Waking the Dead

If you may recall, a few months back, we had a very loud incident with the smoke alarm. It has been quiet in our house ever since until the other night when I put a pot of water on to boil for some pasta for a recipe I was making. Apparently, the smoke detector is highly sensitive to steam (though I've never had a problem before) and it went off AGAIN! This time though, both Ian and Kyra were already in bed sound asleep. Rich was finally able to get the piercing noise to stop and I went upstairs to check on the kids. YEP! Sound asleep! I guess they inherited their ability to sleep through anything from their mom!

I Caved In

I think yesterday turned out to be one of the hottest days this summer and I actually caved in and turned on the air conditioning for the first time all summer. I would say that making it until August 18th before turning on the air is a pretty good thing! And, I didn't cave in for that long because a front passed through around 7 and brought the temp back down. It was great sleeping weather!

I need to just get over it

Yesterday, we drove back to Sun Prairie for a Memorial Day weekend BBQ with some great friends. The weather couldn't have been more perfect and the kids had a blast playing outside all day. The food was amazing (as usual) and the drinks were oh-so-refreshing. Our friends Steve & Brenda sure do know how to put on a great party!

On the way home, we decided to drive by our "old" house. I had a beautiful perennial garden at that house and I hemmed and hawed whether to take some of the plants with me - including my peony bushes. Alas, I opted to leave it there for the new owner to enjoy. We also had a beautiful arbor and white picket fence covered with a beautiful vine as well as several rose bushes that bloomed for most of the summer. Now, I fully realize that once we signed the papers, what this woman chose to do with the house was her perogative; HOWEVER, what I saw just made me physically ill! All of my beautiful perennials are gone! No trace. They've been yanked out, cut down, etc. To see that arbor and fence "naked" just cut through me. I know it's not my house anymore, but I really took pride in that garden and it just breaks my heart that I didn't do more to "rescue" those plants.

Tackle It Tuesday

It is time for me to enter the world of "Tackle It Tuesday". Given that we moved back in November, I know I've got plenty of "tackling" to be done around this house. However, today's project to tackle is courtesy of my loving husband.

You see, I went away on a retreat this past weekend with some wonderful women from my old church leaving the cares of motherhood behind if only for a short while. Rich did a wonderful job considering Kyra hasn't been feeling all that great. One thing he did do, however, was get the compulsion to clean out my car. This is all fine and good, but guess where the contents of said car wound up?




Yes, that would be my dining room table. So, I will attempt to clear it off today. Wish me luck!

And now I am back and feeling much better about my dining room:



Even though the day is grey, I find the flowers help brighten up the room a bit. Now, if we can only not get that snow they are predicting!

Feeling a let down

So, we have been trying to sell our old house since last October. Now, we realized going into winter trying to sell a house wasn't the best of circumstances, but you do what you have to do. We were very excited this weekend when our realtor told us an offer was coming only to get the offer and it was SUBSTANTIALLY less than our asking price. We fully realize the real estate "game", but the offer was downright instulting and our realtor agreed. We counter-offered with what we (and our realtor) believed to be a fair price and spent the rest of the weekend waiting.

Today we get a call from our realtor and the prospective buyer counter-offered our counter-offer but didn't even come up much from the initial offer. I hate to be stubborn and I realze that this is a "buyer's market" but our house is already the lowest price for a house it's size in the area. At what point do you say it just isn't worth the hassle? What is that "magic" number we will settle for? I thought when we finally did get an offer, I would feel euphoric, but right now I am just plain depressed. Now, we have another 24-48 hour wait to find out how it is going to be. In the meantime, I need to say some prayers for patience.