It's Friday!

It's been a weird, BUSY week. With selling and buying a house, the MANY phone calls between me and our realtor, meeting with the bank guy, and getting all kinds of appointments scheduled, I'm ready to just drop! However, I don't think I'll be able to do that until after we move, because there are still so many things to do!

Today will be a fun day, as my parents and sister are coming up to see our new house! Erin helped us pick it (forced us to, more like! Just kidding!), but Mom and Dad haven't seen it yet. I think (hope!) they'll love it as much as we do!

The rest of this weekend will be filled with my attempts to start getting packed and organized. I have a delightful hair appointment Saturday morning, but after that...PACK CITY will commence at 1528 MLK Drive. My goal for this move is to have ENOUGH boxes so that I don't have to resort to throwing things into garbage bags at the last minute, and to pack things fairly neatly so that unpacking is easier. We'll see how this goes. I'm strangely confident about this, though! I think it can happen!

We have no big Labor Day plans that I know of. Nick is working all weekend but is off Monday night, so maybe there will be some sort of event happening. We'll see!

So productive...

There are so many things to do in this whole "hey, let's buy a house!" process! Many calls between me and Jean, the realtor, have taken place since Sunday. Many. Like I'm considering making her one of my 5 people I can call for free, almost! :)

I feel like I've been productive during the past couple of days, though. I called my loan officer at my bank, Curt, to set up an appointment to get this financial ball rolling. I was supposed to meet him this morning at 8 a.m., which means I had to either find all my stuff I had collected before for my loan application (W2s, check stubs, bank statements) or I had to get that stuff collected again. Of course, I couldn't find my copies, so I managed to get most of it pulled together. Unfortunately, Curt had a dog-related emergency this morning and wasn't able to make our meeting. He's supposed to be coming to my work to do this stuff today, though, which is nice.

Also, I found a copy of something I got from Toyota because there's a recall on a part of my car. I got this thing so long ago and just totally forgot about it. I called the service department today, though, and I'm bringing my car in to them next week on Tuesday morning, so that will be taken care of!

I got a call from the home inspector that Jean hooked me up with, and that appointment is scheduled for a week from today, so that's done. I like when stuff gets scheduled and completed!

Finally, Nick just called me. He got called for an interview for a position with the City of Bloomington. I applied him for this Support Staff IV - CSO position. I think the CSO means Community Service Officer. I think it's mostly a secretarial/front desk type job with the police department. Now, it is 2nd shift, which isn't ideal, but if he were to get it, he'd be IN TOWN (a HUGE plus!), and he'd have his foot in the door and could potentially change shifts. We'll see. He's interviewing next week on Wednesday at 11 a.m. I think we're both happy with where he is for now, but we'll keep an open mind...

Oh my God, we BOUGHT A HOUSE!!

Yes. It has been a BUSY couple of days! The woman who saw our house on Saturday put an offer in for it on Sunday. We discussed it with Jean, the BEST realtor in the world, as far as I'm concerned! One part of the deal is that there's some First Time Homebuyers' program called AmeriDream that our buyer is a part of, so in order to make the deal, we have to pay a percentage to AmeriDream. Not a confusing concept, but this does result in us getting less in the end than her actual offer. Okay, the other contingency is that she has to close by September 26.

As in one month from today.

So when I heard that, I started to cry (shock of all shocks, I know!) because I couldn't imagine doing this deal and having to move in a month and having to go to a hotel or an apartment or something like that. After the initial rush of emotions, we talked through some logical options and came up with a few. Here's a tip. If you're ever in this situation, your realtor probably knows of some month-to-month apartments (even sometimes owned by her company) or might be able to get you a really good hotel deal.

Luckily, we don't need either of these options. Our buyer lives with her sister and has agreed that, as long as we close on the 26th of September, we can do what's called rent back, where we actually rent our house back from her day by day until we close on our new house. Whew! We went house hunting Sunday night and Monday and found one cute one that we thought was "the one"...until we found THE ONE!!! The first house was really cute and had the space we wanted, but it wasn't quite as cute as the one we ended up selecting.

Here's our (soon to be) house! We can't wait for the "paperwork" process to be done and to get all moved in! The MOST fun will be decorating and finally being able to buy furniture (slowly but surely)!

Life is exhausting sometimes! A.k.a. the long rambling post...

Well, here's our weekend so far. Austin and I had a great time at Parker's first birthday party today! It was hot out, but there was a tent (love the tent), so we all sat in the shade and watched the kids play. Delicious cake, good friends, cute kids...all in all, a great time! During the party, I got a call from a realtor who wanted to show our house this evening around 6:30. I agreed and went home to clean.

Let me say this. Having your house on the market is a game full of ups and downs. You're up when someone's interested, and your down when there's no action. You (or at least I) also get pretty tired of constantly feeling like I have to clean. Here's the thing: I like a clean house. I love a clean house! I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I clean up my house. I don't love, however, having to go home and frantically clean my house by a certain deadline. I also don't particularly love having to leave the house whenever people want to check the house out. It's just kind of inconvenient sometimes.

Anyway, so the lady said they were going to come around 6:30 or 7. I told her to try to come around 6:30 since we have a young man who needs to get to bed around 7:30. She said she'd call me if they weren't going to make it to cancel. We cleaned, we left, and Austin and I went to play at Cecilia's. About 5 seconds after I told Cecilia and Rohrk about this, the realtor called to say that they wouldn't be able to be there until after 6:30 so they were going to cancel. She didn't want us to have to leave the house. This was at 6:27. I told her we were already gone, so if they could still come, that would be great! She agreed and they checked out the house.

Nick beat me home after the realtor left but called me to say that she had locked the garage door! Oops! I had to call her to come let us in, as we don't have a house key (we just go in through the garage door). Nick talked to her a little, and she told him that her client LOVED our house. The only thing she wasn't crazy about was the backyard because she has a young daughter, and it really doesn't lend itself to outside playing that much. However, she said that our house is #1 on her client's list, and that she hopes to make an offer this week!

In taking a lesson from Magoun, we're not going to get too pumped about this just yet. However, that's at least positive, and worth the cleaning frenzy/vacating the house!

The other thing that is a bit exhausting right now is Nick's job situation. He works in Peoria for not a TON of money, and with gas being so high, it's not really an ideal situation. I would say that it's really never an ideal situation to work and live in two different cities, but especially with high gas. He had a job interview at ISU this week and we just found out that he didn't get the job. What is the deal with ISU? We have applied him for job after job there, and he's been called for multiple interviews, but so far, no job offers! Why is ISU such a hard place to get a job? I mean, what is it, State Farm? Anyway, we have a couple more applications in the mix at ISU, but after that, we're taking a break for a while. The good news is that he just found out he's getting a cost of living raise of about $1 per hour (yay!) and that he might be getting some back vacation pay or something. That certainly takes the edge off of the job turn down! And with gas being down a little bit (for now...please stay that way!), we're not in an impossible situation.

I just realized how long and rambling this post has gotten. If you've managed to read it all, thanks for listening to my jumbled thought process!

My Boy

Last night, I was looking at a lot of my pictures from when Austin was just a tiny bean. He was so stinking cute, I just about couldn't handle it! Let me share a couple with you.

He is such a little peanut in these pictures! It's amazing to me how much he has grown and changed in just a little over a year. We talk at work, all of us with all of our little children, about how fast they grow and how old they're all getting. I feel like Austin has already grown out of so many stages of his life! And yet, I know that there will come a day when Austin will be like 16 years old and all big and huge, and he probably won't want to hang out with his dorky old mom all the time...and I'll remember when my sweet, sweet boy was just a baby who loved to play on the bed and read books and fall asleep with his soft, peach-fuzzy head on my shoulder.

And I'll think, "Where did the time go? He was just a year old like yesterday!"

Here's to enjoying every minute!

Monday again.

Well, it's Monday again. I had a great shopping weekend and went to work today feeling much better about myself than I did last week (please reference the post about Thursday's unfortunate outfit!). It always helps when you feel like you look nice!

A realtor called me to show the house today. She called me about 2:30 and wanted to bring her client by the house around 3:15. Yikes! Not a lot of time to pick things up! I raced home and did a whirlwind cleaning. Thankfully, we had had an open house on Saturday, so the house was clean underneath the messiness, and it wasn't too messy. I got everything neatened up. However, currently there are many, many things in very odd places. Here are some examples:

• There are Netflix movies in a Huggies box in Nick's closet,
• There is a laundry basket containing cleaning clothes and empty water bottles (?) in the front seat of my car,
• There is a whole bunch of random stuff in a Pampers box in Nick's closet (again in his side, because my side is too crowded!),

and my personal favorite:

• There are 3 Walmart bags full of dirty dishes in the corner of my garage!

See, the dishwasher was/is full of clean dishes and I didn't have time to empty it and refill it with the dishes in my sink, so I threw everything in Walmart bags and "hid" them in the corner of the garage! I'm not sure why I haven't done something with them yet...they're really not doing anyone any good out there!

It's a good thing people don't look too closely during walk throughs, or they'd find some interesting hiding places! Oh, by the way...the realtor signed her client in around 3:35. Nick said they were gone by the time he got home at 3:50. Not too promising!!

It Takes a Gallon

So here's the story from last week. This was my Thursday morning! And, let me add up front. These types of things seem to always be stories about me! It's just par for the course in my life! I gladly share, however, so that I might be able to bring entertainment to others!

This was last Thursday morning. Nick was working at the fire department. Austin and I always seem to run late when Nick has to work in the morning because he's not around to help us get ready to go. You'd think I would just get up earlier, but I just keep hitting that damned snooze!

Okay, so Thursday. I was rushing to get ready. I don't have a ton of work pants (or any kind of pants) that fit me all that well these days because I haven't purchased pants in a LONG time. I had already worn all my black pants that week and my other pants were dirty. I pulled out these pink capri pants that I used to wear. Now, they're about 1 size too small for my current bulk, but I thought maybe I could make them work. Also, Heartland was having a "Wear your Alumni Clothes Day," so I decided I could get away with the pink tight pants because I'd pair them with a black ISU t-shirt, which would disguise the belly overhang. Okay, so I'm wearing pink pants that are SO TIGHT, a black t-shirt, pink flip flops, and a ponytail. I got to Sherry's to drop Austin off for the day and saw Cecilia. She gave me this look that was part concern and part confusion. Later, she confessed that she was thinking, "Is Emily going to work today?" I said something to her about that being "Alumni Shirt Day" and she said she had forgotten. Off we went to work.

I had to stop and pick up a gallon of milk for our Slim Fast breakfasts, as it was my turn to get the milk. I ended up getting stuck behind a SLOW driver, so I was feeling even more late and flustered. Please keep in mind that during this whole time, my ever loving pink pants are DIGGING INTO MY STOMACH like no one's business, making me feel oh so pretty! I'm sure I was probably starting to sweat at this point, and you know my feelings about that.

Okay, so I get to work. I carry in my purse, lunch, and the gallon of milk. As I walk in, still mentally questioning my outfit choice, I pass by a coworker sitting at a desk who says, "It takes a whole gallon, huh?" or "Does it take a whole gallon?" or something just as witty. You know she was just trying to make conversation, but really? Really, Faye? Can we just not have a funny conversation about my gallon of milk? This comment was not required. I did not stop and look at her, thus making her feel like she had to come up with some sort of dairy-related joke! Anyway, it did NOT add anything to my morning!! I said something like, "Yeah...can't buy milk much smaller..." even though you TOTALLY CAN!! She said, "I know it!", apparently feeling my milk pain!

Milk incident behind me, I went about opening up my office and getting ready for the day. I noticed, however, that NO ONE ELSE was wearing any college-related garb! I felt totally out of place. I mean, The Big MC might be able to pull off wearing sweatpants, slouch socks, and t-shirts every day while the rest of us wear business casual clothes, but I just felt uncomfortable! I went to Cecilia's office and said, "No one else is wearing the alumni clothes! I might have to go change!" Being the awesome soulmate that she is, she said, "I might be able to go change..." I went back to my office.

At this point, I literally had tears coming out of my eyes because I'm a big emotional weenie. I started logging in on my computer when who should come in to comment on my outfit but Kath herself! She stuck her head in my office and said, "Well, that shirt is really appropriate for today...ha ha ha!" My shirt had the words "Kick me!" on the back of it, and we tend to feel pretty stressed out/yelled at during these last couple of weeks of enrollment! Ha ha. Good observation, Kath. I responded with some sort of nod or "mmmm" in her direction, but her comment did it. The second she left my office, I grabbed my keys and went home to change!!

Oh yeah. When I got back to work, I noticed an email from our HR lady saying, "Don't forget! Tomorrow is Alumni Shirt Day! Wear your Alumni apparel!"

I did not wear my alumni apparel on Friday. No thanks. We did get a great new motto out of this ordeal, though...

IT TAKES A GALLON!

Sunday morning fun

Good morning! Austin and I are having a lovely morning today. We had some eggs and juice for breakfast and have been playing and watching Playhouse Disney ever since. I have to mention here that the Playhouse Disney line up is pretty enjoyable, but they throw in these little 5 minute "minishows" between regular shows, and some of them are the best! I especially like "Choo Choo Soul...with Genevieve!" It's just a sassy lady singing either the ABCs or 123s while riding with some random kids on a train. Simple, but oh-so-soul-filled!

Austin just spent about 10 minutes playing with my flip flops. He really, really likes to put on people's shoes and try to walk around in them. He was actually doing a pretty great job with my flip flops, too! He was putting them on and walking across the room pushing one of his walker toys. Nice work, buddy! Wear those pink flip flops with pride!

The other thing that cracks me up is my son's dancing style! He's too funny. Apparently, he gets the Dancin' Fever whenever he hears the ending song on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I didn't know of this love before this morning (and it may have just started, because we don't watch that show very often). We had the show on and we were playing on the bed in the guest room/downstairs. This song came on because Mickey and his pals had successfully helped Goofy perform in his magic show (and, let's be honest...Goofy needs some help. I mean, the magic words were "hocus pocus" and he couldn't even remember them once during the entire episode until the very end! Get it together, Goofy!!). Anyway, the song basically goes, "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog!" and everyone on the show dances. Austin starting dancing like a Solid Gold Dancer and saying "dog, dog, dog!" I had to keep rewinding the song so we could keep dancing. It was one of the funniest things!

I'm a bad blogger!

Okay, I know. I'm not blogging as much as I could be (or as much as my sister is!)! I'm sorry! It's been crazy around work still this week, even with the $75 service fee required! Between work, meetings at work, and doing things around the house, I haven't had a minute to get much else done! Sometimes I feel like I just can't catch up.

I'm really wanting someone to buy our house and us to move so at least that part of the Stuff in My Life will feel settled. That will make me happy right now.

As I'm typing this, I just got an email from the realtor. Magoun is still a possibility??? What??? Apparently, he hasn't purchased anything yet. He told Mike (the realtor) that our house has everything he wants except the backyard slope. FTL, Magoun! Let's move on already!!! Also, he's now "holding out" to see if we reduce it. I emailed Mike back to ask him whether or not we should maybe reduce the price by the cost of the resodding job. We'll see what he says...

Hey, maybe I'll go to college today!

Wow. It's Sunday already! Sorry I haven't posted on my blog since freaking Wednesday, but it's been INSANE at my job this last week! As you know if you know me well enough to read this blog, I work at Heartland Community College. School starts a week from tomorrow, as in August 18. Today is officially the last day of open enrollment, meaning you can enroll without having to pay a late fee...I mean...SERVICE fee. (Don't say "late fee"!!!! That's taboo around the ol' HCC!). Anyway, you can imagine that a lot of these people don't know how to register for classes online or don't have access yet since they're new students, so for them, Friday was really their last day to get their classes. Last week was also the last three orientation sessions for new, full time students, so we had a lot going on!

It was seriously nuts around the office. I mean, people waiting for 30-60 minutes to see an advisor only to be told, hey guess what? All the classes you want to take are totally full! Bummer! Also, we decided that Friday was obviously "Bring your parent to Heartland" day, as we had many, MANY overbearing, all up in the business parents with our students on Friday. This happens a lot, but Friday was really a banner day for these helicopter parents. It's not that we don't appreciate a supportive family for our students, but for the love of God, Mom/Dad...little Johnny is now 20 years old. Please let him come to school and make some decisions on his own!!! This is not your educational career!

All in all, the week went okay. Students got seen, classes were chosen, and enrollment ensued. We have many appointments to see next week for the really late enrollees, but since the SERVICE fee will be enacted for people without appointments, we're hoping to see less of those people!

Whew!

Mixed Reviews

I got an email today telling me that I could view my student evaluations from the online class I taught this summer. I've had a few incidents during the term that led me to believe that I probably would have some less than glowing evals. I was right.

I did have some good ones, though! Here's my faves:

Please list any additional comments:

• The instructor was very helpful and cared about teaching, the class, and each student.
• I wouldn't offer any. She did a great job!
• Nothing, I think she did a great job and really enjoyed the class.

Here's my biggest critic:

Discuss how valuable the instructor's supplementary materials (e.g., handouts, problem sets, and instructional materials) were to you.
Horrible!Unorganized, confusing, and the workload was ridiculous for a PSY101 class. She continuously changed course material and/or due dates due to technical problems on HER end. At least 3 of the assignments were identical to other assignments I found on the web that were assigned by other instructors at other US universities. Leads me to think that not much thought was put into the material, my tuition was not put to good use, and that Heartland lacks appropriate instructors.

What suggestions would you offer to the instructor to improve learning in this course?
Look for another job.

Wow, harsh!

Joke's on you, buddy. I get paid whether you liked the class or not!!

Wow...

Why are all of my August posts so Debbie Downer? Sorry, folks...here's hoping this month turns around soon! :)

Thanks, Magoun.

Wow. So I guess Magoun emailed our realtor and said he's "ruling out" our house. Wanna know why? Because, after it POURED DOWN RAIN FOR HOURS one night, the next day there was some standing water in the backyard. Well, holy shit, guy. Can you imagine that? We do have one low spot in our backyard that tends to have some water in it, I'll admit that. However, our realtor is related to some sort of sod person who he actually hooked Magoun up with, got a great deal, etc. Also, this bozo said he wants to rip out the plants and redo the backyard (this also works well with the great deal on the sod). But I guess there's no way in hell that completely REWORKING the ENTIRE backyard will make ANY sort of change in the 2'x2' area of water that shows up after a rain? And, holy God...how DARE there be water after a heavy rainstorm??

Good luck finding a house with a PERFECT yard with not a drop of water in it after a rain for your pricetag, Magoun. Try Arizona. Or perhaps a condo with no yard.

New Blog!

Check out Erin's and my new blog listed on the right hand side of my page! It's located at www.evansgirlsmenus.blogspot.com and it will be all about meals and menu planning and recipes we like! We promise to credit anyone we borrow (or steal) a recipe from!

Okay, I'm getting over it.

I swear, I'm such a baby! Sorry for that last post...what a downer! I just made reservations at a delicious restaurant for dinner, and Nick said he isn't sure how long he wants to stay out tonight, so yay! We're also going to go to a movie, I think, so that will be fun!

Things really will be fun, I'm sure. I just sometimes have to get grumpy and then I can come out of it! :)

I'm not funny today.

I don't know why. I'm in a bad mood, though. I think it has to do with the following:

1. My neck is KILLING ME.
2. Tonight is the hubby's bday and we're going out to Kegler's, where I'll get to be the DD while he drinks the night away with his friends. This isn't automatically a horrible thing, but I just really don't like being the sober one amongst drunk people. 
3. I'm super pumped that I have to be out all late tonight and then work at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Super. Pumped.
4. I'm tired because I went to bed at like 2:30 a.m. last night.
5. It's very gray out, but yet, very STEAMY. That's just stupid right there.

Is that enough? I hate being such a whiner, but I'm having a whiny afternoon!! I'm sure tonight's celebration will be better than I'm anticipating, but I'm just not looking forward to it all that much because I know I'm going to be so tired tomorrow!

Blah.