My First And Hopefully Last Bra Fitting

*TMI ALERT!  MEN: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.*

Bra fitting.  This term sends a chill down my spine.  My goal in life if for as few people as possible to see my breasts.  I was never very comfortable with them to begin with and considered them a nuisance because I was really into gymnastics.  I felt like they would maybe have a mind of their own while I turned backflips.

While my friends were wearing training bras, eagerly anticipating growing breasts, I hoped the arrival of my bosoms would be delayed.  Then one day I looked in the mirror and groaned to my mom, “I think I might need a bra ……”

Of course, this brought necessary, but unwanted attention to my chest and she squealed, “You do need a bra!  Let’s go shopping tonight!”  I said, “OK, but I am NOT getting anything with bows or lace!  And don’t tell Dad!”  I didn’t want my dad knowing anything about my bodily changes.

My mom showed me the art of putting on a bra.  You attach the hook and eyes, turn it around, and then put your arms through the straps.  I thought we were done until my mom suggested I bend forward and give them a good jiggle so they would settle into the cups.  I didn’t know there were such strategies to making it fit right.

A few years later, I learned the hell that is wearing an underwire bra.  I managed my bra shopping just fine for years after that until I had my first son and things changed.  Ugh.  More bra shopping!  Which kind of nursing bra to get?  Just how big would they be when my milk came in?

I just gave it my best guess and probably wore the wrong size for a year.  I didn’t care.  I was just in survival mode anyway.  When you’re done breastfeeding, things don’t just go back to the way they were.  I would hear reports that most women wear the wrong size bra and we would really benefit from a professional fitting.

This doesn’t mean you have someone look at you in a bra you already put on and tell you yes or no.  This means measurements under and around your bust.  I vowed I would never put myself through such an ordeal.  Hadn’t I suffered enough with everything I had to go through as a woman?

Because mine were all pretty trashed and not many stores carry my size, I went to Nordstrom.  Somehow I would fend off the lady with the tape measure.  I would grab a variety of sizes, go to the dressing room, and try them on until I had a decent fit.  As soon as I entered the vicinity though, a young woman asked if I needed any help.  I said, “Uhhhhhh …… I’m looking for a bra.”

“Would you like to be fitted?”

“No.  Will that involve me getting naked?”

“Only mostly naked.” she grinned.

She was a voluptuous lady like me and I knew she would understand, so I decided it might be my one chance to be measured by someone who isn’t a size 4.  We went into the dressing room and she asked me to remove my shirt.  I thought, “Yeah, I really had no plans to take my top off for anyone today.”  I had even gone to the doctor for a sinus infection and bronchitis, but there was no need to disrobe.  I hate going to the doctor, so I decided I might as well get my other hated activities out of the way – shoe and bra shopping.  Am I still a woman because I hate shopping for shoes?

Anyway, with my bra still on, she went to measure me around my rib cage while I sucked in my striped gut the best I could.  I thought I had reached maximum embarrassment until she had to stare at them to estimate the cup size, brought in a few options, put them on me, and then told me to reach into each cup and lift my breasts.  At that point, she wanted her supervisor to come in and confirm that it was the correct size.  Of course, her supervisor was way skinny, young, beautiful, and probably didn’t have any children.

Ultimate humiliation achieved.

And now my doctor tells me I get to start having mammograms in a couple of years.  It’s not the pain I’m worried about.  It’s the idea that someone is going to be staring at me, manhandling me, and telling me to flop my breasts onto a cold, metal plate.  My friend keeps bugging me to get a mammogram and I said, “Oh no!  I’m not putting them in the smasher until I have to!”

My husband refused to go get a full physical and that’s for one reason.  The prostate exam.  I said, “You’re going to neglect your health because you can’t handle a finger up your bum for a minute?  What if you get cancer?”  He says, “Then I’ll die!”

I’m pretty sure he could never handle a bra fitting.

Is Playing Angry Birds a Good Excuse Not to Blog?

So I know I said I was going to finish a post about getting fitted for a bra, but all of my free time was devoted to practicing for our Stake Christmas devotional (and Christmas) and between that and other musical things I’m involved in, I’m having some pretty awful tailbone pain from sitting at the piano bench for up to 6 hours a day.  Sitting at the computer (or anywhere) is not currently one of my favorite activities.

Then we got a new toy for Christmas (a Kindle Fire!) and after my month plus of stress, I spent hours playing Angry Birds, conquering every level in a lazy, reclining position.  Then my son pointed out that I didn’t get three stars on all of them.  Well of course I had to fix that!  What a worthy cause that has been.  :P

But I guess it’s time to step away from the Angry Birds and do something more productive like blogging when I could be decluttering my home.  I did clean out my pantry because we had a weevil infestation, courtesy of the pancake mix we bought.  I need to buy more plastic containers before we allow any grains, crackers, etc. in the house again.

Good times.  I must say, my pantry has never looked so awesome!  Let me tell you how to have an awesome looking pantry.

1.  Take everything out.

2.  Remove the shelves.

3.  Clean the shelves.

4.  Throw out at least half of your food. 

Number four made me kind of angry, but now I can find all of our food. 

The Internet Ate My Blog Post

So I started two posts recently, one about the horror of being fitted for a bra and the other about the election.  The election post was eaten after I tried posting a funny video to go with it.  I will vow to finish the one that didn’t get eaten.

Life has been very busy.  My oldest son started middle school and I volunteer at orchestra at a grade school every morning at 7:30am.  I love to help with that.  The second level kids have a special place in my heart.  The first level kids are growing on me, but there are some stinkers in there!  Every morning I have to tell the same three kids to stop sword fighting with each other, stop rough housing so they won’t land on any instruments, to get in their places and completely ready so we can start on time, and one of them was hanging his violin from the stand by the scroll and started trying to play it that way.  AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!  I’m about ready to tell them, “Hey, this video I’m taking of you?  Yeah, I’m sending it to your parents.”

Another girl obviously has a disorder and she can’t play any songs, won’t accept any help, and scowls at you like she hates your guts any time you tell her to do something or stop doing something.  The teacher said, “Stop holding your bow like that.”  She snapped, “I’m not holding it like that!”  She can’t play a D scale or any songs at all.  She told me, “I know enough.”  I don’t know if her mom thought this class would spark some kind of change in her or if it’s cheaper than day care, but she’s disrupting the kids behind her as she makes her music stand fall over intentionally.  This morning she was turning around and kissing her violin, putting the scroll in her mouth.  I spend most of my time trying to deal with her rather than help other kids who actually want to play the violin.

After that, I run home for my new carpool, spend the day with my daughter, planning for my music students, teaching in the afternoons, making dinner, and helping my 5th grader with his way too hard homework.  For instance:

A slug can travel 10 inches in one hour.  If he has to rest every 3 feet for 30 minutes, how long will it take to travel 8 feet?

And this one:

There are 50 lockers.  All of them are closed.  The first student opens every locker.  The second student closes every second locker.  The third student opens every third locker.  The fourth student closes every fourth locker.  Repeat the pattern until 50.  Which lockers are open and which ones are closed?  My son was bawling because he found it so difficult and he had a music concert last night.  He also had his nightmarish geography homework on Halloween.

Speaking of, Halloween was awesome and the most fun I had in a long time.  :-D

So how are you doing?

 

Politics Brings Out the Worst In People

There was a couple who used to live upstairs from us and they were very anti-Bush.  One of their stickers had a picture of a gas pump that said, “Remove Bush’s feeding tube.”  My husband had stickers that didn’t have anything pro-Bush, but military things that might give the impression that he is a conservative.  The woman was pretty unfriendly to us, but somewhat civil.

Then came the day it was announced that George W. Bush won his second election and she left her apartment looking furious.  I was walking towards the building with my little boys and as she started to get inside her truck, she said, “Watch out!  They’ll be sucking fumes!”

Bizarre.  I just shrugged my shoulders and kept walking rather than address her hostility.

This is the first election I have witnessed with a Facebook account and I am seeing a lot of, “Is there a way to make poliltical posts disappear?! and, “I’m going to defriend some people until the election is over.”  When I see a political post, I just scroll past it if it bugs me.

When a friend asked last night if there was a way to filter out the political posts, I couldn’t resist.  I said, “No, and it’s Obama’s fault.”

I will be surprised if Obama wins because I think people have unrealistic expectations that a president should “fix” things.  With our debt, the best we can hope for is improvement because there is no way we can climb out of it in just four years.  I think we will have one term presidents until there is drastic improvement.

U2: My Sanity

Years ago my husband told me, “I’m joining the Air Force so we can get married.”  I was quite shocked because he vowed he would never join the military.  He had to delay his enlistment though because he had a torn rotator cuff, probably from his previous job.  He ended up going to basic training two months after we got married.  Until then, we lived with my parents and he worked at a cabinet making company for $6.50 an hour.

His basic training lasted about 7 weeks I think and then family was allowed to come down during graduation week.  He wrote me a letter telling me that he wanted to cry when he found out he wasn’t allowed to hold my hand while he was in uniform because PDA was a disgrace to it.  This made no sense.  What about all of the news footage of soldiers coming home from war and hugging and kissing their wives?  Was that a disgrace too?

They told us to come on Monday, but what was to stop me from going to church with him on Sunday?  He joined the military.  I didn’t.  So I stood on the church steps watching every guy coming towards me.  They all looked the same and wore the same glasses too.  Finally I saw one of them smiling at me and I knew it was him.  He took me behind a corner and we kissed like rebellious teenagers.  We also held hands during church because they had no jurisdiction over him there.  I know, weren’t we bad?

I really resented the no PDA thing.  It was even sadder to see a very pregnant woman whose husband couldn’t hold her hand either.  To me, it was a disgrace to the uniform not to hold her hand.  Even better, graduation was on Valentine’s Day and we had the choice between going to a Spurs vs. Nuggets came in San Antonio or the guys could go back to their rooms alone.  We went to the game and wandered around looking for a place to make out.  Darn the elevator attendant to heck!  The next day they got a day pass on Saturday, but were told not to go to hotels.  Of course, we went to a hotel.

So that was my wonderful introduction to military life.  After basic training, my husband was sent to a different base to train for his job and they had to go through phases before they were free.  Phase I, they had to wear their uniform all day.  Phase II, they could change out of their uniform after work.  Phase III, they could have a weekend pass.  I don’t remember exactly how it went, but it seemed ridiculous to treat a grown man that way.  He made the adult decision to join the mililtary and the adult decision to get married.  To tell him where he is allowed to go after his shift was really irritating.

The only thing we could really do together was hang out at the food court where we could hardly hear each other over the booming bass of the crappy music people listened to on the jukebox.  It drove me crazy.  When my birthday came, he still wasn’t allowed to leave base.  We couldn’t go to a restaurant, couldn’t hold hands, couldn’t kiss, and definitely couldn’t do other things newlyweds like to do.  *wink wink*

The only thing I could do to make my birthday somewhat bearable was to take total control of the jukebox and I ordered $10 worth of U2 songs.  I watched a guy put some money in to order one song and I avoided eye contact as he waited to hear his selection.  I giggled in my head.  He had to leave after five or so glorious U2 songs and I would have ordered more if I had more money.

Sometime after that, our friends got married by a judge and when they went to McDonald’s afterwards, some guy yelled at them for holding hands.  Unreal.  Good thing he didn’t know what else they did in random places.  My husband and I hid in dark movie theaters so we could again commit the heinous act of holding hands, even if it meant watching movies we had no interest in.

And that’s just one reason he didn’t stay in the military.  I was just listening to one of those U2 songs and remembering the 30 or so minutes of sweet relief I felt during a time I felt like we were being controlled.  After his four years was up, we said buy bye.

I Feel So Proud!

One of my best friends has had a really rough time.  She has been looking for a good job since 2006 or 2007.  After a long medical leave due to her diabetes, she got laid off when she came back.  Her unemployment ran out, then she tapped out her 401k, had to pay a big penalty for that at tax time, and things progressively got worse.  She isn’t married, doesn’t have children, and she was accustomed to helping her elderly parents financially.  She hasn’t been home to see them since 2006.

She is almost 60 years old and is pretty set in her ways.  Years ago when her computer got a virus, she had to pay over $100 to have it removed.  She finally scraped up the money to purchase Norton, but I told her there were some free options out there.  She had some doubts about that.

So yesterday I was on the phone with her and she said, “This thing is popping up that says ‘Security Shield’.  Is that real or is it a virus?”  I said, “It’s a virus!”  Once again, she let Norton run out and she didn’t replace it with a free program.  She couldn’t get any websites to work because the messages wouldn’t stop popping up that her computer was infected and she better purchase their product now to fix it.  I asked her what version of windows she had and did a search for “How to get rid of Security Shield Windows 7”.  I found a YouTube video with very blurry picture, but I could hear the guy’s instructions well enough.

There were many comments on the video thanking him profusely because it worked.  I had a simliar problem months ago and wished so much that I had found something back then. I had to reinstall my operating system.  Such a hassle!

So, he said first to open the control panel and type “hidden”.  It would bring up an option to show hidden files or folders.  Select the option to show them.  Then go to “computer” click on the C drive, click on users, then on your user name, then on app data (I think that’s what it was), then local, and then you should see a short name with a little shield logo by it.  You have to rename it, then you shut down, and when you start up your computer again, find the file you renamed and you can then remove it.

It totally worked!  After that, I convinced my friend to download the free version of AVG, it got rid of some malware, and today it’s running great!  She really needs her computer to continue her job search.  I can’t believe how easy it was to remove the virus!

Here is the video that saved the day.

 

Magazine Salesmen

Years ago when I worked at a shoe store, I was on my break and decided to walk over to Fred Meyer.  A guy called to me asking if I knew how to get to a place downtown.  I said, “No, sorry.”  He said, “Wait a second!”  He ran over to me and said, “Do you want to buy some magazines?”

I was immediately put off by his deception.  “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have money for magazines.”

“Don’t you have an ATM card like all other white girls?”

???????????

He was white.  I had no idea why he threw race into this conversation.

“No.”

“So when are you going to take me out for dinner?” he asked.  Wow.

“I’m not.”

“OK, I’ll take you to Taco Bell.”

“I hate Taco Bell.”

“You’re very beautiful.”

My religion has scared off plenty of guys, so I said, “I’m also Mormon.”  He said, “Well that’s OK!”

Crap.  Maybe the first time that didn’t work.

I can’t remember how I finally got out of there, but he freaked me out.  As soon as I got into the store, I saw a teacher from my school and asked her to drive me back to work.  I didn’t want him to see where I worked.  I told my manager about it and the next day, he started walking towards our store.  I hid in the back while I listened to her get rid of him.  I was terrified he was there because he knew I worked there.

Weeks later, I heard about a girl who worked at Baskin Robbins.  She had the same kind of experience, only when she told the guy no to going out with him, he spat in her face.

Thus began my unkind feelings for any magazine salesmen who don’t come right out and tell me what they want.  The script in this area is that they are out trying to get people to “vote” for them and if they get a certain amount of points from their public speaking class, they win a trip.

First of all, I don’t get to go on any trips.  Why should I care if they win anything?

Second, if they are supposedly trying to make a good impression, why do they dress like they recently got out of the slammer?

Third, they all do the same thing.  They start with a corny joke, tell you about their public speaking class and how they are trying to overcome their weaknesses, then ask, “How am I doing so far?”  This is when I glare, “Fine.”  I figure if I’m not somewhat civil, they might hurt me later.  Then they finally get to, “Now’s the part you ask how you vote for me?”  I don’t feel like wasting 5 minutes of my life, so now I just blurt out, “Are you selling magazines?”  One guy said, “Yes, ma’am.  I am.”  I said, “You know, you might sell more magazines if you just told people right away that’s what you’re doing.”

One day two guys came to my door while I had three crying toddlers in my house.  I thought the knock on the door was this little girls’ mother and this time I just said, “NO.  I don’t have time for this.” and closed the door.  They looked like they kind of understood, although disappointed.

A month ago and politely repeated “no thank you” to two young men at my door and tried not to roll my eyes.

Tonight I had two more young men come to the door, both of them dressed poorly and with those ridiculous ear gauges.  Frankly, they looked scary.  Our apartments don’t allow soliciting in the first place, so it only makes me more nervous if you come to my door looking like a freak or possible serial killer.  I asked who it was and couldn’t understand the answer.  Our peep hole got paint on it or something, so I couldn’t see who it was either.  As soon as I opened the door, I wanted to kick myself.

One guy did all the talking.  Allow me to paraphrase.

Him:  Hi!  *points at our funny door mat and laughs*

Me:  Hi.

Him:  We’re out trying to get points for our public speaking class and learn speaking skills.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. (I added that last part)

Me:  *sigh*  Uh huh.

Him:  I need to work on not stuttering, spitting when I talk etc.  I didn’t spit on you, did I?

Me:  Hahaha.  No.

Him:  Oh that’s good.  How am I doing so far?

Me:  Fine.  Are you selling magazines?

Him:  No, this is literature sales.  *hands me print out with magazines on it*

Me:  Sorry, I can’t buy anything.

Him:  It’s not very expensive.

Me:  I can’t.

Him:  What are the last four letters in American?

Me:  Hahaha.

Him:  It’s AmeriCAN, not AmeriCAN’T.

Me:  *trying for the third time to hand it back to him* No thanks.  Can’t do it

They might be scammers or maybe they fell for a scam themselves, but I feel lucky tonight that these guys didn’t kick my door in.  I can’t wait to have a house with windows out front so I can see who’s out there.

My Grandma: The Fat Police

My grandma isn’t your typical grandma.  In fact, we joke that my aunt’s ex-husband’s dad’s partner is a better grandma than my grandma.  He gets down on the floor and plays with the kids, he makes freezer jam, pie, etc.  As for my grandma, it’s, “Hello, grandchildren.”  The rest of the visit consists of uncomfortable political conversations, Grandma taking unflattering pictures of us (usually mid-chew), and comments about everyone’s weight.  It has only gotten worse with age and has become a source of amusement for me.  My dad, however; has just suddenly caught on to her rudeness and has given everyone permission to call her on it.

She’s 87 so there’s not much point in trying to change her now.  During our last dinner together, I said I never salt my food and she said, “That’s good for your blood pressure.”  I thought, “Here it comes ……”  She said, “But so would losing some weight.  Has your doctor ever told you you need to lose weight?”

My dad blurted out, “That is frickin’ rude!”  She said, “I won’t be around much longer to tell the truth……”  He snapped, “It’s not truthful.  It’s just frickin’ rude!”  She apologized and after my dad left the room, she said, “He sure has been grumpy with me lately.  Is he feeling OK?”  I said, “I think he’s just being protective, Grandma.  Yes, I’m aware I need to lose weight.  It’s rather obvious.”

When my sister hit puberty, my grandma said, “I see you’ve gained some weight.”  It’s normal for girls to gain weight at that age.

After my third son was born, we had a potluck and I went to another room to feed him.  By the time I finally got around to eating dinner, she asked me, “Are those seconds or thirds?”

On Thanksgiving she asked me, “You’re not pregnant, are you?”  I actually had a miscarriage two weeks before that, so I allowed my eyes to well up with tears.  She looked horrified and said, “Oh.  I had two miscarriages. It was awful!”  My mom felt terrible for me, but I laughed about it later.  There was no better way to put Grandma’s foot in her mouth.

On Memorial Day, we went to the cemetary to visit our deceased loved ones.  Even during this moment, she poked my skinny son’s tummy and asked him, “How did your tummy get so big?  Is it from eating too much food?”  He is not the least bit fat.

She showed us pictures from a vacation in New Zealand, remarking how my cousin’s husband has gained a lot of weight.

She asked my husband, “Is that your spare tire?  Is that a heart attack belly?  I hear men with big bellies are more likely to have heart attacks.”  He told her, “It’s not my spare tire.  It’s my main tire.” 

The day my aunt had a baby, my grandma told her, “I see you still have your tummy.”  She had eight kids, but I guess she forgot how your tummy doesn’t immediately disappear.  My sister said, “I would have told her I see she still has her hairy wart.”  I’ve never seen my aunt laugh so hard.

My mom just about exploded when she talked about a mutual friend and my grandma asked, “Is he still ugly?”

My dad invited her over for the 4th.  I am eagerly anticipating all of the funny (to me) comments and some witty comebacks.  I’m kind of torn between eating nothing in front of her or pigging out so I can giggle about it later.  At our last big gathering, I made multiple comments about how starving I was and begged for dessert 5 minutes after dinner.  She protested loudly.  Hahahahaha!!!!  She’s humor impaired and didn’t catch on when I was grinning mischieviously.  Honestly, I would rather hear about how fat I am than listen to her talk about how wonderful Obama is and how awful Bush was.  In fact, I think I will change the subject to my weight myself when she does.  “So, Grandma.  Have you noticed how fat I am?”

So, tell me about your family. 

My Timetable

Don’t you love those lessons in life that you have to learn repeatedly?  I feel like I have made a lot of extra stress for myself by deciding that once we were out of debt and had $3,000 in our savings account, we could finally apply for a home loan.  Part of this was my fear ruling me – what if our landlord doesn’t allow us to live here anymore?  Then we better hurry up and buy a place, especially if we have to change school districts.

My trials have made me an overanalyzer.  I used to be more adventurous and just worried about things as they came along.  I would like to recapture that quality I once had, which could be a downfall too, but I need more of a balance.  I developed a case of insomnia last week because I couldn’t stop thinking about the unlimited unknowns:

1.  What if my kids have to change school districts in the middle of the year?

2.  What if the bank doesn’t approve us for as much as they thought they could?

3.  What if we get kicked out of here before we have a chance to buy?  Then what?  Our savings would be blown on first, last, and deposit for another rental.

4.  What if the house we buy needs a new roof or furnace sooner than we think and we can’t afford it?

5.  What if my kids are miserable at their new school?  We can’t just turn around and sell the house.  It has to appreciate in value.

6.  Would I feel horrible later if we didn’t move by my parents?

7.  Would we regret it if we moved by my parents?  Would the kids take advantage of Grandma and Grandpa’s kindness?  Would we still want to be in that neighborhood after they’re gone?

8.  What if we keep paying for inspections just to discover the VA won’t approve the house?

9.  What if it costs way more to heat our new house than we thought?

10.  When can we have our last child?  If we have a higher payment, can we afford that?  What if something goes wrong?

11.  Could my husband afford the payments if I died?

12.  How hard would it be to sell the house later if we needed to?

I think I’ve been more anxious because of the bad start we had with that lender and realtor, but I like our new realtor and I need to just chill and get preapproved with someone – stop thinking about whether they can get us the absolutely best deal on the way we finally find the house we want to make an offer on.  If we get preapproved, that doesn’t mean we have to make an offer on something this week.  It will be good just to know what is possible and then we can make a decision from there.  My husband feels rushed because he doesn’t want the interest rates to go up.  The problem is, there are multiple bids and people are offering over the asking price, so that isn’t going to get us a house for the price we need anyway.  I keep thinking there will be a better opportunity later this summer or even fall.  Most likely, we applied too soon because of my timetable instead of asking Heavenly Father what was meant to be. 

OK, so what if we do get kicked out of here?  Then we’ll deal with it and maybe that will somehow lead to better things.  We’ll pack, look for a place, and if we don’t find anything we’ll put everything in storage.  I think we know a couple people who would take us in temporarily or might benefit from rent paid to them or our skills.  I lived out of a duffle bag for two weeks in Texas.  I went to Austria at the age of 15 for 5 weeks without my family and without having met my host family.  I took some leaps of faith that turned out great and have given me the best memories. 

I’m going to take back my sense of adventure and encourage my kids to be the same way.  I’m going to be open to whatever options Heavenly Father offers us and when I know the Spirit is giving us the answer, I’m not going to look back.  I’m thinking about my aunt again who just took things as they came.  She managed to work things out, even from her wheelchair.  I miss her so much. 

House Search Update

We found a realtor we like.  She isn’t pushy at all and she’s very patient.  She understands that it’s going to be a longer process for us.  She also has a great sense of humor and thinks it’s hilarious when I talk about putting something ridiculous in our offer like, “The shopping cart stays!”

So there’s this fixer in our neighborhood and we can’t get in to see it because the bank has to replace the deadbolt.  There’s a tree growing too close to the house that will need to be removed, the outside needs to be painted, a window has a board on it because a homeless person broke in, and they left a shopping cart in the beautiful, overgrown backyard.

We are prepared to live in an ugly, but functional house.  In fact, we welcome the idea because my husband is super handy and we could probably turn around and sell the place for $100,000 more.  The windows need to be replaced, we would need new appliances, the paint is in bad shape, the floors need to be refinished or replaced, etc.  We’re hoping that it’s possible to do the VA loan.  Now if the bank would just make it possible to see the inside, that would be great!

We call it “the dreamy house”.

We also looked at a short sale that reeks of smoke.  The owner keeps coming back to steal light fixtures, rose bushes, etc.  My parents went for a walk in the neighborhood and saw him doing it.  I’m betting he snags the air conditioner next.

We still haven’t fully settled on a lender and for some reason I don’t feel like it’s quite time to go through the full application process.  Maybe there’s a lower interest rate ahead or a great opportunity in our future.  Exciting to think about, but I’m nervous!  I feel like there is something for us here, but then we’re taking a risk that we might have to change school districts in the middle of the year.