Every Little Wonder

Embiggening? Embiggenning? In any case, despite telling myself that I am going to start eating healthy, really, really, for real this time, my diet for the past week has consisted of:

1. homemade peach tart
2. homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches
3. cupcakes
4. cake
5. more cake
6. cheeze-its

Which may explain why I’ve gained five (FIVE) pounds since moving here. Living at my mom’s may be delicious, but it’s certainly not good for my waist line.

A few weeks—okay, months—ago, Cris and I decided we were going to start the Couch-to-5k plan. We were certain. We were dedicated. We even spent a bazillion dollars are REI on running stuff. Witness the shoes:

That’s how dedicated we were to running every other day.

As of today? We’ve done the ‘Week 1 Day 1” plan three separate times. And that’s about it for that. The crazy toe shoes sit by door unloved, the Jillian Michaels dvd gathers dust by the tv, and I sit here with my ever-widening ass planted the couch.

Not cool, lady.

I’ll get my ish together once we’re settled in the new house. I swear.

That is, if we get the house. Some last minute ridiculousness on the day before we were supposed to sign has caused a flurry of panic and stress and despair.

Which would be fine, if I was one of the people who stopped eating when stressed instead of one of those people who stress-eats her way through a gallon of ice cream and self-loathing.

I don’t know. Fingers crossed or something. I’m going to bed.

We’ve officially locked in the rate on the mortgage and just have to sign final papers. They’re saying 30 days until the house is done. 30 freaking days.

I’ve spent countless hours dreaming up how I want to furnish and decorate the inside of the house, but we’re on a budget and there are major essentials that need be purchased before I can start trying to talk Cris into a $3500 couch. I bought a garage door opener on Woot the other day and we’ve started looking at refrigerators and we probably need to buy a lawn mower. We need curtains or blinds or whatever for all the windows and a washer and dryer and and and…what the crap. It’s so adult…and yeah, I know I have a kid so I should be over it by now, but I seriously still feel like I’m just playacting at this whole adult thing. It’s ridiculous to think I’m going to be a homeowner. I’m going to paint stars on the ceiling of the secret room under the stairs, build a fort in the backyard, and turn the loft into a giant ball pit.

And hey,I might even let Ezra play with me.

1. The House:

They’ve finally started building it. (!!!) We walked around all excited, and then realized that our backyard is small. Like, it’s silly how small it is. I think I’ve had larger balconies in old apartments. We knew it was going to be tiny because the lots are small, but…dude. It’s okay though—we’ll make the most of the space we have and keep it cozy and cute. I didn’t want to buy a lawnmower anyway.

2. Nap Time:
is going splendidly. Yes, I know, I’ve totally jinxed it now, but I can’t help it. I’ve finally got Ezra on a one-nap-a-day-right-after-lunch schedule and he falls asleep in a minute or two. I’m not spending two or three hours every day trying to force him down. This is epic. I’m an idiot for even mentioning it.

3. Bed Time:
Entirely different story. Ezra hates bedtime and wants nothing to do with it. Period. The end. Now let’s go play with trains.

4. Boo Hoo:
Cris is still working/living in SF and I feel like a sad single mom. There have been so! many! interviews, and there are a few positions they are just dangling in front of our faces, torturing us with while they take their sweet, sweet time making final decisions. So we wait and fret and make sad faces at each other over the phone and try not to think about how much we are spending on gas for the weekly/semiweekly trips between San Francisco and Sacramento.

5. WAHM:
It’s hard to be productive while working at home with a very, shall we say energetic toddler. But I spent the last two days in the office and managed to be almost equally unproductive, so this is more of a me thing than a baby thing. Specifically, a me-with-ADHD thing. I should maybe do something about that. After looking at this shiny thing over there.

6. Food:
I’m over it. I’m tired of thinking about it, planning it, cooking it, fighting to get the kiddo to eat it. My parents eating habits are so different from my own, Ezra doesn’t like anything that isn’t cheese or yogurt or crackers, and I have no real space for storing and cooking meals here, and no breaks from the baby to prepare a nice meal even if I had the energy. I want the human equivalent of cat food. I want to go grab a 90lb bag of human chow at Costco and dump in the kitchen and just be done with food for the month. Taco-flavored human chow.

7. Future Plans:
Within the next year, I want to a) lose 60 lbs b) have another baby c) get married. There is no graceful way to make all these things happen concurrently, so…I will probably spend the next year lounging around, listening to Mumford & Sons, and growing increasingly agitated. Hey, at least it’s a plan!

We meet tomorrow morning to finalize all the ‘design choices’ for our new home (!!!). We’ve been pouring over the list of possible options and upgrades, and if we added everything we really wanted, it’s, oh, about three times our budget. So it’s been weeks of discussion and back-and-forths and what-ifs… do we really need a fireplace (I guess not?), will we die without hardwood floors (yes, but it’s about half as expensive to do it ourselves later), do we need the optional fourth bedroom (yep, especially if I want to keep popping out babies in the future).

But compromises were made and we’ve finally got it down under budget and we didn’t once murder each other. Even if I don’t get the appeal of surround sound prewiring. Even if Cris doesn’t understand the necessity of pull-out drawers in the kitchen cabinets.

So tomorrow things get finalized and maybe then I’ll actually have some idea of when the house will start being built and when we can expect to move in. So far in the process, the date’s been pushed from June, to July, to August. So… I’m guessing sometime in 2012 at this rate?

I’m excited, but I’m trying not to get pee-my-pants excited until we’ve closed on the loan, just in case something goes wrong. But that doesn’t stop me from spending half my free time creating inspiration boards and daydreaming about how to decorate the various rooms.

Basically, I just need to win the lottery by the time we move in.

Last year, I made that big list of things I wanted to do. I tried to keep it to easy, attainable things. I thought it would be no problem.

L.O.L.

It’s ridiculous looking back on it now, seeing how little I’ve accomplished. Like, in 365 days I couldn’t manage to just sort out my digital photos? Paint a dresser? Go to the freaking Alameda Flea Market? Not once? In an entire year?

I’m not gonna wallow in self-pity and disappointment, because, whatever, you know? I had a baby, guys. I know I’m running out of time to use that as an excuse for everything, but I’m sticking with it while it lasts.

This year, I want to do this:
1. Buy a house.

There are a million other things I want to do this year, but that’s the big one. Buying a home in the Bay Area just isn’t an option for us unless we’re looking at a shack in the scary (scariest) parts of Oakland, so we’re planning on moving to Sacramento where the same amount of money can get us a new 4 bedroom house with a pool.

Sacramento. OMG. The suburbs. What.

I don’t know who I’ve become. I used to think home ownership was a giant money- and time-suck and I wanted nothing to do with it. And now I have a baby and I want a yard and a washer and dryer and I want to paint walls and grow a real garden and build a sunroom and and and. It hit me hard last year, this craving for a place to call my own. Looking at home design blogs is almost painful. It’s like that ridiculous ovarian squeal I experience whenever I see a teensy newborn baby or a ruffled polka dot baby girl dress. I NEED I WANT I MUST NOW NOW NOW. Only it’s not in my ovaries. It’s in whatever part of my brain is responsible for making me like Eames loungers and chalkboard walls and dark hardwood floors.

So. Sacramento. The weather, the cookie cutter houses, the lack of an ocean within walking distance. It’s not my dream situation, but since no one’s buying me a huge sunlit flat with a garage in Hayes Valley, it will do for now. We’ll be farther from Cris’s family but close to mine. And if we work it right, I can quit the 9-5 cubicle gig and do freelance full time. And then life will be sunny and birds will sing and everything will be perfect. Or something like that.

So, there it is. My exciting, terrifying, OMGWTFBBQ goal for the year.

Bonus list in case I end up feeling wildly productive and successful:

1. win a neeewwwwww caaaarrrrrrr!!! on The Price is Right
2. lose weight for reals this time
3. become BFF with Tori Spelling (uh, more on that later)
4. go to Europe (not sure how this fits in with saving money for the down payment, but maybe I’ll win the lottery or something)
5. have a wedding (again, money. when is an unknown relative going to die so I can inherit millions???)
6. ah, what the hell— win the lottery or something

My request to work from home two days a week was approved.

Internet, let us all breathe a collective sigh of relief. I know you were worried about me.

Wednesdays and Fridays are now officially the days I work from home, i.e., the days I lounge around in jammies with a cute baby and a laptop and a much chirpier personality from not getting up at 6am and not being stuck in traffic for four hours. I.E. NOT SUCKY DAYS.

The best part of working from home:

Notice: lack of shoes! awesome baby! sunshine!

And—less than two minutes later—the worst part of working from home:

I think I am going to have to buy Ezra a laptop for his birthday.* I see no other possible solution to this.

*Speaking of his birthday: OH HOLY WTF?! ONE YEAR? WHAT? This cannot possibly be right! Somebody hold me.

Ezra loooooves being on the balcony with us.* There are trees and birds and exciting kids playing in the courtyard below, plus, it’s where the cats hang out. And he loves nothing more than being where the cats out. So we’ve been spending more time on the balcony as the weather warms up, which brings us to:

This, dear friends, is my new GARDEN PARADISE. Okay, so maybe it’s just a few potted plants on a too-small balcony, but I’m pretty excited about it anyway. A short trip to Home Depot and a couple hours of playing around in the dirt, and now we’ve got thyme, rosemary, basil, cilantro, oregano, two types of tomatoes, and a million varieties of peppers growing. And some sunflowers, just to keep things EXCITING. I want to add more plants eventually, but Cris made me promise to start small. (I may or may not have a habit of going way obsessively overboard with new projects only to lose interest halfway though.) But if we could only fit an avocado tree and a lime tree up here, I’d never have to leave the apartment again.

*Ezra loves being outside, period. He has yet to discover the joys of curling up on the couch in your jammies and watching awful movies. Sometimes I wonder whether he’s really my son (see also: tall and skinny, fearless, loves strangers).

I’m in the process of trying to organize my bedroom, and I need to make room for a nice little home office somewhere in there. Here’s what I’m loving right now:

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Our bedroom is a disaster.

Since moving to our new apartment a few months ago, we’ve mostly managed to get the rest of the place under control, but the bedroom? sigh. The bed’s on the floor, there are piles of clothes everywhere, and a messy computer desk is shoved into a corner. I can do better, I hope. This month, my goal is turn the bedroom into a cozy little paradise and a productive home office. I really have no idea where to start, but these are some bedrooms I’m loving right now, for inspiration…

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I’m, uh, not really noticing any themes going on in the images, but… it’s a start, right?