Spring Fever

First off, I would like to say thanks to all my regular Mama-Dirtyfoot readers. I am made well aware of the times I am slacking on my blogging duties because I get phone calls from both family and friends to ask why I haven't blogged. It pleases me to know that you enjoy my tales and miss them when I am neglectful in my posts.

David, Madeline and Mama-Dirtyfoot have had both a relaxing and eventful weekend all rolled up together. Saturday was mostly a relaxing day for Mama-Dirtyfoot. After taking Madeline to dance class and running a few errands together, David gave me the afternoon to myself. I love both David and Madeline to death but I rarely get time to myself that isn't filled with some type of errand/duty. I pulled a page out of my sister Margaret's book and enjoyed lunch at Panera's. Who did I go with???....me, myself and, oh yeah, the new book that I switched over to (see side bar of blog). After lunch, I did some shopping. It was wonderful to browse. I was able to dig through sales racks and browse at generic stuff and not have to feel like I had to rush. What a wonderfully relaxing afternoon. Before coming home, I stopped at a local nail place and got a pedicure. Okay, that sounds completely indulgent but if you had any idea what my feet were like you would've wondered why I didn't do that earlier. My feet were totally getting snagged up in the blankets (and that is soooo not an exaggeration!) Yep, the pedicure chick, COMPLETELY worked for her money with me!! To further pamper myself, I soaked in a nice HOT bubble bath after Madeline was in bed. Yep, I was now completely recovered from Madeline's book tearing day (and the general 3 yr old testiness she had been displaying over the past few days) and felt like a newly refreshed Mama.

Sunday......sigh....LONG story.....Okay, I will try to get this in print. My sister, Margaret, asked me to come visit her over this long holiday weekend. I declined because I told her that we are considering putting our house on the market and thought that the long weekend would be a great opportunity to rent a storage unit and move some of our extra furniture/clutter so that our house would be a bit more ready to show if we were to put it on the market. David did try to get us hooked up with a storage unit on Saturday but the rental office was closed until Monday. Having to revise our plan we decided Sunday would be a good day to get some boxes, pack up stuff and then move things on Monday. Before doing this, we decided to once again talk to the chick at the builders (hmmmm......did I even blog about this potential?!!??! We have been toying with the idea of moving and had a new-build house priced out). After reviewing the lots that were available and matching that with what David and I desire, we were not completely sold on the lots that were left. Now we had more to talk about later in the evening (on our date night). Next stop, David and I finally decided it was time to look into replacing our washer and dryer....ugh, another expense! But it was time!! David and I got our washer and dryer USED about 13 years ago. You know you are due for such a purchase when you have to duct tape your dryer door closed AND have to run the dryer 3 times before all the clothes are dry. Needless to say, I am soooo looking forward to our delivery later in the week. In the evening, David and I got a babysitter and went out to dinner for Valentine's Day (a day late). We had the opportunity to talk over the whole house thing and decided to once again reexamine the existing house market. (By the way, with all the other time-sucking stuff we did on Sunday we didn't pack up any boxes)

Monday (today) came and it was nice to have David off of work today for President's Day. David and I decided to get on the computer to once again search up the houses on the market. We found that a house that we saw at an open house a few months back was still on the market. We discussed the house again. We decided to head out for a ride and look at the neighborhood again. We realized how close we would be to a beautiful State Park and there would be a bike path that would basically go from the end of our street to the park and along the Niagara River. We decided that any areas that we thought we were "compromising" on were actually acceptable and we were excited about moving forward. Yep, we finally thought that we made up our minds (after dragging are feet on this house). We decided that when we got home we would call the realtor to get into the house again to look once more and then consider the whole bid thing. Well....come to find out, that house was sold last week!!! AAAHHHHHhhh! So now I feel like we are back to square one. So I said to David that what we actually need to do is not find a house first but rather decide if we should put our house up on the market and then conduct our search from there. Of course David says we would need to get a storage space first (AHhhhhh, that was the original plan for the weekend that was not accomplished - Sorry, Margaret. I guess I could've come to see you after all.)

The positive thing that came out of all this is a complete sense of spring fever. Even though the weather was in the lower 30's, it was a beautiful sunshiny day. While cruising through the State Park, we saw all the migrating birds along the river. There were your standard Mallards and Canadian Geese but there were also various other species of ducks that make their way along the river while traveling north for the summer. Additionally, we probably saw at least 10 wild swans on their migration route. The picture above was taken on our cruise through the park. I stepped out of the car to try to get a better picture that showed the swans but it was next to impossible to zoom in on the birds and to capture the beauty because I only had my cell phone with me. Yet, when I stepped out of the car, the sounds of the birds, the lapping of the water, and the warmth of the sun made me excited to know that Spring is just around the corner. To fuel that, we saw our first Robin of the season. (*Sigh* and to think all of this could've been practically in our back yard *sigh*) To lift our spirits I decided that for dinner I would get our typical summer picnic fare from the supermarket's prepared foods dept to help psych us up for the warm weather. We had roasted chicken, a Greek pasta salad, grilled veggies, some Sauvignon Blanc & a crispy baguette bread & butter. As David so nicely said, we would drown our sorrows about the house in flour and butter. (Oh.....and by the way, I have NO IDEA HOW I did it because I was very naughty all last week but I lost another pound....back on track tomorrow)

Anyway, I keep trying to remind David (and myself) that if it was meant for us to be in that particular house, it would've still been available. Now the question is, what is meant for us? What is our plan?? Pray that we can figure this out and have the patience to listen for the answer.

Hmmmm......I guess if I posted every day, my posts would be shorter and my fingers wouldn't feel like they are going to fall off from typing.