New House

This is a copy of a letter I wrote someone when she asked about the new house. I thought I'd just copy and paste it here. Everything is the same except that the dogs have now caught several lizards and even a baby mouse. After all the complaining and whining I've done this last six weeks, it sure is nice to have something happy to write about. :P


The kids are doing really well! Everyone is kinda surprised at how well they're doing. Katrina is even sleeping in her big girl bed and not her crib. Trent says he never wants to go back to that other house and that he "luhhhhhvvvveeeees this house!"
The kids spend most of the day playing out on the patio. Trent rides his bike back and forth while Katrina plays in the Little Tykes car. They pretend they are policemen/women. They hardly ever watch tv anymore.
Katrina named a little ground squirrel she can see from her bedroom window, "Seeds". She likes to sit on the bench under her window and watch him.
Even the dogs are happy. They spend the entire day outside chasing fuzzy creatures and lizards. Thankfully, they haven't caught one yet. They don't whine to come inside and at the end of the day they sleep like rocks.
Erik and I are still unpacking. We like to watch the mountains in the mornings go from hazy to clear. Neither of us could remember what the mountains looked like in the morning before now.
Today we took a test bike ride to Trent's school. He was able to ride his Superman bike the entire way (.70) miles while Erik and I followed behind him. I pulled Katrina behind me in the bike trailer.
And yes, I'm hoping the best for my buyers. I am no longer mad at them. ;)
I still don't have my scrappy room unpacked. It's a little bit overwhelming.
I think everything is better then we expected. Thanks for asking. :D

Here are some pictures of the kids enjoying their new swing set:



Here is a picture of the dogs in the backyard. You can see we just have a chain link fence, dirt and cactus. I don't care though. Everyone around us has a block wall so we still have lots of privacy. I can still go out on my back patio in my underwear. ;) Right now I'm really enjoying the natural desert (as are the dogs). We will eventually landscape it and probably remove the cacti. For now, though, I really like it. I will post some pictures of my mountain view and some pictures of our saguaros. Having a saguaro in your yard is a big deal and we have 3! None of them have arms, but it's still pretty cool to have your own saguaro.

And here's a layout from Peek for the 31st upload. I only had time for one layout this time around. We were using Technique Tuesdsay stamps. I love those things!!

Thanks everyone!!

Uploads for the 15th

At Peek, Linda put together this really cute kit. I had so much fun working with it and it went together so easily.

Ms. Katrina in her pink and white polka dot swimsuit. She was being so goofy this day.


The negative sleeves weren't part of Linda's kit, but I just LOVE them. I'm going to run out of them soon and then what am I gonna do????

Here are my LO's at DML:


I think I like this line of KI. I wasn't too impressed with it at first, but once I got my hands on it I LOVED it!!


I had fun with this one. The screaming lady is from the original "Fly" poster. Shhhhh...I right clicked it and saved it on my hard drive. I covered the entire layout with Mod Podge (my new favorite product) because of all the little edges from when I cut out the picture of Trent.

Since we've been trying to move for the last 4 weeks, we've had so many boxes all over the house. The day I brought these home, he took them over and became a robot. He did this for days until I finally decided I needed the boxes.

Yes, I smudged out my street name.


Scenic route stuff. I LOVE Scenic Route.

My three favorite manufacturers are (in no particular order) Sweetwater, Daisy D's and Scenic Route.


This is what Baby Kat does when you ask her to show her "big smile". I thought I'd try something different with this layout and stick my picture down first, and then add the patterned paper and other accents.

Sweetwater layouts all from last month; all from the "Go Fish" collection:





I know, I already did a layout with this picture. I really like it and wanted to use it again. ;)

Vortex of Real Estate Hell, car crashes and more

Well, here it is the 18th. We were supposed to move today, but I guess the buyers of our home thought we were taking potatoes as payment because we found out that there is NO MONEY. We found this out about 2 hours before we were supposed to sign papers. They beat their record of screwing us, though, by about a week. Last time this happened with these buyers, they at least had the courtesy of giving us a week's notice before we were informed the deal went bad. Oh, I've been assured that the money is still coming, we just weren't exactly sure when up until a few hours ago.

I've been told that maybe next Tuesday or maybe even Wednesday we'll be moving. Sure. I won't hold my breath. I think this is perhaps the 3rd or 4th time we've had a moving date. My phone is already turned off and on at the new home we don't even own yet. I can't change it back without losing my phone number. I thought we'd give it a couple days, why not? After all, that's the least of my worries at this point.

During all this excitement of deal on, deal off, Erik and I crashed our cars. I was driving Trent to school earlier this week and rear-ended Erik. He had left the same time that we did to go to work. He was driving in front of me and as I was watching the people walking around on the side of the road exchanging insurance information from an accident that must have happened 30 seconds before, I slammed into Erik. It was either kill a pedestrian or hit Erik.

Well, I promised State Farm I would let everyone know how they screwed us up, down, sideways and back and forth. So, here's my story on how we no longer have Erik's vehicle, or even a 2nd vehicle:

Last September, I called my now retired State Farm Agent and told him that we no longer wanted collision coverage and glass on the Volvo (Erik's car). The car was a 95 with now a 170,000 miles on it. It wasn't worth much more then the amount of the deductible.

"Oh, ok...sure...no problem", was the response of the girl on the other end of the phone.

I knew that if Erik was hit from another driver, he would be covered by their liability. Erik has always been a careful driver and had never been in an accident. After I hung up the phone, I started worrying about theft and the glass coverage. After discussing it with Erik, we decided to add glass back to the Volvo. I called the woman back, explained by reason and added glass back. We felt we were covered.

Well guess what? We are NOT covered. We were quickly informed that we can not have a claim on ourselves. In other words, they will not pay for the damage of the Volvo (blue book value of $1700). We have lost our 2nd vehicle. HadErik been a stranger, he would have been covered.

I have been with State Farm for 19 years. My parents have been with them for 26 years, my Grandmother since she moved here; 10 years and my daughter 1 year. All of us our canceling our policies.

I was NEVER informed of this situation. Had I been informed I would have never followed behind Erik while driving. Doesn't your insurance company push, push, push for that 2nd car coverage? Shouldn't that information then be on the top of their mind when you call and make a change on the 2nd vehicle's coverage?

We don't have coverage for a rental car. Right now we have NO VEHICLE! I have to pay for a rental car for who knows how long. We cannot afford another car (even after selling this house...another issue I just don't feel like writing/talking about) so Erik will have to take the bus to work. We have no other choice.

Check your insurance coverage. I know there are several of you out there with a decent family car with full coverage and another car that's maybe somewhat of a junker without collision. If so, let me tell you YOU ARE NOT COVERED!!!!

Either put collision on that junker car or don't ever caravan behind the junker.

I was going to add some uploads from the 15th. I'll do that on another day.

First day of school & the house deal

Today was Trent's first day of Kindergarten. Not only did Erik go, but so did Grandma and Great Grandma. Below are some pictures. Katrina decided she wanted her photo taken as well.

He's my little dude. So happy and excited about Kindergarten.

Trent had homework on his first day of Kindergarten. All he had to do was color a picture of Curious George, tape him on a popsicle stick to make a puppet and then memorize 4 rules of the classroom. They are:

Be Respectful
Be Safe
Listen to Others
Be Responsible

There were small examples of each rule.

"Listen to others when they are talking. When you have a question, raise your hand." I raised the Curious George puppet in the air. "So what do you do if you have a question?"

"I don't know."

"You raise your hand," sticking George up real high.

"Ok."

"We listen to others when they are speaking. And what do we do when we have a question?"

"I don't know."

"We raise our hands, Trent."

"Ugh! This is too hard." He gets up and joins Katrina playing Disney Princess games on-line.

This is the first day of Kindergarten and it's already too hard? Huh? It's the first day!! I have 13 more years of this?? Flashbacks of Ashley in school...not fun!!

HOUSE

Deal on, deal off, deal on, deal off, deal ON! We may me moving sometime this week. And YES, to the house I have pictured on my previous entry.

We won't know exactly when until a couple days from now. It sure makes it hard to schedule a mover. Erik and I certainly can't do this move ourselves, especially with my very bad hips. It has been so stressful. It's more stressful than I could ever imagine it being. Hopefully this will all be over soon.

Thank you everyone for all your well wishes and prayers. I so believe that all your prayers and good thoughts have helped us during this very stressful time. Thank you so much.

I should probably mention...

that the deal on our house fell through. About a week before we were to close on our current home, our buyer's buyer flaked on them. So, because we were going to use the money from the sale on this home to buy our other home, we had to cancel that deal too. Our home is back on the market, the boxes are moved to the garage and we are waiting for realtors to come and show our home.

Thank you everyone for your well wishes. I so appreciate them.

Let me also mention, that if you are looking for a GREAT loan officer, you MUST call this guy.