Author Archives: amberbatdorf

Internet

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Quickly I am dropping the ball on my promise of at least five posts per week. It is an awful hard promise to maintain considering there is no internet in the new house yet. It is supposed to be installed this weekend – I am so excited! Is it sad though that internet access has become such a necessity? CJ is feeling the loss of not being able to use his Netflix account and I did not realize just how much I liked writing on here everyday until I was not able to.

It has actually been an okay thing that I have not been able to write because MJ has been sick and considering it is the first time he has really been sick, he needed more than normal attention. He pulled through like a champ though. He is such an amazing little boy.

Hopefully, I will be able to return to regular blogging next week. I look forward to sharing some of the “face-lift” pictures of the house.

Night One

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We my have closed last Friday, but last night was the first night we slept in the house. Attempting to paint and move by oneself is awful hard.

The woman who lived in the house prior to us must have had a great love affair with the color pink. Four of the rooms in the house were an “awesome” shade of pink. They had to be painted, especially MJ’s room. There is no way CJ was alright with his son sleeping in a pink room 🙂

A large number of people offered to help us this past Sunday, so we ordered a sheet pizza for them all, then no one showed up. Unwilling to have spent all that money for nothing, CJ and I set our Paleo beliefs on hold and ate pizza for three days straight.

CJ had to borrow a dolly from work so we could attempt to move some of the larger furniture oursleves. Very few things are in the place where I want them and only three rooms of the five I wanted painted are finished. Hopefully we will be able to accomplish a lot this weekend as CJ’s parents made the six hour trip to come and help us.

Last night, CJ made our first night special. He surprised me with some sparkling cider, romantic lighting, and “our song.” He danced with me in what will eventually be our dining room. Can you say major “brownie points?” He may like to pretend he is all gruff, but he can pull out some of the sweetest moves of any guy. He is making this whole process much less stessful than it could be and I am so thankful for him.

WTH

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Today, CJ and I had to drive to the city to sign our closing papers. That is right! You read correctly. We are now, finally, homeowners.

While we were gone, my cousin watched MJ for us. She absolutely adores him and bonus – does not charge 🙂 She was snuggling with him when he fell asleep for his afternoon nap so her nineteen year old self could not ignore the photo op. She took a picture of the two of them cuddling and posted it on Facebook.

Being the proud mama that I am, I commented saying, “Custest baby ever.” Obviously he is mine and I would think so. My sister, being her ever callous self and having no social filter had commented, “I beg to differ.” It would have been less rude if she meant that she was partial to her kids, or something along those lines, but that was never stated; just that she “begged to differ.” My son was not cute whether it be only in the picture or in general.

I feel like I should not have to constantly remind myself that she has no filter and that she does not always mean what she says as she does not think before she speaks. She is an adult with two children and one of the way. Is it crazy for me to expect her to grow up, act her age, and practice good social graces?

D and D

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Yesterday, some boys came into the community center where I work. They are part of a group who plays Dungeons and Dragons every Wednesday.

This particular day, they asked me if I wanted to play with them. To be honest, I have always wanted to play it, just to see what it was like. The boys were there from 2:30pm to 4:30pm and all we accomplished in this time was making characters. I had no idea how much was involved!

You had to decided your class, then your race. Pick a name and occupation for yourself. Choose weapons and special abilities. Note down armor stats and roll to see how much dexterity, etc that you had.

There were five boys in total that day, plus they were making characters for some that were not there. I think they were very excited that a girl was going to be playing with them. Next Wednesday we are supposed to be starting our campaign (at least that is what I think it is called). I am not going to lie, I am probably a little more excited than I should be. I have no idea how to play or what is going to happen, but as I am stocked with a longbow and punching daggers, I think I will be alright 🙂

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We were supposed to close on the house on Friday. I should have known better than to get my hopes up with the way our luck has been going. The only thing they needed was one last employment verification for CJ and his HR manager was unavailable yesterday. That one thing has now held us up until next week.

I am told this will be the last hold up. There is nothing from this point on that could prevent closing unless CJ and I see something on our final walkthrough. To be perfectly honest, there would have to something crazy wrong for me to walk away from this now. I cannot wait for MJ to finally be able to sleep in his bed again.

From the time he was five months old until now, he has been sleeping in a pack-and-play and I feel like the worst mother ever whenever I think about it. We were only supposed to be staying with my grandparents for a few weeks, so we did not think we would need the crib and it is buried in our storage unit. My baby deserves better. At least him and his batman do not know any better, but I still cannot wait to spoil MJ big time to make up for it.

He loves his batman...

He loves his batman…

Paleo

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I have a couple of resolutions this year. I think one of the most important is that I want to recommit to the Paleo lifestyle CJ and I followed for the year we lived in Denver, CO.

While we were living in Denver, I worked at Barnes and Noble. One day when he came in to pick me up, CJ was scoping out the resolutions section and noticed The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf. CJ bought the book, was an instant believer, and talked me into trying it out.

Wolf encourages a 30 day trial to detox the body. Within the first week alone however, CJ lost ten pounds. This is not a diet per say, it is a lifestyle change. I have never felt healthier or more energetic than while we were following this way of eating. For us, it was not about losing weight, it was about feeling better overall and leading a healthy life.

It was very easy to fall out of this way of eating while staying with my grandparents. I love my grandmother with all my heart, but she is a definite “food pusher.” When we finally get into our house, which is supposed to happen the middle of this month, we both have said that we are once more going to be Paleo. I CANNOT wait.

My First Date

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At work tonight, I was talking with one of my girlfriends about old boyfriends. You know how the conversation goes: I do not know why I dated him, he was such a jerk, he was not even cute, etc. The boy I went out on my very first date with though, I will always brag about him 🙂

I met Sean in our Confirmation class. There really are not a lot of better places to meet a boy. He was smart, funny, and unbelievably good looking. I still cannot really believe that we dated at all.

I had never met him before this class because even though he was a country boy, he went to an all boys’ school in the city. He played football and rugby. He was tan with dark brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes. Are you getting the picture yet? Who ever meets boys like this in real life?

After the first couple meetings of the class, he started making it a priority to be in my group. Being only 16 at the time, I just thought he was being nice and that he, being an outsider, just felt more comfortable being in the same group all the time because of the familiarity of it.

He asked me questions about school, about the sports I played, about my job. Again, I thought he was only being friendly. He asked me about my friends, what I did for fun, did I have a boyfriend. I still hang my head over how clueless I was.

We had somehow never seen each other at church and it came out that we just always attended masses at different times. Now with the knowledge of when I would be at church, he must have been waiting outside in his car one Saturday night. As soon as people starting pouring out the front door, he hurriedly pushed his way inside.

My mother was the first to see him. “Isn’t that Sean?” she asked me.

I immediately perked up, saw him, and (after being pushed in his direction) went over to see why he had appeared. He led me back over to my parents, looked at my father and said, “Sir, I would like to take Amber out to dinner. Is that ok?”

“Now?” My father is a man of many words…

I had a mini panic attack thinking first of all, that my father would say no. Secondly, I was embarassed about my outfit choice. Who wants to go out on a date with the most handsome boy they have ever seen while wearing your church clothes?

My mother, ever helpful, nudged my father who agreed I could go with Sean as long as he had me home by curfew. He agreed and we walked out to his truck. The thing was a monster. You needed to step up on a platform in order to climb in it. Unfortunately, there was no platform on the passenger side of the truck. Sean was kind enough to hold my door open for me, but being shy and embarassed, he did not offer to help me up. I unceremoniously jumped/launched myself into the cab of the truck.

I could feel the flush on my face as he walked around to his side and got in. Not a SINGLE word was spoken the entire way to the pizza palor he took me to. While we were waiting in line to order our food, I did something that I am more than glad he did not notice.

At this point in my life, I was obsessed with this pair of brown clogs that I wore until they fell apart. While standing next to Sean, I could not decide if he was actually taller than me. I slipped one foot out of my shoe and put my socked foot on the floor. Relief spread through my body as I realized that he was more than a head taller than me.

We had a pleasant meal, saw each other a few more times, and then, as relationships with seniors tend to go, petered out after a few months. He was preparing to go to school and I was just glad we had the fun we did.

The first time he had called the house and left a message on our answering machine (totally dating myself- oh boy!) my mother happened to check the messages and was so excited on my behalf that she wrote down his phone number on the nearest thing. This happened to be the box for the game of LIFE. To this day, that telephone number is on the side of the box at my parents’ house. CJ has seen it before and he thinks the story is quite funny. He is glad that when I met him I was much less oblivious as we never would have started dating if it were not for me. That, however, is a story for another time.

Should be Working on Other Things…

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Today, as I was driving home from work, I heard a song on the radio that made me very sad. It was not so much the content of the song that touched me so, but the fact that it made me think of a scene in my head.

I have many ideas that I wish I could bring to fruition. I have notebooks filled with outlines, plot summaries, and character info. When it comes down to actually writing, I do well for a while and then peter out. I can achieve maybe one page at a time so any project seems to take forever. The project I am currently working on has the scene that the song today made me think of.

I recently made a Twitter account and started following one of my favorite authors. Today’s tweet of hers had to do with how she hammered out 6,000 words of the novel she is currently working on. All done today! Maybe it is just something that comes with time; the ability to write with that much speed.

This is something I aspire to. Maybe, someday, I will be able to write something “full length” with some kind of speed. I have been published in the college newspaper and in a short story anthology, but it is my dream to have a work that is just my own published. Writing anything of length requires time and determination. The more I work on my piece, the more I realize that it is different than anything I have ever tried to do before.

Poems, short stories, newspaper articles, all these things can be done in short periods of time; weeks at most. Without being able to produce thousands of words per day, I know now that I am in for a long and arduous process.

One of this year’s resolutions will be to give my stories the time and attention they deserve. Of all the BIG wants in my life, this is one of the few still left unfulfilled in any way. I thank CJ for his constant love and support and for not being near as hard a critic as I know he should be when he reads my work.

I have given myself a limit. If any of my work has not made it onto a bookshelf near you by the end of 2017, someone please come kick my butt into gear.

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So, no post yesterday. Do I have an excuse? Sure…just not a very good one. I just figured my day yesterday did not amount to much and I did not want to sound whiney.

I received a phone call a few days ago from Zales that my ring from my parents had been fixed. This was the real reason that we stopped at the mall yesterday.

While we were there, we decided a nice stroll would be good for us. MJ loves people watching in his stroller; he laughs and yells at the people walking by. On impulse, we walked into Burlington Coat Factory because we have found some great priced things in there before.

MJ is getting too long for his rear-facing car seat, so we went back to the baby department to see what they had. There was not a single car seat there for under $100. We ended up spending $170 on his new car seat. He better keep it pristine! It is crazy to think about how much it costs to buy anything baby related. With how quickly they outgrow things, sometimes I feel as if I am just throwing my money away.

There; that was it. That was my whiney moment from yesterday that I thought I would keep to myself. Today was not very exciting though so I was hoping a combined effort would make my post a bit longer.

Today, MJ got to ride in his new car seat for the first time. He laughed and clapped the entire car ride. I am assuming this means we picked out a good one 🙂 After this ride, he got to play with his cousins for a bit. Whenever I arrive at my sister’s house, I swear her children are always in some state of undress. When I arrived today, the oldest one, D, (she is almost four) looked so pretty. She had dressed herself I was told and was wearing black leggings with a pink and white striped top. I snatched her up and told her, “D, you look so pretty today. Aunt Amber cannot believe how grown up you look.” She acted all shy and gave me some extra hugs. I still cannot believe how much of a difference her outfit made considering my sister normally lets D run around in her underwear all day.

The rest of my day was rather uneventful. The volunteer I worked with today lent me a book, Half the Sky and I am really enjoying it so far. I will share how I feel about it when it is finished.

Just a Few More Weeks

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Tomorrow marks four months that CJ and I have been staying with my grandparents. We love them dearly, but we are more than ready for our “visit” to be over.

CJ and I were supposed to be buying a house. We were in the final proceedings, and had a closing date. We gave our landlord our notice and started putting everything in boxes. About a week before we had to be out, we were informed that the woman we were buying from had decided to back out of the sale. Not having anywhere else to go since we had to be out of the apartment, we moved into my grandparents’ house.

The old, six bedroom farm house had more than enough beds for us to sleep in, but as nothing of ours has a real “home” within the house, our area upstairs is disheveled to say the least. MJ’s toys always seem to be in every room and constantly underfoot.

A few days into being at the farmhouse, our realtor took us to see a few more houses. The first house- well it was love at first sight. We visited the others, as we had an obligation to do so, but we put in an offer on that first house the very next day.

We were told that there was another offer on the house that had been accepted, but the sellers preferred our offer. What the sellers did was tell the other potential buyers that they had to remove the contingency of selling their current home before the sale. We were told they did not turn in their paperwork; that the house was ours. We paid for an inspection on the house. We were told the paperwork was found and they could remove the contingency, so the house was theirs. We were told they could not prove the availability of funds; the house was ours. We scraped and painted the outside of the house for FHA approval. We were told the proper paperwork had not been properly filed; the house was theirs. We were told the other buyers were sick of the back and forth so the were officially backing out; the house was ours.

The house really was ours this time, but our loan officer at the time seemed to think we did not deserve the property. She handed papers in late, requested forms one at a time, and asked for things she just did not need. By the time we realized she was giving us the runaround, we were closing in on all our dates and were facing the very real possibility of losing the house- again.

We found another loan officer in the same bank and he has been most helpful. He said that all the paperwork that was needed, we had already completed. The sellers were contacted and new dates were set. CJ and I have no doubt in our minds that if it were not for the fact that the sellers know my grandparents, they would have backed out on the sale and not given us the extra time.

Now that we know the house is in the very near future, we cannot help but to be excited that our four month ordeal is almost at an end. Of course, I am not referring to the delightful company of my grandparents, but I could survive a little less teasing in my life.

My grandfather is part of a poker club and one of the Mondays “the boys” were here, CJ and I were in one of the upstairs bedrooms that we used as a sitting room. CJ jumped on the bed in there and it broke. Loudly. I rushed downstairs to inform my grandmother of what happened since I know how they think. It did not matter. It still does not matter. My grandparents “know” what happened and the poker boys, well they think my husband is The Man.

For weeks now, the types of jokes you are thinking are exactly the types I have had to deal with because of course, my grandmother had to inform EVERYONE about what we “did.” Good thing I have a good sense of humor.

Wednesday, CJ is supposed to get our move-in date from the “powers that be.” First time home buying, we were told, is meant to be a joyous experience. After the emotional roller coaster we have been on, we are just more than ready for this to be over. As I have been telling myself for about a month, “Just a few more weeks.”

We are looking forward to 2013 for being in our new home (finally), for MJ’s first birthday, and for another year of health, family, and friends.

Happy New Year!