Mandajuice

PS - I'm not even THAT fat

My favorite thing about that comment from the owner's husband was that he obviously thought calling me fat was the WORST thing he could say to me.  Doesn't he know that to insult a woman with at least half a brain in her head, you have to call her stupid?  Or worse, if he really wanted to hurt my feelings, he might have tried calling me a bad writer.  That would've stung.

But fat?  Tell me something I don't know.  I've lost over 100 pounds and even though my skin is flabby, it's a hell of a lot thicker than that.

In other news, we still haven't found a house, but you can find an update on that topic on my blog at family.com.

Also?  We rode in a MONSTER TRUCK on Saturday and it scared the ever-loving crap out of me.

I wrote about that adventure and how it was FREE! FREE! FREE! over at the Naked Ledger.

Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset - RE-VISITED

Coming later this week on Family.com is a discussion about Bratz dolls and I know this is going to come as a big shock, but guess what?  I have an opinion about them.   Two years ago, I wrote this post about Razzberry Lips, a cheesy makeover store in Campbell where little girls could have their makeup and hair done.  If you recall, this shirt was hanging in the window:

And it still irks me.  STILL!  Who would buy that shirt?!?  Why would a store owner, one who is supposedly PRO-girl, sell it and worse, hang it in the front window?!  Even if it is meant to be sarcastic (and in pre-teen sizes, that's obviously a stretch), it still sends the wrong message.  Putting that shirt on a child is like forcing them to wear a sign that says, "my parents think I'm stupid."

A year after I wrote that post, the owner obviously googled the store's name and found it.  She left me a comment, which I've been meaning to share ever since:

Hi ladies, I am the owner of this store "Razzberry Lips" and also do all the buying! I have a 12 year old daughter and an 8 year old son. My daughter happens to be in an accelerated math group. In addition, last year she won an award given by the Salley Ride Science Foundation and went to San Diego to compete in the National Toy Challenge, after winning the Western Regionals(obviously all science and math based).

The girls I employ in my store are all female and anyone would love to have any of these girls as their daughters. They are all bright students (either high school or college), some have already gotten scholarships to attend college. These young women are the ones doing the makeovers and parties, working together as a team, creating something fun and making money while they are doing it. They are fantastic role models and I have had the pleasure and privilege of providing many of them with their first jobs.
Creating this store comes from wanting to provide young girls with an experience of being special on a special day(usually their birthday) but we have had sports teams in for makeovers, including a Junior Olympic waterpolo team.
This whole experience of creating, constructing and setting up this store, buying for it, managing a budget, managing young women, and seeing all kinds of young girls shopping and attending birthday parties has been beautiful. Imagine the message I have given MY children. "they are capable of anything and ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE". What message are you going to give your children?? From what I am reading it looks like your message is to look at things negatively and put nasty meaning on things that you don't agree with. The message I am getting from you for putting my butt out there and on the line is that I am a WHAT?? someone who makes you want to puke? at the very least. And you pretend to be pro women!!

My friend, (who is an electrical engineer ) bought that "MATH MAKES ME DIZZY" shirt for her daughter. She has also been to parties at the store and is a straight "A" student. So obviously, there is another way to look at things than your way! Imagine that!!

By the way, the "slutty" skirt in the window is a SKORT!  That's a skirt with shorts attached underneath.

Posted by: selena kellinger | October 30, 2005 at 09:18 AM

I think what she was trying to say was that by exploiting the sexualization of young girls for her own capitalistic gains, she's actually setting AN EXAMPLE.  She's PRO GIRL!  I'm sure all the pedophiles were relieved to find out that that mini-skirt had shorts underneath.

I never responded to her comment, nor to the handful of comments later left by her friends and employees who all used bad grammar to call me names.  Apparently, sharing my opinion of offensive pop-culture crap like this makes ME a SLUT!  Who knew?!

Best of all, though, was the following comment, left by the store-owner's husband:

I'm going to make a shirt in honor of Manda that says , "Fat Women Make   Me Dizzy"

Posted by: Bill | December 27, 2005 at 09:20 PM

Wow.  Where do I start with that one?  First off, Bill Kellinger, if you're a local business owner and you're going to be a jackass on the Internet, you probably shouldn't provide your real name and e-mail address.  It really doesn't bode well for your professionalism.  And the comment doesn't even make any sense.  I make you dizzy?  With lust?  Do you  have a thing for fat women?  Or are you saying that the only reason I want to protect my daughter from the slutification of America's youth is because I'm fat and bitter?

Sadly, the owner's response only helped further my negative opinion of her business.  A true professional, one who sets a good example for her children, would've perhaps defended the shirt as a joke or explained her reasons for purchasing it or even better, admitted that selling that particular item wasn't the best choice she ever made.

As for my daughter, who is already entering the ring with the weighty one-two punch of brains AND beauty, I plan to set the example that it's okay to hold an opinion.  That's what the Internet is for.

I Poo!

Today on the way home from signing the paperwork for our bid on that house (which I fully believe will go to someone else - I already feel like I've mourned the loss of it and have moved on to whatever's next), I stopped by a furniture store in our neighborhood that I've been wanting to check out. 

I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to decorating whatever home we end up buying.  Years and years ago I saw a Martha Stewart magazine with photos of a colonial house in which every room was painted a different shade of Aracauna egg blue/teal set off with beautiful white molding and trim.  I don't think I'd go that far, but I've already got paint colors in my head.  This is going to be a super fun project, even on a restricted budget.

Anyway, I was chasing the baby and attempting to keep her from noticing the stairs when all of a sudden she stopped in her tracks, made a funny face and then said, "I poo" clear as day.  Alex laughed at her and the saleslady, who was helping me figure out where I'd even start decorating a 2000+ square foot house when we've never had anything larger than a two bedroom, actually said, "sounds like she's ready to be potty trained!"  I thought it was a fluke, but sure enough, she meant what she said and I whisked her away for a diaper change.

Later on the way back home, I tried to get her to repeat it and she did:

Genoa says, "I Poo!"

And here I was starting to wonder when she was going to start talking!

Too good to be true

I just talked to the Realtor and the selling office has already taken several offers on The Repo House.  It's obviously going to bid for over asking price.  We're still going to make our best offer, but I doubt we'll get it.  Apparently, it had been on the market for several months for $155k more than the current price. 

Keeping with my positive attitude, if it's meant to be, we'll get it.  If not, the next house will be even better.

Let's call this one The Repo House

After three days of constant back and forth with the realtor trying to locate the proper HOA documents for Dave to review and then finally coming to a place where we were ready to make an offer on The White House, we've found something better.  Much, MUCH better.

Dave came home for lunch today while I was at the park with the kids.  He randomly checked the MLS for new listings and nothing came up.  Later after work, as he was waiting for me to e-mail him the directions to the Realtor's office so we could go draw up the offer on The White House, he decided to check the MLS again, just for the heck of it. 

This house suddenly appeared:

It's a bank repossession and I just love how they didn't even bother to move the trash cans before taking the brochure photos.

It's only 4 years old, almost 3,000 square feet, boasts 4 bedrooms, plus a MASSIVE upstairs bonus room that is easily twice the size of any room in any house we've ever occupied, AND it has a third garage space for Dave to eventually turn into his Man Shack (something that was a major disappointment about the last house, which only had a small two-car garage).  As if that weren't enough, it's in a better school district and a MUCH better neighborhood.  As opposed to The White House, which was easily the nicest house/lot in the development, this house is sitting amongst much larger, nicer homes, which makes it a much better investment.

Oh, and it's $20,000 less!

It's not without issues.  Being a repo, it needs some work.  The family who lived there seemed to leave in a hurry.  The walls are all crayon-marked, the carpets are destroyed, the yard is overgrown with weeds and the entire place needs a serious power-washing.  Basically, it looks like my family has already lived there for five years.

The bathrooms are bigger with better tile and nicer fixtures.  It has a nicer kitchen with cherry cabinets, hardwood floors, granite tile and stainless steel appliances:

Oddly, they closed up the door that opened the dining room to the kitchen and they disappeared with most of the appliances, but the house is GIGANTIC.  Seriously.  I can't imagine we'd ever outgrow it.  I have no idea how I'll even begin to furnish it, either.

The yard also needs some work, starting with a fence to keep the baby from getting out to the street.

It's no where near as private, but it's spacious and use-able and I think we can privatize it with some trees and creative landscaping. 

The funny thing is that when Dave first called to tell me about it, I completely shunned him.  I thought he was just having cold feet about the White House.  I almost refused to go look at it and then once we got there, I just saw so much potential.  All this back and forth and the fact that it took us so many days to come to a final decision just serves to strengthen my belief that everything happens for a reason.  If we'd rushed into the White House, we never would've seen this house, which is so much better in every single way.

I just hope we get it!

Yes. No. Definitely. Maybe. Perhaps.

Since we've lived in Vancouver, I've made exactly two new friends.  It so happened that I met both of them at Cafe Sip 'n Play where our kids seemed to get along well and we exchanged phone numbers and set up second and third play dates.  Today I was scheduled to meet one of the women at the park and when I arrived the OTHER woman was already there with one of her friends.  What a small world!  The only two people I've made friends with and they're both there at the same time!  (Even stranger is that they have almost the same phone number.)

So we are totally primed and ready to go prepare an offer for the house tonight when Dave calls to tell me that being Mr. Thorough McLawyerpants, he's continued to look at MLS listings and found that a bigger property in an even better school district for $20k less than the house we were on our way to go try and purchase just went on the market today.

We're on our way out to look at it right now.

Perhaps we're a little crazy, no?

PS - TWO new posts up at Mom Street Journal both having to do with real estate and what's been going on these past few days.

Hoping the new house is really, truly perfect

and

Bidding on the house - wish us luck!

Weekend adventure back to Dodge

We had a most excellent weekend, in spite of the fact that traveling with two small children is about as painless as severing your big toe with a rusty butter knife.  When we moved here, I kept thinking, "It's only a two hour flight away!" and "We can go back to California whenever we feel like it!" but I was obviously delusional.  The plane trip itself is the EASY part; Alex is easily entertained and Genoa usually sleeps.  The hard part is simply being away from home. 

As we waited in the security line, I overheard a grandmotherly woman pointing out my nifty kid-and-a-half stroller to her companion and saying, "They didn't have such neat stuff when my kids were young.  We just stayed home and people visited us instead,"  and after this weekend and a mere three nights away from home, I'm pretty sure her generation had it right.  I did learn two three things for certain:

1. I am never making the trip alone without Dave.  I simply couldn't have done it without his help.  Schlepping two children, two car seats, a stroller, a suitcase, my purse and my camera bag requires at least four arms and sadly I only have two.  I would never have made it to the rental car counter if he hadn't been able to stay with the kids and all of our stuff so I could locate and board the shuttle.  Just getting the rental car took me over an hour and that was without the kids.
2. I really need a mini van.
3. Even worse than a mini van, I really need an iPhone.

The wedding itself was fantastic and I would cut off my own big toe if it meant I got to see Dave's brother John and Lynne so happy again.  When I was trying to explain marriage to Alex, who has zero concept of romantic love, I told him that some day he might meet a girl who he really, really liked and he would want to make her part of his family and that's what a wedding is for: for making families.  I couldn't be happier that Johnny made Lynne a part of ours.

They had their ceremony at the county clerk's office.  Lynne had been worried they'd feel goofy saying their vows while people waited in line to file their property taxes, but it turned out they had this charming little wedding chapel that was just the perfect size for an intimate family wedding.  As expected, I took a bunch of pictures.

After a lunch during which we all endured FAR too much of Genoa's screaming, we went back to Carol's for a much needed nap and then headed to my parent's house for dinner.  The kids got to play with Grandma and I got to ogle my brother's iPhone.  Some how every time we go over there, my kids end up sitting in a bucket of water.

The next day was a big reception at Lake Elizabeth park in Fremont which has a creek running through it.  I had worried I'd have trouble keeping track of both kids all day while Dave partied with his brother, but the creek kept them both pretty busy and I ended up being able to relax and enjoy myself. 

Sunday, we decided not to plan anything since we had to be at the airport at 3:00 to take back the rental van and catch our plane.  We ended up scarfing some In 'n Out and then hanging out for a few minutes at Cuesta Park.  On our way there, we saw a sign for an open house and couldn't resist the urge to check it out.  It was a 1300 square foot, 3 bedroom ranch house that had been updated, but not remodeled from its 1960's glory.  (You can see the virtual tour of the home here: www.541Leona.com) It was literally 1100 square feet smaller, 40 years older and on less than half the lot of the home Dave and I are hoping to buy this week.  The brochure the Realtors furnished actually said, "price upon request" which we all know means that if you have to ask, you can't afford it, but we did ask, just for fun, and the $1,050,000 (!!!!) answer was like the cherry on top of the feeling we already had that we just couldn't wait to get back home to Washington.

We found a house!

A funny thing happened on the way to that house yesterday. I got another e-mail from the Realtor with two new listings that suddenly appeared on the market.  As I sat here looking at the virtual tours, I realized there were an awful lot of similarities between one of the new listings and Gone With the Wind House.  The more I looked, the more I realized that I was looking at the exact same floor plan.  Then I pulled up the satellite maps and realized I was looking at the house that was right next door to Gone With the Wind House. 

So we toured Gone With the Wind and my feelings about the house can best be summed up with a cheesy cliche:  it was love at first sight.  And that's a conservative way of expressing how I felt about it.  With the exception of a paint color or two, it was perfection.  It was warm and inviting and bright inside and you could tell the family that lived there was happy and easy-going.  It just seemed like home to me.

Then we went next door to the house with big back yard.  Dave definitely preferred the exterior and I have to agree.  As much I like the color of Gone With the Wind, this house, hereto referred to as The White House, has a front porch, which is a bonus.

So we enter The White House and the owners are home and we've disturbed the Mrs. from her sleep and she is visibly stressed.  Apparently she had to get up for work at 2AM and we didn't give them much notice before showing up.  Anyway, the first thing I do is compliment her skin, which no lie, was FABULOUS.  I've never seen such beautiful skin on a person who wasn't a teenager.

So this house, in spite of boasting the exact same floor plan, is extremely different from Gone With the Wind.  It's got white marble tile in the entry way (with dark grout), white carpet, and white walls and is aggressively decorated circa modern 1989. 

Seriously, everything is white, black or leather and everything is expensive and shiny and has clean lines.  There isn't a speck of dirt or dust or evidence of human existence anywhere in the house.  That thing you see in the right foreground of the photos is a beautiful glass sculpture sitting on a glass pedestal table. 

This house did not feel like home to me.  I kept Genoa in the sling the whole time (while she screamed because she, too, is taken by the Gone With the Wind staircase and wanted to be left alone to climb it) and held Alex's hand with a death grip.  They had Lladro figurines just sitting out at waist level.  WAIST LEVEL!!!  It was like preschooler TERRORISM ALERT LEVEL RED.  HIGH! ALERT!  I was sure Alex would breathe on something the wrong way and it would break.  In the master bedroom they had a mirrored table that he almost touched and if you could've seen the look I gave him, you would be dead.  Probably.

Here's the kitchen of The White House:

And this is the Gone With the Wind kitchen:

The White House family room:

See what I'm saying about the BREAKABLES!

Gone With the Wind family room:

This in Gone With the Wind's yard:

As compared to The White House, which boasts this enormous PARK in the back yard:

Dave fell in love.  The yard is seriously one of a kind.  It backs to a greenbelt, so there are no houses visible except directly to the sides of it.  It's completely private.  In fact, if we buy this house, we can go back to being nudists again and the neighbors won't run away screaming or call the authorities.

The houses is not without issues.  I'm not exactly a fan of the Miami Vice school of home decor.  It isn't warm or inviting or family-friendly in any way.  Basically, if they end up accepting our offer, I will probably spend the next five years making this house look exactly like the house next door.  But I'll be doing it while we play volleyball in the back yard.  Naked.

Live from the covered patio

Today is a lovely wet day in the wild Northwest and Alex and I are sitting outside on plastic Fred Meyer Adirondack chairs watching the rain fall and drinking "coffee" (his is technically hot chocolate) while Genoa naps.  Two new posts are up at my other blogs:

At the Mom Street Journal, you can read about how we've been teaching Alex to read.

At The Naked Ledger, see how I've FINALLY, after only five measly years of trying, managed to figure out how to budget for groceries.

PS - There are a bunch of photos up on Flickr from our great trip yesterday to Lewisville park with my cousin Amber and her daughter, Rachael.  I'm not sure how many times I can say this before it gets old, but DUDE, it's SO pretty here!

More house hunting photos

Saturday we spent another afternoon scouring the countryside for our next home.  Again, fortunately and unfortunately, we didn't find anything perfect and Dave and I agree that the only thing that would get us to buy in this market is perfection.

Here are the imperfect houses in all their imperfect glory:

House #1

This house actually WAS perfect.  It was in a lovely neighborhood and was almost 2600 square feet all on one level, which made it feel HUGE inside.  It was on a big lot, almost a third of an acre and we LOVED the floor plan, but sadly, the second I opened the car door, I could hear the freeway.  Hello and welcome to reason number 8,746 why we left California!  I want peace and quiet.  And the floorboards squeaked terribly, which was really too bad.

House #2

Dave really liked this house a lot too.  I wasn't quite as big a fan of it because the ceilings were a bit chunky for my taste (I still have angry flashbacks of stripping popcorn from the condo ceilings!).  And the whole place was painted white inside, which is obviously something easy to fix and not a deal breaker; it just detracted from the overall experience.  I mean, who leaves their beautiful house all white inside?!  Sadly, we couldn't fix the fact that it had only 3 bedrooms.  And why, you might ask, are we looking at houses that advertise only 3 bedrooms?  Because a bunch of them also have "bonus rooms" and/or additional spaces I might be able to use to store future house guests who come to visit. 

House #3

We must've driven by this house at least five times.  It fit a lot of our preferences - larger lot, best elementary school in Vancouver, all one level, etc, but it's on the corner of a busy residential street, a street you have to drive by to get to your job at HP if that's where you happen to work.  I wanted to see it mainly so we could take it off our radar.  It ended up being pretty awful inside and needed a ton of updating, so the price (which was $50k lower than most similar homes) turned out to not be so fabulous after all.

House #4

When we got to this house, which was vacant, the next door neighbor came out of the backyard and turned off the sprinklers.  Not HER backyard, mind you, but the back yard for this house.  She then proceeded to chat us up about how wonderful the neighborhood was and how many kids live there and yada yada yada, all while her big white Victoria's Secret underpants were hanging out of the scarf she had tied around her waist like a skirt.  Her abrasive overly-intrusive personality alone was enough to make me want to run away screaming, but the house itself was also awful. 

Even though it boasted plenty of square footage - 2201 square feet - it was another one of those shrunken houses.  Why, why, WHY do builders feel the need to shove too many tiny rooms into a house?!?  Why have a separate dining, living and family room when one big open room is just SO MUCH better?  This house was completely claustrophobic, which must've been a real problem for whoever used to live there, especially considering the next door neighbor.

House #5

Oh how we LOVED this house.  I know it doesn't look like anything special from that picture, but the inside was lovely and it had a beautiful floor plan.  We walked through it liking it more and more and were surprised by the back yard, which was much larger and nicer than we expected.  It just had NO privacy.  It literally backed up squarely to another house with the exact same layout and second story windows that peered directly onto the beautiful redwood deck in the yard.  I tried to convince Dave that we could plant some evergreens or something to fix it, but he wasn't having it.  In hindsight, I totally agree with him.  It wasn't perfect, just darn near close.

House #6

This house was in a separate area of town (lake shore for the locals).  The neighborhood was lovely and well established and all the houses seemed a bit more stately, which I liked.  Dave, Mr. Construction Defect Litigator, walked right up to the garage and immediately noticed dry rot, so it was a no go before we even got inside.  Not that I fell in love with the inside.  1988 called and it wanted its ugly wall paper back.

Some time this week, we're going to look at this house:

We've driven by it and Dave finds the exterior boring, but it has this hiding inside and I just have to see it for myself:

The advertisement calls it a "Gone with the wind" staircase and from the pictures, I really love it.  It also has granite slab counters, hard wood, tile and a seemingly private back yard, so we'll see...