Hopefully We Don't Get Robbed

There's a guy who knocks on our door every so often asking if we want him to sweep up outside of our house. The first time he came by we gave him a few bucks to do it.

Of course, he took the money and left without doing a thing.

Amazingly, this man has had the nerve to come back repeatedly.

Two nights ago this guy knocked on our door and Jay told him that he didn't have any cash. He was like, I noticed that you have trash bags in your basement (uhhhh... peaking in our basement windows? CREEPY) and I have a dumpster. I can bring it over and take everything away for you.

Here's the thing. Our children's Christmas gifts are hidden in those bags (along with the clothes that we washed and dried at the laundry mat when we found out about the bb's back in September).

Hopefully he won't rob us.

We have an alarm on the house but Jay has been insistent that it can't be used while we're gone because our cats set the motion detector off. This struck me as being completely impossible. I mean, why would you have an alarm that you can't use? I found out that you can put a weight limit on the filter that triggers the motion detector. This stupid alarm has already caused us so much grief. We are living with no smoke alarms because the fire department was going to fine us if they had to come to our house anymore. And they were being called at least once a week because of this stupid alarm.

This makes me want to scream, "I HATE TECHNOLOGY. IT MAKES ME LIFE HARDER" from the top of an apple store. Apple doesn't even make the alarm. I'm just grouchy. And apple makes my iphone... which has been giving me a hard time. So I may have some displaced anger toward electronics.

Wow. I'm in a really bad mood.

I can't handle another bad thing...

House of Death and Violence

The death tally mounts.

Shortly after moving in we discovered that we had mice. Mostly, we discovered that the landlord had hidden nuggets of rat poison in various nooks and crannies of our home, but the actual mice evaded us. And, of course, we discovered the rat poison when Sidney dug a bar up and tossed it to me with the desire to play a healthy game of fetch.

Anyway, I've been meaning to pop over to Lowes to buy some of those cruelty free, humane mouse traps. I guess that I deluded myself into believing that the mice would sense Sherbert and run for the neighbors kitchen and floorboards. No such luck.

In the past two days I have woken up to one dead mouse and five, yes FIVE, dead bed bugs on the floor of my family room.

The mouse was totally heartbreaking. I have been feeling guilty all day. I can't bring myself to google, "do mice live in families or are they loners?"

Fire Fighers

I was broiling a london broil tonight and forgot to turn my oven vent on.

Suddenly our fire detector began beeping and our house alarm went wild.

I ran to the front door and pressed in our code. Everything stopped. The alarm sounded for less than a minute.

Five minutes later we had a fire truck in front of our house with a whole team of fully outfitted firemen.

At least I know that they respond quickly.

Tuesday- Little light in a Big mess

I'm not going to the contaminated apartment today. I got a lot done there yesterday and was happy to finish my grocery shopping at the Reading Terminal Market (if you can swoon for a grocery, I do swoon and sing for this one), come home, make a nice dinner, work on homework with the girls and read a book before bed time. I also took Bunny to get her ears pierced but she backed out just after they put the little purple dots on her ears. I bought her magnetic earrings instead. She was really disappointed in herself and we had a long talk about not doing things until you feel ready to do them. I think that she's feeling pressure because the other girls in her class have their ears done already.

I wish that I never had to go back to the apartment again.

Did I mention yesterday that they said that we'd have to pay for these ridiculous bulk trash fees if we wanted to get rid of our contaminated things? I was like, "This building did this to us. It's costing thousands of dollars. My children no longer have ANY toys or books. We don't have a BED. I am not paying you one penny to solve this problem." And then I started crying and was like, "you know.... I'm never like this... but I'm so angry..." If anything, they should be glad that we're taking care of it and not just abandoning everything that we don't want and letting them take it out.

So, we decided to take everything to a sanitation facility to be destroyed or thrown in a big pile of crap... or whatever happens to your stuff when you do that. It will be the last thing that we do on our moving day (Saturday).

Surprisingly, even while living with just a folding card table, a few folding chairs and some mattresses on the floor... I am somehow happier than I was in my apartment. I really like it here. I know that I've complained about the neighborhood, and it is a little bit sketchy. It gets worse as you go south, and because of all the one way streets in this city you have to go south of where we live and then wind around to come back up to our house. My neighbors are all really friendly. There are lots of kids. It's quiet (way quieter than living in Center City).

Better still, cooking in my kitchen was a dream. The appliances are so beautiful and such good quality.

As soon as this moving nightmare is over, I think that we'll be really happy here.

New House In South Philly

We got the keys to our new house today!

The house itself has grown on me. I love the old floors and the exposed brick walls. Also, I am spectacularly excited to have a back yard again. An urban backyard is like a golden nugget, to be cherished and protected forever. I'm hoping the there's enough light to build a little vegetable garden with the girls next spring.

Also, the kitchen in this house is so nice!!!! I mean, our apartment has a kitchen aseembled with dental floss and popsicle stickskitchen that is... fine. It has the things that "nice" kitchens require, (or, at least in the world according to HGTV) like stainless steel and granite countertops. But the appliances are so cheap and the cabinets are crap and the granite is paper-thin. Our new kitchen was done really nicely and I'm excited to cook in it.

Jay and I still don't agree on where we should put our dining room table, being that the house doesn't have a proper dining room. It's one of those things that we'll have to see before we can make a real decision.

I still have reservations about the neighborhood... but I'm trying to embrace it. I am trying to stay positive and hope for the best.

We can't move in until October 2nd... but that gives me some time to paint before we move in.

Pictures soon!

UPDATE!!!!!! I went by the house with the girls after school today and took a few pictures! There will be more to come after we paint and move in!