Walking Tour

We have people coming today, people coming tomorrow and two repeats (one is 3rd time around) coming during the week. David's still finishing, as  you look at the pictures you can see there are a lot of odds and ends but for the most part, it's almost all done. I thought I would take pictures of the entire house so you can see how it's going. I've been working all weekend, both days I ended up in Clarksburg so I've been busy. It wasn't too bad, I went to AC Moores but couldn't justify any more yarn and I got to Big Lots too early this morning so that was a wash. But I have books on order from Knitpicks and I got a knitting magazine this afternoon (The Yarnhater asked me if I could POSSIBLY come home just one day without yarn, a magazine, etc. I just looked at him blankly - he should try making sense once in awhile) so my world is in balance for now.This afternoon I sat down and got all my stuff ready for tomorrow and then set up all my patients as it's going to be a great deal of running. Vincent made it to the vet's yesterday, he recieved mucho injections which David reported he did not enjoy, the vet thinks he has allergies so he got a steriod shot along with feline leukemia vaccine and rabies and I think some other stuff since he was there. I heard from Adam, he's doing very well and I think likes being on a carrier more than he'll admit. He's met some people and has gone to a BBQ with friends so I think he's very glad he's rejoined. We spoke with Jackson last night, I think he's stayed in NC too long and I think he thinks that too, but his plane ticket has been bought and we did tell him so, so that is that.  Pearl and I went swimming this afternoon between rain showers and so forth, the weather is getting quite tiresome and I think it plans on staying that way for awhile.

The Knit Goes On

Well, I'm finally into the home stretch on the My House blanket, that took long enough didn't it? I'm on call this weekend so I'm pretty much tied to the house and local vicinity so if I don't get too busy I can put a little more of a dent in it. My yarn stash is piling up, I've been lurking around Big Lots again, I can't help it!, all the yarn that's 5 or 6 dollars a skein in Micheals is a dollar in Big Lots. It's like a tiki room in a rehab -no matter how hard you try you just can't stay out of it. Yesterday hit a high on Sucks Alot Meter at work, I had 3 patients, 2 of whom had problems of epic proportions which required multiple phonecalls all around. My resignation goes in next week as I had planned, David is moving right along with the house. If we don't sell it, it will be a beautiful place to live - the back room that used to be a hot tub room is suddenly hitting the Spectacular Level with the catherdral ceiling and windows overlooking the forest. The septic system is done, the roof is done, on and on. We have sort of picked a place to relocate which is bearing further investigation but it looks good. We haven't heard from Adam or Jackson all week  but that's not unusual and I don't recall calling my parents every day at that age. (actually, I don't do that at this age either). Today I'm doing paperwork then starting to pack up at least the knick-knacky things to declutter a bit more. David and I are not big collectors (well, except for yarn.....) but when you take pictures it always turns out you have more stuff than you thought you did. David is taking Vincent to the vet this morning for those bald patches on his neck so he's incarcerated for the morning and we are all VERY aware of it. Just wait til he gets a load of the cat carrier.........

It's Been A Slow Week.

Honestly, nothing at all has happened for the past week. We had more lookers early in the week but no one for the past two days, David continues to finish up the big projects in the house and I've just been working steadily. Jackson is in Gastonia with his friend Josh until the 15th, Adam is past his I Hate Norfolk Viriginia phase and the pets are all status quo with the exception of Vincent. He's developed a few little bald patches on his neck and they're not going away so he will be making a trip to the vet on Saturday. I'm oncall this weekend and then plan to put in my resignation next week. I'll probably lose my last vacation day but I've gone back and forth over the latest Evil Plan and it seems to be the only one that will work. David and I are busy hashing out our next move and we actually have a little bit of a plan this time which is a bit of a novelty for us. I've got to take a CPR course in the near future - I actually took it for work but I have a sneaking suspicion that since I'm leaving they'll keep the card, they can be like that you know. It's raining again today, we went about 3 days without and I've super enjoying the pool and of course I added a bit of water to it yesterday so it should be overflowing by this afternoon. I'm getting to the home stretch on the baby blanket I'm knitting thank goodness! That took forever, didn't it?

Living The Mystery

While sitting in the yard yesterday I could hear the two boys in the backyard below. One of our neighbors is selling her place and her boyfriend was there with his two young teenage boys cleaning up the yard. The two were having an arguement and then I could hear one very loudly daring the other to do it, he was a big chicken, go ahead I DARE you, ha! I knew you couldn't do it you big baby... then came the most resounding WHACK I've ever heard as apparently boy #2 could do it. This was immediately followed by the kind of shrieking I would do if I found a wolverine hiding under my pillow as boy #1 had actually been daring boy #2 - to hit him with a rake. I know this because as soon as the shrieking started the parent of the two started yelling as to what the aforementioned shrieking was caused by and boy #1 started yelling HE HIT ME WITH A RAKE!, boy #2 in his own defense loudly proclaimed he had done it because boy #1 has requested it and then the father very loudly asked Why they were both doing such a stupid thing. That made me laugh because I know for a fact that father was looking at two blank faces - when my boys used to do things like that we would ask them WHY and they would never know. Adam for instance could never figure out what prompted him to use an electric shoe polisher on his hair prompting me to whisk him off to my salon in Bridgehampton so my hairdresser and I could remove it (this was immediately followed by a very short haircut.....). Jackson could never answer that question after he decided to play Blindman's Bluff on the edge of the bulkheading, he shut his eyes, spun around and then stepped into thin air falling about 6 feet - that was about 10 stitches to the ball of his foot and me grateful he hadn't been hurt any worse. Looking back I can see there are some things I really do not miss....

The Calm After The Storm

Well, a lot of lookers but no takers so far. David and I went for pizza last night as we had the RE coming around 6pm, but they were late and we arrived back home while they were still here. We just sat outside and ate so no big deal. But it's hard as the house has to be kept neat at all times and as you know the Tide Of Flotsom waits for no man so we are constantly going through the house to keep it at bay. The pets are not helping but they never do. Susan might be coming by this weekend to take a dip in the pool, the temp is finally starting to rise again, it went down to 72 degrees from a balmy 94 which sucked. It's back up to 78 this morning and I spent about an hour vacuuming it out as it's been raining intermittently all week and quite frankly, I just haven't had time. David is finishing up the back room this week, I'll take pictures when he's done, it look beautiful considering it started off as a 70's hot tub room complete with astro-turf carpeting, mirrors and cheesy statues. We are still hashing out where we will be going, I was up visiting with the 2 AM Girl, she actually showed up around midnight so we could start the Stress Festival early. Well, at least she's always around when I need her.....

Playdate

David's friend Tommy liked Pearl so much he went and got himself a Vizla awhile ago, he has a puppy named Gypsy and she's almost 3 months old now. David has chopped a lot of wood clearing the acre so yesterday Tommy and his dad Cecil (David's friend's with him too) came over to get some of the wood and for Gypsy to play with Pearl. Pearl was a bit taken aback, but as you can see from the pictures, got into the spirit of things and the two of them spent the afternoon racing around and roughhousing. Pearl by the way will be recieving a paycut this week. The RE was coming at 11 yesterday so David went to Lowes and got back around 10:45 - and they were already here. David asked if they'd been waiting long and the agent said no - they'd been an hour early and had already been through the house!! She told David Pearl was great - "no trouble at all" - I believe we will be taking 'watchdog" off of her resume...... I am so glad it's Friday, I'm absolutely crapped out and it shows. I'm trying not to fly off the handle over every little thing but I'm so tweaked all of the time EVERYTHING is a major event at this point. I look and think I should at least start packing things up, but then what if the house doesn't sell for a year and I spend it digging though boxes? What if I jinx it? The agents have been very positive, especially the ones that were here the last time it sold - the one yesterday David said couldn't get over the difference in the house, she told David the last time it had been sold it looked like a bad rental - I didn't realize that ALL the bedrooms had been painted that hideous cobalt blue, but David said that explained all the painting they'd been doing. Eww.

Looking Is Free

I can't complain, it would be scarier if no one was looking, but with the rain we generally go for a ride when the RE comes with clients, it's just easier on everyone. A lot of people bring thier kids and Pearl has NO interest in hostessing them, David rescued her from one yesterday chasing her with a stick while his brother was off in the backyard beating something with a bat he'd brought with him. And to add to it, with all the rain the grass is growing unbelievably fast, everytime it rains David says in a rather pained voice "Oh good, we needed MORE rain!", we are leaving the mowers as given the way he's been ranting we will probably have cement yard at  the next house and we'll just paint it green. So when the RE came last night we went to the grocery store, I sat in the truck with Miss Pants and did paperwork and David did the shopping. Pearl whined the whole time which was uber-annoying and she still got a cheeseburger from Burger King even though she didn't deserve it. As far as work goes I'm sticking with the game plan, I think that will work best. It's just that work is so busy now and at home there's so much to do. I'm starting to look at what can be packed long term if need be, what we can get rid of, etc... I think I might be getting rid of the art deco bedroom set as we will be moving into smaller digs eventually (hopefully) - I was peering at Jackson's furniture but that would just be mean. And I suppose I should start packing up the yarn - I should also stop buying it I suppose but since I've discovered the yarn bin at Big Lots, well, that's near to impossible..... you would be surprised at how hard it is to sneak 13 skeins of Paton Bohemien in the house.....

Wet And Wild

I took the pool pictures on Sunday, the last  day we ever expect to see the sun. The rain has been unrelenting - I've gone through all my Shock just trying to keep up with the rain water in the pool - and given there was a frog in it this morning, I don't think I'm winning. They're predicting rain for the entire week, I might need to get the Magic 8 Ball out. I guess we'll see how the septic system holds up, there's another big sigh for you. It was just a small repair but getting someone up here to dig the trench has been a forced march. So after several months the guy comes up with the trench digger and  a bull dozer to move the gravel - around the same time the RE was coming with potential buyers, sigh sigh sigh. Nothing says Buy Me like heavy machinery in the yard. Digging. But David has finished up quite a bit this week and the house looks really good - even the RE was impressed. I'm still working on that baby blanket, I'm almost done with the third row of houses and then it's a row of trees, the edges and I'm done. I am a little less stressed out, but my job is fixing that - the driving has been miserable lately since I'm still the sole employee with dual licenses so I get to be the only one that has to cover both states. I was told the other nurse will be getting his PA license but I've been listening to that story for the past 3 years and have yet to see it happen. But you can ignore the whining - you know how it is when you decide you need to leave. And I am so on the fence about it still, but I know this is the best plan. If I work per-diem I can go look at other areas, working full time it's impossible. If I was  working in a facility it might be different but when you drive for a living, the idea of driving a few hundred miles on the weekend and then coming back and getting in the car first thing Monday morning is overwhelming to say the least.

Let It Go Sunshine

We had another set of lookers yesterday, we took the hostess for a ride - I think from now on we can just stay in the yard down by the barn but it was raining so we went for a drive. The first set of lookers are supposed to be coming back on Friday, so that's heartening. I'd forgotten what a pain selling a house is, everytime the RE calls everyone lurches into Whirlwind Mode, flinging dirty laundry in the washer, shoving errant items in drawers and cabinets only to have to scour the house for them later when you actually need them. We have to remind the agents to make sure Mr. Lee doesn't get out and make sure Pearl is secured so she doesn't hostess a stranger. It's hard having people look at my house somedays, in my mind it's still "mine" and it's hard not to get territorial about the whole business. But I am starting to look to the future and am slowly, but surely letting things go. It's one thing to talk about it and even have it happen, it's a whole other thing to accept this is the way things are going to be from now on and like it to boot. Jackson will be gone after Sept, we will be moving, no more high school, no more seeing Becky - that has been hard for me. I miss her more than I thought I would. But things are getting better and I'm starting to have more good days than bad ones.I am done with my Magic 8 Ball experiment, looking over the past week I think my 8 ball has the same degree of accuracy as the Channel 12 News team which seriously leads me to believe that is how they've been predicting the weather also. Happy Father's Day to everyone, I am taking David out to breakfast this morning and then we're heading off to Bridgeport as he has some Home Depot gift certificates he's been trying to use. If he's good maybe I will buy him some yarn!

Lookie- Loos

Well, the listing come out yesterday - and David got his first call. We hadn't thought through what we are going to do when the house is shown. No one likes the owners around when they're looking at the house, I do remember when we were looking and you always feel so self concious when the people are there. The owners are trying to gauge if you like it and if you don't there is an air of disappointment following you out the door. It was a competing agency showing the house yesterday so they came at 4:30 to do a walkthrough so Pearl did get to Hostess a little, but we took the Hostess for a ride when the potential came to look at the house. The RE is showing the house again today at noon and he also said the appointment from last night would like to schedule another walkthrough. It's so hard to gauge in this market what the house will do, although our proximity to town will help with selling it. I spoke to Susan at work about the master plan, I have no intentions of sneaking about or waiting until the last minute, for the most part Interim has been very good to me and there's very few jobs that there aren't some issues cropping up here and there. If the house hasn't sold by August I plan to work per-diem until I figure out what I want to do - if it looks like we'll be here for the long haul I'll look for something around here. I am squabbling with David a little bit these days, I'm very stressed as I'm not a good with change and at the moment there is very little in my life that is not standing on the edge of the proverbial cliff waiting to jump into the great unknown.

Today's Forecast: Scattered clouds with thunderstorms later in the day

Magic 8 Ball - Yes Definately

What It Did - poured starting around 10 am some thunderstorms, cleared up around 3

Evil Plans And Other Sundry Items

I think I might have to stop with the solar cover on the pool for a bit as the temp is now 86 - you should not get out hotter  than you went in. David has been finishing cleaning up the yard, roofing the house, the bits of flotsom here and there around the yard - all the loose ends. When I went to work I was a bit startled to see the "for sale" sign at the bottom of the driveway, I mean I know we're selling it but seeing the sign there gave me a bit of a turn. I hadn't even considered that it would interfer with my weekends and stuff like that. I've been mulling over my Master Plan, such as it is - how I'm going to do this. My initial plan is to put in my resignation at the end of June with a 4 week end date which takes me to July 31st - that way I can go to Grandpa's 90th. When I come back I'll COBRA out my benefits and work per-diem, that way we can go look places without my having to worry about getting days off. If it doesn't look like the house will sell, then I'll start looking for a new job in Sept if it looks like we'll be here for awhile. My patients have been off the wall lately - one was arguing with me and since he was not winning started bellowing at his aide BRING ME MY PAIN PILLS. It was all I could do not to bellow after him BRING ME SOME TOO!! Honestly.  You know, it's not that I don't love my job, I still do, it's just that the turn over where I'm currently working is so high that I'm getting tired of being the Last Man Standing all the time. I'm tired of orientating the New Nursesonly to see them leave a couple months later, of doing a lot of the hard visits because I'm the only one left that knows how to do them, it jsut gets discouraging after awhile.

Channel 12 Weather - Sunny in the high 80's

Magic 8 Ball - Most Likely

What it did - sunny in the 80's!

No Rest For The Weary

Sleep is a rare thing these days, between work, stress and more stress. I seem to sleep every other night, I think I get that sleep just from sheer exhaustion. The other cause is  by Strangers In The Night - his name is DJ, he drinks and he seems to have accidently put David's cell phone on speed dial. We got another call from him (honestly, doesn't he work??) around 1:30 am just to let us know he was around. Whoo hoo. I very politely told him he had a wrong number, but everytime I said that he would pause and then say "but this is DJ man". I am sure he'll be pondering it all week in his alcohol induced haze. He also likes to text David to see wat's up dawg. Then the previous night we were awakened by an air freshener that David had bought but hadn't realized it had a free night light that chose to come alive around 3 am - I thought I had fallen asleep on a landing strip. The whole room lit up like Las Vegas, it was quite a night light. And earlier in the evening we noticed the central air wasn't working so well - we checked and it was 80 degrees with it running on high. So David called a friend of his that told him to check the line and see if there was ice on it. It seems if it's very humid that can happen and it blocks the air - he checked, there was, so we had to turn off the air last night to let the ice melt which of course is only a little more conducive to sleeping that DJ. I know all of this will settle down but it's just too much at once.

Channel 12 Weather - Very Sunny, mid 80's

Magic 8 Ball - Yes

what it did - it was very sunny

House For Sale

I had to run home yesterday so we could meet with the RE around 4pm. So no lunch and I just raced from house to house yesterday - this on pretty much no sleep from the night before due to a phone call from someone who was very sorry the next day for making the phone call in the first place. But as anyone knows, if you get a phone call at night despite the fact it's not that serious it will keep you up and then you spend the next day wondering why you wasted your time worrying about it into the night. Anyhoo, I got home and then had to sit through a couple of hours of papersigning and going over what we have - and what we don't plus a slow tour of the entire house. We'll be cleaning this weekend, with Jackson's graduation and us working all the time not much gets done around here except the pool and the lawn most days. I got a letter from Adam the other day and he is doing much better than he thought he would be and he sounds happy to be on the carrier after all.

Channel 12 Weather for today - sunny with a 60% chance of thunderstorms

Magic 8 Ball - Without a Doubt

what happened: overcast,sun came out with a sunshower

 

Hot Hot Hot

I don't know about your part of the universe but mine has become hellish quite quickly. It's been the upper 90's for the past few days so we spend a great deal of time trotting from the central air to the pool to the central air. I wish I had my camera earlier to catch Pearl sitting on the steps up to her neck in water with her eyes closed, she looked like the happiest dog in the world. This week she helped us inadvertently disprove the theory that if you touch a baby bird the parents will not feed it - as she knocked a nest full of them out of a tree. David put them all back in the nest and put it right and when he checked a couple days later they were still alive and well. But today there is only one really huge one - apparently if there's not enough room at the inn, the bigger chick will ix-nay the others in order to survive - hmm, who's the murderer now! David has been busy this weekend as the RE will be making an appearance this week so we now have curtains and stuff. My poison ivy is FINALLY drying up, but I have a sun burn now too so I'm all red and peel-ie, how attractive is that! Jackson is on LI, he arrived a little while ago and was helping Grandpa put in the air conditioners which given that he's used to central air, he was probably more than happy to do. I deposited the last of his graduation money yesterday so he's a rich boy for the moment. The Magic 8 Ball Weather Predictions will start tomorrow in case anyone is interested, I am putting my money on the 8 ball.

Don't Burn Those Bridges Quite Yet....

Well, the RE is definately coming next week and they seem pretty excited about our house going on the market. They even seem to think they can get more than we thought we could which makes me pretty excited. However, given the housing market these days anything could happen which puts me between a rock and a hard place employment wise. However (don't you love that word "however" -is so very useful, especially if you're me and you are forever hitting a fork in the road...), David has pointed out it's a good time to work towards what I really want to do and we can maybe work - slightly more important - work towards where we want to be. We're currently having Pre-Seller's Remorse as we both love our house but realize we would love it more if we had Staff or at least a couple of Underlings hanging about. As it is we spend most of our free time (and more of it since our Free Help is currently hiding out in NY) trying to maintain the huge swimming pool, the 6 acres of yard and the house while working full time. David's said he loves sitting out under the shade trees reading the paper but the joy of that is mitigated by the fact he will be mowing the lawn the next day. My job is getting stinkier but I wonder if it's because I've decided it's the Worst Job In The Universe and I'm looking for an excuse to sling my resignation in the boss's office as I ride off into the sunset.  When you reach that point in your job even the little things that just sort of annoyed you become Major Catastrophes and you find yourself fussing and fuming over something, that if you stepped back, took a deep breath and looked at it calmly, wouldn't have been such a big deal the month before. And I hate feeling like that, snapping over silly little things, anwering my phone with a sigh even before I know what the person wants. It's hard to break past that and I don't want my attitude to affect the other people I work with (did you ever notice that when one person quits the others follow like ducks?) - I don't think my job changed, I think I did.

Towel Me Off

This morning David asked me if I heard that - I said heard what, he said the grass growing..... it finally stopped raining although according to Channel 12 News we are experiencing thunderstorms - sigh. They need to come out of the basement. Which brings me to the subject - My Magic 8 Ball. I was using it to predict the weather this morning (I told David it's pretty much the same as watching the Crack Weather Team except I probably had a better chance of being right) and I am thinking doing a little experiment starting Monday - if you have a Magic 8 Ball feel free to play along - I'm going to write down the 7 day forecast and then will use the 8 Ball daily to see if that's what they're doing down at the studio. I'm thinking they are because this morning when I asked the Magic 8 Ball if it was going to stop raining it said "Reply hazy, try again later" - sort of the 50% chance of rain namby pamby you get off the news. Anyhoo, since David didn't pay any attention to the dire weather reports he came home early and spent the afternoon mowing the Jungle. The temps shot up to the 90's and I got to swim in my pool for the first time this season! Miss Pants also went swimming, she just kind of bounces in when she gets hot and bounces right back out to chase birds since she all cooled off. Yes, she is a little spoiled, thank you for asking.

The Sound Of Silence

I know in my head that Jackson will be back around the end of the month and he'll be home for a good while before the navy nabs him. But I also know this is it, a new chapter in all of our lives. David and I are adjusting slowly, we are talking more about our future plans and what we are going to do since we no longer have to be concerned with school systems and driving anyone here and there. But the house seems abnormally quiet without Jackson downstairs, I keep forgetting he doesn't have to get up or he'll be late. We have plenty to occupy our time at the moment, David is finishing up the renovations, we have to call the RE, he's working,  I'm working and of course It's All About Pearl for the rest of the time. The house thing has put me in serious limbo - with the housing market it may sell next week or it may not sell at all, so I go back and forth with my decision to get another job. The way my luck is if I do get another job the house will sell the next day and that will look just marvy on my resume. Speaking of which that needs fixed bad!,  I have all the materials but have been putting it off as I hate to do it. I know once I start it won't be that bad but just the idea of having to sit down and do it all over again, I rather clean the toilet - I'd even rather clean Jackson's toilet and if you've ever seen how a teenage boy keeps his bathroom that is a bold statement indeed. Although I can't believe in just a short time it will be no one's bathroom....

It's The End Of The World As We Know It.

 

As usual - it was a Lester Free For All. The day started off with thunderstorms - the really REALLY bad kind with the torrential rain and high winds, which of course knocked the power out. For 7 hours. This changed the getting ready part of the day - I'm glad I got up early as my tiny bathroom is the only one with a window so everyone used that one since it didn't require a flashlight or candles. It wasn't a huge deal of course and everyone survived, but it just added stress as we still needed to pick up the cake and drop off the graduate. We managed and the lights when back on just before everyone left - a day late and a dollar short as they say, but at least we had electric to come home to!The graduation ceremony was wonderful - and fairly short for 350 people. I love the fact they hold it in the WVU indoor stadium to make sure there's plenty of room as it was about half filled by the time all was said and done. After that we headed home for a bit and then off to Ruby Tuesdays, that was really fun and I know Jackson had a good time. I called an hour before the time of our reservations which they require - so when we arrived the entire table was already set up for us. After dinner we headed back to the house for cake and coffee, I was glad we only had a few minor  bumps in the road. The house is very quiet now, too quiet. Jackson left with Janet and Diane so it's a practice run for David and I to be empty nesters - I'm not really liking it so far. He's gone on vacation before but this is different, isn't it? I know we'll get used to it and we have the rest of the summer with him, but after that it's a whole new world for all of us.