We have been slowly working towards getting our house ready to sell.  I can’t lie, with the housing market the way it is, there is a certain lack of motivation to even try at this point. But we just keep telling ourselves to push ahead and give it a go.  We got the ceramic tile done in our kitchen which gave it a much needed update.  Next weekend we are going to do the grout.  I am hoping to replace the cabinet hardware and that should wrap up the kitchen updating.  Our basement has long been a problem area for us, so we will tackle that next and hopefully our house will be ready to go after that.  The challenge will be the dogs, the clutter that comes with a small child, and the overall keeping it clean enough for people to walk through at any given time.  It scares me and has more then a little to do with my lack of motivation to try to sell the house.

 Jason’s birthday is this week.  I haven’t gotten him a gift yet. He keeps throwing me off with different suggestions.

Riding Calvin is an exercise in risking my life every week.  Luckily I have a couple good trainers and a couple good friends to help me through it.  It never ceases to amaze me how much I DON’T know, even after all these years of riding.  My trainers keep telling me how smart Calvin is and how much of a people pleaser he is trying to be.  But apparently this personality is turning him into a neurotic freak…so yesterday I was told I just can’t scare him.  Which, if you know Calvin, is nearly impossible to do.  At least its a challenge and never boring, but I think I need a new helmet.

 once i got out the vacuum cleaner to clean up the needles from my fake christmas tree and riley shyly approached looking at me with those big blue eyes as if asking…”can I touch?”  so of course i let him, and he then started to push the vacuum.  He would push it forward and I would pull it back.  It was a slow process but well worth the time! 

The next time, he absconded with a box of kleenex’s. True to form, he started pulling them out in wads (this is a regular occurrence in my house).  But instead of walking around waving them in the air and throwing them all over-  he proceeded to walk around, and every couple of feet  stoop over to wipe up the floor.  I am not kidding, it looked like he was cleaning up spills.  Time to get on the ball- even my 13 month old is starting to notice my lack of housekeeping skills.

Jason got an iphone last week after several weeks of…ahem….”discussion”.  He gave it to me for all of 10 seconds before I wanted one.  Unfortunately, my $400 will be going to new tires.  We took my car on a road trip this weekend and they are done for.  For the last half hour of the trip in the sleeting rain it became apparent that i needed new tires, new wiper blades and an oil change. 

Though I have had little time to get out to see my horse lately, I have been taking some stellar riding lessons from a dressage instructor that leave me stiff and sore, but wanting more.  I am not so sure Calvin feels the same way- this is the first time in 6 years that the horse has come out of a riding lesson covered in sweat with temps in the low 40’s or so.  Previously he has been able to keep me happy with some half hearted trips around the ring- whole different deal lately- I can tell he doesn’t appreciate me. But on the positive side, he is starting to feel like the horse I know he has the potential to be.

Christmas this year should be a riot.  Given how much fun I had shopping for Riley’s birthday, I can hardly wait to get to the christmas shopping.  At his birthday he showed little interest in opening his gifts, but we may be able to convince him by the end of December.  We visited some friends this weekend who have a 6 month old.  Its hard for me to remember Riley that small.  Riley was asserting his new found skills and opinions by promptly taking anything we handed to her.  For the first time last night he grabbed something from me and ran-  giggling the entire way of course- checking to see if i was coming after him.  It was pretty cute- When I didn’t, he turned around, walked back to me and handed it over then went about his business.  As Jason pointed out on Sunday, this kid is not practicing his walk- he is perfecting his run.

My question is this-  what the HELL does the guy do all day?

in the past week, here is a short list of things he has volunteered to do and promptly delegated to us:

1.  Order pizza for a meeting he was holding

2.  Contact corporate regarding a vehicle accident because he “just doesn’t want to talk to those people”

3.  Contact the department of human services regarding renewal of a license because he “didn’t know the process for that stuff”

4.  Get new stethescopes and blood pressure cuffs for the houses, find out where we order our drug reference books from

5.  Call the furniture store to find out the status of a check that he requested because “SOMEHOW it got sent to the wrong place”  (huh- can’t imagine how THAT happened)

  I found myself trying to remember how I felt at 5 am this time last year.  I can remember that I didn’t get much sleep, I can remember that i couldn’t get comfortable no matter how I rolled around (which wasn’t much at this point), I can remember hoping for riley to come early so I could have it over with.  What I can’t seem to really recall is the frustration, the overwhelming hormonal emotions that made me want to cry for no reason (this went on for the entire month of October), the nervousness, all that stuff.  Its weird how its all blocked out.  I found myself trying to hold on to all these emotions as they are a once in a lifetime thing.  I will never again have a “first baby”.  Sure, some things may be similar the next time around, but I am anticipating an entirely different experience.

I found myself looking back today at pictures from Riley at 1 month, 3 months, 5 months.  I hardly recognize the baby in the pictures.  I don’t remember him with so little hair, or such a round head.  To me he has always looked like the little boy he has become.  Goofy, easy going, independent, energetic, wonderful, Riley. 

He got home from my parents tonight and spent the night take those single shuffling steps to transfer between furniture.  I couldn’t believe it!  It seems so unreal to watch him figure this out.  He still doesn’t try to balance, but he does try to sit down real quick before he actually falls.  The remainder of the night he spent climbing into a clothes basket and taking the clothes out.  He was crawling around in a pile of blankets and the next thing i know, I look over and he’s sitting in the clothes basket taking Jason’s shirts out of it.  I watch to see how he would get out.  And just as i suspected, he just sort of dove out…landed flat on his forehead, but it didn’t phase him and he popped right back up to move on to the next thing. Emergency Room-here we come!

Jason and I are on the verge of developing a plan for the next 2 or 3 or 10 years of our life.  With a scheduled visit to a financial guy, some schooling options in the works, and a deadline for selling our house we are on the cusp.  Now its just taking that final step off the ledge to get the ball rolling.  For a year now we have watched deadlines and plans come and go- having a kid will do that to you i guess.  Sometimes you sit around waiting for life to happen to you-  Sometimes you wait around for something to kick you into gear. 

 In my case it was my boss leaving, missing out on a promotion, and not exactly meshing with my new boss.  Complacency had taken ahold of me, but this summer has jolted me back to reality to actually take some action.  Of course, I have sprung my life plans on Jason, which he says are completely out of left field- apparently my internal schedule and timeline are not automatically uploaded to our google calendar. 

Saturday it fell out of my purse.  The one day we have rain in 2 months and my phone spends it on the ground in my front yard.  It was revived here and there but always with a new problem…couldn’t hear incoming calls, nobody could hear me when i called them.  But i could at least keep it on to monitor who was calling me, then I could call them back.  Today I left for lunch and upon returning it was making this insane beeping noise and the screen was flashing on and off.  It finally crapped out. 

My new phone shipped today.  Hopefully I will have it in a week.  Hopefully i can mange to keep this one longer then 2 months