It’s clean and decorated of course because when we moved way back in May 2012 (has it really been that long!? Hard to believe!) we not only became homeowners; we became different people. Better people. It was the strangest thing, we spent an hour where we signed and initialed and gave the bank a cashier’s check and then they gave us keys to our new house PLUS new personalities. Such a deal!

The new, home-owning usses have turned out to be amazing housekeepers, and they have endless cheerful energy when it’s time to paint or decorate. They do a load of laundry every day and they never ever go to bed if there are dishes in the sink.

I like the new us. We are not only nicer and better about meal planning than our old selves, the selves we were before we bought this house but we are also healthier and skinnier because of climbing the stairs all the time. And now we’re really rich because buying a house turned out to be such a smart decision. To think we were nervous! The night before the closing, I woke up worried that the deal might fall through, worried that the energy to move wasn’t in me anywhere, worried that we’d never get it all done by the 17th, worried that my office stuff wouldn’t fit in the dining area (which has turned out to be such a non-issue I can’t even believe I was so worried about it! OMGG!), worried that we wouldn’t find a good refrigerator for under $1600, worried that even if everything worked perfectly, the actual physical moving part was going to be horrible.

Of course I was wrong to worry about the moving part. I mean, my goodness. SO wrong. Right? I’m sure you’ve seen me talk about it on my many recent talk show appearances so I won’t bother going into all the details here but as we all now know, it turned out to be the most fun moving week anyone in this town has ever had in the history of families packing and moving. Which to be fair, local standards are low. In this town you’re just thankful that you aren’t being forced to pack at gunpoint while white prospectors measure to see if their stove is going to fit in your kitchen.

But even after you normalize to account for humanitarian atrocities, this move was really and truly an objectively wonderful experience.

Of course late that Sunday night, there was no way to know how great it would be. Kevin and I both had every reason to think that the next few weeks were going to suck and so oh my holy house-buying heck, I babbled goodness knows what all over my blog because I was too exhausted to pack and too nervous and giddy to sleep.

Sometimes I really don’t know about this kid.

9:30 am – Good morning, Mama! I’m really hungry
10 am – I ate two bites and then I accidentally gave my breakfast to the dog
11 am – now it hurts worse, in the middle and over on the right side.
12 noon – a hospital visit! Wow, that is so cool! This attention is making me feel better! I can’t wait to show all of the nice nurses and doctors how great I am at feeling great.
1 pm – An x-ray! Wow! A bowel obstruction? What’s that? A traffic jam made of poop? That is the funniest thing that has ever been wrong with me. When the cars in my intestines honk do you want to hear what it probably sounds like?

1 – 1:30 Continuous fart noises.

2 pm – 6:30 pm Let’s have lunch. Now I feel like running around and playing! Because I’m six and my parents just spent a whole month’s rent on a bottle of Miralax! Woooooo! Spring breaaaakkkk!! I’m all better and my mother completely overreacted hahahahahahaaaa! Want to see my gymnastics moves?

7:30 – Mama? I’m starving now
8:00 – I ate two bites of my sweet potato and now I’m full
9 pm – Instead of going to bed I’m going to wrestle with the dog now, okay?
9:30 – Now I’m hungry. And my stomach hurts.
10 pm Mama, I can’t sleep.
11 pm I can’t sleep
11:30 I feel horrible. My stomach hurts really bad.
11:45 Sorry for getting out of bed again. I need to go to the bathroom
12:10 Mama! The GREATEST NEWS! I finally really did poop and I could feel everything bubbling in my intestines and it feels a tiny bit better. Can I take paper to my bed with me so I can draw my idea for a really gross invention that would actually help people?

Summary/Diagnosis: oh my god.

So yeah, if I set these things to automatically post/publish after 12 hours then you’d get to read lots more of the weird little things that happen all the time.

Here’s what’s in the drafts folder now:
An update on Graham
State of the Nicolaus address
Househunting
Weight weight don’t tell me
New thoughts about home schooling

Hmm… should I pick one? Or write a new one? I don’t know!

For now I will give you a quote from the one about Graham. Helpful rule for life:
“You should always remember that any time you play tug of war with someone’s tongue, the one who owns the tongue is definitely going to be the winner. ALWAYS.”

He learned this thanks to the dog, who for whatever reason adores Graham and thinks him grabbing her tongue is just the greatest thing that has happened to her since whatever was happening right before he grabbed her tongue. Most things that happen to her are great in her opinion — trips to the vet, kids playing with her, kids hollering “It’s the Menacing Licker! Get her out of here!” as they push her out of their bedroom and slam the door in her face, people feeding her, people eating food that they don’t feed her, naptime, bedtime, run around outside time, put in her crate time… she’s always ready to sign up for any turn of events. She will even volunteer for baths, which she doesn’t appear to enjoy at all once we get her wet and soapy — but still, run the water and hey hey! A dog bath? This has to do with me? Right? I get in here now? THIS IS AWESOME. I know exactly what to do, and I’m in 100%!

Did I tell you about her trying to make friends with a yellowjacket nest? It wasn’t just one brief dumb-dog moment; this was a long term commitment to establishing friendly communication with these tiny stinging creatures. She would beg us to let her outside so she could go visit her new BFFs, even though her BFFs mysteriously lived in this place that stung her. Get out of there, friends! The air right here will sting you! I’ll save you! Unless you want to play? Let’s play! It went on for nearly two weeks last summer until the yellowjackets disappeared, probably taking their queen and relocating to someplace with fewer big yellow dogs inviting them to party all the time.

So that’s what I ended up writing about. Weird. See why so many of these go into the drafts folder?

More sooner than normal, I swear it.

Super Luvey is a bird with cuteness powers! She can hypnotize by fluffing up her feathers because it is SO CUTE. If a cat attacks, it ends up being hypnotized into giving her croissants. She is queen of an island that has more nuclear missiles than any other place on Earth. She thinks they are pretty! She can also cuddle people to death by using LASER CUDDLE, concentrating all of her cuddliness. She has sonic tweets that are so loud they can shatter titanium. And of course this small birdie has so much concentrated cuteness that she can turn things into cotton candy. When you are this cute you don’t have to follow the laws of physics.