If You Look Up The Word "Pitiful" In The Dictionary...

You'll find this picture right next to the definition:

Both the girls have gross colds, but Nissa's is so much more awful to see.  My poor baby can't even sit up straight with the amount of goop draining out of her sweet little snot-covered face. I had big plans to go hang out with other adults this weekend, but somehow the Cold Gods decided that it would be way more fun for me to stay home and drown in ectoplasm.  Blech.  Why don't my babies come with built-in nose-blowing abilities?

Have a great weekend, peeps.  It looks like mine is going to be a whole lotta fun.  See you on the flip side.

Nothing's Sweeter Than Suzi...

This past weekend we took a road trip from Western New York to Central Pennsylvania to surprise my dear friend, Suzi, at her going away party.  It was a bittersweet weekend and as today is Suzi's moving-away day, I feel the need to gush about her just a wee bit.

I first met Suzi when our babies were just months old.  We were both new transplants to Pennsylvania, our husbands fresh into their Ph.D.'s.  I remember our first meeting - I remember feeling like her sweet midwestern drawl sounded familiar somehow, and I remember thinking that we were meant to be friends because she said the word "pop" instead of "soda" just like I do.  I also remember telling her that if she wanted to be a part of our playgroup she had to bake something (I'm such a meanie!  But truth be told, we were talking about our love of baked goods and I knew that this chick could BRING IT.  Boy, did she ever!  Suzi's dessert recipes are now legendary amongst our playgroup friends).

There is something so special and everlasting about forging a friendship in a new town with a new mom who is from some far away place just like you. Both of us had our babies in State College, away from our families.  Both of us had newborns that had (and still have) intense personalities with their own sprinkling of medical issues thrown in just for good measure.  Both of us were utterly bewildered whenever our sweet Pennsylvanian friends said "a quarter of" instead of "a quarter to" whenever they spoke about the time.  Both of us came to State College, not necessarily of our own choosing, but because we were proud Ph.D. wives.  In the end, I think we both ended up loving Penn State and the family of friends we found there more than we could have ever imagined.

Through the years it took for our husbands to pursue their own academic successes, we laughed, cried and drove ourselves towards happy ice cream pie-induced oblivion together. Suzi was there to invite us over for Thanskgiving dinner when we had nowhere to go, she was there to help me craft hairbands that matched Inara's first Halloween costume, to sew a sentimental flower onto a gifted baby carrier, to always listen as I blathered on endlessly (and usually tearfully) about stressful advisors, departments, deadlines, dissertations, job hunts, interviews, moving, and finally graduating. She did all this and so much more - without question, with such grace, and with way fewer swear words than me.

Now that Suzi's husband (Dr. Jim is in the HOUSE!) has completed his Ph.D. program, I find myself in a strange position.  On the one hand I want to be the same friend that Suzi has been to me all these years.  I want to be excited for her, to tell her that we are so happy for everything her family has accomplished together, that moving far away (all the way to Missouri!) means only the start of bigger and better things.  But I also don't want her to go.  When we moved from Pennsylvania a year and a half ago, somewhere deep inside I just always always expected it to stay exactly the same way as when I left (because let's face it, I'm immature and I think that the world revolves around me).  And to be honest, I simply can't imagine a State College without you in it, Suzi, dear.  It's just not fair.

Being a grown up really stinks sometimes.  I wish I could take all the wonderful friends that we've made since moving to the U.S. and stick them in a box to carry around with me wherever life takes us. Can someone please get on that?  Because I'd really really appreciate it.

Suzi, you are such a bright, shining star.  And we miss you already.

Memories:

 

 The Giraffes are from a shoot I did for Suzi's business, Starbright Baby - we had so much fun that day, and she named the Argyle one after Inara.

Details

I was really and truly surprised that so many of you lovely people wanted to hear MORE about our big announcement yesterday.  Here I was thinking that we were the only ones interested in the mundane details of our house-buying adventures...boy was I wrong!  So just because you all asked, I will now bore you to tears with all the deets.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

We saw the listing late on Wednesday, and arranged to see it Thursday afternoon (we made the offer on Friday and it was accepted that same night...such a whirlwind!) .  When we got there it pretty much looked like this:

 

It's a cute and small 1500 square foot traditional foursquare right in the heart of the city and it was built in 1900.  It has four bedrooms (each with a walk-in closet), two full baths, a new kitchen and siding and hardwood flooring on the first floor.  Not included in the square footage is an unfinished basement and get this - a full, walk-up attic (the stairway to the attic is off the hallway on the second floor)!!!  We loved that there wasn't any wasted space in the layout, it really felt a lot bigger than 1500 square feet - and we could see ourselves finishing out the attic to be a guest room, studio, or playroom.

The interior is bright with lots of big windows, and the house does have a bit of a backyard (which is a great find for a house in the city).  It's also within walking distance to a playground, a park (Highland Park for you Rochester natives), a school, a library and many assorted shops, cafes and restaurants.  We honestly hadn't even looked in this particular neighborhood because most of the houses are out of our budget.  This one isn't because it's currently being rented (but not by crazy tenants!  They already have another house to move into and all their stuff was in boxes.  They were really quite nice and didn't seem to mind that we were interested in buying the house).  But I guess the owner doesn't want to spend any extra time and money on upgrading anything and wants a quick sale.  Enter The Georges, ever willing and ready to snap up a good deal!

It's always interesting to go to a house and compare it to the pictures in the listing.  Most of the times you are a bit disappointed, but sometimes what you see in real life is downright hilarious.  We had a bit of both, but we were also pleasantly surprised.

These are pictures from the listing of the living and dining areas:

I noticed right away that it had radiators, which isn't uncommon with a house of this age.  I was worried about it at first, but we did some research and found that they don't get that hot (I actually touched one WITH MY BARE HANDS and survived).  We also read that they are a very efficient and energy-saving heating method, and I have friends that grew up with radiant heat and they all turned out pretty normal. So I think we'll be okay.  I think we might even put some cute covers on them, or turn some of them into window seats or benches.

This is the listing picture of the kitchen:

And one that we took. I love that the kitchen has a tin ceiling...but I'm all geeky about interior design so feel free to ignore me completely:

 

The bathrooms are definitely quirky.  The downstairs bathroom has those teeny tiny mosaic tiles on the floors, and I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of it.  It was TINY.  The upstairs bathroom was even funkier.  

Here's the picture we took:

 

And from the listing:

 

Yep, that's a claw foot tub and a freestanding shower.  Good times!  I guess we'll see how annoying this setup actually is once we move in.  If it is, there's always the fugly bathroom downstairs that we can use.  In any case, this sure is a conversation piece!  Other than that, I actually really like this bathroom with it's big window and corner vanity...it was cute!

The bedrooms are great - plenty big for us and two of them are even connected with a walk-through door (which I think will come in very handy for middle-of-the-night visits by Inara).  Here's a couple pictures of the rooms (the tenants were packing up so they had their clothes and boxes out). You can see the big closet and also the gorgeous trim around the window (which we are of course going to get checked for lead):

 

Okay, this is my personal favorite part - the attic.  It's not much to look at now...but I think it will be in time.  I have this unnatural obsession with converted attics and I think I would have bought this house just for this beautiful space:

 

I forgot to tell you about the foyer. Incidentally, how do YOU say "foyer"?  Most Canadians say: "foy-yay" (like how you'd say it in French) and I think it always surprises me to hear it said: "foy-yer".  I wonder if it's an American thing.  Anyway, the foyer is surprisingly large for a house of this size.  It has two big windows and a refrigerator in it.  I'm not even kidding you (sorry about the bad picture, I was clearly having a moment of spazz):

I have no idea why it was there, and I'm hoping it's not still there when we move in.  Maybe they put it there to illustrate the sheer disproportionate hugeness of the foy-yay? At least they tried to make it blend into the surroundings by growing a plant of some sort on top of it.  Or not.

And that's it!  That's our house!!  There's definitely work to be done and I'm kind of stressing about the inspection next week...but that's it.  We close in early April and hope to move in soon thereafter, depending on how much work we want or need to do before we move all of our junk in.  And I already love it and just can't wait to call it our home.

Thanks for putting up with me, peeps.  You rock.

Wanna Know What We Did This Weekend?

Nothing much, really.  Other than taking a road trip to another state and almost ruining a surprise for a dear friend at her going away party, there was the very small matter of us BUYING A HOUSE!!!!!!

Heh heh heh - you totally didn't see that one coming, did ya?  Well it's true...we did!  It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision but it somehow feels like it's taken forever to happen at the same time.  Does that make any sense at all?  I hope it does!

I really think that buying your first house is a lot like having a baby.  There's the nervous time where you're not sure if it's actually going to happen, the waiting around expectantly, and then the moment you will never forget as long as you live - The Moment Your Offer Is Accepted - which is a lot like giving birth (It's a boy!  It's a girl!  It's a colonial!  It's a foursquare! Oh my frog, it's OURS!).

Of course when it finally does happen you are sort of shellshocked and delirious and manic and scared out of your wits all at the same time because what the heck are you supposed to do with this HOUSE?  You're not ready for the responsibility!  And it's not like you can give it back if you don't like it!  How will you know what it needs? What if it doesn't like you and it leaks all the time?  Or cracks its foundation just to spite you?  Do you need to take a course in positive house parenting?  Gentle garage discipline?  Attachment attic renovation?  Ack!

Oh, and don't even get me started on how annoying first-time home buyers are, not unlike like their first-time parent counterparts (believe me, I've been both - so I now speak from experience).  We both talk incessantly about our new additions: "Funny weather we're having today, right?  Speaking of the weather...do you want to talk about my NEW HOUSE?".  Or, we take an insane number of pictures and walk around going: "oooh, come take a look at my pretty little housie!  Isn't it just the CUTEST thing EVER?!?"  Don't be surprised if a first-time home buyer has replaced all the family pictures in their wallet with pictures of their new house. Or worse yet, pictures of their kids standing RIGHT IN FRONT of said house.  I'm telling you, we're all just nuts.  It's best you avoid us completely, and don't make direct eye contact.

So, I could go on ad nauseam about how excited we are, how we can't wait to make this our home, how big the square footage is, what style, the year it was built, it's features, how much we love the neighborhood and how we're looking forward to all the fun things we can do there - but that would be boring.  Surely nobody cares about all that, or about all the pictures we took.  Nah, just forget it.

Okay, I totally lied.

 THIS IS OUR NEW HOUSE AND I AM SO FRIGGING EXCITED ABOUT IT!

The End (for now).

Further Proof That I Am About As Mature As A Twelve Year-Old Boy

As if you needed more proof.  But even better, this is going to prove to you that I'm not the only one.

It all started during the Super Bowl, when this Volkswagen commercial came on:



Which was all fine and dandy - except that IT WAS WRONG.  This is totally NOT how you are supposed to play the Punchbuggy game, and everyone knows it.  I don't know what VW was even thinking when they slapped that poor excuse of an ad together.  Pfffffft.

My 12 year-old boy alter-ego soon decided to protest.  Something HAD to be done about this.  Lucky for me, I have friends that share my world view (and my resistance to maturing).  Enter Matt, creator of The Proper Rules to The Punchbuggy Game.  Not only did he perfect the system, but he even took pictures of Slugbugs in and around the greater Seattle area to illustrate.  I have to say, his captions are by far the best part:

 This is your average 1 point Beetle. Such color!

  

 Notice the fancy custom paint job and blue wheels? It's still only three points.

Fantastic!  Matt, you rock (which you already knew) - thanks for indulging me and my VW Bug obsession.  I absolutely love that you can play this game with your kids (because everyone knows it's good family fun to teach your kid to whop you when you least expect it), and Matt was kind enough to include "kid-friendly" rules such as:

"New Beetle convertibles are worth two points. Only the convertibles are worth two points. I can’t stress this enough. If you play with children they will argue the merits of purple flames on a slugbug and how that should be worth an extra point, but it’s not."

Matt is also Dad to the very lovely and insanely-smart Isabel, who I'm sure has tested out his rules enough times now for him to completely perfect them.  I can almost hear her debating weather or not spoilers and racing stripes count for extra points (which they DO NOT, thankyouverymuch).  Sorry, kiddo.

I can't wait to play this new (and CORRECT) version of the Punchbuggy game with my family.  Poor kids aren't going to know what hit 'em. Snicker snicker snicker...No Punchbacks!

You can check out Matt's Punchbuggy website in all it's glory here.