House update

Today was an exciting visit to the new house! Notice anything different?! :)

Walls!

We ran into a friend and his son, who is Eve’s friend, on the way over and they came along for the tour. I was surprised to see the green sheet rock, but he told me its a moisture resistant version. That makes sense.

Upstairs family room area

Same room, looking the other way, towards the stairs

 

Guess what’s in the garage?!

A solar panel power thingy! (very technical, I know!)

And a garage door! Whoo hoo!

We scheduled the closing date today. Mid-October. I can’t wait!!!

We also scheduled a tentative closing date for our current house. The inspection went well the other day and we are moving forward with the sale. It has been a little more turbulent of a process than the new house has, but I know we’ll get there and everything will work out well in the end. And, believe it or not, the end is near!

First day of school

5th and 7th! Can you believe it!!

They both woke up happy and ready for school. We managed photos without anyone getting cranky, without any animals escaping, and without anyone being late for school! We’re finally getting good at this! LOL!

I had a good day at school. The superintendent even stopped by when I was teaching a 1st grade class and those kiddos were perfect! I was handing out stuffies for them to cuddle as reading buddies, were were naming the stuffies and discussing how much they like stories, and then he walked in. It was perfect! :) Earlier in the day I ran a fun scavenger hunt with the 5th graders. They loved it!

Macy scanning the QR code on my back. The word was “fire” and the kids laughed that there was fire on the librarian! :)

After school and popcorn for snack (it’s our thing) Eve went to play at Macy’s house for awhile, then they came back here and we all took a walk over to the new house. Guess what?! We have solar panels!!! And siding on the whole exterior. So exciting!! The developer told us (via email) that the landscaping crew was coming at the end of this week and the area will look very different soon. We are hoping they get that path carved out soon.

Then we got home and Eve crashed on the floor! She was literally asleep on the living room floor at 6:15pm! I tried to get dinner in her, but no luck, I tried to get her to shower and brush her teeth, but no luck (yuck!), and by 7:30 she was sound asleep in bed… with me by her side! I woke up an hour later, remembering I still had another kid to put to bed too. :) He didn’t mind the extra Minecraft time!

Here’s hoping we can pull it all off again tomorrow!

Last day of summer vacation

Today is the last day of summer vacation before the kiddos (and me) start back to school tomorrow. I wanted to do something fun and celebration-ish, but sadly that is not our life these days. I did let the kids watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix this morning as a fun start to the day. Eve decided a few weeks ago that she wanted to start watching them and we’ve been jamming through them ever since!

Yep, tv, laundry, and my laptop hard at work on the last day of vacation.

We had the woman who is *hopefully* buying our house over today for an inspection. She brought her son and parents to check out the place as well. All was good, I think. Waiting to hear back from them now.

Then I dragged the kids to school for just one hour, I promised them! ‘Cause there’s nothing a kid wants to do more on the last day of vacation then go to school! They were good helpers and we got out of there fast. I’m feeling totally stressed out about how much there is to do this year! I really just wanted to make sure the library was clean, organized, and presentable before the kiddos all come back tomorrow. I really wanted to do a lot more than that, but I keep reminding myself that I rearranged a good part of it and did a full inventory this summer — so it’s not like I’ve been slacking!

The fish had babies again. Lots of them!! Just in time for back to school. Good fishies. :)

Afterwards we went to the sports store and dropped a lot of cash on new cleats, shin guards, mouth guard (and case!), eye wear, and field hockey stick for Miss Eve to start field hockey again. She played two years ago and liked it, but took last year off. Back at it today!

Don’t mess with this chick!

All geared up and ready to go. I think she said, “No, don’t take a picture of me, ” but it’s hard to tell with the mouth guard in! LOL!

My Mondays and Wednesdays for the next ten weeks will be field hockey/karate taxi runs. Luckily they have nice staggered times and don’t start and end at the exact same times. When I picked Eve up she said, “I forgot how much I like field hockey!!” When I picked Lex up he said, “My gi is getting too small. We need to buy a new one.” Good thing I’m going back to work!

We got dinner at Panera. That’s a fun celebration, right?! I even got them a cookie (to share). Alan joined us and we had a nice time together. On the way home we stopped at the new house. They have a roof on the porch (oh, and a porch!), the doors are now locked with a key, and we saw they even put up the first two pieces of sheet rock!!

Our porch is tiny, but cute. I like the green wrapper around the post. :)

Drywall! Sheet rock? Is there a difference? Anyway, there’s the laundry chute. It will open on both sides so you can put clothes in from both bathrooms. Sa-weet!

Lex noticed that you can watch the neighbor’s TV from our kitchen window! LOL! They were both watching together (it was the news and they said they could see Trump’s head), but when I tried to take a picture, Lex ran away.

We also met a couple who has just put a down payment on Lot F (the lot next to the magazine home being built). That was cool. They have a daughter who was in Lex’s class at DBS and is now at the middle school, though he was quick to tell us that she’s not on his team. I know for a fact that she is a very sweet girl though. Hopefully that bodes well for the parents as well. :)

Let’s see… what else is going on… Eve lost another molar today. Her second in less than a week. I’m hoping one of them is the molar with the cavity the dentist wanted to fill! Arlo has a hurt paw. Not sure why. He’s been chewing on it for a few days. I have to get him to the vet, eventually, but I’ll say, as much as I love our vet, I feel like I’ve seen more than enough of her lately!! Between the cat with allergies and the dog with whatever he’s had going on… I’m ready to stop spending money on these pets!! I’ll be good though and take him in soon.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I have nothing to wear and only asked this kids at bedtime if they have anything to wear. Lex found an outfit. Eve swears she’ll come up with something. They both have full dirty laundry baskets. I think my days of “let’s look perfect for the first day of school,” may be behind me. I even remembered this evening that I packed up their “first day of school” photos, the ones we use each year for them to hold for the new year’s photos. I dug them out real quick!! I’ll keep that tradition alive… for a little longer. I was hoping to have a new front door for the photo this year, but alas, one more year with the old front door. :) I considered driving over to the new house for photos, but I already know I won’t be that ambitious tomorrow morning!

First day of school photos — all packed up! Oops!

Now I’m off to do more prep work for tomorrow. I don’t even have lessons plans fleshed out for my classes tomorrow. Eeek!! I will though, I promise!! Lex and I had a long chat about having a positive attitude. We’re both going to keep that in mind as the new school year starts. :)

Good News! (or Eve update – part III)

I got a call from the doctor with the results from the second part of the Lyme test. It came back negative. Which means, says the doctor, that she doesn’t have Lyme disease. So I asked if the first test was wrong and she said maybe. Or maybe this one is. Haha. Apparently this disease has got everyone confused – doctors and patients alike! The doctor said given the symptoms and timeline that she read about, since she didn’t actually get to see Eve, the doctor thinks it’s likely she doesn’t have Lyme. However, we both agreed finishing out this course of antibiotics (which I just realized I forgot to give her the evening dose – damn it!) and then see how she’s doing then. This Lyme thing is nuts. It’s got everyone flummoxed!

On another note, mom and dad, less than an hour after you left the kids were wrestling and Lex got a busted lip. Not too bad, but it bled and needed ice. Then I forgot Eve’s meds tonight. I don’t think you should leave me in charge of these kids!! :)

Eve update – part II

Got a phone call from the hospital this evening. Eve’s Lyme test came back positive. :/ Not a good diagnosis, but it does explain the fevers, headaches, and vomiting. They phoned in a prescription for amoxicillin and Alan picked it up on the way home from work. I’m going to give our primary care doctor a call in the morning to ask a few questions. Google is all over the place and since we really have no concrete idea when she was bit (we’re blaming it on camp, but that’s not a certainty) it’s hard to know what to expect. Lyme disease is so vague! I’m hoping a few weeks of antibiotics will do the trick and we won’t have any more trouble.

Solar Eclipse!

Solar eclipse day today. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. :) We didn’t drive down to “the path” but we did make it over to a friend’s house to share the experience. I wasn’t very prepared for this event, but we made it to a friend’s impromptu party (sparked by my FB post asking if anyone was doing anything fun!) and she had a telescope set up. People brought glasses, and card board boxes, and papers with holes poked through. All the viewing options! It was perfect. I brought food and seltzer. :)

Through the telescope. So cool!

Dorky looking, but everyone was doing it.

The solar​ eclipse, as viewed through a cardboard box. 😁

Lex checking out the sun! (don’t worry, there’s a special filter on there!)

Through the telescope at the peak coverage in our area. Those two dark blips are sunspots! So cool!

Pinpoint viewing

I definitely think the glasses and telescope are the best viewing devices. It’s way more satisfying to look up, not down at paper, to view the sun. I’ll have to pick up a pair of glasses before the next total solar eclipse to pass by these parts, in April of 2024. We can even get to the “path of totality” for that one! (This is kind of a cool site too.)

Eve update

Quick Eve updated for my records and for those of you I texted from the hospital. :) You all saw that she spiked a fever on Monday, it carried through until Tuesday night, then she was ok Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Lex snuck in a low fever on those days! This morning she was playing with the neighbor but came home crying and saying she felt like throwing up. She put herself to bed but threw up a little late. Then again. Her fever was back up so I called the on-call doctor who sent us to urgent care. Like the notes I brought along? :)

Like my fancy record keeping system? I should transcribe it into a nice text format so you don’t also see my dinner list and washing machine error codes, but alas, it’s pushing 11pm and I just don’t want to.

Today’s update. It stops at 4pm when we headed out to the urgent care center.

The urgent care doctor was concerned that it was viral meningitis and sent us to the emergency department. Yay! The triage nurse there said it would be a hour at least in the waiting room so I got Eve snuggled into a long bench with her blanket and pillow and vomit bowl close by, but five minutes later they came for her. We were joking (later when she was feeling better) that they must have been worried she’d be vomiting all over the waiting room. No one wanted that! :) Or maybe they just take the idea of meningitis pretty serious.

Anyway, they got her back to a bed, drew lots of blood, examined her over a dozen times (yay for teaching hospitals!), then dosed her up with ibuprofen and zofran (anti-nausea). Half hour later she was sitting upright and chattering away. Everyone commented on how she was a different kid with the meds in her. Thankfully!

For some reason I love this photo.

You gotta look your best when you go to the hospital!

She came in barely shuffling her feet, eyes half closed, head pounding so heard she couldn’t function, wrapped in her blanket, and carrying her throw up bowl. She left talking up a storm and marveling at the beautiful sunset.

We stopped for dinner and saltines at the co-op and headed home. Lex is still fighting a low fever with a developing cough. Here’s hoping tomorrow is a fever-free day all around.

Emotional Ups and Downs

We signed a contract on our house today. The one we’re selling. It should be an awesome, exciting thing, but instead we are both frustrated and cranky. We like the buyer, don’t like the agent, don’t love the deal, but agree that it’s good. The buyer came to us first, we showed her the house, she made an offer, then brought in an agent. We have been going back and forth for a few weeks now. They want more, we want more, blah, blah, blah. We were *this close* to the deal, when I got a call yesterday morning from an agent asking if she could show our house to her buyers. I said sure. This morning we get a final updated contract from the buyer and a 7pm deadline for signing. I called the other agent to let her know and she said her buyers are very eager and would still like the house. Ok. Spent the afternoon cleaning the place spotless (ha!), which is good to do sometimes anyway, and they came to see the house. I loved the couple! They reminded me so much of me and Alan when we bought this house. They have a 1yr old and are pregnant with another one. Loved the neighborhood, etc. Sadly there wasn’t much time to think. We had a really nice meeting, then Alan and I had an hour to imagine we would get a counter offer – one that was more money and less frustration. It was a nice imaginary hour. Then the agent texted me and said the couple loved the house, but not the wide-open backyard. Bummer. Not much we can do about that. So we signed the contract with the other buyer. Alan was frustrated with the buyer’s agent’s attitude and the sudden deadline. It’s not the warm, happy feeling we were hoping for. It’s a business transaction, I keep reminding myself, and not personal. It will be ok. I have faith. But boy, I am mentally exhausted now! Before all this we spent the morning at school helping to run the kindergarten open house, then back home (late) to meet a town official who can close out a building permit for our basement.

I keep reminding myself, busy summer, busy summer, busy summer. It will all turn out ok in the end. It will.

I joined the C25K running program again and my body seems to have forgotten how to run in the few weeks I was on vacation. Yesterday I was feeling TOTALLY stressed out and my neighbor, who is also doing the program, texted to offer me a ride. I said I was so stressed and busy and wasn’t going to make it. She said ok, but then nicely/gently suggested that maybe fresh air and running would be helpful. Dang peer pressure! I went and, of course, it was good. The fresh air, running, and social interaction!

On Monday we went to the lake with some friends, who invited other friends, and I invited other friends, and it ended up being a very big group. You’d think that would be good, but really it was just a lot of trying to make decisions and brief interactions with lots of people. Not quite the long chat on the beach with a bestie that I was hoping for. After an hour there Eve settled in for a snooze on the blanket. What? That’s not like her. I gave her a nice sunscreen massage and she was burning up. Eek! We stayed for a little longer, then headed home to find a thermometer. She had a temp of 103.7°!! I gave her Tylenol and dragged her to the dentist (mean mommy!) where we discovered that she has a cavity and Lex needs two teeth pulled. Ugh. Then home again. She had a temp all night and all the next day, but it was slowly coming down. She was complaining of achy body and a lump in her throat. Last night I started Googling Lyme disease. Ugh. This morning she woke up and the fever was gone and the pain was gone. All better? I hope!

Here are a few pictures of other stuff going on.

A sick Eve and a very sweet friend cuddling her.

A sneak peek at my back to school bulletin board.

I started a new Instagram for school. @dbslibrary Feel free to follow if you just can’t get enough of me. :)

A view out my new kitchen window.

An excellent book! I’d highly recommend it if you’re into YA. :) Also, it’s number 26 on my list of 30. So close!

Tomorrow we only have two commitments, both of them at home (boiler inspection and piano pickup). We are all (except Alan who has to go to work — sorry Alan — thank you Alan!) looking forward to a calmer day. I might bake cookies and visit our neighbor’s brand new baby.