What a Girl Wants

Tomorrow I'll be wasting a realtor friend's precious time to look at a house.  But not just any old house.  This my friends, is my dream house.  Picture the year 1997 when I was about to turn 26 years old and had my first "real" job and was so proud of myself I decided I wanted to buy a house.  This was the house I fell in love with.  As soon as I walked in it felt like home and I knew I didn't want to look at another house, this was it.  All I had to do was convince my stepfather to help me with the downpayment.  And he did!  And then during a memorable trip to New York City he decided to loudly humiliate me during dinner at a classy restaurant and I sulked out embarrassed with my mom knowing the house wasn't going to happen.  My dream died that day.

And now it's 15 years later and every once in a while when we are driving through this neighborhood, a very odd but good short cut to the beach, I ask Brian to drive by the house so I can see how it's doing.  And we did that very thing on Sunday on the way to brunch.  It looked a mess and had papers taped to the door.  We all know what this means, it's in foreclosure.

The thought of foreclosure has never made me smile in my life but my face broke out into a huge grin and I leapt from the car to read the sheet and stare in the window in the door.  I could make out the entry archway, it has an entry archway, no wonder I fell in love.

Brian called our realtor friend later that day who's agreed to show it to us tomorrow.  Everything has gone full circle.  It's 15 years later and I still can't buy the house.  I mean, I don't think we could.  Maybe if we put our house on the market and it actually sold (unlikely) and sold for enough to give us a down payment (unlikely) and then my mom would have to cosign (unlikely).  Sigh.

The worst part is I could buy it for less than what my offer was accepted for in 1997.  And mortgage rates are down. Our payment would be half what we pay now, if you can believe that.  But like the house, we've suffered from the economy too and I don't known when we'll ever be on our feet again enough to move.  But I was looking at schools for our hopeful future foster/adopt and our local Elementary school is about as bad as you can get.  93% of kids qualify for free lunches.  The test scores are almost half the county's average.  If we moved it would be a better school.  If we moved we'd have a third bedroom for an office.  It has a giant screened in porch.  It has a detached garage with electricity (I could paint furniture!).  It's my dream and it's right there.

It's the saddest thing in the world but I'm going to be so happy tomorrow.

Update: Rescheduled viewing for Saturday.  Oh well.

Chafing Solutions

I'm one of those weirdos who don't even own a pair of jeans.  In fact, I rarely wear pants and if I do they are yoga pants.  I'm a dress kind of girl.  But being a chubby girl living in a hot climate brings a very uncomfortable problem.  I'm talking about thigh chafing.  I know, it's such an embarrassing topic.

I have tried all the popular options from using my deodorant on my thighs to baby powder to a chafing gel designed for this very problem.  Baby powder was my favorite, despite the cloud of white powder, I love the smell of baby powder.  The problem is my sensitive skin.  You won't believe this but baby powder clogged pores and gave me bumps on my thighs. 

I recently found out about Monistat Chafing gel and I thought it was the perfect solution.  During our trip to DC we did a lot of walking it and it was a very hot weekend.  Every time we stopped for a bathroom break, I'd reapply but I guess because it was TOO HOT it really wasn't doing the trick for me.  It would dry right up in about a minute and I'd be back to square one.  Plus, who wants to rub something on their thighs every half hour.

Enter, Jockey Skimmies. 

They kind of look like Spanx but they are not tight and they are very breathable. They don't bind your waist (or roll down) or squeeze in your thighs, they are very comfortable to wear, like wearing tights that go to your knees.  I'm a new lady with these shorts.  I've been wearing them for a couple of weeks now.  I will say one day it was blistering hot outside and we were walking more than usual and I noticed the skimmies would rid up a little and I'd have to pull them back down.  Also because it was hot and I was wearing underwear, skimmies, and a maxi dress of polyester jersey I was about to have a heat stroke and had to change clothes when I got home.  But every other day that I've worn them I haven't had a problem.  I don't even think about them.  They are a great solution for me and I wanted to share with you.

The downside is they only go up to XXL and although I find the XXL to work for me, I did have the riding up problem on our super hot day and maybe a bigger size would have helped that.  I wish these came in Plus Sizes, they are designed for us in mind, it really doesn't make any sense.  But they are very stretchy and I find the XXL does the trick for this 2X gal.

I'm not sponsored in this post, I wish I was, so I could do a give away or something fun, but I wanted to let you guys know about any solutions or great products I find so here you go.  Let me know if they work for you or if you have other chafing solutions.

Anyhoo...

Sorry it's been so quiet over here.

We made a huge error a few days ago.  We heard a kitten under the house and after various attempts covering a couple of days to see the kitten and feel out the situation Brian decided to go under the house.  It's very tight and scary under there so I felt pretty bad.  Then he made it all the way from the back of the house where the entry is, to the front of the house, where the kitten was and stuck the kitten through the hole in the foundation (if you recall a few years ago the tenant living here stuck her hand through the hole in the foundation and rescued Fox). 

The kitten was way too small.  One eye was shut from conjunctivitis.  Obviously, even if I though the kitten could survive under my care, and that would be a huge question mark, with all the foster/adoption things coming up I think that would be a mistake.  So five minutes later Brian is showering and hacking up god knows what in the shower and I'm crying holding a 2 week old kitten who's sucking on my hand.

Luckily after much panicking we found the mom cat and even luckier she took the kitten back.  Not sure where she took the kitten, probably back to the same spot.  I don't have high hopes for this kitten, but after last summer when EVERY KITTEN DIED except Grayson who we rescued, I don't ever have high hopes for kittens.  We'll just have to wait a month or so and see if he shows up.  That said, all four kittens from the winter group made it, even after disappearing for a couple of months, they all came back.

I've been bottling up some pain lately since finding out my brother's (the other brother) girlfriend is pregnant.  I wasn't as emotional as I usually am with such news and I think I thought I had "grown."  But I was bawling holding that kitten, it was a little too much.  I think what hurt the most is somehow my mom trying to justify it by saying they didn't want to be like me, since she's in her young 30s and this might be her last chance.  I really don't want to think that people are looking at my life and thinking, jeez, I don't want to be like her.  Even if you feel that way, for pete's sake, don't tell me!

That really hurt my feelings. 

I also tried explained that what happened to me is an anomaly.   Most women do just fine having babies right up to 40, no need to rush, no reason to panic.  Every person I know with infertility issues has been able to get pregnant and have babies.  I'm the weirdo who couldn't.  But it's like telling someone, sure I stayed out late and now I'm a vampire, it doesn't mean you'll be a vampire if you stay out after dark.  People are too busy holding a cross up to your face to listen to what you are saying.  Shut up you crazy vampire!  I'll never be like you!

Anyhoo...

I'm trying to distract myself by planning a Halloween dinner party.  I want to keep my budget low for this.  I spent way too much on the last Oscar party and last year's Halloween Brian's costume got out of control (and didn't need to).  I'm trying to be smarter about it this year.  I enjoyed the French Les Miserables theme for the Oscar party and want to do more themed parties so for Halloween I'm going with the Hunger Games.  As things progress I'll share more, I do have a pinterest board set up if you are curious the direction I'm going.

My Kid's FIFTY! Fifty Years Old!

If there's one thing I don't like it's adult haircuts on kids.  It bugs me so much more than it should.  Case in point, this little cutie whose parents wanted her to have the same hair cut as Nancy Grace.

Toddlers just don't look right to me with hairstyles for the 50+ crowd.  Maybe it's just me, who knows?

The one that's really been bugging me is the Humira commercial.  The mom has long curly hair and they show her braiding the other daughter's long hair but then there's the other daughter with the crazy middle aged bob.

Are you still showing your kids how to brush their teeth when they are seven years old?  I thought they'd get the hang of it at some point and do it one their own.  At least she's not screaming at her mom for washing her jeans.  I want to bunch that girl.*

*Really helping my foster future.

Updated News

Way on back in May Brian and I finally made a decision to pursue Foster/Adopt.  Do not get too excited just yet.  This is a long process and I'm not sure what's even going to happen.  It could have the potential to be outstanding but it could also be a lot of work for nothing.  I wasn't even going to mention it here but I've been thinking about it and I think it would be good to have a record.  Maybe someone will find me who wants information on what it's like.  I don't know, I wish I could find more information.  People get very hush-hush during the adoption process.

So to catch you up, let's give you a quick rundown to the present.  We met with a social worker at our house on May 14.  He answered any questions that we had and gave us an initial application.  He took some notes on us and told us he would get back with us about this class we have to take.  The application would have been pretty quick.  I had to list some financial stuff that took a little while but the hard part was we needed 3 references who weren't family members.  So we had to contact our friends to see if they would be our references.  This took a couple days to have returned phone calls and addresses and so forth.  Everyone was really happy to help.  I mailed off the application and a week later I got confirmation that the package was received and something was being sent to our references, just so you know, they check those out.  One June 10 we were told the class dates for this quarter and they unfortunately inferred with our annual vacation to the Adirondacks.  Bummer.  We had a whole extra quarter to wait for the class.

August 7 we had another meeting at our house.  This one we were given an outline for our Life Story and given forms to bring for fingerprinting, that we will probably do next week.  More questions were answered.  Looks like the next class in the beginning of October.  Waiting and more waiting.

I started working on my outline and jeez, it's really hard.  I'm (obviously) an over-sharer but I don't think the point here is to share every terrible thing that ever happened to you.  Maybe it is.  I feel like everyone has had bad things happen to them in their childhood.  Certainly no one's childhood was perfect?  Was it?  Brian's life isn't picture perfect but on paper his is much better than mine.  He has older siblings that he can use for most influential people and worst memories things like getting a broken leg.  I don't have that kind of stuff.  Every member of my family has made catastrophic errors in my upbringing.  I made it out fine, I'm a good person all and all, and relatively happy all things considered.  But how do I talk about who influenced me when I don't feel influenced by them and I'm not like any of them.  Oh sure, I have traits, lots of them, but fundamentally I would never do the things my parents have done, the decisions they have made, and the way they treated me.  I don't hold grunges, but I've got this stupid question and I have no idea how to answer it without looking like I had the worst childhood ever.  So anyway, I answered everything and am waiting to go back and revisit it where I can mold it into something prettier.

I mean is my childhood going to hold me back from being a mom?  How much does it influence the kind of mom I will be?  I don't feel like it would but why have questions like these?

Stresses

I think it was walking the 4 blocks back to the subway station in DC after visiting the zoo in 6000 degree heat and a blister broke on my pinky toe and it felt like my toe was on fire and each step felt like when you poke a fire and the embers rise up and I imagined all the dead terrible people in the world living on my toe because that certainly was hell and I didn't think I was going to make it but after the subway ride and the 2 blocks back to the hotel (I know I'm a baby, but the zoo was big and hilly and hot) where I limped the whole way and finally could investigated what the hell I did to my toe and saw a blister that covered about 80% of my toe, my life started falling apart a little bit.

Two weeks later we went on vacation and we hadn't recovered financially from the (mostly work related) DC trip but it was one of those things where we just had to suck it up.  And thing are slowly improving financially but I when people say money doesn't give you happiness, I don't think they ever owned a small business.  They don't really know what the waves and crashes of finances can do to a person (or family).

Between that and the insuffering heat of both upstate New York (I expected more from you NY!) and home where it felt like I was in a sauna coming home from Walgreens last night, the weather is sweating, the physical toll is driving me crazy.  The stress ills make my stupid inferno blister feel like a cake walk to migraines and incurable women ails.  I think the stress will peak this weekend when I drive my mom to Florida to visit her aging parents and I have no idea how it's going to go but something like my mom trying to give me directions when she can't even drive herself to Florida because she would accidentally end up in Colorado (are there supposed to be mountains in Florida?).  I have tried to memorize the directions because between her telling me I'm going the wrong way and trying to get my stupid iphone to recognize where the hell I am, I think I might jump out and get shot by some neighborhood watchman who thinks I'm the abominable snowman.

I also don't want her to cry everyday.  I don't know how to not sound like an ass but my brain works in a way that I want to think that next year we'll be making this same trip to see my grandparents and everything is okay.  I don't know what I'm walking into with health issues, the strange thing about my family is you can't get a straight answer.  It could be anything from my grandmother making chocolate chip cookies with a pretty apron on to being bed ridden on a hospital bed and a catheter.  What I'm told is "she has good days and bad days." WTF does that mean????

In my mind my mom is giving me a hard time about directions, the music is bad, and she's smoking too much but the hotel is awesome, and she doesn't ask me for money (one less person to owe), we hang out at my grandparents' pool and cook spaghetti and brownies and I get a tan and finish my book and then she gives me a hard time about directions on the way home.  But I have no idea what's really going to happen and until I do I don't think I'll ever feel better.

End of the Debacle

My ebay selling debacle got worse.  The man finally received his package and the camera was not inside.  It seems the time is was sitting god knows where someone opened it and removed the contents, resealed it and mailed it anyway.  I wasn't really sure how to handle the situation, especially considering the guy was so irrate and I was so tired of dealing with him and honestly, my first instinct told me the same guy who has been emailing me 1000 times about where's my camera was the dick who would tell me it was empty and keep the camera.

I called ebay to see what rights sellers have and they told me to have the buyer open a case.  And that was not helping.  I was on vacation with spotty internet service trying to read updates at a cafe with terrible wi-fi, nerve racked and pissed off, and nothing was happening and the guy was still freaking out.  At some point I guess ebay was supposed to get involved but it just went on and on and nothing happened but the guy continuing to send emails.  I just refunded him to make the pain stop.

I went back to Off.ice D.epot to see if I could get more information and they said there had been 3 claims that week!  So it's pretty apparent to me someone at Off.ice D.epot is snatching packages.  They filed the insurance claim for me and I'm so completely doubtful I'll get the insurance money, you have no idea.

The moral is, I'm never selling anything on ebay again.  Thanks ebay.  Thanks USPS.  Thanks Off.ice De.pot.

In other news, man I'm such a weirdo about my house.  I do not like to have my house sat.  This was the first year that instead of having someone come over twice a day to take care of the cats, we had someone live here.  And it's not a privacy thing, it's a cleaning thing.  I'm so particular about everything and the correct way to use something and I want my house to look like it did when I left, though I realize a week's worth of four cats is going to have consequences, I just want everything else to stay exactly the same.  I don't want to worry if the white enamel sink is going to get scratched or the washer will grow mold because it's not left open to dry after a load, etc, etc, etc... I must be the only person in the world like this.  I'm a crazy person.