We Did a Thing ...

Friday night, I was cleaning up dinner, got interrupted to help Declan with something, and when I came back, I looked at the dishes in the sink and thought "did I wash them? or do I need to wash them?" So that's where we are around here for brain capacity. The adrenaline high I had been riding for a week and a half was officially tapped. I know that's true, because normally I can remember if I washed a pot 90 seconds ago or not. [I decided I had washed them. We live dangerously here.]

Why is my brain fried, you ask? Because we bought a house!!! Can you believe it? After two years of limbo (will we? won't we? will we ever find one? will we ever get an offer accepted in this insanely hot market?), there may actually be a plan that ends with the children not all sharing a bedroom. 

The market is red hot right now in Shakopee. Yet somehow, we found a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood we were hoping for. It's the main feeder neighborhood for the kids' current elementary school, so they don't need to change schools. Declan's best friend A (you may remember him from our skate night) lives in the next cul-de-sac over - as do a couple of Fiona's good friends. And Q's friend T lives about half a mile down the road. In fact, A's mom sent me a text picture of the "nightly street hockey game" and said they can't wait for a couple more players. We will miss our current neighborhood friends so much, but are excited for a 'hood full of kids!

The house we bought went on the market at noon on Tuesday. We saw it at 3:30 and had our offer in by 7:30 that night. Let's just say it was an aggressive offer. The sellers set an offer deadline for 9am Wednesday morning and they had over 10 offers. In less than 24 hours! We found out after the fact that we were not the highest offer, but had the best terms. The letter I wrote helped as well. 

We spent last week decluttering, cleaning, and staging our house for pictures on Friday. It was a lot of late nights and trips to the storage unit. Real truth: Mike does not like decluttering. He has two speeds: Pack a Room Entirely or Wander About Not Knowing What To Do. When it comes to house stuff, there are few moments when my skillset is more useful than Mike's. So I have to record it when it happens. This week is house repairs and paint touch ups ... so we're back in Mike's court. 

We are also continuing the declutter and cleaning progress, so don't worry, I'm not bored. Our house hits the market tomorrow as a "Coming Soon" and showings start Friday afternoon. We are heading out of town to not manage life around people parading through our house and have our fingers crossed that it will be sold by the end of the weekend (pretty pretty please). The constant rate of change is wearing on all of us, but especially the kids and we need to get back to a more normal lifestyle ... you know, where you are allowed to touch the walls and put things on the counter. 

We are taking advantage of the move to thin out our possessions. So I'll leave you with the following questions that were raised as I cleaned out our storage room:

- How many Barbie houses are too many? Is it five? Plus two campers and an ambulance? Because the Barbie village feels excessive. 

- Why do we have SEVEN Halloween trick-or-treat pumpkins? Seven. Are there children living here I don't know about?

- Why does Mike insist on keeping a 200 disc CD changer? That monstrosity is going to follow us forever, isn't it?

Casting Call

I've mentioned it in passing a few times here, but Mike's work life has been pretty stressful since mid-August. And by default, our home life too. Anchor Bank was acquired by Old National Bank (ONB) in August. Since Mike works in a functional area (IT), we assumed that his position would be eliminated. ONB already has an IT staff, and they don't need two. The alternative was that they would have a spot for him, but it would be a step backwards for him. It was all guesswork, and we held on to a glimmer of hope that there would be a good career opportunity there. But we just didn't know.

The not knowing went on until late November. That's a long time to not know. So Mike started selectively applying for jobs. It wasn't a hardcore job search - but if there was a change to be made, he wanted to be driving it. During that search, he found a really interesting posting for a Network Administrator at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. We typically go to their shows and really love the place. He threw his hat in the ring and heard back almost immediately from them. It was a really good match, but (even though they came up from what they were originally hoping to pay), their offer was just too low and Mike turned down the job. He had a really good conversation with the hiring manager and told them how interested he was in the job - and if they could meet his minimum, to call him back.

The next week, we finally found out that his position would be eliminated in May. So at least we knew and he decided to increase the intensity of his search. There were a couple new IT positions at ONB that he could apply for, but didn't find either of them particularly interesting. Within about 24 hours, ONB started recruiting him big time for one of the positions because they didn't want to lose him. If you are wondering why on earth they laid him off then, so were we.

The CIO of ONB basically told Mike that he was the guy for that position and a few days later, he got the formal offer. About that same time, Chanhassen called back with a offer that matched the bank. And he had a third potentially interesting job in the mix. The third job didn't pan out (who knows if they'll come back to him in a few months), and he ended up taking the job at Chanhassen. The job at ONB was just not one that excited him. It's not that he didn't want to work for them, but he didn't want that job.

He started at the theatre on Wednesday. And three days in, he's very happy with his choice. I'm very happy about free play tickets. If only he would have negotiated for a mini Newsies costume for Dec. That was on my list of demands. :) ... (the next play there is Newsies and the girls and I can.not.wait!)

You are probably exhausted by this story, and I can tell you that it was 50x more exhausting and dramatic than I presented it. It was changing daily. Drastically. But we are grateful that it was exhausting and dramatic because he had a lot of different options and avenues to explore.We are also grateful for an end to the madness! And for gainful employment. And for free play tickets.

The New Camper

Alternate title: How to Get All Your Neighbors to Find a Reason to Stop Over
Second alternate title: When Mike Changed Everything and Sara's Brain Got a Cramp

It's been a wild few weeks here. And by wild, I mean that Mike got an itch and changed everything up! The kids and I basically buckled up and hung on tight. First on the list, we said good-bye to Mike's Trailblazer. It was making some funky sounds, which sounded like they could be expensive. We had been going down the path for a while of sinking money into it and were at the turning point. He also had a long term plan that required more towing capacity. And we wanted to get one car with the third row of seating. So just before Easter, a Dodge Durango came to live with us. We'd settled on a Durango, but I was still surprised by the text at work that said, "Oh, by the way, I bought a car today." He found a really good deal and jumped on it. So far, he's very happy with the trade.

Next up, Mike decided to sell his boat. We haven't used it much since the kids were born, usually one to two times a year, and Mike was spending a lot of time keeping it running. When we do go out on the boat, we're usually up in GR - where everyone else already has one. He was pleasantly surprised at the amount of interest he quickly got after posting it on Craigslist - and ended up selling it for double what he paid for it. He's put a lot of work into it, so he earned the money. But it was still very exciting.

Once the boat sold, we started looking at a camper upgrade. While we loved our vintage camper, by the end of last summer, it was becoming quite clear that it was not made for a family of five plus large dog. Not a deal-breaker, but Mike was also hoping to find one with a little toilet - so that Bugs doesn't have to do her daily flush in a little tent that we set up for her. The tent works until we are camping in a big storm. We found nice several pop-ups in our price range, but most of them didn't have a bathroom. Mike also found one hard-sided one that was at the very top end of our range - but looked to be in great shape. He preferred a hard-sided camper over the pop-up, so went to look at it one day over lunch.

Yet again, I got a call at work that a major purchase had been made. But it was hard to be upset at him for too long. When he saw the camper (which, indeed, was in great shape), he could also tell that the guy was anxious to get rid of it. It was listed for $5,000, so Mike asked the guy if he gave him $2,500 cash, would he take it. And he did!!! The more we work on the new camper, the more we can't believe what a great deal we got. It's really awesome and we are looking forward to our Father's Day camping trip. And thank goodness for the extra towing capacity of the new Durango.

With the new camper in our possession, Mike listed our old camper late Thursday night. By noon on Friday, he had 15 people interested. Most of them offering full price sight unseen. One lady leap-frogged the line by offering us $100 more than what we were asking. She came today to pick it up and was so genuinely excited to get it that we couldn't be happier to sell it to her. And best of all, between selling the boat and the camper, we just about paid for the new camper!

Now maybe Mike can settle down on all the changes. The kids and I are exhausted!

Doubling the Size of Our House

I'm tired. Not pregnancy tired (although there is definitely some of that ... hello 3rd trimester). But work as hard as you can after bedtime tired. And I have the easy jobs. Mike is really the guy who has been doing the lion's share of the manual labor. I've got a keeper in that one!

But we are getting really close to putting together the family space in the basement that we've always dreamed of. We never really used the basement when Matthew lived here - not because he didn't want us to. But you do want to let a guy feel like he has some privacy. So we just tossed old, mismatched furniture down there and called it good. Then when Fiona arrived and kicked the guest bed out of the nursery, it ended up pushed against one end of the long family room. A guest bed - but zero privacy. Not ideal.

Since Matthew moved out, we've painted and recarpeted his old room and made it a bedroom/office. We're still working on some of the final touches, but it is fully functional for visitors. Hooray!

Last weekend, Mike and Brad moved said old, mismatched furniture out the basement (hello Craigslist!) so that the new sectional could be delivered. We LOVE it and Fiona totally approves! We also got a new entertainment center and Mike got permission to buy a new flat screen TV. He came home with one bigger than what I remember agreeing to - but he stayed within budget so I don't care!

The Craigslist app on Mike's phone has thus far proven useful in Operation: Get Rid of the Crap We Don't Want Anymore and Is Taking Up Space In Our Garage. However, he has also found some good outside toys for Buggy - so it's cost us more than it has made us. I'm holding out hope we can break even as the pile of stuff in the garage continues to disappear.

Here are a couple pictures of the new space. Next on the list is really working on the back end of the family room - which will be the toy area for the kids. But we do have a few toys in there and Fiona thoroughly enjoys playing downstairs. So while we technically haven't doubled the size of our house, it sure feels that way to everyone!

Ready for visitors

New sectional (imagine me saying as I take this,
"Buggy, do not color on the new couch")

Start of the toy room

Nothing to do with the basement, but I love the CHEESE face

Wins and Losses

It has been an eventful week in this house. The weekend was spent (among other manual labor projects - to be unveiled in an upcoming post) watching Mike and my hockey teams play their way through the NCAA tourney. Mike's team, as you may remember, is the defending national champ!

Saturday was a great night as both our teams won! Sunday, my team bounced back from a horrific loss the week before to UND to beat them and earn a spot in the Frozen Four! Mike's team couldn't find their skates and lost to BC in a bummer of a game.

Watching the Bulldogs with Daddy

And then on Tuesday, our roommate moved out. My cousin Matthew has been renting a room in our basement for the last [almost] 6 years! He got a job closer to home - and closer to his wife - so he took it! It's a good change for him and an exciting opportunity. It's good for us too with Baby 2 on the way. We were starting to run out of room. But after 6 years, we all got used to each other. It's kinda quiet and his room is very empty ... for the time being.

So we are adjusting to life without the roommate and Mike is making peace with being a Gophers fan next weekend.