An Early (Now Belated) Easter

As I mentioned last week, I was actually out of town for work on Easter--so I didn't get to spend the day with my little family. :(

Instead, we celebrated the week before (on April 1), which worked out for a variety of reasons. For one, my brother was home for a short leave from his deployment. Since he left in January, he's remained in the States for additional training, so they gave him the opportunity to go home for about a week prior to leaving for Afghanistan. It was nice to have the chance to see him--and celebrate a holiday, even if it wasn't the official day--before he left for the middle east.

Secondly, my dad was in town. This was to coincide with my brother's visit, but he stayed with us, so it was great to get to spend several days with him, too. And we almost never get to see him for holidays anymore, so to get to celebrate Easter with him was fun, too.

Obviously, since I was going to be traveling anyway, this all just seemed meant to be. And that is how Easter 2012 came to be celebrated on April 1.

Anyway, my life has been decidedly unbalanced lately--too much work, not enough living--so I am just now getting around to posting some photos!

We woke up to a crabby Nora (someone woke up on the wrong side of the crib that morning), but we were still able to convince her to check out her Easter basket before breakfast. Balloons are like the best.thing.ever. right now, so it's no surprise that she ran right over to get her hands on that.

The Easter Bunny went simple and low-key (and sugar-free)... just three Fisher-Price ZooTalkers animals to add to her zoo, and the balloon, which was sure to provide hours of joy.

She even ate breakfast with the string clutched inside her tiny little hand. Love.

After breakfast, I needed to start baking the cake to take to my mom's for our Easter dinner, and Nora was completely fascinated by what I was doing. It's a harder to bake with one hand, by the way.

Nora watched some "Up," and then we put her down for a nap a little earlier than normal because she was so crabby and clearly tired. After a long afternoon snooze, we got her up and ready for dinner.

Like Christmas, I see Easter as a perfect excuse to dress my baby in a ridiculously cute dress. We took advantage.

Getting photos of her in said dress was quite the challenge, but whatever.

Once at my mom's, the kids had an egg hunt and played, we all chatted, dyed eggs, and finished preparing dinner.

My mom got the kids a few little Easter gifts. For Nora, they were a couple of books, more ZooTalkers animals, and an Elmo phone!

Not a bad little holiday!

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Contract

Praise heaven, we are officially under contract to sell the condo.

We are scheduled to close on May 25. We could not be more relieved.

It's been awfully tempting to bust out some champagne, but 1) who has time for that? and 2) I'm still hesitant to celebrate until it is OFFICIAL official. Like, keys handed over, mortgage paid off official.

We didn't end up getting a second offer, which was honestly fine. Sure, it would've been nice to give everyone a little incentive to up their offers a bit, but it definitely made things easy--we didn't have to choose between offers since we only had one.

We accepted it outright, not bothering to counter for several reasons, but mostly because the condo market still sucks for sellers, and there are comparable properties for sale in the same neighborhood. We didn't have much of a leg to stand on for negotiating, and we didn't want to risk losing our one-and-only-after-a-total-of-nearly-nine-months-on-the-market offer.

The inspection happened on Monday morning, right after I returned from Boston. As we suspected might be the case, we found out that the central air conditioning in the unit is basically dead as a doornail. The buyer asked us for additional money because of that, and well, we agreed to give it to her--for the same reasons mentioned above.

At the end of the day, it is what it is. We are just happy to be getting rid of it and getting the burden off of our backs. We never wanted to be landlords, and hope that we never have to be again. It's going to make a great home for this buyer, and that's all we ever could've asked for.

But my fingers will be permanently crossed until May 25.

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For the Love of "Up"

When my dad was visiting a few weeks ago, he wanted to get something for Nora. He saw how much she enjoys the movies that we have--Tangled, Rio, Toy Story 3--because we did a LOT of movie watching with "Pa" while he was here. He asked if we had the movie "Up," and when we said no, he vowed to buy it for Nora that very same night.

Now, Nora loves "Up."

When Nora was younger, we rarely ever had the TV on when she was awake. But ever since our road trip to Virginia, when we found that she does in fact enjoy animated movies and shows, we've relaxed a bit. We still try to limit her television time. We don't watch TV at home with her during the week since she does get TV time at daycare (she's with an in-home provider). On the weekends, we try to balance TV/movie time with playtime, time outside, and good ol' run-errands-with-mom-and-dad time.

Anyway, at first, I think it was just the bright colors and sounds that amused her. But then she started dancing to the music. And raising her arms up in the air when the birds were flying in Rio. Then, she did the best thing yet--she started LAUGHING at funny parts in the movies. Clearly, she understands what's happening, and I wouldn't be surprised if she actually comprehends most of the dialogue at this point. The kid is INTO it.

Check out this video that Michael sent to me when I was in Boston. It was so cute and I missed her so much that it very nearly made me cry.

To set it up: She's watching the very beginning of "Up." For those who have seen it--you know when little Carl is walking home from the movie theater? And he's "jumping over the Grand Canyon" (crack in the sidewalk), and then he "climbs Mount Everest"--a tree stump that he attempts to jump over but doesn't make it? That's the part she's watching, and all of these giggles are a result of what I just described.

Adorable. If letting Nora watch a few movies is wrong, I don't think I want to be right. :)

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Fried

My brain, that is. And my nerves.

I worked for 60+ hours last week, including three full, exhausting days in Boston (one of which was Easter Sunday). It was fun and nice to work outside of the office, but I didn't get home until last night at around 10:30 p.m. After taking a few extra hours with Nora this morning to help make up for missed time with her, I took her to daycare and headed into a full work week with... more piles of work.

It's a busy time, and--don't get me wrong--that's great, but I am just mentally exhausted. I'm at the point where my brain seems like it physically hurts, and when people send me e-mails about additional tasks--even simple ones--I find myself on the verge of tears. It's not even that my workload is THAT bad now that I'm back; it's just that after working for seven eight days in a row now (putting extra hours in every single day), I am spent.

I am more than ready for the weekend, yet it's only Monday. Wahhhh.

So please excuse my continued lack of posting. I have Easter pics to share (we celebrated last Sunday, on April 1) and a few other little updates--but no work on the kitchen lately, boo!--at some point this week.

On a travel-related note, despite being there for three days, I didn't get to see ANY of Boston, which was disappointing. Thankfully we're planning a vacation back there sometime this summer if we can swing it. With the exception of this weekend, I haven't been since about 15 years ago, and Michael has never been, so it should be fun. We haven't taken a real vacation since Mexico last July, which is a really long stretch for us. But hey, we bought a house 'n' stuff, so you know how that goes.

ANYWAY, I'm about to go veg on the couch for a bit before sleeping, hoping to rest my body and brain for a bit. So... happy Monday? (That's me, trying to be optimistic. HA!)

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Pins and Needles

People always say that things happen when you least expect them to, and I guess I can apply that nugget of wisdom to what occurred tonight.

We've had our condo--which we've been renting out to tenants since we moved in August--on the market again since mid-February. Like last year, when we had it on the market for 6+ months, we've had little luck in attracting offers. Our tenants' lease is up on April 30 and they don't plan to stay, so last Thursday, we put the condo back up on Craigslist. Continuing to be landlords is not something we want to do, but we'd certainly rather rent the place out than begin to pay two mortgages.

As soon as I put up the listing, the e-mails started rolling in, and I've been spending tons of time e-mailing back and forth with prospective tenants--sending photos, answering questions, trying to set up appointments. We met with a few people at the condo on Saturday, and one of them actually wanted to fill out a rental application. So, we've been moving forward with him early this week to see if he's someone we'd rent to.

Today, I got an e-mail from our realtor out of the blue. It said that we have two SECOND showings--people who viewed the condo before are coming back again--one scheduled for today, one for tomorrow.

It was hard not to get our hopes up with second showings. First of all, out of all the time we've been on the market, we haven't had ANY second showings. And then, to get TWO second showings within 24 hours of each other just felt too good to be true. So, the first appointment happened earlier tonight.

And then we got an offer.

WE GOT AN OFFER!!

We are beyond thrilled. Is it less than we wanted? Yes, of course it is, because we've dropped our price so many times in the past year that it's ridiculous. In fact, their offer is exactly the amount that we paid for the property... SEVEN YEARS AGO, very nearly to the exact day. So, in a lot of ways, it's a letdown. But, we also know that in this housing market, we are so fortunate just to have an offer at all, and as long as we can work something out with the buyer, we are in much better shape than if we continue to rent out the place.

So, we have fingers and toes and legs and eyes--and whatever else can be crossed--crossed. The catch is that we still have the second appointment tomorrow! We agreed with our realtor that we will sit tight through tomorrow night to see what happens there. It's crazy, but it's possible that we could end up with TWO offers on the table. I'm trying not to even think about it, because I don't want to be too greedy. Because trust me: UNIVERSE? I am already so, so, so grateful just to have one.

Needless to say, we're not throwing any parties yet. We still have a somewhat long way to go until this is a done deal in any way, shape, or form. Most notably, even after we have (hopefully) negotiated and (hopefully) have an accepted offer, we need to make it successfully through inspection--which may or may not be a challenge considering the ancient age of our HVAC system. But again, just praying for the best.

And of course, we'd appreciate any positive thoughts, prayers, vibes--whatever you'd be willing to send our way.

I really hope that this is it.

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