Constant State of Clean April 30, 2008

Today marks two full weeks since our house has been “on the market.” A and the boys think I have a high standard of clean most of the time which is not to say that our house is never a mess, but we are speaking in generalities here. Every day before we leave for work, we do a sweep through in case the house will be shown. One appointment arrived an hour earlier than I thought and so I shoved EVERYTHING into the dishwasher because I was cooking dinner at the time.

At least now, these boys of mine now have a good comparison to my standard of clean. We have evolved to what was considered clean previously (a couple cups on the counter next to the sink) has now become dirty.  The other day, A and J came home and a neighbor wanted to have a look. J’s comment to A was “the house is dirty…I don’t think I rinsed my toothpaste from the sink.” As it turned out, this neighbor has come back twice to look and last time informed me that “she had been to the bank.” It will be unfortunate if we pay 6% to the realtor when we could have put a for sale by owner sign out front and sold it just as easily. However, we will feel fortunate to have sold the house.

We’ve spent the last two weekends looking at about 16 houses. It wasn’t until number 14 that we actually saw a house that we felt “This is it!” We aren’t ready to commit yet, but we stew about it every night. It is in the suburb next to the preferred suburb and because it is metro, four miles means 12-15 minutes. Have I mentioned that I HATE traffic??? Not that many people particularly enjoy traffic, but I also am not crazy about suburbs, so I’ve got to have some balance somewhere.

When we started this house search, I stated up front that I didn’t like split levels. I grew up in one and it isn’t that I necessarily disliked it, it just brings back sad nostalgia in leaving it. Of course, THIS IS IT house is a split level that we both LOVE. It is very much like my cousin Julie’s home although she has a great three season porch off the back and this one does not.

A and I are racking up over 200 miles a day in commutes, so we are getting a bit concerned as the price of gas here today is $3.49 a gallon. Plus, we just had to put in $1000 into one of the vehicles for regular maintenance…well, $700 was regular maintenance and $262 was for a new windshield wiper motor. Yes, that is right, a windshield wiper motor cost $262. Actually, that is the cost for a rebuilt one ($160 plus labor) as a new one is $300 plus labor. Who knew?

Tulips are blooming, but the daffodils haven’t shown up…don’t know what is wrong because they bloomed last year. We’ve mowed the lawn twice, and by we I mean A. It will probably be two more weekends before I plant potted flowers because two nights ago we had a hard freeze. I replanted several of our flower beds last fall, so I am excited to see how they will turn out…Iris are appearing where they never were before.

$50 cakes April 21, 2008

Well, as it turns out, our cake went for $50 which was the most popular price. Only a couple cakes went for more and one was a bid-off between a grandpa and a grandma!

There were more than 30 cakes which took FOREVER to auction off, but it was fun. Each boy determined the starting price and called the going once, going twice, SOLD!  Jack wanted Cake #8 a volcano cake with simulated lava of baking soda, jello and lemon juice or Cake #28 which was Darth Vader. He decided that we would go for the volcano, and it was very exciting.

I was a bit shocked that these cakes were going for so much money. Many parents were priced right out of the auction, but the good thing was that ALL the money raised will be divided equally between all boys in the pack. These “credits” are used to buy-down the cost of summer camps.

Back to the 1950’s – cut-up cakes and more April 14, 2008

I’ve been gone awhile…literally. I went out to DC for work – our national conference-and just got back last night about 7pm. I hugged and played with Jack until 9pm, then set out to work on the cake for the cub scout cake auction tonight. Money raised by your cake goes into your child’s camp account…Have you seen the cost of cub scout camp?? Needless to say, I went all out.

Cake Inspiration: My BFF Jakki’s mom cut up cake pattern book from 40 years ago. Sidebar – A cut up cake is created when you take a 9×13 baked cake, cut it into specific sizes and shapes, then rearrange them to create something far more interesting than a 9×13 cake! This can also be done with round cakes, too – remember the bunny cake you made in home economics?? Here is an example of the bunny cake and here is a more creative example of a hula girl.

Many years ago, Jakki gave me the pattern for the car cake which I never used because the opportunity never presented itself. Well, now that we are Down and Derby-ing with the cub scouts, the occasion has arrived!

I took some liberty with the cake…Aaron suggested we make the front wheel smaller than the back to better display the car design, and I added a driver. (I will have Aaron scan the pattern so you can compare it to my version.)

Thanks to the birthday present my mom gave me this year…every single frosting tip imaginable along with every color paste practically, I was able to create green grass (accentuated with green flake coconut),
brown road (accentuated by cake crumbles), gray/black wheels (customized red hot in the center), and a black and red flame car (accentuated by red and black sugar). It was a lot of fun to create.

Here is a 3-D side view version.

Stay tuned for the auction amount. I must say that I will be disappointed if we don’t make the top three entries.

Don’t let the popcorn distract you April 7, 2008

I was stumbling and found this great post on what to do when your child throws a tantrum. I seriously wish I would have thought of this because I really think think this would have worked! My J was/is as stubborn as I am which during a tantrum was a complete curse. I continue to believe that this persistence will serve him well one day.

The other night J and I were eating our bedtime snacks…he had a popsicle and I had popcorn. He says to me, “I need a drink. Will you get me one?” “Sure” as I continue to eat my popcorn and watch tv. About two minutes goes by, and J says to me, “Don’t let the popcorn distract you” and he takes the bag of popcorn away from me!

Monday nights are J and mom nights because A has meetings every Monday night for work. We get to eat things like cereal or oatmeal for dinner because those things just don’t fly when A is around. We hang out and go over the Monday folder and the homework for the week as well. Then it is Cub Scouts and home to read a bit before bed.

Tonight, we fit in a game of Skip-Bo which is a game that we’ve been playing for a while, but J is really enjoying it lately. He is getting really good which is why he is enjoying it. He won me fair and square tonight…I had two cards left and he snuck up and got me!

Last week J asked A to pull out his eighth loose tooth…J’s favorite tooth trick is to point the tooth at you. It is soooo gross! A took a kleenex and grabbed the tooth (the kleenex adds extra grip). A held the tooth while J went backward, but we were all convinced it didn’t work (or so we thought). After about 20 seconds, J realized that his tongue was NOT touching his tooth. Sure enough, the tooth was sitting in A’s kleenex. A, being the tooth fairy reminder, properly reminded me before I fell asleep about duty so we had no repeat tooth fairy mishaps the next morning.

I’ve been watching Here Come the Newlyweds diligently since its beginning. (Thank god something interesting was on during all those damn reruns.) I was hoping the Moutras would win and sure enough, they did! Not only did two great couples end up in the finale for the money (the Frieses SUCK!), but the Moutras won with total class! The voted off couples voted for who they wanted to eliminate – they voted as individuals. The Moutras won these gold envelopes that they could use to eliminate a person’s vote. It would have been a guess on their part if they were to eliminate someone who they thought voted against them or for them. After discussing the options, they decided to leave the votes as they were. It was classy! I LOVE the Moutras!

I am getting VERY excited that The Office is returning Thursday. I cannot wait!!! Unfortunately, I won’t be near a tv, but at least the thought that The Office continues is enough. Last week, they had about 3 hours of episodes all in a row. It was GREAT!! Just seeing those commercials with Dwight KILLS me! That show is so funny…the only bad thing is that when J watches it, he talks the WHOLE time – asking questions about what he doesn’t understand or repeating what was funny. UGH! It is frustrating and cool at the same time – you want to clunk him on the head or adore his sense of humor.

One last thing…we watched Atonement last week. Neither of us knew anything about it besides that it was set during WWII. We watched this over the course of two nights. The first night we watched about an hour and fifteen minutes which was BORING!!!! OMG. The longer I watched, the more I despised that little sister.

We finished the last 45 minutes on night two and SHOCK!!! It made the whole first night worth it…I even felt slightly bad about badmouthing the movie at work.