On Oct 30th we officially "moved out" of our apartment. You know, the one we haven't lived in for 2 months. For some reason we didn't realize how un done we had left the place. We moved our stuff out and knew there was no rush to finish it up. We knew we could come back later. We hadn't cleaned out the fridge which I will not go into details about. Once again our friend Tiffany came to our rescue and let our kids come play at her house for a couple of hours on Friday morning so we could get all the work done. As I was washing the place up I realized I was washing away US. I was washing away chocolate milk splatters off the wall and aside from wondering how Andrew was able to splatter it in so many obscure locations I was reminded of so many small memories of him. As I washed away cream of wheat from the wall between the oven and fridge I was reminded of Emma's love of the hot cereal every day for months. I picked up grains of rice from under the stove and thought about the fun the kids had playing with rice on cold winter days. I held the railing up so Mike could screw it in the wall and thought about how when we moved in was when our kids really learned to master the stairs. I scraped the words off our wall I had put up and hoped that we exuded them "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord." I returned a chair to my sweet neighbor and wished I had gotten to know her better. I washed a finger paint stain up and thought about how much my kids grew in the 10 months we were there. We were happy in our little home. I hope whoever comes in next enjoys the turtles and geese and nice little cove perfect for tricycle riding. I hope they are slightly more quiet than us and don't annoy the people downstairs quite as much as we did.
The payoff of our hard work came when the manager came around and thanked us for leaving the place so clean and told us (in writing) we would be getting our whole security deposit back. YESSSSSSSS! Then, November 1st came and I was SO happy not write a rent check for a place we weren't living in. I am especially happy we didn't have to write a rent check since all the little working parts of our lives have decided to start falling apart.
Our laptop computer screen went kaput. It is quite irritating to not have a screen on your laptop. We weighed the options for repair and went with the cheapest thing we could come up with which was buying a desktop screen and making our laptop a desktop. I haven't forgiven HP for this but maybe a couple of months from now will look into the new video card this laptop needs. Until then....desktop city.
Our car also seems to have a case of the fall apart virus. It needs new tires (which we kind of new was coming up) and we've gotten 2 for the front. We need to order 2 more....we also need new struts and our car is starting to remind us of that every time we stop with an embarrassing grinding sound. It's almost as embarrassing as the high pitched squeaking sound one of the belts makes when it's cold or wet. Then, today the car skipped a couple of times and DIED on the road. It started right back up again and we got home no problem but I'm guessing that little issue should be fixed ASAP. Oh, the list is long. We were so happy to be done with double rent since the most wonderful time of year is quickly approaching. But, a sick car does not help the situation. It has to be expected at some point since our car has been basically perfect since we bought her over 4 years ago and has 97K on it. It's also kind of hard to get your car worked on when you only have one car but I suppose we'll have to find a way to do it before the car leaves us no choice in the matter.
Last weekend our neighbors asked if they could borrow our crock pot for their Halloween party. She made some chili (actually about 5 crock pots worth of chili). She gave it back to me almost full and I told her I was going to put it in the freezer and take the chili to the church chili cook off a week from then (which was last night). Yesterday morning I took the chili out of the freezer and put it back in the crock pot. I added some black beans and my own little flair to the chili so it would fill up the crock pot. Well, I didn't know this chili cook off was kind of a big deal in our ward. BUT, I won. I laughed really hard and told my friend Beth today her frozen chili won the contest. I'd like to take some credit for it but I don't think black beans and spices counts as cooking at all. So, who knew I had mad chili freezing and thawing skills.
Emma drew a picture of herself and hung it on the fridge. She then a couple of minutes later said she wanted to draw a picture of the rest of us which she also did. I really tried to get her to draw us all on the same paper but she said "no, I can't be on this paper I'm on the fridge." I wonder when her people will stop having arms coming out their heads. I love kid art. She did all the writing except the "D's" and the "Y's". She refuses to try to write those for some reason.
Andrew has fallen in mad love with Thomas the train. Last night we were at Target and he saw a big huge picture of Thomas up on the wall and he acted like a girl seeing Michael Jackson in 1985. It was pretty funny. We picked up a couple of practically brand new Thomas games at Goodwill this week for $2.25 a piece and Andrew has played this one by himself and with help about 65 times already. It's called Thomas' Numbers Game . Now if we could just find him a new Thomas puzzle or two we'd all be happy. We have one 35 piece puzzle we do about 6 times a day that Mike and I are both ready to accidentally throw into the fireplace but he's really good at it and he really loves it. Please, Santa, PLEASE put a new puzzle or two in this child's stocking!
The kitchen sink is the new play place of choice around here. Emma likes to "wash" her own dishes now which I can certainly support! Friday night she made us a "salad" which was about 20 carrots and 2 leaves of lettuce. It was very intricate work since washing the veggies and tearing the lettuce took about 30 minutes. It was awesome.
Okay, so now that I've recorded more of normal details...I feel normal.
3 comments:
They are so sweet. I love all of the stories. Congratulations on the chili!! That's amazing. I think you should take credit for it. :) And I love the pictures of the things the kids have been doing!
Spencer is obsessed with Thomas the train as well. He did have a little tiny one and lost it at the mall. So, now he's going to ask for another one from Santa. I'm too cheap to buy him one without a good reason.
I need to be better at recording all the normal stuff like you do, they are fun memories and fun to hear what your kids are doing in life.
Sorry to hear about all the car troubles and extra expenses. It seems like whenever you see a light at the end of the tunnel and are about to get ahead, you hit a traffic jam and are delayed. Isn't life grand?
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