A bit scary

So you probably guessed from my previous posts about my job that the townhomes I manage aren't in the best neighborhood, right? Well, it's gonna get even worse soon. My boss came into town about a month ago & told me he wanted me to look at some properties in the same town I live in because they were thinking about buying them. I'm thinking great, it's close by, this town doesn't have any real rough areas, this will be good! WRONG!!! He takes me to a side of town I didn't know existed & I think we turned down the street that supplies drugs for the entire ATL. I mean, really? It's here? So, I say nothing...crickets...the whole way up and down the block, back to civilization, I am silent. I'm thinking, he has eyes, right? He'll figure it out. So, he didn't really talk about it again until last week when he comes back into town to take me over there because they're closing on the property in 2 weeks! Awesome, what's my role? Rehab facilitator, dealer, case worker, meth cooker, what?
I still don't really know what they'll want me to do with this project other than to be in charge (by default, because I'm the only one in town and have all the construction contacts) of the "flip" of both quadplexes...is that a word? I guess this is house flipping on a large scale 101. I tell people that if I had money & didn't have to work, what I would do for "fun" is flip houses, so this will be make or break for that dream, right? This is like slum city turned well, up a few notches. We'll see how it goes. In my defense though, if I had money & was flipping for fun, I would've run, not walked from this neighborhood!
Oh, and tonight I made my husband go with me because my boss wanted me to measure some things he forgot to get while he was in town. Of course I wasn't going by myself, so we went over there (before dark) to get those real fast. While we're standing outside, a cop pulls up & says "are you guys moving in?" My husband laughs and says "uh, no. We know the owner & are doing a few things real quick" he goes..."Oh good. I was about to give you a little warning about the neighborhood. You guys be careful & call if you need anything" Then he circled the block off & on until we left. I really appreciated that, and hope they patrol often, but um...I'm just praying I don't have to go there very often because I don't know if I would make it out of there!
Sorry, I didn't mean to write a book. I get carried away.

Waaaay overdue!

We live in a relatively small home, and have decided (thanks to the numerous foreclosures in our neighborhood) that we'll be here for a while. Our house probably won't even appraise for what we paid for it now, so we won't be selling anytime soon. We decided we'll just make this house more comfortable. So, we've gotten some new living room furniture recently and new pictures for the walls in most rooms (No, we didn't spend a lot of money, and yes, we're still doing the Dave Ramsey thing. Some deals you just can't walk away from...I'm sure Dave would understand. Well, ok he wouldn't, but I'm fine with it). I am DYING to paint in the living room, but can't talk hubby into that task just yet ;-)

We also tackled the huuuugggeee project over the weekend of cleaning out our garage. Unfortunately, over the course of our 7 years in this house, it had become a catch all for anything and everything we couldn't bear to part with, christmas decoration storage, baby clothes/furniture storage and lawn equipment galore.

In a nutshell, it was an embarrassing mess! Of course we had the little one's scooter, motorized jeep, big wheel & tricycle in there, too so she wanted us to open the door every day while she was playing outside, but it was becoming too embarrassing for me to open it in full view of the neighbors. SOOOO We manned up on it & got it done Friday night & Saturday. It almost killed us, but we took an entire cargo van loaded top to bottom to the dump, and filled the attic with all our holiday decor and some baby stuff, too!

We now have a 2 car garage that is mostly empty & I never thought we could do it! The trick will be keeping it that way, I guess, but I am not emotionally attached to everything like I used to be. "If you haven't used it in a year, chances are you'll never use it, so trash it" is my new motto.

We did make a little play area for the little one and all the neighborhood friends, and they absolutely LOVE it! I also came across a table and chairs that is perfect for the garage and all our crafts, without getting the dining room table all messy. I'm so excited about our progress!!!

I don't have any garage pics...mostly cause I would've been horrified to show the "before" for you to appreciate the "after" pics.

Sorry for writing this L-O-N-G post & not giving you anything to look at :-)

You gotta love it

How great is it when you're a kid & you hear the Ice Cream truck music coming through the neighborhood? The mad scramble to find money and run out to the truck is so fun for kids & our street is no exception. They don't come as often as last summer (thank God, since they're $1.00 & $1.50 each now instead of $0.50 like back in the day).

The Spiderman massive popsicle with bubble gum eyes was the choice on this particular day. I've decided she secretly has a blue food obsession to torture me on stain removal. Oh, and ignore the leotard. Of course she was just dressing up for fun and went outside looking a hot mess :)

Classy, just like Daddy!

And Messy, just like Mommy :)

On a side note, I'll try to take a picture of the ice cream man that comes through my work neighborhood. It's classic...He drives a big yellow box truck from some tool company that hasn't been lettered or anything. Then he has this one obnoxiously loud song he blares through the streets and just is an overall scary looking dude. I heard he's also a known "street pharmacist" in the area, so he may be pushing more than popsicles out of the truck...Nice! Let's just pray my little one is NEVER there when he happens to drive through!

It only takes a few minutes...

For 2 little girls to trash a room completely! I left the little one and a neighbor in her room playing for a few minutes, went in to check on them & THIS is what I saw...

Me: "Dear Lord, WHAT are you doing in here?!!!!!"
Them: "Um, well, we were just looking for a purse"

WOW!

I've created a monster!

We started a new positive reinforcement reward system 2 weeks ago, and it's working really well! She gets 1 marble to put in her jar when she does something nice, or helpful, or has a good day at the sitter's and we take a marble away for bad behavior. So far, it's been amazing. She will do anything to keep those marbles because she wants the rewards that come with getting 10 or 15. I decided to offer a fairly simple reward at 10 to keep the goals small, but to offer bigger rewards like a trip to the inflatable place or the miniature zoo we have nearby for saving up for 15 marbles. To my shock and amazement, she decided to save up her marbles on the very first prize. Even in Wal-Mart after earning 10 marbles, with a new toy in hand she chose to put the toy back and wait until she got 15 marbles to go to "the jumpy place". I was so proud! Since she worked so hard, we went to a new inflatables place in the area that I thought would be less crowded on a Friday evening. I was wrong! It was NOT a fun experience (for mom anyway, she had fun) it was parents night out, which means that for $2 extra per kid, you can leave your child there and they will be watched by the staff while parents go out. Um, I won't be leaving my 3 year old, but I guess we have to stay since I've already promised this. So, there were much bigger kids there all over the place and the people "watching" them were teens that were not responsible enough to do that kind of thing. I was livid, and trying to get her to leave about 10 minutes into the visit. So, we stayed for about an hour, and she finally agreed to leave. Well, I may have bribed her with the promise of Ice Cream. She had her first Marble Slab ice cream experience earlier this week, and she was immediately HOOKED!

She didn't have a choice, really. I was a frequent visitor when I was pregnant with her, like almost an every day visitor. Let's just say I got many free ice creams for filling up those stamp cards that summer. It was hot outside and I was huge and miserable!

Anyway, the first time we went she chose Bubble Gum ice cream with sprinkles and marshmallows. Whoa! I know, it sounds beyond disgusting, but she LOVED it and has talked about what she's going to get next time at Marble Slab every day since.

This visit, she chose Black Cherry ice cream ('cause it was purple) with chocolate chips and of course, marshmallows. This one was a pretty good choice. I actually ate some of it myself. So, my little ice cream girl is hooked on Marble Slab from here on out. Not a bad price to pay for a behavior system that finally works for us though.

Posing with her Marble Jar

At the Jumpy Place having fun despite the crazy big kids everywhere (I cropped them all out of this picture)
MMMMM Good! And so the addiction begins!

Seriously?

I have been sick since Friday evening, but just trying my best to suck it up and deal because that's just what I do. Well, last night was out.of.control. I haven't been sleeping that well because I can't breathe and have had a sinus headache for about 5 days straight now. Good times. I woke up at about 5 am thinking I must be stuck in some freakish nightmare where my bed was overtaken by crazy people. We have a queen size bed which suits us fine, but when you add children/animals to the mix it's over the top! The little one "had a bad dream" and came into our bed and was a flailing, kicking, sweatbox sharing my pillow, and the cat was making some out of control wheezing noises with every breath. I really was preparing myself for the cat to kick the bucket sometime throughout the night, so I felt bad doing what I would normally do & just kick her off the bed...cause I don't like anyone or anything to touch me when I'm sleeping. Amen.
So, I decided to go to the couch with the cat because the hubby is NOT a fan of the cat anyway and subjecting him to her death noises was a bit much I felt.
After a glorious evening of about 4 hours sleep I realized it wasn't getting any better, so I should just get up. The little one woke up saying she was sick and had a "sore froat" so I kept her home with me, and the cat kept up her death wheezes so we took her to the vet first thing. I was told she has an upper respiratory infection.
Me: "um, she's a cat. They get those? Are you sure it doesn't have something to do with the fact that she kills any moving animal she can find on the earth to kill and bring to the doorstep?"
Vet: "Ha ha, no it's def. an infection...just give her this medicine for a week, feed her baby food, make sure she doesn't come in contact with other cats, put saline drops in her nose, let her stay in a room with a humidifier and...."
Oh yeah, not only do I feel like I may die of whatever crap I have, but now my child is saying she's sick, my cat is in need of a round the clock nurse, and I still have to go to work? Wow! Being a grown-up is for the birds!

Good Times, Sunshine & Summertime

This weekend was fun! We were invited to a skate party for our neighbor's birthday on Friday afternoon, so the little one skated for the first time on Thursday...then again on Friday & Saturday. She's gotten pretty good on the toddler skates!

This is how she spent a lot of her time at first, but she's gotten the hang of it!

The little one & the Birthday girl at the skating rink...yes, my germ-a-phobia was in overdrive at the skating rink that has not been remodeled or cleaned thoroughly since around 1974.

After the birthday party, some friends that live in Alabama now *cry* came into town & we met them & another couple for dinner at our fav mexican restaurant. The girls were the only 2 kids in attendance, but still had LOTS of fun dancing to the live band!

Saturday was more skating with a friend outside, and a little tea party of course!

How precious are they?!

The remnants of their makeshift "tea party" with real water, of course!

Saturday evening we went to buy a baby pool or something fun for outside (for a 3 year old) since it was getting so hot. We decided on a slip-n-slide, so first thing Sunday the begging to go outside started. I came down with a massive sinus infection on Friday night so I was trying to nap on the couch while she just watched tv, but at 9:00 am she had already put on her bathingsuit! I finally brought all the kleenex outside & set up the slip-n-slide...it was officially ON! 2 neighbors came over because we just have that understanding that if your kid is playing outside and has a new toy, they should all come over & try it out...you know, just to see if it's cool! It may have something to do with the fact that most of us have crappy backyards, so we all play in our front/side yards in full view of all the neighbors...cause that's just how we roll! Don't judge me. Oh, and my parents came over during the slip-n-slide fun, and my 53 year old Dad also joined in...I'll spare you the pictures (although they're hilarious)!!!

She doesn't have quite enough weight behind her to get all the way to the end, but she has lots of fun trying!

Her friends had NO trouble getting all the way down...they were hilarious!

This was before all the tears and wails when she had to come in for the night. D-R-A-M-A!