The Joy of Cat Companionship

Things that make me wonder if we are nuts to have cats:

• Pairing of the words ointment and peri-vaginal area
• Olympic-worthy puking episode resulting in fun game of "Find All the Easter Eggs"
• Nightly world-championship whining sessions for more kibble
• Accidentally incurring the wrath of Phoebe
• Putting a cat on a diet (necessity of counting one's fingers on a regular basis to make sure they weren't a midnight snack)

Things that remind me why we'll never not have cats:

• Bernie (on the left)
• Phoebe (on the right)
• Phoebe's attempt to type and load disks on the computer (possibly an early attempt to learn how to shop online)
• Bernie's happiness at just sitting next to me
• Phoebe using and over-sized stuffed animal as a potential bed (the cat-kneading to make the animal into a bed is more than chuckle-worthy)
• Bernie's occasional antics, generally involving too much curiosity, something that resembles string, and a liberal amount of panic

Welcome to Indianapolis

What must surely have been the sole snow plow on the road - and they managed to get a photo of it. 

Welcome to Indianapolis, home of the two hour commute. Also known as land of paralyzing snowfalls and arctic temperatures - puh-leez! Three inches of snowfall, no snow removal, fewer cold-weather driving skills than Mexico City, and you get mass chaos. No, really, it's almost humorous. Learning to drive in the Michigan snow belt might have made me a bit jaded, but really, it borders on the ridiculous. Tee hee. 

At our house, Keira and I are hoping to get in a bit of sledding, finally. Chad is shivering and gritting his teeth at the amount of time still to go before spring. 

And a Trollop Gave to Me

Keira, getting ready to serve appetizers she made for our friends Spencer and Elizabeth. 

It's been ages! Sorry for the long lapse, but I think the computer fry, the platform change, and then a year of remodeling left me a bit weary to add any new posts. But, I hope this means I'm back in action. 

Keira's speech hasn't improved, it's gone gang busters. There isn't much she doesn't understand, begs for more words in Japanese, and I occasionally catch her making her dolls converse in Spanish - their vocabulary is quite limited - in fact they generally converse in funny song lyrics, but they are nonetheless speaking Spanish. It's great - though it does open up some funny arguments. Nothing you can say will convince Keira that certain terms she uses are not quite right. Examples:

Snow Wife = Snow White (white makes no sense, I was told)

Play Day = Play Date (a full day is entirely necessary, nothing less will do)

My favorite, and by all means the best, is what we found she was really singing all Christmas. She L*O*V*E*D carols and still sings them. One of her favorites was The 12 Days of Christmas. As we were cooking dinner the other night I heard her singing to herself "On the fifth day of Christmas my trollop gave to me..." Trollop. I didn't even think of correcting her, it's too perfect. 

Just More Photos

During: Part 1

Don't be alarmed - I'm not going to try and blog every single day of the remodel. I'd bore even myself. However, I thought it worth noting my makeshift kitchen/dining room. If I do say so myself, it's pretty workable. We've effectively been using this kitchen since Sunday, but it's only been the past two days that the kitchen has been totally inaccessible. 

I also feel compelled to note that our contractors make a sink available to us every night so that we always have running water - they totally rock. 

We're also starting to see some real demolition. Aside from them not being able to get the dumpster into the alley, everything is sailing along perfectly. See for yourself. 

We've also found that we're damn lucky that the refrigerator didn't fall through the floor in the kitchen. There's nary a board to be seen in that corner - we really don't know what it was resting on. 

Now, on to day three!

Before: Part 3

There are only four parts to the Before posts, I promise it won't go on forever. In fact, we've just completed day two of the remodel, so this post is quite late. However, moving the entire contents of one's kitchen, bathroom, and catch-all-room-o-crap (mudroom), takes up quite a bit of time. Especially if you wish to have a marginally functional existence during the project. 

So, without further ado, part 3 of our series on Why the Cerdas Are Sinking Mountains of Cash Into Their Home. I'd like to draw your attention to several aspects of the above photos. Namely:

• That we've not been using this bathroom for many months due to the imminent migration of the toilet from the bathroom into the crawl space
  
• The overall and inescapable crappiness of the bathroom in general
  
• The evidence that this bathroom has had repeated and un-repaired water issues at least a handful of times over the past couple of decades
  
• That the plumbing was done with putty, duct tape, and pvc (I'm not shitting you)
  
• The fact that it was remodeled in the late 70's/early 80's using entirely salvaged materials (we like to think of it as green before their time)
  
• Did I mention that the toilet was going to fall through the floor?
  

I won't bother with the final Before post until it is time to tackle the upstairs bathroom. Now, on to the During posts.

Away We Go!

She's three! Despite her best efforts to get either Chad or I to do her in, she's made it to three. If she weren't so freakin' cute, I think she'd be history. I think it's payback. She was an exceptionally easy baby, if you don't count the not sleeping till she was 9 months old part. She's ornery, stubborn, clever, and willful. And yet, from time to time, she can be the sweetest, most endearing girl. 

I think that it's a built-in survival mechanism. It goes something like this:

• Friday, 8:00 am, spend 1/2 an hour throwing a screaming tantrum on the floor because Dad unrolled her socks
  
• Friday, 8:30 am, spend another 1/2 hour saying "no way!" to Mommy about the size of bites I cut
  
• Friday, 9:00 am, spend an hour running around the house, refusing to listen. We especially like the "if mommy wants me to do it, I'll do the very opposite game." This generally consist of things like taking clothes off, rather than putting them on.
  
• Friday, 10:00 am, spend two brutal hours making our way from store to store on errands.
  
• Friday, 3:00 pm, just got up from a nap, "Mommy, Grandma and Grandpa are here!!!! Now, you and I both have our mommies here. You and I both have our daddies here. I'm so happy!"
  

You get the picture - almost kill her, almost kill her, almost kill her, awwww she's so cute! Repeat - all day, dawn to dusk. I, for one, am exhausted.