Lunar Cycles: A Conversation with Luke

In the car on the way home.

Me: What did you learn about in school today?
Luke: We talked about the moon! It's up in the sky at night.
Me: It is. Did you learn anything else?
Luke: The moon comes in different shapes, like circle moon and crust moon.

Obviously, he meant crescent, but crust (as in the pizza crust he doesn't eat) is also applicable.

Currently feeling: crusty

A speeder in time

Take a journey with me on a magic speeder from the past (2007) to the present (2010).

2007 (age 2.5)


2008 (age 3.5)


2009 (age 4.5)


2010 (age 5.5)


More to come on the 2010 trip, but I had to go on and share these.

Currently feeling: nostalgic

Spring 2010 Portraits

When did he get so grown up?!



Currently feeling: stunned

February 2010 Round Up

No mosaic this month. You've already seen all the good pictures, except maybe this one. This is frost on the curved mirrors on the bus at Luke's school. I thought it was pretty cool! (no pun intended)

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?
Started reading Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, by Diana Gabaldon. Finished the first section, and then they Olympics started. Not much reading since. (He's about to see Jamie again; didn't want to get distracted.)

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?
* TV Time: Olympics! Which means not much else was on, but that's okay. We're Olympics junkies in my family, so it wouldn't have gotten watched anyway.
* New Films: The Devil Wears Prada (okay; needed more Stanley Tucci), Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (imaginative, but weird)
* Old Favorites: Somewhere In Time, The Mummy Returns, Jurassic Park III, WALL-E, Shakespeare In Love, The American President, Jurassic Park, The Rookie, The Hunt for Red October, Up

What special days did I celebrate and how?
We did absolutely nothing for Valentine's Day this year, not for anyone, plus we were snowed in.

What gifts did I give and/or receive?
I really can't think of anything.

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?
We all started coming down with stuff right at the end of the month. Luke was running a fever of 103+ for a couple of days (brought down with Children's Motrin) for no reason we could discern. He was acting fine otherwise (a little tired, but that's about it), so there wasn't really anything to do. DH is dreadfully sick with some kind of head cold which will make Disney next week oh so fun (not), and I'm feeling pretty run down myself (not sleeping enough with the Olympics; totally my fault).

What fun things did I do with my friends and/or family?
I'm sure there was something, but I seem to have forgotten. I blame house stress.

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try this month?
We tried a new restaurant that is close to the new house, called Pasta Amore. Reminds me a bit of Artuzzi's, actually. Choose your pasta/sauce/meat combo, wraps, sandwiches, pizzas. DH and I tried it first, then took Luke a bit letter. I like the pasta okay. Pretty good and very close, hard to beat. The pizza is pretty good, as were the wraps. DH didn't care for their spaghetti sauce, though. We still prefer Artuzzi's, but it's a lot farther away. Nice to have something good (enough) and close by.

What special or unusual purchases did I make?
Closing costs! As in, we closed the sale of the old house. YYYYAAAAYYYY!!! There was much drama involved, even up to the very last minute; numbers "not adding up" and daycare calling to say that Luke had a fever of about 104 right as we walked in the door didn't help!

Oh, I forgot: Size 2 shoes for Luke. Yes, I'm being serious!

What were this month's disappointments?
The other three times we didn't close, plus a bunch of mess at work. Not much to say about that yet (if at all). Huge stressful changes coming; won't know the full fallout for another couple of months.

What were my accomplishments this month?
Super ultra nightmare work project is finally done!! Only took 7 months (typical projects are 3-5 months). It was a problem from day 1, and continued to be a problem through day I-can't-count-that-high. Every single time we thought "okay, this is the last thing we have to fix, and then we're good," something else would come up. We've thought we were "almost done" since right after the New Year began. But it's done now, and it's done before we go out of town so I won't stress about it while I'm gone. That's all that matters.

What were Luke's accomplishments this month?




Luke has finally started going to sleep in his room by himself! Now if we could just get him to stop waking up at 2 AM every night to move into the den to sleep the rest of the night, we'll be all set.

He also "accomplished" having a note sent home by the teacher regarding his behavior. For some reason during nap one day, he decided he wanted to color instead of rest/sleep, so he picked up some markers near his sleep location and started coloring. On his jeans, on his arms, on his face, on the floor, on the wall, on the artwork of other children near by.... I'm sure you can imagine how happy we were, particularly when we were told "kitty told me to." He apologized, he offered to help clean up (already done by the time we heard about it), we discussed that he is the one responsible for his own actions and that he should not do something he knows is wrong no matter who tells him to. We'll see.

Anything else noteworthy to record?
Snow snow snow! Not much else.

Monthly Round Up courtesy of Katie the Scrapbook Lady.

Currently feeling: just trying to hang on

Closing Drama

Okay, as I alluded to earlier, there was much drama surrounding our closing. We thought all of the drama was over when our agent called to say that yes, we really would be closing on Thursday. Ha!

Thursday morning dawned, and I just knew it wasn't going to happen. I don't know if I was just tired of being disappointed or what, but I was not confident at all. And the longer the morning wore on, the more convinced I was. Closing was set for 3PM (I was wrong about that yesterday, thought it was 2). They lawyers had to have the papers by 2PM for us to be able to close at 3, and neither DH nor I were leaving until our agent had confirmed they had them.

10 AM came and went, Noon came and went, 1 PM came and went. Our agent called at 1:40 to say they had finally arrived. "We are on for 3 PM." Really? I'm still not feeling it. DH left work at 2 to come get me. We waited until 2:20 before leaving the house (it was closer than we originally thought), just to make sure someone wasn't going to call and cancel or delay. Even on the way there, I told my husband that something was still going to happen. The address is wrong, or the sale price is wrong, or a car accident, or *something.* We turned into the complex with about 10 minutes to spare, then realized we didn't have the actual address! Directions, yes, but there were 90-something townhouse-type offices, and we had no idea which one we needed. DH was on his phone with our agent getting the actual address when a call came in to my phone.

"Mrs. Gaston, this is Luke's daycare. Luke is running a really high fever. Our thermometer says it is 104! His whole body is shaking and he looks awful. We need you to come get him." THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!! Technically, we're supposed to be there within 30 minutes if they need us to pick up our child. I explained that we were literally about to walk in the door to close on our house, and they decided they could keep him (in the office away from other kids) until we arrived. I really hoped it would be as simple as walk in, sign, and walk out. It was when we bought this house (once we finally got there), and the papers were ready, so it should be quick and simple, right?

You'd think I'd know better by now. Neither our agent nor the buyer was there yet. The buyer was about 5 minutes late, but they were very sympathetic to our circumstances. The buyer's agent talked to the lawyers so we could go ahead and sign our portion of the papers, the idea being that we could finish and be on our way and not have to wait for the buyer, who had numerous additional papers to sign. We could also start without our agent, who came in about 10 minutes later. By 3:40, we had signed everything we could, but they were "still working out some things on the HUD, the numbers just aren't adding up." I was ready to pitch a fit!! Finally I just had to go get Luke and hope they had it worked out by the time we got back.

Luke did look pretty bad when I got to daycare, but the assistant director was going on about how much better he looked (he'd slept about 30 minutes on a mat in the office). He was still pretty warm, but nothing approaching 104. With some children's ibuprofen on board, we headed back to the lawyer's office. He had half a cup of juice on the way, which was both good and bad: good that he was willing to drink something, bad that he only drank half (he's usually downed the whole thing in under 5 minutes). We arrived back at the lawyer's office right at 4:30. The room we were using to sign papers were directly across from the entrance. As we walked in, I could see DH, our agent, and the lawyer sitting at the table, and no one looked happy at all. Great.

The good news was that they had figured out the problem. The bad news was that no one could figure out what to do about it. I do know more of the details, but again, I'm going to be intentionally vague here. We still need to work out if and how much *we* will be affected, but I was so stressed about the whole thing between what the lawyer was telling us and Luke's condition, all I really heard was "blah blah... might have to rework the deal... blah blah... something about our taxes... blah blah... might not close today if we can't work it out with the county." No one, not even the lawyers who do this for a living, can figure out how the mistake happened and how it has gone unnoticed for so long. They did work it out so we could close that day. Now we just have to hope the county doesn't come after *us* for many thousands in "corrected" taxes over the last 9 years!! So the drama may not yet be over, but we did close. We walked out at 5:30 PM with the papers and the check to prove it (though we might need to save that check in case the county comes calling).

And for everyone wondering, Luke is fine. His fever is responding to medicine, there are no other symptoms, and he is acting mostly fine otherwise (a little tired, but that is to be expected), so the doctor said just to monitor the fever and keep him on Children's Motrin. Call if any other symptoms show up, and if the fever isn't gone by Monday to bring him in. But as of bedtime tonight (Saturday), his fever was under 99.5 with no meds, so he should be fine by Monday.

So, drama drama drama, but it's DONE!! We offically only own *one* house!
Currently feeling: ready for a quiet week

We did close

We're all exhausted from stress, and Luke is sick with a high fever, but we officially only own *one* house now. Most of you probably already knew that from Twitter, Facebook, or the neverending thread. More details later. Right now, it is way late (actually about 1:30 AM on 2/26, but I back-dated the entry to our actual closing date), and I'm going to bed.

Currently feeling: finally!!

The opposite of closed is.... angry

Yet again, we did not close on the old house today. As frustrating as that fact is all on its own, what truly makes me angry about the situation is the way it unfolded. As you know by now, today was to be our third attempt at closing. The first delay was at the request of the buyer, but it came several days before the closing date, so that was workable. The second time, it all came down after 9:30 PM the night before due to a piece of paperwork requested by the lender. It then had to be sent to the underwriter, so we were delayed by a few days.

Today, I thought we were in the clear. When the phone rang at 8:30 AM this morning, I thought that was it. No, it was just our agent letting us know that the buyer had done their run through this morning and everything was good as far as we (buyers and sellers) all knew. By Noon, no additional phone calls had come, and I had finally dared to believe that we would actually be closing at 2PM. Perhaps that was the problem.

We left at 12:30. I had had a terrible morning at work (two big (and already late) projects fall down and go boom), but I was ready to shake it off by signing the papers. At least something good would come out of my day. We stopped by Arby's for lunch (I had not been able to eat with my insane morning), since it was on the path between the house and the lawyer's office. We had just finished ordering when my phone rang. It was 12:40.

Today's story is that the underwriter is requesting an explanation of something (I'm being deliberately vague; we do know the issue). I have two HUGE issues with this. #1: Clearly, the underwriters had not yet completed the paperwork. Even if the buyer had been able to provide the requested documents immediately upon request (which was not possible) and the underwriters had instantly sent the papers to the lawyers, we *still* would not have been able to close at 2 PM, because the lawyers would not have had time to review the papers. (You may recall that closing on our new house was delayed by 2 hours for similar reasons.) #2: How is it that the underwriters did not know/realize that the existing documentation was unacceptable until 90 MINUTES prior to closing?! Either they did know and didn't speak up, or they didn't bother to check until the last minute. Neither is acceptable. In fact, it is completely unprofessional and disrespectful of everyone's time. What if we all punched a clock? What if our managers were not as understanding and flexible as they are? The process of buying/selling a house should not put your *job* at risk. (What do the lenders think would happen to the mortgage payments then!)

I cannot recall the last time I saw my husband flush red with anger from chin to hairline. It has been several years. I don't even want to imagine the color of my own face; something akin to "lobster," I imagine. A blood pressure check on either of us at that moment likely would have landed us in the hospital. I flatly told our agent that until she could personally confirm directly with the lawyer that the papers were in hand, in order, and ready to be signed, we would NOT be leaving work. If that means they end up having to wait for us to arrive, then that's what it means. We are tentatively scheduled for 2 PM tomorrow (gee, where have I heard that before).

I know I said it yesterday, but I made the mistake of believing 2 hours before it actually happened. Tomorrow, even if we walk in the door and sit down at the table with pen in hand, I absolutely will not believe it until we walk out the door with signed papers and a check.

Currently feeling: seriously ticked off