The Hodge Podge Post

Hello blogging friends. I'm alive. And well(ish). Life has been crazy as you probably presumed from my lack of posts recently. So this is my catch-all, catch-up post to get everyone up to speed on what's been keeping us so busy.

1) Yo got a new job. I guess technically it's a transfer and promotion because he's still working for the same company, but has a new fancy title, "Executive Director" and now works for the Vi's property in Highlands Ranch--as in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

2) We still living in Cali. Yo catches an early flight on Monday morning and gets home Friday evening. It's not our favorite, but what can you do. How do I handle it? My standards for cleanliness have diminished. I eat fast food. Sometimes I go to bed at 8. But seriously, it's fine. I'm glad to have this extra time in California to hang with our friends here and enjoy the South Bay's amazing fall weather. It snowed in Colorado last Friday. Snowed. #heavenhelpme #idontdowinter

3) We're buying a house. We began house hunting as soon as we got back from our vacation to Noway. One month and 6 offers later and we finally found ourselves under contract. So far we've made it through the inspection and have signed our loan agreement. Now we're justing waiting for the appraisal and for the funds to come through. Hopefully we'll be able to close by the end of the month. Hopefully. Buying a house is a total roller coaster ride--complete with ups and downs and unexpected twists and turns. I thought about doing a separate blog post on our dramatic experience, but I'm hopefully done with house drama and have no desire to relive it through my blog (I felt the same way about labor and delivery). Moving on.

4) Kai started preschool. He goes M, W and F mornings and it is glorious. For him and me. And mostly me. He seems to really love going which is refreshing change from last year where he would put up a fight and beg to stay home every time we tried to take him (even though he was always happy every time we went to pick him up). This year he told me, "I wish I could go to preschool everyday."

Me too, Kai. Me, too.

1st Day of School

5) I spend most of my free time these days getting ready for the move. Since Yo's company will pay for a "full service" move, I don't actually have to pack my stuff. Huge Blessing. But I still feel like that means I need to pre-sort, pre-sift, and generally pre-pare (did you see what I did there? #clever) for this move nonetheless. And in some ways I'm finding this process to be all the harder since I'm not packing as I go. It's a slow going process that leaves my house in a total state of chaos a lot of the time, but I am making some progress. My garage is now full of neatly packed bins that are labeled on every possible side and a growing pile of stuff to sell or donate.

6) When I'm not sorting through our closets, etc., I'm posting crap on Craigslist and losing hours of my day on Pinterest dreaming up what I want this new house to look like. My kids take full advantage of my preoccupation and are total rascals every time I'm otherwise disposed. I was in the middle of a critical house-related phone call with a realtor when I caught Kai pouring water by the buckets over the top of Ari's head while he was sitting in a sandbox that looked more like a swamp box by the time I caught on to what they were doing. This was one of many occasions that has allowed me to master the fine art of the "silent scream"--where I let my overly exaggerated angry face and threatening hand gestures do the talking while I'm like, "Uh huh...." "Yes, I can get that signature to you right away..." "No, I didn't see that e-mail yet..." on the phone.

For the record, just because I'm "perfecting" it, doesn't mean that it carries any weight with my children. They usually just look at me long enough to get the message and then go right back to what they are doing--obviously banking on the fact that I'm in no position to actually intervene.

Twisted little geniuses.

So that's my life these days in a nutshell. We are living in limbo land and just taking things one day at a time. But it seems like there is a bittersweet end in sight. I forgot to mention that I haven't actually seen the house that we bought in person. (Crazy? Right?) But I am going out to Colorado next weekend to do just that. So I will be taking lots of pics and doing a separate post on the house itself after I get back.