Word to the Wise

 Morning. Today I will bestow my words o' wisdom upon you. Two simple pieces of advice that are guaranteed to make your life easier. The suspense is killing you. I know. Here goes. My two revelations:

{1} Always call the police when you think someone is breaking into your home 

{2} Pick your battles when it comes to dealing with the wee ones

The sheer brilliance of these revelations is mind boggling.  For those of you who have ever doubted my smartness - I forgive you.  This gal is genius.

Okay, let's begin with addressing #1.  Last Thursday night at about 9:30pm I was laying in bed {totes miserable because I have strep again}pinning my life away. I hear a ton of noise outside. Banging, rustling and then finally a huge crash. Seriously? Get out of bed, look out the window. Nothing. Move the plastic curtain that divides my room from new addition.  Walk around. Stub my toe. Nothing.  Walk downstairs. Look around.  Nothing.  Get back in bed.  Rustling, banging, rustling banging.  WTF.  Are you serious?  Go to window.  Yell out: Hello. Hello.  Just go away.  I don't want to deal with this tonight.  Please leave.  Noise continues. Perched from my ivory tower I continue yelling:  ya know what,  I dare you to mess with me.  I dare you to mess with me tonight.  I'm not in the mood.  Then I ducked because my neighbor's light when on. Oops.  Sorry Henry.

Grab the cordless. Call Pete at work and proceed to tell him that someone is breaking into the house and that I don't have the time or the patience to deal with this.  Pete responds:  what?  Are you in danger? Where are the kids? Call the police. My response:  you are the police.  I need to go.  I'll handle this.  Pete: I'm coming home.  Me: whatever.  Then I got in bed and fell asleep. 

Thursday night the wind was crazy.  Apparently all the noise I heard was the plastic blowing around outside and the ladder that was up against the side of the house falling into the port-a-potty in the backyard.  Yup.  Be jealous.  Yes, be jealous of my port-a-potty and my craziness. 

Moral of the story.  Be safe.  Call the police. {or be a badass and summon the imaginary intruders to a duel}

Moving on to #2.  If your children want to swing naked at the park.  Let them.  It could be worse.

Word up - thanks for letting me enrich your life with my peals of wisdom. xox

Busted

Hey.  So it's been over two weeks since I've been on FB.  I am a free woman.  Liberated.  That's all I have to say about that.

Onward.

The reno is moving along swimmingly.  I'm still in love with my contractor and his crew. Whoot.

Let's get down to biz.  It's sTORRE time folks.

The bathroom vanity was delivered to my house today.  A.MAZ.ING.  The smooth curved edges of the gleaming white marble... aaaahhhh.  I was in my glory. I scored a double vanity for $1200.  Apparently in the world of bathroom vanities this is incredibly cheap.  Lest I remind you I am a teacher and my hubby a police officer.  You do the math.  We are not rich although I think I would be pretty damn good at it if we were.  I think $1200 for a vanity that I'm just gonna spit my toothpaste in is a lot of money.

So as I'm standing in the garage staring at my gorg vanity Bob the plumber walks in.  His words - oh wow.  That vanity is a mess. You're going to have to send it back.  Apparently while  basking in my fabulousness I failed to noticed that the two porcelain sinks had come detached from the marble counter top and smashed into the shelf below.  Two broken sinks.  One broken shelf.  Thanks Bob.  You are observant. I am not.

WTF.  Are you serious. I now have a 320 pound BUSTED vanity taking up my entire garage.  The big guy is gonna love coming home to that monstrosity of a mess. Honestly, I'm so over trying to save money.  Clearly, I'm horrible at it. Every time I try to save or take a shortcut it ends up costing me the big guy even more money. I tried. I failed.  I quit.

Tomorrow I start over. Equipped with big Pete's BOA card I will purchase a bathroom vanity that will likely BUST our budget.  Stay tuned.

PS- I'm not posting any pics of this o' so lovely project.   I plan on hosting a party of epic proportions to show off our new digs at the end of the summah.  Considering yourself lucky if you get an invite. He haw. xox

Shout Out

I love to write.  Sadly, my words won't do justice when trying to describe how much I ADORE my contractor and his crew. Thus far, adding a two story addition onto my home has been the least stressful thing going on in my life. I'm unphased. No joke. In fact, I love the company. What I love even more is the sound of M yelling to the crew while perched at the window. 

Hey guys. What you doing? Too loud.  All done. All better.  Hey Mark. Hi!  Hello. What you doing? Loud.  Mama it's loud. Oh, all done.  House.  House for me and Nick.  Maia and Nick house.  Hey guys.  What you doing guys? I help. Me help.  Hi! Hello guys. All done.  I build Maia house. 

OMG. I die. Can you even handle it?  

Anyway, M left the crew a little note yesterday along with a bucket o' treats including Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and Nutter Butters. Yes, I'm licking my lips.

Apparently the "guys" aren't fond of peanut butter crackers.  Good to know.  I'll keep this in mind when preparing future buckets. 

How cute is it that they wrote back to her? Adorbs.  xox

and so it begins...

Monday marked the first day of construction at our home.  I should be much more excited but I'm not at the moment. I refresh the Boston.com page about 100 times a day waiting for new stories or photos of the Marathon.  Debbie Downer today. Ugh, sorry.

In an effort to lift my spirits {and hopefully give you a chuckle} I'll write about what I am thankful for.

Today, I'm thankful for makeshift, ghetto fencing. Part of our wood fence had to be removed in order to get the excavator into the backyard.  In an effort to keep our pal Brody from escaping our contractor erected {great word} the most ghetto of all fences. Seriously, between the mud, fencing, and plastic toys in my yard it looks like a scene from Dukes of Hazard.

Apparently I failed to inform our contractor of Brody's penchant for eating through screens and fences.  After all, my furry lil' fella did eat through a screen at our last home, jump out the window and was spotted roaming the streets of Salem by a neighbor that recognized his shaggy stride.  Brody is a special dog - special in the sense that he would ride the short bus if one existed for pooches.

I digress. Back to the fence.  Brody can easily eat through, tear apart or jump over our new makeshift flimsy fence.  I did not say any of this to the contractor when he asked if the fence was okay for the Bro.  I smiled and told him it was just perfect.  I lie.  I'm on the fast track to hell my friends. I would be thrilled if he scaled the fence and ran down route 128 and ended up at my parents house.  They need a dog.  I can provide them with one.  It's the prefect scenario.  But instead, Brody will jump over the fence and then go sit on the front step and bark until someone lets him in.  The dog simply won't runaway.  So, I am thankful - not that he won't runaway but that I am making it a tad easier for him to do so. Perhaps he'll come to his senses sooner rather than later and opt for 128 instead of my front stoop...

Stay tuned folks.  We've got a long road ahead of us and lucky for you you're coming along for the ride. xox