Holy crap?

There are so many things I need to update about our little Jonesy family unit,
things like :
holy crap we finally got into a house
holy crap Adeline turned one
holy crap Adeline's summer modeling gig landed her in an ad
holy crap Brett scared the hell out of us by taking a trip to the hospital (again)

Well, that pretty much sums it up, the end!

Totally kidding - I guess I will break each "holy crap" moment into a part. Here is post/

Part 1 of 4 - Holy Crap we finally got into a house.

I was starting to give up on the housing market, it had screwed us over so many times already (seriously, like 15 offers in I was ready to hurt some stubborn banks). A house I previously mentioned in another post, yea that post that I explained how I ran my husband over with my car - that house? The counter offer there was $40,000 over the bank's own listing price! How in the hell is that even possible,or legal?! I mean I know how it is legal because as the spouse of an immigrant I have learned the government kind of does whatever the hell they want to at whatever price tag they want, and I guess banks follow suit.

We quickly moved along to looking at other houses, we found an awesome house with tons of space and in perfect condition considering it was a foreclosure. It even had 2 driveways, so Brett was stoked. Naturally when we tried to make an offer it was delayed (this was on 12/5). Bank of America aka the Devil decided that at precisely the time we were trying to put in an offer they were going to let an auction company handle the listing, so who knows when they will be done dilly dallying and get back to you *insert money signs and frowny faces here*.

A week and some change later we were told they were allowing us to make a "pre-bid" offer on the house, how very sweet of them (this was on 12/13). If per chance they did not like our pre bid we would get tossed out and have to show up at the house for the auction. They also wanted a hefty-er than normal size earnest money deposit, so everyone involved could get some money just in case. Fun? Yea don't think so. But we did the grin and bear it, forked out the $ and waited. Money talks, they accepted our offer 2 days later. The happy dance commenced throughout my office halls (this was on 12/15).

Since we "won" an auction I was wondering how that would affect the closing date, I was told it could actually speed things up and we could close as quickly as our loan officer could process the loan. LIES. I was excited for a minute because our loan officer was a freakin champ at her job, so she would have it done in no time. What they failed to add in was that it would go as quickly as the loan processor, THE SELLER...ahem DEVIL, and closing attorney could work. Fml take 20. I wanna say we hovered over 4+ possible closing dates, none of the hold up being on our end with our loan whatsoever.

We actually moved one of the closing dates because we were waiting on a single little paper from the neighborhood HOA. Really guys? I can probably go knock on their door and snag that for you, since you ass hats are in Atlanta and taking your sweet time even contacting the appropriate HOA person.

The plethora of closing dates finally landed us on Friday the 13th, and had we not been bat shit crazy by then we may have actually cared that we were closing on such an inappropriate day. Or maybe it was appropriate. Anyways we made it safe and sound to the closing and did a wam bam thank you maam closing in roughly 30 minutes. Followed it up with a celebratory sammich at Jimmy John's (sidenote - Ctown needs one of those, they are delish).

We painted that Friday night. We moved, I mean MOVED that Saturday. We spent our first night there Sunday night. I will say that there are still some items floating around at my parent's house from the move - but for the most part we totally owned that moving process. I know some people who moved over a year ago and are still unpacking. I don't want to mingle in tooo much from Part 2 - Holy Crap Adeline turned 1- but I will leave you with this, her first birthday party happened very successfully 6 days after we moved in. Yea, we rock.

I still can't believe how awesome the new house is. I feel like the real owners are going to show up any minute and kick us out. Eventually it will feel like ours, but for now I am in disbelief.

Reindeer games

On the drive to work this morning I get the feeling that someone is riding my bumper, I take a glance in the rear view mirror and I see a fuzzy little pair of reindeer antlers.
I then have to adjust the mirror so that I can see what is attached to this corny christmas decor, and I see a yellow VW beetle. I speed up a little to see A-why is the tiny car in such a hurry, I am in the right lane and B-who is furiously driving this little car. I see a man in his late 30's. I also see that he has a hawaiin lei draping his ridiculous little mirror, but even better - he has adorned his front license plate with a HARLEY DAVIDSON tag. Hardcore sir, hardcore.

Wish I could have rolled down the window and said, "You drive the equivalent to the Vespa of motorcycles, so get off my ass. I totally understand why you are such an aggressive driver though. It is probably mentally and physically painful to drive such a gay looking car. If you really want to be seen and heard on the road so that you can get to work in a timely manner, perhaps you should purchase a loud, manly truck, or harley since you are apparently a fan, not a pregnant roller skate. Just a suggestion."

I bet you didn't know

5 fun facts about me that you may not have known:

1-The most expensive thing in my closet would be a pair of Lucchese classic cowboy boots. I could have made half a mortgage payment with those things. But, no matter what I think they will be awesome and in season. They are cowboy boots. If you think otherwise I will kick you, with the boots on.

2- The only hickey I have ever gotten was from a Stingray. I was on one of those cruise excursions where you "swim with the stingrays". Like goobers, tourist bob around with snacks hanging around their necks and are surprised when the stingrays then swarm around them and scare the hell out of them.

3- When I was barely old enough to talk I made my mom play a Randy Travis tape on repeat, my absolute favorite song was Diggin' Up Bones. Sidenote- when I was little I also thought that Randy Travis was the man on the Cracker Barrel sign. Ha, kids.

4- I got my first job when I was 14. I worked for my dad's old car garage, I helped take the front and back ends and all rusty parts off the cars when they came in, and then I sandblasted the rust off of what I could. The guys had to rig a special stool up for me because I was too short to get my arms into the sand blasting machine. That job lasted a year and I threw the towel in and went to work at a coffee shop.

5- I have been playing the Alto saxophone since I was 9 years old, I picked that instrument because I saw it on a PBS special my dad was watching on big band music. That weekend he bought an old used one for me to learn on, it smelled like cigarettes because of all the night clubs it had been in. But I played the hell out of that thing. I later got a brand new one, and I will sometimes go a year or more without cracking the case open, but never ever forget how to play it.

Tom

Last month I got to experience something really awesome. I helped my parents host a reunion for Vietnam Veterans. Specifically, the unit my dad was in in Vietnam, the 1/92 Field Artillery. It took me a year to organize all of the details, visit all of the museums, tour possible hotels, restaurants and so on. Just thinking about the 4 day extravaganza made me tired. I really wish I had been able to do more with everyone, see more of the people and talk to them. Adeline and I couldn't keep up though. I didn't want to subject them to a cranky screaming baby just so I could hang out and chat. But we did make one friend in particular along the way. Tom.

You see, Tom has been battling pancreatic cancer for a while, he had lost well over 100 lbs and was very weak. But he made it a point to make this his first reunion, and boy was he determined. He has always had a hesitation to coming to the reunions, but made the plunge this year. At any rate, on the Thursday of the reunion he was just too tired to finish all of the stops for the day, and I was planning to take Adeline home so she could rest so we offered him a ride back to the hotel so he could rest up as well. That is, if he didn't mind a crazy kid riding along side of him. He gladly accepted the challenge. On the ride to the hotel we talked about his kids, and all sorts of stuff. I told him the last time I was in Dallas (which is the area he is from) it was for a Mary Kay event. He explained that he actually worked for a company that used Mary Kay Ash's original warehouse! Pretty neat. He was so grateful for the ride back, and for the work I had put in for the reunion. I of course told him the thanks should be to them, not me, and that this event was the least I could do. I almost cried on the ride home after we dropped him off. It occurred to me that his battles with cancer were probably related to his service in Vietnam, and his exposure to chemicals like agent orange. Meeting people like Tom really make you think, and appreciate your health. But I applauded the strength he did have and his determination to get to Atlanta (alone) to see these guys he fought next to, even if it were for one last time.

We had our big party on Saturday, and Tom was there all day - he and Brett had a good chat while Brett manned the smoker. Tom told him about his reluctance to come to past reunions, I guess he was worried people wouldn't like him. It seemed to me that he was quite the popular guy though! Which made me happy. At the end of the night on Saturday he was really sad to tell us all goodbye. I think we all got a little choked up, and it really was sad to tell him goodbye.

All in all I would say out of the 100+ people that were at the event, I had the opportunity to talk to Tom the most.

Yesterday afternoon I was told that Tom lost his battle with cancer. 15 days after he returned home from the reunion. My face felt hot, almost like an anger, and then the sadness set in, and it occurred to me that it was now time to go and tell dad the news.

There are just some things that you can't explain.

I can explain this though, I am so glad that I had the honor to meet Tom, and everyone else from the reunion. Now I know why it was so hard for him to tell everyone goodbye that night. At least I can say that I helped provide his first, and only reunion and that it was a memorable one. He is in a much better place now. May you rest in peace Tom.

Technological Baby Steps

I feel like a proud parent,

My dad used the internet to look up an antique shop, all on his own this morning. He even looked at some of their inventory, and contact information.

He is growing up so fast.

sidenote - he did however ask me if his computer had "all of it's parts" before he got started. Someone in the office was going to borrow his monitor last week, poor guy thought it was missing. I assured him he had all of the parts he needed to investigate the antique shop deal.

Next step? World domination. I imagine.

Automation station

As we prepare to move I have been calling all of our utility companies so that I can set up disconnect dates. Of course they are all getting confused about how awesome our situation is and how no, I don't need to reconnect at the new location. I am not moving to a new house, I am moving to mom and dads. Or as Brett and I like to say, with "our roommates" -Grandma's boy reference. ftw.

I also just realized how stupid I sounded on the phone with GA Power. They have 50% of their customer service line handled by an automated person. You know, the one where you have to physically say what you want vs. pressing a number to move onto the next step. I am currently at the office so I know I sounded like an idiot. Another thing I have learned is that those fake customer service reps have really shitty hearing, and similarly can't understand my dialect. Got a lot of -"I'm sorry, I didn't understand you" Yes automated person, you are sorry.

If your office were close to mine the last 10 minutes would have sounded something like this:

"This music sucks, I hate being on hold, oh wait the music stopped!"

"english" ...

"ENGLISH!"

"existing customer" ....

dammit, "EXISTING CUSTOMER!"

"no way I am not saying my social security number out loud. Why can't I just push in my account number? Stupid automation..."

beep beep beep, beep beep, beep beep beep beep

"yes, that is correct"

"YES THAT IS CORRECT"

"disconnect service"

ughhhhhhhhhhhhh "DISCONNECT SERVICE!"

Eventually I got to talk to a person IN REAL LIFE. I think I offended he/she when I said yes ma'am for like the 3rd time.Ok, so it must have been a guy. Or a ticked off lesbian. Who knows, I was sure to be polite either way. I think by the end of the convo he/she felt bad for me and even added in a "good luck with your house stuff."

That was very thoughtful of him/her.

Little Bear's first Halloween

Adeline's first Halloween was a success. We didn't take her trick or treating because she doesn't have any teeth. We did however dress her up, and took her to the festival in town. I was hoping she would be in the costume contest, but we were a little too late for that. BUT we did find out that our scarecrow (in the pic with us) we made for the paranormal group won 3rd place. Paranormal George got us $25, we are only like, $1,975 away from a thermal imaging camera. So, 79 more scarecrow contests and we are set! By then the entire group will be dead themselves, but we can dream.

Anyways, Ms. Baby was a bear for her first Halloween. She didn't seem to be too mad about the costume, it was a chilly day so she enjoyed the extra layers of fur. We let her "help" hand out treats to the kiddos in our neighborhood.

We had some extra treats this year, compliments of my dad.

See, dad's Vietnam veterans reunion just wrapped up 2 weeks ago, and he had boxes of little peanut butter cracker packs, and TONS of baggies of pretzels. So each trick or treater got a bag of Snyder's pretzels, and a handful of candy. EXCEPT when Brett answered the door. I guess he figured he was too good to give the kids pretzels with their candy, so those kids just got candy. After watching Brett's hand pass right over the box of pretzels and straight to the candy a few times a thought popped into my head, "What in the hell am I going to do with 200 bags of pretzels?!". It was at that point I made it to the door before he could to greet 2 new trick or treaters. I of course gave them PRETZELS, and candy. I held my breath waiting for their reaction to getting a bag of pretzels along with the generic boring stuff. And? One of the little boys literally ran, yes ran, leaving a cloud of dust behind him- off of our porch and down our driveway screaming "OH BOY!!!! MOOOOM! I GOT PRETZELS!". I glanced at Brett and smirked. "See, they love the pretzels, please for the love of god get rid of the pretzels."

That little boy totally made my night.

Adeline enjoyed greeting her neighbors for about 45 minutes before ripping her fuzzy little hat off and screaming at us. Not bad for her first Halloween.