Nature 101

So if you’ve followed my blog, you know that we’ve moved from the city to the country. Think Green Acres sans the pigs. My posts are less frequent now, because I have found 8 gazillion things to occupy my life out here. One of my new interests is photography. Little did I know, this seemingly fun activity would become some kind of crazy obsession, and may be one of the most expensive hobbies on the planet.  No wonder I love it. A girl’s gotta tool up for things, so armed with a new camera, a new camera bag, funky new lenses, filters, extra batteries and a super nerdy cross body strap, I set out into the pastures to capture nature. Flowers, beautiful corn rows and striking sunsets, missing only my Gandalf walking stick.

But catching a hawk in flight…now that’s what my dreams are made of.

Their graceful glide, their impressive wingspan, their majestic colors. It’s eye candy for these emerald peepers. I’m unsuccessful on numerous trips. Why is it I never have the camera when I see them mocking me, as they soar over the cornfields across the way? Damn those lovelies!!

And then, there it is. Like an eclipse. It’s massive wingspan shades our fence. “Oh my God” I yell whisper as I run for my camera. I’m like a cat in a catbox.  Shit is flying everywhere as I dig out all the equipment I need to capture this beauty. I make sure the camera is on continuous capture. Sport mode. I don’t want to miss one single movement!

Come here my pretty.  Smile for Mama.

I zoom in. Clicks galore.  I can’t even see what I’m shooting, but one thing is for damn sure, I got it. Yea Man. I’m like starry-eyed Ralphie in The Christmas Story, dreaming of the Official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle. The massive creature flies away. I can’t dump that SD card fast enough into my computer. Only this is what I see.

This is NOT a hawk.

 

It’s a fu**ing turkey buzzard! UGH!  Is there any animal uglier than this bird? I felt like washing out my eyes with bleach and sandpaper. I couldn’t stop being disgusted. And it was on my fence! Where is that power washer anyway? I google the horrid creature. It’s a vulture. Turns out their graceful glide is often mistaken for hawks in flight as they search for dead carcasses in corn fields.

Welcome to the country.

Port-A-Potty Protocol

I didn’t get the memo. Apparently there is a standard among port-a-potty users and I was in the dark.

It had been a long afternoon waiting for the giant hot air balloons to be inflated. The 3 year old we are hosting for this money sucking event is understandably anxious after sitting for 2 hours hoping the wind speed would change. In attendance are all the usual suspects. The kiddie train operator that looks like today is his first day in decades as a free man, the bellowing game operators and the Nazi hand stampers checking your bags at the gate.  $3 lemon shakeup stands are strategically placed every 5 yards, and the smell of hot dogs and greasy elephant ears fill the air. No surprises here.  Until I head over to a bank of port-a-potty’s. It’s early so I feel they are at their cleanliness zenith. I walk into the u-shaped area and I’m greeted by someone who looks exactly like Leslie Jones from SNL. (If you do not know who that is, you are missing a universe of funny.)

The Hilarious Leslie Jones

In front of Leslie’s doppelgänger is a folding table holding an enormously sized bottle of hand sanitizer and a metal colander containing those cheap starlight mints that are sold by the gross at warehouse stores. Surely they have been around since the 30’s.Taped to the table is a handwritten sign that says TIPS. I passed the table and smirked as I headed for a green handled door. It was early in the day making this trip a tolerable experience. As I walk toward the exit for this city of plastic outhouses, the ‘attendant’ says “next time women on the left”. I smile a fake smile wondering how they will maintain that order when the beer tent opens.  I do not leave her any money for her hard work.  Fast forward 2 hours. This time I head to a different station and same set up, only this time the ‘attendant’ is shouting at people who do not donate to her colander!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!  UH-HUH YOU’RE WELCOME! OH WELL THANK YOU EVERYONE!

People are quickly tossing their hand towels and walking sideways to clear the area.  When did we start paying someone to watch us use generic hand sanitizer after we take care of business in a smelly, dark, phone booth of blue water?   What would you do?

Well that’s that!

The move is complete. Done. In the past. Over. Terminated. I could write endlessly about the crazy, ironic, dumb events of the last 5 months and for every capital letter clusterf**k, there is a funny, grateful and humbling story to match. I am still married to my amazingly patient husband, everyone is healthy, my dogs think they live in a dog park and I found a wine rack the looks like a giant bird cage at the local flea market. Life is good!

 

My Reset Button

This gallery contains 20 photos.

In an attempt to stave off day drinking and with full knowledge that destroying the Neanderthals that are currently employed by our mortgage lender is illegal, my husband and I decided a better choice was a stroll in the woods. I know it’s 30 degrees in Chicago, however around these parts you will earn a […]

Virtue Shmirtue

Anticipation.

The bane of my existence right now. Within the next 15 days we will have closed on our new house, (for the whole ugly molasses filled story of that calamity look at the older posts to the right) sweated out a year long separate (but equally nerve wracking) legal matter, waited to learn if a more lucrative job for one our daughters is in the cards, celebrated the 3rd birthday of 2 of our grandchildren and birthed one more. Lastly, we will have eagerly awaited the arrival of our new housemate who hopefully gave her seal of approval to the changes we’ve proposed to create a perfect luxurious new suite. WHEW.

I wake up and check the countdown clock on my phone. Nope, I haven’t slept through an extra day. DAMMIT! If I do sleep, I dream about what it will be like to not have pots and pans falling onto my head. To have enough space to use the inside of my oven as an oven – instead of a cookie sheet cabinet.

I fantasize about having an enormous extra wide Sharpie to check off what is surely the world’s longest to do list. People, I got lists for my lists – you know that I have only outlined the ass end of it here.

Waiting is irritating for me and sometimes thinking about the rainbow at the end isn’t enough to get a date with Mr. Sandman. If I were friends with Xanax, I would be ordering it in quantities that could only be measured by roadside weigh scales. There is only so much hand lotion one can apply between wringing cycles.

Boxes packed, numbered, organized, reorganized, alphabetized and color coded. Overnight bags ready, documents prepared, gifts purchased and wrapped, change of addresses ready to mail and trips made to Goodwill and Savers during multiple attempts to de-junk. Sometimes being ridiculously organized has a downside.

Patience: an annoying period of time in which the only choice you have sucks.

The ticking of that clock is like a Chinese gong.  Only louder.

The Forever Christmas Box

Some years ago, I received one of my most treasured gifts from my only sister. At first glance it’s appears a simple brown wooden suitcase. Inside, it’s filled with flashbacks of our childhood.

Replicas of our favorite toys, movies we watched as kids, family recipes, fabric swatches from our Christmas jammies, some of our own old handmade ornaments and a few retail re-creations. Every item has a little handwritten tag attached, onto which she she wrote her version of the memory for that particular treasure.

Remember our ice skates? was attached to a pair of kid sized mittens

Remember when we spent hours making these sequined ornaments?

How many times did we watch the Miracle on 34th Street?

How about these gigantic christmas bulbs!

Remember getting these icicles all over Grandma’s house?!

Every tag I read tag made me smile and by the time I reached the end,  I was laughing and crying at the same time. I close the suitcase when Christmas season is over, but it stays out all year. It makes me smile every time I walk by it.

What would you put in your Forever Christmas Box?  Who would you give it to?

Noodle Angels

Every female that punches the Mom time clock has a go at Arts & Crafts. In this vortex, we are secretly bamboozled into believing we are one with glue guns and glitter. It may start out innocently but then something snaps and we all see Martha Stewart in the mirror sans the prison garb. Secretly every member of Mommyland believes that their invention will end up on Shark Tank. Here is my account of being this/close to an international phenomenon.

1988 there were a few cutting edge ideas making waves at Christmas Craft Fairs that set themselves apart from the usual pot holders and potpourri; ornaments and wearables.  So on my maiden voyage to extreme wealth, in partnership with a  friend Former Friend, we spend a month in September creating sweatshirts with glitter outlined appliqués and a few ornaments made from ordinary household items to sell at the Fair. Keep in mind this was before the days of Pinterest so creativity needed to be at it’s Zenith.

Cheap sweatshirts, a gross of assorted glittered fabric paint and fusing and we are ready to launch our modern day sweatshop. We’re pounding these things out rapid fire and as we talk through our plans to buy a leer jet with the profits we are sure to amass from this venture. Our confidence is at an all time high as we begin the ornament phase of manufacturing.

The noodle angels ornaments we chose were made from uncooked pasta, a small wooden ball head and a ribbon hanger. Adorbs right?! We make about 20, cooing like infants the entire time. What we didn’t anticipate is the enormous popularity of these little celestial babies.

Our Craft fair day arrives and we are pumped! Our products are well-organized and displayed. Around closing time, a kindergarten teacher falls in love with our ornaments and special orders 100!  “Why yes, we can have those ready by the day of your Kindergarten Christmas Program and yes, I’m sure the parents of the kindergarten students will LOVE them” I say.  My FF is equally excited as we get a game plan for creation. We have a 2 week timeframe. Group hugs all around.

After 3 failed attempts to get together to fulfill this order, I purchase all the supplies we’ll need on my own. I nudge my FF. She’s far ”too busy this week but assures me she’ll get into overdrive next week. I begin the glueing process and store them in a flimsy garment box that you get free if you purchase an ugly christmas sweater. I had a system; glue the noodles together, glue the “hair” on, spray paint them white, draw an angelic singing face and glue on the ribbon enabling them to hanging onto the tree. Simple.  I make up 10 in about 15 minutes, so I’m satisfied that it wont take longer than an afternoon to create the 100 needed for the order. I share the good news with my partner! It’s Christmas season and everyone is up to their turtlenecks in gift wrapping and sleigh bells.

I make yet another call to FF:

ME: Hey – we really gotta get these angels done, I started but I need help
FF:   Ya know, I’m really not gonna have any time to do them
ME: Uhm….What? At ALL?
FF:   Yea, I just have a ton of shit going and I can’t jam one more thing in
ME: So… this is all on me to finish? 100 Noodle Angels? Seriously?
FF:   Yea super sorry about this

After I silently braid a boat rope of profanities together that could have wrapped around the galaxy, I begin my stratagem. I need to have a place to hang the scads of drying pasta, develop some kind of hanger thingy (technical term) and clear some space in the garage for these freshly painted yuletide treasures. I plan to glue them inside the house, spray them outside in the garage and bring them back inside to add the ribbon and draw the face. BEGIN!  I am a glueing maniac. Dinner?  Heat up some tomato soup girls. Homework? Read it out loud to me while I’m looking for bowtie pasta that isn’t broken. My neck is aching but I have about 50 glued and ready for paint.

T-7 – Winter is icy in Chicago, so naturally as I’m bringing the first 50 outside to paint, I slip and they go flying. I lose about 12 to broken wings or decapitation. Irritatedly I begin to spray and in within 5 minutes, I have paint all over my gloves AND I’m freezing.

T-6 – Here’s a tip for all you inventors on the cutting edge of the next best thing; if the temperature is below freezing, paint doesn’t dry very well. When I go out to trade the newly glued angels, with the newly painted angels, 90% of the paint has dripped onto the floor. So I do what every diligent entrepreneur does, I spend the remainder of the day buying and setting up an auxiliary heater. For real. $40 bucks.  Late that evening I respray the first batch.

T-5 – Next morning I check on the angels.  The heater seems to be working. So if one is good, 3 are better so I go out and buy 2 more heaters, panicked that these things are not going to get done. Since this buyer has already paid me for these and they ARE gifts for parents I WILL SUCCEED. It made sense at the time. The most casual of observers would have recognized at this point that my profit/loss margin was a teensy bit skewed – but not me. I was on a mission.

T-4 – I now look like those commercials on television where people have binged on something unhealthy for days.  I’m completely disheveled, wearing yesterday’s baggy sweats, waking up on the couch with food still on my face from right before I passed out. It wasn’t pretty. I’ve all but abandoned my life before this project. I trudge out to the angel factory only to find that because the first batches had been sprayed twice, the pasta had begun to soften. The wings were now pliable. I thought about remaking them. Finally, my common sense showed up. Tough shit, seconds are a legit business. They stay.  I hadn’t even put the smiling faces on these little goddesses, whom I now believe to be possessed. Sleep deprivation does things to a person.

T-3 – The buyer calls to set up a meeting place. I tell her I’ll have them completed and ready for delivery by tomorrow, however I’ve hit a few snags. I offer her a refund if she just wants to turn back now – sight unseen. She FREAKS OUT and tells me how important these angels are, she has no back up gifts, blah, blah, blah.  All I heard was the voice of Charlie Brown’s Mom squawking through the phone.

T-2 – Faces on. I admit some looked like they had been on a bender. I attach the ribbon, pack the devil babies up and get them into the car. These gotta go tonight before they eat one of my kids. Nothing has been done in my house for the last week that wasn’t noodle angel related. These little Satan’s Spawn had taken over my life. I drive myself to the buyers house. I’m tempted to leave them on her door and back away slowly but she answers. I paste on my fakest smile, ridiculously thinking she is going to be ever so grateful for the effort.  “Great thanks – take care” and closes the door. That’s it! I spent my entire ride home yelling at the windshield.

Don’t you get it Broom Hilda?! Those things took a week of my life from me. That’s it, “take care” ?! How about a bag of food for my kids, or a roll of toilet paper since I haven’t even gone out for basics since I was sucked into this vortex? How about you wrap all the gifts I STILL NEED TO GO BUY?

Eventually, I realized I had only myself to blame for letting things get this out of control. Oh and my FF. We haven’t spoken since the angels came. The paradox of having something that began as a small good natured project, then turns sinister and takes over your life has been coined “noodle angels” in our family. The term can be used as a noun or a verb.

• Example A:  Don’t go all noodle angels about this but could you …
• Example B:  Yea – before I knew it went noodle angels on me.
• Example C:  I’m not even gonna start that project – it’s got Noodle Angels written all over it!

Know the signs people. This stuff sneaks up on you.

 

 

Please Take Our Money: The Conclusion

• Please Take Our Money Part 1
• Please Take Our Money Part 2
• Please Take Our Money Part 3

Determined to overcome win this house hunting horror story,  we are scoping out new neighborhoods using highways to enable an easier commute for my now retired husband, that has a part time gig. We figured a 50 mile radius from our current home would keep him from having to pack lunch for the commute.  We are focused.

(Square footage)+(separate bathrooms)x(multiple gender caves)-(overspending)=happiness

---

Realtor #1
I spend hours on Realtor.com and develop a list of hopefuls. We find a beauty in a nice neighborhood.  We drive out there to do some private leering. I dial up the name on the sign and reach a voicemail.   Late THE NEXT DAY I get a call back. Strike 1. Double secret probation for this chic. I spend over 30 minutes reciting our criteria and giving her background on our saga. She agrees to do a search and provide options however, the home we initially inquired about is in under contract. Of course it is.

• Day 1 – Silence
• Day 2 – Silence – Strike 2
• Day 3 – I leave a voicemail. “Hey I haven’t received any info from you. I just want to be sure you have my email correct.” As I hear myself softening the tongue lashing I rehearsed in my head I am wincing. That evening she calls back with apologies and asks for a resend on the list.
• Day 4 – Silence
• Day 5 – Her return call frames her VERY VERY BUSY schedule and how fretful she would become if she didn’t need 2-3 day notice to make an appointment to view anything. Are you shitting me? In 3 days the place could be sold. FAIL. Strike 3 Thank you I say, You are just too busy for me. I will find someone who prefers to earn money. Checking further, I learn she has been a realtor for about 6 weeks. Apparently she was just anticipating the chaos that would ensue without the proper leeway. Realtor Barbie, you suck at this.

 

Realtor #2
Sunny Sunday afternoons in October are gorgeous here. We take a cruise and come across another hopeful. This time we dial the listing agent on the sign. Why sure he’ll be happy to show us that property. Today? Absolutely! Are you pre approved with a reputable lender and willing and looking to close the deal in the next 60 days? Wow, this guy is forward. Yes and Yes. Perfect, see you in 30 minutes. The house is a no go. Well and septic are not gonna work for us I say but,  would you call on this other property? I found while you were jaw jacking with my husband about some non-emergent matters Make an appointment with you next week? Ok. He offers his card and we head home to compile our umpteenth list of prospects. I send the list and include our available days this week, whilst enjoying my Chardonnay that evening. He confirms he’s received the information.

• Day 1 – silence
• Day 2 – silence
• Day 3 – I send a message referring to the information that is now days old.  He immediately responds.  He also is far too busy to show homes and he is actually just a listing agent.  In fact he is so damn busy that he hasn’t even had time to hand off the info to another agent in his office. Superb. I have landed upon another “Professional Giver of Zero F^&*s.” I have a gift.

Realtor #3
I reach out to my family. “Please people, for the love of God, help me end this nightmare” I beg! Doesn’t anyone know a competent realtor that is willing to help us? I have never had so much trouble giving away money! Cousin Love Network to the rescue! I told him and he told her and now we’re hooked up with the most efficient Realtor I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. This Majestic Queen lines up 8 houses in the next 5 hours, all fitting our criteria! When we meet, she hands me a packet of listing sheets, has the addresses programmed into the GPS and we are sprinting from town to town. She has a plethora of resources, is familiar with neighborhoods and subdivisions, isn’t hovering and answers all our questions. Thank you. A million times, thank you!

Fast forward 72 hours.  72 hours folks.  After over a year, and over 10 Grover Clevelands, we have a contract!  It is a beautiful mega square foot home that checks off every single box on our list. Clearly this place has been waiting for us. It was on the market for only 2 days. We were the one and only showing. We close January 14. Everyone is working at warp speed now. Lawyers, Financiers and Home inspectors are all jumping Double Dutch. It’s like a symphony orchestra playing my favorite song. I can feel the tension melting in my shoulders.

Soon I can sunbathe in my square footage. I will no longer trip over dogs and have cookware falling on my head from makeshift shelving. I can stop storing my cookie sheets in the oven. I have visions of doing snow angels in our new living room. I am smitten.

I don’t normally end my stories with clichés, but if you’ve ever had a doubt that some things in life are prearranged, reread this lengthy journal. Whatever you believe is guiding your life is working in the background like Santa’s elves on December 23rd. I believe it takes a cooperative effort to line it all up.  Participate in your own life. Pray for help while your swimming toward the shore and don’t give up.

Do Epic Shit!

Please Take Our Money Part 3

• To read Please Take Our Money Part 1 click here
• To read Please Take Our Money Part 2 click here

---

 

Builder #4

We initially bypassed this builder because their available homes although beautiful, lacked the expansive view we craved. We learned they were to begin new construction in a subdivision familiar to us called Mission Santa Clara. Do we dare try this again?

Happy Thanksgiving

On this holiday of eating excess we all have much to be grateful for. Please remember all the Dispatchers, Firefighters, Police Officers , Doctors, Nurses and hospital staff that are not able to be with their families today! #keepingpeoplesafe