SOLD! and bought...almost

In a flurry of activity last week, we sold our home (after 4 counteroffers... countercounter-offers? counteroffers to the power of 4?) and looked at nearly a dozen homes before finally putting in an offer this morning. Somehow I managed to get some scrappin' done in there (this is the Betsy Ross House in Philly). We won't know until the end of the week, most likely, if we got the house.

There were three signs is relatively short order that it was "our" house: we walked through to the back patio and all of us shouted "WILLOW TREE!" --everyone knows that is my favorite kind of tree, especially in spring; my MIL heard bullfrogs galumping when she went outside to keep an eye on Tess (this has a special significance for her as my FIL was fascinated by the frogs they heard on their daily walk to a nearby pond) (earlier, the first offer on our house came in on my FIL's birthday); finally at the next house the battery on our video camera died, as if to say "you are done looking now!"

E has instantly mellowed on the me-time/you-time issue, amongst other things. Weird how stressed the whole home-selling, home-buying process made both of us. I think it helped him process his dad's death, in a roundabout way.

Strangely Peaceful

I put Ben down at 8:30p (poor guy's been rubbing his eyes for an hour, but he had no afternoon nap so I didn't want to put him down *too* early, only to have him wake up in an hour and be up until 10p) and went to check on Tess, who had been bouncing off walls at 7:30p, then complained of a headache and went upstairs around 8p.

This is what I found. I like how she is clinging to the bed rail, as if to keep from falling. Asleep, that is. Now I can only hope that she doesn't wake up vomiting. The last time she went upstairs and fell asleep on her own while it was daylight was when she had the stomach flu. She was three years old then and it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon, but still. Crossing my fingers here.

Today I had 5 whole hours at the Zone to crop. All of my bitching during and after our "vacation," where E {begin lengthy whine} dragged us to his friend's place in Petoskey (I know, poor me, gorgeous condo near the shores of Little Traverse Bay, whaa, I'll shut up now) JUST SO HE COULD PLAY SOME TENNIS, not considering I wasn't planning on cropping again for a full TWO WEEKS (although I did get out for a couple of hours when we got back early from our trip), {/whine} finally paid off.

You'd think I'd accomplish more than two layouts in 5 hours but that's what a long break does to me. E has also been encroaching on my Sacred Fridays, where I try to get out to Chelsea for my weekly crop by 7p (and I crop until midnight...or until they start running the vacuum to get us out, usually around 11:15p). Now, Sacred Fridays are something that NOBODY should mess with, most of all E and his frickin' tennis schedule. I think he learned his lesson today when I was gone. All. Day. Sweet.

Friday (a shortened 3-hour crop, more like 2 hours), I tried an 11 x 8.5 ("landscape") layout for the first time. My pictures required it, so I closed my eyes and jumped. Eh. Not so fond of that one, but today's -- second one in a row! -- was a LOT more fun.

LOVE the Stampin Up "Notebook" alphabet (now retired) for "Binky Face" (no, I did not hand draw those letters. I wish)! Not too sure about the tab and the journaling strips, but overall the layout works in the mood I was going for -- playful and silly.

The other layout I completed today I totally dreamed up yesterday. I recently read an article on hair care in Real Simple magazine, and under Oily Hair (totally my type) it listed all the things I *should* be doing to take care of my fine, oily hair, and voila! I am doing all of them! So I ripped the article out, grabbed a page kit I received from a swap-bot swap, and went to town.

Here's a couple of reasons why this layout is so out of the box for me:

1. PINK!
2. ribbons
3. hidden journaling
4. TURQUOISE!
5. a button (gasp!)
6. for the dot on the "i," no less!
7. FLORAL STUFF (!!)
8. I finally used my Coluzzle file folder template.
9. and my Autumn Leaves journal box stamps.
10. more than 2 fonts on the page (shh...don't tell the scrapping police...)
11. did I mention I used PINK and TURQUOISE?

I can't promise anything, but since I have just purchased Elsie Flannigan's 52 Challenges book, you may be in for more surprises on my pages...

07_07_07 project

Fountain
Originally uploaded by CreativeExile

Well, this ended up being really fun. I was invited to this Flickr group over a month ago, but when I went to add my photos to the group, I found I was no longer a member. Luckily my email was answered and James, the moderator, added me yesterday.

I was having a really down day...been fighting with E all through our vacation and it continued when we got home. Like I said, he is a terrible traveler and I forgot how he was when Tess was a baby. Something about traveling with a baby, to my family, where he is "forced" to "babysit" (ooo...let's not even go there...) just sets him (and me) off.

I wasn't even going to take pictures for this project, and didn't realize what day it was until about 11 a.m. I hung around the house, depressed, until --irony alert!-- E dragged me out of the house to meet his friend, who has a daughter Tess's age, in the evening.

You gotta know that a summer festival (is it still Top of the Park if it's not on top of the usual parking structure?) in Ann Arbor is RIPE for photo opps. In the end, I had 40+ photos to choose from for the 7 required in this project.

This was my favorite.

The gals who mistook their bag for a hat.

Felting Fun
Originally uploaded by CreativeExile

Been a while since you've seen any knitting activity over here, eh? Yeah, check out the name of my blog now. So of course it's time for some knitting content, right?!

This was from One Skein. Tess saw me trying it on as a hat when I was about halfway through knitting it; naturally she had to give it a try. It fit her better once I felted it. Works out well except for those handles/holes over her ears.

Just as I predicted, it's looking like a Dead Raccoon bag (I used a skein left over from a sweater for Ben), so I've purchase some bright pink Lamb's Pride Bulky to try again. Not that I'm a Hot Pink kinda gal, but I'm more that than a Dead Raccoon kinda gal.

Motown Philly back again

Betsy Ross house
Originally uploaded by CreativeExile

Remind me not to drag E anywhere ever again. Remind me not to let my family dictate my travel plans. I wanted to leave Mr. Crabby at home with Little Crab, but Mom wanted the whole Famn Damily along for my brother's wedding. What a pain in the ass.

Things went okay until we tried to return home. Seems that even if you check in online the night before, and get your seat assignments, the airline can switch the flight to a smaller plane and "lose" 9 seats (including our 3). While there were a couple of kind folks willing to give up seats, we (a) were the last to check in at the airport, and thus last in line to get abandoned seats and (b) needed someone to give up 3 seats at once, which wasn't going to happen, even if we were first to the airport that day.

That said, Philadelphia is really a lovely city. One I wouldn't mind returning to when the kids are older (or, better yet, without the kids. Or Mr. Crabby).

E is just a terrible traveler. Up next: taking Mr. Crabby to Mackinac Island. Now, in addition to not liking airplanes, he claims to not like bicycles or horses. I think I'm screwed.

Mom Style

Mom Style #2 -- Sunday Morning Blues
Originally uploaded by CreativeExile

I begged E to stay home this morning so that I could sleep in (HA), or at least have some help with the kids ONE morning a week. So he is off on a bike ride with Tess, while I'm here at home scrapping while Ben naps.

I haven't been able to crop at home in a while; I'm always sitting down to do it and then finding a million things to do around the house. Laundry. Dusting. Vacuuming. Feeding kids.

Now that we have the house up for sale, it's pretty spotless. Well, that, and I'm out of boxes. Our first showing stated that we still show "a little clutter," holy crap, what more can I get rid of? Either that, or put up a sign, "beware when you open closets." Yeah, that'll sell it. "Wow, they have a million closets, but for God's sake, DON'T LOOK INSIDE OF THEM!"

The one cool find during all the packing was my tripod. I KNEW I had it, although for a brief moment I thought I might have loaned it to the evil ex-fiance, thus had no hope of seeing it again.

Now I can participate in Mrs Reed's awesome Flickr group, Mom Style. I've been wondering how to take pictures for it for a while now (prop the camera up on a plant stand?) but that issue is solved.

Look for my lame wardrobe to make its daily appearance over at Flickr. You'll feel superior, no doubt.

Getting Ready

Before clean-up
Originally uploaded by CreativeExile

This is what I spent my weekend cleaning up. Seriously -- it took two days to get this mess straightened out.

I don't even recognize the interior of our home anymore. We have been living with clutter for so long that our home is now like new (but alas, not much bigger than I remember). Thus, we have it on the market.

I think we have it priced fairly -- there are lots of homes priced above us, and just a handful below. Two Realtors we spoke to suggested pricing it in the lower range just to move it, but since I'm not THAT interested in moving (actually, I wasn't that interested in cleaning and preparing our home for showing) I really fought taking at $15,000 hit on our place just to get it off our hands.

There are lots of things I love about our house, things I will miss. The peaceful backyard. Walking into the village. Neighbors.

But I do look forward to having room to entertain, and perhaps even a nice, warm, dry scrap room. Somewhere where the dryer buzzer doesn't scare the daylights out of me while I'm tuned in to my Ipod, scrapping late into the night.

And perhaps, a room as clean as this, all the time.