me, but only for 24 hours.  Can they order the rest?  Nope.  Okay…  I called another Target.  They had one.  I put it on hold.  Can they order the rest?  No.  Okay.  I called another Target.  They didn’t have any, but they could tell me that another store had three, another one had five, and the one in Falls Church had ten.  Magic number!  I needed ten.  So I called them, made sure they had them (they did), and I drove all the way to Falls Church (about 45 minutes away).  I bought my ten mid-length curtains and two long ones (for the sliding glass doors), and then looked for rods.  None.  No matching rods.  I gave up.  I’m fairly certain those won’t be as hard to find, and there’s a Target near my office (that’s the one that told me they might have some curtains in the clearance section), so I’ll check that one for rods tomorrow at lunch.  Wish me luck.

The part about this that bugs me the most is that I couldn’t order these curtains.  Not even from the store.  And they don’t ship between stores, so if the Falls Church location hadn’t had all ten, I would have made several stops all over the region yesterday to track down the right number.  Did I just choose the wrong curtains?  Or is Target just being difficult?  Regardless, the rest of the curtains will get done by the weekend.  Assuming I can find rods.

Who needs it?

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THIS is a really good idea.  I think I’m going to do it (on my personal cell, anyway), and I think Mom shoulddefinitely do it.  Anyone who never listens to their voicemail (which is everyone*) should do it.  It’s not as rude as never listening and never calling anyone back because you never listened to the message.  So go, change your message, and come back.  Go on.  I’ll wait.

…

Welcome back!

I could live here (link goes to more pictures):

Or here:

I forget about this blog for months at a time, but that means I have lots of content to drool over when I remember.  Our house could look something like this if we threw out 75% of what we have.  And painted everything white.  And had better taste.  And more money.

*Exception: if you’re job-hunting, DON’T DO THIS.  But then, if you’re job-hunting, you don’t belong to this group.  You’re probably listening to your voicemail messages.

My bathroom should be big enough for a swimming pool

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The bathrooms in our house aren’t all that great.  They’re not awful or anything, but they’re not the spectacular bathrooms I would like to have.  The downstairs half-bath in the hall is fine (you can’t ask much from a half-bath, and it does its job),  but upstairs is a little disappointing.  Our master bath doesn’t deserve the name, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot we can do about it.  I mean, yes, we could replace the vanity and upgrade the shower (and put in a nicer floor), but it’ll still only have a single sink and a walk-in shower with no tub.  There’s no room to do anything bigger.  We’d have to do MAJOR renovations to the whole upper floor, like add rooms over the garage (which would mean a whole addition to the house), and that’s just not likely with our current plans.  The main complaints I have about the other bathroom upstairs (the one I use) are that the bathtub is too small and the water pressure SUCKS.

So naturally, I sometimes find myself daydreaming about the perfect bathroom.  A few years ago, we were in Boulder for a work thing, and we stayed at the St. Julien Hotel.  That bathroom was incredible.  The tub was super long and really deep (I could practically swim in it), and the shower was awesome. I think that bathtub might be my happy place.  (Serenity now!)

You’ll have to believe me. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

Why are standard bathtubs so small?  According to Wikipedia, average height for women in the US is between 5’4″ and 5’5″ (and you have to be shorter than that to fit comfortably in a regular tub) so the evil bathtub industry clearly has something against baths.  Which seems to be contrary to their interests.

Wild party, man

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Here’s the aftermath of New Year’s Eve:

Yup.  We’re party animals.  We even went out to eat on our anniversary.  The actual day!  Can you believe it?

Portrait of the couple on their 12th anniversary

(Yes, that is my Hogwarts scarf.  Yes, we were about to go out to dinner to a fancy(ish) restaurant.  Yes, I wear my nerd regalia out into the world.  Oh, did I tell you I got a compliment on my TARDIS hat?  It was from a girl who works at Advance Auto.  Whovians are everywhere.)

New floors, a little insanity, and an epiphany

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We spent Saturday wincing at all the hammering and other assorted loud noises coming from upstairs as a team of four put in hardwood floors.   Totally worth it, but man, it was loud.  And COLD.  They had windows open up there and a saw set up on the front porch, so they had to keep going outside, meaning the door was always open.  On top of that, it snowed all morning and then my car wouldn’t start, so we just huddled in the dining room with the dogs and lit a fire.  And played on the internet.  And read.  And reshelved books.

Starting Saturday night, we became crazy people who clean.  And clean.  And clean.  And also crazy people who walk into a mattress store and buy a new bed in less than 20 minutes.  And then tie it to the roof of the car and drive home.  On the coldest,windiest day of the year.  (This was Sunday, I think).  And then, because Monday was New Year’s Eve and we were having people over and some of them were spending the night (and this new bed was for the guest room), we became the crazy people who have to run out and buy sheets and then wash them so they can go on the bed.  (This new bed that is a double, which is a size we’ve never owned before, so we didn’t have any sheets that would fit.)  On the day people are actually coming over.  And THEN, because I’m a crazy person who is also an idiot, I went to Wegmans on one of the four worst days of the year to go to Wegmans to get everything we’d need for these people coming over in LESS THAN FOUR HOURS.  What are the four worst days of the year to go to Wegmans?  The day before Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, the day before Easter, and NEW YEAR’S EVE.  It was a madhouse.  And they were completely out of the yummy pre-made dips made of cheesy goodness that I usually get.  Otherwise, I found everything I was looking for.  I just had to fight for some of it.

New Year’s Eve was fun, but as John and I were dragging our tired asses to bed at 2am that night, I came to a realization.  The demographics of our little group have changed.  (Okay, yes, duh – I know.)  Our friends have babies, and babies mean schedules and crying and parents who leave early to put said babies to bed.  All of that is perfectly understandable (and we love their babies and love to see their babies), but if half of our guests are going to go home long before midnight, maybe New Year’s Eve isn’t the best night to have our little get-together.  (Also, DAMN I’m tired today.  2am is entirely too late for me.) Instead, I declare Derby Day to be our day.  It’s always a Saturday (so no one has to work), it doesn’t immediately follow any other holiday (so no one’s exhausted from family and travel), it starts earlier, and there’s no obligation to make it to midnight (although people are more than welcome to stay late).  And it’s fun!

(I think we should try to do a summery picnic thing on the Mall (or somewhere in DC when the weather’s nice), too.  Easier for everyone to get to and also fun!)

That’s what I learned from New Year’s Eve this year.  I’ll show you the screaming sheep I found tomorrow.

I still have paint in my hair

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I think someone cheated and skipped a few days in September.  It went by awfully fast.  What I remember of it was nice, though.  Especially last weekend.  The weather was perfect, and we spent the majority of those two days outside painting the porch.  Not normally my favorite thing to do, but we had a good time.  (Let me tell you a secret: I like spending entire days with John, just us.  It’s fun.  Shh.  Don’t tell anyone.)  We finished the second coat yesterday, and I went for a long bike ride, and now my butt is sore.  I can’t decide if I want to keep doing that.  If I do, I think I might need to invest in those padded bike shorts.  Just checked – those can be kind of expensive.  Also, they look kind of ridiculous.  But not as ridiculous as I look when my butt hurts.

On to the opposite of ridiculous:

I WANT THIS DRESS.  (Thank you, Tom and Lorenzo, for giving me a style goal.)

Not the shoes.  I don’t like the shoes.  (I totally just spelled shoes “shoose”.)  The dress has a Grace Kelly-esque silhouette and have I mentioned how much I want to dress like Grace Kelly?

 

Of course, I all too often have paint in my hair (all too often = every time I paint something), so I shouldn’t really be allowed near nice clothes.