Signs That Summer Has Finally Deemed Us Worthy of Her Presence. . .

Accessories must be waterproof. . . Forecast calls for water, and not the sky variety!

Our diet includes a lot more dairy.

Getting dressed is quicker. . . Less is more.

My house is filled with fresh flowers at all times.

AND fresh, crisp sheets grace my bed. . . ahhhhhh.

My ceiling has expanded.

Shopping for dinner has gotten a whole lot quicker.

I find myself picking up a lot less toys. . . at least inside the house.  

And for once, my world in drenched in sunlight. . . which our eyes are still not yet used to :)

Summer is finally here. . . and she brought giddiness with her.

Is the Universe Speaking to Me?

I love old houses.  Houses with history and a name. . . and original wood floors and trim--and five panel doors!  I love a grown in garden and a good hedge.  Oooh, and big wrap around porches.  And trees that yawn out over the lawn and create a canopy over the house.  It has been one of my longstanding aspirations to own one .  It even made my top 20 things to do before I die--it was number 15, though it REALLY should have gone before 14 considering my hatred of running!

When we first moved here nearly three years ago I looked at several old houses but Rob was scared of them because they tend to have issues.  And the ones we saw had LOTS of issues, and not nearly enough fun history.  I DID pick a house I told Rob I wished was for sale due to its cuteness and tree filled yard.

But it wasn't for sale--still isn't.

Then a couple months ago we were driving around near that house ogling all the oh-so-lovely old houses and wishing we could live in one when we came around the corner and I blurted out:

"That one!  Ooh, I LOVE that one."

And then I made him drive around the block like four times while I took pictures of it from every angle. . .

I could do this because three quarters of the block make up the yard. The the corner quarter had a cute matching white house on it that had to be a guest house at one point.  The yard was filled with trees, and hedges.

It had a large wrap around porch and loads of charm.  I told Rob then and there that if that house went up for sale, I WOULD buy it.

I even told my realtor.  She rolled her eyes.

Then I went home and researched it with dreams of all the people I had heard of who watched a house for years and when it finally went up for sale they bought it.  That could be me, I thought. . . then I found out it was a famous house with a name and a history and an owner that was like the grandson of the man who built it back in 1920.  The family also built and owned several buildings in town, including a mercantile and a theater.

Those kinds of houses aren't sold.  Who sells the family home when the family home is THAT fantastic? I jokingly made plans to meet the family and arrange a marriage between our kids so we could sort of own it by relation, and maybe our posterity would get it someday.

THEN, last night, I was perusing through houses for sale in the area and BAM! There it was. . . for sale!

MY dream house was for sale--less than two months after I swore I'd buy it, should it ever go for sale.

As I sat there hyperventilating and wracking my brain to find a way to actually purchase this dream of a home, my husband just reminded me how I should have been writing and publishing instead of sewing fun projects and tearing out my laundry room.

"You have to be ready for these situations if you expect to be able to pounce when they arrive." He reminded me.  Not for the first time.

And my daughter kept yelling from her room: "We are NOT moving!  Dad tell her we aren't moving.  It's probably HAUNTED!"  Oh yeah, did I tell you she is scared of old things.  We are working on that.

Because how can you be scared of that much fabulousness?  It could be a coincidence, or it could be the universe speaking to me!

So, who wants to buy my house?  

Family Fun Friday

Another week another round of Family Fun Friday.  And finally some great weather to do it in.  Unfortunately, Signe was sick so we had to be creative at home.  So we let her pick our dinner, our dessert, and our night's activity.

Her choices:

Homemade spaghetti dinner with "ranch bread" (because I make french bread with ranch dressing mix in butter spread on French bread).

Homemade confetti cupcakes that they could help make.

A round of monopoly.

The fun started around four o'clock with the cupcake making and decorating.

Then Rob arrived home in time to help make dinner.  And I don't think I have ever tasted better spaghetti sauce. YUM.  We added a salad from our abundant rows of lettuce in the garden.

But before we could eat our dinner the signal of summer was sounded. . . .

THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!

And the girls ran out the door in their bare feet to catch the first taste of summer. . . after a mad dash to alert the neighbors.

Signe was the first to catch a glimpse of it coming around the corner. . . long after its pied piper tune lured us all outside.

Nothing like a little ice cream appetizer!

The real entertainment was monopoly.  It is always an adventure.  Rob and Signe paired up to make a ferocious team.  Their goal was to buy one of every property so they could then sell them at highly inflated rates to Hannah and me for a tidy profit.  They called themselves the slum tyrants.  Then they decided they should actually be the slum pirates--to which Signe piped up with:

"Oh, oh, let's be the slum pirate PRINCESSES!"  Of course.

The REAL pirate, however, was the little thief who kept swiping money and property whenever someone left them too close to the edge of the table!

After a while Princess Signe deflected to organizing the hotels and houses for sale and Charly joined Rob's team.  He cleaned up his act, and started doing legitimate business.

I, despite my fair play, ended up in prison, not ONE, not TWO, but SEVEN TIMES!

See those little get out of jail free cards? Those are Rob's.  He never needed them.  He offered to sell them to me after my second incarceration but I told him I didn't think I would need them, because who goes to jail three times in one game?  I guess I do. . .  times two.

We finally abandoned the game around 9:30, and while Hannah had gone bankrupted and I was nearly cashless, I like to think I might have won. After all I had this little gem that would have cost you 1,400 should you have the misfortune to visit.

And since I spent so much time in jail I rarely had time to visit any hotels.  So maybe we have all been playing this game wrong all along.  Next time I am trying to go to jail more often. . . of course planning something only makes it less likely to happen in my experience.

Priorities. . .

I woke up this morning with a list of things to do.  Toilets need scrubbing, floors need mopping, the sheets I washed yesterday need to be put back on beds. . .

As I was finishing the morning dishes I looked at my six year old sitting on the couch watching a show, and I thought, soon she will be big and not care about spending the day with me.  So I wiped my hands and sat down by her.

"Signe, what do you want to do today?" I asked her.

"What do you mean?"  She asked me.

"What would make you happy today?"

She thought a minute.  "Can we do a project?"

"Yes."

"Can we do a sewing project?"  She started to really perk up and then her eyes lit up. "Can we make my Alexander Doll a new dress?"

When I said yes she got all kinds of excited and helped me look through the fabric for the perfect dress material.  Then she drew me a picture on the chalkboard of how she wanted it to look.

So while I cut and sewed, she cut and glued. . . a new princess crown for her doll, to go with her new dress.

Then we ate lunch, with Maggie (the doll) pulled up in a chair next to Signe, in her new outfit of course.

And I still need to clean the bathrooms, but the delay was worth the big squeezy hug and the very pleased "I LOVE it!" that I got from a happy six year old.

Firsts. . .

Finally, for the first time ever I can say I have a college degree.  For that grand accomplishment my husband felt I should pick something big for my graduation present.  I COULD get jewelry, or clothing, or go on a fun trip (which is what I originally wanted, but decided the money could go some many places I could enjoy for years to come). . . but it really came down to two choices:

1.) New patio furniture,

(Restoration Hardware)

2.) Or, remodeling one of our three bathrooms that are in dire need of an update.  Because really, you use those rooms every day.

But then I went out of town for my brother's wedding and while I was gone the washing machine broke. . . kaput.  Rob was stranded with a load of sopping wet, soapy laundry.  And the repair man, while giving me an estimate out of one side of his mouth, was advising me to upgrade and ditch the lemon of a machine out the other side of his mouth.  My words, not his.  So a week of frantic shopping for a new washer ensued.  And I should really purchase a set so as to have a nice matching washer and dryer pair.  And of course, nothing is in stock. One must be ordered in. So come tomorrow night, if  I'm lucky, I MAY get to do laundry.  Did you hear that, GET TO--LUCKY!  I never thought I would look forward to doing laundry!

In the meantime, I got to thinking. . .

The laundry room IS in dire need of an update also.  And since the final signing of the purchase was accompanied by a "Happy Graduation!" from Rob, I figured I better get my money's worth out of this graduation present, by darn.  But it was not on the top of my list, despite the amount of time I spend in that little 8X10 room.  BUT, if the washer and dryer are out of the room anyway, it only makes sense to tear up the linoleum and take out the old cupboards and start from scratch.  After all, it is off the front entry and the door is almost always open.

Plus it would make a nicer place for Chuck to hang out while we are gone from home!

Of course after a week of no washing machine my house was starting to get a little smelly, and my unmentionables were getting a little low, so I got to experience another first. . .

A trip to the laundromat!  But at least I brought along my camera to document the experience and make things a little more interesting.

I find it mildly ironic that my graduation present is essentially a representation of the usefulness of my English Literary degree. . . because really, my new qualifications and new laundry room will ensure that I can do the laundry and housework with much more proficiency and authority!

**When the remodel is complete (hopefully in the next couple days) I will post pictures in the Home and Garden section**

It's Official

Wait, Do I have a teenager. . .or two?

Last week we survived our daughter's first dance, or rather, our daughters' first dance.  I have to say it came a little sooner than I expected.  At ten and six I thought I had a while before giggly girls prepared for weeks to go dance with silly boys.

Hannah even had instructions for her father (parents had to accompany students):

"Just stand by the food table and keep your mouth busy eating so it can't embarrass me!"

She and her friend picked out dresses a week in advance.  And nothing in Hannah's closet was fancy enough, she had to borrow something from Emily.

Rob was disappointed when her friend decided to have a birthday sleepover that night and would take Hannah to the dance.  Then we realized Signe could go too.  Of course, when Signe realized she too was invited to the Spring Fling and Hula Hoop Contest she was all kinds of excited.  She insisted on wearing a dress and pondered aloud things such as:

"I wonder which boys from my class will be there."
"Do you have to dance with the same person the whole time?"
"I wonder if Grace is going to wear her white shoes that match mine."

Did I tell you she is six?

Once we got to the dance we (Rob and I, not so much Hannah and Emily) were relived to see it was a very lighthearted affair with fast paced music and group dancing to moves like The Cha Cha Slide and the Macarena.

Sig played games in the adjoining room while she warmed up to the idea of dancing, and got accustomed to the loud music which hurt her ears.  Luckily she found plenty of friends to pass the time with.

Once the hula hoop contest got underway I am not sure if Hannah was more excited or I was.  I had heard that she was the hula hoop champ in PE. . . I am pretty sure she takes after her mother.  I used to have some pretty mean moves with a hoop.

She didn't let me down, but danced and jived on the demand to the DJ's numerous attempts to skip up the contestants--all while swishing that hoop around her hips like nobody's business, cool and calm as you please like she was merely shooting the breeze and hardly noticing the competition dropping like flies.

Of course she won.

Before long even Signe condescended to dance and we were all having a good time.  I think we were some of the last to leave the gym.

Now that the first dance is over I suppose we can start planning for the next big hurdle. . . Middle School!