Baby girl

I just finished proofing some newborn photos from a session last week. I gave her mommy this photoshoot for a baby shower gift.

Baby girl, Makayla, was VERY alert during most of the shoot, and didn't really appreciate me moving her around. :-) But we still managed to get several sweet images I think.

discount roses

I picked up a couple of dozen roses at the grocery store the other day. They were on deep discount (already drooping and dropping petals after only 2 days), but so pretty.

It's raining it's pouring, the old man is snoring

I'm in a little better spirits after our bad news about the house. We're trying to look at it as if we have dodged a bullet. These people, well, mostly their lawyer, were awful and if the sale had gone through, it wouldn't have surprised me if they found other things to sue us over later. And I still do love my house and don't want it to go to awful people. I didn't adore my neighborhood, but I still wouldn't want to inflict those people on my neighbors. We think we're going to just get the stupid roof done-- take out loans to cover it if we have to, although there is a chance our insurance will pay, and try, try again. Ben wants to put it on the market for sale and/or rent. I still want to give it at least another month on the market after the roof is done because I really really want to sell it and not have to deal with renting. A few months ago I was thinking we should rent it out, but recently I've been feeling the burden of two mortgages, and even though we can pay for both houses, as long as Ben keeps his job, it doesn't seem to me to conform to the Prophet's exhortations to get out of debt. And last night I opened up the new Ensign and there's this whole section on preparedness, food storage, etc. There was a great quote that said something like we should all have food stored up for a year, and very little debt, but unfortunately most people do the reverse-- they have a year's worth of debt and very little food. That sounded too much like our situation. And last month there was a long article about getting your financial house in order. So anyway, I really would like to just get the house sold.
Enough about that blasted house!
We have had rain, rain, rain, nothing but rain. Enormous downpours several times a day, it seems. It's not that bad, as it is the kind of rain that pours tremendously and then clears up and the sun shines for a while before the next storm rolls in. But it means everything is WET outside. Our back lawn is like a lake when it rains. I believe this part of Texas has had the most rain in recorded history this summer. So weird that last year they were in a really bad drought. It is really nice to be in a house with a SOUND roof. Whenever it downpours I don't have to be looking up at the ceiling with trepidation, wondering if water's gonna start dripping through. I hear Utah's in a drought right now, so I guess next week when we're in Utah we'll get some dryer weather. Or maybe we'll bring the rain with us.
On Friday night the boys had their Tae Kwon Do graduation. They are now yellow belts! It was fun watching them. At the beginning they do warm ups and a series of exercises with all the students-- all age levels and belts. Brigham and Joseph are the 2nd to the youngest kids enrolled, and it is so funny to see them out there with all these big kids and adults. Joseph was quite distracted by them, maybe a bit intimidated, I'm not sure, and when it came to doing their hook-kicks, he started doing them with the wrong leg. He immediately realized he was kicking in the opposite direction as everyone else, but he didn't get that it was the wrong leg. So he started kicking his leg crossing it over his other leg. It was pretty funny. Joseph was excited to get his yellow belt and had to put it on immediately after the ceremony. They look so small out there, but when they're home, I can't believe how big they are getting! Joseph fell off the hammock a couple of weeks ago and hit his mouth on the deck. Now one of his two front teeth is loose and will probably fall out soon (I hope so anyway, cuz' it's also getting sort of grey after the fall), and then he'll look even more grown up.
Ok, that's enough for tonight. I had some stories of funny things the boys have said the last couple of days, but my mind has gone blank, so I'll have to write them down when I remember again.

Here are some pictures from the Tae Kwon Do graduation.


Brigham demonstrating his "spear hand" move during the yellow belt testing.


Brigham in his proper walking stance, showing the wedge block move.

Here is Joseph, very serious, after receiving his yellow belt, getting ready to "kin ye" (bow) to the audience.




Here are all the graduating students. The guy on the far left had just tested for his confirmed black belt, and he was so happy I thought he would start crying. Joseph and Brigham are just to the right of the instructor who is kneeling in the middle.

Bad news, our buyers walked

Ben just called me to let me know that the buyers we had for our house in Florida just decided to walk.
I'm a little relieved and a little (well a lot) angry. They were SUCH a pain. They had a lawyer AND a real estate agent harassing us all the time. They wanted everything, and we pretty much gave them everything, but it wasn't good enough.
They wanted a tarp put over the leak in our roof, and made that part of the contract we signed (and they signed). So we called a roofing company we've worked with before and asked them to do it. They said they would, but every day there was some reason why they couldn't do it. Very, very aggravating. I mean, if we were there, we could have easily done it ourselves. Finally we just hired someone else to do it, and the tarp got put on about 5 days after we signed the contract. Seems reasonable to me, considering we are 5 states away, and they didn't put any kind of timeline in the contract. And then today their lawyer called Ben and said they either wanted us to get someone in there to cut a hole in the ceiling to check for mold (although there was no mold according to the inspection done 3 weeks ago), or for us to give them an additional $10,000 in the escrow account (on top of the $26,000 we already put in an escrow account for the roof). Ben called me, I said absolutely NOT, they already HAD an inspector out there (actually 3 inspectors), and they're insane if they think that in 2 weeks mold was overtaking the ceiling, when it hasn't after a year and a half of the same leak.
So Ben told the lawyer no, and now the buyers are walking. We don't know if we can get their earnest money or not, if it's even worth trying to get it. I say it is, since this is exactly the scenario in which we *should* get it. They strung us along for more than a MONTH, we gave them EVERYTHING THEY WANTED, we HAD another interested buyer but went with them instead, and now after all this time, during the peak buying season, they walk. It's only a matter of $3,000, but at least that would pay the mortgage for the month of July while they were stringing us along.
Ugh. So now we don't know what to do. Should we relist it? Should we try to rent it? In any case, it needs a new roof, and now we'll have to come up with the cash for it (would have been easier to just do the escrow account since the money would come from the proceeds on the house). If we rent it, we won't be able to do so until the roof is done, the AC fixed, etc. We could relist it I suppose, during the reroofing process. It just sucks because if we don't get it sold in the next month, it likely won't sell until after Christmas, since no one wants to move right after the school year has started. And we already saw how hot the housing market was last winter (don't mind the dripping sarcasm). So, what to do??
These buyers bugged the heck out of me, but at least we were going to be able to sell the house and get this monkey off our backs. Not anymore.
AND, I had left all our furniture in the house because having a house "staged" apparently helps it to sell faster. So when I thought we had buyers, I went and got all our furniture. So now the house is totally empty, with nice gauges in the walls from the movers, and water stains in the ceiling. Yeah, that's gonna be real appealing.
Oh well, it is what it is, and there's no changing things. I'm just frustrated and disappointed. I so wanted this OVER. We were supposed to close next Thursday, we were SO close.
Ugh.
Well, that's it for today!

After pictures of the playroom and master bedroom

We are using our old entertainment center and bookcases to keep the boys' toys. We are using the dining room as the playroom so I don't have to go up and down stairs putting toys away!

Mosey wanted in the picture!

Here is the wood floor in the master bedroom. We used 5 inch oak planks. I'm so glad I went with 5 inch planks instead of the conventional 3 inch planks!! Far fewer boards to lay. The hardest part was cutting the planks lengthwise to place on the edges of the room. If I hadn't cut them in half, there would have been only 1 inch for the final length, and you can't lay anything less than 1.5 inches, so I had to cut down the planks for the first edge as well. It was incredibly difficult to saw through that very, very, very hard oak wood with my hand-held circular saw. Next time I'll rent a table saw for sure. That, and then cutting the trim pieces (using a hand saw and a mitre box, again because I don't have a table saw) was the hardest part of the job. Looks nice, though, huh? And I saved about $1500 doing it myself.

Mr. Squirrel

Here's the squirrel himself, earlier this evening.

Not so much a squirrel today

Mosey did much better in swimming lessons today. I was worried, though, because on the way to swimming lessons, I asked him if he would jump into my arms from the side. I told him I'd catch him before he went under water. He said to me, "Mmm, uhh, no I don't think so." "How come?" I asked. "Because I think I'm allergic to that, mom!"
LOL!!!
He didn't jump to me, but he did a lot of other stuff and generally had a good attitude.

Boys at Mansfield Dam

Above is a video I took of the boys at Mansfield Dam (the dam that created Lake Travis). The Lake is the highest it's been in, well, a really really long time. It was quite something to look down and see the power of the water being released at the bottom of the dam.

Spicewood Elementary Auction

I donated a photoshoot to be auctioned off at the Spicewood Elementary silent auction this year. I did the shoot about a month ago-- a really nice family that drove about 45 minutes out to Austin just for the pictures. It was a stormy day, but thankfully didn't rain during the actual photoshoot. But it was dark and cloudy and not ideal lighting conditions. Turned out ok, though. Here are a few of my favorites.

Pictures from our trip to San Antonio

I don't think I ever posted about our trip to Sea World. We went July 3, right after I got back from Florida. We drove down Monday night, stayed in a Red Roof Inn, and went to Sea World the next day. It was really fun! A few frustrations (Ben and Brigham and Joseph waited in line for an HOUR to get on the Journey to Atlantis ride, only to have the ride close when they were NEXT IN LINE!! Brigham and Joseph were in tears over that. But they loved the Shamu show, had a chance to go on some other rides, Joseph and Mosey and I saw a great sea lion show, and we ate some (very expensive) yummy food and frozen lemonade. Ben and I took turns staying with the boys while the other went on the 2 adult rides. I discovered I am TOO OLD for really high rollercoasters. It didn't look that high from the ground, but once the car started going up the track, I decided I was definitely too old for this. But I survived, thankfully. The other rollercoaster was really fun-- it was one where you sit in these seats that hang down from the track. It didn't go very high, although it did flip you around upside down a few times. I don't mind upside down, but I HATE heights.
Around 6:00 PM we were all tired and headed out to the water park where there is a lazy river type ride, and a wave pool. But a humongous thunderstorm rolled in, and the park pretty much shut down. So we were a little disappointed, because we would have stayed a couple more hours for sure. But then the next day, July 4, it rained ALL day, so we were very glad we had gone to Sea World the day before.

Boys very impatiently waiting to go into Sea World. I didn't bring my camera inside the park, so I made them pose outside near our van so I could at least document that they were there

On the 4th we went to the Tower of the America's, one of those space-needle type buildings with a rotating restaurant at the top. We ate a (very expensive) yummy lunch up there, and tried to explain to the boys that the walls of the restaurant weren't moving, but the floor and all the tables on the floor, including ours, were moving. It was cool.


Ben and Joseph waiting for lunch up in the rotating restaurant. Joseph LOVES getting his picture taken. LOL




Again, posing up in the rotating restaurant. See Mosey's nose? He did a face plant running down the driveway at our rental house on our LAST DAY THERE. Poor guy.




Ben posing up on the observation deck of the Tower of the Americas. You can see the Alamo Dome behind him where the San Antonio basketball team won the NBA championships a few weeks ago.



Me and the boys in the beautiful grounds outside the Tower of the America's. It was raining, but I still made Ben take this shot of me and my boys.



Afterwards, we toured the Alamo, along with half of the rest of the state of Texas (I guess the Alamo is a popular place to visit on July 4), and then walked along the river walk for a short while before heading home to Austin. At the Alamo there was a guy dressed up in period costume, playing a military drum. It was really moving.



My boys waiting to go into the Alamo. See the long line?

A little light reading

I turned around from the computer a week and a half ago, or so, to see Mosey like this, "reading" Time magazine. I think he's catching some of his nudist tendencies from his brother Brigham...

July 23, 2007

Ok, I promised to post pictures of the "before and after." Here are the "before" pictures. I will post "after" tomorrow, I promise.

Here is the garage as it was about a week ago. Most of the boxes that needed unpacking were behind the master bedroom furniture. I couldn't unpack those boxes until I moved the furniture out. I couldn't move the furniture out until I finished the master bedroom floor. I couldn't finish the master bedroom floor until I could get access to some of my tools. I couldn't get access to my tools until I cleared out some of the garage! Bad cycle there. I finally decided just to bite the bullet, go to Lowe's and buy some tools I knew I already had somewhere in that mess, and break the cycle. It was worth it.

Here is the playroom "before." Horrible, ugly, disorganized mess. It's now very pretty. Naomi and I attacked this first, working pretty much all Sunday afternoon, the first day she was here, to sort through, throw away, and organize all the toys.

CareBears as scripture heroes

Today was a pretty good day. I didn't get much more unpacking done, but I did get some more Young Women work done, went swimming with the boys, did a couple of errands, and had a real Family Home Evening instead of a how-can-we-make-what-we're-already-doing-into-FHE family home evening. LOL. We talked about heroes, what they are, who they are, and how we can be heroes. Joseph decided that Carebears are heroes because they help to rescue other Carebears and teach other people how to care. LOL.

Why does Heavenly Father put bad things on earth?

Today as we were driving home from Tae Kwon Do in a HUGE thunderstorm, Joseph asked me, "Why did Heavenly Father put bad things on the earth?" Talking about storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, and such. Five year olds ask such deep questions! I told him that Heavenly Father put us here on earth so that we could learn to choose the right even when things are hard. If he made human beings and the earth so that everything was really easy, then we'd never learn how to be strong when things are hard. Interesting how my boys have touched on the most fundamental of all human questions at only 5 years of age.

Why do people have to wear clothes?

The last couple of weeks we've had some interesting conversations, my boys and I. Brigham is my little nudist and would go around naked everywhere, all the time, if I would let him. So he asked me *why* he had to wear clothes when we are inside the house, no one can see, and it is warm enough. Hmmm. Hard question! I told him first of all that clothes protect his body so that if he bumps into something or falls down, he won't get as hurt. Second I told him in the Garden of Eden Heavenly Father gave Adam and Eve clothes to wear when they headed out into the world. I told him clothes remind us that we are made in the image of God, and that we are different from animals. Animals don't wear clothes, but they also are not responsible for obeying God's commandments. Clothes help to remind us every day that we should behave like God's children, not like animals that just do whatever they feel like, whenver they feel like it. Was that a good answer?

Who works harder, moms or dads?

Finally, we had a discussion about who has more responsibility, dads or moms. We were walking into the bank and Brigham, I think it was, said, "I think moms have to work more than dads because they have to take care of kids all day and do all the errands." I almost busted out laughing at that. I was severely tempted to say, "Yes, Brigham, that is true. Mothers work much harder than anyone else, and don't you forget it!" But I didn't. I said, "It's true that I am responsible for taking care of you guys all day long, but remember Dad is at work all day, and he has a really big responsibility to make sure that we have enough money to live in a house, drive a car, get groceries, and buy all the things we need. And then when he gets home from work, he has to help me with everything at home!" I asked the boys who seemed more tired at night, me or dad. They agreed that we both seem the same amount of tired, so we both must work the same amount. I did feel a little guilty, though, since I really don't want to communicate to my kids that taking care of them is a burden and nothing but work...

Mosey the swimming squirrel

I've decided Mosey is my little squirrel. Squirrels are these really cute little creatures with tons of energy, running around all the time, but they also seem to like to tease you by holding very still, allowing you to get pretty close to them, and then just as you think you might be able to catch one, (or take a picture of it, if you're me), they dash away quick as anything. Specifically, Mosey is a little squirrel when it comes to swimming lessons. He was doing SO well a couple of weeks ago, jumping into the water all by himself, putting his face in, trying all the things he was asked to try. But something happened, I'm not sure what, and he's suddenly a little squirrel in the water. He just will NOT do what the teacher asks. We've had 3 different instructors the past 3 lessons, and whenever they ask him to do anything, even simple things he's easily and willingly done before, he just turns his head and meows. He won't jump in anymore. He won't put his nose in, he won't hold his breath and then blow it out. It's very frustrating. He'll do more when it is just me and him, but as soon as a teacher gets in, forget it. Last week Joseph and Mosey both had a really bad day. Joseph was upset because he should have been promoted to station 4, but the teacher working with him forgot or something, and he was held back in station 3. So Joseph was sulking and wouldn't do anything. Finally Coach Mike (the head coach guy) came over to him and tried to get him to do some things. Joseph just sat there with a pout on his face and wouldn't respond. I saw him doing this and went over and really got after him. I told him that Coach Mike is the coach and that he MUST be respectful and do what he asks. I was really proud of Joseph because he totally turned his attitude around, and did everything Coach Mike asked, and even had a smile on his face by the end of the lesson. I told Joseph how proud I was, that I know how hard it is to change your attitude when you are feeling mad, but that he had done a really good job. Joseph's been fine ever since, but Mosey is still being a little squirrel. Swimming lessons again tomorrow, so maybe he'll be better, we'll see.

Ok, enough for tonight.

Harry Potter Mania!!

Hello Everyone,
You haven't heard from me this week because Naomi and I have been working hard!!! (I don't even think I wrote that Naomi came! She flew out last Saturday night and is rescuing me yet again. I'm losing count of how many times she's swooped into my life to set things in order). We've accomplished a LOT and I'm happy to say I'm in a much better state of mind than I was a week ago. Still have some left to do, but it is much more manageable now, and my panic has receded for the time being. The play room is organized, the hardwood floor in the master bedroom is down (which meant we could finally move our bedroom furniture in from the garage), furniture is rearranged in each room to their final positions, I got the day bed put together (took me a while, since I had no directions, just a bunch of pieces and hardware), Naomi and I assembled six bookcases, and the garage is well on its way to being organized.
Tonight we rewarded ourselves by having an evening of Harry Potter. We watched Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire, and then Naomi and I headed off to Barnes and Noble for the midnight Opening Of The Boxes. We were over there by a few minutes before midnight, and quickly realized we should have been there much, much earlier. Every single parking space in this large shopping center (Barnes and Noble, PetSmart, PierOne, Outback Steakhouse, Coldstone Creamery, and a bunch of other smaller shops) was taken. We parked illegally next to a storage trailer. We literally ran through the parking lot, around the back of Barnes and Noble through a dark, muddy alleyway, and headed around the corner to the front of the store just as the first boxes were being opened, amidst screams of hundreds of people. I hadn't pre-ordered the book or anything, and we soon realized that we would easily be there until 3:00 AM before it would be our turn in line, if there were any books left, so we just wandered around soaking up the ambience and then left after a half hour or so. It was fun to see all the many different ages and kinds of people there. Many were dressed up; we saw a bunch of Harry Potters and Hermione Grangers, of course, plus dementors, house elves, I saw a Luna Lovegood and a Tonks (complete with bright pink hair), someone with a sorting hat on, and lots and lots of other Harry Potter paraphernalia. It was pretty fun.
Ben wanted to go see the Order of the Phoenix tonight, but I told him I'm not watching it until I've re-read (listened) to the book. He thinks I'm pretty weird. And I'm not reading the new book until I've finished #5 either. I listened to #6 last week. I tried to get #5, but there's a waiting list for like 170 days at the library, it's not available for download through Audible or Simply Audio, and there was also a very, very long wait to rent it through Simply Audio. So I asked Mama to mail me their copy so I can listen to it this next week. I'm excited for the movie and the book, but also pretty sad that it will be the last book. Let's start a letter-writing campaign to J.K. Rowlings to beg her to write a 7-book series of prequels, giving us the full story of James and Lily, Dumbledore, and all the characters that came before Harry, ok?
All right, that's it for tonight. I took pictures of the play room and garage before Naomi came, and tomorrow after she leaves I'll take some "after" pictures so you can see how much she and I were able to get done this week.
Have a great Saturday everyone!

Sinking into Insanity

Hello Everyone,
The move this morning went well. They arrived at 7:00 AM (so I *was* right, they didn't get here between 8 and 10!), they were polite, and moved our things into the house. Only one thing is broken that I can see, and I'm not sure if that was broken when it was first loaded into the original truck. I'm hoping I can fix it, we will see. I also haven't seen our kitchen chairs, but they *may* be in boxes in the garage. I had them put all the boxes in the garage plus all the stuff for the master bedroom, so the garage really is packed full. So, we're done with the movers until they figure out we put a stop-order on one of the checks we sent them, and then I'm sure we'll be hearing from them again!!! We're just going to point out to them all the laws they broke, and then tell them if they want to sue us for the money, go right ahead as long as they don't mind that we'll be filing state and federal charges against them for their violations. This is a game of chicken, but I believe they have much more to lose than we do, and they will blink first.

Ben is feeling overwhelmed by everything, as am I. When he saw all the furniture jam packed in this house, he told me he wished we hadn't moved the stuff here, that we would have just left it all in Florida. It's true, we have too much stuff for this house now (that's what happens when you down size), but I didn't have time the weekend I was out in FL to sell items, and had no vehicle to take furniture to good will. I'll have to do that here. And yeah, lots of our furniture doesn't really match the house, but with a $27,000 roof replacement hanging over our heads, I don't really feel like beggars can be choosers. I told him once I get things organized and decorated, he will think things look nice and he won't be so sorry we moved it all here. He is skeptical, but he's been skeptical of my home-decorating abilities before!!

Ben and I are both sort of torturing ourselves with "if onlies" as we are looking back on the whole move/fixing up the house/putting house on the market thing. But it does no good, and from now on I'm going to try really hard not to do that. I was really stressed out yesterday by everything, and it just started to really bother me that I'm letting stress ruin my summer (and probably my kids' summer cuz if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, right?). Tonight I went up to where girls' camp is being held (can't go during the day, since I have the boys, so I'm going to help out in the evenings), and there was a really nice devotional by the stake president's wife. She talked about being able to see the humor in life, and I decided that's what has been slipping away from me recently. There's many things you can't change in life, particularly things that have happend in the past! So I have a choice to torture myself and dwell on these things, or I can hopefully learn a lesson from it, move on, and hopefully even see the humor in the situation. I have been good at doing this in the past, and I need to get that skill back.

I know I'm just overwhelmed right now. I'm going to write it all out now (at least what I can think of in my stress-addled, sleep-deprived brain), and hopefully get it off my chest, and then be able to wake up in the morning with a better attitude about everything.

1. The house is absolute chaos. I didn't have time to unpack/organize/clean before our furniture came today, so add a whole bunch of furniture piled in random places, and my garage being totally inaccessible, it is pretty awful. I have activities with the boys during the day, and plus I feel they deserve much more attention from me than they have been getting, so there is a very limited amount of unpacking/cleaning/organizing I can do during the day. And I definitely can't move big pieces of furniture around by myself. At night Ben and I are so tired, the boys keep us totally busy and there's just not much time to get a good amount of work done. I have girls' camp this week, so I can't really do much at nights this week anyway (except for tonight, I HAD TO PAY BILLS, so after coming home, cleaning the kitchen so the roaches don't start multiplying, I had to tackle that task, and it is therefore 1:30 AM and I'm not in bed). Most of the time I feel like the every day demands of life-- laundry, cleaning, disciplining kids, running errands, trying to be a mom and sometimes an acceptable wife, etc., etc., etc. take up all my time, so trying to figure out when I'm going to accomplish this monumental task of getting everything unpacked and organized is pretty daunting.

2. I have a photoshoot from a month ago that desperately needs editing-- I told them it would be at least 2 weeks due to the move, but it's been nearly a month now. It won't take me too long, just a few hours, but I just haven't HAD a few hours, and don't really see any forthcoming in the immediate future.

3. I have some things I really want to get done before Naomi's wedding. Naomi, this is something I really WANT TO DO, you are not adding to my burden, because I would do this even if you told me not to. Again, something that would only take a couple of hours, if I could carve out that time somehow.

4. I have several Young Women things I need to start, as well as a couple other things I need to finish, as so far I don't feel like I've really grabbed the YW Secretary thing by the horns.

5. I have to make a billion phone calls cancelling services at our old house, getting bids on roofs, seeing if we can possibly make an insurance claim on our roof this late in the game after the hurricanes, etc., etc., etc. And I HATE making phone calls. It makes me grumpy.

6. I have several things I need to go out and do-- get the broken side mirror on my van replaced, finally go get my TX drivers' license, go get a new debit card at the bank, including a new picture since I've had a bunch of people recently wondering if I am really that person in the picture-- it is pretty old and I've lost 50 pounds since it was taken, so it is understandable, but of course it means that one of these days I have to get up, do my hair, and put on makeup so I can have pretty drivers license and debit card pictures!! Holy run-on-sentence, Batman!! Yes, I know I am so vain. Normally I only do these "prettying" things once a week-- for church, so taking the time to get ready and then go do these errands isn't as simple as it sounds.

7. I still have to make travel arrangements for our trip to UT/CA next month. Ben needs to figure out the days he can get off, and I need to arrange plane flights for me and the boys, and then separate flights for Ben as I'm sure we won't be leaving or returning on the same days. Again, not a big deal, but it will take an hour or so, and until I get it done, like all of these seemingly minor things, it is this nagging stress at the back of my mind. When you have like 15 minor stresses nagging at your mind, it gets very irritating.

8. I feel like I have to get all this stuff done in the next month, because we'll be leaving for 3 weeks, and then as soon as we get home, school starts and all that. AND, (here's a secret, but not really that much of a secret), we are doing a FET procedure in Utah using our 4 frozen embryos from back in 2000. So I've been on Lupron, a really fun drug that puts me in a menopausal state and makes me oh-so-pleasant-to-live-with (and Ben, believe me, it's worse for ME, because I have to live with ME ALL THE TIME). And, if the procedure works (15-40% chance according to the doctor), then I'll be incredibly sick for about 4 months and won't get anything done until probably November!!!!!!!! So I HAVE TO GET EVERYTHING DONE IN THE NEXT 4 WEEKS. Which feels impossible.

9. I know I'm an idiot, because all of this stuff, in the grand scheme of things is very puny. It's all temporal stuff that totally pales in comparison to something like my sister almost getting killed in a bike accident last week. So I feel really annoyed at myself for getting all worked up. But *how* do I not get worked up? I was so stressed out last Saturday night that I literally lay in bed all night and didn't sleep until after 6 AM. My mind was racing all over the place and I just couldn't slow it down. Last time I looked at the clock was 6:10 AM. And then I was up at 7:30 to get ready for church. I've never in my life had insomnia that bad. So I'm also working on severe sleep deprivation which makes things all about 10 times worse.

But, this is the last time I'm going to wallow in my misery. From now on, as bad as things get, I WILL find something humorous about it, so at least I'll be smiling in the midst of my chaos. On the positive side, the boys are very excited about getting our furniture. It was really cute to hear them squealing, "Oh, I remember that chair!! I remember that bed! There's my bike!!" They christened our new (to this house) furniture by digging out a tube of desitin (I'm not sure where, we haven't used that stuff a couple of years), and fingerpainting on the back of the couch, on the door of Joseph's bedroom, and all over themselves, while I was trying to take a 20 minute nap before swimming lessons. That'll teach me to try to take a nap. Thank heavens for leather couches.

What an evil company.
It's too late for me to get into the gory details, but let's just say that I don't think the terrible moving experience I had last weekend was an aberration for this moving company. I'm doubting seriously they actually did fire that guy.
They are trying their darndest to rip us off, but we won't fall for it!
Thank goodness for a husband with a law degree who can look up all the applicable statutes and figure out all the laws they are breaking.
I think we're going to get through this only paying $500 more than the estimate they gave us, but it is only through some cunning on our part, and incompetence on their part (we placed a stop-order on a large check we gave them, but I guess they haven't tried to cash it yet).
It is really very sad to me how people live in a world of taking advantage of others, ripping off others whenever they can, and in general just being mean and nasty. How can you ever have any peace in your life when these are your strategies for living?
I guess I am just really naive. It truly never occurred to me that there could be a company like this. They said they are a member of the BBB and American Moving and Storage Association, so I thought I could trust them. In doing more research today, the *first* website that pops up when I do a search for "Capital Moving Group" isn't the actual website for Capital Moving Group, but instead a website called movingscams.com. These guys are really bad guys and have ripped off lots of people. The experiences I have had are normal for this company I guess.
But the good news is that we are not push overs and they are not getting away with this with us.
So the moving truck is supposed to come tomorrow between 8 and 10 AM. We'll see if they come, what time they come, what condition our stuff is in, and if we can complete this transaction without calling the police. Wish us luck.

Only $26,500 for a new roof on our house in Florida!
I'm not kidding.
This was our first bid, so I'm *hoping* some of the other bids come in a little less than this! LOL
You can buy entire houses with property for less than this in some parts of the country.
Anyone wanna start a roofing company in South Florida and give us a deal?

Here are some things that remind me of Florida. While I was there last weekend I tried to take some pictures of things that were uniquely South Florida. I'll share some of them (also pictures from our old house there) in the next several days.

It's hard to see here (too late in the morning, the dew had all burned off), but there is a little spiderweb spanned across the blades of grass. When I rode to school with the boys in the morning, the grass would be positively dripping with dew, and when you looked down you'd see just thousands and thousands of these little webs sparkling in the sun. Some were so small, only an inch in diameter, and yet they were perfect little orb webs. Those were hard-working spiders, reweaving their webs whenever anyone tromped on it, or the lawn mowers destroyed them.

Here's another spider and a web-- we called this type of spider a crab spider. It has a different proper name, but they just looked like crabs to us. These are EVERYWHERE in Florida. We even got a couple in our house making gigantic webs across the living room. They are pretty small spiders, maybe only 1/4 to 3/8 inch across, but they make really big webs.

South Florida is incredibly beautiful. One of the most beautiful sights to see is the sky at sunset after a summer thunderstorm. This picture does not do the clouds justice, this wasn't a particularly breathtaking display. I remember driving up Flamingo and hardly being able to keep my eyes on the road, just wanting to drink in the gorgeous view of these gigantic billowing thunderheads lit up with all sorts of colors. Nowhere I have been can come close to Florida sunsets.

This is an anole lizard. They are absolutely ubiquitous in South Florida. This isn't a great picture because these little suckers are FAST. The only way to catch them is to wait until one has been trapped in your house for a couple of days. Then they get really slow and lethargic and you can easily pick them up. There are lots of different varieties, some with a yellow stripe down the back, some pure black, some green, some brown like this one. They do like to come in the house a lot and sadly many of them meet their demise there. Pretty much whenever I vacuumed behind the couches or chairs, I'd find one or two petrified lizards. Once my mom and I found one that had did mid-step, because it was petrified standing perfectly erect, it's legs in the middle of an apparent step. Brigham and Joseph always wanted to catch one of these guys outside (they loved the little flower patch right outside our front door), but we never quite managed it.

Here is a mating pair of the little hoot owls that lived out in the greenway behind our house. They live in holes in the ground, you can see these two guarding their hole. But if you get too close, they'll fly across the grass and perch on one of the cables coming from the power lines back there.

When I got up closer, one of the owls flew away, but this one stood there watching me intently. If you walk past them, they really can turn their heads almost all the way around!

Oops! Got too close. Off she goes!

Hey everyone,
I'm off to bed, but thought I'd tell you I got someone fired. He deserved it, and this wasn't the first incident, apparently, but it still feels sort of bad. Here is the letter of complaint that I sent in, resulting in the guy's termination. We still haven't resolved the issue of payment. I think it may end up being pretty messy, but I'm sticking to my guns.

Gabrielle

To Whom it May Concern,
I am writing to express my disappointment in the professionalism of the team of movers that came to my home over the weekend. I do not know if they are direct employees of Capital Moving, but even if they are subcontractors, I believe you should know about what happened.
I received a call on Saturday afternoon from Capital Moving confirming the appointment I had for movers to come to my house between 8:00 and 10:00 AM the next morning. I confirmed, and asked for the movers to come as early as possible. The next morning no one came or called until nearly 10:00 AM, and then a call came from Shaul Ben-Shalom (I believe the team leader) asking for directions from Miami. I was distressed that he had not even left Miami yet. The team did not arrive at my house until 12:30 PM.
During the course of the move I tried to be helpful and accommodating, buying pizzas for lunch and then going to McDonalds to get each of them meals a few hours later, as well as helping with the packing as best I could.
However, a couple of hours into the move, a disagreement arose between Mr. Ben-Shalom and one or two of the men working with him. I gathered that the disagreement was whether or not they would be continuing on to do a second job after they were done at my home. The disagreement escalated into very loud shouting and threats from one man to another. I was extremely uncomfortable and almost called the police to come intervene. Finally the fight broke up and the men returned to work.
After the fight, at two separate times, one of the men approached to me complaining about Mr. Ben-Shalom and trying to defend his position to me. Later on Mr. Ben-Shalom also approached me to complain about how the men were not listening to him or doing what he told them to do. He told me, "Normally on a big job like this I will ask the client for a very big tip, but because of the argument I'm not going to ask you for one penny." I appreciated his indirect apology, but was still upset by the unprofessionalism demonstrated by all of them.
Twice more arguments broke out amongst the men, but happily none so violent as the first.
During the course of the move, a computer desk broke as the men loaded it into the truck. Ben-Shalom told me that they could not be responsible for items constructed with particleboard. However this desk was quite new and in very good condition. It is difficult to see how it could have broken had it been handled with reasonable care.
After the furniture and boxes has been moved out of my house I went through each room to be sure everything had been removed. I was very disappointed to find several deep gauges and scrapes on the walls in two of the bedrooms, three locations on the wall along the stairway, as well as in the ceiling above the stairway. The damage will require patching with plaster and then repainting.
As the men were loading the last of the boxes and furniture in the van, Mr. Ben-Shalom went over the inventory lists with me. He told me that the estimate I received from Capital Moving was based on a load of 985 cubic feet, but the actual size of the load was more than 2000 cubic feet, and therefore the total cost of the job would be more than double what was estimated—from $3500 to $7800. I find this very hard to believe since I received not one, but two different estimates from Capital Moving, and the estimates matched each other to within $300. A representative personally inspected all of the items in our home that were to be moved and completed the first estimate from Capital Moving. The second estimate was by phone where I described verbally all of the items in each room that needed to be moved. I can understand how a phone estimate might be slightly off, but I cannot accept that someone with experience in moving could come to my home, see everything that needed to be moved, and then underestimate the volume necessary by more than 50%. I absolutely would not have chosen Capital Moving had I anticipated that the actual costs would be more than double the estimate. In fact, the value of all of the items in the home is almost certainly far less than $7800! I had 3 other moving companies come to my home to give me estimates. None of them even came close to what Mr. Ben-Shalom told me was the actual cost of the move. The lowest quote I received was for $2800, and the highest was $5200. I decided to go with Capital Moving because I was impressed with the professionalism of the gentleman who came to my home, and the assurances he gave me that I would be happy with the service rendered. I do not know if the estimators purposely underestimated the cost of this move simply to secure my business, or if Mr. Ben-Shalom and his men did a poor job in efficiently packing the boxes and truck. I find either scenario to be totally unacceptable. I can't help but wonder if Mr. Ben-Shalom tried to increase the apparent volume of the load because he knew that my husband's company is paying for the move, and he thought that perhaps he wouldn't get any complaints. The fact is that my husband's company is paying for the move, but our moving expenses are capped at a certain amount, and any increase over that amount will come from our pocket.
As Mr. Ben-Shalom finished going over the papers with me, he then asked me about a tip. I was a bit taken aback because he has said he would not ask for a tip due to the behavior of he and his men. However, I felt quite pressured to give a tip as Mr. Ben-Shalom told me he and his guys are paid only by their hourly wage and through tips, and that it was just "not right" (his words) for clients to give small tips. I called my husband (he was in Texas while I supervised the move on my own in Florida), and we agreed to give them a modest tip, 10% of the original estimate, as opposed to 10% of the newly revised cost, which was what Mr. Ben-Shalom suggested. My husband asked to speak with Mr. Ben-Shalom, but immediately Mr. Ben-Shalom got very aggressive with my husband on the phone, accused me of complaining to my husband that he had "demanded a tip" (Mr. Ben-Shalom did not actually demand a tip but strongly insinuated to me that one was expected). After a short exchange, Mr. Ben-Shalom hung up on my husband. My husband was so upset by the exchange that he called me back shortly thereafter to make sure that I was ok. He was going to call the police if I did not assure him that I was not in danger.
I never felt personally endangered, but I did feel manipulated and I did fear for my belongings already packed in the truck. I worried strongly (and still worry) that the men would damage our furniture if they were not satisfied with the amount of the tip I gave to them. I did give them a tip-- $200 to Ben-Shalom directly (which he asked for), and $100 made out to cash (which I assume he divided among the 3 other men). Late that night, after 11 PM in fact, I received a phone call. I rarely receive phone calls that late and picked up my phone worried there was an emergency. It was a call from a check-cashing establishment asking to verify that I had written a $200 check to Mr. Ben-Shalom. I told the employee that I did write the check, but that I was very uncomfortable with the situation and that I might put a stop-order on the check. I asked her not to tell Mr. Ben-Shalom that I asked her not to cash the check because I feared for the well-being of my belongings. Immediately thereafter I received two phone calls from Mr. Ben-Shalom which I did not answer. I felt it was extremely inappropriate for him to be calling me so late, and I feared another aggressive exchange with him. I planned to put a stop-order on the check today after I returned home from the airport (I flew back to Texas today). However he had already cashed the check somewhere else.
My final complaint was that the men failed to pack several items that were in the garage. There were several piles of empty boxes and other materials piled in the garage, and as I cleared those out of the way to put them in the trash, I found several items including parts to my weight-lifting set, 2 rugs, 3 backdrops from my photography studio, a decorative trash can, and a front-door wreath. I packed a few of these things in a box to take home with me on the plane, but the other items I had to leave behind because I did not have enough room in the box or my luggage to pack them all.
I feel that the issues that came up during this move are serious enough to warrant this letter of complaint. I am also requesting Capital Moving to honor its original estimate for the cost of the job. Whether the discrepancy is due to the inexperience of the estimator who came to my home, or the poor loading job of the movers, the problem ultimately is the responsibility of Capital Moving. I hope you will value the reputation of your company by honoring the original estimate (I can provide you a copy of the first estimate we received from the Capital Moving representative who visited our home if necessary), as well as discuss these complaints with Mr. Ben-Shalom so that other clients are not subjected to the unpleasant experience that I endured.
Thank you for taking this seriously and addressing my concerns.
Sincerely,
Gabrielle Turner

July 4, 2007

Hello Everyone,
Well, my marathon 3 weeks is over! We are totally moved out of our rental, it is sparkling clean, I got everything out of our Florida house, and now I'm back in Texas again. I have to unpack all our stuff here, of course, but there's no deadline for that so I'm hoping I can slow down a bit.
I am soooooooooooooo tired, still, even after 2 nights of decent sleep, and sleeping all the way home from San Antonio today (we went there Monday night and went to Sea World yesterday and the Alamo and Tower of America today). But most of the intense work is done.
I am so very glad to never have to clean that blasted tile floor in our rental again. I spent 8 hours cleaning it last week, no exaggeration.

Going back to Florida was very happy and very sad. I was so happy to see my friends again that I have missed so much, but it was also very sad to have to leave them again! Driving in to Rock Creek at 1:00 AM Saturday morning I just started crying because it was so weird to see all the things that were such a part of my daily life for 2 and a half years. It bothered me so much that I had forgotten little things like street names, and the way the roads have no curbs. I drove past the rock climbing park and the rocks along the lake where the little stray black cat lives and it just made me *really* realize that the South Florida part of our lives is over, never to return. I spent the weekend trying to analyze why I was so bothered. I mean, it seems like most of my friends there are trying to leave, so it's not like South Florida is just this awesome place that is better than anywhere else. I really think I was bothered by being confronted with the passage of time. We are done living in South Florida, our lives there will only be memories from now on. All the experiences I had there with my little kids are OVER, and not only can I never again return to these experiences, I can't even return to where they were. Ugh. Anyway, I spent the whole weekend either crying or trying not to cry and I'm emotionally exhausted. Add to that the really bad experience I had with the movers on Sunday (too long a story to even get into here), and it was a hard weekend. Florida is so beautiful. Living there, I began to take for granted how lush and gorgeous it is with flowers and plants just exploding everywhere, the sweet smelling air, the unreal clouds after a thunderstorm. I didn't get to drive out to the beach, but I really miss that too. Of course I know in anothe 2 years if we have to leave Austin, I will be just as sentimental about things here as I am about things in Florida. Sometimes I wish I could live life just a little *less* aware of everything.

We have a contract on our house out there (did I tell you?). However, that is also a sourse of stress as of course we have had to reduce our price several times, and the offer we got also included us paying 4% in closing costs for the buyers, making the actual contracted price about $55K less than our original asking price. Ouch. And now we are informed that the upstairs air conditioner is broken, and the roof likely needs to be replaced. Florida tile roofs are $15-$20K to replace, so that is a pretty penny. So we are still considering just pulling out of this deal since after everything, we're gonna be lucky to break even on the house. But the roof and air conditioning still need replacing, and we just don't have $25K sitting around, so it seems like the only way we can get out of this is to sell the house, and then put money from the sale into an escrow account for the buyers to replace the roof and a/c themselves. Ugh and yuck. I hate dealing with all of this. Sometimes it is really tiresome to be a responsible adult and have to make decisions and take care of problems like this.

Ok, last bit of bad news and then I'll have it all off my chest (I think). Angel is missing. She disappeared the first week we were in this new house. She commonly disappears for a few days after we move to a new house, we think she just goes and explores the new neighborhood. But it's been 2 weeks and she hasn't come back. I made up a bunch of signs and the boys and I have hung them on stop signs all around the neighborhood. We had 2 calls, one from a person who's been seeing a cat for 2 years (obviously not Angel), and another from a lady a couple nights ago who saw a light colored cat in her yard but couldn't catch her and didn't get a good enough look to know if it really is her or not. We've visited Travis county and Williamson county animal control places, but no luck. Of course I am so afraid that she's been run over or met some other unpleasant end. I hope that she's just been befriended by someone who hasn't seen my signs. But I miss her and feel so bad. We left Buffy in Florida (I did get to see her and she's doing great), and now we don't even have Angel anymore. I keep dreaming that we find her, but then I wake up and she's still gone. We've had Angel for almost 9 years.

Ok, this is the end of my really depressing complaining letter. I just needed to get all of that off my chest. I will try from here on out to be more positive in my letters, or at least to try to see the humor in difficult situations. I just have had a really hard time finding any humor in some of these things. I guess that means it is time to count my blessings, of which I have many, and for which I am very grateful. I'm sure once I get caught up on sleep a little, I'll feel better, too.

So happy 4th of July everyone! I'll write later on and tell about the fun trip we had to San Antonio.

Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying the fireworks. We went to a place in Cedar Park which was supposed to have a display, but it got canceled due to rain earlier in the day (guess they worried it might rain all night), so we just saw the fireworks some locals brought to set off in the park. The boys loved it anyway, so all is well.

Mosey's shirt says, "I want YOU to take me to the fireworks." He's been begging me to take him to fireworks since last week. He thought there were fireworks just going off all the time, and why in the world wasn't I taking him to see them?! He was pretty thrilled. The last time he saw firworks was when he was about 18 months old, and he doesn't remember.

Here's Boo-bear oohing and aahing.

Here's Joseph. I think he needed to go to the bathroom. Gotta love boys, huh? LOL!!!

Here are a few poor attempts at taking photos of fireworks without a tripod...