What're you lookin' at? | Ramblings from a self-proclaimed yada yada yada...ist

No tricks, just treats

Tonight was Kara's first Halloween, not to mention Luke's and my first one as homeowners, so while it was a low-key event of indulging in the wonder that is satellite television and jumping to answer the doorbell, it was special, nonetheless. Kara was wearing her pumpkin costume when Luke came to pick me up at work, and she was admired by numerous trick-or-treaters and their moms when I passed out candy, baby on one hip, the goods in another. Since we only moved in on Tuesday, there wasn't time for creative decorating, but I wanted to make sure people knew we were "Halloween friendly" territory, so Luke ran to the store last night to buy some of those orange pumpkin bags you stuff with leaves and a few spooky window clings for the front door. I was so excited to have kids at our door and so grateful they didn't skip our house for lack of not knowing who we were that oftentimes I actually thanked them for stopping by. We handed out two to three pieces of candy to each kid, thus scoring major brownie points in the Cool Neighbors Department (one boy actually gasped), and Kara's adorableness went over quite well with their parents. A win-win for all, to be sure.

My favorite part of the night occurred while Luke was putting Kara to bed and two boys dressed as the Super Mario brothers came to collect their just desserts.

"Trick or treat!" they exclaimed.

"Wow, look! It's Mario and Luigi!" I said while dropping Reese's cups, Laffy Taffys, and Nerds boxes into their grocery bags.

"Luigi," who couldn't have been older than five, looked me straight in the eye and replied, "We're not real, you know."

"Thanks for clearing that up," I said.

My second and third favorite parts happened when a mini-Dorothy accepted her candy then tried to come into the house and one of the local teenagers welcomed us to the neighboorhood. "Did you just move in? I love the way a new house smells," he said. Was he being genuine or just aiming for more candy? Who cares? That's one smart kid.

Kara had a great time "helping" with the trick-or-treaters and generally melted my heart with her cuddly pumpkin self. Who knew ten-month-olds were so damn fun?

 

Look at me! A baby and a pumpkin! Such the multi-tasker, I know.

  

  Pumpkins don't get any respect.

 

Why does my mom think I look like a pea pod in this picture? The world may never know.

 

My fellow Americans, let me explain why I believe children under the age of one should be allowed to eat Kit-Kats, no matter what our silly parents say.

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There is certainly plenty to say about our big move and the process of settling into our new home (not to mention I owe you some seriously amazing after pictures that reflect thousands of dollars in paint and flooring), but that's for another day. In the meantime, Happy Halloween and Happy NaBloPoMo for those of you jumping on the bandwagon tomorrow. This is the first year I won't be participating, and I'm crying on the inside about it, but I can barely post once a week these days. Once every day for a month? Why not go ahead and ask me to stop searching for Baby-sitters Club books at the half-priced bookstore? Both are equally possible.

Bloggers* in flight

* I can call us that because even though Luke hasn't posted since June, he still does have a blog, and Kara certainly held her own during my back-to-work hiatus, and it makes for a short and catchy title, and it's one fifty-seven in the morning as I sit to write this people, give me a break, will you?

I'm tired.

It feels like the last couple of weeks have been non-stop around here. My little family did make the looong trip to Chicago two weekends in a row, once to see my sister Ryan off to Germany, and once for my nephew Danny's baptism, though it was canceled at the last minute due to the poor little guy spitting up constantly and his pediatrician's recommendation that Samantha and Dan bring him to the hospital for observation. Thankfully, it appears to be a simple case of acid reflux to the -enth degree, but he gave his parents a little scare, nonetheless. So the weekends, not exactly a time for productivity.

Plus, work has been busy, and I had to play a lot of advance catch-up to be able to take the first part of this week off. Then there's the Web training seminar I'll be taking in Nashua, New Hampshire, next month, for which I'll be gone three nights, and the very idea of being away from Kara that long has me feeling much like I did in the days leading to my return to work in March. It's been suggested several times that I bring Luke and Kara with me, but between my tight schedule and our tight budget, it's not a good idea. I just have to wear my big-girl panties and resign myself to a good cry on the nights I should be putting her to bed.

And of course, in between work and family and trips up north has been our house, our blessed, wonderful, pain-in-the-ass house that is eating our money and sucking our will to live. To be fair, it's not so much the house itself as it is some of the contractors that have been dragging their feet (I'm looking at you, Cutting Edge Flooring). The last loose end should be tied up tomorrow, and then we can finally collect our spare keys and collapse in a sea of cardboard boxes and Tupperware bins that unfortunately won't unpack themselves. I'm so sad about leaving this apartment--this modest, two-bedroom apartment, where I held Kara to my chest and sobbed the night we came home from the hospital, where the two of us spent hours of my maternity leave snuggled on the couch while the snow fell outside, content to just sleep and breathe each other in--and yet, so excited about our new home, a home that will see a properly sized Christmas tree and stockings along the staircase (I just listened to our holiday playlist on iTunes, can you tell?) and the pitter-patter of little feet that my heart smiles just thinking about it. It's a bag of mixed emotions I've got going on here, but I'm hoping the joy wins out once we're settled in and I can revel in hammering nail holes wherever I damn well please.

All of this would explain why my contest winners have yet to receive their prizes, but rest assured, friends, they're coming soon to a mail box near you.

In the meantime, pictures! Good ole pictures. They're like the the pinch-hitters of blogging, when words are not enough (or just really boring).

 

Here are a couple from last weekend, aka Ryan's American farewell. She and Jason probably won't visit until sometime next fall, so we tried to soak up as much of her as we could. The sentiment seemed lost on Kara, though.

 

In this shot, the childbearing sisters attempt to show off their offspring while the offspring couldn't care less. Way to ruin a Kodak moment, kids.

 

How cute is my nephew? Let me count the ways.

   

Okay, one more, but really, how cute IS he? And can you believe that come February, this picture will be my life? GAAAAH.

 

Here, Kara and Grandma Dunscombe have a meeting of the minds.

 

Kara wants YOU to know about the awesomeness of Daddy D.

We weren't in Chicago long enough this past weekend to pull out the camera very much, but I did catch one of Kara and my mother in a full-fledged hands-and-knees face-off. Grandma seems determined to win, but she's no match for Kara's adorableness. That always trumps speed.

 

One of the rare instances in which Kara allows herself to be lulled to sleep by the sounds of the highway.

And now, seeing as it's three in the morning and Luke is already hauling miscellaneous crap to our car, I'm going to sign off, but not before I tease you with the promise of after pictures the minute AT&T says we can.  

Your mother's a tracer!

The names, they were copied.

They were placed inside a hat.

  

And then three names were chosen by Luke, who was gracious enough to play my assistant while catching up on last night's episode of House.

In an effort to spread the wealth, I decided to break up the mega package into three separate prizes: the Jay and Silent Bob series, the two Clerks comics, and our dear Buddy Christ.

And the winners are...

 

 

Congratulations Gry, Dawnie, and Audrey! Gry, you get the Buddy Christ. Dawnie, the Jay and Silent Bob series is yours. Audrey, enjoy Clerks. Get me your addresses by Monday and I'll try to mail everything out next week. A big thanks to the rest of you who...um...wanted to take my stuff.

For those of you who couldn't care less about my nerdy contest, might I interest you in a belly shot of sorts?

 

Here I am at 23 weeks pregnant with Baby Brother, my two-days-shy-of-10-months-old daughter standing by my side. It's not the most telling angle, but it's the best Luke and I could manage under the circumstances ("circumstances" being a code word for "the child who insists on clinging to my legs for dear life the minute I walk through the door"). However, it's still enough to compare to my size at this point in Kara's incubation:

 

So far, the kids seem to be progressing at relatively the same rate. I had an ob/gyn appointment on Monday, where I learned that Baby Brother is spot on, measurement-wise, just like Kara was until we reached the final few weeks. (For more details about that visit, including my decision regarding whether or not to attempt a VBAC, check out my post on Parents.com.)

Edited to add: Whoops, there was one more photo I meant to post last night, because HELLO, adorableness:

Of Painters and Clerks

I think houses are more expensive than children.

Really! After giving birth to Kara last December, Luke and I still managed to keep a hefty amount in savings while showering the baby with various Carter's onesies and stuffed blocks and board books written by Dr. Seuss and accommodating a dinner menu that featured several take-out orders a week. But now, after owning this home just 14 days, we've already spent my quarterly bonus, taken out an interest-free loan from my employer, and scrapped plans to upgrade our dining room set before the end of the year. It's daunting, and it's scary, and I don't like it. But I do like saving us the stress of moving our own boxes, dragging out the painting process, and eliminating the overall dog smell once and for all.

Finding a painter wasn't as easy as we thought it would be. Since we don't have a lot of experience with vendors in the home improvement area, we asked our realtor for a recommendation, and she passed along the name of a company who received glowing marks from one of her clients. I called the number and set up a walk-through/estimate for Thursday afternoon. The house is forty minutes from our apartment but only twenty from my work, so I made the appointment on my lunch hour and arrived with ten minutes to spare. That's when I received a call from Jessica, the project manager, who apologized and said she was running late and was I interested in rescheduling?

I said no, I'm not interested in rescheduling, I'm already at the house, I'd rather just wait. OK, she said. I'll be there in fifteen minutes.

Thirty minutes later she was parking in my driveway and apologizing profusely for her tardiness. Se had a doctor's appointment that ran over and put her behind schedule. That's OK, I said. Stuff happens.

I gave Jessica a tour of the house and explained what needed to be done. There was much note-taking and head-nodding, and she sounded confident that her team could complete the job in three or four days. I told her about our flooring appointment for the week of October 20 and our desire to complete all painting by then. How soon can we get an estimate? I asked. Oh, this evening, definitely, she replied. Look for it on your e-mail.

I looked in my e-mail. All evening. Nothing.

At eight o'clock, there was a voice mail from Jessica apologizing for her tardiness in e-mailing the estimate (sound familiar?) and promised to have something by one-thirty the next day. I frowned. Luke's dad had graciously offered to drive down and help with painting the bedrooms; he planned to leave northwest Indiana on Friday at noon. If we accepted the quote, he wouldn't need to make the four-hour round trip. Is there any way we can get it in the morning? I asked.

Sure, sure you can get it in the morning, Jessica said. I'll stay up all night if I have to. I just couldn't get to it during the day, and I want to make sure we give you a good price without undercharging for the work.

The little voice in my head didn't give a rat's ass how long it took, that's your problem, how hard can it be, don't you have a formula for hammering these things out? But I didn't say that, just thanked her for the update. You'll have the estimate by nine tomorrow morning, she said. Thank you, I said. That would be great.

At eight forty-five Friday morning, I logged into Gmail with great anticipation, eager to see the numbers and run them by Luke so we could make a decision before his dad got on the road.

At nine o'clock, I hit refresh. And again five minutes later. And again. And again. AND AGAIN.

By noon, there was still no estimate, and I was mad as hell. But still I kept my cool! I left a voice mail with Jessica AND the owner explaining our urgency and how much we wanted to move forward with this project and could somebody PLEASE call me back?

Nothing. I never heard from the bastards again.

But all's well that ends well. Luke scrambled to do some online research on other painters in the city and found someone who was certified with the Better Business Bureau and who called us back when he said he would and also showed up for the walk-through on time. Imagine that! The icing on the cake was when he said the entire house (cabinets included!) could indeed be finished by the twentieth. But we didn't get that news until Saturday morning, so Luke's dad did come down, and the two of them attempted to work on the bedrooms, but there was an unfortunate sprayer incident and the ceilings took a gazillion years to paint and really, it's just better to hand this over to professionals and admit that when it comes to tackling eighteen hundred square feet of interior structure in just two weeks, we are not cut out for the job. Give it up for Jones Painting.

As for the crappy guys? Turns out their Better Business Bureau rating is just as disappointing as their customer service, so it really did work out for the best. I'd like to be the bigger person and write the whole thing off as a learning experience. I'd like to say I'm not interested in using my blog to steer unsuspecting Hoosiers towards greener, more qualified pastures. But alas, I'm not a bigger person, and Painters Unlimited won't get any love from me, that's for damn sure.

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I'm still in awe that so many of you are interested in my nerdy comics and controversially sacrilegious Jesus figurine. Even Luke's BFF put in a bid; if I knew he'd be interested, I wouldn't have even offered it to the masses. But that wouldn't be fair now, not after I got your hopes up, so instead I'm going to write the name of each interested commenter on a piece of paper and literally pull the winner from a hat; specifically, one of Luke's hats. Hopefully in the next couple of days, because this weekend we'll be in Chicago bidding my sister Ryan a fond farewell before she flies to Germany to be reunited with her husband Jason, who just finished a tour of duty in Iraq. We won't be back until Monday morning, after which I'll have to high tail it to the office and then do a final walk-through of the house to review the paint job. But rest assured, the goodies will be distributed soon.

I feel old. (Also, I have no interest in Clerks II)

What else could I possibly feel after tuning in to an easy-listening radio station and hearing Sisters With Voices on my way to work?

The year was 1993; I was thirteen and on the cusp of starting eighth grade when their first single came out. I remember one of The Sisters had scary-long finger nails, but they weren't enough to deter me from buying the cassette from Venture (formerly Zayre's, currently non-existent) with my hard-earned baby-sitting money. Yes, I'm well aware that was fifteen years ago, but still, isn't it a tad premature to lump the girls in with the likes of Phil Collins and John Mellencamp?

That said, the following songs were just downloaded from iTunes by a member of the Frema-Useless Clutter household. I'll let you guess which one. 

"Dreamlover (Def Club Mix Edit)" - Mariah Carey
"Right Here" - SWV
"Remember the Time" - Michael Jackson
"Easy Lover" - Phil Collins
"Land of Confusion" - Genesis   
"Live for Loving You" - Gloria Estefan   
"Live Forever" - Oasis   
"Again" - Janet Jackson

Forty more cents and I would've grabbed "Cherry Bomb," too. God help Baby Brother's musical taste post-womb.

In other Frema nerdiness, as I sort through my things and decide which items are worthy of storage space at the new house, I came across a few gems that might be of interest to some of you.

My apologies for the prime real estate given to the boobage and butt crack. I wasn't consciously trying to showcase that issue, and honestly, I'm kind of embarrassed about the oversight, but I'm too lazy to upload a new photo, so there you go.

My senior year in high school, I worked for a mom-and-pop video store minutes away from my house. Because it was so small, hiring was sparse, partly because you only needed one or two people per shift but also because the perks were so good nobody my age ever wanted to leave: no uniform, free movies, and you could do your homework on slow nights without fear of repercussion. It was every teenager's dream job, and the kids in my neighborhood knew it. Rich, the owner, was bombarded with requests for applications every day. I should know, because I pestered him every couple of months or so until one day I came in at just the right time and he hired me on the spot. He was a little concerned about my age; I was only 17 at the time, and there was a whole section of Adult Movies that needed constant restocking and supervision, but apparently that stopped being a problem because soon I found myself on the other side of the swinging doors, charged with reshelving such thought-provoking titles as Wet and Wild 5 and Wednesday is Hump Day.

Anyway, that job is the reason I learned about Kevin Smith and the brilliantness that is Clerks. And once I saw Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy weren't far behind. By the time I left for college, I owned them all on VHS. There were posters, soundtracks, and screenplays, quizzes online to test my knowledge of dialogue (NERD!), and utterances of "Snootchie Bootchies!" more times than was appropriate for a person who didn't wear flannel clothing or spend free time dreaming up new characters for Dungeons and Dragons. But whatever, it was fun, and Kevin Smith was hella cool in college.

I didn't learn about the comic books until my second serious boyfriend. Mike gave me the above-pictured graphic novels after just a week of dating, and at that stage in my life, they were better than roses. I actually attended that year's Comic Con with him and his friends a few months later specifically to meet Kevin Smith, but Mike's BFF was an hour late picking us up, so by the time we got there the line had already been roped off, and I totally cried. I did get a comic signed by one of Kevin's cronies, though. I'm keeping that one.

This I bought after the release of Dogma, which I didn't enjoy as much as the other films (don't even get me started on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), but I love Jesus, and I loved Kevin Smith. Who could ask for anything more?

The comics and figurine were proudly displayed in my dorm room until I graduated, and they've survived all of my moves within the great Hoosier state. Now, eight years later, I think I'm finally ready to say good-bye. I considered donating them to Goodwill, but if it's possible, I'd love to give them to someone who I know will appreciate them. Plus, I'm afraid the Goodwill guys will take one look at the comics and laugh at me behind my back.

ANYWAY, my point is, are you interested? If not for yourself, perhaps for a friend? First person to call dibs wins.

(By using the phrase "first person," I'm assuming more than one of you a) know who Kevin Smith is and b) care enough about his movie memorabilia to want this stuff cluttering your home. Please don't make a fool out of me.)

Edited to add: Holy cow, you guys, I had no idea even one person would be interested, let alone four! Let me think more on how to give this stuff away.

My own private money pit

It's NOT really a money pit, of course. The house was built in 1996 and passed our inspection with almost flying colors. Also, the changes we're making are primarily aesthetic; it's not like they have to be done today or tomorrow or even next month. But hot damn, Luke and I haven't even owned the place a full week and already it feels like we're in over our heads.

But first things first.

In my last entry, somebody asked for details on the closing. Closing...was very boring. Basically it was an hour and a half of signing papers and passing Kara between Luke and me and our realtor. Which is pretty much the way you hope those things will go. No surprises, no bad feelings, just hammering the final nail on the home ownership coffin, so to speak. Our sellers bought another house in the same town, and they said they had a horrible experience with the owners, so horrible, in fact, that the parties were placed in separate rooms at the closing. Yikes.

Anyway, by 4:30 p.m., the keys were in our hands. We forgot the camera, so there are no symbolic photos of us removing the "For Sale" sign from the front yard, but we did walk through the house again and talk out ideas for potential improvements. Good thing part of our negotiations involved the sellers paying for a professional cleaning service to give the house a once-over, because apparently four dogs leave behind one nasty smell. Also, more animal hair than I've ever seen at one time. It's STILL not up to par, but it's better than nothing, and it didn't cost us a dime.

Our first weekend in the house didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked. My parents-in-law came from up north to help, and Luke and his dad performed some crucial wall repair while his mom and I hung out with Kara. (I'm suddenly not so crazy about my pregnant self breathing in paint fumes for hours at a time, so I won't be much help in that area.) They had a slow start, what with the master bedroom ceiling eating up a gallon and a half of paint and a bunch of time besides. Then, when Luke went back on Sunday to start on the second-floor hallway, he found that the color we picked is considerably lighter than what's already covering the walls, so we'll have to prime the whole thing, something we didn't plan for.

With limited childcare options, a house forty minutes away from our current residence, floors too dirty (read: HAIRY) for us to want Kara horsing around there much before move-in, and no paid time off for me to spend on this project (we're saving my last eight days for the actual move, Christmas, and Kara's birthday), we're looking into hiring professional painters to tackle the more time-consuming aspects of the house like the hallway and staircase, and maybe even those blasted green cabinets. Tile and carpet installation begin in two weeks, and my employer pays me well, so if spending a little more money is what we have to do to swing a completely painted house before move-in without sacrificing our new floors or our sanity, the choice is a simple one, for us.

Kara approves our choice of carpet, which we decided to install in the living room as well. The sellers scratched up the laminate flooring something fierce when they moved out, and while they left behind plenty of spare planks to deal with the aftermath, I'm not such a fan of it anymore, especially with very small children who are learning to stand on their own two feet. Plus, I just think carpet is cozier.

Thanks for protecting my accident-prone forehead, guys. Much love to you.

As nerve-wracking as it is, though, to determine which tasks would benefit from professional help (tee hee) and which ones we can handle on our own, it's wonderful that these decisions are within our control, and we don't have to go through a landlord to ask about painting or adding a phone jack in the loft. This house is ours. The choices are ours. Apartment living served us well, and we don't regret our time as renters, but this new chapter in our lives? It's pretty effing cool.