The 40 Days' Report

Another Easter has come and gone. So has the not-quite-successful Lenten promise that preceded it. On six separate occasions, I failed to light up the Blogger dashboard with my daily reflections. Being, as I am, of the opinion that 34 out of 40 ain't bad, I cannot quite muster up too much disappointment. I blogged a helluva lot more than I would've otherwise. And I did it during the months of February and March, which are perhaps the least inspired pages on my creative calendar. I may not have come through with flying colors, but I came through. I'd like to thank God, The Partner, and whomever invented the Meme.

In related news, I am looking for another gimmick to entice me into blogging on a daily, or at least 6-day-a-week, basis. I have no self motivation whatsoever and must rely on outside sources. That's just how it is.

I imagine what I'm looking for is something like the bikini that inspires dieters to go through months of deprivation so that they can fit into it come summertime. A fashionable, sexy and expensive piece of attire. A blogging bikini, that's what I need. Something that makes me even more invested in paying attention to my, er, body of work.

I thought about signing up to attend the Blogher conference as a possible motivator, but then I had a horrifying flashback to May, 1988, when a Girl Scout sleepover in the belly of the USS Massachusetts battleship left me stranded in an empty cabin because nobody wanted to share a bunk with the girl who had bad hair and no sense of style and whose eyes--all four of them--were incessantly glued to a book.

So the Blogher idea was quickly ruled out.

I'll let you know if I come up with anything else. Your input, as always, is welcome. How do you motivate yourself to blog on a regular basis? How important is consistency to you?

Get The Straight Poop Here

The Diaper Fairy has been dropping by our house monthly since The Boss was born. Our magical nymph takes the form of my lithe, spry and French-accented mother-in-law. She comes, she dotes all day, and she leaves in a flurry of triple kisses, a trail of bulk-packaged diapers in her wake.

It never occurred to me to question the diapers we never had to pay for. So, when The Boss woke each morning, covered from head to toe in thick smelling urine courtesy of fleece pajamas with an uncanny synthetic ability to wick moisture from the middle to all points north and south, I tried to grin and bear it. Or grin and swear it, under my breath.

Imagine my pleasure when a separate fairy descended on our front porch in the guise of the FedEx man. I tore open the box to reveal a package of Huggies Overnights. The plastic wrapped around the thick size 4s promised "unbeatable leakage protection." I rushed them upstairs to the place of honor under The Boss's changing table before coming back down to pour a tall sippy cup of water for the unsuspecting test subject. That night, she went to bed with her thirst quenched and her tush tightly wrapped in extra absorbency.

She woke the next morning, dry. As it was the weekend, I took her back to our bed and plopped her next to The Partner's head. She was butt level with his nose. "Ugh," he said to The Boss. "Who's in town? Urine town."

He could be witty, that man of mine, even when not quite awake. "Yeah, she still smells, but at least it's coming from inside her diaper this time. No leaks. The Overnights worked."

"That's good." He patted the outward dryness of her rump and then rolled over.

I've been using those diapers for the two weeks since, and only once was the volume of her dentally-induced diarrhea (what the connection is between teething and pooping, I don't know, but it exists) too much for the diaper to contain. Since no man-made product in existence could've held that mess at bay, my belief in the effectiveness of these diapers remains unwavering.

Does this mean I am going to go out and purchase them myself? Um, no. But lucky for us, our Diaper Fairy takes special orders. You can bet I'll be placing mine forthwith.

"Oh la la, my poor bebe! Why didn't you tell me zees before? All those nights of wetness! Ze chafing! Ze rash!" I can hear her now, amidst the slamming of her car door and the roar of the engine as she high tails it to Costco to buy Huggies Overnights in bulk.

Why I Vote For Sanjaya

If I may: American Idol is no sacred cow. It may moo like one, but it is not. It drinks from the trough in the barnyard of pop-culture entertainment and waits for the farmers to come milk it for all it's worth.

I don't for one minute believe the show is a "singing contest." It never was. Any show that relies wholly on unrestricted calls from the viewing public is not going to be an honest evaluation of voice, pitch, phrasing, resonance, or any of the other musical terms me and the most of the United States know nothing about.

What we all know is personality. Shock value. Fun. Diversion. Rumor. Intriuge. Good hair. Boobies.

Even before campaigns such as Vote For the Worst, which gained popularity when Howard Stern got behind the old farm tractor of subversion, it was a popularity contest. By definition. Votes got tallied and the most popular won. Not the best singer. Not the most gifted showperson. Just the guy or girl with the most supporters in his or her stable.

This season, I called in my votes to American Idol for the first time ever. I did it because I was finally excited about the outcome. I wanted to participate in the mass market sociology experiment designed to test the meaning of "reality" entertainment. How far would it go? How close to the "best" would the "worst" take it? At what point do those concepts flip? Is there a place where they merge? And, most importantly: what the hell is reality, anyway?

No matter how you look at it, the controversy is good for ratings.

And that's entertainment.

Did You Know. . .

. . .that I'm part Irish and part Polish?

Yeah. I get drunk and act stupid.


Ba-dum-bum.


It's funny 'cause it's true.

The Boss Gets Promoted to Mayor Of Tantrum Town

I don't know what to do with The Boss. Literally and figuratively. Any which way you look at it, smell it, taste it, hear it or touch it, I do not know what to do.

So I improvise. I read to her, a lot. I know I can do that much. We read Dr. Suess after Sesame Street after Happy Baby board book, because books don't cause tantrums. Then we read the "I Love My Daddy" book and my mind wanders to The Partner at work, who's probably right now thinking he has it so tough. Thinking I do nothing at home but shirk laundry duty and post to my blog. Thinking The Boss watches too much TV.

Eventually we leave the book case in favor of the open road. I strap her into her car seat and slink in front of the steering wheel. Since making eye contact only serves to rile the beast, I look ahead. I consult the rear view mirror in a traffic assessment, but I dare not even glance at The Boss. I know from experience that her mannerisms will be calm, her gaze all-seeing. Sometimes she folds her hands in front of her as the countryside rolls by. Other times she sprawls out, her arms hanging over the sides of her seat so that she looks like my dad watching football in his recliner. In my leather lemon of a car, we are relaxed.

Then we come home and again, I'm clueless. She's mad. I don't know how to make her eat or sleep. So I wing it. And maybe she eats. Maybe she sleeps. It's a crapshoot. Which reminds me of the diapers, which are the only easy constant. Then I remember that I should be teaching her to use the potty.

For twenty months she was docile and sweet. I illogically concluded that her behavior proved I was a good mother. Now I realize that I was not good at all. I was lucky.

And I have no idea what to do now that my luck's run out.

On Bosses and Boobs

A few weeks ago, The Boss and I sat up watching American Idol. The oldie-but-goodie singing sensation, Lulu, came out to perform "To Sir, With Love," fake breasts hiked up to fake chin. Her presence commanded The Boss's attention. After staring at the screen for several moments, a smile lit my daughter's face.

"Boobies!" she squealed. "Boobies! Boobies!" Her glee was evident.

I laughed at the clarity with which The Boss expressed herself. Words like "feet," "cat," and "please" are muddled by her lips, but "boobies" comes out with complete artistry. If it was wrong to feel proud, it was even more indelicate of me to consider it the ultimate in flattery when she turned and jammed her pointer finger into my chest amdist a flourish of "boobies, boobies, boobies!"

I'm no Lulu, but if my daughter can find similarities in my own flat rack, who am I to correct her?

Kate Enters the Blogosphere

With the metaphorical microphone passed to me by Mrs. Chicky earlier this week via an Interview Meme, I am carrying on the tradition with a different spin. In addition to interviewing a few bloggers who posted their answers on their own sites, I opened up the line of questioning to interested parties without blogs. Taking advantage of the opportunity was a regular reader named Kate. I am pleased to introduce her to you now.

Me: You are in a room full of strangers--different sexes, ages, ethnicities, backgrounds, professions, familial statuses, etc., are all represented. They want to know who you are. How do you identify yourself?

Kate: This is a difficult question to answer because I need more context. Why am I in a room full of such a diverse group of strangers? Am I mingling and just introducing myself to individual people along the way, or am I addressing a crowd for some reason as a leader/keynote speaker? Even so, I would need to know the reason everyone is gathered. If I am introducing myself to individuals, mingling, then I suspect I would introduce myself with my name, "Hi, I'm Kate L., nice to meet you." Any identifying info to follow would, as I said, depend on the circumstances at hand.

If I am addressing the group in some way, then I still need to know WHY I am addressing the group. The way I identify myself will depend on what brought everyone together. Essentially, I am a woman with multiple identities (my status as a woman being one of my primary ones) and I generally wear different hats in the appropriate circumstances. Everyone of these identities makes me who I am, but only some of them matter to others in particular contexts. The short answer to this question and what I think you are really getting at is what are my identities and what do I see as my primary identities - here is the list:

I am an over educated, under paid lower middle class white woman with a mild physical disability who is a trained sociologist but not a practicing one. I'm a career oriented person, though it took me a long time to find my career. I'm a feminist and a bleeding heart liberal. I'm a mother and a wife and a deeply saddened motherless daughter.

Whew, long list. That's not all of my identities, but I do believe those are the primary or core identities that inform most of who I am and my thought processes and emotions.

Me: Which quality of yours do you most hope your daughter inherits?

Kate: I can not choose just one. Modest of me, huh? Here are my top three:

1) independence
2) empathy
3) intelligence

Me: What is the ideal distance (in miles) between your home and that of your mother-in-law?

Kate: What is the distance between Earth and Pluto? Sorry, all sarcasm aside, probably 60 miles or so. Approximately within 1-1.5 hours driving distance. Close enough to visit once a week or every 2 weeks during day trips (so my daughter can know her Grandmother and my husband can see his mother), but far enough to prevent unannounced visits and to hopefully cut the cord between my husband and my mother-in-law. Or, at the very least help provide a physical boundary in order to promote other kinds of boundaries.

Me: When was the last time you went skinny dipping?

Kate: Last summer. :blush:

Me: You inherit 5 million dollars the same day aliens land and say they're going to blow up the world in two days... what do you do? (You earn extra points if you can identify the source of this question)

Kate: I have no idea what the source is.

Me: Then you must not have seen the best movie of all times--Heathers. You should probably rectify that soon. But not before you go on with your answer.

Kate: Presuming I really and truly believe that the world is going to get blown up in two days, I would take everyone I love to a lovely tropical island where we can be together and at least have a good time together in a warm, sunny place with cocktails. If the world is going to end anyway, then I'm going to spend my last two days on earth with people I love in a beautiful environment partying like it's the end of the world ;)

Me: Thanks so much for playing, Kate. I hope you had a good time here at 24/7. Please proceed to the comment section for words of welcome and encouragement. And don't forget to check out my Blogroll for a sampling of other blogs--some similar, some different, most both--you just might enjoy.

Welcome To Our Open House

What is wrong with this picture? (Besides the fact that I have no photography skills whatsoever?)


Did you get it? Did you?
If not, here's a bit more of the scene:

No, it was not a freak of nature that caused this. No blustery wind, no driving rain. It was The Boss, the dog and I on the way to the park. Well, actually, it had nothing to do with The Boss, except that she was there and could quite possibly have been killed if the porch ceiling wasn't so capable of remaining suspended practically by its lonesome.

I was walking out the front door, helping The Boss down the steps with one hand and holding Roxie's leash in the other. That's when our pit bull saw the cat in the neighbor's yard and bolted toward it. I lurched forward, struggling to hold on as Roxie put all of her 50 pounds, plus the strength of momentum, into the chase. That's when I did the stupid thing for which The Parnter is currently not speaking to me. I grabbed ahold of one of the porch's rickety supports to steady myself.

It broke loose at top and bottom and I went flying forward as expletives and hysterical screams similarly richocheted out of my mouth. I screamed so loud and for so long that my neighbor came out to see what was wrong. I'm sure she expected to see blood and carnage everywhere. That's what one always expects to see when the magnitude of my hysteria is unleashed. It's a good thing I was completely unconscious when The Boss was born, or there would likely have been a scene.

I know now that it was stupid to grab onto something so unstable. But combine my own mental instability with faulty architecture, and that's what we get. The Partner married into this knowing full well what he was getting. I hide behind that mantra often, wearing it like a shield when my inability to act under pressure wreaks havoc. He should never be surprised and he certainly should not get mad. He should be happy that The Boss, the dog and the cat are still alive.

Okay, maybe not the neighbor's cat. I'm sure that would be a casualty he woudn't mind hearing reported.

House of Pain

Charming Historic Cape w/Commerical Possibilities

A taste of old and new. Set on 1 acre; offering 1862 sq.ft. of living wiht beautiful, wide board flooring, soapstone kitchen sink and center chimney with newly lined fireplace in the living room & great garage/workshop!

Will somebody tell me what it is about this home that attracts only the rudest, slimiest and most ignorant of prospective buyers? One freak show at my door is not unexpected, but two, three, four...the parade is endless and wholly unproductive. We had one offer that fell through and another that's falling. Our agent held a showing with another gentlemen who spent over an hour on the property before he told her he hated the house, but loved the yard. Then he said he doesn't much like to mow.

Where the hell do they come from? How many more of them are out there?

We have an open house on Saturday, and I have a feeling I just might find out.

60 Minutes at 24/7

Special correspondent Mrs. Chicky, of Chicky Chicky Baby, is here today with a few hard hitting questions for yours truly. Stay till the end to find out how you can participate in the interviews sweeping the blogosphere.

Mrs. Chicky: Where did you meet your husband?

Me: Funny you should ask. Funny because it's true. I met The Partner via the Instant Messenger function of AOL v. 3.0. As a college sophomore with nothing better to do than send random IMs while I should've been studying for mid-terms, I typed the keywords "Connecticut" (for my home state) and "78" (for the year of my birth) into the member directory search. When his profile popped up, I saw that this 19 year old male, born and bred in Connecticut, attended the same university as a friend of mine. With nothing more to go on than those three apparent commonalities, I fired up the IM. "Do you know so-and-so?" I typed, using my friend's name as a shot-in-the-dark impetus for conversation. "No," he typed back.

The rest is ten years of history.

2. Audrey Hepburn or Katharine Hepburn? Why?

Me: A middle school teacher of mine once told me that Katharine Hepburn was a bitch. I'm sure she didn't use that word, exactly, but the message was clear. Since then, I've heard the same sentiment expressed by many in regard to Connecticut's own famous Hepburn.

In doing a little of my own research, it came to my attention that Ms. Hepburn's mother was a sufragette and birth control advocate who helped found Planned Parenthood along with Margaret Sanger. I read that "the Hepburn children, at their parents' encouragement, were unafraid of expressing frank views on various topics, including sex. 'We were snubbed by everyone, but we grew quite to enjoy that,' Hepburn later said of her unabashedly liberal family, who she credited with giving her a sense of adventure and independence." I find that quite inspiring and am inclined to vote for K-Hep in spite of, or perhaps because of, her bitchiness.

3. Your dream home, the one you would have if money or location was no object, must include one particular feature. What would that feature be?

Me: A dock with a hot tub on a huge, clean body of water that I don't have to maintain.

4. Bad news, you won't ever be a writer (let's suspend disbelief for a minute). But to make up for it you can be anything else that you want. What would you like to be or do instead?

Me: I am quite sure I would fall head-first into the deep end of lunacy if I couldn't write. But so long as there's a cable news outlet looking for an insane correspondent, I'm up for the job. I've been told I have TV-newswoman hair.

5. If you could hop in your car at this very moment without having to worry about anything holding you back, where would you go?

South, with stops in Richmond and Miami to pick up my two best college friends. Then west, to all three of us take the country by storm.

There you have it, my friends. Thanks to Mrs. Chicky for stopping by. I hope the Q & A train won't stop here. If you would like to be interviewed by me, leave a comment below or drop me an email. The offer is open to all my readers, even those without their own blogs on which to post the responses. If you are a reader who would be interested in being spotlighted, I will come up with the questions, take your responses, and put them up in a special post. Blogging, after all, is not just about writing--it's about the community those words inspire.

American Idol, Pre-School Song Writing Edition

My friend's daughter is a pre-schooler who likes to write songs. I think she's got what it takes to go far.

Don't believe me?

You be the judge.

"I ask my mom for a chore,
She says sure, how ‘bout four.
So I do the dishes
And she acts suspicious."

~ Bella, age 4

It's a bit unnerving to feel as if I have to move over for the next generation before I've even taken a seat.

Julie Amero To Be Sentenced Thursday

I've written before about a local court case with international implications. Coast to coast, sea to shining sea, hopping continents and bouncing off satellites in space. Read about it, because it could happen where you are, too. You might think it can't, but it can happen to you.

Here's the meat of the nutshell as I cracked it earlier: "Julie Amero, a substitute teacher, was convicted on four counts of risk of injury to a minor for exposing middle school students to pornography on a school computer. The conviction came after she testified that the sexually explicit material on her computer popped up as a result of adware, not from any prurient searches of her own. She faces up to forty years in prison."

She will be sentenced this Thursday.

There's someone else around these parts who will not face a day of jail time, however. It's a man who sexually assaulted a three year old girl. Under a plea deal, he will get five years' probation. According to the same newspaper that has seen its Web site hits skyrocket due to international interest in the Amero case, the story behind this second travesty of justice is this: "Rockville Superior Court Judge Patricia Swords accepted the plea bargain so the girl would be spared having to face her abuser and recounting the sexual assault...Jones must register as a sex offender for 10 years, but his registration will remain secret to people who visit the state sex offender registry. Information on the list about Jones will be available only to law enforcement officials."

And so, a woman with poor timing and bad reflexes, who allowed middle school students to glimpse sexual images on a screen, will be sentenced, while a man who molested a three year old girl is able to strike a plea deal that guarantees him re-entry into a world where nobody knows about his sick predilections. A world where he can use sex to assault again with nobody, at first, the wiser.

Said the judge in the Jones case to the perp as she let him off the hook: "There is no doubt your behavior … was reprehensible -- perhaps the most reprehensible to come before this court."

But I guess the nature and intent of the crime does not matter. That's all I can deduce from these two cases, similar in nothing but the court system's inability to protect us from harm.

A Girl and Her Binky

When she really wants something, The Boss calls me by my name.

"Bink! Binky! Biiiiiiiiinky!"

She sits in her high chair and bangs on the tray as she imitates her father. I mean, that has to be where she got it from. He's the one who says my name on a regular basis in her presence. As it happens, it's usually when he wants something, too. Or when he's annoyed. Or when he finds it hard to believe that something I said actually came out of my mouth. "In a withering tone" is the best way to describe the most common utterance of my identifier around these parts.

"Binky!" Today The Boss called me out at the supermarket when I strayed too far from her in search of a plastic bag for the chicken. "Bink. Bink. Binky." She stared at me from her perch in the front of the cart, looking all baby blond and munching on a cookie. "Binky!" she repeated, in between bites.

Call me narcissistic, but there is nothing cuter than hearing my daughter say my name. "Mommy" is well and good, but listening to her fledgling spin on the word I've heard every day for my entire life is even better. Emphasizing the "b" and the "k," the word rolls off her tongue like a bubble, then pops. "Biiiin-ky!"

I know I should set clear boundaries. I should discourage her from using non-mom designations. But, really. It's just too damn cute. So I let her get away with it.

Besides, I don't have to worry what other people think. They just assume she wants her pacifier.

Did I Ever Mention How Much I Love Wikipedia?

Today's a lazy day. Gray and cold and dreary in typical New England March-ness. I went to my usual list of bloggers in search of easy inspiration. It came to me from Mary-LUE, who tagged a few specific peeps for a meme, and then opened it up to Everyone. Well, I'm one of the "every," so I'm playing. Here goes:

1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your Birthday Month and day only.
July 30

2. List 3 Events that occurred that day.
1619 - In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time. I like the idea of sharing my birth date with this one.

1954 - Elvis Presley makes his debut as a public performer. Any friend of Johnny Cash is a friend of mine.

1975 - Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again. The mysterious 7/30.

3. List 2 important Birth days.
1863 - Henry Ford, American industrialist (d. 1947). You'd think that being born under the same stars would mean I'd share at least some of his efficiency and organization. But, no.

1947 - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-born American actor, body builder, and Governor of California. Another loveable Leo.

4. List 1 Death.
1898 - Otto von Bismarck, 1st Chancellor of the German Empire (b. 1815) This is the only name I recognized.

5. List a Holiday or Observance.
Vanuatu - Independence Day (formerly Anglo-Frech condominium of the New Hebrides). Vanu-what?

6. Tag 5 other bloggers.
I'm not going to force this on anyone else, but if you share the Wiki-love and are looking for some random facts to disseminate, then by all means, pick this one up. Okay, maybe I will force it on somebody: Linda, it's a meme that seems like a good match for you.

The Boss Gets Demanding

After racking up almost two years on the job, The Boss is now comfortable in her position. She no longer feels the need to impress The Partner and I with her even-keeled temperament and sense of humor. Confident that we're not going to hit up Monster.com for new opportunities, she has taken to ruling with an iron fist. In fact, she throws herself onto the floor and flails the clenched metal of her hands roughly every five minutes. It's tantrum time in the workplace.

I would be better prepared for all this if she hadn't been so darned nice up till now. Consistently pleasant. A joy to be around. As a newborn, she mostly slept and ate. As an infant, she slept, ate, and rolled around a little. Once mobile, she toddled with grace and dignity. Now she is four months removed from the nefarious age of two and suddenly decides she wants a head start on the villiany.

And as her subordinate, I have every reason to believe my performance review is going to suffer. It will look something like this, I imagine:

Ability to retrieve juice and cookies in a timely manner - does not meet expectations

Sensitivity to the unspoken or indecipherable whims of superiors - does not meet expectations

Oral presentations (i.e. reading the same book fifteen times in a row in order to stall bedtime) - does not meet expectations

Manual dexterity (pick up, put down, pick up, put down, pick up, put down) - does not meet expectations

Oh, well. It's not like I was going to get a raise, anyway.

More About Moms Having Sex

Actually, this post has very little to do with moms and sex. But I am getting addicted to the Statcounter spike I've encountered ever since I employed those two terms in relation to each other a couple days ago in the title of my response to the Real Moms meme.

Yesterday this blog experienced the single largest number of unique hits it has ever known. All because of moms having sex.

What is it that a famous anthropologist once said? "Never doubt that a small group of moms having sex can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

I mean, if that's not the truth.

I'm going to go do my part to change the world.

One For the Books

After many months of secrecy, I can finally release the story of my just-printed book. This past Saturday, I attended the launch party for a new publishing company. Its first line, titled One True Romance, is a series of real life romances about engaged couples. It fits into the wedding planning market alongside photography as videography as a permanent marriage memento. Picture you and your other half on a Harlequin for all your friends and family to read.

I wrote the inaugural tome. Yup, I said it. I wrote a book. It is 120 pages of Boston-based reality, outfitted with all the trappings of a traditional romance novel. My name's right on the cover. My words lay prettily throughout. It is the centerpiece for the publishing venture's marketing campaign.

How 'bout them apples?

The best thing about writing a book is that it proves I can, well...write a book. What was once daunting to the degree of paralysis is now attainable. This particular effort was creative non-fiction, but it shows that my lifetime dream of weaving an imagined series of events into the pages of a novel doesn't have to remain subconscious.

As I try to come up with a plot, a bunch of characters, and a setting for the formless novel I've known I wanted to write since I was five years old, I can hold this little book in my hands and leaf through proof that I know how to tell a story. I know how to make a reader care that I'm telling it. I know how to put experience on a page so that it sticks.

As long as I keep writing fiction and don't hide behind the easy truth of these commissioned stories, this whole experience might be my biggest step yet toward becoming the author I've always wanted to be.

Not Buying It

The sale of our home fell through already. To all of you who told me from the beginning to be positive and upbeat about the whole process, and for those who tried to convince me that negativity does not sell houses, I respond with a hearty I told you so.

Looks like optimism doesn't cut checks, either.

I am just glad I only wasted about two weeks thinking things were actually going well.

On the buying side, we actually put an offer in on another house right before our own sale fell through. There was a Hubbard clause on the bid and we are still waiting to hear if the owners will entertain such an uncertain prospect. I have to keep reminding myself that I don't care anymore. Que sera, sera. We have a roof over our heads and solid walls surrounding. Everything else will eventually fall into place around us.

But there is something I can be upbeat about. Almost a month into the game, I am still managing to keep a clean house. It's all about momentum--that's what a friend/commenter once told me. "Cleaning - and the maintenance thereafter - is a product of momentum, not motivation," he said. "Once you have cleaned, you need to leverage that sense of accomplishment to another chore relatively soon."

And so, I'm off to fold the laundry. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

VisualDNA As I See It

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I discovered this VisualDNA thing over at Whirlwind's blog today. I clicked on a picture that most represented me in a bunch of different categories and, voila, there was my personality, deconstructed. According to my VisualDNA, I:

~ Like to think differently, always from another perspective.
~ Have a high sex drive and appetite for "lurve."
~ Love to be in charge of where I'm going--the freedom of choosing my own direction.
~ Like to unwind after a long day--nothing beats relaxing the shoulders, loosening the tongue and letting the day go by.
~ Think of technology when I think of freedom.

Ah, technology. The freedom to bore untold numbers of people with my personality.

You know you want to do it, too.

Buying the Brooklyn Bridge

Now, I'm no control freak by any means. I'm pretty damn go-with-the-flowy. But the process of selling our house is driving even me crazy. Though we accepted our first offer after the house was on the market for just a week, that by no means indicates a smoothness to the proceedings.

I spoke this afternoon to our real estate agent, who informed me that our buyer is having trouble finding financing. As is the case with many home seekers looking in our starter price range, he needs 100% financing. On the heels of recent news in the national media outlets about mortgage lenders going belly up because of so many people defaulting on such loans, it's become more and more difficult to procure them. This buyer has a tiger of a mortgage broker working on his behalf, but it's still extremely uncertain.

Combine that with the fact that the buyer has only been at his current job for two weeks, and it becomes even less likely that a loan will come through. And so, we are in limbo. I guess you always are when you're selling your house, but now it's that much more obvious.

Our agent suggested that we not put in an offer on the house we're currently considering until at least next week, when we have a better idea if our own sale is going to go through or not. Frustrating, much? Yes, I think so.

It all comes down to the importance of not getting my hopes up. I wish this was a concept that didn't have to get reinforced every day. Luckily, there aren't any external factors forcing us to move quickly. The Partner's commute to his new job is perfectly doable. We know our house will sell eventually, even if it doesn't go to the first bidders. There are more houses going on the market each day for us to look at, and more buyers coming out with the spring thaw to melt into ours.

Like so many other big picture things, it's the complete and total not knowing that gets to me.