A MEME tag from Celeste

I guess I shall answer the game of tag, but don't know who to pass it on to. Thanks Cel!

3 Things that scare me

Power going out during storms

Birds of all sizes

The state of the world

3 People that make me laugh

My husband

My children

Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser in Mad About You

3 Things I love

Being creative, whether painting, quilting, or scrapbooking

Reading

Holding a sleeping child in my arms

3 Things I hate

Bugs of all shapes and sizes

Sticky floors

Ohio has no Blue Bell

3 Things I don't understand

When my husband talks to me about work

Why the tree in my backyard is looking deathly ill

Why after unpacking numerous boxes, it seems that they are growing in number

3 Things on my floor
(HA! Have you read my previous blogs. I'd be better off answering 3 things NOT on my floor)

Anyway, our dog

boxes

the tv

3 Things I'm doing right now

Typing

Thinking of all the things I have to do

Wondering what color the walls in here should be painted

3 Things I want to do someday

Travel to Austria

Visit each of the 50 states

Invent something

3 Things I Can Do

Sew reasonably

Research almost anything

Speak in sign language, somewhat

3 Ways to Describe My Personality

Quiet

Introverted

Generally happy

3 Things I Cannot Do

Whistle using my fingers (always thought that was cool)

Drive stick shift

Change altitude in car or plane without severe ear pain

3 Things I Think You Should Listen To

Your friends

Your parents

Your kids

3 Things I Think You Should Never Listen To

The TV news

Junk radio

Sales pitches over the phone

3 Absolute Favorite Foods

Cotton candy

Fajitas

Cheesecake Factory chicken salad sandwiches

3 Things I'd Like to Learn More About

Autism

How to speak Spanish, Russian and French

Our country's history

3 Beverages I Drink Regularly

Lately,

Diet Snapple Raspberry Iced Tea

Diet Pepsi (plain or vanilla)

Water

3 Show I Watch

Mad About You on DVD

Friends on DVD

Dancing with the Stars when on

I am new to blogger land and don't have anyone to tag, so I guess I stay it until someone I know decided to join me in this fun adventure

Family Love

The title says it all!!!

Summer Dancing

Katie's last dance class for the summer was on Thursday, and parents were invited to come in and watch. She still loves and excels at both ballet and tap, and has recently become very good at cartwheels too.

All the practice in the living room must be the ticket.

The First Supper

Our very first meal at the new house, sitting at an actual kitchen table, not on the floor. While the meal was nothing special, we did enjoy some Messina Hof port from our crystal glasses, and Katie got the extra special treat of drinking milk out of one of our Messina Hof tasting glasses from the winery tour. Texas is never far away.

Can you believe that this bottle of wine made it intact all the way from Texas, and after being stored for 2 months in a wooden storage crate somewhere?

Playtime

Katie was asked tonight, which house she liked better, the new one or the one in Texas. The answer was the new one. And this is the reason why.... a swingset can make any child happy! It is the highlight for both of them.

And while the kids got a swing set with the new house, Daddy's new toy arrived on Tuesday. More than double the lawn done in half the time is the conclusion we came to.

No More Apartment!!

Today was the last day of the apartment lease and we happily said goodbye and good riddance. Not only did we arrive yesterday to move out the rest of our stuff and find a good assortment of crickets and other little creatures, we also found the ceiling above the toilet had developed the same old water leak and fallen onto the floor. Yes, bits of ceiling and whatever else is up there, plus a good amount of water was all over. Needless to say, I told our apartment people that I happily cleaned the rest of the apartment but that bathroom is their job. It was a mess!!!

So now with just a house on our plate. Yes, just ONE house. We are very busy with our 8 thousand projects: Finishing Katie's room, Finishing our room, Painting the living room, organizing til kingdom come, etc.

For those of you wishing to see a bit of the house, here you go. It ain't pretty folks, but I'll explain why further on.

For whatever reason, we have had a multitude of things go wrong since beginning to move in to this house. From a small condensation issue in the basement to a very large electrical issue that took out power to half the house. Next came the cable people who when installing our basement cable said that the previous owners had done it themselves; therefore, it needed to be redone by them (at a small cost of course). Then the cable went out for 3 days and it took talking to 4 different customer service reps before a WOMAN, yes, I said WOMAN, answered the problem and fixed it over the phone in about 5 minutes. Of course, we also had the short lived attack of the Ohio flu, that struck with a vengeance on Monday night and Tuesday, wiping out Katie and Mike within 7 hours of each other. So all our little projects and unpacking have been overtaken by other projects and things aren't getting done as fast as one would hope.


Then today it was this little fiasco.
We finally had finished replacing the closet shelving after painting the closet, and this morning it landed in a heap at the back of the closet. From downstairs I heard," I didn't do it." Katie apparently got to witness the event or at least see the aftermath, and wanted all to be sure that she was innocent.

What next you may ask. That is a very good question, and one that we are pondering even now. The electrician comes on Tuesday to fix our meter and wiring, maybe he'll manage to break a water main or something to give us some more joy. It is becoming more and more comical as the days go by though. Some things are just not worth the frustration, but are definately worth a good laugh.

Changing Address and E-mail

We have finally moved almost everything into our new home. We will not have internet access or e-mail access from there until Thursday of next week. We will also be getting a new e-mail address I expect. Pictures from the new place will be coming via BLOG as well as updated address, phone numbers, etc. will be coming via snail mail very soon. Just be patient, we are temporarily under construction!!

Can We Be Cloned?

Continuing on from the previous entry.

It is now 2 hours later. Both children have napped, which has done truly AMAZING things to their dispositions! While they napped, I:

*Talked to another chimney company about doing the work.
*Talked to our realtor in Houston twice about missing invoices from air-conditioning company and what to do about chimney
*Found out the buyers of our Houston home are closing today between 2 and 3 and we should have paperwork to close by this evening.
*Talked to realtor in Cincinnati to find out how to go about closing here on Houston house, and getting possible power of attorney so that I can still be at the house when the movers come.
*Talked to title agency about paperwork being notarized and possible power of attorney.

Somehow, 1 Mike needs to be at work tomorrow and at the closing, and 1 Kris needs to be at the house for the movers and at the closing. Excuse me, but I didn't realize that there were 2 of each of us.

Long Hiatus

Yes, it has been a long time since posting anything new here, but believe me, we have been quite busy around here.

To give you a vague idea of what I have been doing the past 24 hours, here is a condensed list.

*Lay comatose in bed while Nick decides it is a good idea to wake up and crawl all over my body at 5 A.M.
*Finally get up around 6:30 with Nick and turn on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for him to watch on DVD while I lay comatose on couch.
*Get kids fed, dressed, and out the door to ballet class for Katie.
*Get to ballet class (of course 30 minutes away) and realize that Katie has forgotten her ballet bag with tap and ballet shoes.
* Hop back in car and call Daddy for lunch since we are already out and about, forget ballet.
*Take kids home for nap and call Houston friends for information about chimney workers.
* Call approximately 6 chimney places trying to get an estimate on caulking and sealing a chimney. No one willing to give information without seeing property and charging fee.
*Call realtor in Houston back to discuss closing on house.
*Call air conditioning company to report not receiving receipt for work done that is needed for closing.
*Call realtor office to get fax number and tell them they should receive fax of work done soon.
*Call air conditioning company back to give fax number for realtor.
*Call trash service to verify that they have us in their system (after I called a week ago) since they were kind enough to leave us a paper telling us to call to set up new service. Find out paper was left by mistake, but call worthwhile since they messed up the recycling service information.
*Talk to GE serviceman who is delivering new refrigerator tomorrow between 1 and 5.
*Go to new house to drop off a few things and clean up from painting so that movers will be able to maneuver around the house tomorrow.

It is now going on 2:00 P.M. here and I still have to call more chimney people, call the movers to make sure they are coming tomorrow morning, go back to the house to finish getting a few things done, call U-Haul to rent a truck, and change our address at a zillion companies one more time, all while listening to beloved daughter scream off and on because there is a fly in the apartment. (Sigh)....

Pictures by Katie

Kind of interesting to see inside the mind of a 4 year old. Here are a few of the pictures Katie took recently. I found 5 pictures of this object when I downloaded her camera today. Any guesses on what it may be?? In case you can't tell, it is the air conditioning vent that is above her carseat in the van. I have no idea why that was such an intriguing shot.

Next is this lovely picture of the McDonald's sign outside the car window. Now you can all figure out why she took that one.

While she actually took over 100 pictures, this is truly one of the best. Daddy giving Nick upside-down kisses. What could be sweeter?