WHAT? Speak up, I can't hear you...

In other words, this is the reason why I was completely deaf in my right ear for two days...

Most of you know that John had back surgery in September. For over ten years he was living with constant pain in his back. This past summer the pain reached new levels and the compression on the nerves started to severely decrease the strength on his left side. We decided to bite the bullet and go for surgery. John's PCP pulled a few favors and got us in with the Chair of Neurosurgey at Penn. Normally there is a six-ten month waiting list for surgery, but considering John's level of weakness he was fast tracked and had surgery within three weeks. Surgery went well and we can safely say that it was a success. John can now function like a normal human being.  One "side effect" of this new normal functioning John, is that he now can sleep soundly through the night. Which means we've discovered that soundly-sleeping John snores like a bear.

What does this have to do with me being deaf?

I used to be able to sleep through just about anything - ask my mom, you could have set a bomb off in my room and if I managed to survive the blast, I still would have been sleeping soundly. Something happened in the last year, I don't know if being a mom has the added benefit of being a super light sleeper, but now I can't sleep through loud noises. This includes John's newfound habit of snoring. Once we realized that John's snoring was keeping me up, we decided we had three options:

1. I could continue to get shitty sleep
2. I could smother John with a pillow
3. I could start wearing earplugs 

Considering I'm one cranky bitch when I don't get enough sleep and really wouldn't be fair to Ari if I was sentenced to life in prison (we've all watched enough CSI to know I wouldn't get away with smothering John) we opted for number three.  I started wearing the pink foam earplugs and life was good.  John decided we should take a good thing and make it better, so he grabbed me a pack of silicone mold-able earplugs which were supposed to work better than the little pink foam ones.  Sounds good right?  Thinking it wouldn't be much more difficult than molding my old field hockey mouthpieces, I decided to give it a go and mold these things. The whole process was supposed to work as follows:

• Mix the two putty like substances together until it is a teal color
• Gently push in ear
• Wait 10 minutes to harden
• Remove

This was working well up to the 60 minute mark when the putty was still putty like.  I tried to remove the putty and it wouldn't come out.  Then John offered to "help" me get it out.  In a moment of weakness, I consented to have my husband attempt to extract the putty from my ear.  I'm sure you can imagine where this goes - in an attempt to extract the putty from my ear, John pushed a piece down into my ear canal.  Instantly I lost hearing in my right ear.  The sound was not muffled, sound was entirely gone.  John offered to get a BBQ skewer to try to stab it and pull it out.  Thankfully, my better judgement returned and I declined.  The following morning I made an appointment with an ENT, who couldn't see me until the next day (Friday).  When I finally saw the ENT and she pulled this little piece of (now) hard silicone out of my ear, it was damn near orgasmic.  I could hear again!

Lesson learned here kids?  Never confuse your engineer husband with a medical professional.

still selling the house - a lovely Cape Cod

So as I previously mentioned, I'm a little behind on the posting so just hang tight, I'm slowly updating you on everything that's been going on.  I've had a few people reach out about the progress on selling the house, so I figured it should have its own little post...

Our house has been for sale now for a little under four months.  In that amount of time we've had over 30 appointments plus our open house, so we're definitely getting a lot of foot traffic through. On two separate occasions we had people that were pretty close to making an offer - two different buyers asked to come back a second time to see the house with their parents.  The first couple came back a second time with their parents, after the apointment their realtor noted "they really love the house but have decided it's just not quite big enough for them. Lovely home", which means their parents talked them out of it (you don't come back to see a house for a second time with your parents and then realize it's too small; mom and dad pointed out it was too small).  Another couple came back, again with their parents, and the feedback from that second appointment was "She loves the house, but he really wants a basement OR a garage. They are still thinking about it and I will keep you posted".  I can't blame this one on the parents; I guess magically between the first appointment and the second appointment our house was going to grow a basement or a garage.  Hmm.  Anyway, the second appointments got both John & I pretty excited, we really thought we were going to get an offer!  It was kind of a let down to read the feedback and see the "they love it but..." statements and know we weren't going to get an offer from either couple.  Sadly, the disappointment we would feel over not getting an offer is greatly overshadowed by the disappointment of getting a shitty offer.  A few weeks back we did get our first offer in, but it was insultingly low.  The couple offered us 30k less than what we were asking for.  Now at the time, our house had been up for a little over two months, we're anxious to move so we can get on with our lives, but we're far from "lets take any offer that crosses our plates".  Best part?  Their realtor told our realtor that their max price was 25k less than our asking price.  Really people? 

Lovely Cape-Cod, looking for a LTR...

So what has this whole process taught me so far?  There are a lot of reatlors out there who are complete ass hats.  I'm amazed with some of the feedback we get, for example the showing from Sunday left the following feedback "while the house is beautifully done, she does not want a Cape Cod".   Why in God's name are you showing your client a Cape Cod if she really doesn't want a Cape Cod?  Seeing it in person doesn't change the fact that it is a Cape Cod style house.  Or to another realtor, "my client really liked the house, but she needs to get comfortable with the area".  Why are you showing your client houses in a neighborhood that they don't like?  We've had realtors show up insanely late (the cape-cod lady was here 5 minutes after her one hour long appointment window ended) or some not show up at all.  At the end of the day we still live here!  Please respect our time by showing up on time, canceling appointments if you have no intention of coming and, above all, know your own client and don't show them something they would have ZERO interest in!  Ugh, it annoys me so much I even brought out the ctrl+B on that one.  Asshats (my guy excluded). 

As far as where we're looking to go, I'm started slowing down my searches on Realtor.com etc.  I've fallen in love with a number of houses, one in particular that's in Woodstown Borough, but I'm afraid to get too excited.  We've watched other houses we like be sold and we haven't even had a legit offer yet.  At this point I'm frustrated, but I'm trying to keep a good outlook.  John and I didn't expect to have the house on the market for less than a year, so to be in month 4 and to be this antsy is a little silly on my part.  I guess I didn't expect to have so much traffic through the house, which is why it is discouraging.  To have so many people come through and not one make a legit offer is what gets me down about the process.  We've had others leave awesome feedback ("top of their list, when do your clients want to close?" or "they love the house, keep us posted") but it hasn't turned into anything.  One of the appointments this past weekend, obviously not the one who hates cape-cods, expressed interest so time will only tell if anything comes out of that.  In the meantime, I'm trying to be patient!  

catching up - how I need to get my shit together

Well, my resolution of posting once a week has been shot to shit considering it has been over two months since I last posted.  I apologize to all seven of my trusty readers out there (Hi Mom) that I left you hanging for so long, but it has been a hectic few months.

Basically, this is all about how I need to get my shit together.

When I found out I was pregnant, I change a lot of behaviors.  I realized that a lot of what was normal for me would not be healthy for the baby.  Some stuff was an absolute no-brainer, I immediately stopped smoking as soon as I saw the positive test.  I also decided to make some less obvious changes - I stopped working all the time and started doing normal hours. I started eating better, I cut out coffee (though I did indulge in decaff as a treat) and I even managed to completely stop drinking Diet Coke which is amazing considering I'd have at least 20-30oz a day (with the exception of a few happy hours, where I cheated and had a DC). I manged to keep some of these habits up for a bit even when I returned to work from FMLA, but slowly they started creeping back.  My good eating habits pretty much went out the window, fast-food has become a way too frequent part of my weekly routine.  DC and massive amounts of coffee fuel my everyday existence.   In January, shit hit the fan and I started smoking again at work (for what its worth, only at work).  I'm back working 11-12 hour days again, yesterday was beginning of week three of me coming into work at 4am.  I'm generally not taking very good care of myself.

So basically, I need to get my shit together.

I keep saying to myself it was so easy to stop these bad habits when I found out I was pregnant, because I wasn't doing it for myself I was doing it for the baby.  You know what?  Just because Ari isn't inside of me any longer doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to have a healthy mom.  You know what else?  I need to change for me.  I have taken some steps to work towards being a healthier Andrea.  I joined Weight Watchers, and I'm down about 15 pounds from when I started.  I've committed to not smoking, and so far today I haven't a smoke at all and only two yesterday and none over the weekend, and no one has been murdered yet.  I've started a couch-to-5k type program and I've committed to doing some sort of activity at least five times a week. When I've gotten my ass up and out, I feel much better. Not just physically but mentally as well.  The hardest thing I'm going to have to do is let go of the work baggage.  My work related stress drives so many of the other things, I have no choice but to let go.  I'm trying to reconcile the fact that I will never be as caught up at work as I would like to be even if I worked 24/7 and there will always be work related stress.  I stopped working all hours of the day when I found out I was pregnant, and you know what?  The office didn't close down, production did not stop.  All was well.  And you know what?   If I stop coming in at 4am, the office won't close down.  Production will not stop.  All will be well.

So this is it.  The last of making excuses and not pushing myself to change.  The last of saying "it was so easy when I was pregnant" or "I'll go to the gym tomorrow, I'm too tired".  I'm not pregnant, but being pregnant shouldn't be the only time in my life when I get my health in check.  There will always be a reason not to change, but none of them outweigh the reasons to change.  This is me, getting my shit together for my son, for my husband and above all, for myself.  And don't you worry, I'll keep you posted along the way.

reflecting - Ari's ears & old Greek ladies

Wow!  I can't believe it has been almost 2 weeks since I've enlightened all of you with tales from my life!  I know, you all weep a thousand tears...So what have I been up to?  Cleaning, crocheting, mommy-ing, working, wife-ing, you know the usual.   I've been working really hard on my granny square blanket crochet project, I can't wait to share the progress with all of you!  I'll do that in a separate post considering that little squares of yarn pale in comparison to photos of the kiddo.

Mom!  My ears are just fine

The other day John and I were discussing, yet again, who we think Ari looks like the most.  It really throws us off that this kid has blonde hair and blue eyes - it looks like we stole him from a Swedish couple!  When I look at Ari, I see a lot of John especially from the nose down.  One thing we realized the other day when we were looking back through our pictures was that we think Ari has John's ears.  You can already see them starting to stick out!

Ari's adorable ears got us thinking about the strange advice we've received over the last 11 months, particularly the strange advice we've received by older Greek ladies.  We were warned that Ari's car seat was going to make his ears stick out.  We've also been told that we shouldn't buy shoes that are too big for him because it will encourage his feet to grow larger than normal.  John's mom was convinced that something was wrong with Ari because, according to her, John was able to hold conversations and run around by the time he was 9 months old.  Around Ari's first birthday we should shave his head so his hair will grow in thicker and healthier.  Hands down though, my favorite piece of advice was about the cats. We were told not to allow the cats near Ari's crib.  Reasonable right?  Probably thinking maybe there are some allergy concerns? Nope, not to allow the cats near Ari because they'll steal his breath (apparently this is a popular enough of a legend that Snopes has an article on it).  What kind of crazy advice have you been given?

sick - the first CY12 office cold

My office has notoriously horrible ventilation. By "my office" I mean the suite I work in - I dont want you to think I'm all fancy and have a door an whatnot, I'm a cube monkey. All 30 of us breathe the same recycled air. Think airplane cabin air minus the filtration. Whenever one person gets sick it makes it's way around the office. I pulled the short straw this week, lucky me.

I was saying to John that I would much rather have the flu for two days then deal with a cold. At least with the flu you know it's going to end and no one expects anything from you because, well you have the flu. A cold on the other hand can last two days or three weeks. There's never an end in sight. All of your symptoms are crappy but not bad enough to really take time off. And no matter how bad your head hurts or how wonderful it feels to feel like you're swallowing razor blades, no one gives a shit. Case in point, today at the office a co-worker commented on my pathetic sounding voice and even more pathetic appearance and asked sweetly "are you coming down with the flu", to which I replied "no, I think it's a cold". Her tone completely changed and she said "oh. It's JUST a cold" and rolled her eyes and walked away! No love for us cold sufferers out there.

Anyway, cold or no cold, I'm still crocheting away. Right now I'm enjoying a cup of tea, watching my new favorite show Infested (more on that later) and crocheting. I'm almost finished with the blanket! This isn't the best picture, it's from my iPhone (actually this whole post was written on my Blogger app, thanks technology), but here's a shot of my work in progress. Should be done soon!

crafting - upcoming crochet project

So remember when I said I wasn't as crafty as my friend Pinds?  Yeah, the statement still applies, but remember in that same post I said I was going to try to actually complete at least one project this year?  I'm actually on my way to following through.  Yay!  Right now I'm working on a much over due baby blanket for Ari.  It isn't pretty, the stitches are not exactly even, but you know what?  I'm almost done.  I have no idea why this crocheting thing is working better for me then the knitting thing, but hey I'll roll with it.  I started crocheting Ari's blanket about 3 weeks ago, I'm now on my third skein of yarn and the blanket is almost the right size.  Basically I just picked up the old yarn I had for the ill-fated knitted blanket and started crocheting in a simple shell pattern, there really wasn't much of a plan except for "I'll see how this looks after a bit".  So skein number three is well underway and I don't feel like ripping it all out nor am I completely embarrassed by it which to me is a sign of success!

The success with Ari's blanket has lead me to believe that I could take on an actual legit project.  Just in case I eff it up royally, I'm not going to show you what the finished product is supposed to look like, but I'm super excited about the yarn I purchased for the project, so I will share that.  The pattern called for particular colors in the Lion brand Wool-Ease line that no longer exist, so I drug John & Ari to JoAnn's with me to help find the colors needed in a different brand.  John was a good sport and helped me pick out the colors that best matched the pattern, without complaint (or at least he didn't complain out loud).  Aren't the colors pretty?

selling the house - progress report

Single family home, looking for a LTR...

We've had our house on the market now for a little over three weeks.  On Sunday, January 29th, we had our first open house!  It wasn't exactly the best feeling in the world, as I noted on Facebook, but I know it is a necessary evil.  After everything was said and done on Sunday, we had a total of 5 families come through so I guess that it was successful open house.

Aside from the open house, we've had a total of 9 appointments and I think one couple was pretty close to making an offer before deciding the house was too small.  That's the main feedback we're getting - great place, just a bit too small.  I don't know if I should be happy that this is the only negative feedback or frustrated.  If the feedback was "orange is a hideous color for the laundry room" or "there are way too many pictures of that ridiculously adorable baby up" then we could address it - paint the laundry room, remove pictures, etc.  There is nothing I can do about the size of the house!  It is a little over 1,200 square feet, just like most every other house in the neighborhood.  If someone is looking in our neighborhood, they aren't going to get much bigger than that.  Every house was built in the same cape-cod style.  At least our house had dormers in front and the back of the house was raised (for lack of better word) so the pitched roof is only in the front.  It opens up the bedrooms a bit.  Admittedly it is a smaller place, which is one of the reasons why we are looking to move, but when we were looking in 2007 we understood that it was the standard size for the neighborhood.  The market is different now, and buyers can afford to be pickier than we were in 2007 - we looked at a number of houses all over Bucks county and found that if we didn't make an offer the same day the house was gone.  This is obviously not the case now.

All told, I think the process is going good so far.  I was really worried we wouldn't get any traffic through, so the fact that we've had so many people in is a good sign, regardless if they think its too small.  This at least shows us that people are looking and their looking in our area.  Everyone who has left feedback about the price has said it was priced right, so our concerns about being priced too high for the area are quieted.  I will say that it is a giant pain in the ass to keep the house in Alimmatiri Show Ready condition.  I understand from when we were house hunting in 2007 that not everyone thinks their house should be absolutely spotless when people are scheduled to see the home.  John & I go absolutely crazy when we get the call/email that someone wants to see the house.  Almost every night we vacuum and put away wash (though we fell down on that job last week), but we almost do everything all over again (or at least double check everything again) in the hours leading up to a showing.  Here's the checklist we follow prior to someone arriving:

• Bathrooms: wipe down counters, dust mop floors, dry shower/sink (if needed), make sure toilet lids are closed, fix "queen mother" towel displays, hide "everyday usage" towels, Windex mirrors, Windex sink in downstairs bathroom (the glass gets spotty)
• Bedrooms: make our bed, straighten comforter/pillows/pillow-pal on the bed in Ari's room, fold Ari's awesome quilt over the end of the crib, arrange his animals, dust visable surfaces, turn bedside lights on in our room, vacuum again if puppy/kitty fur and/or Andrea's shedding is visible
• Kitchen: Windex counters and stove-top, wipe down fridge, microwave and dishwasher, dust mop, wipe down sink, make sure all dishes are put away, take down "everyday usage" dish towels & put up "queen mother" dish towels
• Living Room/Dining Room/Office: vacuum area rugs, dust mop hardwood floors, dust, vacuum couch & dog beds, leave the door to the closet in the office slightly open so it looks like we didn't close it all the way (the door sticks)
• In the 30 seconds before leaving the house: collapse pack & play, collect dogs, hide baby gates, put dogs in car, blow out candles, put Ari and pack & play in the car, grab entertainment for the sit-and-wait, grab any remaining random bags (laptop bag, diaper bag, Andrea's work bag).

It is a lot of work!  I wish John & I could be slightly less OCD, but I just can't imagine leaving our house in anything less than pristine condition when people are coming by with the intent of purchasing our home!  It would be like trying to sell one of our cars and not having it detailed before having someone stop by to look at it.  Cleaning out the poppy seeds from my AM everything bagels that fall in my emergency break lever-well-space thing could make the difference between someone buying my car and leaving it.  So making sure every little corner in our house is spotless could make the difference between someone liking our house and loving it.  I don't ever want someone to refer to our house as "remember the place with the cat/dog hair on the couch", just like John and I referred to one house we saw as the "split-level with all the laundry on the floor in the one bedroom".  I want someone to say "remember that amazing house on Hillcrest Ave?  Not only was it awesome, it was spotless.  Let's make an offer right now".  

Fingers crossed kids.  Hopefully this house will be gone sooner rather than later.