Snowboot Sock Magnet

We just got our first snow of the season!  Weather report is calling for a couple days of snow and the expectancy that it will stay is ZERO.  Temperatures here in Washington are just too warm to support snow on the ground.  It's so unfortunate because the boys finally want to play in the snow, whereas when we were in Maine the snow was just too high and they were too small.  I love days when it snows.  Even in Maine the temperature seemed to warm up when the snow was flying... well, warmed up to tolerable levels.  I actually really like to go out and shovel while the boys play.  Great to have a reason to get out and do some purposeful exercise and get some fresh air.

Took the boys to go sledding.  G still wants me to ride with him, which is fine by me.  P is more adventurous so I think he took about three times as many runs down the hill.  During one of my treks up the hill I began to wonder what it is about the mechanics of the snowboot that encourage sock removal.  Anyone who does not know what I'm referring to has clearly never experienced playing in the snow to the fullest.  It's when you've moved around enough in the snow and suddenly you start to feel your warm sock creeping off your foot.  As a kid I recall my mom wrapping my feet in sandwich baggies or bread bags.  This was to keep your feet drier since we would play in the snow for hours.  By the time we came in to warm up our sock was hanging on by a toe and our feet were slipping all around in those sweaty plastic bags.  For some reason I guess I thought the snowboot would have evolved since childhood.  Or maybe my socks would be tight enough to withstand the "foot stripping" appeal.  I was wrong.  The toe of my snowboot was like a sock magnet, tugging relentlessly at my wimpy socks.  Four trips up the hill and I could feel exposed heels.  Felt like I needed some sweet sock garters.  And on that note, I'm now going in search of a picture of a 1950's husband, home from work wearing the black sock garters and gigantic starched boxers...  wish me luck.  This could be a whole new market for the sock garter manufacturers. 

Homeownership here we come

...again!!  We submitted our offer, they countered, we countered, they countered again, we re-countered with our final offer, they countered again with another offer... and... we... accepted!  Are we nuts?  Maybe.  Are we excited?  Yes!  Was I about to pull my hair out, grind my teeth off, and puking in my mouth (just a little)??  YES!!  I thought I was going to go nuts if we didn't get some closure on the haggling soon.  So what was our next step?  Well, we want to get the house we are currently renting ready for pictures so our the family the owns it isn't left with an open home.  They've been very good to us and we want to be sure they are taken care of too.  That meant a quick run to the dump, or so we thought.

We have a king-size mattress that we have owned for 7 years.  My husband picked this treasure up off of Uncle Henry's.  For those who aren't from New England, and thus don't know about the wonders of Uncle Henry's, it's kind of like the original Craigslist, but in print form - and it's awesome for finding great deals on the most random things.  Anywhoo.  So my husband bought this thing and thought he got this great deal when he came home with a $300 brand new king-size mattress and box springs.  It has been a piece of crap since day one, but better than sleeping on the floor (maybe).  We should have known that it would be hard to get rid of since it was so hard on our bodies all these years.  So we strapped it to the top of the Trailblazer and headed towards the nearest dump.  Not the best planning on our part, since we had approximately 35 minutes to make it to the dump before closing, and the dump is a solid 20-25 minutes away.  So we headed out with the sun heading down below the horizon.  On went the headlights... or should I say headlight (singular).  We are waiting on a new part for our headlights, which means that they will randomly decide if they want to turn on without coaxing.  We began the drive, in mild wind which doesn't cooperate well with a mattress that is about 12 inches wider than our car.  So each time a little gust would catch the corner, the mattress would shift slightly.  My husband was holding onto it with his hand out his window, but kept complaining about how cold his hands were.  And we couldn't go any faster than 35 because we feared the mattress would not make it.  Mind you the speed limit between our house and the dump jumps up to about 55, so we kept having to pull over to let traffic go by us or to readjust the mattress.  At one point we pulled over to let cars go by, and the cop car on the other side of the road whipped around to pull up behind us.  "I pulled you over because you have a headlight out."  Really?  I'm pretty sure we were parked on the side of the road when you "pulled us over", but thanks for the news flash on the headlight.  Oh, and really appreciated being informed that I could be charged with a felony if the mattress fell off.  Ugh!  He let us continue on our way.  I stopped a bit later to readjust the mattress, and my husband decided to put his window up since he was freezing.  Only too bad the electrical Gods in our car decided that his window wasn't going to work at that moment.  We found the dump.  Pulled up 2 minutes after the gate closed.  Beyond frustrated.  If only that cop hadn't been there, we would have made it in time.  Instead we got to drive all the way home, still with the mattress, on all back roads.  Our headlight decided to go out, which left us driving home with the high-beams on.  And here we sit at home, exhausted and ready for bed at 8 p.m., with a mattress strapped to our car in the driveway.

So glad that the house deal haggling was finalized today, since everything else apparently wasn't going to go our way.  :)

Waiting

How can the thought of home ownership (again) have me ready to grind my teeth off?  We bit the bullet and submitted an offer for a foreclosure around the corner from where we are currently renting.  The house is total crap.  The bones seem good, and everything appears to work, but the previous owners just never cleaned or updated it.  It was built in 1991, so it's not terribly old, but you would think the carpets hadn't been cleaned since the 90's.  All the appliances are still in it, which is strange to see since foreclosed houses often have everything of value torn out prior to the bank taking the property back.  Yet things like the atheletic wallpaper border in one of the kids bedrooms was removed??  Strange.  Anywhoo.  So here we sit.  We made an offer, the bank countered our offer, and we countered their counter offer.  And that put us at the end of their business day.  I feel like I could puke I'm so nerved up.  I don't remember being this way the first time we bought a house, although maybe if I had been then we wouldn't have gotten into the mess which that house turned out to be.  And as I continue to ramble in an attempt to calm my stomach down... I'll stop.  Hopefully good news comes our way tomorrow.