How the other half lives...

First off, thanks for all the suggestions yesterday...hopefully Ray has read them all and will consider each one. I loved the Savannah suggestion. And I know a few of you said Vegas, but Ray and I have been lucky to have gone to Vegas multiple times since we have been married to include a Valentine's Day weekend four years ago. I have also been wanting to go to the Biltmore since moving to North Carolina, so we shall see. You will find out in June where we go!

Anyways, Ray and his real estate team have a multi-million dollar listing right now in North Raleigh. Yesterday was the broker open house were they tried to get agents in to check out the house and hopefully find someone to buy it. It was catered, and since it was free food and a chance to see a huge house, I tagged along.

And holy hell, was this house big. Seriously. A million dollars will get you a pretty damn big house in Raleigh anyways, but a couple million?

In the master bath was a Japanese soaking tub. This tub was so tall it came up to my chest. There were gold plated sconces in the master bedroom. The chandelier in the foyer was flown in from Spain and was $35,000. And there was a wine cellar in the basement.

And don't get me started on the closets. Let's just say this woman has more shoes than Oprah. And they were all color coordinated, the winter ones in the main closet and the all the other ones in the "seasonal closet" on the third floor. Yes, I said seasonal closet. On a separate level. I wonder if she pays someone to move the seasonal clothes from one closet to another. Because I am guessing yes.

If there is anyone in the market for a multi-million dollar house in Raleigh, I know just the house for you...

10 years is a really, really long time...

One of our neighbor's houses went on the market yesterday. Come to find out, they are moving because they are getting a divorce. And they have 3 kids under the age of 5. This just gets to me. How sad is that for the kids, how hard it will be for the parents, and that's just crazy. That makes 2 families on our street to have this happen in the short time we have lived here.

I pretty much told Ray he's stuck with me, good or bad, better or worse.

And this June, we will be celebrating 10 years together in marriage...I have hinted and hinted on him taking me away for a weekend. Ray reads here, so any good ideas for places for him to take me to would be greatly appreciated. Just remember we live in North Carolina...

Tax Stuff

Friday in our mailbox was a notice for a certified letter to be picked up at the post office. We normally get these notices once a month as our renter in Virginia sends the rent check so that it requires our signature on delivery. We have no idea why.

But this notice was from the IRS...

No worries though, just something that happens every year with the LLC Ray set up in Virginia and late filing and blahblahblah. I just hate dealing with tax stuff. And as most of you know if you read hear last year, we didn't file our taxes until October. Any bets on when we will file this year?

Maybe we should take advantage of this service from Turbo Tax. During January, taxpayers can get their tax questions answered on a single tax topic by a tax professional (that is NOT me) free of charge. Go here to check it out...

And the voting page for Cutest Tax Deduction contest is up...if you know someone that entered, go vote!

Bullets points because that's all I got...

• Our washing machine is broken. The one that's not even two years old. The one that broke about 8 months ago. Do not buy a front loader GE washing machine. If we had a couple hundred dollars sitting around, we would so buy a new non-front loading, non GE machine. The repair person is coming on Thursday, and he better have the damn part to fix it.
• Ashley asked us to put her to bed at 7:00pm on Saturday night. That's how tired she was. She had Hayden's birthday party Saturday plus just a full week back at school last week. She was cooked.
• Our nephew Aidan is in the hospital again. Last update he had the flu, but they were running tests last night. He will be one in February.
• I totally forgot to wish my Stepdad Ed a Happy Birthday on January 8th and my friend Wendy on January 6th. January birthdays sneak up on us when we least expect them.
• I tend to be a germaphobe this time of year. Yesterday at church, they did one baptism and the pastor walked the baby around and let various people give the baby a kiss. All I could think of was that IT IS FLU SEASON PEOPLE!
• I haven't had coffee yet this morning....it's going to be a long day...

Quickies...

Go check out Lookit! for information on a Bunco Championship in Vegas or a chance to win $15,000 on YouTube...

And my good friend Pensieve is hosting a Recipe exchange of sorts on January 25th, either go here or check out the button on my sidebar...

That's it, now go check out the pictures below or get back to work (or whatever you are supposed to be doing...)

Friday Pictures - More fun with my new camera

Huh, that's not my kid. Where did she come from? Oh yea, that's Hayden..the all of a sudden she's five and adorable and playing with Ashley on one of our 70 degree days we had this week.
Yup, you guessed it. Hayden again. Can you tell I like to take closeups? Seriously, I suck at taking pictures of objects (not like SJ), but closeups of kids? I can handle that.
Now that one is mine. Unless Edie wants her for a day or two.
She loves playing with her friends, can you tell?
You know I had to throw in a picture of the non-sleeping warrior...she is using her cast hand like she doesn't even have a cast. Audrey had her cast checked this morning...it's good to go. Only three more weeks until she gets it off...

Ack!

One of my prior classes, I had to tutor an elementary student. I tutored a 4th grader that lives on my street, and even though I no longer have to tutor her, she still comes over on Wednesday nights, eats dinner with us, and I help her with her homework. It gets kind of stressful when Ray isn't around (he works late on Wednesdays), but I make it work.

So yesterday, Jessica promptly sits down at the island in my kitchen where we do work and announces she has lice.

And I about fell over and screamed get out.

But I didn't, I asked her to explain, and come to find out, she had lice, as in past tense.

Yuck.

Seems she borrowed a girl's hairbrush in her class, and that's how she got it. I have no experience with lice whatsoever and I hope to keep it that way.

On a completely unrelated note, and I totally realize I am completely jinxing myself (but heck, I am not home for bedtime for the next two nights, so ha!), Audrey's bedtime routine thingy is getting a little easier. I had recalled watching a part of some Super Nanny show where the kid wanted the parent to stay in the room until they fell asleep. Super Nanny had the parent sit with their back to the bed, and over time, position themselves so that they moved out of the room, going further each night.

Monday night, I was in the room and it took 2 hours, Tuesday night I was close to the door and it took 2 hours, and last night I was in the hallway where she could pretty much only see my feet (I was laying on the floor reading a book by the light of the bathroom, crazy, I realize, but I am tired of falling asleep myself while waiting for her to fall asleep, so I decided to read). And it only took an hour last night. I am thinking this is working.

Don't get me wrong, though, she is still waking up in the middle of the night. We have her mattress on the floor and she keeps rolling off of it. I have no idea how to keep her on it...without putting up rails which she catapulted over the night we had them up.

I was so happy with last night's success, I just wanted a darn cookie.

We finally figured it out...

So Ray and I just figured out something, and I was laughing so hard I was crying...

Ray picked the kids up early from school yesterday to take advantage of the good weather and took them to a park. I got home and started dinner and decided to make a quick batch of chocolate chip cookies as a couple of neighbors were coming over to play and I have been wanting to make this particular recipe.

So everyone comes over, cookies are shared, everyone leaves, and about a dozen cookies are left on the kitchen table...

Let me just remind you we have a Wiener dog, Dachshund, small dog, that is not supposed to be able to jump much.

So I do the bedtime routine with Audrey (which I won't bore you with the details, but it took 2 hours, so much for watching TV anymore) and Ray puts Ashley to bed. Ray gets to go back downstairs and enjoy TV without me and looked for the cookies. He looked in all the cabinets thinking I had hid them as they are completely his weakness. He can't find them, so he gives up.

Flash forward to 1:00am. Tootles, the lovely dog, normally sleeps like a log at night in our bed, under the covers. Instead, last night she spent two hours pacing, breathing heavy and annoying the living crap out of us. Ray took her out once, I took her out once as well as giving her some water which she inhaled.

I look for the cookies this morning, and wonder where the hell Ray put them. I was going to take one to work.

I didn't think about them until a few minutes ago. I remembered that Ray was going to be late tonight, so I called him to see where he hid them.

He didn't. He wanted to know where I hid them.

Do you see the light bulb going off??

No wonder Tootles had issues last night, that DAMN DOG ATE MY COOKIES.