House Be Gone

I admit, I'm a little nervous about not having sold our house yet. I've tried a few things to help the process along. I've buried St. Joseph upside down in the yard and I've taking some Feng Shui tips and put them into action. I've also employed some Colombian rituals into the mix.

I picked my sister and her three friends up from the airport last week when they got back from Arizona (its a popular vacation site for my siblings and I in the off season). My sister's friend shared a couple of things they did upon the recommendation of a coworker who was from Columbia. Their house sold a week after doing it.

1) Place a red item in the foyer of the house you're trying to sell.
Check. I have a red vase on an occasional table.

2) Place something yellow in your kitchen.
Check, check. I put a yellow silk flower in my centerpiece on the kitchen table.

3). Write "SOLD" on a black polished rock (river rock), wrap it in red ribbon and place it on the right most corner of the house (right as you are looking out of the house). Before you place it outside, hold the rock and say "I'm ready for the house to sell"
Check, check and check. I even had Mike hold the rock and say it. Again, I don't think he was real impressed with me (see post about walking around the house with a candle).

I did that last Thursday and my week is quickly coming to an end here. Nuts.

This past week has been a busy one for our family. Our friends from school threw us a going away party on Saturday night. It was a great night for a BBQ and bonfire. We are forever indebted to Shelly and Kent for hosting such a great party. The families also gave us great gifts to remember our home state by. My favorite was a beautiful framed picture of the Minneapolis skyline at dusk. Sydney received a stationary set from her friends so she can write letters to them when we move. I believe the art of sitting down to write a note or letter has gone by the wayside in lieu of emails and blogs. This gift will be an opportunity for Sydney to learn an old fashioned form of communication.



On Sunday we had Camille's 3rd Birthday parties. We had a little party for her and her friends at the community center pool. It was a beautiful day for a pool party. After that party we quick went home and got ready for our families and Camille's Godparents to come over for a BBQ. I was hoping that by actually planning an event at our house that would almost guarantee a showing. No such luck. Nuts again.




Last night I had dinner with my dear circle of girlfriends (minus 1). All of which I will miss terribly when I move. We went to one of my favorite restaurants in town, Salut. It occurred to me as Heather, Melissa and I were cat calling (sorry about the window lock Heather) Amy, Devin and Anne as we were driving away that these days are numbered.

Change is inevitable and this is my first real lesson in what big change is all about.

T-Minus Three Weeks and Couting

Back in February when I took this job in Kansas City, the end of the summer seemed like a long way off. But here I am, knocking on the door. The contract with the movers is signed, the good-bye parties have started; we have less then three weeks before we leave this great state. I have a mixed bag of emotions going on...sometimes I'm excited and sometimes I'm scared out of my gourd.

I had dinner last night with some old friends. They are girls that I hadn't seen in years, and three of them I hadn't seen in almost ten years. 10 years. Every number takes on a new meaning for me now. I used to think that having a friend for five years was a long time, but now, I measure friendship lengths in decades.

This particular group of girls went to a different high school then I did. We met through orchestra. I don't know how it started, but we began having slumber parties. The slumber parties were all night chat sessions that ended with breakfast at Perkins. There wasn't much that we didn't discuss. We were thespians, musicians, dancers (well not me...I can't dance), teenage girls with big dreams and big crushes. I bared every bit of my soul to them. And even though some of us hadn't seen each other in years, I felt that there was so much I could still confide in them. Before I knew it, it was nearly 11 pm. Gone are the days of the slumber parties...

I did get to watch (or rather, hear) my daughter and her little friend, Jordyn chat until nearly 11 pm this past weekend at the cabin. They laid in the bedroom and giggled. They giggled so hard they didn't make noise at times. Fun hater that sometimes the mom has to be, I had to break-up the party and insist they go to sleep. After I did it, I smiled, and I wondered if Malia's mom smiled the same way I did thinking about her slumber party days as she warned us to be quiet.

One of the things I promised myself we would would do more this summer was go to the cabin.

We were on the last 40 miles of the drive this past weekend. We had finally made our way past most of the people that believe it is their God given right to regulate traffic. Mike put the hammer down (good boy). We were going to make up some of the time we had lost on that stupid detour out of St. Michael. I could see the "Welcome to Akeley" sign but I also saw a car hit the brakes and do a nose dive. Uh-oh. The 5-0. We couldn't even use screaming kids as an excuse for the excessive speed. The three of them were zoned into "Robots" on the DVD player. I started to giggle. Mike cursed out loud (the kids were wearing headphones). He had the cruise set on 75.

"Sir, do you know why I pulled you over tonight?"
"I was speeding"
"I clocked you at 75. When was your last ticket?"
"When I was 16"

I stifled a giggle because that was the honest truth. I'm the one that usually gets the speeding tickets. As the trooper was walking back to his car, Sydney spins around in her seat and says:
"Daddy's in trouble!!!!" The cop came back, gave Mike his ticket. He knocked it down to 65 so it wouldn't go on his record. Which I thought was pretty nice of him. It saved us $50. We can use it to buy groceries in KC when we have no money because of two mortgages. I hope to perfect my weenie-water soup recipe and serve it as the main course for all that come to visit.

We were 5 stinking miles from the cabin. That's it. And in the 22 years I've been making that drive, not once have we ever gotten pulled over. Maybe it was the cabin's way of saying good-bye.


Camille caught her first fish this weekend (actually set the hook and reeled it in). She hopped around the dock "My fishy, my fishy". As you can see from the picture, it wasn't quite mountable, so we went ahead and threw it back in for the Pike. Besides fishing we went up to the headwaters of the Mississippi and saw the largest white pine.





It was a little overcast while we were visiting the mighty pine and the mosquitoes did a good job of chasing us right back to the car (for all of my dancer friends, note that Syd is standing in "dig").