More of the same...

Celia's been going through a teething/cold jag which means we spend our days with her clinging onto my shirt, usually crying, whimpering, or screaming, and changing back and forth between her two favorite movies: Curious George and Thomas the Tank Engine. We bought her a slide on Craigslist, which allows me to at least eat breakfast and lunch making it the best $20 we've spent on Craigslist. Despite illness, she's managed to be funny still.

- Celia's two favorite parts of Curious George are when the Man in the Yellow Hat says "Peek-a-boo, a boo, a boo." At this point, Celia always goes "Peek-a-boo, Baboo, Baboo!" Then there's a part where he says "Zagawawawawa" and she always shakes her head and goes "wawawawa"... she loves those parts and will run into the room to do them if she hears they are coming up.

- Last Sunday, the first meeting went about twenty minutes over schedule. Right when it should have ended, Celia took out the hymnal, opened it up, and sang "LA!" really loud.

- We were saying prayers before bed last week and Tom said "We're thankful for our family" and immediately, Celia threw her arms in the air and yelled "Fur family!" (which is her favorite book and she always sleeps with it) and went running over to her crib.

- We talked to Tom's sister, Hilary, on her birthday. She's due in May. We asked Celia if she wanted Hilary to have a girl or a boy. Celia usually just repeats the last word we say if she has to make a decision. But this time she thought about it and said "story" because it sounds a little like boy and she doesn't really get the concept of girl or boy yet.

- We have this old Sesame Street book we got at a thrift store. It's in the pre-Elmo days. The first time Tom read it with Celia, she pointed out all the other characters "Ernie, Big Bert (she specifies between "bert" and "bird" very nicely, but both have a "big" in front of them for her), Big Bird, etc." and then she said "Elmo, wherareooo?" ("Where are you" is all one word for her). Now when she sees the book, she points out the characters and then says "Elmo. All gone."

IN OTHER NEWS....
- Things are really starting to come together in the house. Most of the boxes are unpacked, most of the furniture is assembled and situated. I think we're maybe about a week away from feeling moved in. At that point, we'll post after-after pictures.

- My cousin keeps reminding me that no matter how fashionable you start to feel in Alaska, whenever you go down to the 48, you realize you've lost it all. I feel great about this because I'm not sure I ever had a touch on "fashionable" anyway... but the other day we were in our neighborhood grocery store and a guy was just wearing his longjohns. He had a coat on and some boots... and then longjohns... now those are warm, when worn properly under pants, but on their own, they're not that warm... or attractive. It was disgusting and weird and I couldn't get over it. I really wish I had a picture of how crazy it looked.

- After unseasonably cold temperatures with highs in the single digits, we're back to warm temperatures sitting right around freezing. It's great! Our bodies have adjusted quickly. I spent my time yesterday without a hat or gloves and felt fine. Celia tried to strip off all of her clothes when we got into the store yesterday (we, of course, didn't let her).

Sigh of Relief

Ahhhhh.

It feels good to have all of our stuff. Even if it is piled in boxes all over the house. Friday wasn't so bad after all. The house closed around noon without a hitch. Just afterwards, the old owner showed up to get her box from the garage and to congratulate us. The washer and dryer people called around 3:45 to say they lost the breaks on their truck. Could they come Monday? At that point, I wanted them to anyway just to space things up a bit, so I surprised them with how fine with that I was. The container showed up around 4PM, as scheduled, and about 20 people from Church were already here ready to help. The whole thing was unloaded in 45 minutes. Then my cousin came and took Celia home for a few hours while her husband helped Tom take apart the bed and reassemble it upstairs, put up curtains in Celia's room, and distribute the boxes throughout the house. Yesterday we got the shelves up in the living room and the kitchen is mostly put together as well. It's starting to feel like home and I'm loving it.

Oh, and I'm totally sporting the longjohns-under-tights look for Church today. It's 7 degrees outside.

A Scary Day

It's Friday the 13th and though that alone doesn't scare me, it doesn't help being added to the list of things that are happening today:

1) The house officially closes today.

2) Our stuff is scheduled to arrive in a 20' container around 4PM. They're still trying to figure out how to get the giant monstrosity up our driveway. And we're still trying to gather enough people to help.

3) Our washer and dryer are scheduled to get installed today sometime between 12-4. I have pretty much ready for this to happen at the exact same time as the container arriving because everything has to happen at once. To make matters worse, the stacking kit hasn't arrived for the set and they don't fit side-by-side. So I'm having him install them and then just set them on top of eachother. When we want to do laundry, we'll move one into the hall. I called the company that makes them and they said they have a 6000 backorder on the stacking kits... so it doesn't seem to be a specific Alaska problem. It could be months it seems. Oh well.

4) Tom is at a training workshop all day and didn't take his phone in case the movers call it... but it would be really helpful to get ahold of him.

5) Yesterday, we found a box the old owners left in the garage. It has a bunch of old pictures and envelopes and stuff. Part of me wants to call some show on HGTV and follow the mystery behind this box because I always wondered how people ended up with stuff when they bought a house. The other part of me told me to email the owners and tell them I have it... so that's what I did. But the intrigue lasted a few minutes anyway.

6) Did I mention it's snowing and 12 degrees outside?

Celia Dailies

Every morning when I get in the shower, Celia shows up and asks for her screwdrivers. Now one of her favorite toys is a screwdriver that we've been letting her play with as we work on things around the house. She has found the screw on every one of her toys and stuck that screwdriver in. "Screwdriver" was a hard word for her, but she mastered it. So when she comes to me in the shower, she's actually asking for her washcloths, which are hanging in the shower. But since "washcloth" is another hard word that she hasn't yet mastered, she also calls them screwdrivers. Then she puts her screwdrivers on her head and parades in front of the mirror and then usually goes to wash the TV with them.


And now for something completely different...

I'm so glad our HOA dues come with snow removal. Every morning I watch those suckers shoveling my walkway and every afternoon the snow plow comes and cleans up the parking lot. And I sit warmly inside in my sweatpants. We had a blizzard yesterday. It was a total whiteout for fifteen minutes and we couldn't see anything out our windows. When it cleared, we had to go sign for closing and the roads looked and felt like skating rinks. It's a good thing Consumer Reports tested our snow tires on a skating rink.

Celia spent the morning standing on a chair by the window singing to the snow. Then she went the whole day without eating a single pack of fruit snacks or watching a minute of Curious George. After her short nap (thanks to the snowplow), she woke up happy, which also never happens. I brought her back upstairs, she got back on her chair with her three bears, held them each up to the window and said: "Bear? Snow." "Bear? Snow." "Bear? Snow." Now they've all been officially introduced and we've had a perfect day. I think I like the snow.

First Real Snow

We got our first real snow last night here in Smaown. It's beautiful. Here's the view from our window. Yes, we have a view of the water just past those trees. Things are gorgeous up here. And the cool thing about the winter is that the sun stays really low in the sky, so it always looks like its rising or setting. Makes for great pictures and very cool colors in the sky all day.

Alaska should still be Russia

I guess Russia should have kept us. Apparently we're no good for America according to economists. Read the article here.