It's coming!

I was trying to hurry and go out to run some errands before the inevitable happened, baby poops, or gets tired or hungry etc... when, the other inevitable happened. Ice started falling from the sky! Oh man, It's coming. It's going to get cold and I am going to freeze my ass off. I guess I should think about investing in a coat type garment. Hmmmm....

We are steeped in apples around here. It's apple season and we went apple picking on Sunday. It was lovely, and crowded with other apple pickin' peoples and a lot of kiddos which was nice. One little boy was up in the top of a tree and as we passed we heard him exclaim, "This is the best day of my life!".

In other news...Big news over on "HI!". CHECK IT OUT!!!

It's a TWISTER!

THIS happened 2 years ago in the area we are most likely moving to.

Not to make excuses but...

I got sick. I ate a lot of rice pudding. Then today...a pumpkin pecan shake. MAN. It tasted just like pumpkin pie filling. I could have gone and gotten a can of pumpkin and blended it with some soymilk and been cool, but we were on the road so...

Try, try again.

I'm such a brat that I will still probably get my Nano for my birthday though. I will have to rely on sheer willpower alone. (was that redundant?)

Well...

Unless the owner finds in our background checks that we are escaped criminals we are probably moving to the house on the lake. I went to check it out today. the stairs are totally work around able, and might even be fun for Lydia when she gets a little older. The yard is adorable. Places for planting both flowers and veggies and room for the dumpling to play. There is no fence in the front yard but there is a small flood ditch all across it so if she takes a running leap and gets too far ahead of me she will fall in before she reaches the street. She most likely wouldn't be hurt but would be stopped. There is not a park right across the street as I had mis-understood but there is a small park with boat access down the street about 100 yards. No playground, however there are a lot of parks with playgrounds all around and I intend to get a little tykes one for the yard.

The main problem right now is that we can't move in THIS WEEKEND, and that is not really a problem because the reason is the owner is going to refinish all the wood floors, put in all new appliances, a new bathtub, slightly renovate the kitchen so that there is a wall where I can set up my hutch and adding a pantry. So, we are looking at the first of October, hopefully. That means my birthday party will be at our house. Yay.

Keep fingers crossed for Brian. He has another test for the Property Clerk job in Madison tomorrow.

See "Hi!" for baby updates...

Gracious but GOOD GRACIOUS!

I am so grateful that my sister-in-law is letting us use her basement until we find a place, which is taking a LOT longer than we anticipated, HOWEVER I have a sick baby (See her website, "Hi!") down here and she is yelling at the top of her lungs upstairs. Nothing ugly, just playing with her baby, squealing and singing at the top of her lungs, but she is so freaking loud. (O.k. forget the "nothing ugly". She just yelled "Mother Fuck Stick" at the top of the stairs to the basement. Does she have turrets?) Lydia is obviously sleeping down here. I know, I've said it before, but I have GOT to get out of here.

Speaking of which the lovely cornfield house was a no go. The owners never would call us back after many, many calls. So we are on to another place. This time in a small town called McFarland. There is a lake across the street. That could be scary if I let myself think about it, but it's beautiful. Public access to the lake is walking distance. It's a 3 bedroom with another room downstairs for Brian's records. So we would have our communal sleeping room and each of us would have our own "play" rooms. The owner seems genuinely nice and looking for a long time tenant. The only drawback is a stairwell that goes from the split level living area, from the kitchen down to the living room, doesn't have a rail along the edge, so Lydia could fall down off the living room floor on to the 5 steps. I think they will allow us to put in a rail though, or they will build a half wall there. We're in discussions about it.

So, keep your fingers crossed for us and we will invite EVERYONE to our place for a white Christmas.

Barf!

Lydia's birthday was sweet. I will post photo's on "Hi!" as soon as I am...not...barfing anymore. Brian and I went on an impromptu date last night since my Mom was here to babysit for Lydia. I believe I contracted the food poisoning. That'll teach me to order shrimp in Wisconsin.

Getting Fit

Mike just made a new weblog to help him achieve his fitness and healthy life-style goals. I am going to follow his lead and add a daily log here of what I did each day to further my goals. I guess first I should set down what my goals are:

1. Eat more fruits and veggies, and organic ones at that. At least 5 per day.

2. Exercise at least 30 minutes each day, even if it's just a walk with the baby. I want to do the Zoo Run Run 5K walk at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison at the end of September so I need to get walking.

3. Keep avoiding those preservatives and additives! I am pretty good at avoiding the fast food but do have a burger every once in a while. That reminds me...

4. Avoid the red meat.

5. and finally, no more custard. If you don't know what Milwaukee frozen custard is you don't know how hard this is to do around here. I've had quite a few turtle sundaes and root beer floats (made with a local brew, Sprecher's) to relieve the stress since we've been here. This has to stop.

I will not, however, give up my chocolate. I will cut back to just a couple of small pieces of very dark chocolate every day.

I love Mike's extra incentive idea so I'm gonna do that too, mostly because I like to get more stuff. If I stick to my goals until my 36th birthday on Oct. 6 I will get an Ipod Nano Video, the green one, which looks to me like it matches my mixer!

Thank you Mike for the kick in the pants.

More house hunting

We saw a cute little place today. It was in Oregon, WI which took us 15 minutes to get to from the southeast side of Madison. There are cornfields directly across the street and to the side of the house, actually a duplex. It's on two acres and there is a nice yard and shed. We haven't gone inside yet but it's a 3 bedroom with a full basement. The only problem I have is that it is on a road where cars drive rather fast. It's not particularly busy but the speed limit is 55. I would have to get the o.k. to put up a picket fence or something like that before I would agree to move in. Horrible visions from the book/movie Pet Sematary keep flashing through my mind. A fence would really be necessary to keep me from having a brain hemorrhage from stress. Brian is ready to move in tomorrow even though we haven't seen the inside. He kept saying, "We could get a trampoline!" so we see where his priorities are! It is a really pretty place and the price is right in our range.

It's going to take Brian 18 months or so to finish getting his teaching certificate at Concordia and I should have my design certificate in the next year so we are probably just going to rent and then see what happens after that. We just won't think about having to move again right now, we'll think about it tomorrow.

Interesting...and annoying.

Brian and I are in the middle of a(n) discussion/argument. He asked me yesterday if I wanted to make a bagel pizza for dinner. He pronounces bagel "baggle", like Fraggle. When we go to the grocery store he puts the groceries in a "bayg". A slur for a gay person is "fayg". He also insists that "wagon" rhymes with "Reagan". We were in the car when I realized that he doesn't just pronounce bag wrong, he hears the difference between "bayg" and "bag" and he thinks that "bag" is the wrong pronounciation.

As far as "bag" is concerned I may be wrong I guess because in the Webster online dictionary it says it's pronounced "bag" or "bAg". All the other words we discussed were pronounced as I said. I read Brian this list from the web page of a linquistics buff and he said that most of them had the same vowel sound:
banger cater wager rag rake dragon drag wagon rage bagging bang blank flank range rang brag hang rank plague clang lagging crag crane dragging flagged flake gangly hanger plank lag fanged deranged plagued crank rank gauge

A lot of them have very different vowel sounds so this makes me crazy. He even said aloud "rake" and then "dragon"( almost sounded like draygun but leaned toward the correct pronounciation) and he insists that they have the same vowel sound.

Apparently he thinks I am making fun of him by going on about it, but it's gone past that now. I just want to know how he thinks certain words are pronounced. It's really interesting to me, though it's sometimes annoying.

So now the argument has evolved to be (somehow) about beliefs. Brian says that he doesn't "believe" that anyone can trace how an accent in a certain region evolved. I say I don't really know if they can but suspect that they may be able to trace some aspects of a regional accent by the languages that the areas inhabitant's ancestors spoke. I don't have any linguistics knowledge at all really so how could I possibly have any beliefs about the subject? So then it just turns into an argument about how can you have a belief about something that you know nothing about...Wow, This whole thing sounds even more stupid when I type it out. Can anyone recommend a book on the subject? If you can figure out what the subject is that is because I don't actually know.

DISCOVERED

It seems my little blog has been discovered. Ha. I didn't mean it to be a secret but I forgot to tell anyone about it. I meant to work on it more but between baby and school and house/job hunting where DOES the time go? It isn't really so attractive, however it does match my Kitchenaid Mixer which is packed away, and I miss. Oh all the loverly attachments that go with it. Le sigh...

I think I will keep it mostly the way it is for now with maybe some minor adjustments.

Brian and *Iggy went for a walk and I got to go do a little birthday shopping. Very little actually. I don't want to spoil all the surprises but I found a really cute little MP3 player for babies. It actually plays 14 entire songs with actual children's voices singing them AND the children have little british accents which is completely adorable! Brian's mom is queen of the yard sale and will buy anything with a button that makes noise...(trying not to complain, grumble grumble, trying to be gracious...) I think quiet toys that allow the babies inner voice to develop are better for the most part however this was so perfect for Lydia, who loves to sing and loves to hear children, that I couldn't resist. Also, we don't really like the idea of her having a toy cell phone. Actually I don't mind all that much, except for all the horrible noise they make, but Brian is adamant about it. (he won't carry one himself btw) Every time Lydia goes upstairs she and her cousin fight over his toy cell phone (which was actually a re-gift that we gave him, maybe she knows that even though she was 1 month old when I mailed it to him). I think she will like her MP3 player just as much.

*When Lydia is upset and complaining she talks. Pretty much the only words you can distinguish are "Nigh Nigh" which means my boobs, and "Iggy". We don't know why she says "Iggy" but now she has been dubbed "Iggy" by the fam. I asked Ingrid if she minds and she loves it, so "Iggy" it is.