We are officially homeless!!

Well, not really since we are still in the cottage, but you get the idea. Our house closed yesterday, and I have verified that the check is sitting in my account. Whew. I never thought I'd ever be so excited to not be a homeowner in all my life. It's still quite surreal, but it's a nice feeling knowing that we can concentrate on the future now, rather than feeling like we are tied house-wise to one zip code, and family/work-wise to a completely different zip code. At least now is the time to buy a house....and it doesn't seem to be turning around anytime soon. :)

Rude

What sort of dog is so incredibly insensitive to his owner (that allows him to take over half of a queen size bed every night, I might add) that he PEES on the bed in the middle of the night.

Rude.

One lesson learned here - make sure to monitor Carrie feeding Bailey as she apparently dumped his food in his bowl then went back to get two more handfuls which she dropped into his water bowl. This causes said dog to drink water excessively in hopes of retrieving the few little pebbles of kibble floating in the bowl.

Things I am Thankful for....

So I'm having one of "those" days/weeks so far. The woman that runs the little cafe here at work said it perfectly this morning - "Do you ever have those days where you feel like everything you touch turns to sh*t?" Well, Deirdre, funny you should ask because it sounds like you and I are in the same boat with no paddles! The old me would sit here and wallow and whine and complain, but I am truly trying to make a conscious effort not to do that because, really, what do I truly have to complain about? Nothing. So here are my reasons why I am thankful today....

1. I am thankful that I didn't have to take yet another day off work today and my rock star in-laws are supervising the unloading of the Uhaul trailer and Penske truck into the cottage and the storage units. My boss' head would have spun around most likely had I asked for another day off, so I'm glad that I'm not responsible for that episode.
2. I am thankful that I have a roof over my head, again courtesy of my in-laws (Do we see a pattern emerging here? Could it be called mooching off the in-laws? I think so.) Carrie and I are currently in a pretty cool little cottage that was on the property before they built their own house. Good thing they had the foresight to think "Gee, perhaps we should just move the cottage rather than tearing it down since one of our children/his wife/his toddler/his dog may need to come back home one day for whatever reason."
3. I am thankful that my husband and I are both gainfully employed. That's quite the feat these days. It definitely sucks that he's halfway around the world for most of this year, but we're hoping he'll be able to secure a great position in his new company. In explaining it the other day to some friends I likened it to a season of "The Apprentice." It's like they are all over there in Portugal fighting their way to the top of the corporate food chain. Although he's already heard "You're hired!" from them, I'm hoping at the close of August he'll hear something like "You get to run the place!" Although, something along the lines of "Congrats - you get to keep your job unlike million of Americans" would be just peachy too.
4. I am thankful that I have a very healthy, spirited toddler. Although she drives me to want to drink some days lately (like 5 or 6 out of 7), I realize it could be much worse. She could be very sick or have any number of issues, and so far it seems the only issue she has is attitude-related (but honestly, what did I expect? She comes from a long line of fiery Walker women!!)
5. I am thankful that, all fingers and toes crossed, we will have officially closed on our GNV house on 2/23. I can hardly believe that chapter is truly coming to a close....
6. I am thankful that I truly can start looking for another house now :) I never even wanted to Google homes for sale in this area until the sale of the GNV house was completed. I looked a tiny bit last night, but stopped for fear of jinxing it. Stupid, yes. It will most likely be awhile before we can actually purchase our next home, but that means we have the luxury of shopping around and making sure we get exactly what it is we want, and in this economy, the price/interest rate we want.
7. I am thankful that it's almost lunchtime.

See, it's the little things in life :)

This is what I get....

For asking a 2 year old to help me bake brownies :)
I believe at the precise moment I took this picture she said "A mess!" She was quite proud of herself that she dumped the cup of flour on the floor instead of in the mixing bowl. Thank goodness for the Dyson.

We've been watching a LOT of Baby Einstein Old MacDonald

Carrie loves, loves, loves the Baby MacDonald DVD from the Baby Einstein collection. This is the kid that refuses to sit still for anything these days, but everything stops whenever I pop in that particular DVD and for a full, glorious 30 minutes she will lay on the couch with me enjoying the cows, piggies and horsies. She's obviously learning something from this DVD, as can be seen in this video of me, my mother and my father bombarding her with questions like "What does the ____ say?!"

Please tell me I'm not the only one.

I will get back to blogging about China...I have to since it's my travel journal, and may actually do so this evening if I can't figure out how to watch what I've DVR'd on my satellite box on my laptop :) But I had to put this out there...

Please tell me that I am not the only mother out there that's had moments/days of complete and utter feelings of "I am sooooooooo bad at this, why did I ever reproduce?" Cause I've felt like my life has been made up of those moments WAY too often lately. Take tonight for example. Nothing I did for Carrie was right, and I mean NO-THING. Dinner apparently wasn't to her liking, she didn't like the fact that I had to pack up some stuff for us to bring over to Jerry & Izzy's house because it is going to be FREEZING tonight (the heater in the cottage has been acting flaky and the last thing I needed was to wake up at 3am to it snowing inside), she didn't want to take a bath, didn't want to get her pj's on....the list goes on. I have to admit I feel a little cheated. I mean, I only get to see her, on average, about 2 hours a day during the week, which apparently are her worst two hours. And I realize I bring that on myself by working outside of the home (a completely different guilt factor for another blog). All the teachers at school always say how sweet and pleasant she is....yeah, well, come on over to our house around 6:30 and let me know what you think. One of the teachers at school gave us her number and is wanting to babysit for Carrie. I'm afraid to have her come over for fear of ruining Carrie's reputation at school :)

To top it off, I feel like a wimp for feeling this way. I am lucky enough to have a MIL right here that takes her to school and picks her up 99.9% of the time so I don't have to worry with that aspect when trying to get to work and get home. My job is simply to come home and enjoy my child. This is hard to do when every single thing becomes a battle of wills. I know it could be worse, and I know I need to focus on that. But seriously....I keep telling Carrie that while Daddy's out of town we need to be on the same team and work together...not sure she quite gets that just yet. I'll keep trying, though.

We Interrupt the China journal for an Important Announcement...

Yeah, cause I know everyone's still sitting on the edge of their respective seats since I'm soooo good about updating about China on a regular basis :)

Anyways, the impossible has happened. We have a contract on our house in Gainesville. Not just an offer, but a real, honest to goodness contract. I just sent it back to our agent with the necessary signatures so, God willing, we close on 2/27. Please be sure to pray to the real estate gods that all goes well and we are able to close this chapter that has been open for a year! Ironically enough, the offer came in exactly one year to the day that we put it on the market.

I'm having such mixed feelings about this, which I never thought would happen. I mean, I am SO thankful that we have warm bodies that actually like our house and want to buy it! But it's really bringing a close to our Gainesville chapter. When I moved there in September 2001, I hated that place. I mean, within a week I was telling Jerry "this places SUCKS, it's too small, I want to go back to the big city!!" But little by little it really grew on me. I finally got a job there I liked with the university, and we met some of the best friends we've ever had there. To this day I sorely miss being able to walk down the street to Jenn & Radley's house and see Ansley running around outside, or go over to Amy & Nate's house for a SuperBowl party, or have everyone meet up at Ichiban for some of the best (and relatively cheap!) sushi you've ever put in your mouth. And the decision to move from Gainesville was made even harder by the fact that a dear friend of mine, and Carrie's godparents, Amy & Aaron Aponick, moved cross-country from California to live in Gainesville when Aaron got a professor position at UF (Amy - I still miss our Chick-fil-A lunches!).

I know we will still be friends with these people....but it won't be the same. And I know we'll find a house here that we love just as much, or more than, this particular house in Gainesville. We bought that house with visions of raising our family there for a long time. Guess life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls. This has been a looooong road getting here, but let's hope it closes on a positive note about 45 days from now.