Selling a house.....kind of sucks

So not loving the process of selling my house. Don't get me wrong, I really REALLY want it to sell but the "showing" part of it is 76 shades of on my nerves.

This is how it works. The realtor people call me with only an hour or so of notice and ask to show. Usually this occurs while I am at work. I leave work, hence sucking up my personal time (of which I only get so many hours per year), run home, turn on all my lights, spray the house with febrize cooking smell shit to make it all home-y, turn on my super cool Wii aquarium, get my dogs and leave. People who don't have pets have it WAY easy when it comes to home selling. This is where the real fun begins. Since I have stalker tendencies and patience issues I like to circle my hood and wait until I see the people are actually IN my house. Then I place myself strategically at the bottom of my road so I can see what kind of people are looking at my house, but also so I know when they are gone and I can throw the dogs BACK inside and get back to work.

The other day it went something like this. I get home, do all of the above steps, and sit in my car with 2 dogs and wait. And wait. And wait. Usually they show up towards the beginning of their hour and are gone 10-15 minutes later. Not so much this time. As I wait I notice Pierce's DS in the car with me. SCORE. I start to play random Mario mini games.....did you know you can play poker on Super Mario Bros? THEN I notice that the old dude who's house I'm chilling out beside giving me the eyeball. Like he is nervous that the chick rocking the mini van with a poodle and a Yorkie might be a threat to the hood. I end up getting out and talking to him for a few minutes, explained my situation, and once he knew I was not casing the joint but that I OWNED the joint he was good to go. Get back in my car and the phone rings. Douche bag realtor running late, had to cancel. May as well have light a fire to my hour and a half of personal time.

Also fun was the 614-715 showing last night. Only because Mallory had not had a bath since Sunday and was starting to have a cloud ala Pig Pen from Snoopy following her around. Thankfully I have a close friend who lives by. I packed up kids and dogs and totally gave my daughter a bath at my friend's house. Speaking of the kids......they are pretty much over it too. They are tired of me making them keep their toy room spotless ALL the time, tired of me telling them not to get stuff out. The only thing they think is cool is looking for the "card" that the realtor leaves behind.

Sigh. Please send house selling vibes. The tax credit is over in like 8 days and I am running out of places to hide STUFF

Having a small coronary this morning

I woke up this morning to an email from the website that I keep for my kids. About My Baby.Com They are closing shop. I have had this site since Pierce was 4 months old so just about 6 years. I have 6 years of photos, video and journal entries that as of Aug 1 will just be gone.

I'm not worried about the photos or videos....they are also stored elsewhere. The journal entries though.....*tear*. I know I can put them into a word doc and I may end up doing that but it will be HUGE and I wont have anything to DO with it. I know the first obvious answer is to just start keeping pics and journal entries HERE but I don't want to do that...for a few reasons. Mostly because the AMB site was always just about the kids....this is MY space. My grandparents don't need to know about or read this blog...for realz....There are other people that keep up on my kids site that probably DO know about this blog and that is fine...they just don't so much care about my girly trips or why I hate geese.

The point of this post....if you know of any other place that can host this kind of stuff...online journal type places please let me know. I could also just start up another blog totally for the kids but that is not the same as the AMB site. Blogging here is awesome but it is not always good for holding tons of pictures in one area (albums) that people can go through

off to scour the Internet for a new *home* for the kiddos

Have you seen my creativity?

Because I sure as hell have not. I have looked, I'm considering putting up an award for it.

Part of my problem I know is that I have changed jobs within my company. No longer am I working in the awesome call center environment that allowed me the free time between calls to actually LISTEN to the voices in my head and put those thoughts here for your reading pleasure. This also explains the crappy job I have been doing commenting on the 200 blogs I keep in my reader. I'm back to actually carrying a physical work load of files versus waiting on the next call to come in. What is funny is that I fought tooth and nail that I was NOT going into the call center with a college degree thankyouverymuch. Yeah, joke was on me. I loved it and I cannot wait to go back.

So what to blog about today? I could talk all about how Pierce is kicking ass in flag football...now that he gets that he only pulls the flag from the OTHER team. I could tell you how I shelled out $100 for Mallory to be a cheerleader for his team only to have her cheer one game and decide she hated it. Man that sucked because she looks SO cute in that outfit with those little pom poms.

Oh, I could blog about how I totally SUCK at dieting and how Joe has lost 13lbs doing weight watchers.....I lost 5 and then had to be on steroids for 2 weeks and gained it back!

I could also tell you about my new crackberry blackberry and how I squeal in delight every time I get a new IM or find something new that it does

But.....I should probably get back to reading medical records and making decisions on those darn insurance applications.

Q&A part 1

A couple of days ago I threw out a post while I was sick soliciting questions. I'm going to answer the ones I got in the next few days in between other stuff. Sometimes you just need a nudge for a writing idea you know?

First up is my pal Tooj who wants to know:
"what is my ONE favorite thing to do individually with each child and with the husband"

My most favoritest thing EVER to do with Pierce is to take him to the movies. I have always loved kids movies and used to try and steal a cousin to go with me once I outgrew them. I'm so glad he loves to go and it is 99.9% of the time just him and I. Most recently we saw G-Force which made me want to dig my eyes out but most of the time I love the movies just as much as Pierce does. Hoping to make it soon to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs!

Mallory....she is my snuggle bug. She insists on ME putting her to bed every night and that entails a story and some serious in her bed snuggle time each night. We lay face to face and sing songs together before I wiggle my way out of there. I know she wont always want me to do this so I will take it when I can.

My favorite thing to do with Joe.....honestly....raise our kids! We don't get a lot of time together to just do date nights and I do miss that but I love that he is SO involved with raising our kids. I know a lot of dad's are like that these days but I did not grow up with my father and seeing Joe with our kids just melts my heart. When we DO get away....it is usually a dinner out and that is about it. we are fairly boring people.

The Kids Said WHAT? WILL be back this week, although I only have one good one so far this week and it was not even my kid who said it!

I ♥ Faces - At The Beach, and Why It Sucks To Be Mallory's First Boyfriend

Before I post my entry for I ♥ Faces I wanted to post what I am sure most of you already know....Sweet Baby Stellan is back in the hospital and not doing very well at all. Please send up a prayer for him and his Dr's so that they can find out how to make him well again. www.mycharmingkids.net.

This picture is from our trip to Holden Beach earlier this month. I love her smile and how she is just kind of off to the side. Head over to I ♥ Faces to see more entries!

So I imagine that face is bound to get some male attention down the road yes? Let me recap an incident that occurred on Friday at daycare. Pierce has been mentioning a new "friend" in his class by the name of Phoenix. Apparently the 2 of them are not getting along all that well. He has mentioned on more than one occasion that he does not like her and that she is mean. I pretty much just told him to not play with her if she is mean.

So I get there on Friday and it is later in the day so they had combined preschool and Pre K and they were out on the playground together. The first thing he does when I get outside is run up to me and tell me how Phoenix had just ran Mallory over with a tricycle. "Oh know she DI-ENT" was my first thought. Before I could even respond he took off running. I did not think much about it since Mallory was still playing and seemed to be fine. I was talking to one of the teachers when I heard someone yell his name. It appears that after he ran off from me, Pierce had gone over to the swings and proceeded to kick this little girl each time she swung up. She started smacking him back. Before it got to out of hand I yelled at him to come back over to me.

The teacher was trying to get him to apologize and he was not having any part of it (duh, he was not sorry) and he wound up starting to cry. I told him that he was NOT in trouble but that it was not okay to use his hands or feet on other kids ESPECIALLY not a girl. I praised him for wanting to stick up for and protect his little sister but told him it was not okay to hit. I personally was having a hard time not wanting to kick her myself actually.

I can only IMAGINE what this scene will look like when they are both in high school together and Mallory has her heart broken for the first time. God help the kid who does it

Funny thing is later that night they were back to wanting to kill each other. Apparently it is okay for HIM to beat on his sister so long as no one else is doing it

Because I got nothing today.......

How about some pics? These were shot by our wedding photographer Karla Banks!!

Dear So and So.....Vacation Edition

On my last full day of soaking up sunshine in beautiful Holden Beach, NC I thought I would take the time to address the many people/things that made this visit awesome....as well as a few random things that I have waiting for me back home

Want to play along? Go link up with Kat. She is cool for a variety of reasons and her husband just got a promotion in the military so she doubly deserves a shout-out this week

Dear Holden Beach,
I heart you. I truly do. You have given us awesome weather this week....the water has been awesome too. Mallory does ask me to pass on a little message for her but please note....this reflects nothing on my love for you.....Mallory would like you to know that your constant waves in, waves out drama really sucks. She thinks you are scary and would appreciate you keeping the movement to a minimum next year. Pierce also asked me to pass along that he had an AWESOME time riding the boogie board and jumping your waves. Many thanks for wearing him out every single day
Until Next Year,
Cammie

Dearest 6AM,
I cannot tell you how awesome it has been not to see you one time this week. Apparently the secret to forever leaving The House of No Sleep is to move to the beach and play in the ocean every day. I don't mean to be a bitch, but I really don't like you 6AM....
See You Next Week,
Cammie

Dear Pierce and Mallory,
Mommy hopes that you had an awesome time this week. We tried new things (putt putt for you sissy, sleeping till 8 for both of you)and you pretty much behaved ALL WEEK. Pierce, you seem to have picked up that nothing really all that exciting goes on between the hours of 6AM and 8AM....what are the chances of you keeping this up when we get home? Maybe just on weekends? No? Suck. Mallory my beach hating princess.....I'm so glad that on your LAST FLIPPING DAY HERE you decided to accompany me down to the "wet sand". You let me hold you at the very edge of the water let the water get your toe toes. Next year let's try and get your knees wet. Please keep the fighting to a minimum on day one of our drive home tomorrow. Mommy does not want to have to break out the duck tape.
Love, Mommy

Dear Self,
Way to be a dumbass and decide that you don't need the camera on your last day here. Suuuuuure, we don't need the camera on the last day because you have taken hundreds of pics down at the beach this week. We did not need to capture that last day. The one wear Mallory actually let the water touch her, the one where we dug a HUGE puddle for the kids to play in....the one wwhere we caught some tiny little fish and put them in that puddle making Mallory bust out "The Sissy Squeal" which is one of my favorite sounds. Good job slacker.
Smacking Myself In the Head,
Cammie

Dear Betty's Waterfront Restaurant,
Oh how I love you. Thank you so much for the 5lbs you helped me gain in one meal. I love that your signature dish is a pound and a half of really BIG crab legs. I love feeling like a messy disgusting pig as I suck down every last bite dipped in butter....I will send you the bill for my stint placement.
Forever Your Biggest Fan
Cammie

Dear Makeup, hair product and on occasion bra and panties,
Thanks for taking a back seat in my life this week. I love beach living that even WITHOUT you I'm still prettier than some of the other people making bad fashion choices down here. I loved lounging around the beach house and on the deck with the neighbors having NO clue that I was flaunting my girly business under my cover up. Being as I DO have to go back to work on Monday we will be reacquainted soon. My co-workers will appreciate it.
Enjoying the Breeze,
Cammie

Dear Tivo,
Sweet Lord how we have missed you. Growing up in these times my children do not realize that when WE were little we had to put up with what was on, when it was on...not to mention that whole "change the channel with pliers once the knob fell off" deal. This week we were forced to endure constant episodes of Oswald and Pinky Dinky Do before it was time to head down to the beach on top of listening to Mallory bitch about wanting to watch Diego or Mickey Mouse. These kids would not have lasted 5 seconds in the 80s
Missing You,
TV Whore and Whore-lets

Dear 4 bottles of wine I picked up, the 4 more I will pick up in Mt Airy tomorrow and the bottle of bloody mary mix Joe the alcohol fairy brought while I was napping,
I love you, Let's make out when we get home
Yours Till My Liver Falls Out
Cammie

Wordless Wednesday

2004

2005

2006

2007

2009

(We went to the mountains in 2008)

Did You Know That The Ocean Is The Entrance To Hell?

That is the only reason I can come up with that Mallory hates it with such a passion. Today was a repeat of yesterday and the day before....Pierce my little water baby is wearing Joe out wanting to be in the water non stop and Princess Scowls A-Lot sits under the umbrella and looks at the water like it is the entrance to the pits of hell

Today she actually let me take her to the VERY edge of where the water was coming to a stop. I could have done a back flip and not dropped her as hard as she was clinging to me. After about 10 minutes I stopped torturing her and she ran back to the umbrella. We called my mom from the beach and she told her "I hate the ocean Maw Maw".

Meanwhile Pierce is the beach pimp. He already has a little girlfriend that is here for the week and they hold hands and jump the waves together. Pierce would keep Joe in the water all. day. long. if we did not make him stop for lunch. He was so tired that he actually slept until 8:15 today which only happens when I give them NyQuil the night before. Am I kidding? Am I?

"Cammie, where are all of your pics??" Oh, you want to know where pics are? Well Joe someone did not pack the USB cord with the camera bag which sucks as much as a goose attack...had myself all ready to upload pics every day and spend time editing them but that is not going to happen. So hear are some random ones from my phone.

Ready to go down to the beach.

Beach? No Thanks....baby pool on the deck? Rock On!!

We took them putt putting tonight....Mallory's first time.

"I hate the ocean and I hate you for bringing me here"

The coolest part of today? Realizing that everywhere you go you can find someone reading a Twilight book....like the middle aged lady on the beach nose into New Moon!

The best part of today? We found a restaurant with a raw bar and I sucked down a dozen raw oysters......YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She Sells Sea Shells

Hello from fabulous Holden Beach, North Carolina! We made it here without having to strap a single child to the top of the van! Hooray!!

We make our trek from Ohio to NC in 2 days because frankly I cannot deal with being trapped in such a confined space with my children for longer than the 6 hours on day one. I realllllly wanted to stop for some duck tape around 8PM last night when instead of falling asleep like sweet angels in the car they kept freaking talking all the way till 11PM

We got here around 1 today and after unloading the car decided to take a quick trip down to the water which is right across the street from the beach house. While walking up to the walkway Mallory asked me if she could have a coconut on the beach. Awwww, how sweet....she is going to LOVE the beach

If my daughter used the colorful language that I am fond of I think she would have said the following....."WHAT THE HELL IS THAT AND NO WAY AM I PUTTING MY ASS IN IT!!!!" To say she was not impressed with the ocean is a mild understatement. Add to the fact that she was running on no nap and I had quiet a witchy little thing with me. While Pierce ran around joyfully shouting that he loves the beach and loves the ocean and was having a grand old time Witchy McBrat scowled at the water, at me, at the other people on the beach and told me that she was NOT going to get wet. Bet me. I picked her up and carried her to the VERY edge of where the water was coming up and put her down on her feet. The water barely touched her toes when she went screaming holy hell back up to the blankets and told me to "get her outta there" She did find a bit of fun in collecting shells and putting them in her bucket and that may be the ONLY way we get her back down to the sand.

Made a quick stop to the store to stalk up on wine necessities and we are taking it easy tonight.

Tomorrow it is back to torturing one kid and building sand castles with the other

Hello from DC!!! Just wanted to throw some pics up and tell you about our trip so far. We got in around 1 on Saturday. It was a 2 xanax flight not a bad flight at all. We got to our SUPER awesome hotel that is right on the Potomac and has all sorts of cool restaurants and shops around. We had nothing scheduled until Sunday so we just walked around and checked the place out, had some awesome dinner and went to bed.

Sunday I was tortured by being sent to a baseball game. Here is a picture showing JUST how exciting this game was

Add that to the fact that I wanted to dig my eyes out with a fork don't care much for baseball and it was 200 degrees out I was not sad when it was over. Sunday night we got to meet up with one of my sorority sisters who lives in this area so I could smooch all over her 4 month old baby. I think I ovulated once or twice while loving on her. Thank God for vasectomies.

Yesterday started the whirl wind madness....we were on a bus to the Pentagon by 8AM. We met some guy who I know was important but unless you are in the military and hear these names all of the time you don't so much know him. After the Pentagon we went to the Air National Guard Museum, toured that and then headed over to the State House to tour THAT. While we are there we walked 5 feet in front of Supreme Court nominee Justice Sotomoyer and her broken ankle.

We got back to the hotel around 5 so that I could cut my feet off at the anklesto chill for a bit. One quick banquet here in the hotel and then we were done around 8.

This morning, woke up to storms, got all gussied up for ANOTHER award banquet only to get downstairs and realize that the other spouses decided to skip the morning practice and meeting with another random important guy and just show up at the banquet here in a few hours. So here I sit!! After the award banquet we get to tour Air Force 2 ( I think that is the one for the VP) and tonight have dinner at a REALLY important guy's house...I paid attention this time....he is in charge of the entire Air National Guard for the country. And I forget his name. The rest of the week is more tours, meetings with random important people.

Apparently my kids are NOT rocking in a corner somewhere crying for me...they are actually having a GOOD time and Mallory has only cried when I call. Oops. I on the other hand am having a harder time than I expected being away from them and probably wont want to do this again for awhile. Enjoy some pics!

Me looking like a cow at the baseball game....

Joe pretending to argue some important legislature at the Pentagon

Joe and the other award winners at the Pentagon

The rotunda at the State House

no description needed I'm sure

In case you are new around here or came aboard AFTER Joe won this award....My husband was selected as the Air National Guard program manager of the year for the Nation. Pretty cool! This trip is where he gets his award!!

134

Wow, I have 134 followers. I feel like I need to declare today National Leave Cammie A Comment Day because I know that out of all 134 of you only about 20 of you fail to kill a fairy. Not sure what I am talking about? Go read my comment box.

I heart ALL 134 of you and I want to PLAY with you all! I can no longer see my followers here at work (darn filter software gives me a big old HEY WE ARE WATCHING YOU every time I pull up my blog)so come on out of lurk mode so I can see who you are. I know I tend to be a bit scary at times but I promise that (for the most part) I am nice. I don't bite. much.

Don't kill the fairies guys. They are people too.

I have been incognito for a few days now and I have realized that it is because I am a bit stressed about my upcoming trip to DC this weekend. I'm pretty excited about 6 days away with my husband but I'm starting to stress leaving the kiddos. Add that to the fact that I hate to fly and I'm a bit frazzled. I'm hoping that once we actually GET there and I find out that my 3 year old is not rocking in a corner crying for her mommy (I know Pierce will be fine, he is actually excited to spend 6 days with his cousins)I will calm down a bit. If I DO find out that 3 year old is not rocking in a corner crying for her mommy I will probably just stay hammered all week and try not to throw up on anyone important to my husband's job. YES I'm kidding, but it is kind of fun to watch Joe get all twitchy when I tell him that.

Now.....YOU.....go forth and comment. Yep, I am looking at YOU

Crawdads and Tadpoles and Lizards oh MY

So I generally pride myself on being an indoor type of girl. I don't so much enjoy hiking, or bugs, or getting dirty. Yes, I know, we went camping last weekend....but we slept inside, NOT in a tent...and I went potty in my mom's camper....but I digress.

Yesterday we took the kids to the park (an acceptable outdoor activity) and prior to leaving we cut through a little trail down to the creek (or crick as I like to call it). Down at the creek was a family who CLEARLY enjoyed the outdoors catching all sorts of river nastiness. My kids, not being used to creek critters were fascinated by all of this while I on the other hand was fascinated by the fact that one of their kids was sporting a rat tail....I have not seen one of those since about 1985.

This family had an entire aquarium full of THESE. I will wait until you are finished screaming

I asked the guy who's finger that nasty thing was stuck to what they were planning to do with all of those things and he told me they were going to eat them. And I almost threw up. Before the nasty critters met a boiling end my kids got to touch them...and by kids I mean Pierce. Mallory thought they were super gross, would get close to one and then squeal the the little girl she is and run away. That's my girl. She did touch the tadpole which impressed me. I was not sure what they planned to do with him and I truly did not want to know. They also had a tiny little salamander that Pierce held. He was actually kind of cute.

So here are a few pics from our accidental science lesson. After we left I hosed both of them down in antibacterial gel so they did not catch some unknown strand of critter flu.

On another note....did you Twilight lovers catch the New Moon trailer. Holy crap!! I have watched it about 100 times already. I have not watched the MTV Movie awards in YEARS but I actually stuck around for the entire thing (only to see Edward) and I totally LMAO at Borat putting him bum in Eminem's face. That. Was. Hysterical.