These are serious offers. If I get no takers here, I’ll move on to Craigslist and eBay, but I thought I should try here first. Best offers accepted. We’re selling the following:

1) iPod touch, 8 gb. Link is provided for specifications. This is about two months old. It was my tax-return present to myself, supplemented with birthday and Christmas money, which I should have saved instead. I still have the box and all the stuff that came with it, cords, headphones, etc. Plus I have a bright pink silicone sleeve and nifty pink headphones. And some music on it, but I can wipe it if you don’t particularly want several exclusive!iTunes!American Idol!Singles!, a bunch of kid music, some Dixie Chicks, and a couple of audiobooks. Works perfectly.

2) Brand new MacBook. Again, apparently ill-conceived tax-return purchase, because clearly we should not count on getting a break at any time ever, and despite the fact that the rest of the tax return went into paying down credit cards and some savings, obviously we should not have spent any of it at all. My three-year-old Dell laptop still functions, just barely, and we can certainly make do with it for now. It’s the standard MacBook that retails for $1099. I will include the iWork and VMWare Fusion software that I got with the university discount, which is an addition $160 value. Again, I still have the box and packaging and paperwork, and it works perfectly. Make me an offer.

3) I have a good lot of newish summer clothes in sizes 14-16, mostly purchased last spring & summer at L@ne Bryant. I’ve been intending to ebay these for a while and will put up a link to pictures shortly, as soon as I get them loaded.

4) Also, similarly, a lot of 6-12 baby girl clothes. I am excellent, generally at finding deals and bargains and shopping garage sales and resale shops, so there are lots of Gymb0ree, Baby G@p, etc. Again, will throw pics up very soon.

5) Yarn. I have the following:

• 5 skeins Elsebeth Lavold silky wool: one in pale pink, one pale green, one natural/cream, and one brownish. I think these retail around $8/skein.
• 2 skeins Plymouth Encore colorspun worsted, in the bright variegated colorway. Maybe $5 each?
• 2 balls Jaeger Baby Merino DK, in the Hula Hoop colorway (variegated purple & lavender). I think these were around $5 each.
• 3 balls Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo, in Sachet (sort of a gray-purple). Retail $9.50 each.
• Good lot of random yarn from Lion Brand, Yarn Bee, Bernat, etc. If you’re on Ravelry, feel free to poke through my stash and make me an offer on any of it that appeals to you (any of it, not just what I have under sell/trade). Can’t sell ALL my yarn of course, because I still have to make things, but definitely can part with some of the pricier stuff if I have to.

6) As usual, there’s the stuff in the shop, and any and all custom/special orders are welcome. I’m still working on two blankets and some little things from previous customs orders but will get to anything ordered ASAP.

Again, we are deadly serious about this. We have to get $2000 together by next week, and this is the best way we’ve got. If there’s anything up there that appeals to you or that you’ve been intending to purchase anyway, talk to me. Email is jen [at] mimiboo [dot] net.

You know how you really shouldn’t count on things, particularly when the government is concerned? Yeah. Have been waiting for the stimulus payment to show up, as we were sort of counting on that to use as our security deposit, which we have to come up with next week. The payment should have gone in to the bank account today, by my calculations, according to the handy chart on the IRS site and the last two digits of my social security number. I’ve been checking our bank account off and on all day to see if it had shown up yet.

I just got this in my inbox from the on-line tax preparation program which I chose to use:

Dear Valued Customer,

We want to provide you with the most up–to–date information about the tax rebate to which you may be entitled.

Recently, you may have received a letter from the IRS advising you when to expect your Economic Stimulus Payment (rebate). That IRS letter may have inadvertently left off some important information. Taxpayers who chose to have their tax preparation fees deducted from their federal tax refund will receive their tax rebate in the mail, not via direct deposit.

Our records show that you chose this payment option. As a result, the IRS has determined that you will receive your tax rebate in the mail. This may result in you receiving your rebate on a date later than expected.

This situation is understandably causing some concern and confusion. To help further clarify the situation, below is the most current IRS rebate payment processing schedule, as well as additional resources about the tax rebates.

Blah blah blah. “Some concern and confusion.” No freaking kidding. And the kicker is, I normally always pay the tax prep fees with the check card, but this year I just didn’t because we were already so short of money and that $40 or whatever it was really would have put the pinch on until our return came in. And I had completely forgotten about that.

Upshot: not scheduled to get payment until July, because my name is first on the return and the last two digits of my SSN start with 9 (Mark’s, of course, start with 0. So if his name had been first … sigh). Need $2000 for security deposit and first month’s rent by next week.

I fully realize that this is stupid bonus money and not the greatest economic plan ever, by any means, and we certainly shouldn’t have been counting our chickens, yadda yadda yadda. As well as the irony of my complaining about not getting random bonus money when we expected it, coming on the heels of my last post. But come ON. We have to wait another two months because of what is basically a technicality? And we need it, is the thing. We need it. And I don’t know what we’ll do. If we lose the new house because of this…

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Gah.

I don’t want to harp on this, but if you haven’t been following the updates from China, you should go read this.

This is the sort of thing I find difficult to talk about, and yet impossible to ignore. It seems so fundamentally … wrong, somehow, to complain about my financial woes and ask people to spend their money to buy my little things, to mock bad grammar and general stupidity, to spend an hour poking around on Ravelry and lusting after yarn, when people are starving and bleeding and dying.

And yet, I do. We do it every day, right? Disasters magnify the tragedy, but every day people are starving and dying, down the street and around the world. Realistically, not many of us can drop everything and fly to China, or Myanmar, or even New Orleans or Detroit, for that matter, and start fixing things for people so much worse off than we have ever been. I can’t grab a shovel and dig through rubble in Sichuan. I can’t run a homeless shelter or rebuild houses or save anyone’s life, not directly. I can’t even donate much more than 20 bucks at a time. Sometimes I envy those who can, who do, and sometimes I’m glad it’s not me, because I know the weight of that responsibility would crush me, and then I wouldn’t be helping anyone at all.

So w do what we can, we thank God or karma or fate that it’s not us, and we go on. It’s just as futile to obsess about things that are happening that we can’t change, as it is to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tragedy and not do anything. So from my perspective, it’s ok to be lighthearted. It’s ok to mock (gently, people, gently), to plan, and to want nice things for yourself and your family.

It’s all about perspective. We can change the world. We are changing the world, in little ways, all the time. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed by the bad, by the tragic, by the evil, both within and without, and forget that even the smallest things can help, even a bit. My 20 bucks will buy shoes, or diapers, or bandages, and it will help. My little preemie hats will cover tiny baby heads in Montana and South Dakota next month (if you’re on Ravelry, check out the Knitters for Obama group — or go here for more info) and that will help. It’s just little stuff, and it doesn’t feel like much, but it’s what I can do, for now.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead

A verrrry long week last week, several nights disrupted sleep, and general fatigue and malaise caught up with me on Friday, and I decided to take a few vacation days for my own mental health and piece of mind. So I have not been into work yet this week, and it has been both good and bad. 

Boo is still cutting her eyeteeth, and two have finally pushed through. She is still miserable and cranky and generally has been possessed by Beelzebub, because she is so not herself. Plus she has a cold on top of it, and she is crying a lot anyway, so she has a perpetually runny nose and all of my clothes are covered in baby snot, and I have not gotten more than four hours of sleep at any one time in a week. So I might have been better off at work for some of that, and I wouldn’t have really been heartbroken to have missed out on several massive tantrums on Mimi’s part. 

However, I did manage to sleep in until almost 10 on Monday (granted, I was up several times between midnight and 3 am, so it wasn’t any more cumulative sleep than I normally get). I did go to the mall and buy a new pair of pants (size 12! Go me!) I had to take Kev with me, so it wasn’t exactly “me” time, however. Then we went to Target and I managed to buy two bottles of conditioner and no shampoo, as well as a shirt that is too small. So not an entirely successful outing, but somewhat. 

I have hardly had a chance to crochet, but I have sorted through most of the girls clothes and almost all of mine, and have things organized into boxes for storage, fall/winter, and selling. I have watched both “Enchanted” and “The Chipmunks Movie” with Mimi, and while I rather enjoyed the former I probably could have lived without ever seeing the latter. It wasn’t actually horrible, but I do have those little chipmunk voices stuck in my head now and they are driving me nuts. Mimi’s opinion was the reverse; she didn’t seem to think much of “Enchanted” but she has major crushes on those freaking chipmunks. She wasn’t too fond of the fact that the princess did the rescuing at the end, no matter how I tried to emphasize that clearly it was far more awesome that way. And the dragon was, granted, a little scary. I personally found talking chipmunks more disturbing than Susan Sarandon morphing into a dragon, but whatever. 

The big news is that we have a new house. Yaaaay! We had narrowed it down to two houses and went back and forth all weekend over which one we should pick, but by Monday we had decided and signed the lease yesterday. We have a three year lease with an option to purchase, and I think it’s going to work out well. I can’t quite walk to work — it would be a little over three miles — but the bus stop is close, and it will be about a 20 minute bus ride. It takes me nearly an hour to get to work now, between driving in, parking at the commuter lot, and catching the shuttle, so that is a huge improvement. We are a five minute walk from Mimi’s elementary, two huge parks, some very good friends, a new branch library, and a Barnes & Noble/Whole Foods/CVS shopping complex in one direction and a bunch of little ethnic markets in the other. Kev has a short bus ride or a long bike ride to his high school, and Mark can hop on the expressway and get to work in about 15 minutes. 

The deciding factor really did come down to location. The other house was newer and a bit larger, but a bit further out and the elementary school was not favorably looked upon. So this house is your typical little 1950s ranch: three bedrooms, one bath on the main floor, living room, little dining area, decent kitchen. But it has a ton of little built-in shelves and closets and but a full, partially finished basement. It’s on a corner lot so the yard is big, the backyard is fenced, and there’s an existing wooden play structure with a slide and a tire swing. It might be a bit of a squeeze until we get used to it, and the girls will still have to share a room, but we’re planning to set up the playroom/office/tv space in the basement, and that will help a lot. There’s a half-bath in the basement, and honestly as long as we have two toilets, we’ll be fine. Although I’ll miss the extra shower. But, it has a laundry chute! Ok, that was not the deciding factor, but come on. You know you’re jealous. 

I think it will work out well for us. It’s a nice established neighborhood, big trees and diverse neighbors, from older couples who have lived there since those houses were built to young families of all types. The minority population at the elementary is higher than average (as it is throughout University Town, but some of the elementaries are more diverse than others) and they have all-day kindergarten and a great preschool program. 

The thought of packing is a bit overwhelming, but mostly I’m just excited. We can move in late June; I’m so glad we will be there for most of the summer. As for this house, it appears we will be able to do a short sale to a local broker, and that’s just fine. Despite the fact that we have lived here for nearly seven years, and we brought both Mimi and Boo home here, I will so not miss this place. Just get me out of here. 

This has been one of those days when, even had it not been Mother’s Day, I realize all over again what a rough job this can be. And how we so did not appreciate that when we were putting our own mothers through it.

Thanks, Mom.

P.S. Wanna babysit?

• I am loving the ongoing conversation on the comments on the grammar post. Keep it up. I love you guys. But, um, be nice, ok? To each other, I mean. Not to people who blatantly misuse quotation marks and don’t know the difference between defiantly and definitely. Ouch.
• I have to say, Melissa caught me out on using the word quotes for quotation marks, and was entirely correct. I was relieved when I read the post over and realized I only did it that one time. I’m so embarrassed.
• Barack Obama is now following me on twitter. I realize they probably have him following everyone who follows him, but it entertains me to no end to imagine the guy himself reading my updates about the housing situation, American Idol, and which kid is screaming at the moment. Snerk.
• Speaking of the housing situation, we think we have narrowed it down to two houses and are trying to decide between them. There are pros and cons for both. Will lay it out in another post. Am very excited that it looks like this might actually be happening.
• Am also waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, since it seems inevitable, considering our luck, that something crappy will happen to make it hard and/or impossble to move. Just (figuratively, of course) sticking my fingers in my ears and not hearing it. Lalala.
• Am adding headbands and scrunchies to the store. So fun and quick to make! Good for little girl hair! Please buy some! We are still pretty broke! And have to come up with a security deposit soon!
• Still working on adding all the links back on this site. Decided not to upload the archives in entirety; may pick out selected posts and upload those, but everything isn’t going back up. That’s kind of freeing, somehow.
• Am getting my haircut tonight. FINALLY. So much hair in my face right now that I look like Ally Sheedy in “The Breakfast Club.” Only blonde. So glad to have found a cheap place near campus that does a great job.
• Feeling pretty decent about everything, despite all the worries and things going on. Emotionally, am in a fairly healthy place. Feels good.

This edition brought to you by A) people who list rental properties on Craigslist and B) the university population in general, of which I expect better, although I clearly shouldn’t get my hopes up.

• Houses have CURB APPEAL, not CURVE APPEAL. What the hell is curve appeal? How could anyone possibly think that’s the phrase? It MAKES NO SENSE. Unless you live in a yurt, which I doubt you do.

• Quotation marks have very specific uses, and sticking them in to randomly emphasize a word isn’t one of them, despite the apparently rampant belief otherwise. When one places a word within “quotation marks” it implies the phrase, if not an actual quotation, is ironically used. And so is the OPPOSITE of what you are trying to say. If, therefore, you write that your house is in “mint” condition, I am going to assume it is actually a run-down dump. Ok? Similarly, if you call it a “FANTASTIC DEAL” I’m assuming you have jacked up the rent to a ridiculous sum. Well, actually that probably is true. Never mind.

• Similarly, the only phrases that need quotaton marks surrounding them are ACTUAL QUOTATIONS. With attributions. One of the campus buildings near here sports little signs on the doors informing people that they need to use their university ID to access the building after hours. Only it’s in quotes. The whole thing. My friend Deb has repeatedly used a black Sharpie to attribute “M Card must be used to access building after hours” variously to Cicero, JFK, Ghandi, and St. Thomas More. I’m terribly afraid that no one gets the joke, however, and I don’t want to know if that’s true. Because it’s a LANGUAGE ARTS BUILDING.

• Can we talk about misplaced apostrophes for a minute? There is a veritable epidemic in progress, and no one seems to care. Ok, except maybe these people. My recent perusals of real-estate listings have only served to remind me how rampant this is, apostrophes flung about everywhere without a care, but it doesn’t take much examination to realize this is a far-reaching plague. And it is annoying. Because the rules for apostrophes aren’t actually all that difficult. Let’s review (not to imply that you, Gentle Reader, need this review, but for the sake of argument, let us continue):

• Apostrophes are used to indicate possession and form contractions, NOT TO MAKE NOUNS PLURAL. For example: I don’t [contraction] think Paula Abdul’s [possession] Coke cup contains actual Coca-Cola. Apostrophes indicate POSSESSION, not plurality. Paula’s Coke cup, not All of the Coke cup’s. Or, to take an example from a recent Craiglist rental posting, hardwood floors’ and new window’s. Just typing that out and looking at it again is giving me hives. (NOT hive’s.) The window’s what? Beautiful view? Smudged glass? WHAT? I NEED TO KNOW!

• So apparently, although it seems fairly straightforward, the rules are more difficult to comprehend than would would think. Judging from the number of egregious violations I see on a daily basis, very few people retain any knowledge of this after they leave high school, and so just assume that any s they see is utterly bereft if there is no apostrophe either before or after it.

• While we’re on the subject, if you are going to use an apostrophe to indicate a conjunction or colloquialism, for pity’s sake put the thing in the correct place. Aren’t not are’nt. Li’l not Lil’ (although avoiding that usage altogether wouldn’t break my heart; is it that difficult to say LITTLE instead?). Y’all, not ya’ll. The apostrophe replaces the missing letter or letters.

• You’re/your and whose/who’s and it’s/its’/its form an entire subset of the apostrophe abuse issue all on their own. It gives me a headache on top of the hives to think about it. We’ve all screwed these up once in a while, as have I if I’m tired or distracted while typing, but in general it isn’t as difficult as people make it out to be. Really.

• Here’s a random one that probably only bugs me. If you ADOPT something/someone, you are making his/her/it your own. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable, technically, to adopt a rule, a custom, a habit, a highway, whatever. (I’m leaving the emotional associations of the word out of this discussion, thanks.) If you ADAPT something, you are changing it. If you adapt the by-laws, you alter them in some way. If you adopt the said by-laws, you are making them the rules for your organization, unaltered.

• Affect/effect. These words are NOT interchangeable. This is another one of those that bothers me to no end, and I couldn’t even tell you why. It just does. The two words are different PARTS OF SPEECH. (Affect is a verb, effect is a noun, if you are wondering.) They are even SPELLED DIFFERENTLY.

• While we’re on a/e confusion, what’s the problem with accept/except/expect? Again, completely different words. Meaning very different things. But I keep reading about people “excepting a package” (or worse, a baby) or “not excepting checks” and I want to cry.

• Per se is Latin for “of itself.” Per say is not anything.

• BAITED BREATH. ZOMG, people, please, please, PLEASE stop writing “baited breath.” I am BEGGING YOU. Bated. It’s BATED. I do understand the confusion; bated means held, as in abated, and it’s not a word in common usage. But just think about it for a minute. Baited breath would have to mean something entirely different from waiting so anxiously that one is holding one’s breath, and it would smell rather fishy.

• This Onion article is a thing of beauty. Except that it kind of makes me want to cry, because it’s true.

As always, commentary and contributions gladly accepted. Or excepted. Or possibly expected.

Holy cow, what a weekend. I didn’t have time to work on the site at all, or do much else for myself. Took Mimi to her first ballet class, looked at five houses, went to two different parks and a Dairy Queen, finally started packing away winter clothes, got out Mimi’s old 18-24 month clothes for Boo, spent at least an hour and maybe more trying to open the bedroom door Mimi decided to lock in a fit of pique, came close to smacking Kev when he told me to “calm down, geez,” tried to remove a splinter from Mimi’s knee, nearly took Boo to the emergency room after a head-first fall onto concrete (she’s fine), and killed at least half a tank of gas with all the driving around looking at houses and retrieving Kev.

Whew.

So yeah, Boo fell out of the car after she managed to extricate herself from her carseat on her own, and landed headfirst on the driveway. I only heard about this after the fact, thank goodness, but apparently Mark was getting Mimi out the other side and had left his door open, and before he could catch her Boo was up and over the seat and pitching headlong out the door. He said she was stunned for a minute and just lay there, which scared the hell out of him, but soon enough she started screaming. She seems to have landed on the back of her head, not the top, and she’s got a good lump there but otherwise is perfectly fine. Mark, on the other hand, nearly had a nervous breakdown.

Yesterday morning I took Mimi to her first ballet class at the Y in what I hope is going to be our new neighborhood soon. She’s been so excited about ballet she could barely stand it, right up until we got to the door of the studio and she saw the little girls lined up at the barre. Then she froze and refused to go in, and started whining that it was TOOOO HARRRRRRD and her FOOOOT HUUURRRRRT and she COULDNNNNN’T DOOOOO ITTTTT. Gah. I gave her a couple of minutes, and she started in once and then turned around and came back to me. I admit to being frustrated and snappish, and told her that fine, we’d just go home then, because I wasn’t going to sit around and watch six other little girls having fun while she pouted. At that opportune moment, they started skipping across the floor, and Mimi decided maybe she was capable of ballet after all. She dashed in and was fine. I felt a little schizoid.

So then we met up with Mark and Boo and toured a couple of houses, got some lunch, and I took the girls to a park while Mark went on to work. We were on the swings maybe ten minutes when the skies opened up, so we dashed back to the car, whereupon I promptly took a wrong turn out of the unfamiliar neighborhood and drove us half-an-hour in the wrong direction. So an hour later, we finally got home, and Boo fortunately deigned to take a nap while Mimi whined at me for two more hours. After Boo woke up late in the afternoon I tried to get some dinner in the girls, and at some point — I honestly don’t totally remember what triggered it now, except that Mimi was grabbing things away from Boo and pushing her, but I don’t know what it was — I picked Mimi up and plonked her down on her bed in the girls’ room, and told her to sit there for five minutes while we all calmed down.

Now, the girls’ room opens off of the living room, so she had a fine view of me and Boo from her bed. She sat and pouted for a minute, then started throwing things at us. So I closed the door on her. She opened it and came out, saying it had been five minutes. I informed her that indeed, it had not, and I would tell her when she could come out. She promptly ran into the room, locked the door, and ran back out, slamming the door behind her, all before I could get off the floor where I was playing with Boo and grab her.

We have stupid doors, which have the tiny hole on the outside, not an actual keyhole or any sort of thing that can be manipulated from the outside. Somewhere in this house, we have a little thing that looks like an Allen wrench that unlocks the doors. Could I find it? No. Did a hairpin work? No. Did unscrewing the entire door knob work? No. I managed to somehow jam it when I was doing that, and couldn’t get it open at all. I was So Very Angry. I think that is possibly the angriest I have ever been at Mimi. It was like 7 pm, Boo was nearly ready to go to sleep, and I couldn’t access pajamas, diapers, or Boo’s crib, for that matter. At one point I was fiddling with the door and Mimi came over and asked what I was doing.

“Trying to get into your room, of course.”

“Why?”

Deep breath. “Because you LOCKED THE DOOR, remember?”

“Oh. Right. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“I’m tired. I want my pajamas and my blanket.”

“Well, I can’t get those things for you because they are in your room, and you locked the door. What do you think we should do about that?”

“Hmmm… I think we should get a new house.”

Yeah, me too, kid. Oy.

Mark did finally get home from work, after midnight, and break in somehow. Not sure what he did because by that point I was asleep with both girls in a heap on our bed. Boo did not appreciate having to go to sleep in my bed, and took forever to settle down, and nearly threw herself off the bed several times. At that point, I was about ready to let her. Mimi started whining because Boo was kicking her, and I informed her that if she hadn’t LOCKED THE DOOR Boo would be in her crib and it wouldn’t be an issue. It was a lovely evening.

Looked at two more houses today, got ice cream, and picked up Kev. And now am by myself in my bed, for a change, and am GOING TO SLEEP.

Sigh.

You may have noticed the lack of, um, content. Or design (ok, that I’m working on). Or links. Or anything else.

Yeah, I broke my website. Damnit.

I was trying to reorganize and redesign and upgrade. I SWEAR I had a backup saved. Apparently, not so much. Because when I tried to reload my files, I got empty folders.

Design is gone. Links are gone. Custom javascripts are gone.

And a fair number of posts are gone, too. Poof.

WHY I didn’t export my archives before I did this, I have no idea. I’m an idiot, is all. I have my old Typepad archives, up through last August, saved, and I have some of my posts from the last nine months floating around in various texts files, but not in any sort of cohesive way, and certainly not comprehensively. I am more upset about this than anything else. For a while I was compulsive about backing up my archives, but in the last few months I sort of … forgot.

Oops.

So anyway. Soon there will be a lovely, brand new, colorful site up here. A blank slate, a new start. I’m trying to put a positive spin on it.

Argh.