My House isn't Photogenic

We are taking in a foreign exchange student next school year and our host family application asks for photos of our house.  Well, darn, my house just isn't photogenic!  I have lots of photos, but they all look chaotic and messy. Funny how I think my house is nice and neat and then I take a picture and immediately think the room looks chaotic in the photo.

Since the photos I need to submit are for an application, it feels like I need to submit showroom type pictures of my house.  I'm being judged.  We've already been approved and we already have open communication with the student and her family, but still... this is stressing me out.

Photos I need to submit are:
1. Front of the house.  We have no grass.  Our little bitty patch of front yard is complete dirt, it has a few weeds growing in it. We had a big giant tree ripped out of the front and for some reason, my husband is not too quick about getting the grass growing again. I would plant some grass seeds, but he said something about wanting to till it up some more to get out more of the tree roots. I don't know; it's his project and I believe he's forgotten all about it. The hedges need to be trimmed too. They aren't overgrown, they are just not neat.  The house looks like an abandoned foreclosure the way it is. Luckily, I found an old photo of the front of the house, it looks very nice and really, the house hasn't changed, just the grass.

2. The family.  Oh, Good one! I have a great photo of the four of us taken less than a year ago by a professional! We all look great too!

3.  Living room or Family Room:  Oh boy.  The living room looks cluttered because we have the tv and movies and all of that electronic junk exposed.  Toys on the floor, or in the little basket I keep in the living room for stray toys.  When it gets full, I take it to the toy room and dump it into a toy box; next thing you know, it's full again. Toys are always migrating to the living room.  Blankets, pillows, coffee cups, remotes, box of kleenex, books, etc.  We like to be comfy when we watch TV.  When I get my living room all clean, then you can see the saggy furniture.  We were going to buy a new couch, but decided to wait until the littlest one is completely potty trained.  Why risk it with new furniture?


The Family room looks good. Except for the Christmas decorations that I just realized are still sitting at the very top of the bookcase. What? How did I not see that before?  And we have a  big piece of styrofoam stuck in our fireplace to block out the cold air that shoots down the chimney every night. Gee, that looks lovely in a photo.

Student's bedroom:  Oh, easy, it's clean and pretty!  Oh wait, no it isn't.  I recently decided to clean out the stuffed closet in that room and pulled everything out. Of course I was interrupted a million times; this project is still in progress.  Currently, it looks like the closet exploded. I shoved everything to the side and managed to take a picture of the good half of the bedroom.  They want the picture to include the bedroom window, so it worked out. I need to buy a bed frame for this bed, we had one but when we rearranged the bedrooms, the frame went under a different bed and we ended up with a bed and frame that do not match.  Ooops.

Student's Bathroom:  Heehee, this should be funny.  The student will be sharing a bathroom with the little girls.  I tidied up the bathroom, which was nothing more than picking up the Dora panties and making sure the toilet was flushed.  Otherwise, it looked pretty good.  I left the toys in the tub and the Princess potty seat attached to toilet. I tried to show the floor, sink and countertop and the pretty light fixture, but couldn't get all of it in one picture.  The room is small, it's not like you can back up and get a good shot of the whole thing.

Kitchen:  Oh my stars! Really?  My kitchen is in constant chaos! There are always dishes in the sink, dishes in the drainboard, stuff on the counter, toys on the floor, the mess is in constant motion.  Pick up one thing and another thing is set out.  I don't have enough cupboard space for all of the food and all of the dishes, which leads to a continuous rotation of what's out and what's behind closed cupboard doors.   This is going to take some work to get a nice photo of my kitchen.

Other 1 & 2:  Hmm, I suppose I can submit a photo of the back yard, and then what? The man room would be good because it is full of guitars and drums and computers and such.  Teenagers like that.  How about my clutter filled garage?   The toy room?  oh, I know!  The Stairs!  I think I'll take a pic of the dining room, that should take care of it.  If I do that, I need to clean the wall of mirrors.  Who puts up a wall that is completely a mirror anyway?  That does it, an old picture of the back yard (because it never looks good in the winter when we don't water very much), and the dining room taken at an angle where you can't see into the living room at the saggy old couch in the mirror. No, wait, a picture of Sandy and a picture of the big sisters! That'll be better. Yeah, that's it.

It wasn't this picture, but now I can't find the one I sent in. Hmmm.  Or maybe I can't remember what I sent in, that might be it.

My house is being lived in. The application doesn't specify that the photos are supposed to be showroomific, but I assume they should look like magazine pictures.  I would love to live in a perfectly neat and tidy home all the time, but it just doesn't work like that.

This is really putting me in the mood to declutter and get rid of stuff!  Maybe I'll start with my forgotten Christmas decorations on top of the bookcase. Most of them are gifts given to my husband from his students, dollar store knick-knacks. 

I'm off to clean another room and take a photo worthy of the application!  Which doesn't even matter because our student has already seen a bunch of photos of our family and our house, just not empty rooms like this. Can you tell I'm sort of stressing about these pictures? I'm just rambling!

Oh well, only 3 more months in this house anyway. And then we'll have a bigger house with more room for the kids and furniture and dishes and things. So why am I submitting pictures?

A Three Hour Cruise

My husband took me out for a romantic dinner date last night.  A three hour dinner cruise in the San Diego harbor.  Awesome!!  It was rainy and windy, but that wasn't bothering me any - I was super excited to have a first class romantic date with my husband.  He's more of the "let's order a pizza and watch a dvd" kinda guy.  I'm very comfortable with that laid back home style kind of date, but a dinner cruise! Wow!

For days, I worried about what to wear. What does a frumpy mom wear on a cold rainy harbor cruise? I rummaged around in my closet and decided that my entire wardrobe looks like thrift store rejects. And why do I still have maternity dresses hanging in there? Only one solution: shopping!

My teenage daughter went with me to keep me in control and make sure my selections were appropriate and in style.  It's good to have someone along who is so honest and keeps me out of the frumpy stuff. She steered me to Ross.  Really? Ross? Fine, but then we are going to Macys.  I rarely go to Ross since the store is usually such a mess and the merchandise is dirty and has missing buttons and all, but we were pleasantly surprised with a nicely stocked store, very neat and tidy and the inventory all looked great.  I ended up buying 4 shirts and two dresses for myself.  Ginger and Mrs. Howell took plenty of luggage on their 3 hour cruise, now I can too!

It was way too cold to wear a dress, and I would either have to shave my legs or braid them.  I decided to wear dark jeans and one of my new tops, tossed on a sweater and I was all set.  Except I forgot to buy socks. How is it that I don't have any socks?  I have white socks, and nothing else. My feet are half the length of my husband's feet, but I was desperate so I raided his dark sock drawer.

My husband has two sock drawers. A white sock drawer and a dark sock drawer. Seriously, who needs that many socks?

I rifled through his dress socks looking for something black and shrunken but I couldn't find anything. I grabbed two of his thinner black socks and put them on, folding the extra length under. Hey, cushiony! Nice! The socks don't match, but maybe nobody will notice.  I was wearing my mary-jane style tennie shoes.  I know, romantic footwear, right?   Are mis-matched man socks with tennies frumpy?

We got the girls ready to go, loaded up the van with their pajamas, books, toys, a potty chair and blankets and set off for our romantic evening in San Diego!  Libby brought along her Justin Bieber doll. He wanted to have a fun date too.

Oh great, I just remembered that I forgot the potty in San Diego. 

We went straight to our daughter's house to drop off the girls for their "date".  Our oldest is all grown up now, 22 years old and living in a nice duplex; it's pretty convenient for us! Free babysitting!  My husband had never been to her place. As soon as we walked in, I thought for sure I'd lost him and our night was over.  Because.. like father, like daughter.  She has a "jam room".  The first room you see in her house is a big room full of guitars, drums, piano, tambourines, ukuleles, and who knows what all kind of noise making stuff is in there. My husband was like a little boy in a toy store. Luckily, I pried him away and we were on our way to the docks.

After hitting 20 red lights, Keith pulled into the best parking space! Free parking to boot!  He was pretty excited about that even though he has the best luck with parking everywhere he goes. Since it was raining and windy, an up close free parking spot was especially appreciated!

We met up with our friends right at the dock; nobody was sure if we were boarding the Lord Hornblower or the Inspiration Hornblower. The dinner cruise was aboard the larger boat, the Inspiration. My husband immediately started saying very loudly in a Saturday Night Live sort of way, "Lady and Lord Hornblower". Oh boy, we're in for a silly evening and I thought it was going to be all mushy romance. I should have known! We got our boarding passes and compared them to see if we were all sitting at the same table.  Nope.  Three couples and three different tables: 10, 74 and 112.  Not even within shouting distance of one another!  After we "walked the plank" and boarded the boat, we were given a glass of champagne and the host reassigned us to a table for six.

The ship was nice!  Like an elegant floating restaurant.  Both of our older girls attended prom in 2007on this same ship and they said it was very nice. They weren't kidding!

The cruise was supposed to set sail and float around the San Diego harbor at 7pm and dock again at 10pm.  Shortly after 7:00, the captain's voice came over the loudspeaker and announced that we would not be leaving the dock due to inclement weather.  We all decided they were wimps.  What's a little wind? It was only blowing at 30 mph!  One of the waiters told us it wasn't actually a problem for leaving the dock or cruising on the water, the problem was getting back into the dock. The wind would slam the boat up against the pier and everyone would spill their drinks.  So, we just bobbed while tied to the dock.  A dinner bob.

This is the view out of our tableside window.

The meal started off great!  Yummy rolls and a nice salad. We also ordered an appetizer of spinach and artichoke dip with crackers.  That was delicious! I had a glass of white zin which was also very delicious! The main entree looked nice, but it wasn't the best meal I've ever had.  The steak was tough and the portions were small.  I'm not complaining, but I do think that Chef Gordon Ramsey would have been cussing out the cooks on that dinner. Half of my dinner ended up stuck in my braces, good thing I brought along my travel toothbrush!  I flashed a broccoli grin at the hubby and went off to find the ladies' room..Braces and broccoli are not romantic friends. We were served a chocolate raspberry cheesecake and coffee for desert.

Dinner conversation was anything but romantic! We laughed our heads off mostly. The two couples we were with are also South Dakotans. One couple lives in Southern California like we do and the other couple was from Sioux Falls. They were on vacation, trying to escape the cold South Dakota weather for a weekend - so they came to sunny California and got nothing but rain.  These three boys grew up together and had a good time reminiscing about all sorts of things. They talked about pranks they pulled, driving their big sisters crazy, driving Ford Pintos, cussing in Catholic school, and all sorts of stories were told. The whole time they would interject with comments about how we should set sail.  It was really funny to listen to the boys talking about the old days, how any of them survived to become adults is beyond me.

After desert was served the DJ started to play and he announced that the dance floor was open.  When did we become the old people that sit way in the back drinking coffee and asking each other, "have you ever heard this song before? No? Me niether! Look at 'em all dancing. How do those girls stay up in those shoes? Good Lord that guy's shirt isn't tucked in. Who sings this one? I don't know, do you?"  And then we decided we weren't old, this DJ just didn't know what he was doing!  Yeah, that's it!

The time had come to cruise around the cruise boat. We wandered around to see if we could see more. We were seated on the lower level, so we went up to the second level which was pretty much the same, then up to the top deck which is open so that you can see the stars and all.  We bundled up and put on our heading into a blizzard wind faces and out we went. Holy Cow! It was super windy and freezing cold!  No wonder we didn't set sail! We looked over the railings and saw enough in the minute or two that we were out there.  Back in we went! 

The tourist couple purchased our boarding photo as we left and then we all made a mad dash for our perfectly parked mini-van. We gave our friends a ride to their car which was three blocks away. This was hilarious, as I have three car-seats buckled down tight in the van!  I got one undone and put in the trunk, but it was too cold for everyone to patiently wait for me to remove all of them and they all climbed in.  So, two of us ended up sitting in carseats. What weight limit? Keith drove with the four friends all navigating. Even with four of them telling him where to go, he turned a block too soon and had to make another loop around.  Here we were cruising around downtown San Diego in a mini van full of adults in car-seats!

We saw two people wrestling with inverted umbrellas.  Thought that only happened in comedy movies! I felt sorry for them, but we were all in such a giddy giggling mood that the comedy of it really shined!

We dropped our friends off at their car and went on our merry way to pick up the kids and head home. Turns out that they had a great date with their big sister. She had fun with them too. A great rainy evening out for everyone!

Putting Favors in the Bank

I'm trying to build up my savings account of favors. I'll need to draw on it in May.

My daughter is having her first baby in May and I want to be available to help her as much as she wants me to. Or more!  Her husband is deployed so he won't be there to wait on her every whim; I loved that part!  I've had four babies and I know how it is, mama tires pretty easily and doesn't get much sleep.  Mama needs food and a clean bathroom and the trash needs to get to the curb and the dishes pile up and someone needs to bring in the mail.  Hopefully I can do a lot for my daughter without getting on her nerves too much. We'll see.

I know that I won't be able to bring my little girls to the hospital, or if I can, they'll be bored to death and that's just trouble in the making.  I also know that a newborn does not need a couple of noisy little aunties showing off their latest "cool tricks", teaching the baby how to fly off the top of the couch, nor does a newborn need to listen to very loud toddler operettas.  Because I know so darn much, I'm going to try to plan ahead and get some friends to babysit my little girls so that I can bring my daughter some help, not some chaos.

Lately, I've been babysitting for my friends and offering to do whatever I can for anyone who will return the babysitting favors in May.  Hopefully I can bank enough babysitting time to be a good Grandma in a couple of months.

Toddler Update

When I was pregnant, I got involved in a pregnancy message board for Advanced Maternal Age women - which means old pregnant ladies.  In the pregnancy world, 35 is over the hill.  I "met" some wonderful other old ladies and we've continued our online friendships.  Some of the women have other children and some do not. We're all over the USA. And our babies are all over two years old now and one of the mamas wanted a toddler update from everyone.  Guess we've all been just chit chatting and not really doing full fledged updates in a while, so everyone wrote a long piece about how their babes are doing these days.  It's fun to compare, but at this age, they all vary so much that comparing is starting to become impossible. 

Two year olds come in so many sizes! They are all over the growth charts in height and weight.  Vocabulary is everywhere too. Fine and gross motor skills are developing and again, they're all very different.  So, the updates are really more of a curiosity satisfaction and fun than to compare. 

Here is my contribution to the toddler update thread - figured it would be a good blog post too since it's nice to update my bloggy friends too! 

ok: Toddler Update

Libby is 6 weeks shy of being 2.5 yrs old. I refuse to admit it before it's true. Time is flying so fast!  She is 33" tall and 25lbs, mostly wears 18 mths clothing although I've shrunk some 3T things that fit well enough.  It really depends on the outfit if she'll wear it, not so much the size. If it is a yellow dress, she'll wear it. Too big or too small does not matter!

Libby has the vocabulary of a 5 yr old. She speaks very clearly and blows us away all the time. She also is doing very well with letters and numbers, in fact she's ahead of her big sister. Who says old ladies can't grow smart babies? Ha!  Like you all, I don't send her to preschool - but mostly because she's not headed to kindergarten any time soon so I don't see the point.

I am sending Gracie to preschool because she will be going to K in the fall, and I felt like she needed the preschool boost.  Sending Libby to pre-K at age 4 will depend on if I'm working and need child care.  I do not anticipate working, but you never know. Stranger things have happened.

Libby is still breastfeeding.  Hey! She's a baby! Ok, maybe not anymore but she's still a booby-baby and no matter how many remarks I get about the negative affects of extended nursing, I'm still nursing her.  She's so skinny and she doesn't eat well, so I am ok with giving her the extra nutrition. It comforts her when the garage door scares the pieces out of her and it's just easy.  I stopped going to the breastfeeding support group because I started to feel very unwelcome, isn't it ironic!  I will quit this summer when my husband is home to help relieve me from listening to the screaming and crying that is inevitable. (he's a teacher)

Libby is daytime potty trained.  She's doing great peeing in her potty!  Although she prefers the pink potty chair, she's peeing in the green one and the red one if she has to. White, no way.  Not unless it's one of those public tiny flush toilets. She is only peeing, poop is a whole 'nother story.  She doesn't like to poop in her panties, but she's not doing that in the potty either.  Recently, she decided she just wouldn't poop at all.  After 5 days of retaining, I gave her a laxative and cleaned her out. We are going to start giving her poop presents - time to start bribing her.  By the way, Children's Place panties are the best!

Music: We don't listen to radio, just children's cds.  Seriously, I have to learn how to flip it to radio when I sneak out alone. Libby can sing most of the Disney songs, the alphabet and some nursey rhymes, and most of the Phineas and Ferb songs too.  Yes, she's very over-Disney'd. I'm sure she'll need to address that in therapy someday.

Emily - Good Luck and I hope today is your day!

Polly - I have 4 daughters, one grandson and one grandson on the way. 

Sandra - we must get together again! I will be in San Diego a lot from now till the end of May because my pregnant daughter is alone there. Her husband deployed.

To all of you in the snow - stay warm. Hope the groundhog was right!

Whoever mentioned being a frightened passenger of a permit holder - (I forgot who said that and if I scroll up to look I will distract myself with another post and forget and so it goes...) I know exactly how that feels!  Hang on for dear life with your knuckles turning white, scream, heart stopped, pray for your dear life, and push a hole through the floorboards with your imaginary passenger side break pedal! My advice:  Go ahead and let your teen get the permit, try your best to survive the driving practice, let your teen get the driver's license  - then never let her drive!  Really!  Do not put her on your insurance either, because it is so darn expensive. But, in the event of an emergency or a lottery win, the teen will be licensed and can be added to the insurance. You want the child to be licensed because after three years of having a license, the insurance rate drops significantly.  So, have the license and don't use it - this sets you up for the lower rate in three years and gives the kid some licensed time without any accidents or violations.  Sweet! Of course you will hear some whining and complaining from the licensed teen, grounding her for no reason, ruining her life, etc, eh - whatever, let it roll off. Teens are old enough to resist temptation, make's 'em stronger.  Tell her that teasing is good parenting.

Loved everyone's updates! Look  forward to more.