Back in the Northwoods!

And it feels sooo good! Our house was just as we'd left it. We've got quite a bit unpacked and situated, and it feels like home. Really, it felt like home before we even started unpacking. Today I found myself forgetting that we'd ever moved away from here.

The kids and dogs are in heaven with the fenced-in yard! It's been hard to get them to come back inside. D has been just running around like crazy and sliding down the slide. B loves the baby swing and gets so mad when it's time to come out. We had a cookout this weekend and did some relaxing out in the yard. The weather has been awesome! It was so miserably hot and humid in Iowa. It's been hot here, about mid-80s, but very low humidity, which makes a big difference! And it actually cools off at night here. Last night it got down to around 58. That makes it so much better for sleeping. We may not even have to put the air conditioner in the window.

It's amazing what coming back home has done for my children - they have made the adjustment with very little disruption. And it has done a lot for my state of mind. Ahhhh. :)

7 Facts about me

I got tagged by Karen at Busy Mamas for this 7 facts meme.

Here are the rules:

-List these rules on your blog.
-Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.
-Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

1. We are moving back to the Northwoods of Wisconsin in a matter of days! So I probably won't be posting again for at least a week!

2. I have an MA in English. Which you probably never would have guessed from my writing! ;) Once I return, I plan on concentrating more on the writing aspect, so I will probably not be posting as often. Its too easy to write too casually in this forum.

3. In one semester I taught 5 or 6 English Composition classes at 3 different community colleges! And they were all at different levels or different types (developmental writing, technical writing, business communications, comp I and comp II)

4. I started this blog because I love writing. And because I wanted to meet other moms and I'm too lazy to actually get out and go somewhere.

5. I love to crochet! I really love to crochet baby stuff! I love it so much that for the past couple of years I have crocheted all the neices and nephews x-mas gifts (which is a LOT).

6. My favorite food is anything Mexican! Sadly, there are no Mexican restaurants up north :( We have to drive an hour for a halfway decent one.

7. I really can't wait to get back to my fenced in yard back in Wisconsin! At least we will still have about a month of decent weather to enjoy it! Winter starts way early up there :)

OK, phew... now for the seven lucky people I tag for this meme: Suzie at Up the Hill Backwards, Jenn at I Hate Whine!, Nut Nut at Nutty Tales, Nissa at Nissa's Niceties, MamaGeek at What Works for Us, Beth at Around the Funny Farm, and Pepper Scraps.

Tuesday Toot

It has been forever since I've done a Tuesday Toot, so it's about time I got back in the game here. :)


As many of you have expressed, moving with two little ones is no picnic. It's not easy to get much done, and when you are busy doing things to move you feel guilty about the lack of attention you are paying to those dear little ones...


We made the big move here merely 5 months ago... and it was a difficult move. Very disruptive for the kids. And in getting things ready to move, it was almost impossible for me to get anything done. Baby B was only 6 mos old and at that point where there wasn't a whole lot that would keep her occupied. I probably managed to pack about 3 boxes total. My husband and older daughter ended up doing most of the packing.


But this time around things are going much better. I'm able to get a little more done. Partly because B is more mobile and able to occupy herself quite a bit. But the big difference this time is that it's summer and I have the help of my 11-year old daughter. M has really stepped up and done a great job helping out with the two little ones while I've been busy making phone calls and packing boxes.


She has become the expert at getting B to sleep! I hate to admit it, because in reality she's had an easier time getting B to nap than I have! B fights me like crazy when I try to get her to nap. She puts up very little fight for M.

So my toot this week goes out to my daughter M! Mommies little helper ;)

Week in Review...

It was a challenging week. Aren't they all? (well my week wasn't as bad as Suzie's!) For starters D was really on an eating strike this week. Wouldn't take more than a bite or two of anything - if even...

Every day for lunch and dinner I made things he usually eats... wouldn't touch them. He usually eats mashed potatoes the best, but last night he took about two bites. He was asking for chicken nuggets, so I made a special trip to the store... made them for lunch today and he managed to eat almost two whole nuggets... It's been so frustrating.

I tried negotiating with him. He was yelling for cookies at dinner last night and I told him he could have some cookies if he ate some more mashed potatoes... after about a half an hour of his yelling for cookies (1, 2, 3 cookies! 1, 2, 3 cookies!) I finally broke down and gave him some. He took one bite of each cookie and that was it. I shouldn't have caved. And of course I felt less guilty after he didn't even eat the cookies. But then again, I felt more guilty because he hardly ate anything! I was surprised that he didn't eat them.

Kids and dogs know when something is up. Things have been extra stressful this week. Mostly with trying to get everything ready to move...

Needless to say we've been busy packing.

Which has probably caused a little disruption to the little ones. Naps this week were really hard to come by! 2 or 3 days D wouldn't go to sleep until late in the afternoon, thus woke up late and didn't want to go to bed at a decent hour... and the other days he refused sleep altogether, but then went to sleep quite early in the evening (which I almost prefer). B's 2 naps a day have been getting shorter and shorter, and of course not coinciding with D's at all. It's been really difficult to get anything done.

I may not have too many posts for the next couple of weeks with moving and all... so bear with me and stick around. I'm sure things will get pretty fun! ;)

It's official...

Now we know what we are doing. After a couple/few weeks of anxiety... we are headed back to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Back to our home. It feels good to finally know what we are doing. And it feels so good to be going back home.

Of course there is still some uncertainty, as we are headed back home jobless. My husband has applied a few places, and he will be job hunting more as soon as we get back there. But at least we have our wonderful house!! And our wonderful fenced in yard!

Would we have stayed here in Iowa, we most likely would have lost our house in Wisconsin. Which would not have been good at all. Aside from all the other crazy issues my husband was facing at work, the word came last week that they were most likely going to a mandatory 32-hour work week come September - which would mean, aside from the paycheck decrease, no health insurance.

Just keep your internet fingers crossed for us to find a job when we get back home!

In the meantime, feel free to donate to help keep me in internets until we find a job :) Of course, considering all the scary stuff, not having the internet is not the closest to the top of that list.

Mentally, I feel so much better. In reality, we never should have left. Of course part of the reason behind the move to Iowa was for a better life for our kids. Unfortuately, that just was not happening. Our life took a step down on that ladder with our move. We were living much better up in Wisconsin with less of a paycheck. And not to mention that our 11-year-old daughter was not fitting in well at the school here, and was very unhappy with the move here.

Anyway... not looking forward to the physical aspects of the move... but we did get at least one and a half rooms packed up over the weekend! It's moving right along!

Mass Quantities of Sanity Needed!

It's amazing how things can go from bad to worse to completely surreal. And everything in between.

The past few months around here have been pretty damn awful and stressful to say the least. My husband's job has just not been going well. I feel really bad for him. And for myself too of course, because I have to listen to everything that's going on with his job ;). It is all pretty unreal. It all started out with issues in upper management, which were crazy in a bad way... then came the internal personnel issues that he's had to deal with among the people that work for him. He actually sought out "family counselling" for his employees because they were more like a dysfunctional family than a department. It's been completely ridiculous. And just when he thought things were as bad as they could get - they got worse. He discovered that the one person in his office that he felt was capable of actually doing their job, and who he had felt like he could trust, was actually behind a large part of the problems going on in and around his department. He's had a really impossibly awful time of it.

And sadly, we've suffered two great losses in our family, which I just really can't and won't discuss in such a forum... but amazingly the people that work for my husband took advantage of his being off for funeral leave to pull a bunch of crap. What kind of people take advantage of such a situation? Not to mention the weight of these issues on our personal lives, we've had to deal with the issues at his work...


Anyway, long story short we are in a bit of limbo at the moment. He went on a job interview on Monday. I really hope he gets the job. Either way we will be moving. If he gets the job we will be moving about 2 hours away - to another somewhat small town in Iowa (of course don't know which one because we will have probably have a hard time finding a place big enough that allows dogs and is affordable). We will find out about that job by the end of next week. Our other option is moving back to Wisconsin. He did apply for a job there too, which if he doesn't get the one here in Iowa, I really hope he gets the one back in Wisconsin. At least we have a house there. If he doesn't get either of the jobs... we will be moving back to Wisconsin and getting some kind of job to make house payments and get by until something better comes along.


It's all so uncertain at this point. And it's a horrible position to be in. But it feels better having made a decision. And we felt even better when my husband gave his notice yesterday. With all the issues he's had at work, it's been impossible to deal with the issues we've had in our personal lives.

Regardless, by the end of next week we should know whether to start looking for a place to live here in Iowa or head back to Wisconsin. And at that point we will take another step up on the feeling better ladder ;) because we will know a little bit more about what we are doing.

Getting Settled...finally!

Ah. big sigh. We finally got quite a bit of stuff put away this weekend. It feels so good to get somewhere close to back to normal.
This move has just been one obstacle after another. The latest being that we can't seem to get our wireless router to work with the new DSL service... Of course that's after the obstacle of having to have the telephone company come out and repair wires to even get our phone service going.
Anyway... things are finally starting to settle down around here. I just hope D starts adjusting soon. He is really wearing everyone out. He is just so out of sorts. I'm sure that he's been stressed out from the move - first it was the couple of weeks spent packing, then the move itself... then the 5 or so days of staying in a motel, then moving stuff from one new house to another. He's so off schedule. He's in unfamiliar surroundings. Everything has changed for him. And everyone around him has been stressed and busy for the past month or so. He has digressed a little. He's back to putting everything in his mouth. And now he is starting to have more jealousy over baby B. This morning when I was feeding her rice cereal D came over and opened his mouth. So I gave him a bite - and he spit it right out! A little bland for him I suppose ;)
Amazingly, baby B has remained pretty content through everything. Even with teething! One of her bottom teeth broke through while we were staying in the motel. Last night dad was holding them both and B reached over and plucked the nuk right out of his mouth and laughed. D thought it was really funny too, so he puckered it out of his mouth for her to do it again. It was too cute ;)
And 10-year-old daughter M has been quite the helper! And she seems to be adjusting to the new school great. She's very outgoing and makes friends easily. The people at the school were extremely friendly and nice! I'm really impressed with the new school so far! They are much more involved and excited about everything than her school in Wisconsin was. I'm really excited about getting involved in the school here.

update...

Haven't had a new post in almost 2 weeks now! We just had the most horrendous moving experience ever! We drove a U-Haul 8 hours to find a house that was so not ready for occupancy. It was extremely filthy. Not to mention black mold in the basement. We had been staying in a local motel for about 5 days, and finally checked out yesterday to move into a new rental house that is at least very clean and the landlords are quite sane.
I will probably not post anything for another week, as we are still trying to move our stuff from one house to another... it's been quite the experience. I feel so horrible for my children. They seem to be taking it all in stride. Thank God for my 10 year old daughter, who has been so much help for the past week.
Baby B's two bottom teeth are breaking through! (I know, what a time). And I swear she said ma-ma today!! :)
Anyway, look for more of our adventures in a week or so!

Finally got busy packing!!

We've been really busy packing! We may actually be ready for this move :) There's a huge stack of boxes in the middle of the kitchen that's almost as tall as I am :) We've gotten most of the important stuff packed. That is why I haven't posted anything in the past couple of days, and probably won't be posting much for the next week... Wednesday is the big loading day. Thursday we will be making the drive... and Friday unloading... Those are the days I'm least looking forward to :)
Anyway, it'll be fun catching up in a week or so.

Tuesday Toot

All of my Tuesday Toots (for the next couple of weeks anyway) will probably have something to do with moving. Surprise. This week I actually have a list of accomplishments! :)

1. I got a bazillion phone calls made! Called all the utilities for the new place and called all the utilities here. Called all the places to change our address or filled out online forms...
2. And... I got almost all the dishes done!!! Now that one is the most amazing. OK, I still have one thing left to wash - the roaster that's been sitting there since I don't even want to say when... If it doesn't fit in the dishwasher it takes me a while to get to it.
3. And... I got at least 2 loads of laundry done!
4. And... I was showered and dressed by 10am! (I think I'd been in my pjs since friday).

I had a busy day! Now I really need to get my butt in gear and start *really* packing! We have maybe close to 40 boxes packed. I'm guessing we'll have at least 100 total (and that's a modest estimate). 8 Days and counting!

Tuesday Toot

Small toot today ;) I actually accomplished quite a few small things today. I finally ran my dishwasher!!! :) I'm so behind on household stuff. I've been so preoccupied with trying to find a place to rent for when we move (2 weeks!!). Finding places in small towns really sucks!!

The funny thing is that the place I tooted about finding a couple of weeks ago went out of the running and then came back in and that is where we're going. We sent my sister-in-law to go look at it - she gave a horrible report, but did not take any pictures like she was supposed to. If she would have it would have saved us soooo much trouble. The landlord had not yet had a chance to clean, paint and re-carpet. So we ended up taking the 8+ hour trip (even longer with the aftermath of the Iowa blizzard coming home) to look at a few things for ourselves. The one we were really going to look at was not good. We were desperate enough to think about purchasing a home on contract until we had enough time to get financing... anyway, that house was in a town that was pretty run down. Not to mention the cracked foundation, the very cheaply done remodels, the fact that the house appeared to be seperating... ugh... the worst was the bubba neighbor who leaned out the top of his broken door with a beer and then let his dogs out... I would so not want my children to live next door to a guy like that...
The second house we looked at I wouldn't even let my dogs live in. That town was even more run down. There was boarded up houses less than a block away. It was beyond horrible. And that's what we imagined when we got the report from my sister-in-law about the house she went to look at. Out of desperation we called that lady back and asked her if we could go look at that house. Of course it was short notice, so she couldn't meet us and said that we could go peek in and see the downstairs. It was not bad. We could tell that really it just needed cleaned up. The previous tennent had left a few things, and it really just needed to be cleaned up and repainted. The floors weren't even that bad. It was certainly in liveable condition. Unlike the other two we looked at. And the town is so worth it. The town has a really neat business district. There are no run down neighborhoods in the town! I'm really happy that we went down ourselves and looked at the place. We ended up getting stuck in the area because of the blizzard and were able to meet with the lady and look at the place. So everything turned out great.
We found out today that the place was surely ours and so my other accomplishments were getting the utilities called and getting the school called! :) Small things, but good things :)

Tuesday Toot!

So here goes my first Tuesday Toot! Exciting ;)
We found a house to rent in our relocation area! My husband and myself, along with other family members and various other people had been looking and searching on the computer and in papers for a house to rent in the area where my husband got a new job. We were starting to get desperate! We had done exhaustive searches in the area and were coming up with big blanks! We were looking for at least a 3 bedroom, as we have 3 - sometimes 4 children (not to mention tons of stuff!!). No one had a 3BR house anywhere close to the area! I just made a list of all the small towns within 30 miles and started calling all the city halls! It finally paid off last night. We finally got a line on a 3BR house (with lots of space) that hasn't been advertised - it's in a small town about 23 miles from where my husband's new job is. The town actually has a school about 7 blocks from the house :) And it has a business district and a grocery store!!! :) I'm so excited! We will be living in a bona fide town! Right now the town we live in has a population of 96. There is nothing here for miles. The closest grocery store is 25 miles away. The closest Wal-Mart is about 30 some miles away. The school is 25 miles away. My daughter M has to ride the bus for 2 1/2 hours a day. I so did not want to get into the same position with our relocation.
I'm tooting my own horn here because I found some persistence!! :) And it paid off. Maybe I'll try to be more persistent more often...
I'm just so thrilled now! The big move is finally sinking in and becoming a reality now that we have a place lined up.