Car Conversation

A: You keep saying Baby Ca-ca...
A: What are you talking about?
E: Baby Ca-ca!

A: Baby poop?
E: No. Baby Ca-ca.

A: Ahhh. Lady Gaga?
E: YEAH!

A: Awesome. (Shakes head.)

The Garage Sale Scandal of 2010

We started setting up on Friday night with a "price to sell" attitude and had everything up and ready to go by 7:45am on Saturday to be a part of Tecumseh's City-Wide Garage Sale Day. Things moved slowly and steadily and item by item our inventory decreased.

And then it happened.

A three-generation set of gals came and poked around: Grandma, Mom and Daughter. This is an entirely accurate account of what happened.

Grandma and Mom, for Daughter, to Anna: We pay 50 cents?
Anna: (Looks at tag for $1.50) Nope - I'll do $1.00.
Mom: 50 cents?
Anna: (Smiling) No. $1.00.
Mom: Why not 50 cents?
Gma Judy: We'll start doing half-off at 3:00 p.m.
Mom: So 50 cents?
Anna and Gma Judy: No.

Item gets put back.

Mom comes and pays for a 50 cent item with a dollar.
Grandma is talking to her in Spanish, carrying a Wii hat.

Mom: A quarter?
Anna: No, the tag says 50 cents. So, 50 cents.
(Mom talks to Grandma in Spanish.)
Mom: A quarter?
Anna: No.
Gma Judy: No.
Mom: We pay 25 cents?
Cindy: No. We'll do half-off later today.
(Grandma puts hat on her head.)
Mom: So no 25 cents?
Anna: No.
Some Random Guy: Is that a Wii hat? Cool!
(Random Guy leaves.)
Mom: Okay, I get change? 50 cents from you.
Anna: Okay, here you go!

Mom, Daughter and Grandma turn around and start walking.

Anna to Judy and Cindy: Seriously. She's stealing the hat.
Cindy: What??
Judy: Want me to get the 50 cents?
Anna: Sure!

Judy walks to the end of the driveway, stopping the ladies, and tells them they need to pay for the hat and the Grandma only says "Si" over and over. Judy finally gives up and returns to the garage.

Then, Random Guy walks over to their car and asks if he can buy the hat and is negotiating with them. We watch on, dumbfounded.

Random Guy walks away and Cindy starts down the driveway. The ladies turn their car around and start going after Random Guy to get him to buy the hat. As they're bargaining again, Cindy informs Random Guy that the ladies did not pay so he would be buying stolen property. Grandma says "Si" again and Mom yells from the window that they paid. Cindy informed them, again, that they didn't and that she doesn't care - just wanted Random Guy to know. Mom offers Cindy 50 cents but Cindy tells her NO and walks away.

We laugh. It's 50 cents. Its their conscience.

Suddenly, Mom appears with 50 cents and apologizes profusely for the misunderstanding because her mom thought she had paid blah-blah-blah-blah. At this point we're a half-step from bursting out in laughter about the entire situation. Anna accepts the 50 cents and Mom leaves.

Then, Random Guy appears and he's all pumped up, telling us how they'll sell it to him for $7.00 but wanted to make sure they had come back to pay; he was going to pay us if not. Then he asked for change for a $10.00 and left.

And bought the hat.

OH, and the hat in question?
This priceless, must-have hat?
Cindy got it for FREE for trying out Wii Fit up at Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Morons.

Anna, Introspected

It's been kind of quiet here on the Bloggity Blog lately, as compared to previous weeks and/or months. As I've been saying for the last while, things are changing. Everything. Anything. Nothing.

Elliot's changing into a bratty three year old that lives to defy his mother, his father, gravity and himself. And unless you want to hear me continually rant about him and then gush about the sweetest little thing he does that makes the rant disappear, then I haven't much to say.

Fred's chugging along. He took charge of the house-buying-ordeal and has a few projects left up his sleeve. Other than that, he's obsessing over Lance, trying to plan marathon vacations, thinking about brewing some new-home beer and wearing shirts and ties 4 days a week. (Can I get a holla out there for Casual Friday?)

Me? Well I'm the same. I wish I would ride my bike more, garden or not weigh 400 pounds. I'd like to spend all day with Elliot but somehow bring in my income and have him at his fabulous preschool. I want my work environment to improve. I want to sew and quilt and actually feel like my time and effort are worth something instead of an Etsy store doing very-little-to-no business. I wish I could cry during Toy Story 3 like everyone else I know.

Depressing, right?

This has sort of put me at a loss when it comes to blogging.

I put my thumb on it yesterday.

I read some comments of another blog and one said "Who Cares?" to which the blogger responded with "No one, but me. It's my blog."

And it made me stop and think.
THIS is my blog. (and sometimes Fred's)
I can write about whatever I want whenever I want.

And, most importantly, I need not care if other people will care what I write about.

Therefore, I think it's time for a little more change. I'm certainly not going to purposely offend anyone or anything but I am no longer going to care what my invisible audience thinks. If you want to read, you will. If you don't, you won't. But I have to get back to myself. It might be funny, serious, or a look into my craftier side - who knows. It might be shocking things you never knew about me like... well... surely I have something shocking I can dig up.

I hope you enjoy the ride; I'm looking forward to it already.

Called to the Mat

It's no secret that I'm about the un-wife-iest wife there is. I don't really cook. I don't do much of the laundry. I abhor scrubbing bathrooms and vacuuming and really try to avoid doing dishes. I certainly don't usually mow the yard. I am, however, very good at making lists of things for Fred to do.

Hmmm. I'm not sure why he keeps me around.
Oh, yes, my secret treasure. (No, not that kind of treasure, pervs.)
That, my friends, is another story for another time.

Anyway.

At the end of last week I started to drag out the pots and pans to make some spaghetti for my little family of three when Elliot came up the stairs to the kitchen, stopping mid-step.

E: Mom! What are you doing?
A: I'm cooking dinner.
E: NO! What are you doing?
A: What?! I'm cooking dinner.
E: YOU not make dinner. Only Daddy make dinner.
F: (Laughing)
A: (Loud enough for Daddy to hear) You know, Elliot, despite common belief, your mother can actually cook.
F: (Really laughing)
E: No. (Walks back downstairs)

Time to Change

Today's the day we move to Dream House: Realistic Version. It's the house we can afford, but yet don't feel like we're 'settling' on anything in this house: great neighborhood, close to a trail, enough room for all of us, hardwood floors, large backyard and further away from Lazlo's.

(We need to cut the cord from Lazlo's and this should help.)

A lot of changes are happening with the Seckmans. We're moving. Elliot's in preschool. The Medwick's are gone. We'll be eating IN more and hopefully digging through recipes and cookbooks to expand our currently drab menu. I even gave the old blog a face lift!

The more I clean this old place out, the more I see why we fell in love with it. The open layout, the natural light, huge back yard and on a cul de sac close to a park, trail and elementary school.

I'm ready for change.
I'm ready to be in a house that doesn't need anything updated.

I'm ready for Fred to brew up some "New House Beer" so we can have a big old BBQ later this summer and show off our new digs.

You'll come, right?

What We're Leaving Behind

We have less than a week before the move and all I can think is "hurry up and let's move already!" as I punch the garage door opener 317 times to get the dumb thing to open so I can pull in and narrowly miss the garbage cans on one side and the pole in the middle on the other.

Steel siding = no reception. That means your garage door opener doesn't work worth a crap, you can barely get radio stations tuned in the house and the baby monitor was always fritzy. You, steel siding, I will not miss.

I will miss some things about the house we're leaving behind. All the sappy stuff - like first home as a married couple and place where Elliot was born and took his first steps - but also the hilarity that is our next door neighbors.

You see, we have floor to ceiling windows in our living room, giving us an eyeful of what the other inhabitants of our cul de sac are doing. Neighbor One is mowing, Neighbor Two is running a kid somewhere and old Neighbor Weird is lighting bugs on fire in the front yard.

Or maybe he's welding the bow for his hand-made boat (which is almost a replica of that one dude's arc).

Or maybe he's taking his undies off the drying line that is set up - I kid you not - in his front yard.

Did I mention he has a fully operational steam engine in his garage?

Neighbor Weird has best friends that are animals, once rescued a bunny and took him around the country in his RV and "takes care of" animals if he thinks they are sick... you know, TAKES CARE OF THEM.

They're good people, Mr. and Mrs. Weird, just a little off.

Take for example, Mr. Weird's talk with Fred when we told them we are leaving: Well, that's too bad. I was looking forward to watching Elliot grow up. We once had a little neighbor boy that grew up in a house next to us and then when he got older he broke down our back door and stole my guns!

End of story. Fred stood staring, not knowing what to say. What do you say? What does a person possibly say in response to that? That because you don't have a back door, Elliot can just break down your front door? Or that we've been to the future and that it won't ever happen? What?

I will miss the game of "what are they doing now?"
I will miss the strand of 5 lights they dangle from the roof at Christmas.
I will miss the awesome cinnamon rolls she made last year.

I won't miss any more updates of Mrs. Weird's toenail removal process.

And for that mental picture, you're welcome.