Phriday Photo Phun - Phew!

This? A thing of beauty.




Four little letters atop our For Sale sign that make my heart beat faster........

Now, folks've been clamoring for house pictures of the NEW digs. Well, I don't feel comfortable posting pictures on my blog just yet, as closing hasn't happened and the current owners are still living there and have all their belongings in there and such. So, a few "won't invade the privacy of the current owners" shots are all I can give you here now. Consider this a preview, and then if everything goes well, I should be able to post loads of photos on or about May 30th (hopefully sooner)...


This is the upstairs bathroom. Kiddo thinks the flower-n-butterfly wallpaper is "just so, so beautiful" and thinks the pattern of the sink counter is fantabulous:





Didn't get a close enough look at the countertop? Check it out in its full glory:





Now, I know I said the biggest cosmetic EEEK on the house is the wallpaper. And it *is* the wallpaper, too - mainly because every. Last. Square. Inch! of the house is wallpapered. Well, except for the family room and laundry room - those are wood paneling. (Hubby really despises wood paneling, by the way. With a passion.) But the wallpaper (which looks like this in the living room, for an example:)





isn't the only thing that will need updating.


Oh, no. There is also some wall-to-wall carpet that will need removing. It is predominately a plush, plush mauve (living room, dining room, stairs and upstairs hallway) but downstairs, in the fourth bedroom (that will be our home office), lurks this:





I'm not sure the cropping enables you to fully appreciate the depth and color variations of the shag. This shag is longer than my hair (and better highlighted, too). Egads. I have a sneaking feeling that until we get that carpet out, I will feel compelled to don a leisure suit every time I want to sit at my computer. Yes, that'll be me, blogging while looking like a Studio 54 wannabe (or is that Studio 57, Kara?). I'm tempted to trade in the overhead light for one of these bad boys:





Bam chicka wocka chicka bam chicka wow wow! (Someone please cue Adam Lambert singing Play That Funky Music here for me, will ya please? Or just have him come on over and serenade me once we've moved into the Time Warp Castle..... I know I'm digressing, but boy do I just love, love, LOVE Adam. Totally my favorite Idol contestant this season. Maybe ever.)


Anyhow, things are going as well as they can be (*knocking wood*) thus far with the house selling and buying processes. Hopefully mortgage loan commitment letters will be secured soon and attorneys will diligently work on all their shizzle to get us closer to closing. Woo! We've been through the house at length twice this week, and even have met the current owners, who are a lovely couple and who, despite having lived here in our distinctively accented corner of western NY for the better part of the past half decade, still both strongly speak in the unmistakable tones of New Englanders (Massachusetts, to be exact, as it turns out). I was waiting for them to tell me about pahking the cahs and mowing the yahd... While I myself try not to speak in the dulcet inflections of my native New Jersey (hey babe, I'll cawl you and we'll go to the mawl, okay?), I suppose it could be considered preferable to the local accent... (Oh, those flat "a" sounds especially make me cringe when I hear them flying willy-nilly out of my mouth. And to hear Kiddo talking in the local accent also makes me shudder.... I swear to you now, however, that Kiddo will refer to "soda" as "pop" only over my cold, dead, soda-drinking body, and I don't care what everyone else around here calls it!) I certainly never picked up the New England accent during our time living there, beyond grabbing hold of their fondness for the word wicked and bringing that back to NY with me, but I have heard myself mention the pond out behind our house and having it rhyme a little too closely with hand...


But I digress again. What I wanted to say before going off on that phonological/anthropological tangent is that we really, really love the house, despite the gentle ribbing of the plush shag and acres of wallpaper and Pepto-Bismol pink tile shower in the master bath. (Oh, didn't I show you that? Check it out:)





Yes, this house is going to need a lot of work to bring it from the Brady Bunch era up to the late Aughties, but it has many pluses, too:

• It is less than 10 minutes from Hubby's office.
• It is in one of the best school districts in the area.
• It has a lovely, flat yard with mature trees (they actually provide SHADE!) and the yard is significantly bigger than our yard now.
• It has four bedrooms, enabling us to have an actual office and not a guest room-slash-office.
• In fact, it is almost 600 square feet bigger than our current home. Also, it has a bigger garage and a longer driveway for Kiddo's chalk art/bike or scooter riding/rollerskating pursuits.
  
• Kiddo's bedroom will be much larger, enabling her to have more of her things (table and chairs, easel) in her room.
• Hardwoods! Almost all the house has hardwoods, and they're in pretty good shape from what we can see of them.
• It has a family room with a wood-burning fireplace. (Kiddo is especially excited about that, as now roasting marshmallows won't only be a treat for when we're visiting Grandma and Grandpa in NJ, and Santa can enter our home the traditional way instead of through the door off the deck.)
• It has a master bath (albeit with pink tile and wallpaper). That's one bathroom more than we have now.
• There's a utility sink in the laundry room. I had no idea how much I'd want a utility sink until I didn't have one in this house!
  
• It has a most delightful "Florida room" aka a sunroom or a three-season porch. (Even better, my mom told us we can have my grandparents' rattan furniture set from their sunroom, which is presently languishing in storage in their attic. Totally psyched about that!)
• It has a garbage disposal. We always meant to put one in here, after living with one in the townhouse we were in before building our house, but somehow we never got around to it.
  
• The house is about ten minutes away from the best shopping mall in the area.
• According to the current owners, the neighbors on either side have high-school aged daughters who babysit. Woo!
• The yard that appears to have actual soil, instead of clay masquerading as soil. Deeelightful!

So, while I may whinge and moan in upcoming weeks/months/years about the horrid datedness of it all (we will be redoing as we live there, since we can't really swing the dough to hire an Extreme Home Makeover crew to whip through everything and won't have a window of time to do much of anything before we need to move in), I am really, really, reaaaaaallllllllly happy!


Want to check out more Phriday Photo Phiesta Phun? Pop on over to Candid Carrie's blog!

Friday Foto Fun: Follicular Follies

Hello, hello world! It feels like forever since I've been here! I've been buried under a mountain of boxes and used Puffs Pluses for the past few days, as I tried to continue with Operation Declutter around the home-from-school Kiddo, who has one heckuva bad cold. I know, I know, it seems like she is always sick, but actually she's staying healthy for much longer stretches than she used to when she was younger. I don't know if it is because of the circumstances of her premature, complicated birth or what, but she does manage to pick up a lot of germs. One of these days, I'll finally get a patent for my stylish yet functional Biohazard Bubble suit and then I'll be able to retire with my wads of cash to my private, tropical isle without fear of anyone ever catching another germ again. Until that day, though, I gamely troop on, Vicksing soles and humidifying rooms, steaming congested heads in the shower and squirting saline spray up Niagara Fallsian nostrils, losing game after game of Mario Kart Wii (yes, even when under the weather, Kiddo still kicks my sorry behind at All Things Wii) and fixing bowl after bowl of chicken noodle soup.

The good news is that Kiddo was able to return to school today, and thus life returned to normal, or whatever it is that approximates normal in my life these days... So anyhow, sorry I've been a bad blogoshpere citizen and haven't been leaving loads of comments or posting merrily away, I'm still here, just a wee bit crazed of late.

Before I return once more to my Mountain of Boxes, I will give you a little piece of Friday Foto Fun. You may recall, I have had hair issues pretty much my whole life. You may further recall my ongoing struggle to grow out the Mom 'Do. (Yes, I know, my hair is pretty much always a Hair Don't no matter what I try...) Well, it seems that I've finally, finally passed the stages of Wolverine Fawcett-Von Beethoven *and* Carol Brady. (And there was much rejoicing: yay.) Here's what it looks like as of this morning:



(Yes, I slapped on a little eyeliner and tinted lip gloss prior to photographing myself. I was feeling kind of icky following this morning's torture session - I mean Zumba class - and wanted to look spiffy for y'all. That's not blusher on my cheeks, either, by the way - just a combination of leftover redfacedness from working out and then walking all the way across the Y parking lot in the stinging, windblown snow. Brrr. Oh no, wait, I mean that's just my natural, youthful, rosy glow... *snort*) (Oh, and see that blank wall right behind me? A week ago, there was a jammed-full-of-stuff bookcase in that spot. Go, Operation Declutter!)

Okay, so I no longer can lay claim to being the illegitimate love child of Wolverine, Farrah and Ludwig. (I'm not a geneticist; you figure out how 2XY+1XX = 1 ilc......) Now I seem to have mid-90s, midsize market News Anchor hair going on instead. Woot. I'm in dire need of a trim again (as evidenced by my vision-impairing bangs) and have been feeling sorely tempted to just cut it all off again. (Chorus of screams: NOOOOOOOO! Don't!!!) (Or should I? Hmmmm.) I'm hoping that it is long enough now that when I do finally get around to going to the hair stylist, she can give me something more closely resembling an actual style, because as you can see above, I still have the dreaded Mom 'Do. Oh well, at least it isn't winging out all over anymore! If anyone has any thoughts on the topic, feel free to share.....

So that's what's going on in my neck of the woods. I have like half a dozen posts in draft form about all sorts of scintillating topics like Lost, American Idol, the aforementioned Zumba class and my ongoing adventures in the ladies' locker room at the Y, but right now, I must be getting back to my boxes - I want to get another load ready to haul off to the storage unit before Kiddo gets home from school. I am going to leave with you with the following video clip, because I've got Latin music on the mind after Zumba this morning and because it's almost Valentine's Day..... Enjoy The One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song:



Au revoir!

Celeb vote on the back seat of the station wagon issue...

It must be noted that last night on American Idol, Ryan Seacrest used the term "way back" when discussing sitting in the very back seat of the family station wagon growing up.

(Yes, I watch American Idol. Heck, I even participate in an AI pool. Sadly, my choice to win it all left last week, and I fear my runner-up choice is going to be leaving tonight....)

This-n-That

You know how "they" say that you should take at least 10,000 steps a day? I've read that many times, along with helpful hints on how to get more exercise into one's day - you know, park in the farthest spot from the entrance instead of driving around looking for the closest spot, taking the stairs instead of the elevator/escalator, etc. Well, I found out that I do not take nearly as many steps as I thought I do by actually wearing a pedometer for the bulk of one day earlier this week. I put it on when I got dressed around 8am and wore it until 4pm, at which point it registered that I'd taken 2,703 steps. Now, this was not a fancy-shmancy pedometer - it was a freebie that Hubby had been given while touring an assisted living facility (um, not for us or any of our relatives, btw; it was a work-related thing). So, Hubby warned me the guy that gave it to him said that it has a 10% error rate, so while the good news (ha, ha) is that I could've taken closer to 3,000 steps, the bad news is it might only have been around 2500. In reality, 10% either way wouldn't get me so much closer to the 10,000 step goal, so that's a non-factor, I suppose, and while I did more walking (up and down stairs after the kiddo, etc) between 4pm and bedtime, it isn't like I took another 7,000 steps. So, I'm woefully under-moving, is the conclusion I've drawn. Depressing to admit, but also nice to have a realistic picture since I honestly had no idea how many steps I typically take in a day. I wore the pedometer on a pretty average day in terms of movement for me - I didn't go to the gym or run a marathon (ha!) or anything, but I didn't sit on the couch reading or in front of my computer for hours on end, either. I guess I'd figured that my routine day (hey, I'm always running upstairs or downstairs for this or that when I'm home, and there's that flight of stairs at the kiddo's preschool, and we're usually out and about doing things during the afternoons....) included more steps. One more reason to renew my commitment to get to the gym at least 3 times a week - to get those extra 7,000 steps in and get me up to that 10,000 mark!

***
Things that have physcially delayed us while driving the kiddo to preschool in the past 15 days:
- getting stuck behind a snowplow
- getting stuck behind a funeral procession (twice)
- getting stuck by the drawbridge being opened (yeah, kind of an unusual one, but our drive takes us over a drawbridge, so while it is rather cool to see the road just suddenly going straight up in the air as the boats go through and out onto Lake Ontario, it's also a real, literal roadblock and there's no alternate route - we just have to sit there as the road becomes a parking lot for about 10 minutes while the bridge does its thing)
- getting stuck behind a school bus that was picking up kids for about 2 miles before it turned, thankfully, onto a side street (I don't know if the bus was really early or running late, but we usually don't get stopped by buses so I'm guessing this was just a freak thing and hopefully a one-time occurrence!)
- getting stuck on our street by a flock - whoops, I guess technically it'd be a gaggle, now wouldn't it? - of Canada geese who were moseying on across the street en route to the pond behind our property. When I say "moseying" I mean it, too - they were going soooo slowly and I swear honking the horn just slowed them down more!

Things that have made the drive seem much longer while driving the kiddo to preschool in the past 15 days:
- the kiddo repeatedly whistling her version of Flight of the Bumblebee, utilizing her recently acquired mastery of the skill of whistling as well as her entire whistling range which is about 5 notes (Thanks, Little Einsteins, for teaching the kiddo the tune in the first place...)
- the kiddo deciding to count every garage we passed on the way to school, getting up to 119 (not sure if she was counting multi-car garages separately or just one garage per house) and then deciding she "just felt like counting," which she then proceeded to do starting from 1 again
- the kiddo repeatedly singing a snippet of a song they're learning in music class despite repeated pleas to STOP FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, JUST STOP PLEEEEEASE! from her quickly-losing-her-not-very-tight-grip-to-begin-with-on-sanity mommy (the section she keeps singing goes "listen to the water, listen to the water, rolling down the river" and is not recognizable to me either by tune or lyrics.... anyone recognize the words that can maybe help me out? Otherwise, I'm going to have to hunt down the music teacher at preschool, ask her to sing me the song, then bribe her with whatever means necessary to never, ever sing that song again with the kids)
- the kiddo telling the "Knock Knock" classic:
Kiddo: Knock knock!
Mommy: Who's there?
Kiddo: Banana!
Mommy: Banana who?
Kiddo: Knock knock!
Mommy: Who's there?
Kiddo: Banana!
Mommy: Banana who?
Kiddo: Knock knock!
Mommy: Who's there?
Kiddo: Orange!
Mommy: Orange who?
Kiddo: Orange you glad I didn't say banana again? *gales of maniacal laughter*
and by "telling" I mean "repeatedly yelling 'KNOCK KNOCK! I SAID KNOCK KNOCK, MOMMY!!! KNOOOOOOOOOCK KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!!!!'" when I stopped responding after about the thirtieth repetition, and then mangling the "orange" punchline and having to say "No, wait, I mean, um...." and starting it over three or four times before getting it mostly right.

***
Another sure sign that spring has sprung? I was brushing our cat this morning and while brushing her, she shed enough fur to make another whole cat, at least. Maybe two, or possibly three smallish kittens... Around our house, Spring = Hairball season!

***
Oh, I wound up not doing anything for April Fools' Day this year. Turned out I couldn't find the supplies I needed in time. Next year, I'll be all over it though, and will get what I need in advance. Stay tuned - we're just 363 days away!! *evil eyebrow wiggle*

***
My new favorite clothing in the world? The "lounge pants" (brand - Gilligan and O'Malley Ultimate) that I found recently at Target. Soooo comfy and cheap, too! I'm practically living in them when I'm at home. I was tempted to not change into real clothes the other day when I had to run to the store, but I refrained and did put actual jeans on for the trip. I love comfy clothes and jammies, and these lounge pants fit excellently into both categories! Heavenly!

***
I may be approaching my late 30s, but I'm still hip enough to have downloaded six songs from this season's American Idol finalists to my iPod. Okay, maybe admitting that I downloaded songs from American Idol isn't hip, but I did, and I enjoyed them thoroughly while running errands when the kiddo was in school this morning! I guess I should score a few "hip" points for having an iPod, at the least. Or is it not even hip to say "hip" anymore? What should I even say? Cool? Happening? With it? Hmmm, this reminds me of one of my favorite Simpsons quotes, with which I shall wrap up this post and get downstairs to test the latest batch of monkey bread that the kiddo and I baked earlier this afternoon (love the way the whole house smells like cinnamon now, too!):

I used to be with it, but then they changed what “it” was, and now what I’m with isn’t it. And what’s “it” seems weird and scary to me. ~ Abraham "Grampa" Simpson