Bitch Fest Friday

It's that time again.



Sorry I've been kind of MIA this week. Things are getting down to the nitty gritty before Mr F leaves. Add to that Baby's crazy whiny, clingy phase she's sporting, and things are definitely kind of tense. We had no showings this week... although maybe that was due to the ridiculous snow situation. But it might also be that we're going to have to lower our price. I'm fine with that... just needed to be sure it was necessary before we signed up for it. Our realtor is having his realtor open house next week. If that doesn't pick up traffic we'll lower the price in April.

P.S. Did anyone watch the Marriage Ref last night? That proved to be one of the most entertaining hours of television Mr F and I have watched. We need to get on that show. They don't know what they're missing.

Where It's At

Sorry, this is the only way I can find time to blog right now.

May I Suggest

If your house is on the market you might want to...

NOT do your step aerobics in your living room, right in front of your big picture window, with ladies dress socks on.
This will be the moment someone stops to take a flier from your sign.

Also you might want to...

NOT walk out of the bathroom with your pants undone (what?!!?) while you casually meander into the kitchen before you finish zipping. The entire walk of shame (not to mention your underpants) viewed by a stopped car checking out your yard.

The Bachelor Live Blog Event!

Mrs F: "Are you ready for the greatest night of television ever?"

Mr F (sarcasticly, sort of): "I should live blog it."

Mrs F: "I'm against live-blogging I think it's stupid.

Do it. That'll be hilarious."

*****

Mr F here. Bringing you the same world-class coverage honed through countless playoff games and State of the Union Addresses... Let's rock, single white airline pilot-style.

8:02 -- Nice wedgie, Jake.

8:05 -- Jake: "When I'm with Vienna, she makes me feel like I'm the only guy in the room." Mrs F: "You are!"

8:07 -- The Family. What a bunch of crybabies. Jake: "They're very different. Night and day." Also, very pretty and absolutely ghastly. Intelligent and brain dead...

8:09 -- Why did you bring up Vienna's faults to your family? Because they subconsciously worry the shit out of you!

8:10 -- Holy cow. The Dad is totally sappy just like hers.

8:13 -- Mom, if you would "be honored to have Tenley in the family" you are going to disown your son when he introduces Vienna to you...

8:19 -- When we return—the RUDE AWAKENING!

8:21 -- What is up with Vienna and the hair/rope/crown thing she constantly busts out?

8:25 -- Wow, this is going badly...That mom is shooting daggers.

8:28 -- Vienna failed that test all by herself, fool. Nothing to do with your setting her up.

8:30 -- Again. Drop the preconceived notion hang-up, dude. Let's hope your brothers knock some sense into you.

8:38 -- Are you fucking kidding me? There's a reason none of you liked her. Trust your freaking guts.

8:40 -- Mrs F: "That dad doesn't like Vienna. He's in love with Tenley." He never had a word to say about Vienna. Seriously. Did he ever open his mouth?

8:45 -- Nothing says romance like the stink of sulphur.

8:48 -- Pretty sure the mud-wrestling won't be a major part of marriage...

8:49 -- Well, if what you "need in a wife" is a totally immature bimbo, then you're all set!

8:54 -- Mrs F: "Oh God, she's wearing one of her hideous negligees..."

8:55 -- Yeah Jake! Vienna has a promise ring from her dad to offer! Awesome! He probably made it himself out of beer can tabs.

8:57 -- Enough with your dad! Then marry your freaking dad already!

8:58 -- Did she write that love note in crayon?

8:58 -- Mrs F: "He holds you tight so he doesn't have to look at your face."

--

9:07 -- Here it comes. He's got that face on. Jake's bout to fuck this whole thing up.

9:09 -- Dude. don't fucking forget that she's only dating one of you. She doesn't go off and spend the next night with some Chippendales dancer like you do with Vienna. You are totally compartmentalizing—emotional with Tenley, physical (somehow) with Vienna. It's completely different for them.

9:11 -- She's too good for you jackass. It's over. I hope you ask her and she says no.

9:19 -- Mrs F: "I'll shoot you in the fucking head if you pick Vienna!"

9:20 -- I found that apology pretty freaking weak. she's giving you a chance you don't deserve.

9:21 -- Mrs F: "You didn't chose to take Tenley freaking mud-wrestling. You went snorkeling at a shipwreck. How physical is that going to get? And then you hold it against her!"

9:23 -- During a break, they are casting for the next show. Mrs F: "Let's do it. You'll still pick me."

9:29 -- Actual Vienna Quote: "Jake and I's chemistry..."

9:31 -- Obligatory shirt buttoning shot.

9:32 -- This is getting pathetic. Flip a fucking coin already.

9:33 -- Jake: "I can't believe it's come to this." Yeah. Me either, moron.

9:33 -- Did Vienna make all of her clothing out of one bolt of green fabric?

9:35 -- Looking at Vienna, Mr F: "It's like marrying Dr Torrez." Mrs F. "But dumb."

--

9:41 -- Helipad showdown! Jake is falling apart. He needs a pow-wow with Chris Harrison!

9:42 -- Yes! Chris! Put Tenley back in that copter! Spare her this idiot.

9:43 --There it is! That fucking face of his. He's not asking Tenley!

9:45 -- You're dodging a serious bullet, Tenley. He's a moron. And a child.

9:46 -- Mrs F: "Somebody shoot me."

9:46 -- Mrs F: "I can't believe he doesn't change his mind." Mr F: "He can't change his mind, NOW."

9:47 -- Mrs F: "I hope Tenley gets to be the next Bachelorette."

9:48 -- Mrs F: "You are the biggest idiot of all time. You're going to have a horrible life and you deserve it."

9:49 -- Chris Harrison has to be like, "What the fuck?"

--

9:52 -- Dancing with Stars reveal...Kate Fucking Gosselin? Have we not seen enough of her?

--

9:58 -- Mrs F: "Does Jake know that noses never stop growing?"

9:59 -- Yes! The rope hairdoo!

9:59 -- Jake: "I think you're an amazing woman." Mrs F: "I'm not sure she's a woman."

10:00 -- WTF with the damn ring from her father?

10:02 -- Vienna: "I'm so happy right now!" Mrs F: "No one's happy for you. you just sucked my soul out."

--

After the Rose:

10:06 -- Chris, America will talk about this for exactly as long as it takes to say "What the hell was he thinking?"

10:07 -- Chris, to the audience and Tenley, "Let's take a look at what happened." Really? We just watched it ten minutes ago, and you have torment Tenley with this?

10:10 -- The something missing? Jake's frontal lobe. Maybe with Vienna they can combine for a whole brain.

10:12 -- Chris: "When we come back, Jake'll be here to answer some questions." Mr and Mrs F: "Oh, God."

10:13 -- Tom Bergeron "You've been watching number eleven all night—" Mr F: "TENLEY!" Bergeron: "Jake the fucking idiot Bachelor." Mr F: "Oh, fuck him!"

10:22 -- Jake: "This is not goodbye." Mrs F: "His dad will marry you."

10:28 -- Jake: "Vienna's my baby." Mr F: "Literally."

10:36 -- Vienna comes out... Mr. F: "Green dress?" Mrs F: "Ugh, Look at how awful her hair is."

10:38 -- Mrs F (pauses the tv): "She's clearly a brunette. I wonder if she'd look better with brown hair?" Me: "No."

10:41 -- Somehow Vienna was eight years old in junior high.

10:42 -- The polite applause and lack of laughter at Vienna's jokes speaks volumes.

10:43 -- We're both hoping the next Bachelorette is Gia.

10:44 -- Garnier commercial—Vienna looks a bit like Sarah Jessica Parker (not in a good way). I pause it for Mrs F. She returns to the room, "Wow, Vienna's twin." Except SJP's hair isn't completely burned out.

10:48 -- number of people in this room and that studio who knew the artist who sang that song is Jeffrey Osborne? Zero. Sorry, Jeffrey.

10:50 -- Jeffrey's doing an admirable job of not vomiting as he sings.

10:53 -- Tenley—Gia—Tenley—Gia...Gia...And the next bachelorette is Allie? Mr F: "What? Screw Allie!" Mrs F: "She's the LAST person I wanted."

10:55 -- Mrs F: "What? Now we have no standards for Bachelor or Bachelorette anymore? At least in the old days you had to be a millionaire. Now you can just be a 25 year old (Mr F simultaneously) loser."

10:57 -- Mr F: "I know what I won't be watching next season." Mrs F: "I know, she just ruined it for me."

Not Feeling Up To It

I'm massively overwhelmed. I've got too many things going at once.

A seemingly impossible set of circumstances dangling in front of me... and it's hard not to move my worry up to meet them.

11 days.

God, help me.

I'm completely serious.

If you're there, now is the time to help me.

Sincerely,

Mrs F

Why, Whatever Do You Mean?

"Hey, Are you sure you don't want to take your shower first?" Mr F asks.

"Yeah. Why?" I reply thinking he's trying to get out of cleaning the shower.

"Well, because, if we have to leave suddenly I'm fine... but... your hair is a little crazy." Mr F explains.

Bitch Fest Friday

Let it out.

Good News

Well, people, we had two showings first thing this morning.

Awesome.

You know that when you are looking at a house and then someone else shows up to see it, it just makes you want to buy it.

People are competitive like that.

Well, it would make Mr F & I want to buy it.

The good news is that within 24 hours of the listing 2 families immediately wanted a showing. Which kind of validates our price point.

Especially since I saw one couple, that came 1st this morning, circling our house last night right before we got the call for the showing. That means they were interested even before they saw the inside. And the inside is nicer.

I don't want to get too confident. What are the chances that both of our houses would sell in the first showing?!

But I do feel validated.

I also feel like if I ever have to get the house ready to show first thing in the morning, with Mr F & the kids getting ready to leave at the same time, someone will die. And that someone will be Mr F.

The Deciding Factors

The Details... AKA... no you didn't miss something... we just didn't tell you

Remember when Mr F was interviewing for a job in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Then after 6 agonizing months they finally offered it to him?  Then we turned it down?

Okay back up to the "then we turned it down" part.

We thought we would turn it down.  We planned to turn it down.  We maybe should have turned it down.

But after a week of thought and number crunching... and then finding out Mr F didn't get the other job in Des Moines (and we cannot underestimate the influence of that)... and thinking... and number crunching... and negotiating with HR...

We accepted it.

Are there downsides to this new job?  Yep.  Big time.

You see the reason we were going to turn it down was because after offering him the job at X pay the magazine put the offer through to corporate HR.  Then HR said "wait we changed that position to Y pay".  Let's just say the difference between X & Y is 30%.  For real.  Taking this from a no brainer "take it" to... "what is this move worth to us personally?".  

That was a really hard decision.  Y pay is not moving us out of our current financial situation. But staying here isn't either.  

Staying here means losing money every month on housing we cannot afford.  

Point blank... we cannot stay here.  We'd be leaving on the next job offer that came along.  We'd have to.  No matter where it was or how much it paid.

That could mean taking Kid out of school after this year (one transition) then homeschooling her or getting her into a new public school only to pull her out and move mid year to another school.  Got that?  That's three transitions in one year.  Not ideal.

Oh did I mention that as much as Mr F likes his job that his work load is borderline undoable and that he often works until 3 AM?  And that he comes home and complains about it to me... when I don't even want to live here... when we're living here for him to have this job?  And that he doesn't make enough to pay our bills?  

Ann Arbor offers:

CHEAPER (vastly) housing

MUCH better schools (even the outlaying towns... we're talking rated 10 out of 10)

MUCH better early childhood options & recreations classes for kids

MUCH better doctor/hospital system

MORE job opportunities for Mr F & Mrs F (he already was contacted about another job there)

FRIENDS

FAMILY

(Oh and Mr F gets the perks of driving the fleet of test cars with free gas & insurance)

Asheville offers:

The potential to go bankrupt.

For one thing any other job Mr F might get while we lived here he could pursue from Ann Arbor as well if he wanted to, so there is no reason to carry this house while he does that.

Also, this is the best time of year to sell our house.  If he was offered another job in 6-9 months we would not stand as good of a chance of clearing our equity.  The timing of this move is perfect.  Mr F leaves in a couple weeks.  The girls and I will stay here until the house sells or the end of the school year... whichever comes first.  The reality is that in the last 20 months it is unreasonable to expect to have made money on this house.  We are looking at eating the realtor fees which at our house level are a huge pill to swallow.  BUT housing is so much cheaper in Michigan right now that we couldn't be moving there at a better time.  Any loss we face here will be more than made up for in the rock bottom prices in Michigan.  We're looking at getting a house for 1/3-1/2 of our current house price.  That is amazing!  

Plus, the new job is with a major magazine.  This is, while not a step up financially, not a step down career wise.  It is a definite step up, even his current employers could concede that and understood his decision.  The new magazine is also willing to let him work freelance to offset the paycut.  They are even going to give him freelance.  So that is encouraging.  When we were in MI before Mr F made more than half of his income in freelance and his biggest paying clients are... where?... oh yeah... in Michigan.  We don't have any options like that here.

The scary part is walking away from a house & job that are known and on some super lame level working.  You know?  We don't know what is going to happen next.  We don't know how much equity we'll lose here (hopefully none!!! positive energy peeps).  We don't know where we'll move (house or town specific) or when.  We don't know how stressful being separated for 3-4 months will be on our family (especially stressful to Mr F if it turns out I like it).  We don't know if I'll gain 50 pounds and start drinking Margaritas for dinner.

But we do know that next year we'll be in a better place.  Physically & emotionally. Maybe even financially.  Worst case scenario I have to supplement our income (wait I already do!)... and at least there I'd be doing it while benefitting in every other realm of our life.

Hey

Did you ever want to see our house?

We're

Moving

To

Michigan

Wait For It

Weekend Update

Things are coming along.

This will be the last weekend we spend sprucing up the house.

The realtor didn't have anything he thought we needed to do.

That's a good sign (right?). I think so.

But...

Mr F has decided to repaint 75% of our woodwork. Have you ever seen our house? We've got moldings up the wazoo. This is a major project.

The kids are belting out Taylor Swift.

I'm about to knock out another 2 continuing education credits.

I alternate (minute by minute) between excitement and anxiety.

The reality is that over the next few months I am going to pay the brunt of the price for this.

But I believe we're, ultimately, making the wisest choice.

Monday a photographer comes to take pictures and our house should be listed by Thursday.


Coming Up:

Mrs F doing our taxes.

Mrs F trying to get 36 more continuing education credits in the very same 60 days.

Mrs F continuing to watch kids 4 days a week while keeping the house ready to show at a moments notice.

Mrs F doing every other thing necessary to run our household. For real.

Mrs F spending nights and weekends culling our belongings in the basement to the absolute bare minimum. (Read: I'm never doing this again. If we're not keeping it for the next 50 years it's headed to Goodwill. I mean how many times are we going to move boxes we haven't opened? This could be officially 3 moves. Same unopened boxes. I'm not even opening them, people, they're out of here. Don't tell Mr F)

Mrs F developing a drinking habit? (just kidding... maybe)

Not Coming Up:

Mrs F making any progress in the diet and exercise realms. Fuck it. I am a human. I will continue to workout as much as possible (currently only 3-4 days/week) and try not to eat like a pig. My big goal is to make this major transition without gaining weight. I think that will be accomplishment enough.

Mrs F cooking 21 balanced meals from scratch every damn week. We will be eating pizza a minimum of 3 times a week. Call CPS.

Mrs F getting any sleep... of that I can assure you.

Bitch Fest Friday

Lay your bitchin' on me.

I'll start...

I just changed THE most disgusting poop diaper of all time.

It took me TWENTY wipes to get that booty clean.

Sometimes when I'm doing something like that I think...

"You cannot come up with enough financial compensation to make this worthwhile for me."

I mean... I am not the one who thought it was a good idea to serve this kid a pound of black beans yesterday... and I should not have to clean up the shit storm.

Did I mention that this is a little boy?

I'm still not totally used to changing boys.

Well the necessity of 20 wipes and the need to actually clean all his parts resulted in something that shall remain nameless.

But believe me when I tell you I have never been more traumatized.

Ever.

Ever.

I just wanted to clutch my face and scream "MY EYES!  MY EYES!"

But then I might have gotten Ecoli in them and died.

Girls might have more 'tude but they don't traumatize you when you change their diapers.

And there is something to be said for that.

Contradictory Terms

Realtor walk through today.

Of course, as luck would have it, I also have 3 kids under 3 today too.

Let me tell you, this motley crew of toddlers is not down with the new house rules.

Subsequently my stress level is through the roof.

Ouch

This morning I rubbed Baby's back.
I've been trying to give in more to her cuddly neediness. It'll end. And she obviously needs me more than I sometimes think.
She's an interesting dichotomy that way.

While I rubbed her back I thought of preschool.

And the fact that she's three now, not the baby we let her pretend to be most of the time.

I thought, maybe, it was time to start introducing her to her name.

You know... how to write it.

It's not her fault that her name is the longest name in the history of the world.

Good God I think back to the nervous breakdown Kid had when she had to master her name for preschool and her name is only 4 letters. Nine letters?! What the hell were we thinking.

That's why I thought maybe we should start now. Give it some time to sink in.

I grabbed a notebook and started to write her name. Then scribbled it out remembering too late that little kids start with all capital letters.

So I wrote her name several times and then made dotted letters for her to outline.

She was pretty outraged.

"Those are not ABCs!" Baby said agitated.

"Yes, they are." I reply then start to trace one for her "See? You write on top of them to make your letters."

"I want them to Shut Up." Baby says showing a disgruntled attitude usually associated with her older sister.

"Shut up?" I ask slightly confused... you know cause the letters aren't really talking... but, hey, either were my windows.

"Yeah." Baby replies.

"What do you mean, shut up?" I ask.

"It means you shut your mouth." Baby replied with contempt.

Alrighty then.

She might not be ready for preschool but she'll fit right in with the mean girls in high school.

Mr F Is Going To Try And Deny This...

But he watches The Bachelor.

Don't pay any attention when he chimes in to say "Not really... I'm just trying to spend time with Mrs F and she watches it." or "It certainly isn't what I would chose to watch." or some other lame excuse.

Don't believe a word he says. He doesn't just watch it... He's into it.

Last night Mr F declared...

"If he doesn't chose Tenley I'm boycotting the final episode."

The proof is in the pudding, my friends.

Weekend Update... More Of "Ahh That Feels Better"

Before:

After:
Don't mind those drying sweaters. Once we finish this room tonight I'll change the pictures out. The color of this room is not one we chose... do not judge. It's more like the top picture than the bottom.

The other side of the room has my desk (cleaned off) and two closets. We still have my small Hoosier baking cabinet in here and that is going down to the basement tonight. More pictures later.
And for those of you worried about the shared desk situation... problem solved:

Sucks to be you, Mr F (don't worry about him it's warm by the furnace)

Girls' Room:
Sadly, I do not have a before shot. You've probably seen it before. Mr F and I love this room but usually it looks like a cyclone just went through it. I got rid of 3 circle area rugs and moved the bigger rag rug. I got rid of 2 huge pink stuffed animal bins and replaced them with 3 under the bed storage containers on rollers (they were $9.99 each and they are slightly taller than typical yet less deep so they fit easily side by side perpendicular to the bed frame). One has the majority of their dress up stuff. Remember the dress up corner behind the door?... yes... we needed to minimize that for showings. Gone also is their pink dress up chest. So some serious decluttering went into this room and it looks fantastic.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yet another year wherein Mr F gives me a sentimental card and I give him one like this...