What's on the other side of that mountain?

The laundry is not a pile, it's not a mound, it's not anything that can be described by a lesser word than "mountain".  If you turn your head, you can see the dishes in the kitchen are piled up in the sink about the same height.  Mountainous!  I'm going to have to get some hiking boots and ropes and scale my mountains today. Ah, the adventures of motherhood are taking me to new heights!

There is a reason for the pile-up.  Several, actually. 

Last week Gracie wet her bed twice and had a bloody nose so many times I lost count. The sheets and blankets piled up and that's all I did for laundry last week, leaving all the clothes to wait their turn in the washer.  This built the foundation of today's mountain. 

This week we went camping at Big Bear.  Do you know how musty and dusty three sleeping bags smell when  you haven't rolled them out for a couple of years?  Ewww.  Those darn things along with our camping clothes and towels were tossed onto the laundry mountain.  And the pile of dishes grew.

We went to Oxnard this week too. Another quick overnighter.  We went to visit Grandma, Aunt Patty and cousin Jennifer who were visiting Cousins Jason and Jenni.  For this trip, we left Daddy at home to fend for himself. Since I wasn't home to keep the dishes and laundry going, it piled up some more.

Also, my brother came to visit last weekend.  I didn't waste any time doing housework while he was here, just had a nice time relaxing with my little brother.  Dishes multiply in the sink.  When he left, I tossed his towels and sheets from the bed he used onto the laundry hill.

For three weeks we had Lexie's friend staying with us, and her husband and their little girl.  A nice little family of three.  They cleaned up after themselves nicely by doing their own laundry and adding their towels to my growing mound.  And they helped out with dishes a bit too. If not for their help, I'm sure we would be buried by now!  They just left our home and I have hurled to the top of laundry mountain the sheets from the bed. 

Guests, traveling, camping and just our general every day living have created these mountains of crud and grime.  I am ready to go forth and conquer!  First, I will climb to the summit and view the world from the highest peak.  Might as well enjoy the view in this great adventure!

Invasion!

The invasion of family and friends begins today! We're expecting about 30 - 50 people (ok, I know that's a pretty big window, but I haven't had much coffee yet. Who can count before the caffeine kicks in?). With a graduation and a wedding in the next couple of weeks, this place will busier than LAX.

I've been busy whipping this house into shape. This poor house has been sadly neglected while I was in college and tending to the baby and trying to stay awake. I had a lady come over and rip down the wallpaper and scrape my walls clean quite a while ago; my intentions were to have the walls and nice and pretty back in March or April. Well.... this happened, that happened, this came up, that came up, next thing you know, it's JUNE!

So... I'll show you what I've been doing in between diaper changes these past few days. Before you see that, you have to see what I was getting rid of. I don't really have a good picture of the ugly wallpaper since I avoided taking pictures of it. It looked like something you'd find in an old run down trailer house.

Last November, Thanksgiving actually:

Three days ago:


About a minute before the first of our company arrived:





I'm ready!!!

Verdict: Going Crazy

I last asked.... am I nesting or going crazy? I've decided I've gone from nesting to crazy in a whirlwind!

I got a lot done last week. A lot! Not everything... certainly not everything. But, I did do a lot. Wore myself out! The more I did, the more I wanted to get done. And then it hit me....

All this reorganizing and rearranging is just silly. When we moved into this house, we were a family of 4. Now we are a family of 6! SIX!!! In six weeks, there will be 6 of us! What we really need.... is a new bigger house!

Yeah... a bigger house.... more square footage.... more closets..... more bedrooms..... Yeah.....

I don't think it helped that my husband was gone for a week and wasn't home to tame my wild ideas.

I first turned to the internet. Craigslist! I actually found a number of homes listed. Score! I went house hunting, toured a few, contacted a real estate broker.... oh, better call the hubby and tell him why he's working his ass off and where his paycheck is gonna go.... heeee hehee heee

I emailed him some links and photos of the places I looked at. He was actually kind of impressed! When he got home I took him to a few of my favorites. He was a little uneasy sneaking past the No Trespassing signs, but hey, how else you gonna see these without an appointment? He got all excited, like a little boy opening Christmas presents!

We have been on the hunt ever since. We went on a "brown lawn" tour of town looking for bank owned repos. Those are the best priced homes! And that's when we found it.... our dream home!

Brown lawn... dead overgrown weeds.... and a big beautiful bank owned home! We were so excited! But we couldn't get in. It has everything we want, we think. We were drooling all over that lot! We got into the yard and peeked in the windows. Ran straight home and looked it up online. Oh, wow! That's OUR house!!! We called a different realtor, and she gave us the nitty gritty. Including the bad news....

Sale Pending.

We continued our search, but we really want that one dream house! We are so awful; we're just wishing and praying that someone's financing will fall through so we can grab it! Keep your fingers crossed for us that we can beat out the other buyers and "nest" in a new nest!