The Lazy Blogger

On Monday April 8th, I thought my husband had come home for toddler breath's speech therapy session. Instead, he immediately took me aside to tell me he had bad news. My mother had just found my father, still in bed and she thought he was dead. He called back and it was confirmed, my father was gone. He'd been dead for hours by the time my mother found him. There was nothing anyone could have done for him. We didn't have an autopsy, there seemed no point. But the most likely cause of death was a massive heart attack. It happened in his sleep. The Medical Examiner assured me it was fast and that it is unlikely he suffered. He looked peaceful, but very very dead.

My father was 65. He was going to be 66 in about a month. He had heart disease, quadruple bypass in 1997. He had adult onset diabetes, which he was not doing a good job of controlling, but nothing had seemed immediately wrong with him. Maybe he was slowing down, he was getting fatter, grayer and had less hair, but I though... I thought we had at least until he was 70.. 75... 80.... But now he is gone.

On Wednesday, I wrote my father's eulogy and attended his funeral. I then helped to bury my father.

I'm now sitting shivah for him and hoping he knew how much I loved him, how much my sister loved him, how much my brother loved him, how much my husband and daughter loved him. That he knew how much his mother loved him and his younger sister. That he was glad I made so many phone calls to make sure lots of people came to his funeral and made sure he got an obituary in the local paper and applied for one in the New York Times.

I hope he is at peace now and is happy, and if there is something after we die, that I am able to see him again.

Please be sure to appreciate your loved ones.

My parents were just informed by Con-Ed (their power company) today that their electric won't be back anywhere from 1 week to 1 month from now. Yes, you read that right, 1 MONTH. The problem with electric being out is your boiler won't work, which means not only no power but no heat, and then you need to worry about your pipes freezing, it is not a happy thing. Mom said the house is down to 45 now. To be honest, Mom of course has not been staying in the house much but has been staying with me. My Dad finally abandoned the house on Saturday and is staying with his sister. The cats have fur coats and will be OK. I'm glad I can help my Mom out, but if it seriously might be a month this leaves us with a lot to think about because well a month is a looooooong time and I live about 1 hour from my mom's office. The only way to get there is by car since our nearest train doesn't connect to their train line. To make things more fun, we're moving in 2 weeks! Now we're not moving far, our new house is only about 3 miles from our current place, but we still need to get things together.

So for me, I wanted a list so I can help sort through everything..

( To do lists, no need to click unless you are curious )

Guess who has an accepted offer on a house!!!!!!!! We're hoping to do the inspection on Friday and contracts ASAP! Closing is currently planned for November though we probably won't be out of here until December.

So after going back and forth with the sellers for more than a week, being patient when they wanted all week end to think about our last offer, THEY DECIDED TO TAKE THEIR FUCKING HOUSE OFF THE MARKET Just to make things clear, THEY LISTED THEIR HOUSE FOR SALE FUCKING OCTOBER 2011, SO FOR SOME FUCKING REASON THEY DIDN'T RECONSIDER SELLING THEIR DAMN HOUSE UNTIL WE ARE FUCKING NEGOTIATING FOR IT. I'm so pissed off and angry and now I need to find a house because I am sick of my townhome. I want a garden, that is why we came up here and I am not allowed to grow anything up here. I can't have a fucking sukkah because the people are assholes, and I just want a fucking house already. UGH!

*waves*

So let's see a few fast update while the toddler sleeps:

I've gained back 10 lbs from last summer via operation get teh toddler to gain weight. (except she hasn't gained weight, just me. ~.~) This would not be so bad, except ideally I would want to weigh 30lbs less than I do, vs before it was only 20 lbs less. *sighs*

We've still not found a house. Every so often I see a house with potential, but I'm still looking for "the one" I'm so ready to move though. This place is so cramped when it rains. I've done my best to maximize space... I really ought to share some pictures, at least of the downstairs, but I want more room, and the ability to leave crap outside without getting into trouble.

We have gotten a new car. About 2 weeks ago, following the Saturn making lots of wonky noises, the catalytic converter went. The car was worth maybe $600-900 tops. We'd just spent $1100 on it literally the week before. Paying another $600 to fix it just seemed ridiculous since the car is 15 years old. Fortunately, this is a good time of year to buy a car. I've not bought a car in 15 years, and this time, the car was really going to be more my car then Hubby's. And os of course I debated and hemmed and hawed and attempted to figure out which car would be best. We started with quite a long list: The Honda Fit, The Honda Civic, The Toyota Corolla, The Subaru Impreza, The Ford Focus, and the Chevy Genesis. If you're wonder why no hybrids, those were out of our price range. We really wanted to keep the car as close to 20k as possible. Slowly the list got whittled down to the Impreza vs the Civic. And in the end, we went with the Civic. So far, I'm loving my new car. It's so shiny and we averaged 37 miles per gallon on our first tank of gas.

I have a toddler. She loves climbing and playing with her toys. She now actually plays with toys. It's fascinating to watch her.

I am a sad sad sad sad person. I have come to realize that when I grow up, I think my new goal is to be one of the girls in Girl's Generation. They're just so cute and that is how I want to look... except I am old and plump and pushed a baby out of me about a year ago... *bitterness* OK pushing a baby out was sort of awesome truth to be told If anyone knows where I can find their sadly addicting songs as mp3s in either Japanese or Korean I would be most appreciative. I'm not picky. Adina is also a huge fan, though her taste is somewhat suspect because she likes the Rebecca Black song.

So, for those who haven't heard, I'm selling lots of my anime crap. I have too much and with the baby now, it's mostly sitting in boxes taking up space and making me feel claustrophobic. There is enough of it that I need to go through it in stages so, first the Catchers. I figured I would post them here first before hitting on other LJ comms to see if anyone here wanted any... I should note now, I have some for series I've never watched and even series I hate, so what I have might surprise you. All are Japanese releases and most were bought in Japan.

( HOLY CRAP! I had no idea you had so many Catchers?!? )

Thank you everyone for your condolence wishes. I can't tell you how hard it is to have Cookie gone. She was more than just a cat to me and I just can't seem to stop crying no matter how much I try to move on. I've already tried to clean out the kitchen and rearrange it and have cleaned out and given away the measuring cup she use to drink from and the bowls she ate from. Someday, I might get another cat but they can get new things, like actual bowls meant for cats rather than bowls bought from Ikea which our Vet claimed were awful for cats.

( Cookie, the only good thing about Texas, in which I also share how ancient I am )

Happy Mother's Day to all the other Mothers out there! I feel like I appreciate my mother anew knowing all the things a mother should be doing when you're little. In the past almost 7 months I've: been puked on, pooped on, piddled on, had my nipples bit, received scratch marks on my face, have my hair pulled, and been blessed with seeing the most beautiful happy smile on my daughter's tiny face when she sees me. Being a mother is a lot of work, and it's a job that never goes away. But despite the downs, I wouldn't trade anything for the last 7 months with my baby.

Yesterday was lovely weather and we went to a nearby farm to buy local fresh greens. The spinach was amazing and I got to hold a kitten and a chick! (though not at the same time.) I've held kittens before, but I've never held a chick before. I can't wait to go back, and now that I know how to get there it's so close!!!

Today I'm hoping to go to the The Ice Cream Place aka Ferris Acres. It's a dairy farm not so far from here with a ton of flavors of ice cream and COWS! (and deer, but you see those a lot up here and they don't technically own the deer.) The prices are lower than at say Coldstone and I think the ice cream is better. I wonder what the special flavors will be....

For those who haven't heard, I've become addicted to HGTV. It has inspired me to really think about the furniture I own and whether things are worth it. I love a lovely formal dinning room table set I bought at an amazing price from an Ethan Allen warehouse sale in 2000. It served us very well in our old house with its formal dinning room, but is not working so well in the townhome. (If K has his way, our next place is not going to be so big, it will just have a lot more land.) It's 72 inches long and 44 inches wide and extremely formal. We don't have dinner parties, and in the future any parties we have will likely have small children under foot. So I went to Raymour and Flannigan since they are nearby to see what they had on offer. The sales lady did not seem to get that no, I don't want a table that is 70+ inches long and 44 inches wide. I don't just want something less formal, I want a smaller table! I want to be able to fit a hutch in that room. *sighs*

Passover cleaning sucks. Passover sucks. For those wondering I've been busy with both now along with the baby. You would not think these things could occupy whole days and leave you exhausted and you would be wrong. On the bright side, this is probably the cleanest and nicest our townhome has looked since we rented it. I have our bedroom clean (and in need of vacuuming if Adina ever lets me in) and the kitchen, living room and dinning room done. I hope to try to keep them all mangeable in the future, as we get closer to the big day when Adina can move on her own. She can't do it yet really, so it's wonderful leaving her on her back to go and pee since I know exactly where she will be when I get out. I know this luxury will end soon. I also need to childproof. The guest room is still a disaster since it is piled high with boxes of crap we do not want. Speaking of which expect to see the start of sales in the near future. It's going to either be UFO Catchers or BPAL and then doujinshi and anime items. I really just have too much. I have too much and most of it sits in boxes since I do not have time for it.

I'm starting to scope out some new furniture. For adults in their late 30's we own surprisingly little. We never even had all that much in the old house and we got rid of some of the Ikea things. We have: our lovely Ethan Allen Dinning Room table, a barrister bookcase we got from my parents which is lovely, but as an antique has knobs that fall off to be a choking hazard, yeah! our Pottery Barn couch, an Ethan Allen TV stand/media cabinet, Ethan Allen coffee table, antique chest of drawers which none of the drawers work, An "eco" changing table, 2 cheap collapsible Barnes and Nobles bookcases on loan from my Mom, Some ugly wicker storage thing on loan from my Mom which she got when someone tossed it out, the piano, an antique end table which is pretty but huge, our Ethan Allen bed, the antique nightstand I like but needs to be refinished, my glider rocking chair for feeding the baby, the hideously ugly plastic drawers I am using as a nightstand from Target, Adina's super fancy crib, an old Ikea chest of drawers circa 1995, an old Ikea full size bed circa 1995 and its matching nightstand, Adina's beautiful double chest of drawers, and our bookcase-file cabinet combo thing.

Other than things for Adina, we've not bought any furniture in close to 10 years... maybe more. And the problem is our kitchen is not well designed (the space would be great if it was well designed and if we owned I would spend the money but this is a rental) so we have no room for anything and the dinning room can't hold more furniture cause we have a beautiful formal dinning room table. So I am thinking of getting either a Jelly Cabinet, a Pie Safe or a small hutch from Crate and Barrel. I'm also lusting for a new nightstand for me, a bench for the entry way for help putting on shoes and hiding out shoes, and some more bookcases. Wall space is a premium though so trying to find ones that fit is awful. We had lovely built-ins in the last place and now most of our books have sat in boxes for the better part of a year. Eventually I'd love a place to sew and craft but I think that is waiting until we get a house and I can take over a room.

In other annoying news, I wanted to take my two Pocket Fairies (Emeline and Anne) to my parent's but I am not seeing them. Does this mean I left them at home or did I drop them when locking the door last night? ARGH! I want to know where my dollies are.

Yesterday while the baby was napping and I was about 15 minutes into pumping someone wrung the bell. I was annoyed because I thought it might wake Adina and I couldn't easily get the door. I peeked out the window and saw some guy on my steps and no delivery truck so I decided to just let it go. I happened to peek out my window when I finished pumping and there was that guy again and this time with the police! I immediately started wondering if somehow my townhome was on fire and I didn't know it or some other awful thing because police in front of my townhome! I threw my shirt closed and opened the door, the police car was gone but the guy and another guy were a few townhomes down. I asked what happened...

One of my neighbors had reported them for seeking solicitations without permission of the complex and the police had shown up to ask them to leave. The police up here have time to show up to ask people soliciting in a townhome complex to leave... the police have time to do this within about 20 minutes of a complaint of solicitors...

This is so not a suburb of NYC anymore.