Look who learned to clap...

Halloween

We had a low-key Halloween, but we did go to my good friend Marcy's party for a while Saturday night. We're such costume cop-outs... I borrowed Marcy's scrubs and went as a doctor/nurse/medical professional and Wade took Jim's costume from The Office and went as Facebook (he has BOOK written across his face). We thought about taking it a step farther and printing out a bunch of status updates and putting them all down the front of his shirt, but that's as far as we got :).

Just as an update, still no showings or anything on the house, 3.5 weeks on the market. It doesn't sound that long, but it would be nice to just have some tiny little nibble or interest. Oh well.

House for sale!

Today is Day 6 of our house being listed... no calls for showings yet :(.

I have tried and am trying to prepare myself for a potentially long process, but it's so hard! For one thing, I feel like I've already been cleaning it constantly for a month, and it is just neverending...

Even after the initial sweep of taking all personal photos down, streamlining all decorations, clearing clutter, wiping down doors, trim & baseboards, and thinning out my closet - to keep the dishes always done, the bed always made, the floors always vaccuumed, swiffered & mopped, all clothes, shoes & dog toys always put away, all papers & mail always filed away, toilets, tubs & sinks always scrubbed, furniture always dusted, etc. on top of normal life just makes the process seem to drag that much more.

I'm praying so much for patience and the Lord's timing because I know how much ahead of Him I always want to get. I think I know the best way. I think I know how it should go. And the way it should go is easily, quickly, smoothly. But why would I need God in that? If I know the way and it's not difficult in any way, what's going to convince me to depend on Him?

We've been to see several houses in the neighborhoods we're considering moving to. Each has its plusses and minuses - newer or more updated, but small; bigger but in need of repairs or updating; really great but too far away; inexpensive but backs up to a major highway, etc. We'll definitely have to make compromises somewhere along the way.

We've gotten into the groove of Wade's schedule working at Yes I Can basketball camps on Monday/Tuesday nights and Saturdays. Things are about to change again though, because that will end in a couple weeks, and we'll have to learn the new winter schedule of his JV basketball team's season. When that's over, it will probably be Yes I Can time again, and applying for grad school (and hopefully moving somewhere in there!).

Funny story that just happened

So yesterday Wade came home and was washing his hands and he started singing "Happy Birthday." I joined in with him (because we're kindof silly like that) and then asked him why he was singing that. He said you're supposed to sing Happy Birthday twice to gauge how long to wash your hands. Yesterday I think we sang Happy Birthday to me.

Well today, he came home and started washing his hands again and singing Happy Birthday again. I joined in and we both randomly happened to say "Happy birthday dear Pais-leyyy"... and then right when I said it, I was like, wait a minute - it IS her birthday! I had been thinking about it coming up a few weeks ago, but had totally forgotten. But sure enough, it's October 8th, Paisley's birthday. It was so funny and random.

So happy birthday sweet Paisley-dog. Your 3 years have been so much fun for me!

From this little face

To this one

To this

You love those tennis balls.

Here's to a decade more!

Highlights of life lately

Life has not provided me with much blogging material lately - certainly not any pictures :(. But it's been busy nonetheless. Let's see if I can come up with a few highlights...

(1) Wade's new 2nd job of directing a site for Yes I Can basketball camps is going pretty well. He works Monday and Tuesday nights and all day Saturday (for a 7-week stretch, basically til the end of October). I don't see him much on those Mondays & Tuesdays, and then we eat dinner at 9:30 or 10:00 but I've been able to fill the time with plenty of chores & errands, so it's been good. He'll finish this and go straight into basketball season for his JV team at school, and then will have another Yes I Can season in the spring.

(2) Madelyn is 7 months old now and starting to crawl. The last time I saw her she could scoot forward on her belly at least, so I'm sure it will be a full-blown crawl before long. She is still the most adorable baby ever. I'm a little nervous that my own kids won't be as cute as her, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it :).

(3) One of my best friends since 9th grade and former roommate got engaged a couple weeks ago. I'm so excited for her and am looking forward to helping with wedding plans from the post-bride perspective.

(4) We decided to put our house on the market! I'm trying to clean and declutter like crazy this week to get it ready. I took down so many pictures of us and our friends & family that were up everywhere - it's a little crazy to see how many pictures of ourselves we had displayed - ha.

(5) Next weekend I'm going to the beach with a few girls for a kindof 2nd annual fall trip. Can't wait for that!

And yeah, that's about it. Hopefully I'll have pictures of something interesting soon :).

That week when we had 2 dogs

So, a few weeks ago I went into the storage/pantry closet to get something while I was cooking dinner and stepped in a big puddle of cold water. We discovered that the air conditioner had been leaking a flood of water every time it ran and shut off for probably several weeks. All of it had gone UNDER the linoleum and hardwood floors so we hadn't noticed, until it started seeping back out from under the wood that night.

Wade had to rip up 7 or 8 rows of boards that were all totally wet underneath. We were freaking out that we were going to have to replace the a/c unit and the floor of the entire room and all this stuff and it was going to cost like $7,000.

That was a Monday night. On Tuesday, with our floors a mess, our air conditioner turned off to prevent more leaking, and half the stuff from the closet out in the middle of the living room, we went up to our photographers' house to pick out our wedding proofs.

When we got there, this cute Basset hound puppy greeted us, and they explained that they were keeping this dog for some friends of theirs who couldn't keep her anymore and needed to find a home for her. She was so cute and over the course of time we were there, we decided to take her home to see if Wade's parents would keep her, because they'd been looking for a second dog.

So we load the Basset hound, her crate, a container of food and a couple of toys into our car and bring her home to our messy house for the evening, planning to surprise Wade's parents by bringing her over the next evening.

She's supposedly housebroken, but is only a year old and we are taking her to her 3rd home in about a week, so the next morning did not go so well. She can't be let outside without a leash, but she won't go to the bathroom on a leash. If I leave her outside on a long chain, she barks and I'm afraid she's waking up the neighbors. So I took her outside with no success, then brought her back inside and kept her in our bedroom while I took a shower. Get out of the shower and have 8 or so poop droppings all over the floor of our room (and both dogs pacing around).

I clean it all up, clogging the toilet in the process, and leave the dogs gated in the kitchen & entry way while I go to work. Paisley is so scared of the baby gate - and her water bowl is near enough to it - that she doesn't drink anything all day and starts gulping water down when we get home and take the gate down.

Meanwhile, Hillary's maintenance guy came and fixed our air conditioner that day (and didn't charge us - what a blessing!) and said he could fix the floors that weekend. We take the dogs over to the Tapps' that night, and Joli (Wade's mom) falls in love with the dog but thinks she's a better playmate for Paisley than their dog Duke and tries to convince us to keep her! Wade tried valiantly to sell them on Ellie, but it did not work.

So she stayed with us several more days while we tried to coordinate either finding her a new home or getting her back to our photographers. Meanwhile, she's so cute but also stressing me out completely because having 2 dogs in a condo is way harder than having 1, and I forgot how much attention and effort puppies take. I'm used to Paisley and she's used to me and I'm now so much more grateful for how easy she is!

We debated whether to keep her, but pretty much the only reason to keep her was she was cute. Every other reason led to the logical conclusion of DO NOT KEEP HER. Do not take on a 2nd dog that you will still have when you're 40 and have kids and she starts getting sick and needing all kinds of vet expenses. Do not take on a 2nd dog that you have to buy food, heartworm, shots, flea medicine, toys, leashes, spaying surgery, etc. for when you are trying to figure out how you're going to live on one salary when you have kids. Do not take on a 2nd dog that will make it a lot harder to find someone to keep both when you go out of town.

So, luckily we were saved by an old friend who saw my Facebook status and said he was interested in getting a Basset hound. He came over that Saturday and took Ellie for a test run, and from what I hear she's doing great in her new home and he loves having her.

The guy did not really come through for me on the floors, but we called our old neighbors and they just finished fixing them all up today! Hallelujah, I can put my living room back together now.

The other night

Me trying to understand the video game Wade has been playing lately where he's trying to save the universe from mass takeover or something:

(All the characters on the game are wearing space battle type suits and the set looks like a very techie spaceship type of place. There are also weird looking characters that are various types of aliens apparently. Wade's character dates an alien girl, and she is trying to decide whether to get routine gene therapy to prevent a heart defect in the baby she's carrying from her dead husband.)

Me: So what year is this supposed to be taking place?

Wade: About 100 or 200 years from now - not that long.

Me: So are you on Earth?

Wade: No, I'm on another planet in a different galaxy.

Me: Are you from Earth though?

Wade: (with a slight twinge of frustration) YES, Kim, all humans are from Earth!

Duh.