Day 31

Phew... finally, finally the cause of our flood is behind us. A broken sump pump was the culprit but the joke is (not a very funny one) that as soon as that was fixed I discovered the tap was dripping from where the water comes into the washing machine. Still it's a reasonably easy fix, all we need is a new washer in the tap.

Anyway that being said, am now knee deep in getting the painters and the flooring people booked to take care of the house up in Portland. It turns out that our tenants either want to move out the end of June or the end of July. So we'll opt for June 30th as we won't have enough time to get the house ready before the move if I can't get in there before Mid July. It's good on one hand because it gives us a little more time but bad on the other because that's two months without rent on the house that we will have to eat. Still we're moving forward. Mum for your info we didn't go with the Painters you liked they were by far the most expensive and they took almost a month to get back to me as far as the estimate was concerned. Didn't bode well in terms of reliability. I went with All Service Painters they were the last people to come by and we went with the first flooring company who gave us an estimate on the spot. Anyway I need to fly up to Portland for the day in July to meet with the painters and I'll probably fly up at the beginning of July to talk with the painters and then again after the job is done so that I can check on their work. It's a bit of a pain but I don't see any way around it.

Well I need to stop as Owen is waiting for me to play soccer with him - (Morgan is at a playdate with Oona, so it's just me and him.)

More later....

Day 30

I need a week do over... remember that old adage "it never rains but it pours.." well it's flooding here literally. In my basement. Oh and that is only the half of it. At the beginning of the week my neighbor decided in her infinite "Wisdom?" to pull out the hedge that divided our properties. The problem was, it wasn't her hedge to pull out. It was part of what fenced off our front yard and now we have a gaping hole along our yard which is very easy for Milo to escape from. Needless to say I wasn't happy at all... I got quite upset with my neighbor who claimed that the hedge was dying and she didn't realise that it was on our property. I pointed out our fence line and asked how she could possibly think otherwise.. still the long and the short is she has agreed to put up a fence at her expense to remedy the situation. For now we just have to be really careful not to open the front door too wide for the fear that Milo will take off.

Then yesterday morning, my day to start the mass of laundry I have to do, I went downstairs into the basement to put in a second load to find an inch and half to two inches of water all over the floor of the basement. So out came the plumber and after 2 and half hours of investigation found that we had a crack in the sump pump coupling. Or so we thought. He fixed the problem, I finished cleaning up the water damage. I rented a dehumidifier got into the basement. (It's been running ever since.) Finished up the clothing laundry and went about my day. Or so I thought. So this morning when I went to do the sheets (my weekly job) I put in a load of laundry and went to take more sheets down only to see that top lid of the sump pump full of water and then witness a mini "Old Faithful" occur. Okay so I don't have a flood in my basement right now, but it was about to happen. Thank goodness I went downstairs when I did, I hate to think what kind of damage that would've done to the rented dehumidifier. Anyway I now have a call into the plumber to come back out. Only problem is I have to go to the school this morning for the final presentation of the Teacher Appreciation week. I just hope we can get this fixed as Owen had an accident last night and I need to finish washing his bedding.... (I probably shouldn't have written that on the net. Oh well. Therapy here he comes.)

Some sad news too. Hermie is with us no more. The crab passed on sometime yesterday or maybe the day before. So poor Cindy is solo in the crab cage... No we're not getting another crab...it's hard enough to get the kids to look after these crabs... hopefully she'll last a little longer. We'll see.

Okay that's it. No pictures today,...

Day 29

Okay will life ever get quiet again? Oh yes, I'm sure many of you out there will say it will but I feel like I have been going full speed ahead for the last 2 months. Any time I think I'm getting a break there is a new laundry list of stuff to do.

Today was a mundane day of opening an account with a local plumber, setting up an appointment with a carpet company to give us an estimate on getting the upstairs recarpetted. Calling AT&T to find out how soon we can get a new phone number for up in Portland. Phone round blind for a new gardener in Portland as we think our current gardener just suck! Phoning this one painting company for the 3rd time to give me their estimate on the house in Portland because I really liked them but now am beginning to doubt how reliable they are as after almost 3 weeks I still haven't received their estimate and have called them 3 times. Whoever said 3 was a lucky number? It better be as I'm not calling again! And the hits just keep on coming...

This week is Teacher Appreciation week so each day the kids take in something nice for the teachers to show them how much they (and we) appreciate all they are doing. Owen is actually going out to see a movie with his teacher this friday. (I won the teacher treat at the silent auction for that back in February.)

Still it's an all round fenetic in this household. Poor Owen, his top bunk has now been dismantled along with his shelves and all the stuff that was on his wall around his bed. It sounds so hollow in his room right now... It's a wonder I get a chance to just blog!

Day 28 -Back in play

I'm baack! Okay I hadn't gone completely dark, just extremely busy... we had a visit from mum which went by much too quickly as I'm sure she'll attest to that. It was a whirlwind visit with 5 days in Oregon, one of those days was spent celebrating Owen's 8th birthday...at LEGO brickfest in Portland. Also we managed to rent our house after interviewing a bunch of prospective tenants we decided on a really lovely family of 3 who will lease our house for a year to start with. I think they're a good fit, but it was tiring showing the house all the time especially trying to get the kids to keep their rooms tidy all the time. But we're done now on that front. I did get a new client out of the process though which is really nice. Classes are going well. We had a terrific easter. On Easter Saturday, there were 22 children here, 20 of which were all hunting easter eggs. Some 250 eggs were hidden for them to find but we had a lovely potluck brunch and it was a lovely day not too hot and not too cold. On Easter Sunday we spent a lovely day with Chrissy family, who had invited us to spend the day with them. Unfortunately for Darren, he had to work the entire weekend. Poor guy went to work on Sunday morning at 5.30am and came home Monday morning in time to say goodbye to the kids as they went to school at 7.45am.

We had a lovely last couple days with mum before she left. But before we knew it she was winging her way back across the ocean to the UK and life just continued to get crazy. On Thursday I accompanied Morgan's Kindergarten class on a field trip by school bus (my very first time on a school bus I might add) to the Underwood farms where we had an amazing day. We got to go on a tractor ride to the strawberry fields where we got pick our own strawberries before seeing a very cute animal show, followed by watching the teachers feed two very young calves. It was a really fantastic educational day for all concerned. Who knew goats had 4 stomachs. That pigs could grow over 500lbs. We also got to buy a ton of fresh veggies at the farm and it was so inexpensive. Unfortunately (or fortunately) by the time we were leaving a huge wind storm kicked up but we got on the bus before it got to be too horrible. Apparently it knocked all kinds of stuff over including our umbrella in our back yard.. it was the death of our umbrella unfortunately.. at least it's now one less thing for us to take with us to Portland. This past weekend we went to Joshua Tree for Mitch & Rena's wedding at the lovely house out in the desert. It was a terrific wedding with the most delicious food all day long.. Morgan must have eaten close to 20 mini beef wellington's or as she calls them "Meat rolls." I felt so stuffed because they served exquisite hors d'eouves all day then after the ceremony there was an open sushi bar, mexican bar and french cusine. All along with an open bar and last but not least a lovely petite fours tray followed by of course the Wedding cake.

All in all it was a really fun wedding, very casual, and very lovely. But now I'm beat and we start a new week tomorrow... starting with Owen's field trip... so I stop now. More later.... I'm Baaack...

Day 27

Ha made it... even if it did take me a whole week to get back online, to be fair I have been out of town for 5 days and mum has been in town so I have been extremely busy and not always with access to the computer. Well I'm back and just as busy and have managed to completely have a melt down with my kids over their lack of ability to take direction when asked. That's a polite way of saying that they find it impossible to clean up when asked. So now I'm a mean and cruel mom for not letting Owen play with his lego (consequence for not cleaning up his back pack after being asked 4 or 5 times nicely) and Morgan thinks I threw out her teddy bear that she made. (I didn't but threatened to). Man sometimes I find this parenting thing unbelievably hard. I know I shouldn't yell that it doesn't do anything, but it seems to me when I ask nicely nothing, and I do mean nothing, ever gets taken seriously. I'm tired of battling with them and them not listening to me. I thought I was being nice taking them to do fun stuff today but in the end it just back fired.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day. I'll catch up more then.