Roller Coaster

We're still riding the roller coaster on selling our house. Good news one minute, bad news the next. I swear we're both just ready to crumble into little bits at this point.

I wish I had more to say, but really, I'm just dead tired over the whole thing. Thanks to everyone who's sent well wishes. They mean more than you know right now.

I think I need to get a good drunk on. Anyone want to supervise my kids so I can?

Quick Housing Update

We're still in California and are extending our current escrow to (possibly) the end of the month. Burger loves high school here, of course, and Zippy started back in speech therapy (3x/week) today. Life goes on, and we'll survive no matter what happens. We've been lucky to have some friends here who make things much better for us, and will sorely miss them once (if?) we're gone. Right now I'm not even depressed, I'm just numb. We've been up and down so many times with this deal that we're just not getting our hopes up anymore. I can't be excited about the prospect of moving, because I cannot afford to be crushed again. Just can't. I can barely read the blogs of my friends in Bend, because I'd planned to BE THERE now and to have had the chance to meet them in person. (I'm a computer geek, and yes, I have friends I've never met. Lots of them. I also have tons of friends that I never would have met if not for the Internet, and I'm all the better for having met them - a few of my best friends are people I've met on the 'net. Yes. Geeky. Whatever.) I dunno, I don't have much to say, but I figured a report was due. Trying to keep my chin up. And being happy that I hadn't packed a higher percentage of things in my kitchen. If I couldn't cook I'd go mad.

Zippy lost a tooth!

Last week, I had to go out of town. So what does the Zipster do? Yes, she lost her first tooth when MOMMY WAS NOT HOME. Shiminy. The child has no sense of timing. Here's the report I received by e-mail from Mr. Little Things:

"Well she lost her first tooth, literally, it is GONE. I think she may have swallowed it with some gum from a lollipop. We were outside and she had the pop and I noticed a gap between her teeth like it may have been twisted. She finished the lollipop and was chewing on the gum then we went inside to brush her teeth and it was gone. We looked around outside but did not find it."

Mr. LT also sent some pictures. Here's one of them:

(Yes, she's mostly naked. We have a very hard time convincing her that clothes aren't optional, as a rule.)

I think she looks mighty cute sans tooth. I am shocked that she lost it this soon (she'll be five on Friday), as Burger didn't lose her first tooth until she was over five and a half.

(oh, and the tooth fairy did come to our house even though there wasn't a tooth to be found. Apparently a nice note written with the help of your big sister will suffice if a tooth is lost. Who knew?)

Kool-Aid Pie

Recently, a friend of mine who knows I love to cook asked me if I had a recipe for Kool-Aid Pie. I'd never heard of such a thing, so I went online and the first hit was something that sounded right to her.

Fast forward three days. I'm semi-sick, and dear friends are coming over and bringing most of dinner with them. I need to come up with side dishes (simple - roasted corn and roasted potatoes. I was semi-sick!) and something for dessert. So I thought hmmmm... Kool-Aid Pie. I'll make it!

My thoughts? First, it was very simple to make. Second, it was sweet sweet sweet (I did just notice this when re-googling for the first link - guess I should have let it sit a day, but if I have TIME to make something ahead of time, it's going to be fancier than Kool-Aid pie!). Third, about 2/3 of the people who were here finished their pieces, so it didn't suck completely.

The final verdict is that this is an acceptable dessert. I think if I needed to make it again, I'd substitute the condensed milk with evaporated milk (to cut the sweetness) and reduce the amount of milk used, so as to not water it down. It was nice and fluffy, and for a very middle-American dessert, it was pretty okay.

I used pink lemonade Kool-Aid mix, by the way. That I don't think I'd change.

Worlds!

My favorite sport is gymnastics, you remember gymnastics, it's that sport you see every four years on television during the Olympics, right? Well, I'm sickened because we can see things like cup stacking, billiards, and cheerleading on ESPN (and other channels), but we get maybe 8 to 10 hours of gymnastics coverage in non-Olympic years (2 hours for the American Cup, 2-3 hours for the Visa U.S. Championships, 2-3 hours for World Championships). There is so much good gymnastics out there - I'm very thankful for You Tube because it allows me to see at least portions of competitions that we'd never get to see on television.

World Championships are this week in Stuttgart, Germany, and the team competition was held yesterday. An article about the results of the team competition are here, but if you don't want to be spoiled by reading the results, you can (OMG!!!) watch the coverage by signing up for an account on WCSN - AT&T has sponsored things so that WCSN can provide free coverage that we can watch! Bart Conner ('76, '80, '84 Olympian) and Tasha Schweikert ('00 Olympian) do an okay job of commentating - they're a little more in love with the Romanian team than I am, but I'm not necessarily surprised by that, considering that Bart is married to Nadia Comaneci who (duh) has strong ties to Romania. I do think we need a Dick Button type for color -- I love Dick Button because he's just snarky enough, but sweet and honest about it.

I stayed up way too late last night watching the coverage, and love that it's available for all! What a great preview of the talent out there with the Olympics coming next year!

Sue me. I'm a heathen.

It's been hot as hell here lately, and that hasn't made life any happier for me. There's very little A/C in SoCal, and absolutely none at our house. Usually we have a nice breeze coming off the ocean, but the past five or six days were absolutely miserable.

Why am I a heathen, you ask? Well, I'll be frank here. I'm committing the major sin of drinking a CHILLED glass of Merlot. I stuck the bottle in the fridge the other night when I thought I wanted red wine, but I also knew I wanted something cold. Turns out it was other cold stuff that I drank that evening (I love our kegerator, and can't believe that my better half wants to sell it. But that's neither here nor there...). But tonight! Tonight I am having cold red wine. And it tastes quite dandy, thank you.

Please note that we are indeed having red meat with dinner. I didn't want to push the envelope too much.

Short Update

No, we haven't moved yet, and we haven't closed on our house here in California yet. Sigh. We've extended to closing date to later this month, and with a little bit of luck (I need to burn some sage or something, maybe wave a chicken around my head) things will work out. It sounds like we'll be able to extend our closing date (again) in Bend, but we haven't yet formally submitted an addendum to do so.

Burger has started high school here and missed the first day of school; she was happy to get to go to school with her friends, but is not looking forward to being the new kid part-way through the school year. Again. I hope we'll be able to get up there before too much time passes, because it does suck coming into a new school when everything is already established (and by everything, I mean the social order of the school, which is of the utmost importance for teenagers).

Zippy, luckily, is going with the flow. She asks about moving every day, and we just try to keep positive, even though we're still unsure as to what the future holds. It'll all work out in the end. It'll all work out. (If I keep repeating that, it must be true. Right?)