Wordy Wednesday update

As you all know, our house is on the market.  We listed it on Monday, April 11 and had at least one showing every day the week after.  Our open house was on Sunday, April 17.  At the end of the open house, a woman came in after having seen it on the internet, and made a respectable cash offer, verbally, as well as another lowball offer.  At first we were cautious, because it seemed all too simple!  The next week, the house was still officially on the market, but we were negotiating with this woman and doing the requisite disclosures and she looked at it again and drove around in the neighborhood interviewing people who live here.  This process went on all week, and we weren't sure if she was going to officially commit or not and got another lowball offer which wasn't going to come up.  Friday night, she called our realtor and said she was ready to sign the contract.  On Saturday, they signed the contract and we came over and signed it and, voila, we were in escrow with less than thirty days to move!  On Sunday, we prepared to make an offer on a house that I really loved, planning to submit it Monday morning.   Around lunch on Monday, our realtor gave me the bad news that our buyer had gotten cold feet and was backing out.  As luck would have it, we got another offer, which was low but at least within negotiating distance.  We countered, and now we're waiting to see what they want to do.  Arghhhhh!  This process is so frustrating.  We're still keeping the house ready to show at a moment's notice, and yesterday we had two showings. 

Ramy is in trial this week and next.  He's actually officially the new supervisor for the Pomona misdemeanor division and started on Monday, but because his trial was going on, that's kind of postponed for a week or so.  So he's doing his last murder trial for awhile.  Ordinarily, Ramy is very focused on his trials and thinks of almost nothing else while he has a trial going on, but all the house chaos has been a bit distracting. 

Work has been incredibly stressful and frustrating these last two weeks.  After a couple of crises, the fact that we need more help in neuropsychology has finally been noted.  Unfortunately, instead of giving us the help that we asked for, we're getting help in a way that isn't helpful but actually makes things harder.  And we now have more meetings and paperwork to do.  We counted up and realized that we spend 12 hours a week in meetings.  Of course those do not count toward productivity.  The good thing is that we have a really good team, and I'm confident that things will get better soon. 

We've been so very blessed to have Grammy with us for much of the last two weeks!  She and Rebecca had a delightful time doing craft projects and cooking projects and all kinds of fun things.  Grammy was an enormous help in all the craziness that has ensued around here.  She went back to Tennessee yesterday, and we sure miss her!  Rebecca was very sad at Grammy's leaving, telling Grammy, "It just bwakes my heart!".  She knew it was coming but didn't want to talk about it.  On Monday night, every time we'd try to tell her something, she'd say, "Just don't tell me that Grammy's leaving. I don't want to talk about it."  After I'd come back from taking Grammy to the airport at dawn yesterday, Rebecca was sad when she woke up (she knew Grammy would be leaving while she was asleep) and we had a few tears.  Rebecca said, "I wish it wasn't a school day.  I wish it was a Grammy day, for days and days!"  However, she adjusts to these comings and goings quite well and was a happy camper going to school and then was sad that she wasn't going to school today (it is dance class day). 

Easter 2011

On Easter Sunday morning, we went to the 7:30 a.m. mass.  When we got there at 7:05, it was already pretty full and soon the church was overflowing (they had a concurrent service is the multipurpose hall for those who didn't have room in the main church).  The Easter Bunny sent scouts to see when we went to Church so that the Easter Bunny knew that it was all-clear to visit our house.  We even saw several of the bunny scouts at church, clearly radioing back to the E.B. about who they saw at mass.

When we got home from mass, sure enough, the Easter Bunny had been there!  Rebecca ran to see what he had brought her.



The Easter Bunny brought her all kinds of fun things - a jump rope, monster bubble wand, a water gun, another Zhu Zhu pet and outfit, a stuffed bunny, and of course...chocolate!  Somehow Paddington gobbled up one of the chocolate carrots, foil and all.  

Rebecca's Easter dress was as special as the girl who wore it.  Well, almost!  Of course, made with love by Wanda Preston.  Rebecca enjoyed modeling it.

Instead of cooking, we had a nice Easter brunch at Tam O'Shanter in Los Feliz.  It was lovely!  I had the traditional ham, but the others had prime rib.  We also had an amazing chocolate caramel souffle.  Divine!  It was a wonderful day with the people I love most, celebrating Christ's resurrection.



Ten on Tuesday

1.  Last week got even crazier!  We had not only the suicide but a couple of other very serious issues to deal with at work.  As fate would have it, I was the only neuropsych person at TLC to deal with everything.  It was unbelievable.  I even worked on Friday, which is usually my day off, as well as on Saturday.  Saturday was actually a planned training with a neuropsychologist consultant we brought in from Phoenix.  It was an exceptionally hard week, and I really needed more than a one-day weekend to recoup. 

2.  Fortunately, my neuropsych colleague is back this week, and we are picking up the pieces from last week and I'm trying to play catch-up on all the reports that I didn't write last week because I was busy ensuring people weren't going to kill themselves.

3.  It was also a crazy week at home!  We had at least one showing every single day last week, more on several days.  Then the open house was on Sunday.  I was fielding calls from realtors to give permission to show the house in the midst of #1.

4.  We have very promising news on the house sale!  I'm not going to give more specifics because I don't want to jinx anything!

5.  Rebecca has some new knock-knock joke material.  She delivers the punch line so perfectly with one of them.  As funny as it is, however, she thinks it is even funnier if she tells the same joke repeatedly to the same person. 

6.  Rebecca watched about an hour's worth of a History Channel special on Judas.  She is still asking us questions about why Judas betrayed Jesus for some money.  On Palm Sunday, she explained to us that it was Palm Sunday, because that was the day that Jesus rode a donkey into Jee-loo-sa-lem and people waved palm trees at him.

7.  Right now, gift-giving is so important to Rebecca.  In the last few days, she has made me several necklaces that are strung with large multi-colored beads and letter blocks which spell non-English words.  She presented two of them to me as we went out to dinner on Saturday night.  What's a mom to do?  Of course, I wore them proudly.  As we checked in, I noticed the hostess staring at my necklace.  Then the person who sat us was trying to surruptitiously see if the letters spelled something.  There were furtive glances from the waiter also.  I'm sure they were just jealous.

8.  Our sweet niece Jessica heads off to Washington, D.C. and New York City on Sunday for her 8th grade class trip.  Please pray that she has a safe trip and a fun time away from home.

9.  Also please pray for a little boy from my hometown named Curt.  He was struck by a vehicle while riding his bicycle and is critically injured with a traumatic brain injury.

10.  I had good intentions of doing an Easter card and mailing it out.  Yeah, didn't happen.  Maybe I will be able to get an Easter e-card.  Maybe.  We'll see how the rest of this week goes!

Ten on Tuesday

1.  This is a crazy week in my life.  I may or may not escape it with my sanity intact.

2.  We listed our house for sale on Sunday.  It was on the MLS Sunday night.  The lockbox was to be installed yesterday afternoon, which meant people could start showing it after that.  I thought, realistically, that meant it might start being shown today. At 9:00 yesterday morning, an agent called wanting to show our house and couldn't wait until the lockbox went up!  I actually had a few things on the top of the counter on our linen cabinets that I still wanted to clean off completely, but otherwise we were ready.  The for sale sign went up today, and the house was shown again today.  Tomorrow is the agent caravan (where our agent's firm does a tour of all the new properties they have for sale), and then we have two showings tomorrow night.  Sunday afternoon is our open house.

3. At work, the other neuropsychologist is out all week.  I knew this would make for a lot of extra work.  I had no idea that I would come in on Monday and find out about a tragic suicide of a former patient that has impacted our staff greatly.  For any psychologist, a patient committing suicide is a huge blow.  For our non-mental health staff, it's something that they haven't ever had to deal with and has just devastated them.  We've also admitted some very ill, distressed, and impaired patients who take a lot of time, care, and energy, either emotional or mental or in terms of marshalling patience. 

4.  Last night when I left work at 7:00, I was just glad the day was over and we could start fresh today.  It was such a relief to come in this morning and find that all was well.  Tonight, I left work at 7:00 and felt good that my peeps were all safe and taken care of.  I realized that this is in stark contrast to how I felt after the crises at CONREP last year, which is what has made this such a different situation. 

5.  Thank you Lord that this is also the week that our cleaning ladies come.  They are coming Friday afternoon.  I have to have my house in the kind of condition that people who might want to buy it could come in and look at it at any moment while we're at work, since we only get 30 minutes notice that they are coming to show it!  Yikes!  I wonder if our cleaning ladies might want to move in....

6.  Do you know about Bakerella?   If you don't and you like to bake or you like to eat sweet things that have been baked (and if you don't fall into that latter category, who are you and what is wrong with you?), then you must get to know her.  She has a wonderful food blog with drool-worthy pictures of the magnificent things she concocts.  She also happens to be a kidney transplant recipient who is back on dialysis and praying for another transplant.  This week, she posted about a site that sells the most gorgeous cake stands...among other things.  I spent quite awhile on that site perusing the other night, while also considering that if I buy a single other platter, serving dish, or similar, my husband might divorce me. 

7.  Have I ever mentioned that I have a bit of an obsession with cake plates, serving platters, and mixing bowl sets?  Seriously, it's a problem.  I have five sets of mixing bowls, gorgeous things, beautiful bowls.  When I'm actually mixing something, however, I tend to use my glass Pyrex that cost $4.97 at the Walmarts.

8.  Last week, I calculated my hours and realized that I will hit the number of hours I need for licensure sometime this summer.  This means that I really do have to study for the EPPP.  In fact, I need to go ahead and submit my licensure application like now, because it takes the California Board of Psychology months to process these things.  I guess that means the stack of practice tests and volumes of review materials deserve to stay in the house instead of going to storage.

9.  Did you know that I'm a control freak?  I took the pictures of our house to go on the MLS, even though the realtor was planning on doing it at the listing appointment.  I wanted the opportunity to take 45 pictures of the same room from multiple angles and then photoshop them to be sure that the lighting was perfect.  It also bugs me that we don't get feedback about what potential buyers think (unless of course they want to make an offer or have questions).  I really want there to be some kind of debriefing after each showing in which I get to know what they liked, didn't like, whether they thought the reed diffuser scent was overpowering, if the guest room not being feng shui was a turn-off, if they liked my shower curtain, if I should move a lamp from this table to that....  Do you think that might turn people away? 

10.  I know, I know. I have serious issues.  Julie, can I schedule an appointment for therapy?

Happy birthday, Paddington and Sydney!

 

Tonight, we celebrated Paddington and Sydney's birthdays.  Paddington's actual birthday was on Thursday, and he is now 9 years old.  Since Sydney was an orphan, and since she thinks a lady should not have to tell her real age, we aren't really sure how old Sydney-girl is.  According to her medical records, when Ramy's parents adopted her in 1999, the vet then estimated she was about a year old.  So that would mean Sydney is about 13 years old.  Several weeks ago, Rebecca decided we needed a birthday party for the dogs.  Since Paddington is a nice fellow who loves his sister, he was agreeable to sharing his birthday with Sydney.

 Rebecca and I baked a cake for the party.  We cut it into the shape of a dog bone.  Rebecca iced the cake herself, and then she helped me write Happy Birthday on it in the green icing.  We also bought party hats.  Rebecca was adamant that the dogs don't like the Happy Birthday song, so we shouldn't sing it for them.  She wanted the cake to have candles, but we didn't have any in the house dogs don't know how to blow out birthday candles.

This was the dogs' initial reaction to the party hats.  However, after putting them on again a time or two, learned helplessness kicked in.  Sydney especially just stopped trying to take it off and was just resigned to wearing the birthday party hat.  Paddington's ended up doing better sitting more around the collar area.  Nonetheless, both dogs were a good sport and ultimately wore their party hats for a very reasonable portion of the party! 

 

Of course, the party's honorees had to be allowed pieces of their birthday cake!  (This is why we made a white cake instead of chocolate, even though german chocolate would have been the perfect color for a dog bone cake!).  Sydney ate hers in a rather ladylike fashion (or maybe she just isn't that crazy about cake and icing).  Paddington gulped his down without even tasting it.  Then he sauntered over to be sure Sydney didn't need help cleaning her plate.   Rebecca laughed and laughed, and so did Ramy and I.  It was a fun birthday party.  Next year, we'll definitely do it again.  Maybe we'll even invite some doggie friends and family.

 

Wordless Wednesday

Ten on Tuesday

1.  I finally found my perfect spring purse when at the mall with Julie, Addie, and Lucas.  I love it!  When Ramy saw my original post about the flowered/ruffled purses several weeks ago, he thought I was posting that picture of that purse as a joke.  Clearly, it was not to his taste.  So when I brought this one home, I made the mistake of asking him if he liked it.  He said, "Oh I thought you decided you didn't like that purse?"  I said, "No, I didn't!  You didn't like it!"  He said, "Oh, I thought after that you said you weren't going to get it after all."  Seriously delusional. 

2.  The house that I fell in love with last week also went into contract (with someone else) last week.  Bummer!  Thankfully, the next day another house that I fell in love with came onto the market.  We were scheduled to see it on Sunday, but when we met with our agent, she told us that they had three offers on it already and were writing up the contract that day.  Luckily, last night another house I fell in love was listed for sale. We were going to see it, but...the house wasn't ready for showing until Monday.  The house-selling/house-buying process could completely destroy me.  Have I mentioned that I am not a patient person?

3.  This weekend, we finished the last of the big projects before we list the house.  Those consisted of getting the fences between us and our neighbors torn down and replaced.  Also, I did an extreme closet and pantry overhaul.  Now we're just getting the carpets professionally cleaned and taking a few more things to storage, and our house is going to officially be for sale this weekend. 

4.  No, I do not have expectations that our house will sell as fast as the ones I mentioned in post #2.

5.  My closet looks nicer than it has since I moved in here.  There's no junk on the floor beneath the rows of clothes.  My purses are neatly lined up on the shelves.  There are no random shoes off the shoe rack.  If my house had the ability to actually be as organized as it looks (with a ton of stuff in storage), then we wouldn't need to be moving.

6.  While the guys were here on Friday and Saturday ripping out our old fence and putting up our new fence, Sydney spent a couple of days at Grandma's house.  You see, our old Sydney girl is an escape artist.  If there's a way she can sneak out of an open door, she'll do it.  Also, she feels no obligation to get out of anyone's way.  Paddington stayed with us and stuck by our ankles even with all the doors wide open.  He was torn out of the frame by the whole experience. I  don't know if it was that Sydney was gone or that there was so much noise and commotion, but he had gastrointestinal upset the whole time.  Sydney came home last night and had her trademark snickering smile for us.  Paddington was overjoyed!

7.  Today, while coming up with the fifth behavioral plan that I've created in a week, I talked to the client about what kinds of rewards and consequences he wanted to use.  I had things in mind like credits for songs from iTunes, cafeteria privileges, home passes, movie tickets, etc.  In complete seriousness and without any awareness that it was inappropriate, he said, "BJs."  I will let you figure out yourself to which he was referring.  Hint:  it was not BJs pizza.

8.  In case you wonder, I did not use "BJs" as a reinforcer.  I also managed to keep a straight face as I responded to him.  I also did not consider asking for further input from him.

9.  I wanted to watch The Black Swan when it was in the theater, because it's a psychological thriller.  I was chicken to go though, because I don't like suspenseful movies.  So this weekend, Ramy and I got it on On Demand.  We watched about an hour of it, and then I asked Ramy if we could turn it off, because I didn't like it.  It freaks me out to watch movies of people who are psychotic, though I've never been seriously freaked out by actual psychotic people.

10. While in a conversation in public this week, Rebecca calmly handed me a booger.  I was in mid-conversation when she did it and took it without examining it.  In mid-conversation, I realized that I now had a booger on my finger.  It takes a lot to maintain self-composure while speaking with a booger on your finger.

Grandma's Birthday

On Saturday, we had the great honor of celebrating two birthdays.  First, we went out to Redondo Beach for Lucas Woltil's birthday.  It's so hard to believe that sweet baby boy is already a year old!  He's just as precious as his wonderful big sister, Adelaide.  For his birthday, he was surrounded by little girls.  He might not appreciate that now, but one day, having that many gal pals might just work to his advantage! 

Julie and Derek did a wonderful birthday party with a car theme.  They even made cars out of cardboard boxes for each of the kids to wear and made a whole driving park for them, complete with gas station, roads, and stoplights.  The kids also got to wash their cars by blowing bubbles at each other.  Rebecca's car is currently parked in our garage. It's not going anywhere soon!  The worst part of the party was that I forgot to put the memory card in my camera, so I didn't get any pictures.  However, Julie captured them here on her blog.

We had to leave that party a bit early so that we could go to our second party of the day!  (Are we popular and well-connected that we have to stack parties on the same day, or what?).  We celebrated Grandma's (Ramy's mom's) birthday at the Japanese sushi/teppan restaurant near us. 

Ramy's sisters Theresa and Myrna and her family were there with us so we could all celebrate together.  Even though it was Grandma's birthday party, somehow Rebecca ended up with a present!

 

 

Rebecca is not a big fan of the giant blazes of fire that are the hallmarks of teppan-style cooking.  She coolly covered her head with the cloth napkin when she knew the chef was about to do one of them.  

 

Rebecca surprised us that she could use chopsticks very well, to eat rice no less!

It was a fun time, especially when they brought Grandma a scoop of ice cream with a candle. I don't think she was expecting or wanting that (apparently not liking to have the birthday song sung is a Cisneros genetic trait, since neither Ramy nor Rebecca like it either. Not me. Bring it on!).