The bet

You, my dear readers, yes all three of you, are now witness to the craziest bet in history. For some incredibly strange reason, my dear husband is obsessed with minivans. Obsessed as in that is what he wants for our next vehicle and has talked about it for nearly 5 years. Even after we test drove one and I cried half way through because I just couldn't take the implications- that I'm a mom!!!

Anyway, I do have a point to the story. We made a bet on whether we will be in the house by October 19th. That means the house is live able (running water, electricity, gas, air conditioning, household appliances working, toilets installed, etc) and we have the certificate of occupancy from the city. If we are in the house by October 19th, our next vehicle will be a minivan. And since dear husband has decided we will never finance another vehicle, I'm sure it will be a lovely late 1990's vintage with 60,000+ miles on it. However, if we are not able to move into the house by October 19th, he will prepare all dinners and do the dishes from dinner within 12 hours of the dinner until the baby is born in March.

Still homeless

Stairs Entertainment center
Fireplace in the living room
Beginnings of the kitchen
More kitchen

I haven't posted about the house lately because it depresses me to think about it. We're still crashing at my folks and the carpenter has still been s l o w l y plugging away. IF the rain can hold out, we should get a driveway and sidewalks tomorrow. All the prep work for paint has begun inside and most is complete outside. The tile guy has been working out of sequence and has completed 2 of the 4 bathrooms and made good progress on the other 2.

The garage door for the back is installed and the correct panel put in place for the main garage door. We picked out carpet and wood and should be getting the damage done for that soon (we have good taste). They will come measure for counter tops this week and we'll select those on Thursday. All that leaves for us is pick out all the hardware for doors and cabinets, sinks, and toilets. I can finally see the end.

Sick, again

This is the second day in two weeks that I had to call in sick to work. I seem to pick up whatever is floating around and there is always someone sick at work. Hubby's the culprit this time, though. Would have moved to another bed in the house, except they are all full. New activity starting at the house- will post pictures soon.

Big time

Second grade, seven years old and the nurturing is over. The boy gets graded on his school work and will receive a letter grade instead of excellent/satisfactory/unsatisfactory. I can tell a huge improvement in his work. His behavior? Not so much. We get notes home from the teacher every day- the boy doesn't listen! He was misbehaving in line! He won't stop talking! Please talk to him! Might be time to have a talk with her. Good luck lady!

We're not throwing in the towel, but this is something we've struggled with since he was in preschool and if the school counselor, principal, district counselor, and pediatrician were unable to provide helpful advice, well, talking to him isn't going to make an impact. We've talked until we were blue in the face, taken everything away, paid for good behavior- he just does not respond to the typical reward/punishment theory.

Baseball season has begun and instead of the coach gently lolling the ball for them to hit, a machine pitches at 35 mph. Instead of rotating the coveted game ball each game so every player receives one, the recipient has to earn it. Instead of rotating positions so that each player gets good experience, the coaches decide the best player for each position and they keep that position the entire season. Instead of letting each player bat each inning, players will get outs and scores will be kept.

Welcome to the big time!

Bean counting

I am finally caught up on my accounting for both businesses after spending one entire evening last week and most of the day Sunday working on it. I haven't had formal training in accounting, but I did hire a tutor. With a finance degree and several accounting classes under his belt, my husband would seem to be the logical accountant, but since his idea of balancing a checkbook is to round the checks to the nearest dollar, I decided to take on the task.


I started by purchasing QuickBooks Pro and then entering the data in a way that made since in my engineering mind. I then met with a bookkeeper, an expert in QB, and had several sessions until I was comfortable enough to continue by myself. I met with her several times a year the first year to make sure I was on the right track. Now I have her review the books at the beginning of each year before I hand them over to the tax advisor to prepare our taxes.


It started off taking me 7 or 8 hours to complete one month. This past week, I did four months in a about 5 hours. Not too bad, but not something I enjoy. I do enjoy the feeling of satisfaction after I finish however and it gives me a much better understanding of where we stand. Neither business is where we'd like it to be this year, but now we can start working a plan to get them both back on track.

Thumb

Friday, I went to a genetic counselor for the new Ultra-screen test. It is much more accurate than previous tests to check for Downs Syndrome, Trisomy 18 and other chromosomal disorders. And since my risk of Downs increases each year and I'm not quite the spring chicken I used to be, I opted for the test. That and because I get another ultrasound ;)

The technician had to take so many measurements and because the baby was not cooperating and was sleeping in a tight corner of my uterus, the ultrasound lasted quite awhile. She was finally able to wake him up (and I use 'him' in the loosest terms since it's still too early to tell) and he swam over to another area and started sucking his thumb. So cute!!! Even if he did look like an alien. The measurements were all within normal and he's several days ahead on growth, but I'll get the official results sometime this week.

The next ultrasound, hopefully the one I find out whether to pick out pink or blue, will happen the beginning of November.