Curbside Shopping

I'm feeling rich and a little bit clever today. A few weeks ago when I was driving home from the grocery store, I spied our neighbors getting rid of a perfectly good six-person patio table and chairs. We've been garage sale-ing for patio furniture for years, and this stuff looked way better than what we'd seen before. I pulled over just as Ed began tacking up a sign that said, "FREE. Please take."

Um, all right. I will, thank you very much.

I know I shouldn't care so much about getting/having stuff, but this was FREE! And I'm so excited - the set looks brand new. The other two chairs are residing on our screened porch off to the left of the photo. Plus, David and Mom2 bought me the umbrella for my birthday, and he had a chance to put it all together this weekend. So last night after Abigail went to bed, we sat outside, lit some candles, and actually enjoyed being in our backyard. How nice.

Yay for free stuff. And birthdays.

A Little Before and After

The family that bought The Little House has lived here for just over two years now. This is what it looked like the morning we moved in.

And this is what it looks like now:

I'm pretty proud of us.

Since we've owned our home we've redone a bathroom, waterproofed the basement and put in a sump pump, installed an attic fan, replaced every single window, installed central air, replaced the front door, removed some bushes and planted new ones, and pruned the trees. Oh, and of course we repainted every room in the house and tore up old carpet, too. See why. (Does that count as crucial home repair? I think it does.) I just talked with a tree guy today about taking down a tall spindly pine on the east side of the house. (I'd love to plant a dwarf Redbud in that empty spot on the right side of the photo. Someday, maybe.) On Wednesday a contractor friend is coming to price what it will take to replace our second bathroom (that we had to tear out during the waterproofing job) and better heat our partially finished basement - we want a playroom for the Babblegail. I know we won't be able to afford both jobs, but I'm excited about his visit anyway. We will be able to afford the bathroom, and it will be nice to be a two-bath house once again. We had some near-emergency situations during my pregnancy, and I want to avoid that before we start on the next one.

Revenge of the Snow Drops

Last spring, when I was mucho prego, I had a bout of cabin fever and needed to get outside. So I attacked our front gardens, pulling up hundreds of little while snowdrop flowers that had popped up in early March. I literally pulled the bulbs out in fistfuls, making piles and piles of the ugly little flowers. (I hate calling a flower ugly, but really, these were. They have a wussy little white bloom that lasts about 48 hours, and then their short little stems and leaves just droop over, looking like overgrown grass in your garden. I'm sure they look lovely in the woods, but they don't on a suburban lawn.) I was on my hands and knees for hours one day, and posted the next day about how tired I was. But when it was done, and I surveyed the clean beds, I felt so good. Downright victorious.

On Sunday after church as David and I were unloading Abi-girl from the van, he turned and pointed. "Ooh, look! The snowdrops are back!" He sounded happy, but then turned and saw my face. "Wait, you don't like them. Weren't you going to pull them up last spring?"

What the Squirrels Did

Classy, eh? I'm sure our neighbors loved us.

David Thinks They're Cute

David and I are trying to save money these days. Now that we live on one salary, we know we have to be careful with how we spend "extra" money. (I use that term loosely. There is no "extra" right now.) Among other things, that means cutting down our grocery bill drastically. What we've been doing lately is buying as many groceries as possible at Aldi. David's rule is that we have to try everything once and decide if we can live with it, or if spending the extra $1 per item is worth it for the sake of taste. When we have to, we go to SuperTarget to do the rest of the shopping - for meat and produce, that sort of thing.

So far it's working pretty well. It means I have to exercise amazing self-control and pass by the wine and junk food aisles at SuperTarget. (And each time I do, I feel simultaneously triumphant and pathetic.) I've found I do better if I have a chaperone - then I'm held accountable and won't find myself wandering in the home goods or baby clothes sections of the store.

Anyway - with the arrival of fall I have been tempted many times to spend money unnecessarily. Every time we drive by the Wheaton Garden Center I resist the urge to turn in and stock up on hardy mums to decorate the front porch. And while David and I are not carving Jack-O-Lanterns this year (due to a couple bum wrists for me), I did so very much want a pumpkin.

Well, on Sunday when we did our shopping, I saw that pumpkins were only $3.99 at Target. A guilt-free purchase, right? And seeing that we saved about $22 shopping at Aldi that week, like a little kid I begged David, "Can we puh-leeeeze get a pumpkin?" He said yes.

For three days it sat cheerily on our front stoop, a flash of color amidst the brown and graying landscape that is our front yard. Today (Wednesday) David took a sick day to run me to the doctor (to see about my bum wrists - suppose I shouldn't be typing) this morning. When we returned from our errand around 10:30, this is what we found:

Over the course of the day several of our friendly neighborhood squirrels decided to make good on the opportunity.

The challenge is made.

The feast commences.

The word is spread.

By dinner time it was cleaned out. I spent $3.99 to feed a bunch of dirty, brazen rodents.

Score: Squirrels 1, Brittany 0.

Epiphany

There is a difference between tidying and cleaning.

Perhaps you already knew this. Probably I did too, and have just been deluding myself for most of my adult life. I always sort thought - nay - prided myself - that I was someone who liked cleaning, and who kept a clean house.

To my chagrin, I discovered today I do not keep a clean house. I have a tidy house. Tidy is fluffing pillows and picking up David's toys and tossing laundry in the machine. Doing dishes, and when I'm feeling really ambitious, passing a dust cloth over the most obviously dusty pieces of furniture. But see, that's where I was tricked. 30 second dusting jobs are NOT cleaning. Tidying I like. Cleaning I do not.

The grandmother is coming this weekend to see her baby. Today meant extensive dusting, mopping, sweeping, and scrubbing. (Who knew those spots on my kitchen floor could disappear? I thought we just had old linoleum.) The kitchen sink is actually white again. The dust bunnies have been removed from all corners. The rugs are vacuumed. (Again, I just thought they were old...) Heck, I even scooped dead June bugs from my windowsills. All for my mother. Nay, for the Grandmother. For Oma.

I'd like to believe my house was filthy because I have an 11-week old who is sucking up all my attention. (She can grab the butterfly on her play gym and suck her thumb. I am so proud!) But it's not true. I'm just... lazy. I like faking it. Sure, now the house looks great, and I am extremely pleased. Cleaning is delayed gratification. And tidying is all about immediate gratification. Sure, real cleaning = bigger payoff. But tidying is an easy high. And if I keep the lights low, no one knows the difference. Right?

The Grumpies

I got the grumpies yesterday, big time.

First of all, the doctor (as I expected) told me Baby Girl wasn't doing much - and that I would probably be back to see him on July 1st. He said at that time they would do a non-stress test, checking the baby's heart rate and amount of space & fluid inside me (through a fetal monitor and ultrasound - nothing invasive). Apparently Baby Girl needs to still be swimming comfortably, or they get worried. Then they would decide if/when to induce me. My 41 week mark will be July 5th - and I assume the induction, if it has to happen, would be sometime in my 42nd week.

I don't really want to be induced. The 5 or 6 of you who actually read my blog, please pray that she decides to come before then. My actual due date is this Sunday. :)

After the appointment, I came home and found out that our neighbors have officially begun building the fence around their backyard. We live in such a tiny house, the fence feels very close - I'm not even sure we have the space to run a lawnmower along our side yard. I'm not worried the fence will be ugly - the couple next door has good taste. But I do feel a bit insulted. I know our backyard is ugly, but is it really so terrible to look at? I feel like we're being shut out.

Then I began to make banana bread (another goody for the freezer). Long story short, our oven is not heating. It lights up, and it tries... but gets nowhere. It's got to be 15 years old, so I guess I'm not surprised that it crashed. But now I need to know - who do I call about the oven?

Laundry Issues

When I went to visit my sister over her birthday weekend, she told our family a hilarious story about hot water in the toilet. Basically, when some plumbing work was done on the house, somehow some pipes were switched, and the toilet was hooked up to the hot water pipes. Consequently, every time she or N had to use the facilities, it was quite comfortable. (No chilly toilet seat in winter, right?) Only, for whatever reason, it took them a while to notice the mistake. I believe the toilet might have been steaming one day - and it tipped them off.

Well, we don't have a steamy toilet bowl, but we do have some laundry issues. I did three loads of laundry yesterday. The first was a dark load, so I set it to cold. When I went down to the basement a half hour later to load the laundry into the dryer, I noticed all the clothes felt warm. (Usually I forget about the laundry and everything turns cold and clammy - moving the wet clothes to the dryer is an unpleasant experience - kinda like accidentally stepping in a small puddle on the bathroom floor when you've just put on clean socks.) "That's funny," I thought. I checked the washer. It was indeed set to cold, and our display says, "Cold Rinse". So we should have been good.

I shrugged, started loading whites into the machine, and went to set the washer to hot. This time I decided to test things and stuck my hand in the flow. The water was (you can guess) anything but. So I clicked it over to cold - and the stream immediately heated up to the correct temperature.

This wouldn't really bother me (I mean, it's easy enough to reverse washing instructions) except that I have no control over the rinse cycle - it is ALWAYS going to be hot - and my brand new supply of Fuzzibunz cloth diapers very clearly state they must be pre-rinsed, and then rinsed after washing in COLD.

PS I am aware of how long it has been since we had our basement plumbing work done. Why am I just noticing this now?

Those Neighbors

Who knew that "Thou shall not covet" could take such trivial forms? I swear, in the past two years of my life, between meeting the man I love, getting married, and buying a home, I have learned more about my imperfect, sinful self than I ever cared to know. Today, I am coveting a pretty lawn. And I am not a gardener.

I'd like to think maybe some day I could be, but things aren't looking good. In part, I think it's Chicago's fault. Remember those impatiens and geraniums? I'm so frustrated with them. (It's not their fault, I know.) They looked so pretty and hopeful when they were first planted. Teeny little purple and white flowers, rooted in pretty black soil, turned up toward the sun. I had great hopes.

That was a month ago.

Spring has been rainy, cool and cloudy. Overall, sort of depressing. And when it rains, it lasts at least 24 hours, if not more. It's never a pretty, summery shower. It's always a drenching. And afterwards, my poor little impatiens look pathetic. They've lost leaves and petals, and are usually buried in evergreen needles, fallen twigs, and leaves. And

What does grow is the clover. And the dandelions. Being this far along in pregnancy, I just can't get down on hands and knees to do anything to fix the mess. I mean, I could, but I'd never get up again. And besides all that, D and I just don't have the money to go out and buy mulch, or more plants, or whatever, to landscape. Money is going towards baby, and she's not even here yet!

And I guess, to be honest, what's adding to my discontentment is our neighbors. (Not our neighbors themselves, they are lovely people.) We live on a street whose hobby is home repair. Every day you can see someone doing something to their house. Planting, painting, renovating... you name it. Our next door neighbors have an adorable little house. Today they were both home - working on the backyard. They have plans to lay down a patio, some new landscaping, and to put up a 6-foot fence. (They somehow know how to do all this stuff.)

When I saw them out back, images of the clover in the front yard flickered through my mind. I was suddenly struck with an overwhelming urge to lay down and take a nap.

So I did.

Squirrels

David and I are trying our hand at survival landscaping this spring. Our yard looks like junk. Our trees need to be trimmed, our lawn treated and weeded, and our flowerbeds redone. I’d love to rip out the bushes in front of our house and plant small flowering trees. I’d love to mulch and put in a new walk to the front door. I’d love to bury the sump pump hose that sticks out from behind the little evergreen tree in front of our picture window, so that it’s not sitting in the middle of my garden, spilling rainwater out onto our driveway. But we can’t afford (and don’t have time for) any of that right now. Hence the “survival landscaping” mode. I weed, I rake, and I try to clean things up and plant little things here and there to at least brighten the site. And it pays off. Today D walked off with BOTH sets of car keys, and so a coworker had to pick me up. When she came to the front door, she told me the house was looking really good. Score. Yay for small victories.

That said, I have to tell this story. Backtracking just a bit.

After my morning shower I wandered out into the living room to open the curtains and let the morning sun into our chilly living room. I looked down at our newly planted geraniums and impatiens, feeling rather pleased with myself, and noticed not one, but four squirrels playing by our front door. Now, we have a lot of squirrels in our neighborhood, but four on our front stoop is rather much. I watched them for a minute, and saw them scamper through our little garden in front of the picture window. “Are they eating my flowers?” I gasped, seething a bit inside. I watched some more. The four of them scampered up the branches of that tiny evergreen tree, rocking the little thing back and forth with all their antics. “What is going on?” I wondered. I kept eyeing them, waiting for one to chomp on a flower.

But then they ran down the tree. I felt a modicum of relief. One squirrel, a chunky black one, took off and hid under my car. Another squirrel, a brown one, paused on the sidewalk. But, to my horror, the other two squirrels went racing up the thick black sump pump hose, rocking and rolling around inside it. Up and down they ran, enjoying their own personal playground. And then it hit me…

Can a normal sized squirrel squeeze into a 2-inch PVC pipe?

I really don’t want to be calling the plumber to remove drowned squirrels from our sump pump.

Gardening

I am sitting on the couch with my Fred Flintstone feet propped up in front of me. As I type, D is practicing Jill. Over and over again.

I hurt. A lot.

Not because of D and his song, but because I accidentally worked out yesterday. (Which reminds me just now that I had a dream last night about jogging, and I woke rather concerned that I had exerted such energy, albeit in an unconscious state. Perhaps in my moments of drowsiness, I thought I might accidentally do something similar while awake. Who knows. Anyway... that is not why I am writing this post.)

I did accidentally work out on Sunday. See, this past weekend D and I went to St. Louis to celebrate my sister's birthday. My grandmother actually hatched the plan, convincing my mother, aunt, and uncle to join her in surprising my sister. We showed up on her doorstep on Saturday morning armed with presents, but unfortunately, no birthday cake. She seemed surprised and happy to see us. After a day of relaxing, eating LOTS of yummy food, and playing with her new puppy, Mia (not a birthday present), D and I returned home.

The weather on Sunday was gorgeous - sunny and in the 60s. As soon as we stepped foot on our lawn, I was itching to do some work outside. Long story short, I convinced David to NOT go play Frisbee with Scott and Joel (I'm such a cruel wife), but to stay with me and mow the lawn while I did some gardening in the front. I'd been anxious for weeks to get out and clean up the gardens in the front, but I'd been either A. thwarted by the weather, or B. stalled by the fear of working alone... that I would, in my preggo state, get down on hands and knees and not be able to get back up again. And I'd be stuck there until evening, when Vid returned from wherever he was. Or that I would faint in one of my low-blood-pressure-or-low-blood-sugar-no-one-really-knows-why-I-black-out moments. But man, today was the day.

See, sometime in February, one million little snowdrops sprouted in our garden. They were sort of pretty for about a week. I mean, who doesn't like to see growing things in the winter in Illinois? But the thing is... they had populated the available soil in a really odd way. One side was practically carpeted with the tiny flowers, and the other side was sparse. Some places there was just one bloom, and other places a whole big bunch grew together. And then all the tiny little blooms wilted and died in about a week... leaving us with what looked like a garden full of crab grass. And, while I like flowers a lot and feel guilty at the thought of ripping perfectly healthy growing things out of the ground, they had to go.

So that's what I did. I dug up one million billion gajillion little tiny snowdrop bulbs. I left the crocuses and the tulips alone. And our garden looks much better - much cleaner. (And now I want to go buy different flowers to add a bit of color to the front of the house. Ironic, right? A waste of money? Remember people... they looked like crab grass...) The job took about three hours. I was on my knees or my bum the entire time.

And by noon today, my body was on fire. I hurt from the waist down. Even the palms of my hands hurt (I assume from gripping the spade?) and my fingers ache.

I'd love a glass of wine. And maybe a soak in a hot tub. Alas, alack.

Decisions, Decisions

We have a dusty house. I'm feeling good and productive this morning because I got up and straightened the house - but as I look around, I can see the dust everywhere. And frankly, after straightening, doing dishes and folding laundry, the last thing I want to do it pull out a dust rag and a vacuum. I can't keep up with our crumbly old house. Some days I might want to, but not today.

It's a gorgeous day. It feels like summer. It's in the upper 70s and humid, and between bursts of steamy sunshine, little rain showers and thunderstorms are passing over us. I'm sitting in a tank top and flip flops, wondering just what to do with myself today. David is in Chicago with Steve, getting into trouble... er... looking at guitars. So I've got the day to myself. I need to go to the grocery store (and I really ought to go to Target, but I'm not sure I want to), and I'd like to go over to Geneva to wander through a shoe store. But I sat down at my desk to make the grocery list, and then suddenly discovered myself perusing www.estatesales.net. And I found out there's an estate sale in a town about 5 minutes from here, and another one about two minutes from here. So now what do I do? Ought I be responsible, or do I give in to temptation? Estate sale shopping by yourself is not as fun, but...

Ta-dah!

For those of you who actually KNOW how to do home improvement projects, or maybe really just love plumbing disasters, here's what we spent all our money on:

Thrilling, no? Sorry the pics are leaning to one side... so is our basement. And me, with 21 lbs of baby weight on me, I might occasionally list to one side, too.

It's funny. D and I are really pleased this project is done, but it's sort of anticlimactic. I mean, it's not a project you drag your friends to your house to see. "Look at our new pipes! Look at that concrete! Isn't is great?" I assume that when we get our first whopper storm and our basement stays dry that we will send up shouts of praise to the good Lord above. But right now... it's just kind of... there. After weeks and weeks of the wettest weather ever, we've had tons of sun and dry weather. Which means I'm still fervently praying, "Lord, please keep our basement dry. Please show us that this project accomplished what it was supposed to."

The basement bathroom looks exactly the same as before. We've got some work to do there.

Speaking of, it's sort of sad how often David and I utter those words. I never thought our cute little house would offer us so many problems. I calculated how much money we've spent in home repair (exterminator for the carpenter ants, central AC, new windows, new front door, insulation in the attic, attic fan, redecorated bathroom, overhead sewer, new sump pump) in the 10 months we've been here. Let's just say we could have been paying off a LOT of our mortgage with that cash.

But those problems existed, so thank goodness the Lord provided the money to pay for it all. I am grateful. No more house stories for a while, I promise.

On another note entirely, Baby Girl Yeager appears to be training for the Olympics while she passes time in the womb. I'm midway though week 28 and getting bigger every day. It's really fun to feel her move about - it makes me wonder what the little person inside me is like. More on her later.

Basement Pictures Day 2 and 3

I came home and saw this on our kitchen wall, in the alcove leading out to the backyard/basement. David had warned me they needed "access" to some pipes in order to "vent our downstairs bathroom". I didn't really know what that meant. These holes are bigger than my palm. After seeing those, I almost didn't go downstairs... But I did.

This is the sight that greeted me at the bottom of the steps. A quick turn to my right revealed our laundry room, which now looks like this:

That's the sump pump (I think) to stop the groundwater seepage.

This is the overhead sewer (to stop the storm water). Note the cutout rectangle in the drywall behind the pipework. That is our bathroom.

Or, rather, that was our bathroom.

I am trying very hard not to hyperventilate. I am still praying all this works.

And I am praying the plumbers will clean up after themselves.

Pics of the basement!

Hi all. Sorry I haven't posted. Internet at home is on the fritz. Here are some shots from Day One:

These two show the laundry room, where the majority of the work is being done. It was originally unfinished... but to see this is a little unnerving.

You can see here they've dug a trench (in which pipes will go to reroute storm water seepage)... The trench goes ALL the way around the basement.

This last picture shows the sump pump wells. Hard to imagine pits that deep are being dug below our home!!!

Using Panera's free Wi-Fi. Gotta run or I'll be late for work!!!

The Prep Work

(Warning to Oma:
no comments about me writing a downer post, okay? I figure this is important.)


And so it begins. Last night David started hauling stuff up from the basement so that we (or rather, our plumbers) can start work on Monday morning. This is what things looked like after about two hours of work. There's still a ton of stuff down there. If I can, I'll take some before pictures, so you can see what's going on. We - or rather, D and some friends - have to take everything out. It all goes. And then shelves are coming down, tile is coming up, and we lose our 2nd bathroom. While they're at it, moldy mildewy drywall is coming down, too. We're basically taking our (partially) finished basement, gutting it... and hopefully, starting from scratch.

Please, please pray for us. First, pray that this project actually resolves our problem. I'd love to never see another damp spot in our basement - but I suppose I could still be content if said puddles only appear near our sump pump well once in a great while (like, say, when a monsoon hits Wheaton). Please also pray for us. Stress levels are high. I want to be focusing on Baby Girl and celebrating her coming, and D would like to be focusing on finishing the album and getting it out. But the house... THE HOUSE... is taking over. Pray that we would stay patient, and work together on all these things as much as possible.

Again, thank goodness the Lord has provided for us financially in this. And thank goodness it hasn't rained in a week.

I'm going to be late for work if I don't go now.