I have all these posts of things from photos I took with my phone. Who knows if they’ll ever get posted.

Who?!?! Who?!?!, I ask. (Not me.)

Maybe I should move to tumblr? (Isn’t that sort of thing more easy/parsimonious with tumblr?)

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So. There is this update. Knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it any more fair or made of sense.

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My newest hobby is stalking music. It is really much more fun that I’ve given it credit in the past. I think this is because it has never been so easy to stalk new music as it is in these new days.

Just today, I found at least two or three things that I really, REALLY like. And Brad and I are going to see two shows in the next 6ish weeks. Considering our average has been something like one show per three years in the past, this is some serious business. And we even have a babysitter! Woot!

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Also, we are moving (Again). More on that later.

Tasks this weekend (not a comprehensive list, just things at the top of my brain):

• Clean the house (and by clean, I mean pick up) (perpetual task of the strangulation variety)
• Bank register, bills, budget (Saturday task of the suffocational variety)
• Figure out how to return the shoes I got with the Groupon that are too small (on the up side, the OTHER shoes I bought with that Groupon are now my FAVORITE SHOES EVER)
• Gather items to contribute to the kids’ school’s garage sale (this happens in perpetuity, and we have been taking stuff almost every day for awhile, but it would be AWESOME if we actually went into our garage and assembled all of this instead of just randomly coming across things and strapping them to the top of the van to take to school the next day)
• Hang out with my mom and aunt, who will be here for a short time tonight and tomorrow morning
• Catch up on stuff for my second job, which generally involves responding to email and reading/editing documents (line from an email received yesterday: “I don’t mean to bug you, but did you get my last email?”)
• Groceries (regular task of the never finished, never enough, never satisfied, expensive-to-feed-seven-people-especially-when-my-kids-take-one-bite-of-everything-they-begged-to-eat-and-throw-it-in-the-trash variety)
• Move furniture (we just got a new couch with the end of the money we set aside when we sold our house, and it is BIG ENOUGH, which is new, but it is also TOO BIG, so we have some problem solving to do)
• Somehow dispose of way too much trash and recycling, so it’s not sitting on our kitchen floor like it is right now
• Dishes (CUPS)
• Laundry (if I did a load a day, my life would be so much easier, but that doesn’t happen)
• Kieran has OT across town at 11am this morning
• I REALLY need to do work-work for my first job, but that’s probably not happening
• Brad needs to do two homework assignments (he started a master’s program part-time this fall)

This last item is the wild card. I expect that these assignments will take about half of Brad’s waking hours each day, so yeah. How to do the rest of these things with four children?

Right now, Archer is screaming and pushing and scratching Anneke, trying to get her out of his new favorite chair.

It is probably time to take away his pacifier except for sleeping, as he’s really started talking a lot recently, but everything sounds like, “Neh neh nehneh neh neh nehneh NOW.”

In addition to all the everything that is always crazy, Brad and I got a mailer about 10 days ago that mentioned the “secret market” for our neighborhood. (We live in a really great neighborhood, very central. I can’t say enough good things about it. You can see it in this Arcade Fire video (the nighttime neighborhood, not the daytime neighborhood… best shot starts at 4:21)).

ANYWAY. We’ve known forever that our house is too small (we moved into it BECAUSE we wanted to be in this neighborhood, and it was all that was available (that we could afford) at the time). We decided to contact the realtor who’d sent the mailer (she lives here too and is known as the “top seller” here). I emailed her last Sunday, exactly one week ago, and told her that we weren’t convinced we would sell but that we’d like to talk with her about options.

Wednesday this week – We met with her at our house and talked about possibilities for selling, what she’d list at (around what we bought it for), what she’d charge, and how the process works with her (she pays for a “stager” to come in for a twoish hour consultation, tell you what to do with your furniture, move pictures, around, etc., as well as a professional photographer for the MLS photos). (I had no idea people did this.) We decided to sell.

Thursday this week – We looked at a house we might be interested in buying. While there, she said she’d already gotten interest in our (unlisted) house and that the couple’s realtor was pressing her to show it Saturday. By then, she’d already set up an appointment for the “stager” (I refuse not to put this in quotation marks) to come in Friday. We agreed to show on Saturday.

Friday this week – Stager came in and ripped us a new one. In a good way.

Friday night this week – I stayed up until 5:45 a.m. working on the house. This included a trip to Walmart (I do not go to Walmart) at 1:45 a.m. that resulted in the most I have ever paid for a single cart’s worth of anything. This trip also included: me wearing a t-shirt, dog paw print pajama pants, running shoes without socks, and no bra; babies (at 1:45 a.m.); a price check on a $6 outdoor table that lasted (I am not even kidding) 45 minutes and ended with me going with a worker halfway across the store to find that the color she thought was there was actually not even the same ITEM and then her pretending it had JUST BEEN RIGHT THERE (when, really, she had already returned to the register twice to say she had no idea where these things even WERE); both my cards being declined (for no discernible reason), and then (the kicker); after loading this shitload of stuff into the trunk (one card finally worked when run as a debit), me realizing I’d left my keys in the seat of a cart in the store. Good times.

(Oh. Sidenote: (do you like all these parenthetical notes?) We had both our moms, my stepdad, and one grandmother in town this weekend too. We did not expect to be having to work nonstop on our house while they were here, so. That was awkward.)

Yesterday (Saturday) – I woke up at 8:45 a.m. We continued to work our asses off until the ABSOLUTE LAST MINUTE. (The people came at 4 p.m. to see the place, and Brad was still vacuuming in his underwear. We went to the big kids’ hippie school’s fair from 4 to 8 p.m., and neither of us had taken a shower. I had not even brushed my teeth.)

Today (Sunday) – We found out that the couple who saw our (as yet unlisted) house yesterday would be making a cash offer today. Cash. Which means we could be closing as quickly as TWO WEEKS FROM NOW.

DID I MENTION WE ONLY DECIDED TO SELL OUR HOUSE WEDNESDAY, AND WE HAVE NOWHERE TO LIVE?

Did I also mention that our six-person family has become a seven-person unit, as my brother moved to Austin a couple months ago and is currently living with us? (In our two-bedroom house.)

We looked at three houses today and found one we really love. We’d like to make an offer on it, but we already know they won’t accept any contingencies, and we’re not under contract yet. It’s probably going to be off the market in the next couple days, though, so we have to act NOW.

(STRESSSTRESSSTRESSSTRESSSTRESSSTRESSSTRESSSTRESSSTRESS)

WTF am I even doing? I should be packing boxes or calling a loan broker or asking my realtor where the cash offer on our house is. (omgomgomgomg)

I’ve had a really hard time picking my favorite comments this week. I’ve wanted to pick more than one almost every day. If I ever host a contest like this again, I’m gonna do it a different way, picking winners either randomly or asking an objective third party to decide. Remind me when the time comes, Internets. Please and thank you.

This difficulty was never more evident than with your embarrassing stories yesterday. Oh maaaannnn. Those were good.

In fact, I’ve decided to give out a variety of awards, as you all deserve them…

(drrumrollllll…)

The award for Most Oblivious Dresser goes to Whimsy!

Rainyday and Monsterplasty receive co-awards for their Most Horrifyingly Embarrassing Menstruation submissions!

The award of Sexiest Parishioner goes to Ailene Hert (and her boobs)!

An award for Most Disgusting Parishioner goes to Chelsea!

And finally… Jayme is hereby awarded Badassiest Pregnant Woman! She expanded on her comment with her own blog post, and let me be frank: You need to read it. Because it cracks me up. And if you’re not sure, just go scroll down to the picture at the bottom of the post.

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So… Current rankings for the actual giveaway are as follows. Numbers in parentheses indicate number of entries in the upcoming random drawing for the Golden Minion Box of Awesomeness (GMBOA).

Ailene Hert (2)
Chelsea (3)
Jayme (1)
Monsterplasty (1)
Rainyday (3)
Robyn (1)
Shanna (1)
Whimsy (2)

Entries are ONLY valid for those who are, indeed, minions of The Creamery at the time of the drawing (Monday or Tuesday, October 18th or 19th). Some of you are not (hint hint). A tutorial on becoming a minion by following The Creamery can be found here.

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For today, the final post in my weeklong GMBOA series, I want to pick your brains (again) about children and families.

I think of my children and family as the most important things in my life, but at the same time, I don’t feel particularly good at them. I mean, from the outside, I think we look okay. People compliment us on how well behaved our kids are, how kind they are to each other, yadda yadda… But these things are not necessarily sustained at home.

Most of the time, I feel like I’m drowning in children and things that need to happen and stuff and needs. To the point of paralysis.

I’m pretty certain a lot of people do a better job at this. I always feel like everything would be better/easier/non-paralyzing/whatever if I just had more processes or rules or routines to make a lot of the day-to-day stuff more automatic.

I try to be compassionate with myself (thanks, therapy!) and remember that these people probably have their own obstacles, but ones that are different than the ones I see for myself (two parents working more than full-time, four kids, two schools, two in daycare, one car, six people in a two-bedroom house, …). Actually, when I write it out like that, I realize I’m probably doing pretty well. :)

This is where you come in, friends. Please tell me: What rules or routines or processes do you have in place — for your kids, your house, yourself, whatever — that are non-negotiable? What makes your life easier?

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This post is part of my giveaway of Whimsy’s GMBOA. For more information, you might start here or here.

Hugely emotionally draining weekend this weekend. More on that later. In the meantime, fluff!

“What’s on your desk? -From Whimsy the Great, with love.” – submitted via formspring

Almost nothing. I am obsessive about my space. I get depressed and can’t work if there’s chaos. At home, I have to live with the chaos that comes with four small children. This makes me even more obsessive about my work environment. So. On my desk at work (I’m thinking left to right): a photo of Anneke and Griffon, a lamp from Ikea, a Dymo label writer, two photos of Archer, a tiny collectible Little Prince, a tiny bottle eraser, my laptop platform, desktop monitor, optical mouse and one of those really thin mouse pads, a giant pumper of hand sanitizer, a container of antibacterial wipes, a pink ceramic Converse sneaker pen and pencil holder, and a coaster for my water bottle. When I’m there, my laptop goes on the platform, my water bottle goes on the coaster, my phone faces me in front of the water bottle, and my bag goes under my desk to the left of my feet, next to my trash can.

Everyone at work makes fun of me.

Yes.

So.

Hmm.

We also have a desk in our bedroom at home. When Archer’s not asleep in the room, our desktop computer is usually occupied by Bradley, so I don’t spend a lot of time at the desk. It is in disarray, much to my chagrin.

What do you like about your neighborhood? – submitted via formspring

So, I’m just going to put the link out there and assume no one’s going to want to track me down and stalk me.

From Mueller Austin:

“In a nutshell, New Urbanism is an approach to land planning that reduces traffic and eliminates sprawl. A New Urbanist neighborhood resembles an old European village or pre-war U.S. small town with homes and businesses clustered together. Instead of driving on highways, residents of New Urbanist neighborhoods can walk to shops, businesses, theaters, schools, parks and other important services. Buildings and recreational areas are arranged to foster a sense of community closeness. New Urbanist designers also place importance on earth-friendly architecture, energy conservation, historic preservation and accessibility.”

In addition to this badass gestalt vision, we have… an active online forum (we found our missing cat through someone on the forum!), a babysitting co-op that operates on “Baio Bucks” (yes, Charles really is in charge), a really nice community park and pool a block away, plus another HUGE, modern playground within walking distance, something like 12 miles of hike and bike trails with all native prairie grasses, bike lanes on all neighborhood streets, green buildings (if I were ever to lose my job, I’d probably work at the one place in Austin where everyone with my background works… an organization that just happens to be housed in a building in my neighborhood, within walking distance, which is silver LEED certified and provides shower facilities to employees to encourage them to ride their bikes to work), a state of the art children’s hospital to which I could walk if I wanted (Griffon’s already been there twice), community events (kid-friendly movies in the park on a weekly basis for part of the spring/summer), … I could go on and on. There are always kids out. There are always people jogging with strollers and walking dogs. My commute to work is eight minutes, with about five stoplights and zero highways. WE HAVE SCULPTURES, PEOPLE! A GIANT SPIDER! A POLLEN! (In fact, our family photos were taken by a neighborhood photographer IN our neighborhood… You can see the pollen grain sculpture in the background here.)

And this is not even to say that I love my house, which, I LOVE MY HOUSE. It’s too small, technically, but I LOVE MY HOUSE.

I forget day to day that this place is so cool. I mean, you just do what you do, and your daily life becomes what it becomes, and it’s necessarily monotonous. You forget that you have all these wonderful THINGS available to you because you’re too busy getting cup after cup of milk and water, picking up disposable piece of crap toy after disposable piece of crap toy, cleaning up human after feline after canine vomit and feces, walking with bare feet in cat litter that’s been tracked all over your wood floor. Over and over and over and over and over.

But truly, it’s a fantastic place to be. If I have to smell rotting waste anywhere in the world, I’m glad I’m doing it here.

* Quick! 50 points to the first commenter who can tell me what this line is from.

There’s been entirely too much death talk the last few days.

So, a little more can’t hurt.

We adopted Quincy from the pound on April 2, 2005. He was six months old and had the most energy I’d ever seen any dog have, ever. In my life. Ever. We brought our two (at the time) children with us to choose a dog that we hoped would be a good guard dog for us in our new house (because God knows we needed one).

Brad wanted Quincy. I didn’t.

I wanted a different breed. I remember there were a lot of blue heeler and husky mixes at the pound when we went, and I wanted one of them. Quincy’s breed was listed as dalmatian on his card, but it was obvious by the shape of his head that he was part pit bull. The pound had an automatic kill policy for pit bulls; Quincy was saved by his spots. And, of course, his eyes. He had one blue and one brown. How could anyone not love that?

In the end, it was his energy that won me over. We took him outside on a leash to a big, fenced yard where you could play with the dogs, try them out. He ran. So fast. He was so happy to be out of that kennel. He played keep-away forever. To the point that when we had decided that, yes, this was the dog for us, and we were ready to take him home, we couldn’t catch him. (Little did we know this was Quincy’s WAY. If he ever got away from you, sorry, but you were screwed.)

Right away, we thought he would be good with the kids. He was aware that they were there and that they were smaller and fragile (Kieran was almost four, and Anneke not quite 10 months), but he wasn’t afraid of them. He never knocked them down, and even when we had babies in the house, he understood. He was always gentle and protective.

We all started calling him Quince pretty immediately after we got him. When Anneke started talking shortly thereafter, the closest she could come was “Toonce.” (Not THE Toonces, of course. Pronounced instead with an /oo/ phoneme like in the word book, not loop.)

He could also jump our six-foot fence like it was nothing. We started having to keep him on a leash just to take him out to pee. He got away a couple times, and he was GONE. Once, he stayed away for about three days. He showed up in our backyard with cuts and what looked like puncture wounds all over his back. We have no idea where he went or what he did, but he was exhausted when he got home.

Quincy started seeming sick, just moving slowly and not really eating, last week. The vet knew immediately that he was in critical condition; he was already in kidney failure by the time he got there. He died Sunday, probably from leptospirosis, a fluke bacterial infection. (He had been vaccinated against it, but apparently, the vaccine protects against just four of the seven strains.)

This is our sweet Toonce. He would have been five this month. We will miss him.

Every single night, I tell myself I’m going to go to bed by midnight. Seriously. Every. Single. Night. And then I always stay up until at least 1 o’clock.

When I have nights like last night, I realize THIS IS NO KIND OF GOOD. And I always say I’ll be better tomorrow.

I worked from home the last few weeks before Archer was born, and late was just the groove I got into. It’s the groove I always get into. If left to my own circadian rhythms, I’ll stay up later and later every night, and find myself waking up later and later every morning to compensate.

By the time I went back to work on July 1st, I was regularly staying up until around 4 o’clock, and sometimes later. Having to go back to work has tamed me to an extent, but I still love me some late nights.

Part of it, I think, is that the house is just soooo very quiet then. Like all the words in my life have been these bold, black, 62-point font Bauhaus words, all overlapping in my air, all day long. And all of a sudden, those words are gone, and I can hear the fan in the laundry room. And I can control the words. Because they’re mine. They’re lovely little Helvetica words with button noses. And they’re in thought bubbles.

I have done very little this weekend, which has been great in many ways. It means that the house looks like shii-iiiiiit (singsongy voice required), but it also means I have some semblance of ankles again.

Berkeley was okay. Fan-friggin’-tastic weather. The first day sucked balls, but all in all, everything went as well as could be expected.

I don’t have another trip until the week of April 6, when I’m in Dallas all week. Woohoo (not for Dallas, but for no trips until April)! And then I’m done until baby. Well, really, until September-ish. Even better.

I promised Brad we could play WoW tonight, so I’m off.

More later. :)

I don’t think I left the house all weekend. My house is a giant viral orgy. Anneke started it about two weeks ago, and it’s just gone downhill since.

Brad’s really sick. I think he has a sinus infection. And because we live in the most prosperous country in the world, he has no health insurance! So *that’s* awesome.

Griffon is also super sick. He hasn’t wanted to walk for about a week, which scares the hell out of me. I was gone most of the week, though, so I was relying on Brad’s reports of his condition, and Brad thought he was just weak. I could tell when I got home that it was more than that. At that point, though, I was super sick, and Griffon’s fever had gotten better, so I was trying not to freak out. But yesterday afternoon, he woke up from his afternoon nap holding his ear and crying. He’s super feverish again now, and I don’t think he walked all day. He needs to go to the doctor tomorrow. Clearly.

Anneke is mostly better. I’m mostly better. Kieran’s mostly better. So I guess it’s not all bad.

I spent almost the entire weekend cleaning the house. I’m so fucking sick of it. I work all week, and I’m in pain pretty much all the time now. I’m too tired to do a goddamn thing when I get home from work, so it all falls to the weekend. I think I spent about 15 hours cleaning this weekend. I’m a naturally tidy kinda person, and I have to have an orderly environment in order to be happy. I know this about myself. But I also know that I do not share this characteristic with anyone else in my home. If I want this for my own well-being, I have to make it happen myself. And having to clean up after four other people really bothers me. I know the kids are kids, but I still have a hard time not getting resentful about cleaning up after *everything* they do. I know they could clean up after themselves at least a little, but they just don’t. And that’s our fault, of course, because if we made them do it, they would. But we’d have to *both* follow through on it, and that’s not going to happen. Ugh. This is depressing.

It’s 10:25pm, and Griffon is screaming again. I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep tonight.