"...five blissful hours of baby-free time..."

Here I sit.

I'm in my little corner of the Bird House - a space that takes up about half of the sun room where I placed my desk, some Sterilite tubs of craft goodies, a bookcase, and a chair. It's cozy. 

The other half of the sun room will be dedicated to yoga, my winter seedlings, and *hopefully* to orchids. I have a nice view of the backyard and the field beyond it. I can watch Sawyer run stupidly around the yard for hours and then Branflake as well when he gets older. It's a good spot to call my own.

Needless to say, we did close on the house. We closed on time, which surprised my pessimist husband. 

Closing was a boring process, no different from any of the times we've signed a lease on an apartment. The only difference this time was the number of digits on the check we handed over, and, of course, this home is ours to do with what we want.

The last two weeks have been a flurry of boxes, moving trucks, furniture delivery, painting, cable set-up, and a crying baby.

As hard as we tried, poor Branflake's schedule was disrupted and it's been an ordeal to get him back on it. Later today I'm going to drop him off at a local church...nope, not getting rid of him, they offer a "Mother's Day Out" program. I give them twelve dollars and they give me five blissful hours of baby-free time to do whatever I need to do. I might take a nap.

Although I'm a little nervous about leaving him, I know he needs the time to socialize. He's almost eight months old and still thinks he's the only baby in the world. PB says it's high time "King Tut" began to realize otherwise. I tend to agree.

All in all, our last move for several years (at the very least) was fairly smooth, but I'm not done and have to get back to it.

"I hate packing."

We're still slated to close on Friday. Our realtor has told us twice that the repairs have been done to the Bird House so we've gone to the house to check the repairs only to see that they haven't been done. Being that our realtor has always seemed to have her shit together and the homeowner's realtor has been a bit of a scatter brain, I blame the seller's realtor for our wasted trips to the house.

P.B. is doubtful about closing on Friday because the title company we're working with apparently only has two people in their office and one of them has been at an open house of some sort all day and is the only one that can handle our paperwork. This wouldn't be so much of a concern if the seller hadn't already moved out of state. Because of this the paperwork has to be overnighted to her to sign and then she's supposed to overnight it back to the title company. But. The. Paperwork. Is. Just. Sitting. There.

Bank of America has been nothing but a pain in the ass. They have several people "handling" our file. No one communicates with anyone else. No one returns phone calls. Their loan progress tracker on their web site is the ultimate piece of shit and is never updated. It's absofuckinglutely ridiculous. Maybe next time P.B. will listen to me when I tell him that BoA is shitty to work with.

The property management company that we're renting the Orchard House from is bringing someone by on Thursday to look at the house. Hopefully they will want to rent it and we'll be off the hook for the early termination fees. *fingers crossed*

I've been packing. I hate packing.

After going through all of the rooms and picking out what we wouldn't need for the next couple of weeks and mentally organizing our belongings I gently packed up all of our good dishes, all the breakable glass, odds and ends...

Have I mentioned that I hate packing? Well, I do.

I've gotten to the point where I just want to start throwing things in boxes and be done. I hate packing.

Hate.

"If you give a kid a pancake..."

 

If you give a kid a pancake...

 

He'll want to give some to the dog...

"...I've made up my mind to do something asinine..."

There is this itsy-bitsy part of me that wants to have another child. Okay, maybe that part of me is a little bigger than I like to admit, but it mostly has to do with the fact that my short-term memory fizzles whenever Branflake does something that melts my heart.

Exhibit A: Him laughing his fluffy, diapered little bum off at the mere presence of the cat makes up for the pain and discomfort I had to endure when the doctor broke my water.

Exhibit B: When he sleepily coos at me and snuggles in my arms, I can't resent him for the stretchmarks on my abdomen.

Exhibit C: When I look at him and say "haiiii" and he giggles I don't really feel so bad about the hours of sleep I've been missing out on.

Because of my multiple brain lapses I'm having a hard time letting go of Branflake's baby clothes. P.B. wants me to box them up and ship them to our friends that are expecting boys. With the upcoming move it makes sense to clean out Branflake's closet. I've even started a couple of times.

It starts with the decision to start packing. I'll go into the nursery with a box and the intention of only keeping a couple of my favorite outfits. Just a couple so I'll always remember how tiny he was and so I'll have some cute things for the next one.

As I sort through all the tiny clothes I can feel the tears welling up and I begin cuddling the little outfits and reasoning with myself about why I should keep this one and that one and -AWWW- I forgot about that one!

Next thing you know, the box is still empty and I've made up my mind to do something asinine like make a onesie quilt that no one but me will appreciate. Of course then I get all emotional about the very idea of cutting up those adorable little outfits. Everything ultimately winds up back in the dresser drawers and once again, I've made absolutely no progress in packing.

Don't even get me started on toys.

I think I should try to start packing another part of the house.

"...was that comment actually a cry for help?"

Despite the Great Bacon Meltdown of 2011 we had a good day yesterday. I made sun tea, which I know isn't a big deal at all, but considering I felt like a failure on the bacon front I needed something to be a success. 

Shhhhh! I need this!

"Sunshine, sunshine, it's fine
I feel it in my skin, warming up my mind,
Sometimes you gotta give in to win,
I love the days when it shines, whoa let it shine..."

We also moseyed over to Table Rock State Park to explore and finished the day with a fire and some booze. 

Testing the waters of Table Rock Lake.

What was that about no swimming for an hour after eating? What if I swim and eat simultaneously?

While eating a peanut butter and (homemade) strawberry jam sandwich this morning P.B. said, "I like peanut butter, but I always feel like it's trying to kill me."

"I know what you mean. Peanut butter is so homicidal."

He has since wandered into his office to shoot some pixels (a.k.a. play Call Of Duty) so I never got an explanation of his comment. Makes me wonder though, since his nickname is also Peanut Butter, was that comment actually a cry for help?

"...too proud..."

I really strove to keep our grocery bill low for the next couple of weeks. I had everything rationed and planned out perfectly. I left no room for error. I planned on having Breakfast for Dinner last night.

Branflake was in a sour mood and P.B. was in the shower after mowing the lawn. Knowing that P.B. wouldn't help feed Bran his dinner (pureed foods "gross him out") and I can't trust him to cook bacon without eating all of it I decided to try and pull a Super Mom.

I got the bacon ration into the oven, popped a cube frozen sweet potato into the microwave to defrost, and started shredding potatoes for hash browns. Baby went into the high chair, shredded potato went into the skillet. A couple spoonfuls of puree, go check the bacon, cue crying baby, a few more spoonfuls of puree, check the hash browns, more crying.

After finishing his sweet potato I gave him some mushed up banana and back and forth I went, spooning out mush, dancing and singing to the baby while checking on dinner. Once he'd made a sufficient mess of the banana I gave him a bottle I'd pumped earlier to keep him occupied while I finished up with the hash browns.

P.B. comes out of the bedroom after what I can only imagine to be a long, luxurious shower (something I haven't had in over six months) and asks the baby why he is crying.

"Is mommy not feeding you?" (are you fucking serious?) Then he sees the bottle on the floor and asks, "Is this still okay?"

"Of course it's okay, I'm not giving him spoiled milk, but you might want to wipe off the nipple."

"Maybe it's his teeth?" P.B. got up and opened the freezer, "I don't see any of his teething rings."

"I don't know what keeps happening to them."

Digging in the freezer, "Nope, there aren't any in here."

P.B. turns back to Branflake and starts giving him a "pep talk" about being polite at the dinner table. I go to the freezer, right in front is a frozen teething ring. I grab it and hand it to P.B. who then sees the bowl the sweet potato was in and proclaims he's going to get sick if he has to look at that puree much longer (I'd scraped the bowl clean when feeding Bran; there was only a tiny bit left on the edges). I snatched the bowl from the table and put it in the sink and turned my attention back toward dinner.

THE BACON!!!

I burned bacon.

Commence meltdown.

Yep. I had the most irrational meltdown over burned bacon. Super Mom I am not.

I blamed P.B. for the burned bacon because he couldn't just take charge without direction (not to mention the whining about less than a teaspoon of puree was just ridiculous) and made him eat it for dinner. I awarded myself with an extra egg for the effort I'd put into attempting to feed and entertain the baby while simultaneously cooking dinner.

Next time I'm not going to be too proud to tell P.B. that I need a little help, his excuses be damned.

"...just want to be able to enjoy the sunshine."

I really hate that I feel like I have to go into stealth mode to go into my own back yard, but it hasn't rained in a few days and my garden needed to be watered. After peeking out the back windows several times I concluded that nobody was home behind us and went outside with Sawyer while Branflake was napping.

In all honesty, I've been avoiding our back-door neighbors. Not only the neighbors with the future serial killer son, but our elderly neighbor and her middle-aged daughter that also live behind us. 

It's not that I don't like them. They're nice people, but I cannot relate to a woman who is fifteen years my senior, stuck in the 80s, mooches off of her recently widowed mother, and is dating a man the same age as my father.

They don't seem to have anything better to do with their time than watch whatever I'm doing throughout the day. I feel like I'm being watched all the time. No matter what time of day I let Sawyer out, they will also let their dog out within five minutes. Whenever I go out I always wind up in a conversation about a fight the daughter is having with her boyfriend, how depressed the mother is about the death of her husband (please note I am not an unsympathetic person, I realize that it's difficult to lose a loved one, but I am also not a grief counselor and barely know these people),  how much the daughter wishes she could have children, issues with one of her other daughters keeping her grandchildren away from her, and other personal, family business. It's awkward.

If I'm not getting an earful about personal problems, I'm getting unsolicited parenting advice or being treated like a child myself. Example: One day I commented that I wanted to go into the woods and clip some flowering dogwood branches. The mother gasped in horror and said that she "refused" to "allow" me to go into the woods because of snakes. I went anyway and didn't see a single snake.

Even P.B. has to borrow my Leave-Me-The-Fuck-Alone headphones à la Natalie Portman in Garden State to mow the lawn.

If I bring Branflake out they beg me to bring him over to visit and they will kiss him and call themselves "aunt" and "grandma." Sorry, but Branflake has two aunts and two grandmas already. I don't think he needs to be confused by people referring to themselves with family titles when we've only known each other for a few months. In my opinion family titles should be reserved for family and friends that are so close we consider them family.

I'm not against a block party on occasion, but I don't want to get into anyone's business and I don't want anyone in mine. Maybe I'm this way because Central Floridians in general are not friendly people (blame all the tourists), but sometimes I don't feel like talking or visiting and just want to be able to enjoy the sunshine.

Happiness is a stick and a bed of sun-warmed clover.

I saw Chili and Cornbread in a Jar on Pinterest recently and decided to try it last night.

Because we're so close to closing we're on a tight budget just to make sure we can put every penny we can into savings. To keep it cheap I used canned chili and boxed cornbread so the meal for the two of us cost less than four dollars.

Taste-wise, the meal was as good as we could expect for canned chili and 33-cent cornbread. However, as cute as it looked, serving it in jars just wasn't practical. With a normal-length spoon it was just hard to get to. P.B. said he felt like a monkey being teased with a banana. We ended up dumping our jars into bowls (and making more dishes for me to wash).

 Perhaps with a longer spoon?

"...rambling about absolutely nothing..."

We raised our fur baby well. He's already teaching Branflake the valuable lesson of sharing.

No matter how many times I took the toy away, or attempted to get Sawyer to play with it elsewhere, he wound up right back on the quilt with the kiddo and the toy.

Branflake has also reached another milestone:

Ta-daaaa!

I wonder if being a homemaker is making me dumber.

I find that lately I'm having a hard time concentrating on anything for a long period of time. I have multiple projects around the house that are half-finished. I haven't even started packing even though we're slated to close in two weeks!

When I was still working I was regularly praised for being able to communicate so clearly via e-mail and job aids that I created. I feel like my brain doesn't work that way anymore.  My typing has become atrocious. I have to re-type words numerous times because I keep transposing the letters. I've never been dyslexic before. It also seems like my verbal communication is not as clear as it used to be. I tend to ramble and and I feel like I have to go into great, and unnecessary,  detail to explain anything so it takes a long time to get to the point.

My mom has been a homemaker for a few years now. She's always been a little gregarious, telling very long-winded stories and taking forever to get to the point in anything, but over the last few years it's gotten significantly worse. I think I'm starting to understand why.
 

As exciting as moving across the country has been, and despite the great benefit this move has offered to me in being able to stay home and raise our son, I am really homesick. I miss my friends. I even miss my job sometimes. I've become very dependent on P.B. for companionship because I don't have anyone else to talk to or to have adult interaction with. 

I hate to say it, but people in the Midwest don't utilize the internet like they did back home (as evidenced by the lack of decent internet service providers *cough*suddenlinksucks*cough*). Even the local newspaper's web site looks like something a middle school student put together. I'm  reminded of how difficult it was to find a place to rent when we were first moving out here. Now I'm having a hard time finding mom groups or information on functions that would help me meet other moms.

Hopefully moving into a real neighborhood in town instead of living in this rural grouping of houses will help cure me of my loneliness.

This post is a perfect example of me rambling about absolutely nothing and not really ever getting to a point. Gah!

"...hanging out in the kitchen one sunny Saturday morning..."

Short story:     

We live in a rural mountain neighborhood with two streets that run parallel to each other and about nine homes that are each on about an acre so we're pretty spread out. The house across the street from us is a large estate on the ridge line. It's set back from the road and pretty secluded. There aren't any houses beyond it, just mountain going straight down to the lake.

P.B. and I were hanging out in the kitchen one sunny Saturday morning when the doorbell rang. We each gave each other a look to say "I'm not expecting anyone," then he answered the door. An older man was on our porch and asked us if we had seen any kids around the home across the street. He explained that he's the caretaker while it's up for sale as the owners are across the country. We said we hadn't and he described some damage that has been done to the house recently and described some dead animals that have been found, including a squirrel that had a stick skewered through it.

Of course, after that I've been on alert and look out the windows whenever I see any movement outside. There have since been two occasions where I've seen our backdoor neighbor's teenage son walking through our yard from the direction of the house across the street. I know that isn't conclusive evidence, but there is no reason I can think of for that kid to be coming from that direction other than he's up to no good.

I'm pretty sure our neighbor's kid is the next Jeffrey Dahmer.