...and then I'll exclaim as I stuff my mouth full of pie, "Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good nigh'!"

Tomorrow will be our first Thanksgiving alone. Not like alone alone, but family alone. As in, just Husband and the kids. And me.

I'm actually really excited about it.

Thanksgivings past have seemed a bit more daunting because they always involved so much social interaction. Generally with extended family -whom I like, by the way, just not all together and at the same time.

(I know it must seem strange, what with my charismatic blog posts, but I don't do social interaction so well. It's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I'm quite the social moron.)

So this year, I'm excited to run the whole Thanksgiving show by myself. (Not to mention we'll actually have all the left-overs in our fridge this year, which has never happened, and frankly I cannot wait for weeks of turkey sandwiches.)

I spent most of today making rolls, pies and layered jello (no, jello is not a traditional Thanksgiving food for us, yes I made it anyway.) The boys helped shape rolls, which was interesting. Two Bits helped make pie - and had to let me know just how big of a mess I made when I spilled pumpkin goo ALL OVER the kitchen.

Husband claimed responsibility for the turkey. Really. He was pretty enthusiastic about it. Apparently he has big plans for our bird.

I have crafts planned for the kids in the morning. Some good old melted-crayon-shaving-placemats will be made. Then I have some of our superb Green Jello with Carrots coloring pages and place cards printed out for the kids to color and use. And possibly we'll also be making hand print turkeys....we'll see how it goes after the "Count Your Blessings" booklets are done.

And then I cook food, we eat food, we eat more food, watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and have pie.

I'm really excited. It's gonna be great!


ALSO (not related to content of post): You know that book I turned in to that publisher? Rejected, but for not horrible reasons, so once I find a literary agent it's heading to the big publishers.

And guess what?

I JUST GOT MY FIRST BOOK ILLUSTRATION JOB.

My samples were chosen by the publisher yesterday. I'm euphoric.

When I was a little kid I said I wanted to grow up to be an author/illustrator. Could it be that I'm finally on my way? (Also, does this mean that I have to grow up? Because I'm not really down with that, but I'm totally pumped to live out a childhood dream.)

cruise control

You know when you're young you look into the future wondering what's going to happen, where you're going to go, what you'll do, who you'll meet? It's like adventure is just waiting for you because you have so many huge events and moments to experience. You can go anywhere, you can do anything.

Sometimes the adventure goes slower than you anticipated. Like the summer I got stuck being a hotel maid because I couldn't find a decent job. Or that Astronomy class that was close to putting me in a coma, except that it counted as a physical science credit which I needed and really have no aptitude for understanding rocks. Or the time I was on strict, don't even sit up, bedrest for almost 3 months.

And sometimes the adventure seems to be heading in the wrong direction. Or maybe you thought it was going ok and then it suddenly changes and you're doing something that was never in the master plan.

But it's still there. It's still adventure.

You go to college. You get married. You move to different places. You have all of your kids.

Then what?

What adventures are left?

Some people call parenting an adventure. I don't really agree. Because you can't call up your relatives and say, "My two year old just flooded our kitchen, body slammed his sister, and oh yeah, he can successfully label the private areas of his body!!" WHOOOOOOOO." It's not like when you called and said, "I'm getting married!" or "We're pregnant....again!!"

I feel like I've hit the cruise control part of life. Every day is like the one before. No sleep, kids, work, laundry, kids, work, late to bed, no sleep; and then let's do it again. And again. And again. Sure the kids get older, we do different things. Some days are more full than others. Once in a while I get a 9 minute nap on the couch before someone screams and/or pokes me awake. On rare occassions I get out of my house to watch a movie.

But there's nothing big to look forward to anymore. No life changing events. No more babies to have, Husband and I know each other well enough that we're boring, we probably won't even move out of this stinking city. Nothing big. Nothing exciting. No more adventures.

So now I just cruise through the next five decades and then what? Is there nothing but mundane-ness left?

Can I go back? I miss adventure.

my life in updates

Update 1:
The squatters are now home owners. Glad that's over.

Another Update:
Last week I got to tag along while Husband went to Phoenix for the National Greenbuild Convention and hang out in a hotel room for 3 days ALL BY MYSELF.

I want to go back.

Being alone is LOVELY.

Update Numero Tres: I saw NEW MOON today!!!!!!!!

I have to say that the first movie kind of killed the whole Twilight thing for me. Ok, not really. But the more I watched it, the more I realized how immature being obsessed with vampires and werewolves are.

And I am nothing if not mature.

But after watching New Moon (which was my favorite book of the series - TEAM JACOB) I'm ready to be immature and obsessed again. I was so worried they'd ruin it. I was ready to be disappointed on some kind of level (if only slightly....or possibly a lot, I wasn't sure.)

I'm not disappointed.

And tonight I may just possibly dream that I'm a teenager again so that I can stalk and maybe even date Taylor Lautner.

Maybe when I see the movie a few more times -like 37- I'll decide to be mature again.

We'll see.

hate crime

Someone local must have found out my pumpkin stabbing/ditching on doorstep plan....I suspect the squatters. Because the night before last someone smashed all six of our pumpkins in the road.

And left every other pumpkin on the street in tact. Let me just tell you - there were a lot of pumpkins on our street.

Honestly I was going to make Husband throw them in the trash yesterday morning anyway (trash day) so the smashers get me out of dealing with the kids' whining. At least I'm not the bad guy this time.

But seriously? Just our pumpkins?

I think someone hates us.



Completely unrelated - I haven't heard back on my book yet. They're just a small publisher anyway, but still. Hey, does anyone know any really good literary agents for children's picture books? If you do, please do tell...

on a completely different note

(Geez, how many blog posts am I going to write today?)

I just sent my very first book idea to my very first publisher.

Like two minutes ago.

Via email.

Which they could totally reject.

Via not ever answering my email.

I'm so nervous I think I'm going to pee myself...

update on the squatter situation

So, after some venting, and some thinking, I decided that I would go over and meet our squatters.

Remember how I wasn't allowed to go over there? Because I'm clearly a crazy irate person.

Well, I did it anyway.

I'm not really one for "waiting things out." I'm more of an "impulsive, spur of the moment" type person.

And I really extra super nicely told them that they were living in our house illegally and that we weren't happy about it.

I also took them a Netflix video that they had delivered to the mailbox that is technically still ours.

AND

I also took them some banana bread. It was at the grocery store, in the bakery section. $3 for two loaves. And the loaves were in one of those ugly plastic containers, but wrapped in saran wrap individually inside. So I took out one loaf and it looked like I totally made these people homemade banana bread as a house warming gift. Which, honestly, would have been WAY beyond my niceness scope. But still I can pretend.

Apparently their real estate agent has fed them a bunch of bologna through the whole process. And when the bank didn't approve things by the date their realtor PROMISED them, they were going to make him pay to put them up in a hotel until the deal was done. And that's when this guy handed them the keys to our house.

We'll be reporting this real estate agent to his superiors. No question on that issue. I hope he gets canned. Or maybe they can just hang him from his toenails in the basement for a few days. I'm not sure how they punish realtors these days.

But since our squatters seem to be committed and responsible, and willing to sign and follow our agreement until the sale goes through, we're letting them stay.

Also we really want them to actually buy our house - that's kind of a huge part of the niceness act. And acting it was. I was quite impressive, if I do say so myself.

But let me just tell you how much LESS dramatic faux-homemade banana bread is than a cop raid and mandatory eviction.

But at least I proved to Husband that I'm a caring human being - because apparently that was in question.


P.S. I may still do Cathy's pumpkin on the doorstep suggestion - you know, anonymously, and with our most rotten Halloween pumpkin. (For those of you who don't know, that was an old Jack Handy "Deep Thought." Which was something that Cathy and I quoted through most of our Jr High years. So thank you Cathy, I really needed to laugh right then, and that did the trick.)

P.P.S. That Girl, if you were our squatters I would have let you in days before. But mostly because I like you. And also because you moved all the way from BRAZIL. With kids. These people were from across town and only had a puppy. So not the same.

livid

I am furious. In fact, I'm fuming. I am really really really ticked off.

In June we moved. We moved a few blocks away and left our house as a short sale. Because we refinanced at the height of the housing market, and then watched everything bottom out. At the same time I started making less and less money. Apparently being a free-lance anything doesn't suit well in an economic crisis. And since I was responsible for 1/3 of our income, things weren't pretty.

This was a hard decision. We knew we couldn't keep making our huge house payments (for a house we'd already grown out of.) We were trying to be responsible.

We had quite a few offers, but before the bank would approve the short sale they all pulled. But then we could advertise with the magic words "bank approved" and just hoped someone would offer again.

They did.

Then the bank decided they wanted to take their time signing the papers.

It's been about 6 weeks now.

It's frustrating for all considered. But that's not what I'm so angry about.

The people who put in the offer had an apartment lease that ended on Halloween. They hoped to be in the house by then. But it's still not ready or approved or THEIRS.

BUT THEY MOVED IN ANYWAY.

That's right. They moved in, illegally, on sunday. We were notified yesterday. And apparently these people were so confident in this move that they had been coming in with carpet cleaners and other things to get ready to move in. They switched over all the power and water, and we are now getting their mail. Because the mail box is still OURS.

We have illegal squatters living in our house. And it's all because their realestate agent decided to hand over the keys. ILLEGALLY. Did I mention that they're breaking the law?

But we're supposed to play nice about this. Because what if they get mad and pull out their offer and then we end up foreclosing on the house instead? That would suck. But what about the situation now - this situation has suck written all over it.

Husband has no problem playing nice. He is a people pleaser, and the thought of someone not liking him makes him squirm. I, on the other hand, have no problem if people hate me. I had to practically tie myself to this chair so I wouldn't go over right now and personally kick these people to the curb.

Actually, what I'd really like to do is call the police and let there be a massive scene where cops are throwing the squatter's possessions onto the lawn with dramatic flair. And I want to stand across the street and laugh and yell taunting remarks. And maybe throw something.

But I'm not allowed to make any contact with anyone considering this situation - I have been forbidden. Because we wouldn't want the crazy irate person screwing things up. Never mind that they're the ones breaking the law and taking advantage of us.