July 7, 2008
Sibling Rivalry
July 4th was my sister’s 29th birthday. Every year, we have a cook-out/birthday party at my parent’s house. While my sister opened her presents (one of mine to her was a pair of silky underwear with rings all over it-hint, hint, boyfriend), my Dad disappeared. He came back a few minutes later with a piece of folded up paper.
I should note here that since my sister was born on a popular summer holiday, she always has a party. Since I was born in the dead of winter (February 7th), parties don’t happen. Once, my elementary slumber party had to be canceled because we had feet upon feet of snow. As an adult, I often get the old "the weather might be bad so I don’t know if I’ll be able to go out for dinner with you for your birthday" excuse. No one wants to celebrate a birthday when they’d rather be hibernating. It’s depressing and entirely unfair.
So, when my Dad announced that he had a poem to read to my sister, I couldn’t help but mentally roll my eyes. My Dad is not a poet, never has been, at least as far as I know. I think of him more like an algebra dictator, but that’s just my experience with him.
He started reading this poem about my sister. He talked about how bravely she approached her back surgery while in high school. He talked about driving her to flight school in Florida, only to have her change her mind after being there one day, which resulted in a mad rush drive back home so that they could enroll her at Penn State (my Dad’s alma mater). We should also note here that I am a graduate of Pitt and was not allowed to even look at out of state schools. If I had known that wanting to go to flight school would have gotten me to Daytona Beach, FL, I would have considered getting over my fear of heights.
The poem continued with the theme of "we couldn’t be prouder of you." I thought I might gag.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my sister, but she hasn’t exactly been a saint. She hasn’t exactly made my life easier either. When she was a baby, she knocked down my blocks. When I was a teenager, she used to try to spy on me and my friends. When my parents bought be a Geo Metro the summer after my freshman year in college, they made me keep it at home while I went back to school. She proceeded to "decorate" my car with Christmas lights while I was away. It was already pretty hard to make a Metro look cool. That did not help. The very next year, they allowed her to go trade it in for a purple Nissan AND allowed her to drive it to school. I almost always had to ride the bus, and when I did get to drive it was a beat-up Escort station wagon. I’m not complaining, but it wasn’t exactly a cool car for a high school girl.
After college, my sister got engaged and moved in with a total creep; and we had to move her out of that house in seven hours (before he got home from work). She also has six pets: three huge dogs and three cats. One of them spontaneously poops on my Mom’s floor whenever she dog-sits her. Not even my kids do that kind of stuff.
Because I’m totally mature, I spent the rest of the day and night playfully reminding everyone of my sister’s screw-ups. I also whined and complained that my Dad never wrote a poem about me. I told my sister she can quit calling me the favorite child; it’s quite clear I’m not.
And then it all became very clear. . . my Dad totally wrote that poem to throw her off. I really am the favorite daughter.
I’m the one who watched hockey with him from the time I was born while my sister preferred Sesame Street. I’m the one who played softball and made the all-star team while my sister showed no such interest in anything "sport." Like my Dad, I’m the one who gets grossed out by licky dogs (it must be genetic), while my sister practically makes out with hers. I’m the one who gave him two fabulous grand-daughters while my sister continues to up her animal count and bring them for frequent and mostly unwanted visits to my parent’s house.
I’m also the one moving in with my parents, in less than four weeks, for the second time in my adult life, this time bringing three family members along with me . . .
Something tells me there won’t be any poems written about me anytime soon, at least not good ones anyway.
July 5, 2008
27 Days
There’s something about "less than four weeks" that instills an absolute sense of urgency when it comes to packing and moving. I picked up boxes at the liquor store and egg boxes from the grocery store. I also put my uncle on alert that he should save boxes for me from his beer distributor store. One thing is for certain: our new neighbors will think we like to drink. . . a lot.
While Lil C is gladly helping to pack things, Big I is protesting and acting very much like a teenager. She’s also having a fit whenever I pack something that belongs to her. I put an end to that by telling her that Daddy would like to throw away all her toys, while I would only like to pack them. She seems to be helping a bit more now.
Yesterday, we went to my parent’s house for a birthday party for my sister/4th of July celebration. We ended up staying for 10 hours. About five of those were spent playing Mexican Train Domino’s. I realized that living there for under three months might not be all that horrible. We got along fine, had fun with the girls and didn’t get home until almost midnight. I’m feeling more relaxed about the whole thing. After all the noise the girls made yesterday though, I doubt my parents are feeling the same way.
After Tuesday, I’ll be completely relaxed. The home inspector is coming early Tuesday morning and since we waived our home inspection when we moved into this house, we’re slightly apprehensive about it. We’ve been here almost five years. Any problem that came up, we promptly fixed, but the not knowing is the anxiety-inducing part. So, if you could all just cross everything that it goes well, we’d appreciate you assuming the position one last time.
Mr. BBM and I have been packing up the basement today and there’s so much more work to be done. I promise I won’t talk only about the house and packing and moving for the next few months, so stick around because I’ll start posting house building progress with photographic evidence once it starts within the next two weeks.
July 2, 2008
I’m So Excited!
It’s starting to hit me that this moving thing is really happening. It could be because of today’s events.
I spent the day packing about 20 boxes of things that we won’t be using, loading them into the van and taking them to one of our new storage units, aka my parent’s house. We also wrote out the biggest check we’ve ever written (10% of our new home’s price), which means we’re eating only things in the pantry closet for the rest of this month. Along with the check, we signed the official paper removing the contingency and giving our builder the green light to get building.
Our realtor is also making our appointment to select all of our exterior house colors, interior colors, flooring, cabinets, hardware, lighting fixtures, etc. for next week. NEXT WEEK! They should be breaking ground within the next two weeks once they have the permits and we’ve signed off on the final plans. They have committed to a settlement date on or before October 20th, which is much better than I thought it was going to be (Our 10-year wedding anniversary is October 17th so that is pretty cool).
I also started putting things on Freecycle to get rid of things we don’t want to take to the new house and hopefully get some moving boxes for free within the next week or two. It’s working fabulously so far. One woman’s trash is definitely another person’s treasure.
In addition to all of these other signs that are pointing to this really happening, I have also started to break out (as in teenager face all over again). Who says that the stress is gone once your house is under contract?
When Halloween rolls around, I’m going to be one happy girl.
July 1, 2008
Help Wanted-Moving
In 29 days, the entire BBM family will be moving in with my parents.
Deep breath.
Our house is under contract, just as soon as my realtor shows up at my door so I can sign. He’ll be here in minutes. The contingency on our new home is being removed as I write this, and the builder will break ground in two weeks or less.
Because we’re moving in with my parents, Big I will be in the school district that she needs to be in. She’ll be starting the year at her new school. This, I’m telling myself, is the reason we’re agreeing to inconvenience ourselves in such an incredibly huge way.
So, I have some needs:
1. Boxes: I need to pack seven rooms, three bathrooms, a basement, a crawl space and a garage in 29 days. I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t know how I will get this done.
2. Packing Help: See #1, and let me repeat: I don’t know how I will get this all done.
3. Moving Help: Because this knee is just not cutting it yet, Mr. BBM is going to have to single-handedly carry our washer and dryer down 21 stairs and then up seven stairs into a truck and then back into a storage unit. If you’re not available for the first move, keep in mind that there will be a second move. Yes, two. Yes, I’m crazy.
3. Counseling: Because did you read that first sentence? We will be living with my parents for three months. I’m not at all concerned about living with my Mom, but there’s my Dad to consider. When we lived with them for a year when Big I was just a baby, he drove me insane. He treated me like I was 15 years old again and as much as he thought he would hate to relive that year of my life, I hated it much more. I told Mr. BBM that it’s really no big deal for him. He works out of the home three days a week. I work at home (two jobs) and raise two munchkins. As appreciative as I am to my parents to let us move in with them (again), I know it might not be easy for us me, or our cats who will have to stay somewhere else entirely. I’ll probably need counseling; I’ll definitely need sangria. Copious amounts of sangria, so cabernet contributions will be graciously accepted as well.
Next week I’ll pick my colors for my new house. My realtor says it will hit me then. I’m starting to believe that this is really happening!
June 29, 2008
I’d Like to Thank the Academy Neighbors
Our Open House is over. It was declared a "success" by both our mortgage guy and our realtor. We had eight separate parties come through the house. Usually my realtor downplays any potential interest, but today he said that two of the parties showed some real promise. This is what happens when you just decide not to care anymore.
The only cleaning that got done today was by Mr. BBM. My parents kept the girls last night so that we could get cleaned up. We ended up doing some of the cooking for today and then spent the rest of the night having dinner (Hungarian Pasta to die for and salad) over at our neighbor’s house (They didn’t want us to dirty our house so they invited us to just hang out there). We also had wine, lots of wine, sort of like the never-ending glass of wine.
We also had margarita’s, pina colada’s, and sangria.
At one point, I was showing our house to my neighbor and he went into my crawl space and stayed in there for a good 15 minutes remarking how he would turn that into his private office space since he likes sitting on the floor anyway. It was that kind of night.
This morning, while I held my head in my hands and cursed white wine and the glass that always stayed full, my other neighbor (an extraordinary personal chef) showed up and began rolling up these beautiful little flatbread sandwiches containing Tuscan turkey, baby leaf spinach, cranberry and mango chutney and whipped cream cheese. She also helped us make lemonade and mint tea from scratch and then adorned the pitchers so that they looked like they could have been at a fancy restaurant.
We then garnished the mini cream cheese cupcakes plate and these amazing chocolate chip peanut butter desserts with fresh raspberries. It was kind of like preparing for a party at your own house that you can’t attend. Thank goodness for leftovers. As we were finishing the last bit of set-up/clean up, the first party started coming through the house and we quickly made our exit.
There are wonderful things about this house that I will really miss when our house finally does sell and we move. But of all the things that I’ll miss the most, it’s a few choice neighbors who have become really great friends.
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