Life has a sense of humor

It's been quiet around the blog, but not around the house.  Not long after I put up our last post we discovered that I was pregnant.    This crazy laughter is because we were actively not trying since it was only 2 months after my surgery and last miscarriage, and I had just been offered a new part-time job that was a contract for all of 2017.  So after 5 years and 3 miscarriages, lots of testing and trying to figure out why things weren't working we accidentally got pregnant.  Um, what?!  I'm pretty sure that not even Wade, the resident stats whiz of the family, could calculate the odds on that.

So we're rolling with it and getting excited.  I'm working 5 days half days a week (C's at school the same time) and my Board of Directors approved my maternity plan this week, so that was a relief.  But it's still a source of anxiety since any leave is unpaid and they could change their mind and lay me off while I'm gone (I'm not entitled to any federal or state protection or benefits at this point, which is a bummer).  So I've been traveling a lot for work (New Orleans, Mexico, Houston) and trying to make a good impression in hopes they see my value and want to keep me.  So far, it seems to be working since I've already landed a new 3 year federal grant/project and they've all be supportive when I broke the news.

In the mean time, I went to Portland, OR during the ice storm with a friend for fun (thank you frequent flier miles!), had a visit from my step-sister and her family, we've celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary, Clementine's 3rd birthday, Easter with Wade's family, and recently had our first family trip to Star Wars Celebration in Orlando for lots of fun family photos.  You can see pictures from this Spring here.  Pictures from Winter are here.

And in case you're wondering, C is slowly adjusting to the idea of a new baby brother (yes, we already know).  Her response: "No, I'm having a baby sister".  She has never been a kid excited about babies so she's more excited about the betta fish she got for her birthday or the resident snake in our yard, but she's warming to the idea.  Fortunately, she still has until mid-September to get used to the idea!  Right now she's pretty obsessed with the new Disney movie Moana, and for once I am completely ok with that, it's a wonderful movie in every way full of lots of lessons and ideas I am happy for her to absorb.  And it's a life saver to watch in the afternoons when my pregnancy tiredness kicks in!  Working in an office and being pregnant and keeping up with little miss Force of Nature is a very different experience than my "leisurely" pregnancy with Clementine!  We're also relieved the pool screened-lanai is done in time for me to live in it like a hamster in a cage all summer... I'm also thankful I will have our pool to cool off in and exercise in since we'll have to be on the alert for Zika all summer long. Ugh.  Stay tuned to the photos - I can share a direct link if you want since I'm uploading to those albums fairly regularly, even if I'm not blogging.

Hello 2017!

We had a very small Christmas this year and enjoyed the low-key nature of focusing on spending time with family and friends.  I also realized that my usual list of Christmas things to get us into the spirit no longer works with a preschooler in the house, so we're trying to figure out some new traditions we can all enjoy together.  Making cookies on the Winter Solstice is one of them, picking out and decorating the tree together is another one.  Over the years we've also ran "Santas Little Sweat Shop" cranking out ornaments for gifts and we're finding that we really enjoy making special gifts for everyone - it feels more meaningful and is less stressful than trying to find the perfect thing to buy.  This year we felted wool ornaments and some cat toys and had a lot of fun with it.  The side benefit is that it was budget friendly since we already had most of the materials we needed (the anesthesiologist bill from my surgery arrived in December and further underscored our need for a minimalist Christmas).

Early in December, we were lucky to get a week-long visit from Papa John and Grandmama Susie who were camping nearby at Ft Desoto.  We enjoyed having them over for dinners and showing them the finished house and they returned the hospitality with picnic lunches and playtime at their campsite.  We were so thankful to have that time with them and hope we can make it a yearly tradition - except next time we'll get to camp with them (this year was too cold, boo!)

C had a few rounds of sickness in December (including Christmas Day, which we think was actually from eating a candy cane) so the month was a little hectic but we were happy to get up some decorations and a tree (C wanted ALL of the decor in her room, so it made for a challenging day of decorating).  We also had two rounds of making cookies this year which was really fun and C enjoyed being able to cut out cookies and decorate them.  We spent a fun Christmas Day at my Aunt and Uncle's and C enjoyed seeing everyone and was quite the social butterfly.  She also really enjoyed their cat and dog, and her two Christmas presents - her own sleeping bag, and a camping ice cream maker that we put to use that night (and again on my birthday). 

After Christmas we embarked on our yearly tradition - a camping trip for my birthday (it was the only thing I asked for).  The original plan was for 3 nights, but with weather threatening to get into the 40s at night (and a child who doesn't like to wear clothes at the moment) we realized we could only stay one night.  I was really disappointed to cut the trip short, but we had a treat and camped with friends this year so the joy of spending our time with them made up for the shortened camping time.  We got to paddle, cook over the fire, play, and enjoy warming ourselves around the fire.  I also go to try out our friend's paddle board and I fell in love - it was so peaceful but also a wonderful workout and I saw 6 manatees and got buzzed by a whisper-quiet flock of ducks.  It was a pretty incredible way to start my birthday!  We ended up paying for 2 nights of camping so we could stay late into the afternoon to play more. We packed up camp to head home to meet family for take out sushi (C's first sushi and she loved it).  It was easily the most content I've felt on my birthday in a very, very long time.

The day after my birthday we lit a fire all day (it was freezing out!) while we packed up the Christmas decorations and got the house ready for company and celebrating the New Year.  A lot of friends and some of the blogs I read were all talking about how they could not wait for 2016 to be over, how they were looking forward to all the awful things of 2016 being over and for a fresh year to begin.  And I felt exactly the same way - for the first time in years I was eager to celebrate the New Year.  We put up some decorations, bought party hats, and cooked up a feast with our friend Michelle and her son Gus who stayed for a sleep over.  The kids had so much fun together and we all enjoyed being able to hang out and just enjoy the time together.  Once the kids went to bed (can I say that casually now??) we watched a movie, had some dessert, celebrated the new year, and went to bed pretty pooped.  The next morning we had a lovely brunch, wore party hats, blew the conch horn on the dock, and just lounged around while the kids played.  We had so much fun and were so happy they were able to spend the holiday with us.  It was such a fun way to ring in the New Year!

On New Year's Day we went to our nextdoor neighbor's house for their annual southern-style New Year's Day dinner party, complete with collard greens, black eyed peas, chicken fried steak, and lots of other delicious things.  It was a feast and we had a really lovely time, despite being the youngest people there by at least 20 years.  Everyone loved seeing C (who got all dressed up for the occasion with a dress of her choosing) and we enjoyed talking to everyone - some were other neighbors and some were long-time friends of our neighbor whose family has been in the area for 3 or 4 generations.  C was great the whole time and eventually even worked up the courage to walk around a bit on her own and talk a little to a few people.  It was a really wonderful evening and we both marveled at how different this year was from last now that she started sleeping through the night on her own (a Christmas miracle that happened a week before Christmas!) and we can be more social.  (We realized if she didn't nap during the day she slept more soundly at night and went down earlier for bed, so we scrapped her planned daily nap in favor of having some time together at night.  It's still a work in progress but she seems to be finally getting into some sort of pattern.

On the New Year's holiday on the 2nd we headed down to see Granzie and Poppi on Anna Maria for lunch, playtime, and the beach.  We had fun building a sandcastle on the beach, flying kites, and looking for treasures.  C enjoyed her customary wagon ride, but actually walked most of the way home, another first.

So far, we're holding out hopes for a good year in 2017, and frankly our bar is pretty low since the last two years have been so overwhelming -  2015 was a tough year of adjustment and trying to make house renovations work (refinancing, drawing up plans, getting contractor quotes) until we realized we were desperately trying to cram a square peg in a round hole with not enough money to afford a jig saw to cut off the edges (you want how much money to not even build a new bathroom or kitchen?!).  We made our first offer on our current house just before Christmas of 2015 (which was rejected), but we spent the next month after that prepping the house for the market (painting, carpeting, decorating, fixing things), and 2016 was tumultuous - selling the old house, undergoing treatment for my post-partum depression, finally getting a contract on the new house, staying in 2 rental houses while we sanitized, scraped, repaired, and made the new house habitable, C adjusting to school (2 months of tears), C being sick for 3 months, potty training, my surgery and miscarriage....  we're looking forward to 2017 being a year of stability and being able to settle into our new house and new routines.

Wishing you all health, happiness, and laughter in 2017!!
 
Here's the link to our winter photos.

Very thankful

This fall has gone by in a blur of sickness punctuated by bright spots of fun.  Clementine started school in August and for the first two months we were worried about the emotional adjustment/toll it was taking, then about when she seemed to be settling in, the dreaded first year of school yuck began.  She has had one type of cold or another (and a double ear infection) since the end of September.  I am fortunately getting better about how to keep her from getting horribly sick and how to treat it when she is sick (herbals are a wonderful thing - when a doctor tells you there's not much you can do for a common cold except eat and rest that's not actually true).  I'm also getting better at trying to ward off getting myself sick each time she's sick.

Just after C's first (and worst round of sickness) at the beginning of October, I caught it (the worst head cold/cough we've had in years) about the exact same time we realized I was pregnant.  We've made no secret of the fact we've been trying to add to the family all year, but it just hasn't worked out yet.  So we were cautiously optimistic, but given our history (only a 1 in 4 chance of success at this point), we weren't counting on anything.  So I went through the usual routine of early bloodwork, then an early ultrasound to only find that something didn't look right.  They weren't sure, but it looked like I had another ectopic pregnancy in the exact same place as 2012... which set off my quiet panic.  Last time, when I woke up from surgery they told me they had to take a fallopian tube, so what would happen this time - what would I lose?  Would my recovery take longer?  How was I going to explain this to a toddler who wanted to be carried everywhere?  What if we can't have a normal pregnancy again?  It was a lot to process in very little time.  Within 24 hours I was scheduled for emergency surgery and we scrambled to find a way to get C to and from school and get me picked up from surgery (a good friend waited at the hospital while I was under, which was during school pick up time).   I ended up having laparoscopic surgery again and the doctor used the same 3 incisions as last time (um, gee, thanks?) to discover that the pregnancy was abnormal and had recently terminated on its own - instead the mass they saw was actually a huge ovarian cyst... and just in time for Halloween, it was the weird kind that people joke about that grow hair or teeth or eyeballs.  Yeah, I'll let that sink in... so thankfully no eyeballs, but it looked like it was filled with shredded fingernails... (I'll give you a minute to choke back your gags).  After the worst week of disappointment I did find a silver lining - had we not had the miscarriage the cyst would have gone undiscovered and I likely would have lost the ovary - as it is, they were able to salvage it!  Hooray!  (We've had friends who were not so lucky.)

The recovery was not so awesome... I couldn't lift anything or bend over for 3 weeks, that horrible cough I had was murder on the stitches, and I was already pretty sleep deprived going into it from taking care of C and myself while sick.  And Wade was also sick, so thankfully a dear friend came up to play with C and take care of us the day after my surgery.  C and the cats were almost magnetically drawn to my belly and it was difficult to sleep without someone stomping on my fresh stitches (I sincerely wished I had body armor to sleep in).  I woke up a few times from nightmares of intense pain to find C asleep with her head on my belly, so the fervent wish for protection was a valid one.  We already had a camping trip planned and just a week after my surgery Wade asked if I still wanted to go.  He said he would do all the lifting and I planned easy meals so we decided to go - I figured it had to be better than sitting on the couch protecting my stitches from an antsy toddler and needy cats.

We had a wonderful camping trip at Ft. Desoto and if I could recommend it to everyone convalescing as a prescription, I would.  It helped C work off her nervous energy, we all unplugged for 3 days, and we enjoyed the beautiful outdoors and perfect weather.  We were treated to an incredible bird show so we ate all our meals watching the water and enjoying the slow pace.  I couldn't walk for long so it was great that the area behind our campsite is a big field and beach, perfect for an energetic C to burn off the crazies.

One thing we were not expecting was how much more expensive the surgery was this time around.  We lost the gamble of taking a very high deductible insurance plan and the doctor and hospital bill ate through all the money we had set aside for paying off one of our credit card bills from the move.  Apparently the real kicker will be when we get the anesthesiologist bill this month... in light of that, we're back to the simple, no gifts but handmade gifts, policy for Christmas this year since we have zero room in the budget.  We're looking forward to a simple holiday this year and even using our fireplace to celebrate the winter solstice.  Now we just need some fireplace tools!

Halloween was a lot of fun and I had just healed enough to at least walk some of the way.  We had friends visiting from out of town so we had a fun weekend with them and their son and other friends and their kids (who live near our old house in town).  It was funny watching C get used to so many kids together and by the end seemed to be enjoying herself.  She actually trick or treated this year and loved it.  She wanted to be a pumpkin so Wade carved her a jack-o-lantern helmet from a fake pumpkin and we put it with an orange dress and presto - she was a happy kid.  She was well for pretty much just that weekend then got sick again, and again, and yesterday came down with another cold.  The first year of school is brutal while their systems adjust!  

The Cooper family of jack-o-lanterns!

November was about the same... trying to get C healthy and get the house ready to host Thanksgiving.  We were able to squeak in a visit to see my Grandma (she lives an hour away and just sold her house) so we went to visit, see if she needed help packing, and take home some momentos with us.  It was a fun visit with her and I was glad Clementine was able to spend some time with her.

We were really excited to host this year and even better, the pool lanai was finished (FINALLY) just before Halloween so we were able to have our feast outside which was really fun.  We've been living with the doors and windows open since the pool cage was done (hello sea breezes!) and it's like having another huge living room because the cats and be out there with us and we have our hammock up that's getting daily use now (we even get wifi there!).  We've been so happy with everyone being able to hang outside, not having to worry about the mosquitos, and no more unwanted visitors in the pool (frogs, bugs, raccoons, snakes, rats...).  Wade also fixed up the dock a bit so we can see the water better from the dining room and patio and we can actually go sit on our dock to watch fish and birds (this weekend a red fish buzzed us!).  We also managed to get in a quick paddle this weekend and since we're weaning C off pull-ups and into undies, she got her first successful pee break being dangled over the side of the boat. lol

Thanksgiving was lovely having family here and we were so thankful for everyone coming over, sharing what they were thankful for, and cooking up so much wonderful food.  We were pleasantly surprised to find we could make our little "vintage" kitchen work for a big holiday.  It helped having all the doors and windows open so the kitchen never got too hot like it did in the last house.  I started a new tradition this year (that I've been trying to do since we were pregnant!) - we'll use the same while table cloth every year and each person writes what they are thankful for on the cloth, with their name an date so it will grow over time.  It also felt like the perfect way to break in the new house and really make it feel like ours (as well as filling the house with love to drive off any lingering bad ju-ju!).

I hope everyone had an equally wonderful Thanksgiving and that you're able to enjoy the holiday season at a restful pace.  We already have two camping trips planned for this month (back to Ft Desoto), so we're excited.  With all the sickness and healing we haven't had time to get current pictures of the house yet.  I am hoping soon, before we put up the Christmas decor....  in the mean time I did upload some photos from this fall, so enjoy! 

Words failed me

Not long after our last post things kind of fell apart... literally.  We did manage to get moved in for Memorial Day weekend (after a total of 4 weeks in 2 different rentals) and have a few friends over for the holiday to cook out and swim (our first swim in the newly restored pool).  So that was nice. But it got crazy from there...  We had a massive fly infestation (likely from something dead in the chimney), the electrical was kind of a mess, the front windows/wall leaked massively in the living room during the tropical storm, the brand new roof leaked over Clementine's room so badly the ceiling fell in (thankfully not while she was in there), we had to rip out a huge oak that was getting under the foundation and was too close to the house (leading to the leaking), our fence install was a stressful hell during the rain and a disagreement over where we could put the fence, and we lived in Clementine's room most of June and couldn't start using our master bathroom until July.  And that's only the stuff I can remember.  There came a point when I couldn't take any more pictures because I honestly just wanted to forget it was all happening.  It was just too much.  Trying to juggle fixing the house and keeping Clementine from losing it amidst the chaos was pretty overwhelming.

So, when the ceiling fell in days before we were due to head to NC I looked at Wade and cried and said please just stay here and fix all this and I'll get C out of the house because it was so torn up she couldn't even move around in it anyway.  So we did.  C and I flew alone for the first time to visit Poppi and Granzie and thankfully it was a direct flight (lugging her and her carseat was a little tedious but we survived).  We had a lovely visit and even went camping in the Smokies and visited C's cousins, which was a lot of fun, and just what we both needed.  For Wade's part, although he worked hard getting the house back in order, he did enjoy nights watching guy movies, drinking wine, and eating popcorn so it was a break for him too.

We got back just in time for Father's Day, and we took Wade to the aquarium again this year, always a bit hit with him and C (she touched her first sting ray and LOVED it).  For his birthday, all he wanted was a kayak, so C picked out a lime green one that's just perfect for us.  It's been wonderful and we've already seen manatees, dolphins, lots of birds, fish, and even a bonnethead shark just minutes from our house!

The summer has been a bit of a blur actually.  We've been spending every waking moment it feels like trying to get this house back into shape: painting, caulking, cleaning, rebuilding, cleaning, scraping, cleaning, electrical, painting, regrouting and sealing, you get the idea.  But we're finally feeling settled now and are ready to turn our attention to the outside.  The pool cage is set to be finished up in the next few weeks (the deck work to prep for it has been a nightmare) so we'll be thrilled when that's finally done.  The house still looks like a bomb went off out front after removing the tree because we just haven't had the time or money to do anything about it yet.  It's kind of killing me... like walking around with a thorn in your foot...  We're hoping we can get a reasonable quote for some of the landscape demo work we need done (removing old railroad ties and reinforcing the terraced deck, removing the awful soil in the decaying beds, etc) so we can start doing the fun work on our own - building garden beds, planting some trees and bushes out front, getting the edibles planted in the yard...

It feels like 2016 has been a time warp so far since we've spent the whole time fixing up, selling, and buying houses.  We look forward to being settled and are starting to enjoy the benefits of our wonderful location and floor plan (paddling, a pool, and room for guests and talking at full volume in the evenings!).  C also started Montessori preschool 2 weeks ago (she's going 3 half days a week) and that's also been a huge transition, but she is being "very brave".  We had her almost sleeping through the night right before we left the old house and since then her sleep has gotten worse and worse with all the changes, so I'm back to not getting much sleep at night which has not really helped my outlook on things.  Once she seems settled into school we're going to try and do a little more light sleep training again in hopes we can get back to that better place.

We lost our photo site (Google Sucks) so I've been trying to figure out how we're going to replace photo storage for the site.  We've been forced to use Google Photos (they supposedly transferred our  Picasa photos for us), but it's been a lot of hassle trying to work around it so it's been tough getting pictures up.  Here are some summer pictures for now and some house renovations in progress pictures.  

On a positive note, we weathered the last hurricane without any leaks - hooray - thanks to a ridiculous amount of caulking Wade did to all the external openings on the house just before the storm.  Ah, there's nothing 5 tubes of caulk can't cure, eh?

Still in the rental...

Well, we are still in rental #2 and just extended for a few more days with the intent of being out on Friday.  Sigh.  It's been a busy two weeks.  Hard to believe it's only been 2.5 weeks since we closed given how much we got done.

Remember that little washing machine blow up?  Well, it led us to more closely inspect the closet that backed up to it and we found tons of mold in there as well as sweating AC supply lines (the lines hadn't been used for years and the rats had eaten the insulation so our new AC was pumping moisture into the wall between the laundry room and guest bedroom).   We also discovered mold in the walls behind the toilet in the guest bath (so now we know why they shut off the water and didn't use it) so we had to rip out that drywall too.  The good news - the mold seems limited only to the areas where there was water damage and had not spread to other areas of the house, and our contractor was there to be able to help us repair and deal with it in short order.  The bad news - it's eaten a ton out of our budget so replacing all the broken windows is suddenly not doable.  At least the house will be healthy and clean for us...  The workers and I were all getting sick from the mold and I can report that today we're all feeling much better and the house smells infinitely better.

Thankfully my dad was also here to help get some work done - he converted the hall closet into a much-needed panty, rebuilt the disintegrating kitchen island cabinet and plumbing, took down the crumbling laundry room cabinets, helped cut out all the random utility holes in the rooms (many had two cable outlets and other random panels!), fixed our side garage door, and most importantly - he ripped out the over-sink cabinets and lofted the ceiling in the kitchen turning it from a dark, low, cave into a bright open space!  Since we absolutely can't afford to touch the kitchen this cosmetic fix helps it feel nicer but also improved the lighting of the area making it more livable.  He was also able to sort out some electrical problems for the appliances but then discovered some issues in the kitchen wiring we haven't been able to fix yet.  We upgraded everything to GFI to bring it all up to code, but something in there is tripping the circuits so most of the outlets don't work.  Sigh.  We're trying to call in another electrician this week to sort it out.  We really enjoyed his visit and I was so thankfully Clementine got to spend some quality time with him.  It was all too short though!

When Dad was removing the kitchen ceiling, insulation and a literal rain of rat poop dropped on him (ick!) so he kindly bagged it all up and took it out to the curb.  Apparently the rats had a nice little den up there to keep them warm in the winter.... oh my.  We're having the rest of the insulation sucked out this week and the attic sprayed down then we'll blow in new insulation this weekend.  Just in time before the summer heat really kicks in. 

We had to order a new washer and dryer as the hand me down one fell through and with the holiday weekend sale we decided to bite the bullet now (they arrive tomorrow).  Ugh.  We likely will have to do the water heater next, so fingers crossed we get a break on that for a little bit.  The dishwasher went in today too which we're excited about since neither rental has had one.

In good news, the pool looks downright inviting now and I am itching to do a cannonball into the deep end!  It is nothing short of miraculous what our pool guy was able to do.  We'll be spending Memorial Day at home for the first time in a decade and we're kind of sad about that - its traditionally a beach weekend for us, but we'll be getting a truck to haul our boxes from storage this weekend.  We're hoping we can at least grill out and swim on the actual holiday.

Papa John and Clementine (on the right) watching the huge garbage pick up truck - she was fascinated with it!

A funny side note, our house is apparently notorious in the city waste department... when they showed up for the 4th pick up I apologized to the the guy (who was incredibly nice and thorough) for all the mess and he said "oh yeah, when I saw the address I knew what I was in for since I've already been here twice".  I laughed, but also felt awful.  Hopefully the worst of the mess is coming to an end.  I spent my evening last night vacuuming our grass for garbage scraps with a shop vac since there was bits of insulation, glass, and styrofoam everywhere after the pick up.  We had a pretty huge pile - it was bagged rat poop insulation, the kitchen ceiling, MORE of the seller's junk we found in the attic, the old pool equipment, the rest of the carpet, moldy drywall, the old toilets... even the neighbors can't believe how much stuff has come out of this house (apparently the seller even took two loads of junk to the dump before we closed!).

I have lots of pictures and some video, but the internet connection at this rental is ridiculously slow so I don't think we'll get to upload them until this weekend.  Thankfully we have internet and phone up at the new house and Wade's cracking through the painting.  We still have to put up our closet organizers so we can actually hang clothes, but at least Clementine's room is somewhat functional so she has somewhere to hang when we take her over to the house.  It's been hard to stay positive with all the crazy crap that's gone wrong, but I think once we're in the house and can swim it'll feel a lot better.  I did spend all afternoon yesterday scrubbing the kitchen cabinets, which were literally the filthiest things I have ever seen... I had to shop vac them first to remove all the roach poop and bug bits then scrub all surfaces to remove a nasty brown layer of grime all over everything.  Most of the cabinets are falling apart and most of the drawers were literally turning to saw dust while I cleaned them (insert laugh/crying here), so we'll be using more of our ikea cabinetry in the dining room for dish storage than we had before.  It was another shocking instance of not believing humans actually lived in this house 3 weeks ago as if nothing was wrong?!  You would swear this house was abandoned when we bought it!
We have been enjoying all that the location has to offer though!  Wade took Clementine on a quick maiden paddling voyage in the creek behind us (and she keeps asking to go paddling again), we've had bunnies in the yard just outside C's window, possibly a bobcat eating a catnip toy in our garage, bats at dusk, a downy woodpecker nest outside our bedroom window (so cute!), and lots of wading birds and fish plopping in the distance.  We're so excited for all the nature that surrounds the house!

We can even make this sh*t up

So we are wrapping up two weeks in our little rental, to spend another week in a rental Wade found last night.  Hahaha... where to begin....

C enjoying the front windows at the rental

Well, we closed on our old house successfully and uneventfully and had a fairly lovely day but ended up having a quiet night at home for Cinco de Mayo since we were all really wiped out from lack of sleep.  We've scheduled a make up day with friends for next weekend so that'll be exciting.

But then came our actual closing day... Going into this, I always expected the seller to not actually be out on the day of closing.  I just had that feeling and they just has SO.MUCH.STUFF that I had a hard time imaging them being out on time.  I had taken to driving by every night looking for progress the week before we closed and although I saw signs of progress I was not entirely convinced it was going to happen as it was supposed to. (Which led to our realtor prodding the other realtor to check up on her client, in theory.)

We showed up for our final walk through at 8:30am and there was junk on the curb, and I mean there was so much stuff, the pile was bigger than our two cars.  The good news was that the storage pod was gone and so was their car, so that was promising.  But we were a bit early and walked around back to start the walk through until the other realtor came and it became quite apparent that the lovely sparkling clean house we left for our buyers was not what we were getting from our sellers.  There was stuff all over the porch (plants, a grill, broken bits of stuff) and we peeked into the windows to see stuff all over the floor inside the house too as well as wrapping materials and garbage.  When the seller's realtor got there, she was pretty livid (and surprised) which cracked me up because this was entirely predictable.  So we talked through options with our realtor and with her and she called the seller who clearly was not in touch with reality and didn't get it that she needed to be out, let alone clean the house.  
Realtor: "Your stuff is everywhere and needs to be gone.  We talked about this - you should be out of the house and the house was supposed to be cleaned by this morning.  They are offering to call a junk service to remove everything for you.
Seller on speaker phone: "Junk service?  But those are my things?!  My clothes are there, I have a printer!"
Realtor: "Ok, you need to bring me the house key so we can get in for the final walk through right now, closing is in a half hour."
Seller: "Well, I need to brush my teeth and I'm in my pajamas, and I need to eat some breakfast...." (It was 9am)

So we said, fine, get her to sign papers, let's walk through the house (the realtor had to run and grab the key from the seller in a hotel 15min away), and see what we're dealing with.  It was pretty bad - the house reeked of pet (and rat) urine, the fireplace was overflowing with ashes, the cat box had spilled on the floor (complete with poop), there was personal stuff everywhere and garbage on the floor, the fridge was full of food, the kitchen sink was backed up and dirty dishes all over the counter, the toilet was backed up with stuff in it, and there was a new beehive in the soffiting... it was a general disaster.  The silver lining was that all the neighbors came out to greet us and were sweet, lovely, and helpful people.  We feel so lucky to live in such a wonderful neighborhood!

So we documented everything - pictures and video - and got the seller to closing.  My theory was, we just needed her to sign the papers and I could deal with anything after that.  I just wanted to get working on our house.  We negotiated an escrow holdback and gave her until the end of the day to get her stuff out then asked for cleaning and steaming of the carpets.  Once the paperwork was mostly signed and they finished the finer points of the escrow holdback I left with Clementine who napped in the car and Wade kept me up to date by text while I sat in the car with a sleeping C.  And this text exchange generally summed up how our closing went:

Wade: So Denise (seller's realtor) just came in and said there's a dead parrot wrapped in a towel in the freezer.... did you get a picture of that?
Me:  HOLY F*CK, WHAT?!
Me:  And I am now crazing laugh-crying in the car
Me: We are throwing out that fridge TODAY
Wade: Yeah, Toby (our realtor) and I are dying too
Me: We can't even make this sh*t up!?
Me: Can't stop laughing....  Might pee my pants.  I needed that.
Me: That does explain the empty parrot cage in the garage!
Wade: Toby said we can have his old stove and fridge to replace the contaminated junkers

Mercifully, a mild front blew through just before closing so we could open all the windows and air out the house for the first time in years we've been told (oh yeah, most of those don't work either!)  As soon as we were closed the hive of activity began - our rodent/pest control people, a locksmith, and pool people were there while the seller's movers arrive to finish taking everything.  The junk pile grew to a size larger than 4 cars and finally by 8:30 at night I was alone in the house with nothing but the rats in the walls and attic for company (ick).  Finally a cleaning lady showed up and I called it a night.  The next morning the steam cleaners showed up and even they told us to throw out the carpet.  Everyone kept asking us how long the house had been vacant for - assuming it was a foreclosure!  The plumber was shocked people were living there very recently given the state of the plumbing (sink backed up, toilets shot, old crappy connections, but thankfully we have good copper pipes everywhere!).  We cleaned some things and replaced the garbage disposal that was the culprit for the blocked kitchen sink.

Closing day - we bought a crazy house!

On Mother's Day our furniture arrived and we stacked it all in the garage.  We also used the movers to go get our hand-me-down fridge and stove and when we took out the old ones I discovered what looked like years of spilled, burned coffee underneath.  So I spent the day on my hands and knees scrubbing our floors and our "new" appliances.  Whee.  Thankfully Poppi and Granzie were here to keep C entertained while we moved and cleaned then we had a nice dinner with tropical mimosas!

The contractor we hired to get the wallpaper down was working at an impressive pace but the more we saw the worse it got.  So fast forward and now we have a shiny new AC unit (planned), and solid new roof (planned), and the wall paper removal has grown to gutting the bathrooms and ripping out all the carpet and staining the concrete subfloor so we can live in a clean house rather than a filthy one. (Yeah, there was even carpet in the bathrooms!)  Under the carpet we found all sorts of lovely animal pee smells and lots of bugs and some water damage/mold, so we decided it had to go and we could live with clean, stained concrete for a while.  We also did some wall repair where water damage was hidden behind the wall paper.  It was amazing how getting all the wall paper down and painting the walls has really brightened things up!  One other good thing - the pool should get cleaned this weekend and we should be swimming by next weekend!

To balance out the unexpected bathroom renovations (thank you IKEA!), we managed to get used appliances for the kitchen (but will have to buy a new dishwasher) and will get a used washing machine tomorrow.  (Of course the washing machine hook up blew and sprayed water all over when we unhooked it which helped us figure out where the past leaking came from in the second bedroom.)  

Another fun tidbit - we found a safe in the floor of our closet!!  But it's totally corroded and we can't get it open.  It's set into the foundation concrete so there's no way to get it open but we all got a huge laugh out of it and one of the AC guys and the contractor tried using a torch to cut it open, but no luck.  Oh well.  The curiosity is killing us though!

Clementine is already having fun exploring her new room and she seems to think her big walk in closet is a secret play room! :)  We've also been picnicking in the yard to enjoy the weather and to start to feel at home even though we aren't living there yet.  I've been trying to capture the change as much as possible, but with the crazy pace we're moving at it's been hard to catch it all.

This house could easily be called "the money pit", but on the first day of real work I had this vision while standing in our master bedroom with the breeze rolling in through the open french doors - the morning sun was shining on our pool, the birds were chirping, and I could look out into the mangroves and the water and I felt so at peace despite the chaos and filth around me (to anyone else they saw a pee-stained carpeted room, torn up porch, mucky pool, and unkempt backyard) - all I could see was nothing but incredible potential and secluded water access as far as the eye could see. :)

Transitions

We are officially in our rental house now and everyone is settling in.  The only regret is that we weren't able to book this for an extra week to allow us more time to work at the new house, but oh well.  Everything works out as it's supposed to I guess.

We close on our old house tomorrow morning (today the furniture gets packed up and the house cleaned), and Friday morning we close on the new house and the work begins literally that afternoon.  We have to get as much done as soon as possible before we run out of time in our rental house.  Our furniture will get delivered on Mother's Day (oh, wow, Mama got a new house for Mother's Day!  haha) and loaded into the garage to stay out of the way while we attack the roof, AC, and wallpaper/painting starting on Monday.  Most of our boxed stuff is in storage that we moved there over the last month, and some is here at the rental (along with all our potted plants).  This weekend we've be taking an inventory of the status of things and prioritizing what we need to fix immediately and what can wait for a bit longer.  We're also not sure of the working status of some of the appliance and the guest toilet, so we need a clearer picture of what we're facing.  We also aren't sure how much clean up we have to do and what the sellers will leave behind.

We've trying to help C feel at home as much as possible and she was beyond thrilled when we broke out her kiddie pool under a shade tent in the back yard of the rental.  Our sitter was able to get some pictures of her glee:

Thankfully this little pool will keep her happy for a while until we can fix up the pond, I mean pool, at the new place.  I'm sure Clementine will be sad to see the frogs go!  She's loved the grasshoppers at the rental house so far.

Another transition is that I plan to redesign the blog to update it with the new house.  I'm going to use the blog to document our renovation adventures, in addition to Clementine's adventures so stay tuned for DIY antics.

And today is Star Wars Day - May the Fourth be with you!  C has been listening to the music this morning and has been asking to watch the movies so we'll celebrate the move with that tonight.