Twelve days in a flash

Today, my mother- and father-in-law left for home. They had been visiting us in our new home since last Saturday--the same day my sister-in-law and her husband left after one solid week of staying with us. That was twelve solid days of company, and it really went by very quickly.

What is amazing to me is how much more convenient is was having a guest room, instead of blowing up the inflatable mattress and sticking people in the family room. That really stunk. But no more. Now we have an extra bedroom with its own private bathroom. It sure makes a difference--to everyone.

Some of the most poignant highlights from our visit were getting on the wrong bus in downtown Chicago. Also, we got to eat out a bit, and really dig into Chicago-style deep dish pizza, which is not good for you, unfortunately. Little Jack was producing all sorts of laughs with his correcting the adults when they say the name of his new preschool all pompous and fancy. Then this morning, Grandpa and Jack were by the train table, where Jack was telling his grandpa all about the trains, the track and the stops. Upon showing Grandpa the little stone quarry set with Nelson the truck, Grandpa noted, "you have a great vocabulary!" and Jack immediately corrected him. "No, it's a quarry!"

PMDD

I have wondered numerous times if my mood is getting worse with age. So has my husband. It used to be a "week before the week," as we so pointedly put it when I suddenly became a little more difficult to live with. Now that week is stretching to two weeks. I mean, the "week" where I turn into an evil witch. I like to imagine a line graph, showing the rise of Crazy Bitch Hormone Levels, and how that relates to Mike's trips out of town, or Grey Goose purchases.

So I made sure to mention all this to my doctor today, and she nodded knowingly, looked at my chart, double-checked my age because the SpongeBob tattoo on my forearm really threw her for a loop, and she agreed. I'm a poster child for PMDD. That's Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

No, I don't really like the sound of it either, but reading the laundry list of symptoms and coming to terms with all that is even worse. The good news is, I can take medication for this. The bad news is, it may or may not work. We'll just have to wait and see.

I feel a little better, having talked to her at length about this condition, and I was even able to laugh a bit this afternoon upon realizing I went through this examination with two Scooby-Doo bandaids strategically placed on my back right where the ol' bra strap was torturing me yesterday. I completely forgot about them. Well, maybe I made the doctor's day. It's probably not every day she sees a forty-year-old patient with SpongeBob and Scooby-Doo adornments on her body.

A New Chapter

I've been absent from blogging mainly because of moving.

No, that's not true. Let's be honest here. It's all because of Facebook, or Crackbook, as some like to call it. It is very addicting...

However, the summer has been riddled with showings to sell our home in Michigan. I still can't get over how spotless that place was. With TWO young boys and a big dog, I was able to keep it spotless. However, if a bar graph were used here to illustrate, one would see a dramatic increase in shouting and cursing under my breath. Clean, showable house=stressed out momma.

But the house sold and Mike and I made one serious house-hunting trip to the western suburbs of Chicago to find a new abode. On one of those days that weekend, I believe we walked through twenty-some homes. It was exhausting. By the time we were driving home, I was bitchy beyond belief. Not my usual chipper self.

We ended up buying a home, and what seemed like two weeks later moved in literally the day after the people moved out. We needed to get acclimated to this area before school began, which was August 26.

I won't lie: this has been a stressful move. It was hard to leave our friends in Michigan, and even harder to move farther away from all the family in Michigan. But the fact is, for Mike to do his job properly and still have a family, we needed to move. And now I can breathe a little easier, that almost all the boxes have been unpacked, and we've already painted a few rooms. It's really starting to feel like "our" house, instead of the Gale's house, which our new neighbors refer to it. They don't have a new frame of reference yet, but they're getting it. What once was a quiet street is now suffering a bit of noise pollution from my children fighting. There is also a steady stream of children in and out of our new place, which is fine. We are glad the kids are meeting other kids. And I most certainly stunned a few neighbors by wielding a drill, level, stud-finder and hammer to get the garage set up with hardware on the walls to hang our tools and stuff. The previous owners, I kid you not, did not have anything hung up on the garage walls. There was never a sign of a lawn mower, trimmer, camp chair, or push broom. There is now. And only seven extra "mistake" holes. Not bad, for a girl.

Now we are happily awaiting the arrival of our first houseguests, Mike's sister and her husband. They are taking trains all the way out here. I can't wait to pick them up at the station on Saturday. Jack, our resident train lover, is even more excited.

So, with that little update, I shall sign off for now, and I hope to have more free time to write now that at least one child is in school. I have so much swirling around in my head that I want to get on "paper."

it's coming, I swear!

Tomorrow I shall post! I promise! First full day of school! Yay!

Some with more than four letters...

I chose a different story out of the Sesame Street ABC and 123 story book to read to Jack tonight. He was a little disappointed I didn't choose the old standby, but as I explained,

"Jack, Mommy's not going to read the Fable of Fat Fireman Foster tonight because my mouth gets tired saying all those "F" words."

Addictions

Dear Bed, Bath and Beyond:

Please hire me at $20/hour so I can continue to support my, um, habit, of drinking coffee. In particular, BOLD coffees available for my Keurig.

Sincerely,
Addicted to Strong Coffee in Michigan



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My in-laws happily (or so I'd like to believe) followed me and my family into a craft store yesterday because I just needed a yarn fix. I'm not into non-big-box yarns yet, although I know I'll eventually get there. So I quickly found the yarn aisles, and while dodging various skeins that were mysteriously launched from adjacent aisles by my husband, my father-in-law said, "Jenny, you are ADDICTED! We need to get you in a meeting or something!"

And I replied, "I DO go to meetings. Every Saturday. I think it's making the problem worse!" I was referring to the Kalamazoo Knit and Crochet Meetup I attend nearly every Saturday, no matter what. I find that I never want to go out of town now, because I'd rather meet up with my fiber peeps. Is that wrong?

Sweat-er Shop

Here's the finished yellow baby cardi and matching tam.



I also managed to crank out a crocheted cardigan for baby in 12 mos. size that is awaiting its zipper. At first, this bouclé was difficult to work with, but after a while, I was crocheting by feel and it was working up quite quickly. The only problem I had, and at the time it seemed like a Major Problem, was that the three large balls of bouclé I purchased were not the same. I thought they were, but since they were clearance yarns at Michael's and only one had a ball band, and I was probably in a hurry, and did I mention my eyesight is only so-so? So, I finished up the body and one sleeve in solid periwinkle blue, grabbed another ball to begin the second sleeve and that is when I noticed my blunder. So, I had to go purchase a ball of dark blue bouclé and decided to do alternating stripes in the sleeves and hood. Here is the end result.


Thank goodness it all worked out, because I was discouraged and came close to ditching the project. It's very soft and cuddly. It is decidedly "boy" but who knows. My niece and her husband are not going to find out the sex of their baby, so I may have to make a pink one. ;-) Can't wait to see it on my new great niece or nephew coming this fall!

Here are some more highlights from our life:
1. A robin has nested on our front porch and her babies hatched the other day. Photo coming soon.
2. A duck has nested behind our garage and hopefully hers will hatch soon! Can't wait to see them waddling out from beneath their bleeding heart refuge.
3. Connor made the 90 second club at school (100 multiplication problems correctly answered in 90 seconds) and brought home a deer skull from his teacher. Thank you, Mr. S.
4. We had two showings yesterday and hope to hear from the realtor soon about a GREAT offer!
5. We discovered you can catch fish with a hunk of colby-jack.