April

It is such a nice and fun place to live.

We moved on April 4 to our new rental home. Up until recently I've felt completely disorganized physically and mentally. I have a good system of paying bills and mostly keeping up on things at our apartment, but here I've had a rough time. We had a very very high phone bill. Lets say around $472 worth. Yeeeeaaah. That was a big oops.

We just started with a new phone company and had the same exact plan as with T-Mobile, but cheaper. The problem is that I must have been talking with a lot of T-Mobile users, plus I talked a lot around my birthday. Fortunately I was able to get Sprint to drop the overage charges. Woo hoo. I am very careful about talking during peak hours now. Lesson learned.

Back to, us moving. We really love living in a house. We have lots of extra room to spread out, a garage, and a yard. We are so grateful to the Holmans for letting us stay in their house.

It's great to not deal with loud noises, cigarette smoke, dents in our car, three flights of stairs, and irresponsible neighbors. Example of irresponsible neighbors: We got three dents in our car while living at our apartment, which really sucks. One of the dents we figure someone kicked in, because there isn't a scratch.

(I am really going off on tangents.) Speaking of dents, Sean got rear ended on his way back from the store on my birthday. That was really not fun to deal with for him, but the person at fault's insurance is great. I've been tempted to switch to American Family Insurance, because they are so easy to work with. (I should get paid for these endorsements for Sprint and American Family)

So, the new place is great. The owners put a lot of hard work into the home, and have put some really nice things in. Like: new windows, really nice looking sinks and cupboards in the bathrooms, really nice ceiling fans, and fresh paint. Our dark wood furniture looks a lot nicer here, because they play off of the wood floors. We love, having a yard. We started a garden with a lot herbs and a few zucchini plants. Mmm, I really love zucchini bread. I gobble it up.

Living in a home is quite a bit more work and money, but it is really rewarding. We will be trying to save like crazy to be able to buy a home when lease is up, because I really really don't want to live in an apartment again.

So a few weeks back we had thought our cat Lucy had accidently gotten spooked and ran away while a door was open. It was ten at night when we noticed. We searched high and low, rechecking the same places. We looked outside and called for her. Nothing.

After exhausting all effort, I set about writing a lost cat flyer in our computer room. Amidst tears, I hear a meow. It sounded like a Lucy meow. Sean had heard it too, he thought. So, I raced around again trying to figure out if somehow she had gotten in the heating vents. I kept worrying that we were going to have a cooked kitty. Then I heard it again. Meow. I couldn't tell where it was coming from so I went into the kitchen to turn off the dishwasher. Meow. Turns out that Lucy found a loose metal plate in the crook of the bottom of the cabinets, and squeezed herself in and went behind the dishwasher somehow, then squeezed again under a four inch rise. So we set about trying to figure out how to get her out. Finally we pulled out the dishwasher and I grabbed her by the noggin to pull her out. This happened two times more before Sean remedied the problem. Even though we love our Buster and Lucy, I think we can all learn a valuable lesson, don't get cats.

Can you believe she fit under there? I did the dishes earlier that night, not a peep. What a little turkey.

Other updates:

Ms. Claire has been better. She has gotten sick three or four times in the last month and a half. Once with a flu, another with a diaper fungus. We had to put athlete's foot creme on to cure it. I think Claire has been sneaking out to sit diaperless in gym lockerrooms.) She has had two colds, and just recently her first ear infection treated with amoxicilan, which gave her the baby runs. She is still having that problem. I wonder if she has developed an allergy to milk? I don't know.

A sorta smile at the Dr.'s for ear infection. She looks like H.I. Junior in that jacket.("Raising Arizona" the movie)