Good Helper

Start the day off playing with your uncle's old toy tractor. (Those metal toys really last!)


Chill with your favorite dog.


Once your mama is ready, down the hill to the building site. Help Oma by using the hose to mist the render on the straw house so that she can apply the next layer. (Notice the red color of the render? (Very similar to the helper's hair color!) It gets that color from the local clay. The clay from the building site is being used as one of the ingredients in the render.)


Adding (pre-sifted) clay to the mixer to make the render.


Opa looks on while more ingredients go into the mixer.


Once mixed, the render goes into a wheel barrow.


Playing in the sand heap (sand is another ingredient of render).

A hard working boy needs a nap!

In Tennessee!

OK, I'm up way too late and I know it. I am so tired what the hell am I still doing up? Maybe it just feels so good to not be sitting in a basement tytping this that I am inspired to stay awake a bit longer and a bit longerr...

Captain Adorable is still snotty and still snoring (and still very much insisting on sleeping "wif mama" despite his earlier insistence that he would "sleep in my own bed") so I am not looking forward to getting into bed to my own little snore factory...then again, that is a rather lame excuse. I am feeling much better, much less snotty, but still coughing a good amount. 3 doses of Tamiflu left. Onc said that the weird note in the xray report was simply that--a weird note and not to lose any sleep over it. CTs are far better than xrays and none of my CTs have ever shown anything like that.

I am happy to be here in Tennessee and these next few days may turn out to be too good to go back to Maryland till we are ready to move into the new house...we will see.

Only One Day Late

Well, we went to closing on October 16 instead of October 15. (The buyers were 30 mins late.) I am still very annoyed that the whole thing was delayed, but it seems it was not the buyers' agent's fault after all. The day of closing was quite, quite hectic, and we could not have done it without the help of my sweet MIL. Thank goodness she was able to come down and help us out!! We were on time to closing, mostly because of her help.

We are now staying in the house of friends. I started coughing yesterday but today I developed a fever as well. It got up over the magic number (100.5 is the magic number and my fever was 100.8) so I called my oncologist and she asked that I go to the emergency room. I took Captain Adorable, since he started with the same symptoms as me and also had a fever (100.2). We were at the hospital from like 5:45 or so till about 9:45. During that time I had a chest x-ray, a nose swab, a throat swab, my blood pressure and temp taken twice, got an IV (blood taken) and gave a urine sample. They really worked me up. The tests showed my counts are fine, and do not show me as positive for the flu or step. So, I got to leave!

Unfortunately, my little one did not fare as well. The tech who came to do his nose and throat swab was too aggressive and not only hurt him a lot, but also caused quite a fountain of a bloody nose. This after both parents calmly explaining to him what would happen and then it would feel weird but not hurt. Ach. I know she did not mean to, but damn, she could have been a little more gentle and careful. He is only two. (I was careful to control myself and not cry, but I was very close. Sob.)

However, if you want to get good fast service at an emergency room, show up as a cancer patient on chemo with a fever and a child. You will get seen quickly!

Also, weirdly, the chest x-ray showed something we've never seen before. The report says, "Prominence of the ascending thoracic aorta suggest either tortuosity or aneurysm." Uhm, wtf? I'm going to talk to my onc about it and will update when I find out anything.

Closing Postponed

So, we are not going to closing on this house on Thursday, Oct 15 after all. I do not know exactly why and apparently our real estate agent can't get a straight answer out of anyone. We do know that the buyers' earnest money check was never deposited. We think that the buyers' agent is the person that effed up.

This affects us deeply because:
1) We are living in a house with absolutely nothing in it (we have 3 kitchen chairs and 2 mattresses). We had to move completely out in order to keep our end of the bargain.
2) The contract on the house we are buying is contingent on selling this house ON THE FIFTEENTH OF OCTOBER. Not just on selling it sometime soon, but selling it on that specific date.
3) The lock in for the rate on our mortgage for the house we are buying only lasts a certain period of time.
4) Because the buyers' earnest money was never deposited, we don't even have any leverage. If this deal goes bad, they don't even lose their earnest money. We lose the window of time in which we can still sell to a first-time home buyer who can close on the house in time to qualify for the $8,000 tax break from the government...and suddenly there are no buyers for our house...

So, worst case scenario, when we ask the sellers of the house we want to buy to extend the time period in which we can close on the house we are selling, they say no and then everything comes crashing down around us. No new house. No awesome mortgage rate. We're screwed. We have to move back into this house! UGH!

OK, that probably won't happen, but it could and it scares the shit outta me.

And guess what? The pay for this effing buyers' agent comes from US!!!!

I have decided that I am going to cause a stink. I am going to ask for bank records which prove that she faithfully executed her fiduciary duty (deposited their check properly). If she cannot prove this, I am going to ask that her commission be reduced. I know, I know, I probably can't get any satisfaction, but dammit at least she'll hear about it. At least I will have the satisfaction that she will hear about this.

We Don't Live Here Anymore

Holy Moly we don't live here anymore. Almost all our stuff is in the POD in the driveway or in the garage, waiting for the next POD. No pictures on the walls, no furniture except the kitchen table, the dining room table, and the kitchen chairs. We're sleeping on mattresses on the floor (much to Captain Adorable's delight!)

The empty POD was delivered on Friday and with the help of Captain Obvious' middle brother, and two migrant workers hired outside the local home despot (if you know what I am saying), that POD got filled up today. The mother's helper was here to keep Captain Adorable occupied and out from under the workers' feet.

This full POD will be picked up on Monday and a new empty one will be delivered. A friend (Mr. Resourceful, to be precise) will come in the afternoon to help load our stuff into that one.

And then, all that will be left will be the dregs.

We're thinking of going to Ocean City for the weekend to relax! (Next weekend, not this one anymore of course!)

Something Good

"Every time something good happens to me, you say its some kind of madness. Or I'm drunk. Or I ate too much candy." Fry to Leela in Futurama

So many things have been going right lately, I have at times feared some kind of madness...or, to put it another way, I've kinda been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then again, the past two years have been so full of bad news, maybe I can confidently enjoy all this good news without fear. I am astoundingly lucky! I am married to a super-sweet man, I am mother to a darling boy, I am daughter of caring, supportive parents, and I am friend to caring, supportive people. We sold our townhouse in only 14 days for a reasonable price (a bit less than we wanted). We found a nice house in a neighborhood we really like for a pretty good deal. We've got a good place to stay for the 3 weeks in between selling this house and buying the new one. So far it looks like this deal is going to go down smoothly. (Knock on wood!)

Now the home inspection has revealed that the new house is in good shape, and it looks like it will cost less to heat the place than we thought! (Excellent insulation in the attic and a 3 year old high-efficiency HVAC system.) I found a good sunny spot in one of the mulched beds in the front yard to put my rosemary and sage. The carpets are in better shape than either of us remembered. There were people walking their dogs and mothers with their children walking in the street. The yard was not as tiny and awful as I remembered, either. The house is big but not gargantuan. I think, if we are very lucky/blessed/whatever word you like, that this might all work out.

And then maybe, maybe, maybe I will have lung surgery, get off chemo, and have another baby. Is that too much to hope for, surrounded by good news and good luck as I am? Maybe this is just some kind of madness.

A New House

The sellers accepted our offer! WoooHooo!! It is ok to party for a minute or two before we have to calm back down and remember that there are still several hoops to jump through. No real celebration till we sign the papers and it is legally ours. So, right now we are set to officially sell this house on October 15 and officially buy (and take possession of) the new house on November 6. You might notice that there is a 3 week period where we are homeless. Scary stuff!

Fortunately, we are going to be staying in our friends' house. It is so generous and sweet of them to take us in. I am excited about being close to the Metro for 3 weeks and I plan to take Captain Adorable to a few of our national museums in D.C..

I am sad to leave our house...and also really, really happy to leave our house! I am not sad at all to leave our neighborhood. Just last night I went to the grocery store to pick up milk and there were people yelling obscenities at each other in the parking lot! As Captain Obvious said, one does not have to look far to find a reason to leave this place.