house and stuff

We have been under contract with the brown house since November. We got a call last week saying that all was in order and that we could close on the house Friday. Then, a few seconds later the gal realized that it was President's Day week, so they were 1 work day short in their week, so Monday would be a better bet. I was so excited and yet hesitant at the same time. Then on Wednesday-ish we learn that there was a lien on the house, prior to our sellers. So, our heart sank yet again. Long story short, today, we are officially homeowners. The majority of the i's were dotted and the t's were crossed. We read over our closing papers to learn that they put the wrong name on it...David instead of Clyde. That had to be changed. On the rest of the documents they were correct, so we thought. Our agent called me to say all was good. Then within a few minutes he calls back and says that our earnest money check refund had David's name on it instead of Clyde. Go figure. That was our good news for the week. YYIIPPPPPEEEE!!!! The bad news is that, even though we are month to month and have been for over a year, because we didn't tell them on the 15 of Feb. that we were planning on moving, we now have to pay March and April's rent here. (did I mention that we didn't know that we were closing until last Tuesday, so there wasn't any way we could have told them...again not their fault.) I absolutely hate nickel and dimers. They do not terminate contracts until the last day of the month, so no pro-rating either. This just bites! SO, if we have to pay, I am going to take this whole packing/ moving thing slow. We can move the things that we don't need right now and get them out of the way. They toss everything that we don't need. Things have always been like this, just when we think we are clear and free, we have to pay 2 more month's rent. Go figure.

This past weekend was way busy. Friday night, I had my sewing class with the 3 girls from church. That went very well. Then it was off to movie night with a few pals. I was so tired coming home, that I took a right on a street too soon, and felt way embarrassed. However, to my defense, it was after midnight. I am so glad that I set my alarm on Saturday morning, because I would have slept alot more on Saturday morning. Why set an alarm on Saturday, huh? Well, I agreed to alter a wedding dress for Claire. I had done quite a bit of work on it, but because I don't own a dress form, there was no way that I could hand sew all the sashes and the bustle on it correctly. It wouldn't hang right on the hanger. Sister Dunlap, from church was so nice to let me use a dress form. I had to get up early on Saturday to 1- take some $ over to my sister, for my share of my Mom's birthday present and b- Sister Dunlap's costume shop opened @ 9am, so I wanted to get there as soon as I could do all the work. Sis. Dunlap and I got the dress form, put the dress on it, and I began to sew. I sewed on a sash, and bustled the dress all by hand. The sash goes from the back of her dress, from the zipper, all the way around to the front and then cris-crosses each other and down the front of her dress, to the floor. Thankfully, I did some research on bustling and found a really pretty one called a ballroom bustle. It's different from the American and french bustles, and because of her dress, it only required 4 bustles. A few years ago, I helped a friend with her dress and because her train was a cathedral length train, it required 40 of them. Trust me, 4 is alot less tedious. (I didn't bustle my friend's dress, with the 40 bustles.) It took from about 9:30 a.m. to after 1 to be completely done. I have to give a huge thanks to Clyde for taking all the kids with him to church. He was ref-fing 2 basketball games and so they just went with him. As a rule of thumb, I try not to have all the kids there during those types of events, because they are a bit hard to watch. They all want to go and do different things, so we either have children running like banshees throughout the building or we have pouting, miserable, crying children because they can't run around the church building like banshees. It's a lose-lose situation for me. Clyde handled it beautifully. They pretty much stayed in the nursery and were allowed out a few times to either use the potty or for a drink of aqua.

Sunday, was our 12th wedding anniversary! TWELVE years!! Where does the time go?? This year, we decided that we wouldn't do big gifts, because of buying the house. The house is our anniversary present. :) We wanted to return to the big apple, like we did a few years ago, but we thought that we needed to be the grown-ups and more responsible. Sunday morning was fun. When Clyde and I got up and went downstairs, we had 5 Wardlings looking up at us, and said in close unison, "Happy Anniversary!!" Then they had made directional signs for us to follow, that lead us to the table. There we were given some play money and some menu's. The waitress Erin, took our order. The waiter Josh brought us our drink of choice...me- chocolate milk and apple juice for Clyde. Then the chef, Libby made us our food. I chose waffles, as did Clyde. Clyde wanted some leftovers from dinner the night before, so they were kind enough to reheat them. We had a lovely breakfast. Penny ate the majority of mine, but I didn't have to make anything so I was happy with that. I've never heard of the guests of honor doing their own dishes, but hey- the breakfast was worth the dishes. Saturday night, Clyde and I went to Tyler and Claire's open house/ wedding reception (they are getting married on the 29th). We got a couple of babysitters for the Wardlings. I am looking forward to not having to pay for sitters anymore. We only stayed at the open house for an hour. We saw some good pals and had some yummy appetizers. Since our anniversary was on Sunday, we went out Saturday night instead. We went to Tripps. I haven't been before. I had the salmon and Clyde had a steak. It was delicious and perfectly cooked. We had a great time alone!

So that brings us to Sunday. Lou and Rochelle came up to us pre-sacrament service to tell us that on Lou's morning run, he found an abandoned puppy. The puppy couldn't be more than 4-5 weeks old. We wanted to get a puppy once we bought a house. That gave me some reasoning leverage with Jacob when we would go look @ houses and he'd rather be playing the Star Wars Lego game. "Hey- we can get a puppy once we buy a house. So, let's go check these 1,000 out to see if there is one that is right." (houses, not puppies...) We went last night to Lou and Rochelle's house and checked out the puppy. We are pleased to introduce the newest Wardling...oh- we still don't have a name for her. We are trying to come up with something that sounds pretty cool, especially for the times when we are screaming it in our new neighborhood. We want it to be a Star Wars something. Any suggestions? Clyde likes Jabba the Pup...