Dirty

Yesterday while cleaning out and packing up the garage, Libby came up to me to ask for a drink. She couldn't hide the fact that she had been into something.

She's Walking

Last Saturday Reagan took her first steps. And since then she has been walking around like a crazy woman. She can now make it across most rooms and can stand up without hanging on to anything. Go Reagan Go!

Eating a Pickle

Reagan is pretty good about trying most things, but when she doesn't like something, there is no way to get her to eat the rest of it. At most meals she eats what we are eating and then finishes up with part of a jar of "fruity" baby food. The other day we gave her a pickle and she just loved sucking on it. She ate the end of it off and didn't know what to think of it.

She's Beautiful...

My new TV was installed today and I got the installer to take a few pictures of it when he was done. I actually got tears in my eyes when I received the email, Beth got tears in her eyes when she received the bill.

Bad Idea

If the name of your church is Christ United Methodist Chuch, it is a bad idea to use the initials for the web address.

Home Inspection

On Saturday the buyer is having the home inspected in the morning. The girls and I are going over to Isabelle's house to hang out there while it is going down. I have been getting all sorts of little projects down around the house in preparation for it. I have trimmed all the bushes from around the house (boy does it make the house look bigger), cleaned out the gutters and last but not least, I finished installing the faucet in the back bathroom.



Almost two years ago to the day, my father-in-law installed this faucet on a visit down here. Some how a plastic washer got mangled and a new one had to be ordered. He explained exactly how to install it when it did arrive. I figured it was going to be a pain in the butt, so I never installed it. The sink never leaked because it was hardly ever used and the only way it could leak is if the sink stopper was down and the sink filled with water, then drained. This never happened. But I figured that the inspector might try this, so I went to work on installing the plastic washer on the pop-up ball rod (yes Rudi, I know I just said "ball rod"). Literally 18 seconds later it was installed and is working perfectly.

Now I just have to figure out how to make a 12 year water heater and a 20 year old furnace look brand new.

Paul Harvey

Last week my brother-in-law Rudi got his panties in a bundle about an experience he had at his local branch of Wells Fargo. He blogged this:

I immediately deposited the cashier's check the buyer paid me with to buy my car. At the (very crowded) bank, the teller announces, "Wow, that's a NICE check!" after I hand it to her. She proceeds to ask how I came about this much money. I told her that I sold my car, to which she responded, "Well it must have been a real nice car!".

I'm slightly annoyed by this but decide to shrug it off. The teller then tells me that the bank will have to 'put a hold' on the check due to the amount. I found this to be odd considering the check was a cashier's check -- the funds are already secured. Fine, whatever... I ask how long it will be held and she tells me that it depends on what the computer thinks. WHAT?

After a few minutes of fiddling around with her computer, she asks a colleague to come over for assistance and hands her my check. The second teller looks at me and asks, "WHAT DID YOU DO?". The first teller explains that I just sold my car. Then she asked, "What kind of car was it?"

Wondering why I am suddenly being interrogated for depositing a relatively large sum of money, I told her what kind of car it was. "And you got this much for that?", she continued.

Are you kidding me? What the French Toast difference does it make how much I got for the car? And why are you insulting me to my face (save that for when I leave)? Sure, maybe the guy paid too much, but that is in my favor and since I am putting my money in YOUR bank, it is in YOUR favor too. I could maybe understand the questions and holding the check if it were a personal check, and/or if I were a new customer - but I've banked there for 5 yrs and it was a CASHIER'S check!

This can't be the norm - anyone have a perfectly reasonable explanation?

Rudi got much sympathy from others in the blog world, but he didn't tell the whole story.

As Paul Harvey would say "Here is the rest of the story":

Rudi looked liked this when he walked into the bank.

Would you cash this man's check without asking lots of questions? Thank you Wells Fargo for protecting all of us.

Happy 30th Birthday Rudi!

Interesting

This article says that Grand Rapids, MI is the 8th fastest growing real-estate market in the country.

Housing Update

Old House: The lady who had put in the rudiculous offer on our house came back with a much more reasonable offer on Monday. After going back and forth on a few minor details, we came to an agreement on Tuesday. She dropped all the "special stipulations" as her real estate agent had called them. So in the next 7 days she will have a home inspection done and we should know more about what is going on. The only slight catch is that she is doing an FHA loan. This isn't as big of a deal as it has once been since last year the HUD totally revamped the program to make it much more user friendly for the seller of a house. The big thing is they eliminated the requirements to make unnecessary minor repairs. So we are quite optimistic about it, but know that the sale isn't complete until the close.


New House: All the landscaping and sprinklers have been put in and look great. On Friday they hydro-seeded the lawn. Later this week my new TV should be installed in the family room above the fireplace just in time for the Parade of Home. She is a 52 inch, 1080p, LCD television with a hint of red around her black casing, she is beautiful. I was able to get the TV at cost since I allowed it to be installed for the Parade.

Mother's Day

This was the first Mother's Day that Beth hasn't had to work. She had actually scheduled herself to be on call this day, but then I reminded her that it was Mother's Day, so she was able to change it. Libby made Beth a picture in pre-school and could hardly wait the 4 days to give it to her. Reagan went to the local chocolatier, Dinshtul's and picked out a 1 lb assortment box to give to Beth.

Beth got me nothing for Mother's Day saying that Mr. Mom's don't count.

Worst Hiding Place Ever

Libby is still getting the hang of playing hide-n-go-seek.

Princess Reagan

Reagan got into Libby's dress up clothes and went to town.

Stop Thief

Around 5:30 this evening we got a call from our credit card company's fraud division. I assumed it was because I had just purchased an airline ticket online going in the opposite direction that we usually fly. While I was on hold, Beth went to look in her purse and discovered that her driver's license, credit card and two bank cards had been stolen out of her purse. Now I don't want to blame a child with cancer, but it was stolen at St Jude Children's Research Hospital. The thief had gone to Macy's and spent over $1200 so far. All banks have been notified and accounts have been closed. I am glad she doesn't keep her social security card in her purse like Rudi had suggested she do.
Beth is now going to follow her mother's advice and wear a fanny pack everywhere she goes.

These Boots are Made for Walking...

Libby tried on Beth's boots yesterday and was actually able to walk around pretty well in them. And yes...Reagan is playing with a syringe in the background (sans needle of course).

Housing Update

Old House: The number of showings has started to slow down, we have only had two this week. We had an offer last week but it was a bad offer. The lady was a first time home buyer (with a brand new real estate agent) who basically wanted a brand new house. She must not have noticed that our house is over 60 years old. So not only did she low ball the offer, but then wanted us to:

1. Replace the chainlink fence with a 6 foot privacey fence
2. Strip the wall paper in the dining room that the previous owners had painted over
3. Put new door locks and hardware on the front door
4. Move the washer and dryer from the built-in nook in the kitchen out to the garage (which isn't heated). This would involve running hot/cold water and a drain out there
5. Pay all her prepaids
   
6. Remove the popcorn ceilings in 4 rooms in the house

We figured that even if we had done all these things she would have found many other things that she would wanted replaced during a home inspection. So we countered her offer with full asking price plus we would give her $6000 towards repairs. She never submitted a counter offer. I feel good about it because I didn't want the house under contract with her and off the market when I knew it would all fall apart anyway.

New House: Things are moving all swimmingly at our house in Michigan. We got a call last week from out real estate agent that he had driven by the house and they were in the process of tearing up all the concrete that had been laid. Apparently the concrete guys didn't like how the drive way, sidewalk and front walk had cured so they were doing it over again.

Our agent also sent us some photos of the yard after they had graded it and the landscape plans. They are putting in the sprinkler system and starting on the landscaping this week.

Desticled...Again

Last weekend we noticed that one of the Bartlett Pear trees in our front yard had a huge crack in the trunk. So I called Robinson Tree Service to have someone come out and look at it to see if the tree could be saved. The arborist told me that this was a fatal flaw with the Bartlett Pear tree and that after a while they grow to large to support themselves and most all of them end of cracking and need to be removed. So we scheduled to have him come out sometime at the end of the week.

On Wednesday we had some good sized wind storms show up and the front 1/3rd of the tree fell over, luckily it was the side facing the street so no damage was done to the house or the neighbor's cars. I called the tree people up on Thursday morning they send someone out with a chainsaw to make the tree "safe" until they could get out there on Friday with a cherry picker to remove the entire tree. After watching the entire season of Ax Men on History Channel, I thought about trying to use my little electric chainsaw to take the tree down and save about $400, but after talking to the neighbors about it, we all decided that was a bad idea. This turned out to be a wise move as the tree was much bigger then I had anticipated it being when it was taken down.

So on Friday morning they came buy and it only took them about 20 minutes to take the tree down, haul it away, and grind the stump down.

I then hauled away all the waste from the stump grinding, put some topsoil down and planted lots of grass seed in hopes of actually growing something. With all the sun in our front yard hopefully the grass will actually grow.

We have had more tree problems at this house and have spent upwards to $2000 to remove and reduce problems with the existing trees. We are elated that our new house has no mature trees near it (no leaves to rake) and we just saw the landscape plans and there are only about 4 trees total.

Lazy

The other day I noticed that Reagan never holds her own bottle. I thought this was because I had never taught her how and that I was a bad parent. But today I found out that she is just lazy and is able to do it, but would rather have me to it for her. So now she has to hold the bottle or sippy cup herself if she wants any formula. The free ride ends here.

Like Mother Like Daughter

During a showing of our house today, I decided to take the girls out to Best Buy to scout out new T.V.s for the new homestead. As were driving there Libby asked where we were going. I told her we were going to the store to look at televisions. I then asked her if she thought I should get a big new t.v. and apparently she has been listening to her mother to much and said "No Daddy, you already have one at home".

New Law

Unlike my brother's friend Ken, I believe that the government for the most part should stay out of my life. But I do believe that a new law needs to be passed concerning kids toys. It would be something like this:

All children's toys need to have an on/off switch and a volume control switch that is hidden from the child.

Big Girl

Reagan now has more fun with playing with Libby's toys then she does her own.