Celebrity Skin

Ugh, I've got to stop writing late at night, after too many beers. Here's something to move that last post way, way down.

Ours is a neighborhood of families--plumbers and salesmen, architects and creative directors, grips and roadies, teachers. It is a tract of modest 1200 square foot homes, built in the 1940s as housing for the employees of the airport, right nearby. In recent years older folks have moved away and many of the modest homes have been remodeled, some tastefully, some not. Around the corner from us, a builder bought three homes, leveled them all and rebuilt huge, monstrous modern residences, then sold them for millions. (Well, actually, he's only sold one so far, but he's trying to sell them all for millions, and I'm sure he will eventually.) Each of them is at least 4000 square feet, making them by far the largest homes around.

A month ago, Dylan McDermott bought one of those homes. He's getting divorced, I gather, and I guess he's down-sizing. We've had a few small time actors living here before but this is the first real celebrity. We haven't seen much of him yet, although I once caught a glimpse of him driving by in his black Range Rover.


Occasionally, in our neighborhood, film crews show up. They park their huge white trailers on the street, set up barbecues and tents for gratis lunches, unpack trucks full of lights and speakers and cords. Film a commercial in one of the larger homes, then load up and head on their merry way, back to the studios for editing.

In fact, location scouts routinely come to my house and take pictures, hoping to entice their directors to shoot here. At least ten different scouts, in the year since we lived here. And yet not once has this house been chosen. I assume it's just not big enough--ours is a modern house but it's only 2700 square feet. These commercial shoots generally last one or two days and pay--wait for it--3 to 5 thousand dollars a day for the privilege of shooting in your home.

Have I mentioned how broke we are? How much we could use an extra $5000 just hand the house keys over to a producer for a day?

Yesterday, they were filming a Cool Whip commercial around the corner. At DYLAN MCDERMOTT'S HOUSE.

Does he need that $10,000? Does he? Really? I just don't think so.


*****

In other depressing news, tonight I am headed across the country to my 20 year high school reunion. I am fat, I am old, I have wrinkles and age spots and bring no stunning achievement with me to rub in the faces of my old fellow boarding students. I am a stay-at-home-mom and I am not pregnant, and that is the extent of it.
Truthfully, I don't really care. I am only going because it will allow me to see two of my most favorite people in the world at the same time, women I communicate with only over email, women that I haven't seen in years--one, not since her wedding 12 years ago! They both live in New England, and since I live in California, and don't venture north of Philadelphia when I fly East to visit family, this is a chance I can't pass up.
Wish me luck.

Few things

First of all, let me say this: I am still missing all of you. I haven't had much a chance to get caught up on my blog reading---this being December and all. in fact, I haven't been on the computer at all in days. How does anyone have time to blog in December? I feel especially guilty since I was whining just a little while ago about how some folks stopped commenting and then here I go, not commenting on anyone's blog, in ages. Oops. I hope you are all doing well, and know that I plan to spend all of January blogging, in order to catch up.

Moving on.
Teh cuteness (in the form of school picture):



(Though I do wonder about the background)

AND, this is what our house looks like:


This photo was taken a week or so ago; it actually looks even cooler now. I'm so excited!

Finally, a question, for the stay-at-home-moms among you: How do you react to comments made by others that question what you do all day? You know, when people say things like "well, since the kids are in school I guess you can just take a nap". I find myself incredibly pissed off, but also embarrassed to admit the annoyance.

On the one hand, of course it's annoying: how incredibly condescending for anyone to presume that taking care of children is easy, or that you must be bored since you don't have a "job". Way to de-value the work of childcare, and insult the choice of the mother at the same time! It makes me automatically defensive, and I feel like yanking out a list of my daily chores and waving it around in the air.

On the other hand, now that both kids are in school 4 mornings a week, I do have some nice time to myself. Granted, with all that's been going on this fall, I haven't been able to take full advantage, but in January I expect to be able to go to the gym whenever I want, make a dentist appointment for the first time in a few (cough, four, cough) years and watch Regis and Kelly Lee to my heart's content.

So maybe I should just be grateful and proud that people have to ask me how I spend my time, instead of getting annoyed. What do you think?


And that's it, folks. That is the sum total of what I have to offer you today, and probably for the next several days.

Settling in

Well, we are finally almost settled in to our new home. Lance got the kids' bookshelves attached to the walls and some pictures hung this weekend, and Isaac went back to school today. He is mostly recovered (though I am still sad), and we are all getting used to life in the new apartment. The barking dog has been notably better and the hot water has been functioning just fine. The kids are still enjoying playing with toys that hadn't seen the light of day in months at our old place and after next week we can take them in the pool/ hot tub again. (Isaac is not allowed in water, except to bathe, for two weeks.)

Best of all, I found the kids their new beds. I am extremely proud of myself because I found the beds, which convert to bunks, on Craig's list for a total of $300--including mattresses. They are in excellent condition, too. Other bunk beds I was looking at ran over $1000, once you bought the mattresses too. Isaac has been sleeping on a pathetic, very old twin mattress and box spring only slightly more comfortable than hardwood since he moved to a big boy bed around age two. That's because, true to my bad mother tendencies, I was too cheap to purchase a new mattress for him, or a bed frame of any kind, not when we had a "perfectly good" twin mattress/box spring in the garage. Note to self: next time, try a little harder to let compassion for your kid overrule your ridiculous Depression-era-type frugality.

But! Depression-era-type frugality won out here, too! Who knew Craig's list could solve my children's sleep needs and assuage my need for cheap at the same time?

Vivian has been sleeping in her crib, happily, with no interest in climbing out, her entire life. I have a feeling that she would continue to do that until she grew taller than the crib sometime in adolescence. She's just not a climber, my Viv. Normally, I'd be happy to let her stay in the crib for as long as she wanted--I am a big proponent of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of parenting-- but I had no interest in dismantling the crib to get it out of her room, moving it here, and re-assembling it. Plus, I thought I could sell the two cribs (hers, and Isaac's old one, that matches) as a pair on Craig's list. Sadly, this is where Craig's list failed me: no one was interested in two un-gently used cribs with broken drawers. Oh well.

So. We moved to the apartment without beds for the kids, and they slept on an air mattress (Isaac) and the Pack n' Play (Vivian) until I found the beds, and Lance set them up, last week.



Yes, I know. The room is quite barren--nothing on the walls. I don't have any plans to put anything up, either. We'll only be here 6 months (hopefully) and I don't want to put holes in the wall if I don't have to. Not to mention, this is earthquake country, and you really shouldn't hang anything on the wall above your bed. Also, I don't have matching sheets yet or comforters/quilts of any kind. Both of my kids refuse to have anything covering them at night, though, so comforters are just for show anyway. I have been looking for sheets though--something I can use here and then use again, in Isaac's room (he'll have his own room!) at the new house. I found it really annoying that everywhere I looked for kids bedding, I had to go to a "boys" or "girls" section. No unisex bedding of any kind. Stupid. Why are surfboards only for boys? And dinosaurs? The only animal a girl is allowed is a butterfly? And what if you have girl/boy twins, or kids, like mine, of different sexes who share a room? Why does everything have to be so relentlessly masculine or feminine? I finally ordered some surfboard sheets with plain blue/light blue quilts. I'm sure my mother-in-law will be horrified that Vivian sleep in something so masculine, but it will have to do for the next 6 months.

We could also talk right now about the missing knobs on the dresser and the hideous, not to mention un-safe plant light which provides the only light in the room, but I'd rather not. Just focus on the cute pink bunny and be glad my children at long last have somewhere comfortable to sleep.

Apartment livin'

We officially moved into the new apartment Sept. 16th, and have now spent a total of 7 nights here. So far

The hot water heater has been working properly for 1 of those days (today).
The toilet has clogged twice.
The fire alarm has gone off every time I have turned on the oven (twice) and about half the time I've used the stove (approx 5 times)
The large dog that lives downstairs has awoken at 6:15 am and barked nonstop for 30 minutes three times.
Some drunk lady has screamed at the top of her lungs "OPEN UP THIS FUCKING DOOR" for 10 straight minutes at 3:15am once.
The kitchen light has had to be replaced once.
The washing machine has not cleaned ANY dirt off clothes, even after I run them through more than once.

Did I mention that this place was at the top of our price range? It's costing us more to rent here than the mortgage on our house! (But not nearly as much as the new mortgage). It's a new building, so they obviously have some bugs to work out, but Jesus. Oh, and there is no recycling. By law they have to provide it so they've set up this makeshift, stinky spot on the first floor, which only a few people seem to use. I would bet good money that the maintenance people simply take our recyclables and dump them in the trash when no one's around.

However, there are some good things about this place:

The pool and hot tub. Kids LOVE it, which makes for a very convenient playground.
Two bathrooms. I had no idea how nice it would be to get the kids out of my bathroom.
Large closets. We are missing a linen closet and a broom closet, but the two bedroom closets are so big, it makes up for it. Very nice to be able to spread out things out a little bit.
Proximity to new stores. This area is all new, hundreds of apartment buildings all next to each other, so many new grocery stores etc have put in huge new stores. It's very convenient, except to get to pre-school.
Everything is new, and therefore clean. No one has lived in this unit before, so the walls, carpets, appliances, counters--everything--is spic and span.
The best thing about the move so far? All the toys that the kids never played with before are suddenly tons of fun. I'm not sure why, maybe blocks are more fun in a new environment? But it's been great the last few days, as the kids basically entertain themselves.

It's nice to know this is only temporary housing--it makes all the annoyances less annoying. I'd be extremely pissed if we were planning on living here for any extended length of time. The barking dog--that needs to stop soon. But the rest of it I suppose I can live with.

I just keep reminding myself that in less than a year, we'll be back in our new, beautiful house. We are almost doubling the square footage of our old house, to a grand total of 2700. It will feel like a mansion to me, no doubt. They've already started work on it, and I've been stopping by in the mornings after I drop the kids off at pre-school to check out the progress. Here's a few pictures, to give you an idea:

On Tuesday:


Today:


And here's one from the "Draw on the walls party" we had before we left for Hawaii:

Moving is hell

Why? Oh, I'll tell you.

1. No matter how many boxes you beg, borrow and steal, you always need more. Usually at the very end of the day, when you just can't face going out to forage for more. That means moving into the new swanky apartment building carrying your things in black Hefty bags. Classy.
2. The paper you wrap all your breakables in makes your hands black with newsprint, and leaves smudges on all the dishes you unwrap at the new place.
3. Trying to figure out which items go into deep storage for 6-9 months and which items you will need at the apartment makes your brain implode, and causes you to pack the box of Lance's sweaters into the pod, and bring two sleeping bags with you to the new apartment.
4. Trying to fit all your belongings into a smallish storage container and smallish UHaul truck requires much forethought--much more than you give it, which means you must move things out of the storage container and re-pack, several times.
5. Although the garage sale nets a surprising $600 (!!); haggling with strangers over your crap for 6 hours is no fun ("I won't take less than $5! . . . Alright, just give me a $1. Or, fine!--Jesus! Fifty cents!").
6. Keeping the kids entertained and out of danger while you make trip after ever-fucking-lasting trip to the car, to the apartment, back to the house, is impossible. (Fortunately, the ever-brilliant Heidi helped out for much of the afternoon.)
7. What is one supposed to eat when all the food is packed in boxes?
8. Selling your refridgerator for $130 is a pretty good deal, since it came with the house, but selling it on Friday, 24 hours before you get into the new apartment, is not so smart. Coolers do not make good freezers. Soggy chicken nuggets, anyone?
9. The nice men you pick up from the Home Depot lot will definitely ease much of the pain of moving, but when they break your dining room table in half, there's not much you can do about it. I'm afraid they're not exactly insured.
10. Although the nice day laborers do most of the heavy lifting, there is still much carrying and stretching and pulling, which means your already fragile back will ache well into your Hawaiian vacation. (Vivian's new favorite whine? "My back hurts, Mama!")
11. Why does it always happen that your apartment is the absolute farthest away from the elevator?
12. When your husband leaves at 3:30pm, to go to the football game, the babysitter he hired is a help, but doesn't do a whole lot to alleviate the resentment you feel burning away your stomach lining as you survey the apartment, drowning in boxes.
13. Especially when, the next day, he actually gets annoyed at you, for being resentful.
14. When, at 7:30pm on moving day, the kids are finally asleep (on an air mattress and the pack n' play) and you have unpacked most of the kitchen, so you decide to rest for the evening, you turn on the TV only to find that although cable guy spent 40 minutes there setting it up, there is no reception. The phone is not hooked up, and your cell phone is dead, no charger to be found.
15. So, you decide to take a hot shower instead--but there is no hot water. And no phone with which to call the emergency maintenance number, nor access to the computer to find such a number. As there is no light by which to read a book--a book which you wouldn't be able to locate amongst the boxes anyway, this puts you in bed at 8pm, dirty, sweaty and pissed off.

See? Hell.

(Fortunately, that hell was followed quickly by the Hawaiian vacation from heaven, so it's all good.)

Things are gearing up around here

I think I've mentioned our remodel before, right? Well, we are moving out of this 1950s Californian bungalow in a few weeks to let the work begin, and hopefully by early next summer we can move back in to a 21st century contemporary--or is it modern?--2 story home. No, I have not found us a place to live in the duration yet, though we do have 3 appointments on Thursday.

Here's the rub: we are going to Hawaii with Lance's parents (I know, I know: we are spoiled, spoiled people) from September 19th to September 30th. Construction will likely start October 1st. That leaves me just about three weeks to find a place to live, divide this house into three piles: garage sale, storage, & temporary rental, and pack it all up. In other bad-timing news, guess who's pre-school is closed this week?

But. I'm not really complaining, though I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised if I did. After all, we're going to Hawaii (and the nasty brother-in-law is not coming, thank you Lord Jesus, praise be to God etc. etc.) and I'm getting a bigger, better house out of the deal. Pretty fucking exciting, no matter how much work it is. Yes, the financial strain is terrifying, but I'm keeping my eyes on the prize, as they say, and hoping for the best.

Here some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Current abode:


What the new house will look like:

(Actually, this rendering was our original plan that turned out to be WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, so imagine this house but smaller, without that "two-story volume" thing. The tower thing, you see what I mean? Oh, and we do keep the tree, evening though it doesn't show up in the picture)

Whaddya think? I know many people have issues with modern (you should hear my mother-in-law's suBtle hints), but to us it's different and elegant and, well, cool.

Best of all, it will have insulation!

Most importantly, thank you for all your kind comments and emails regarding my post at the Basement. It helps, tremendously. And it means a lot to me.

Gray Matters

It is crazy busy here in POW-land. I never have a second to sit down at the computer anymore, and when I do, I have to work on a project for my dad (beyond boring, but it pays a teensy amount). I've been trying to catch up on all of your posts but--my god! It's like the black hole of blogging: I start with one post--and even if I don't click through from bloglines--when I look up, it's been an hour, and I'm still only halfway through my feeds. Never mind trying to find time to type out all the pretty pretty posts knocking about in my noggin.

We have a playdate this afternoon. This is big news, as I typically do not attend these types of things. Not because I'm a snob, but because I don't have many mom friends, and I'm too shy to suggest anything like it to the other moms at pre-school. In any event, one of the other moms suggested it to me, and we're going, this afternoon. We'll see how it goes.

I am getting more and more excited about BlogHer. I'm still a little nervous, but not like I was. After all, as Y reminded me: we're not in high school anymore. Of course it would be nice if everyone liked me, but I've lived long enough to know this is not a probability. Despite my winning personality and compassionate heart, some people refuse to jump on the Amy love-wagon. But there will be plenty of good people to keep me company, and if it gets all clique-y and ass-kissy, I can always just hang with Y. Personally, I don't give a rat's ass who is a "popular" blogger and who is not, I just want to drink a few beers and laugh a lot.

There is no food in the house. Do you think it's fair to leave it this way for Lance over the weekend? Or should I go tomorrow and buy the appropriate kid food so he won't have to shop with both kids? I'm tempted to leave it, but that wouldn't be very wifely of me, now would it? Hmm.

Since we have no food in the house, I promised the kids a trip to Taco Bell for lunch, if they behaved at Target. Go ahead, guess what happened. I was looking forward to some Nachos Supreme but instead had to come home to this hotbox of a house and cook up some nuggets for the kids and mac and cheese (from the blue box) for me. Yum. Good for my diet, too! (Yeah, yeah, I know. Nachos Supreme aren't that good for the diet either. Whatever.) My children are a joy. I tell you, an absolute joy.

We have lived in this house for 5 years. In those 5 years, there have been 24 days where I wished we had air-conditioning. 14 of those 24 days? In the last 2 weeks. It's fucking hot. As a result, we try to leave the house even more than usual, leaving me less time at the computer. I wish to God I had an office job where I could sit in nice air-conditioning and surf blogs to my heart's content. But I'd only have to go in when I wanted to. And I wouldn't have any responsibilities, unless it was something fun.

Who needs a 4300 square foot house? I'm just curious, since they built one around the block from me, and now they are trying to sell it for over 2.1 million dollars. Don't forget, we live two football fields away from a municipal airport, in a sub-par school district. And yet: a 2 million dollar mansion. I don't get it. I went to look at it, out of curiosity, and it's pretty enough. But--unless you have 4 kids, why do you need 4 bedrooms, each with their own walk-in closet and bathroom? Just seems odd to me, to spend 2 million dollars to live in my neighborhood. Then again, the little shit houses like mine are still selling for 1 million, and that house should be worth WAY more than double what mine is. So maybe it's a steal.

Guess what? Heidi came through for me again, as usual. Last night, we were out at a birthday party, but she dropped off a pair of jeans. Can I tell you how awesome they are? Mid-rise, so no muffin top! Long leg, so they make me look tall! Free, so . . .Free! Best of all, I didn't have to go to the mall. Lucky brand, but I can't seem to find a style name, just this number: 81LZ061. I may bring them to Blogher, although the thought of wearing jeans in this heat is making me itch.

Have a great weekend everybody!!

Will I ever do a real post again?

Random bullets, ala Phantom.

1. Last night we took the kids up to the neighbors' house for a bbq. I drank two beers and 3 margaritas. I actually had bed spins as I was trying to fall asleep. I haven't had bed spins in 15 years. I feel like roadkill this morning.

2. Bed spins.

3. I have no memory of getting the kids into pajamas and bed last night. It's a miracle we ended up in the right house. At some point, I also folded the laundry, so I can't complain too much.

4. Hooray for long weekends. We had two days of spectacular weather this week and now it's back to grey. I hope to God it clears up soon. We are attending a pool party tomorrow, where I was hoping both kids would miraculously learn to swim, so that I won't be forced to don a bathing suit for swimming lessons at the local pool.

5. Tonight I'm going with Heidi over to the bride's house for some girl time--wine, snacks, gossip. I've been looking forward to it all week--except, roadkill and all.

6. At every meeting we have with our architect we discuss budget. After 6 months of planning, the architect now believes that the house he has designed will be way beyond our financial scope. There is no way to cut back on the design without losing the aesthetics of the house. So it's back to square one.

7. Because my husband is a saint, he got the kids dressed, put Vivian in front of Nemo, and took Isaac to pre-school this morning so I could nurse my hangover. He left me his car, which is great, except it has no carseat in it. I shouldn't really call him and complain, should I? Do you think Vivian will be okay if I leave her here while I get some coffee? I really, really need coffee.

8. Lance just came home with the car so I decided to run over to Annika's house with the lasagne I made for her yesterday. Except that I live in L.A., you know, so the 12 mile drive took 30 minutes which meant I was running late to pick Isaac up at pre-school. She opened the door, I threw the lasagne at her, yelled "what a cute baby!" and left. Nice. He is a cute baby, though. So tiny! So sweet!

9. Tequila, elixir of Satan.


(10. I just came home after a doctor's appointment to see what you lovely people had to say about my bed spins and--surprise!--nothing is posted. How can that happen? There's this little button called "publish post", see, and you have to click on it. Oh my pretty pretty braincells, I'm miss you already.)

I should be getting paid for this

Right now I'm supposed* to be doing an unbelievably boring project for my dad which involves looking up random business filing fees and forms on the internet for every fucking state in the country, but guess what? I'm writing this post, for your enjoyment, instead.

Spring is here, as you may have noticed. Actually, spring hasn't really been in Los Angeles the last few days, but I shouldn't complain--it's gorgeous today, even if a little cold for my weak blood (mid 60s). Chilly air and all, spring is "officially" here, and that means only one thing: Easter candy.

I know you didn't ask for this, but since I bought out the Easter goodies from our local Sav On the other day, I thought I'd share with you what I've learned.

First off, Butterfinger Nest Eggs suck. SUCK. (Also, they suck because I could not find a link to them anywhere on the internet. Perhaps because they suck so bad.)

Secondly, these

are okay, but the M&M's are way better. Smaller equals better in this instance.

Same goes for these:


Definitely tasty, and worth buying, but I wish they'd just paint the smaller, regular pieces Easter colors. We don't need a whole egg's worth of peanut-ty goodness. Disrupts the delicate balance of peanut to chocolate, see.

I know you know this already, but these are not good for anything but experiments in the microwave.

Finally, these are awesome. I've eaten an entire bag in less than three days, and except for the slightly sickening after-taste, I have no complaints.


In other product news:

If you have children who walk, and you have an aversion to spending large amounts of money for shoes that they will outgrow in 6 months, try these. They are well-made, under $25, and best of all, no shoelaces.

Last summer we bought these, also from Land's End, and they are awesome too, and even cheaper.

Last but not least:

I am not a beauty product type person. I buy my shampoo and moisturizer at the grocery store. I use lotion once a week. My make-up, purchased at the local drug store, is over a year old. However, I seem to be getting older and therefore uglier. My hair has always been a problem for me, but now it's verging on the ridiculous. I need to shave my head or grow dredlocks or buy a wig, or use this product. It is the only thing I have found that will condition my hair without weighing it down.

And that's it. My nod to the patriarchal, consumerist, materialist world we all live in.

*The reason for this project is that Lance and I are planning a remodel, which we can't really afford, and so my dad is throwing all the busy work that his employees don't have time to do my way, and paying me to do it in my "spare" time. Which is really great of him, and I shouldn't complain. Yet, here I am, complaining. Shocking, I know.

This old house

I bitch about my house all the time, as you are probably aware. The truth is, it's a perfectly nice house. We live in a great neighborhood with tons of kids, the beach is less than two miles away, the house itself is not ugly, and is not ridiculously small. (Though I'm aware that "small" is relative--perhaps many of you would think it tiny.) We have two and a half bedrooms, the half being an office; we have one and half bathrooms; we have a workable kitchen; we have a living room that is never used and a playroom. Our backyard is small, but it is completely enclosed, which is nice for the kids. We have a decent front yard with a nice pepper tree. Two car garage. Nice, friendly neighbors. This house has served us well for the last almost 5 years.

What pisses me off about this house is its "value". Lance does really well in his job as a salesman, and he continues to do better every year. In any other market in the county, with the exception of New York City, San Francisco, and possibly Boston, we would be able to afford a much bigger, nicer home. Unfortunately, here in Los Angeles, a 1400 square foot house built in 1953, with no insulation, the original kitchen, and--oh, yeah!--a municipal airport runway about 2 football fields away, sells for about one million dollars. A bigger house, one with a bedroom for each kid, and two full baths, maybe a dining room or even a guest room, will cost us anywhere from 1.3 to 1.8 million. Which we absolutely cannot afford, even with large amount of money we'd make on this dump if we sold it.

It just chaps my ass that my husband works as hard as he does, and is as successful as he is, and yet we still live next to an airport. Our kids still share a room. We have absolutely no storage space, for things like hand-me downs that my sister sends, or all those kid paintings you guys guilted me into keeping. The walls shake when we run the washing machine. My sister and her family can't come to visit us, because we have nowhere for them to sleep, and hotels in this area are very expensive.

So. Lance hates this house more than I do, and has been complaining about it ever since Vivian was born. Truth is, it really did get too small for us, once we became a family of four. Before Christmas, we started talking about adding on. We figured out what we could afford, and found an architect to draw up plans.

Which he did. Which we love. Which will probably cost about TRIPLE our intended budget.

But. But, if we can figure out a way to do it, if we can survive the probably year long remodel, then it would be pretty awesome to live here.

Fortunately for both of us, we have generous parents who are willing and able to help us out with deferred payment loans, etc. And fortunately or not, banks are just lining up to loan us money. ( I don't really get this: is it better for them if we foreclose? Because, yeah, we have really good credit, and yeah, Lance makes a good salary, but surely they can do the math as well as we can, and they know that we are going to be stretched pretty fucking thin, right? So why do they all want to give us their money?)

That's what we're thinking about around here, in case you wondered.

But actually, this whole post was just an excuse to post another video--it's Isaac in the backyard, and you can hear the airplanes going by. Taken over the weekend, when the planes fly much more frequently than during the week, but still. It's pretty loud. We're probably crazy to do a remodel to a house this close to the airport, right? Even if about 4 houses on our street are already in the midst of something similar?

Oops!

There was a reason the whole rant about Thing One and Thing Two came up in my last post.

I was going to talk about a different secret. See, I'm all about revealing inappropriate information to the internet these days. First, the rash! Next, the in-laws! Now . . . money! Whee!

So, awhile back I told you some secrets. This is about the last one I told. The one down there at the bottom of the post.

Right, we were out of money. To be honest, my feelings about this when it happened were maybe not what you'd expect. I was worried, yes, but I also felt proud. Proud that it had taken nearly two years to run out of money. To me, living in Southern California, near the beach, on one income, comfortably for two years without going into debt was a pretty accomplished thing. Honestly, I'd expected to run out of money much sooner. Also, I knew when I posted that we'd run out of cash two things: my husband was getting paid that Friday, and my mom was coming to town. So even if I had to charge groceries that week, I knew relief was in sight.

And it was. Lance got paid, my mom bought us some groceries, things were okay again. Not great, because we didn't have a cushion in our savings anymore, but I thought we could make it okay 'till the next paycheck. Now, I know you are not supposed to live paycheck to paycheck, but that's pretty much what I've done my whole life, so I'm used to it. I can't understand why we were living paycheck to paycheck when we had two incomes and no kids, but let's just leave that shitcan closed tight.

So back to living paycheck to paycheck. The thing with doing this while having kids is that you have all these looming costs that you know you should be saving for. Not the fancy new boots, like when you were single, but things like education for your kids. Because, in case you didn't know, in Los Angeles, you pay $850,000 for a shitty tiny old house behind an airport, and you still get the worst school district in the country. And private school starts at $15,000/ year, for first grade. So living paycheck to paycheck is doable, but not advisable, because eventually, even your 1 year old (God willing) will be heading out to kindergarten.

A week or so ago, out of the blue, we got a check from my in-laws. It was a distribution, sent to all the grandchildren, of my grandfather-in-law's estate. He passed away over a year ago, and we had no idea this was coming. It is not an extraordinary amount of money, but enough to pay off our credit cards (we didn't have much debt) and put a little into the funds we have for the kids' college. Enough to make living paycheck to paycheck seem not so scary. Enough to make me stop hyper-ventilating every time I have to purchase another $15 package of diapers.

While I was composing this blog post in my mind, I started thinking about my father-in-law, and wondering if it felt difficult writing the same check to Thing One and Thing Two, considering how they've been acting lately. And that's how I came to vent in my last post.

Which I probably shouldn't have done. Nor should I have written this one.

I'm just glad my husband doesn't read my blog.

Sharing a room

As I have mentioned before, we live in Southern California. Which means we pay a ridiculous amount of money to live in a hovel. It also means that Isaac and Vivian share a room. A small room. As in, 10' x 10'. Right now it is decorated with a fire engine theme but we are going to change that to something more unisex at some point. Hopefully before Vivian goes to college.

When Vivian was an infant, she slept in her Moses basket in various rooms of the house. But in December we put up the crib and started the sharing of the room. I was a little nervous about this, but we didn't have a choice, as it was either share a room or put one of them out on the front porch. Besides, people with experience had told me that it would be fine, sharing a room was the best thing they ever did for their kids, they won't wake each other up, they will be so much closer as they grow up, and so on.

Problem #1: Vivian's morning nap.
Isaac cannot play in their room if she is napping. Isaac needs access to each and every toy at all times or he will drive Mommy crazy.

Solution: While Vivian naps, Mommy allows Isaac to watch Sesame Street.
Okay! That wasn't so hard.

Problem #2: Afternoon nap.
Vivian only sleeps for about an hour in the afternoon. Isaac will usually sleep 2.5 to 3 hours, so long as his fussing sister does not wake him up.

Solution: Mommy simply runs in and snatches Vivian out of the room the first minute she starts to peep.
Okay, this has worked in that Isaac isn't waking up anymore. However, it does not give Vivian the chance to go back to sleep on her own, so she is perpetually tired. But she's perpetually tired anyway, since she refuses to sleep, so I can live with this.

Problem #3: Isaac learned how to climb out of his crib, and worse, into Vivian's.

Solution: Fortunately for Mommy, and perhaps not so fortunately for Isaac, this one solved itself. Twice in a row when Isaac climbed out of the crib, he really bonked himself. He has remained in the crib ever since.

Problem #4: When Vivian wakes up in the night to be fed, she wakes her brother up.

Solution: The only solution to this problem is to teach Vivian to stop waking up at night. So far we have mixed results.

Problem #5: Anyone who wakes up in the night usually wakes up his/her sibling.
This is true about 75% of the time.

Solution: There does not seem to be a solution to this problem. Anyone?

Problem #6: Although Isaac is no longer climbing out of the crib, he does have a new trick.
He throws all his blankets, stuffed animals, socks--anything he can reach--from his crib into his sister's, much to their mutual delight.

Solution: we make sure there is nothing heavy or sharp in his crib. W go in and check on them periodically and pull the extras out of Vivian's bed, not returning them to Isaac.
This has not worked well at all. We put the kids to bed at 7:30, and lately it is almost 9 before the fun of throwing things into Vivian's crib and being reprimanded by Mom is over.

So this sharing a room, it's not going so well.

brand new bathroom

New bathroom

Old bathroom

New bathroom

I live in Los Angeles, near the beach. This means that the house I own would sell for a ridiculous amount of money. This does NOT mean it is worth a large amount of money. In fact, the house was built in 1953 and is a complete piece of crap. The four of us live here, in 1400 sq. feet, with 1.5 baths, and pay almost $2000 a month to the bank.

But wait--we're the lucky ones! We bought 3.5 years ago!! If we bought this same house today--we'd have to pay almost double. Oh, and did I mention: no central heat or air, no insulation, tiling in bathrooms and kitchens from 1953. We replaced the roof and plumbing when we moved in. Every time it rains we have a lake both in front of the house, on the side, and in the rear. We have no gutters. We have relandscaped the entire house, front and back. (I say we, but truly, my husband does all that. I'm not good with plants. . .but that's another blog) . And the kicker? Oh yes, we live right next to a municipal airport! Hooray! Airplanes taking off and landing all day long a few hundred yards away. Pure Eden.

So. We have decided to redo our bathroom. That is, the one full bathroom, which the four of us currently share. (This actually not being that big of a deal, since both children are under 2 and not potty trained. They don't use anything but the tub). Our bathroom is small, and unfortunately there is no way to make it bigger unless we completely remodel the house. So we are re-doing it, but all that really means is getting rid of the 1953 appliances and tile and replacing with new.

But since we only have 1 full bathroom, for the week or so they are working on it, we have nowhere to shower. Not exactly convenient. I mean, yes, it's true I don't always get a shower every day--but come on, even I draw the line after 2 days. While the bathroom is being re-done, we are packing up our things and driving down to the beachclub to bathe, about 2 miles away.

Things I overheard the contracter say:

"Son of a bitch!"

"No, that one doesn't fit. Where's the one that fits?"

"I don't know how to do it. I thought you knew how to do it."

"Well, that's gonna cost you an extra day's work, but yeah, we can do it."

But despite all this--the bathroom is done, we only went over budget by $300 and the contracter actually did a pretty decent job. So I don't have anything else to bitch about, no matter how good blog-reading it would make.

I'll send some before and after photos if I can figure it out.*


*You may have noticed the non-functioning link to dooce at the top of the page. This was to be my blogroll, but obviously I can't figure it out. That is NOT where I wanted it to go, and of course I wanted the link to work. Bear with me, at some point I may fix it. (However, since I have no readers the only person that would use the links is me, and for now I just go to SBFH. So there's no hurry.)