what i learned this week

If there’s a house on the market that I’m interested in, it will immediately go under contract.

Since the initial announcement that husband and I are officially looking for houses, we’ve been through it.

We’ve seen everything from houses we hate on lots that we love, to houses that we love on lots that we hate. I’ll tell you something though, nothing is worse than seeing a house that you love on a lot that you love and having some other sneaky little bugger beat you to the offering punch.

It’s enormously frustrating, and I’m seriously tempted to give up the ghost and spend the rest of my life in an apartment.

Friends and family have run the gamut on “those cliche sayings” regarding our house-hunt.

“If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

“It just wasn’t the right house for you.”

“When it’s the one, it’ll all just fall right into place.”

Well, you know what? I wish it would fall into place and be, right now, the right house for us.

Clearly, the real estate market is picking up because of my house hunt. If I want it, it will sell. (just not to me)

Be sure to share what YOU learned this week – visit Musings of a Housewife for more details!

my mind is blank and full, all at the same time

This has been quite a week.

We arrived back to our little home state on Sunday, after a llllllllllloooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggg drive (16 hours) in which I came to appreciate the fact that Delaware does construction on the same busy roads, every spring/summer, during rush hour on Friday when people are on their way to the beach.

I’m not kidding.

As I type this, there are 2 well traveled roads in my state, one that runs east to west, and the other that runs north to south, being worked on. (that I know of)

Go ahead and ask me if there was anything wrong with these roads.

There wasn’t.

Not a pot hole, or even a little tiny crack. But gosh darnit, someone didn’t like the look of them, and so, their being re-done.

But I’m not complaining, you see, because our entire trip through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and the little bit of Illinois we experienced was filled with bounciness. Because the roads in those states are horrible. Just wretched.

And we’re talking major roads here, not back roads or anything. I really think the lovely folks in those states are getting royally screwed. Seriously guys, you don’t have tax-free shopping, beaches (on an ocean), or nice roads. Why are you still there?

So thank you Delaware politicians for annoying us every year with your road construction policies. I may not like them on a Friday evening when I can’t get out of my neigborhood because you’ve blocked off a lane that you’re re-paving, and then there’s another lane blocked off because some schmuck was texting instead of driving – and caused a car accident during rush hour – in traffic heading down to the beach, most of which is coming from other states because our beaches are just so great that even states that have their own beaches, like New Jersey and New York like to visit us, but I sure do appreciate that on that drive that takes me an hour instead of the 20-30 minutes it should take, I don’t have to deal with any pot holes. You’re all a bunch of gems.

Now, on to family vacation with the in-laws.

insulting your intelligence

Grass is green.

A hot iron will burn you if you touch it.

Peanut Butter is made from peanuts.

You can’t drive on a flat tire.

Jumping off of the top of the Empire State Building will kill you.

American Idol alum, Adam Lambert is gay.

on the road again….

In just a few hours, at 3:00 in the morning, I will be driving (along with my parents and siblings) out to Great Lakes, IL to attend my brother’s graduation from Naval boot camp.

The drive is 14 flippin’ hours.

To keep myself entertained (and, um, awake) I will be twittering my progress.

Thank God there will be something wonderful on the other end of this drive. Otherwise, I would have difficulty justifying it.

Wish me luck.

because it just wouldn’t be a girl’s vacation without a spider

I’d like to know what possesses us to do some of the things that we do.

By us, I mean myself, my sister, and my 2 best friends. By things that we do, I mean taking a trip that is better suited for a week and cramming it into 3 and 1/2 days.

I think it’s all the crack.

We left Lemon’s house at 7:00 pm on Thursday evening and made the 8 hour drive down to Charlotte, NC. For those of you out there who aren’t mathematicians, it means that the earliest we would arrive would be 3:00 am Friday morning.

We actually made it there at 3:30 am.

Not bad, considering that it’s monsoon season here on the east coast.

We crashed as soon as we arrived at the hotel, waking up only to eat breakfast, and then, like the vampires we are, we slept through most of the day. Once we woke up, we had just enough time for a pedicure and dinner before we made our way over to the Brad Paisley concert.

Sigh.

I mentioned monsoon season, right?

Normal people would carry umbrellas with them during monsoon season. Between the four of us we had zero umbrellas. ZERO.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. We took Lemon’s mom’s mini-van, and there was an umbrella in there. But that hardly counts since we stumbled upon it and weren’t intelligent enough (between four people) to have remembered to bring an umbrella.

I’m not quite sure how, but we somehow reasoned to leave the umbrella in the van since one tiny umbrella wouldn’t cover all four of us.

You can see that common sense and intelligence took a serious blow this weekend.

In retrospect I’m thinking that it would have been better to have had 2 drowned rats show up to the concert rather than four, but retrospect is as helpful as 1 umbrella to four people. That is to say – not helpful at all.

Fortunately, God only let his sense of humor go so far, and our seats were covered. But the walk from the car to our seats made Lemons and I look like this:

Um, not dry.

The excellent show made up for the fact that we were wet and it was a little windy/chilly outside, but I still can’t get over the rain. And the stupidity of four smart women.

Saturday, the day after the concert, we drove five hours over to Nags Head, and thank the Lord the rain was gone. We spent time on the beach, had dinner at my favorite seafood place of all time, did a little bit of site-seeing around the area, and then headed back to our hotel. (in Nags Head…we were certainly not stupid enough to drive back to Charlotte)

God’s sense of humor made a re-appearance.

My sister leaned over to me and whispered in my ear that there was a spider up front. She was pointing to it (quite unsuccessfully) and trying to muffle her hysterical laughter. By the time I asked her where she was pointing and I saw it, Lemon’s saw it and squealed.

Yes, squealed. Not screamed, or groaned, or shrieked. Squealed. Several times.

It was all we could do not to keep laughing.

Then, we lost him.

Not something that a car full of arachnophobes wants to do. You want to have your sites set on him the whole time.

Well, he finally re-appeared on the passenger side of the car, and our friend Em lost it.

She yelled, she shook, she screamed and begged. “PULL OVER. PULL OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD RIGHT NOW!” Before Lemons even had an opportunity to stop the car all the way (she was incapacitated by laughter at this point) Em hopped out of the car to get as far away from the 8-legged monster as possible. Fortunately, the spider met an untimely death when he fell into Lemons’ waterice.

That still didn’t take away the heebie-jeebies.

We were quite a site; my sister and Lemons laughing hysterically, Em doing a jig to be absolutely, positively sure that the spider was not on her, and me, on the verge of vomiting. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but spiders and I have a long tumultous past. We are MORTAL ENIMIES. In fact, if you gave me the choice between being trapped in a room with a spider or being trapped in a room with Satan, I would choose Satan every time.

(Just wondering, if I did come to that crossroads at some point, what would it be for? Would it be some horrible reality tv show? Would it be a dream? How do you think Satan would react? Would he want to eat me or something? Just curious)

Needless to say, we mad it out alive, but I’m thinking that maybe next time, we should close all of the windows in the van. I suppose it all goes back to my original question:

What posseses us to do some of the things that we do?

i have a question

Do y’all ever go into the bathroom, take off your makeup, get undressed, hop in the shower, let the water run through your hair and then begin shampooing it only to realize that you’ve forgotten to take your glasses off?

You don’t?

Oh good, me neither.

summer’s comin’, summer’s goin’

I believe what’s happened here, is that I fell asleep in January and woke up June 1st.

Where has all the time gone?

My parents always said to me that life moves more quickly the older you get, but I guess I never really believed them until now.

June itself will be a whirwind of a month -

This weekend, Lemons, our other BFF Em, my sister, and I will be going to Charlotte, NC to see THE MAN, Brad Paisley in concert. We’re even tacking on a quick stop over in Nags Head to cap the trip off just right.

Next weekend, my brother Zach is graduating from the Navy bootcamp, so we’ll be in Great Lakes, IL visiting with him.

The following weekend, I’ll be heading down to Cape Charles, VA with hubby’s family for a week at the beach.

It’s just…..insanity!

Of course, in the midst of all of this, I have to find time to look for houses, which are sparsley listed where the husband and I are looking, so that’s always fun.

And the beat goes on…..