The times, they are a-changin'

A little over five years ago, my first nephew was born. Living six hours away from my siblings as we do, it was one of those "wait for the phone to ring in the middle of the night" kind of scenarios to hear the news that the baby was born and was a he.

A few hours ago, my latest nephew was born. This time around, instead of waiting for the phone call, I followed the progress of his birth from "they've gone to the hospital" through the "11pm and nothing yet" to "almost time to push" to "HE'S HERE!" via text message and my brother's Facebook account. My brother posted the first baby pictures (long gone are the days of waiting for a family member to upload the pictures and email them to the far-away relatives like us) on Facebook via his cell phone from the hospital, so we've been able to oooh and aaah over the baby already. At 9 pounds, 7 ounces (and with a head circumference of 15 inches!), he is over twice the size Kiddo was when she was born.

The times, they are a-changin' indeed.

Other signs that the times, they are a-changin'? Well, I've gone from dreaming of the likes of Hugh and George



to lusting over the likes of these fellows:



Yep, Norm, Tom and Ty are my new dream men. Of course, I only want them to come over to our new house and help with the renovation, mind you... Actually, I'm not picky. Any of the experts from the DIY channel or HGTV are welcome to turn up with their fancy tools and endless resources to help get the house redone!

Speaking of renovations and new houses, our closing is looming! (We should be hearing about our closing date sometime in the next two days..) So, another 8-10 days and we're out of here and into the House of Wallpaper and Wood Paneling. Hubby, being the ever efficient and extremely organized sort that he is, has worked out a schedule for the projects we have planned for the new house. They include:

- ripping out the remaining carpeting in the living room, dining room, office, staircases and hallway

- stripping all the wallpaper throughout the house

- painting all the walls and ceilings

- painting the wood paneling in the family room

- carpeting the lower level of the house (family room, office and hallway)

- gutting the kitchen and redoing it all, including removing the wall between the kitchen and dining room, tiling the floor and installing new cabinets and counters

- repainting the exterior doors and shutters

- redoing all three bathrooms (tiling floors, installing new fixtures and replacing the sinks with vanities)

- replacing the wrought-iron banisters/railings with wooden ones

- running cable/electric/phone lines everywhere, including what is necessary to install ceiling fans/lights overhead in the bedrooms

Are you tired yet? 'Cause I'm exhausted just thinking about it, personally. Thankfully, Hubby has thought everything through very thoroughly, so we have a detailed game plan and we have prioritized everything. First up will be the carpet removal, the lower level painting and carpeting, and Kiddo's bedroom. Next will be the kitchen. After that, we'll tackle the rest of the projects as time and budget permits. The carpeting in the lower level will be done by professionals. The rest? Hubby and me (now you see why I'm a little swoony over Norm and Tom and Ty). We haven't actually done any renovation projects of this magnitude before, so this is going to be interesting, to say the least.

None of the above takes into account that we've discovered we can't afford movers (which cost less than half what we were quoted this time around the last time we moved, nine years ago - again, the times, they are a-changin') so we're going for Plan B, which is a U-Haul and a few college boys who are willing to work for cash and pizza. This means the actual move itself is going to require a lot more from Hubby and me than we'd initially thought.

When all is said and done, not just the times will be a-changin' but our address and the entire interior of the new house, too!

(And who am I kidding? Just the other night, I dreamed that we moved into our new house and our next door neighbors were Hugh Jackman and his family. They weren't celebrities, mind you, just the family that happened to live next door. They invited us over for a BBQ and were all excited that Kiddo was adopted, since their kids are adopted as well...)