It Really is Me

Damn, but the dust is thick around here. Actually, according to the History channel, if I had left a building neglected like this for 6 months the vegetation and vermin would have made serious inroads towards completely demolishing the sucker.

Thank goodness the Internet is a vegetation and vermin-free environment. (At least the vermin are mostly not the bitey, house devouring types)

While I was hiatus-ing, both of the kiddos had birthdays (birthday party planning is over for another 9 months YEAH), the Little Man started pre-school and LOVES it, and the Little Miss is walking, talking (some) and showing her true personality and will any day be running the house. My, but she's a bossy little thing. For someone whose vocabulary consists of "mama", "dada", "hi", "bye" and "ball," she makes it crystal-clear exactly what she wants and browbeats her live-in servants (aka Mom, Dad and Big Brother) into getting it for her. But, she's adorable, so we don't chafe at her rule so very much.

In addition, two family members and a good friend's mom have been fending off cancer, another close friend had a miscarriage and it seems that every time I talk to someone I learn of new, funky, health-related issue that someone is dealing with. It's enough to make me want to stick my head deeply into the sand and wait for 2008 to pass on by.

Not that these stories (and more!) wouldn't have served as great blog-fodder, but quite frankly, I just haven't felt like it. However, a combination of events has made me want to tell stories again:
1. The Little Miss has decided that entire nights of sleep are now ok with her (THANK GOD)
2. My current knitting project is full of holes and I don't want to start over tonight (oh yes, I've started with the knitting)
3. I think I made a major breakthrough this week on a project I'd like to chronicle - building our new house!

I'm very excited about actually having made progress on the house. We decided FEBRUARY 2007 that we were going to do it. Since then, we've been looking at house plans (I swear I've seen at least 1,500 of them) and talking to builders, kind of getting our toes wet. We are finally at a point where we need to make a move and things did start churning this past week.

We found someone in a neighboring town to draw us up some house plans. She's going to put the pieces and parts of the plans we like together into something uber-cool (and that we can afford to build). I've also talked to a banker and builder that I liked. We may end up not using them, but they didn't prove themselves to be idiots immediately, which was refreshing.

This process promises to be one wild ride, so stay tuned.