Took long enough...

Congratulations, Senator Franken.

Clean it up

But, make sure you use OxiClean. Or maybe KaBoom. Perhaps OrangeGlo. R.I.P., Billy Mays.

Also, R.I.P. Bernie Madoff's days as a free man. YES! Have fun rotting in your cell, you worthless bastard.

Is it really true?

Is Michael Jackson dead? I've heard conflicting reports. Coma? Maybe?

I'd like to say I'm saddened by the news... but I can't. I'm interested in it and I'm a little weirded out by it, but there's no sadness hiding in there anywhere. Not sure if that makes me callous or if it's just a distressing statement about our celebrity obsessed culture.

If the MJ of the 70s, the MJ of the Jackson Five had died I'd be sad. But, the 2009 Wacko Jacko died. Somehow that's just strange.

The club

Happy Father's Day to the best Daddy I know. I hope you enjoy being a member of the club and that fatherhood is everything you expected and brings you joys you never knew could be.

Keep on flexing those Dad muscles. Jude and I both think you're the strongest man in the universe.

OK, I am not freaking out

Omigod, I'm moving. Crap. I mean, YAY! But, also crap.

I've been cobbling together a collection of moving boxes from people giving them away on Freecycle. Moving is expensive, so every cent I can save us is a cent we *might* be able to put toward using a moving company. We've always moved ourselves in the past, but we're in our 30s, we have a baby, and we have a sleeper sofa. That's reason enough to hire the big guns to tote our heavies for us. Fingers crossed that I can scrape the requisite dough together.

Breathing easier

Just got an email from the landlord of the apartment we looked at last week. It's ours! Jude's own bedroom, a working fireplace, original wood floors, a stove that no one else has ever cooked on, and a skylight in the bathroom. Heaven! Thanks for all the good apartment hunting vibes, they paid off!

Take the chance, do something goofy

Yesterday we drove 3 hours to have dinner with my in-laws on a whim. Yep. We went to southern Rhode Island to our favorite seafood place and Jude got his first taste of the beach. My in-laws were thrilled and we got the chance to show Jude the ocean.

We were a little crazy for doing it, but it was a great day spent with our family and totally worth the hassle. I fully endorse breaking up your daily routine with something totally unexpected every once in awhile. You might just end up with a whole bucket of memories you never anticipated.

No, we didn't make him ride in the trunk. Not that you can tell that from this photo.

Shuffle your feet

I hate moving. I despise it with every fiber of my being. I hate the sorting, the pressure to purge, the heart wrenching decisions about what hits the donation/recycling/trash bins and what makes the move to the next apartment. The packing sucks, the compartmentalizing of lives lived in a space. It's an upsetting process.

We have to move. We have been in this apartment for 4 years and we have to leave it. Our landlords' father passed away and her mother can't live alone, so they need our apartment for her. I understand fully that family comes first, of course, so I hold no ill will for our landlords. It's not their first choice of situations for us to move out and the mom to move in. Our landlords are not qualified caregivers and they also aren't keen on losing the income from our rent, but what needs to be done must be done.

The thought of leaving our neighborhood is too much to bear, so we've decided that we need to stay close. We've been looking for a month, we've seen 8 places now. Last night was the first time we saw one that we loved without hesitation. It's only one block from our place now, it's in a brownstone, pet-friendly, rent within our budget, a bedroom for Jude, a brand new kitchen, a working fireplace (!), and a new bathroom. It also has lots of original details from when the bldg was built in the 1920s. Gorgeous. We put in an application on the spot last night. I hope we get the place. We're up against the 3 other people who were seeing it after us last night, so my fingers are crossed that we made a good enough impression on the landlord when we met with him.

Is moving this stressful for everyone? I feel like my life is about to be uprooted... and if we get this place we'll only be moving one block away!

Jude's Tuesday night bath

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Yawn

Working full time and being a parent of a 3 month old is hard. It's great, but it's really hard. I'm trying to nurture as much of me the individual as I can, but there are challenges every step of the way these days. I sort of miss me.