where i've been

We finally actually listed our house last week... and had our first showing a day later. Tonight will be our seventh showing in five days. Wow! Now the rush is on to find our next house, though... we're looking hard but everyone keeps beating us to the good ones. Soon, though, I know we'll find a wonderful place for us to spend the next however-many years!

So if I've been absent from here, it's because I'm crazy busy trying to keep the house clean, Peanut happy (and without baby gates up, I can't leave her alone for a minute... but the house looks so much bigger and more appealing without gates)... and trying to find us a new house!

Talk to you all after the chaos!

Win a Quilt!N

Nope. I did NOT have time to make a quilt and raffle it off to my adoring readers. But somebody did! Go enter yourself, and do me a favor and tell them I sent you!

WFMW - gosh it's been a while!

Well, it's been pretty much forever since I had anything to contribute to a WFMW! We are currently prepping our house to put it on the market. While it's true that the cost to effect ratio is fabulous for paint, (meaning that it doesn't cost that much, but it has a really great effect on your house), it takes a lot of work. Here's a couple other cheap and quick fixes that I have found to be really effective in making your house look fresher and up-to-date.

• Change out your switch and outlet plate covers. These cost me a whopping 39 cents each at my hardware store. They take just a couple of minutes to replace an entire room's worth, but even if you didn't think they were that bad to start, you'll be shocked at how much new covers freshen up a space.
• If your floor / wall vent covers are really gross, and I don't just mean dirty but corroded, they cost about $5 at your hardware store. Again, a screwdriver and a couple of minutes, and you've got a quick freshening for the whole room.
• Clean your windows. I know, I know, everybody says to do it before you sell your house - and even though I thought my windows were pretty good, I cleaned them and was amazed at how much more sunshine it seemed to let in.
• Take out most of your stuff. I'm not talking "eat pizza off paper plates while sitting on the floor," but by removing clutter from walls, furniture and even removing extra furniture, your rooms will look so much bigger. Of course, you need somewhere to put this stuff, but maybe you have a friend with a garage you could borrow.
• Take out a ton of stuff from your linen closets / kitchen cabinets, etc. I'm going to be living with the bare minimum of spices, etc., for a while, which makes my cabinet look like there's actually room for them. Usually, my hundred different spices (exaggeration!) are jammed into a small space, and I have to paw through to find the one I want. Now my top twenty are neatly arranged in the space - when I eventually get bigger kitchen cabinets, my hundred can be neatly arranged, but for now I'm going to do everything I can to make my cabinets look gigantic!

I may add some more today as I think o f them, but I hope this helps!

Sunny Day

Really, doesn't this look comfortable? A sunny spot to sprawl out and soak up some rays? I have to tell you, Peanut was very entertained by this! Although she kept signing "dog, cat, dog, cat" because she was very confused as to what it was. I guess the sign for squirrel just hasn't sunk in yet!

Was It Worth It?

Oh my gooooodness.

An hour of nausea and a few minutes of retching in the bathroom - just to discover that at the bottom of the last few days' garbage lay my drivers license, ATM card, and a few other treasures from my wallet. Did I tell you that for the last five or six days, we've been fighting off a stomach bug? Everyone else seems to be past it, except for the lingering nausea and heightened awareness of smells that I got stuck with (and no, not pregnant!)... and I also got stuck with the job of digging through garbage!

Peanut loves to play with my wallet. My Discover card has a picture of a chimpanzee on it, and she just thinks that is the coolest thing ever. It will entertain her for an hour if I let her take everything out of my wallet, put it back in, etc... Except yesterday, she decided to take a handful of stuff and THROW IT OUT.

So now I'm going to be collecting all those fake cards that come with credit card offers, and go get a dollar wallet from the dollar store, and let her throw those out to her heart's content!!

Imelda Marcos, here we come!

Peanut is obsessed with shoes. Seriously. She wakes up in the morning, and the first thing (after nursing) is to ask to have shoes on. Every day. Since they are the prelude to her favorite activity, Going Outside, shoes have their own appeal.

She has three pairs of shoes - shiny black patent leather ones, squeaky brown sneakers, and girly pink sneaker / sandals. She likes them all, but especially the squeaky ones.

It is not unusual to have six shoe changes in a day. We cycle through them all, trying to see which one works best with the outfit. At least, that's what I tell myself. I think she just likes watching me drop everything to hunker down and help her change her shoes.

I just said "not now, Peanut, soon..." because I was reading the internet, so she went in her room, opened her shoe/sock drawer, and brought me ALL SIX OF HER SHOES. She is now sitting next to me, unvelcroing the velcro ones and prepping them for wearing. She's not very good at putting them on herself - they precariously balance off her big toe, usually!

All right, I'd better go. Since she's wearing a pink hoodie and red sweatpants, I'm going to guess that black patent leather will go best with this outfit!

oof

We've had a rough last few days here with a stomach bug. My parents were supposed to visit us on Saturday (and help us paint our kitchen) and then we were all going to my brother's and sister-in-law's house to witness the baptism of my newest niece - and Mister and I are her godparents!

But none of that happened. A couple movies, a lot of sleep, and a heck of a lot of family snuggle time happened. That part was nice. :)

What did you do this weekend?