Updates Galore

First, our new floor is in!!! It took ALL day and was annoying AF.  But, it's DONE! Flip was supposed to go to doggie daycare, but it was closed all week, so he was forced to remain locked in the bedroom with me alllll day. He mostly slept. But then, the Perfect Storm hit. The workers were downstairs doing something noisy AND the the mailman AND UPS man all showed up at the same time. Flip hackled out and went bonkers. He kept looking at me like, "WHY AREN'T YOU FREAKING OUT!"

Hackles on hackles on hackles

Luna stayed in the bedroom with us all day because she's clingy. But Schroeder hid in the basement all day and Steve was all concerned he was upset. I'm sure he was, but he recovered quickly once the guys all left! And the new floors look GREAT!!

Steve's butt & the new floors

Schroeder WAS exhausted after his ordeal. So he decided to fall asleep under the Christmas tree, on the fuzzy tree skirt, and right on top of the heating vent.

Living his best life

Flip, meanwhile, we fairly traumatized and hung out by Steve - the Pack Leader - all night.

Then, the morning after, Wm texted me this from upstairs. Apparently he had gotten up to pee and returned to find his spot taken.

Flips sleeps with Wm every night!

Since we've decided we pretty much have to stay put, we are putting some finishes touches on the house. Mostly stuff we have been ignoring/putting off figuring we'd move. The kitchen floor is done, Steve painted the living room (farewell, mint green!), he is in the process of wallpapering the hallway (which looks AMAZING), and he fixed up our old windows last night:

LOVE

Privacy and (hopefully) no more condensation!

After we finish the wallpapering, we are officially done with all our projects! I just need to wash EVERYTHING and shampoo all the carpets. I can't bathe Flip because it's too cold so he gets a deodorizing doggie wipe "bath" and brush out.

Wm is feeling better, but has been really tired as his body recuperates from that nasty cold! I just took this picture at 9:15am. The kiddo was STILL asleep!! He doesn't know it, but he is waking up to 3-4 inches of new snow! I hope he feels good enough to go play in it!

Sleeping beauty

Yesterday, I went candle making with my friend Mel. It was super fun! I got to design my own scents, pick out the candle type, holder, etc. Then, while they set up, we went and ate a bunch of queso at the taco place next door and gabbed. I made one that smells like mahogany, roasted chestnuts, and "amber musk." The other one is spiced rum, chai tea, and vanilla. I also made one more suuuuper fancy one (that turned out to be everyone's favorite), but that one must remain a secret. Moooohahaha!

Our plans for the rest of vacation include playing in the snow like maniacs, celebrating Mimi's birthday, staying up until midnight on New Year's, and going to see a movie with Suzanne (well, Suzanne and I are seeing Lady Bird and the boys are going to a different theater to see Star Wars). We're going to go out with a  bang (and a nap!)

Christmas Photo Shoot

So, I forgot to take any pictures at all after my last post. I always forget to take pictures when I'm having fun! And once all the grandparents arrived, it was busy and fun and my mind wasn't on my camera at all!! So I tried to get Wm and Flip to do a Festive Christmas Sweater Photo Shoot today. Only one of them would do it. Guess who it was?

Cute AND agreeable!

Where is my human brother in this humiliation?

Wm is definitely beginning to feel better! He's been full of evilness. Luckily, he is going to his friend's house tomorrow! At first, we weren't sure if he was well enough go. But, then, he convinced us he was healthy enough through pure meanness.

Steve: I don't know. That cough still sounds really bad.
Me: It does. I don't know, Wm. Maybe we should cancel.
Wm: I AM GOING.
Me: I don't know...
Wm: I will run away!
Me: Oh, really? And where do you plan live?
Wm: The streets.

The. Streets. He said. I think he has cabin fever. And is, apparently, willing to live on "the streets" rather than spend one more day at home! It will be good to get him out of here since our neeeeeeew flooooors go in tomorrow!

Also, I forgot to post this yesterday. It is Flip, hiding his Christmas Bone for the FOURTH time. He kept thinking his previous hiding place was not secure enough. 

Christmas, Part I

I have take a lot of pictures. I need to split this action up! So here is Christmas, Part I. Which includes Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Enjoy...

Photo credit: Wm

Cutest.

Christmas cookies!

Christmas Eve dinner and sparkling juice

Stocking!

Worn out from Christmas-ing

CUTENESS OVERLOAD

NO MORE CUTENESS!!! CANNOT COMPUTE!

Just waiting on the grandparents to arrive!

Pre-Christmas Insanity

Wm and I are officially on vacation! Steve is almost done at work today, and then we are all officially on vacation. Sadly, Wm has The Cold from Hell. He has had a fever the last 2 days and sounds terrible. I just took his temp and it was normal, so we're hoping he's through the worst of it! His timing was good - he just finished his final exams on Tuesday and started feeling bad Wednesday. It's not a fun way to start holiday break, but he'll be well for Christmas, managed to have perfect attendance his first semester, and took all his finals - so it could have been much worse!

It's been a wild and crazy week. I have had 2 holiday parties and a cookie exchange, Wm had finals (and has made plans for a super fun adventure with a friend!), and this is Steve's crazy time at work with the year closing out.  And, we found out today, we are not the Griswolds! Steve got his annual bonus!! WHEW! Which is good because our new kitchen floor gets installed next week - they had a cancellation!

Wm and I took a much needed slug day today. I only left the house to run to Target to get presents for The Menagerie and Wm is still in his jammies! I couldn't resist and already gave Flip one of his new bones. He's madly chewing on it as I type. He doesn't know it's not Christmas! 't was rainy today, so it was the perfect day to veg. But, Flip was sad that he was cooped up a bunch (hence the new bone):

When is walkies?

While I was at work yesterday, I texted Wm and asked how he was feeling, this was his reply:

Fever flush and sadness

When I got home, it was weirdly warm, so Flip and I walked all around. We saw a whole family of deer!

And Mimi came over to keep a sickly Wm company. They played games and watched a movie. Wm said over and over how much fun he had and how awesome it was that Mimi came over. He is definitely Mimi's biggest fan!

Sadly, Wm decided to quit violin. It just hasn't been fun for him anymore since he can't play at school with his friends. He has said he wants to try the piano, so we may give that a go! I told him he has to do some kind of activity sooner rather than later, so he decided on Spanish lessons! Muy bueno!

Me: I am so lucky. We have the best family. I have the best son in the whole world.
Wm: Totally.
Me And I have the best husband in the whole world.
Wm: [nods]
Me: AND I have the best dog in the whole world.
Wm: Yep.
Me: But I have the 2 shittiest cats.
Wm: YES.
(Wm is now off the cats because they kept him up all night with their nocturnal feline shenanigans while he was sick. He's finally seen the light!! Maybe we'll have cat stew for Christmas dinner!)

Old Man

Steve is officially an old man!! He is now IN his 40's. It's hard for me to understand since I'm still solidly in my 30's. Steve loves when I point that out. But, I think he's had a good birthday weekend!

He took Friday off. But, instead of partying, he did a bunch of chores. He was quite grumpy about it. I'm not sure why he did them, though. For instance, a plumber was AT the house and Steve still insisted on putting in our new (very heavy cast iron) sink himself. But, the good news is that because he spent Friday doing all his chores, he has been able to party like an animal all weekend.

First, this was from earlier this week, but it still seriously cracked me up. Steve being old AND funny:

Steve has also weathered numerous accusations of domestic violence. While teaching Flip to "watch," he clawed my face (probably not a good idea to sit on the floor and madly point to my eyeballs - since Flip decided to try and "shake" my hand while it was near my eye; it didn't go well). This is right after it happened, but some fun bruising and swelling showed up later. So, everywhere I went, people were like, "Is Steve beating you!??" Nah, just my vicious pit bull on the attack:

Victim

Flip DID feel bad about it. Here he is begging forgiveness:

On the "more fun" side of things, we went to Target (Steve's 2nd favorite place, only behind Costco) and got fun stuff for Wm's stocking. Then, got Steve delicious birthday treats from his favorite bakery. It was nearly 50 and super sunny, so we took Flip adventuring. It was INSANELY muddy since all the snow just melted and we were all covered! Flip was actually the least muddy of any of us (due to this frolicking along a frozen creek and falling into said creek - which was only about a foot deep, but got his feet sparkling clean). It would have been more fun without Wm's incessant whining about how he hates hiking and when would it be over. But, it was still a good time!

Mud Adventures

After some showers, we went out to a nice dinner at Steve's favorite restaurant. Then, home for cake and presents. My favorite thing I found for Steve were dog poop bags with Trump's face on them.

Today, Steve is off to play soccer (it's warm enough for outdoor, so he's pumped!!) and then to see the new Star Wars movie. It's a weekend full of Steve's most favorite things! 

Happiest Boy Alive

Here are the new kitchen floors I picked out. SUPER excited!! I set the sample in the dining room to take a picture because the light is better, but we are not replacing our 100+ year old wood floors with tile floors, I promise! I also wanted to see how the new floors would look up against the dining room floors, too. They don't get installed until Feb 5.

We had a good, if cold, weekend. I hate winter so much. I am already trying to find houses in Austin, TX and trying to convince Steve to move. This will last until April, at which time I am OK again until next winter. When the cycle will repeat.  The one good thing about winter is warm bed snuggles on Saturdays! I got up to go the bathroom and my spot was instantly taken:

Bed Hog

But, I managed to worm my way back in and also snagged some puppy cuddles!

He was just warming up my spot!

We had friends over for dinner and Steve decided he would make city chicken! He gets a hankering about once a year and prepares a whole dinner. It is AWESOME. And look how cute he is doing it!

Lookin' good!

Wm is also now The Happiest Boy Alive. His computer has been returned to him. He can't even stand it. He was positively gleeful. He immediately came home and started playing his favorite game.

Wm went to throw his half-eaten yogurt into the trash this morning, missed, and dumped a bunch of yogurt on the floor. Then he stood there and stared at it. So I said, "just move, man," and cleaned it up.  About 5 minutes later, he goes, "I'm sorry I spilled the yogurt." And I said, "Spilling things is no big deal. It happens. It was an accident. BUT, it would be helpful if, after you have spilled something, you didn't just stare at it. Maybe, say, clean it up?" And he goes, "I just have really slow reflexes." HA!

I also keep forgetting to add this story, which I love. I don't know about you, but  middle school was not a good time for me. That is a hard age. And, 11-13 year olds are bigtime assholes, in general. So, this was extra sweet. One day, Wm didn't feel well. At recess, he just sat under a tree instead of playing. He said at least 5 different kids (none of which were his close friends, who knew he wasn't feeling well and were giving him space, so these were just random kids), came over to ask him if he was OK and offered to play with him if he was feeling lonely. All the tears. Wm is really at a great school with some great kiddos!!

First World Problems

Wm: Did you ever notice how most of our problems are First World problems?
Steve: Yeah, pretty much all our problems are First World problems.
Me: Totally. It would be like if you already had a computer. But it wasn't good enough for you. So then a really nice guy offered to fix your other, broken, computer for you, for free, but it was taking him 3 days longer than he initially thought because he's going to do extra stuff and fix up the hard drive as well. And, because you had to wait 3 days longer for a free computer upgrade to the computer (and iPad and smartphone) you already own, you had a weird temper fit about it. That would be pretty crazy. Imagine that.
Wm: It's FOUR days, CORY.

I've officially arrived. Wm used my given name in a sentence peppered with all the tween-y disdain he could muster. Parenting milestone: accomplished.

Wm: Buddhism says the root of all suffering is desire.
Me: I know. I've read some of the Dalai Lama's books. They're very good! What do you think? Do YOU think that desire is the root of all suffering?
Wm: I think that's right. I thought about it and it's pretty true.
Me: Maybe you should try and let go of your desire for a new computer.
Wm: NO.
Me: Well, then you will suffer!
Wm: Worth it. 

Happiest Nerd Ever

Wm is the happiest nerd ever! As anyone who has spoken to Wm for longer than 5 minutes in the last few months knows, he broke our MacBook and has been forced to use his school laptop (which is a crappy ChromeBook he can't play his fancy games on). He spends about 90% of his waking moments either begging for a new computer, pouting because he does not have a new computer, or complaining about his ChromeBook. Well, because all the kids get laptops at his school, they have a full time "tech team" to help students/teachers with any computer difficulties. Wm decided to take the broken MacBook in to ask the tech team about it. And, lo and behold, the main Tech Guy said he could fix it. It just needed some new parts. (We knew this, but didn't tell Wm because it would cost $250 to repair and it didn't make sense to us to spend that money on an older computer and figured he could rough it on the ChromeBook for a while and learn a valuable lesson about caring for his things.)

WELL - the Tech Guy is going to fix it for Wm FOR FREE with parts from one of his personal computers he no longer uses. "Overjoyed" does not even begin to describe how Wm is feeling. The computer should be ready for him to pick up today. Before he went to bed last night, it was like Christmas. He couldn't sleep he was so excited. I asked him to write a nice thank you note to the Tech Guy (and included a Starbucks gift card!) and Wm composed a dissertation on gratitude. Ha! 

Luna was VERY SAD when Flip left for his evening park excursion. She had been busily rubbing herself all over his face and purring and Flip was all, "get off me, clingy!" when it was time to go to the park. So then, after the door closed behind him, this was Luna:

Large, smelly friend! Where did you go??? TAKE ME!

Wm has been watching some weird British rapper who I can't even understand. He sort of scat-raps. I had to bribe Wm with all sorts of things to get him to let me publish this video (mostly, it was just a chocolate covered peppermint Oreo):



And, here is a twofer. It is Flip being a weirdo (always fun!) and Steve singing in the background (again!):


Steve and I are both busy bees today! I am meeting a kitchen flooring guy at home to give us an estimate and he is going to a stone countertop showroom (in Plain City - but near his work!) at lunch to get an estimate on white quartz countertops. When both our jobs are over, our kitchen should be supes snazzy! We also plan a new white subway tile backsplash and white, under-mount sink. Bright and open! (This is a compromise because Steve wanted to gut our kitchen and make it all brand new and I didn't want to lose the character of our old house - so we are keeping the cool old wood cabinets that are in good shape, but getting rid of the shitty peel and stick floor and weird tile countertop. Win-win! I get to keep the one thing that is original and historic and we are losing the things are newer and not great.)

Warm and Sunny!!

It was so gorgeous this weekend!! We took full advantage.

A number of new restaurants have opened up in our 'hood recently. So, we spent this weekend trying them out. On Saturday, we went to lunch at Condado, a new taco place. They literally sealed a soft taco shell to a hard taco shell with queso and guac. WHUT. Yes. It was amazing. Wm LOVED it. He ate a lot (for him) and was quite pleased with himself. Then, we got into the warm car to drive to Trader Joe's, bellies full of delicious tacos. And Wm promptly fell asleep in the sun. He never falls asleep in the car, so it was super cute. He woke up all weird and disoriented. Fun times.

Sleeping Beauty

It's also glorious having a kid who is old enough to stay home alone! Because on Sunday, Steve and I went to lunch at The Little Eater, sans Wm. Mostly because Wm wouldn't eat anything at all at the place (other than the cookies!) It is mostly veggies that you get by the scoop. I got a scoop of kale salad with pecans and cranberries and a scoop of apple/fennel slaw. It was really good, too!! Then, we went Christmas shopping for The Squirt from there and knocked him out!

And, I got Flip a Christmas collar!! He is The Cutest. It even came with a bow tie! Can you stand it!?! No, no you cannot. Because it's impossible to stand it and no human could.

Dapper

It has tiny reindeer on it! <3

He LOVES it!

He was a big hit at the park. Flip is basically the Anna Wintour of dogs. I will say, Iggy seemed really intent on humping him...even more than usual. I think it was the collar. I already have his Valentine's Day collar all picked out!! Flip is like my dress-up stone goose - only furry. 

Wm has almost wrapped up this semester. He has 2 more weeks and then he's on winter break. When he goes back in January, they don't have regular school, they have what is called "J-Term." So, all of January is this block of classes that are usually just fun (as well as educational!) There is one on computer animation that Wm wants to take. He also has to take WHAM! every single day. (WHAM! is Wellness, Health and Movement - basically: gym.) Wm is not excited about WHAM! The only benefit is that he can wear athletic wear all of J-Term. There is also a chemistry class called Potions he's pretty into. I go to an info session about J-Term this week to find out how it will work for Wm. Then, in February, 2nd semester begins. We know Wm will take Regions II and Algebra I (9th grade math!) But, we aren't sure what else yet. 

Wm is currently working with the tech team at Metro to make fixing the laptop he broke months ago their project. ha! He's wily!!