because you care
The plug seems to have moved. It's still there, unfortunately. I love
kellymom for all things boob-related. And Galloping Cat for your help. The hot shower does seem to do something good, so that's been a favorite. One of the treatment suggestions I found involves soaking the affected boob in an epsom salt bath. Let me tell you this: it's hard to get a boob into a bowl without sloshing all the water out. Just sayin'.
We've been nursing-nursing-nursing a lot. Tried to do the epsom salt thing, but... yeah. Hot showers. Massaging. Heating pad. Tried to pump, but that was a no-go. In fact, that just made for a very bad nippular situation. Will not be repeating it, although the bowl/water/boobage thing will be attempted again. Maybe a different bowl.
I believe today's treatment attempts will include
lecithin.
I will try to talk about something else soon.
if it's not one thing...
...it's plugged ducts. Or a plugged duct, I don't know how these things work. All I know is that in eleven months of breastfeeding, this is the first problem. It really stinks. Woke up this morning feeling engorged, and after nursing it didn't get better. Hopefully we'll get this worked through without it getting worse.
And in house news, the current owner failed to disclose something that may be a major problem, and it may be nothing, but regardless, it should have been made common knowledge. We will see how it plays out later this week.
Seems that the owner had a foundation repair estimate about six months ago and the recommended work was extensive. It wasn't disclosed (as i heard it, because they thought we'd find out on inspection), and our inspection was last week. No mention of problems. Either we had a dud inspector (and appraiser and termite lady) who missed the MAJOR foundation problems, or the owner got a BS estimate from someone trying to scare him into a lot of $$ repairs.
Doesn't change the fact that this was left out of the disclosures. Oopsie. We're back in the house Tuesday and Thursday to re-inspect and possibly to get another estimate for these (supposed) repairs.
Knuckleheads. I don't need this stress two weeks before we close.
New pictures!
So, getting a recent photo to send with the card and flowers (which turned out to not be flowers) meant playing picture day with Noel. Fun for mommy!
We ended up sending an edible bouquet, rather than flowers. Passed the shop on the way to the florists, and decided it would be more fun. The smallest thing to send- because I wasn't spending $80 on fruit, no matter how cute it is- was this:
only without the apple looking thingie at the top. You get the idea. So some fruit on sticks, a card, a photo, and an invitation to try out our new porch, if she so desires, all deivered tomorrow.
And the cutest kid I ever grew in a petri dish:
Fucking fucking FUCK
And no, it has nothing to do with the house. Thankfully.
Our early interventionist? The one that I thought was just fantastic? Super? Wonderful? She would often do her work with Noel, and then just hang out for another twenty minutes afterwards, and we'd chat. I
really like her.
Well, she took a medical leave at the beginning of January. Thought she'd be back in about a month. February rolled around, and she was still gone. Today I got a call from her supervisor. She's not coming back. She has cancer, and her doctors are not expecting her to make it through.
What the hell?
I know it's stalker-y, but is it at all appropriate to send her a note? Flowers? Girl Scout cookies? An invite to Noel's birthday/housewarming party?
I don't want to freak her or her family out, of course. I don't want to be the crazy mom from her job that showed up on the doorstep, you know? But I'd like to do something.
Sonofabitch. This sucks.
Holy Crap. We're buying a house!
The inspection and appraisal were today. We'll get a full report from the appraiser tomorrow, I think, but the inspector gave us his full report on-site. He had a nifty little palm pilot appraisal doohick which then plugged into his portable printer, so all nine pages of his report is in our hands right this very second.
Absolutely NO major damage.
About $250 of piddly little stuff that honestly, I could care less about.
17 days to closing.
Clearly I am delusional
Because I actually had this thought...
Wouldn't it be great if I was in the White House press corps? And then I could start all my questions with, "Hay. Jackhole. Listen here...". Haha.
And also? Let's sound it out, shall we? NU-CLE-AR.
I'd sleep, but I'm on coffee #kajillion, so that's right out. Oh, well.
My own circle of hell
OH MY GOD WILL THIS NEVER END?
So, first it was the fever. Then it was the fever. Then it was still the fever.
Now the fever is gone, yay. It's not an impressive rash, but I think we can safely call this little episode roseola.
But we're not done yet.
Guess what Noel was working on all night long? Yes, ALL NIGHT. I DO NOT SLEEP.
Tooth number the second.
And he's still awake.
For a grand total of four sleepless nights in a row. Not even just the 'wake up every three hours' annoyance, but honest to god sleepless.
I'm off to drop the good faith deposit off with the realtor. Maybe he'll zonk out in the car. Or I will.
30 days?
Our closing date is March 9. I am already overplanned as far as what I want to do when we finally get in there, and most of it is outside. My moongarden will finally get organized, I finally get to put the bananas and plumeria in the ground, I can actually buy the dwarf mango I lust over, and all my plans for edible landscaping will have to be whittled down and combined into one functioning plan. Ooooh, I'm stoked. There's this nursery about 2 hours away that we've been putting off. First of all, we'd buy too much crap, and secondly, what would we do with it all? Well, March 10, I'm there. With the buck fifty I have left after buying a house, but there nonetheless.
And this? How cool is this for the porch ceiling?
starsNot that we'll do it, necessarily, but we COULD!
This morning, Noel was seemingly fever-free, but now he's fussy and warm again. Thankfully we're not seeing the 104s that we had before. Still no other symptoms. I'm thinking maybe roseola?
Poor little monkey. Little monkey about to have a new house!
I'm trying to figure out a way to appease both my need to show off and my need to not get myself stalked. If I can manage it, I'll get a picture up.
It's official!
We are under contract! There was the offer, the counter offer, the counter-counter offer (which was really two choices), and the acceptance.
Did I mention the wraparound porch? So excited!
Now we sweat it out until closing and hope nothing comes up. Aye.
Noel is still feverish, pedi says watch and wait. Tepid baths, cool wahcloths, and infant motrin- I hope he feels better soon.
We're hot
We are in actual contract negotiations with an actual seller.
Unfortunately, it is making me insane. Or maybe it's the lack of sleep, becuase the boy is sick.
Saturday, he was fine. Chipper, even. Saturday night he woke every hour, but other than not sleeping, didn't seem too terribly off. Granted, he was up every hour- bu he isn't sleeping great these days anyway, so I didn't think too much of it.
Sunday morning there was a fever. Later Sunday moring it was higher. He doesn't have anything else going on, as far as I can tell. No more congested than normal. He's never had an ear infection, so I don't know how he would act, but he's not grabbing at his ears or face. It's just this fever, which goes down with tylenol, but spikes and is pretty high. Fevers on their own don't worry me, as they serve a purpose, but I'm not liking this one. We're calling our pedi in just a bit.
My poor guy is miserable. (but he'll still grin at me and make eye contact and he's not dehydrated and the lukewarm baths have been tolerable, so... it could be worse, I guess)
The house is driving me crazy. We made an offer, they contered, we countered with two options just this morning. We'll see what happens next.
Y'all want a blow-by-blow?
Husband agreed. Offer is in the works.
The person we saw looking at the house after us? Second time to look. Got the disclosures, so we're betting there's going to be an offer from that person.
We have to sign off on the initial offer contract, so as soon as our realtor gets back to her house (baseball game for her kid), we'll have the basic contract faxed to us, signed, faxed back to her, and then faxed to the seller. Hopefully we'll beat out the competition.
We were going to offer less than asking price and have the seller put out the closing costs, but if we're in it to win it, maybe we should go full asking price and closing costs? Or maybe split the difference. I'm thinking maybe split it.
This is not the seller's market it was many months ago, so I hate to offer the full price off the bat, but I don't want to lose it, either. Suck.
This is madness.
All of it. Sheer and total, the insanity of home buying with a limited budget.
ARGH.
The last house? We made an offer. It was countered. There was much discussion of the inspection contingency (that we could escape if something turned up)- and how as a bank owned property, we may have better luck if we nixed that. So, the husband, with more than a little house understanding, decided to go ahead and do a cursory inspection of his own, to see if we were going to end up in a money pit if we gambled on the house. And when I say that we are glad to know NOW, I mean it. Really I do, because there would be nothing worse than to get the house, expecting to put 10 or 20 thousand into it, and then find out that the entire foundation had been eaten away by our friend, the termite. That would be well over our anticipated house fixing budget.
But for fuck's sake.
So we went back to a house we rather liked, but crossed off our short list for some issues which now seem very minor. The seller has dropped the price. There is now a bit of interest in it- there was a someone and their realtor waiting to see it after us. We are running out of options in our price range, in our desired stye, in our choice of neighborhoods.
I want to make an offer on this house NOW. Husband is not sure.
I'm pushing for a decision by 5 today.
It has a wraparound porch and a fireplace. Big enough. Lovely house. We could move right in (which, after the last plan, seems like a gift). Only it sits facing a pretty busy street, which makes me worry about two dogs and one little boy- but that's why they invented fences, right? And there's a definite lack of garage, which pains the husband.
Decisions, decisions.
camera phones rock
We were in Michigan before Thanksgiving, and saw this while driving from someplace to someplace else. I thought it was really funny. And another thing. We don't have them here, although it's a franchise-type thing, I guess we could if someone wanted to... but anyway, the caramel apple cider at Beaner's just made my Novemeber, and the people that manned the drive thru were super nice. Maybe it was an owner-inspired mandatory thing, and so they were forced into it, but every day we stopped, we got a trivia question and some idle banter for the few minutes it took to get my sugar crack. I mean cider.
Man, was that stuff good.
Right. But the picture. Ha.
Disaster averted!
Woohoo! I fixed the bookmark crisis, sort of. Unfortunately, any bookmarks new since, say, November are gone. I have a Mac, and I just took the whole shebang back to the last time I iSync-ed with my iPod, which was a really long time ago.
Charming Driver's astute advice is appreciated, of course.
Yay!
So I guess I can stop trying to sell the child to the gypsies, then.
Oopsie.
When I'm dinking around online, or emailing for the seventy jilliointh time something to the realtor, or whatever on the computer I let Noel bang on the keyboard. When I'm actively typing, I pull him back from the desk, no big deal. If I'm mousing around something, he bangs and sometimes I end up at a different part of the page, but it's also no big deal. He's happy, I'm happy.
Except. For. Today.
He erased every single last one of my bookmarks. Don't know how. I don't even know what half of them were anymore, but I'm sure I wanted them all. I've gone through the last week of my history and saved what I've been to recently- so I've got a lot of house-related stuff back. But that's it. Nothing else.
Ugh.
He's toothing!
I'd say it was teething, but there's only the one. Well, there are an absolute ASSLOAD of little white nubs under his gums, but one tooth has actually broken the skin. Finally! I've been saying that he's teething for months, and I was starting to wonder if anything was ever going to happen. It's a bottom front teefer. The other bottom front space is just as white and nubby, though, so I'm guessing that there will be a second tooth soon, and the upper spots are looking like something is happening, too. Poor guy- if all of these teeth are working at once, no wonder he's not sleeping and cranky and clingy and driving me absolutely batty.
Would you believe we left the frozen lobster teether over at the SuperBowl party house? Yeah. Oops.
On Saturday, we were scheduled to look at two houses. We saw the first one. We skipped the second. We're making an offer today. It's what you would jokingly call the 'fixer-upper', when what you really mean is gut and renovate. We're gutting and renovating. It's lovely, if you can see through all the repairs that need to be made. Luckily, they're topical repairs, even though it is pretty extensive. Regardless, it's a bank owned property, and we will spend the same amount at the end of the day but this will be exactly what we want. It's a steal, price-wise, but we will easily funnel the difference back into the house. But I will have a BRAND NEW KITCHEN. I will have gorgeous refinished original wood floors. T will have a gigantor garage, because the yard is huge. There are no trees, no shrubbery, nothing. Total blank slate, and I am SO EXCITED.
Excited and scared to death. It will be a really, really big job. And that's an understatement. Barring any surprises from the inspection, this is it. Woo!
NEVER MIND, THEN
Well, we decided on house #1, too. Then the first buyers somehow pulled their financing together, after all, so the house isn't up for discussion, anyhow.
And we're very sure that the second house is too small. It will not work for long, as many of you pointed out.
It's back to the MLS for us.
Remarkably, after several months of totally stagnant housing market around here, things are starting to move. What fun real estate is! Not.
Not as planned
Nothing is going according to my complex and well-thought out plans, guys. I need help. The husband and I have gone over pros and cons and assets and liabilities and timeframes and dates and we are still at a loss. Obviously, no one can answer this one for us, but maybe there's something we're missing. Maybe.
I'll try to make the explanation simple, because there are so many variables it confuses even me.
House #1: This was our first pick. It was under contract, but the potential buyers had their financing fall through and the seller gave them an extension. Their amended closing date is tomorrow, and it sounds like their financing fell through again. So... we can make an offer. Only we didn't want to have all our eggs in that basket, in case it did NOT fall through, so we kept looking.
House #2: This is the runner-up house.
Now we can't decide between the two.
The good parts about house 1:
we really like the street. It's a 6 block stretch that deadends on the N and S ends. Not a lot of traffic.
we really like the house, although it needs some fixer-uppering
we could add on in the future with minor hassle (well, minor when you're talking about contractors and whatnot)
for what we'd put into it($), I think we'd get more out of this one($$$).
The good parts of house 2:
move in ready
bigger garage (this is the husband's arena. I'd like to pretend that I'd get a darkroom in there, but I doubt it)
bigger yard
The first house needs new flooring- the current owner put down new-ish carpet, but we have the dogs. Only the bedrooms, though, because there's hardwood in the living/dining room. We'd have to redo the fireplace, because it's this stone monstrosity (c. 1982) that just needs to be undone. We'd need to redo the privacy fence in the backyard- it's old and falling apart. So we're looking at some time before we actually moved in- which is ok, because we don't have a strict move-out timeframe.
BUT, after we start paying the mortgage, how much cash are we really going to have to funnel into the house? Some, but that's a lot of house poor.
House 2, on the other hand, needs a lot less. It has a bigger garage, but no access to it from the front (I'd call it more of a workshop, really), so we'd be doing some juggling there to make it a car-place rather than a big workshop.
BUT, it's teensy. It would work for now, with some tricks to save space and double duty storage stuff, but it's a little house. So little, in fact, that it has no dining room. Not even a living/dining combo- really.
We would clearly not be staying there forever.
The school districts are similar, but Noel can go to any school in the county (our choice, when he's old enough) so it's not as much of an issue. The houses are within 10 blocks of each other, so the general area is the same. Minor details, like at house2 we can park side by side rather than one car getting blocked in (like at house1) come up, but don't seem to clear the picture any.
To be honest, the two things that are having me bounce back and forth are these:
house #1 has the exterior appearance I want and a fireplace (and yes, I know that in Florida we will use it exactly once every 2 years, but I want it)
house #2 has a way better yard, and I have such COOL yard stuff. And I want fruit trees.
What to do? Help!
