Uber Planning? check!

I just got off the phone with Disney reservations. Today is my 180 day window to make what are known in Disney-speak at ADRs (Advanced Dining Reservations). Yes, that is correct - I made dining reservations six months in advance. I may be a freak, but apparently, I'm not the only one, as my motivation for calling this early was at the urging of other Disney-goers...

So, here's what I booked:

Dinner our first night at Ohana. This reservation was selected not so much for the food as much as for the fact that it is supposed to be a fun venue for kids, plus the beach outside the hotel (Polynesian) is a prime location for watching the fireworks at Magic Kingdom. Seems like a perfect, somewhat low-key start to our odyssey.

I also booked Sadie for a princess makeover. Yeah, yeah, I know...puke! But, she'll love it and I know that her 'all things princess' days are probably starting to wane, so why not indulge?!?

Immediately following that, we'll head over for dinner with Cinderella. Again, maybe not MY first choice of things to do, but it's all about the kids, right?

So, those are taken care of. The only other thing(s) I need to do are buy tickets to the Halloween event (Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party) and book a rental car.

Evan thinks I am insane for all this advance planning, but what does he know? ;)

Beauties in Bloom

This Makes Me Happy

We got new neighbors (diagonally behind us) a couple of months ago, and back in February, she (single mom, Carolyn) held an open house/come meet cocktail party. It was a lot of fun, and I learned that Carolyn has a six year old daughter (Abby), also in kindergarten. So, we exchanged numbers and said we had to get them together. But, given that we are both working moms, it just hadn't happened. Well, I guess Sadie and Abby took matters into their own hands, and spying each other across the backyards, they got together.

So, they now have gotten together several times after school to play. Not formal 'playdates', just that easy, running back and forth between our house and theirs, kind of playing. I love it. This is exactly the kind of friendship that I have been wanting Sadie to find. I have tried to foster it with Amelia, but honestly, until either of them are allowed to cross the street and walk four houses down the road, it isn't happening. There are a lot of kids around the right age in the neighborhood, so I know in the future, her options will expand, but for now, I'm just so happy that a little girl moved in behind us.

I pulled the trigger.

I did something this morning that I have been deliberating about for over a year. I finally accessed money from our home equity line of credit and paid off all the balances on our revolving credit accounts, and then subsequently closed all of those accounts. As I said, this is something I've been thinking about doing, but have hesitated because every fiber of my being told me that it is a terrible idea to secure unsecured debt with our home. Reading about all of the foreclosures happening only reinforced that sentiment.

That said, why did I finally do it? Well, I simply decided that it was stupid to be paying 19% interest (in some cases) on debt when we could be paying 5.5%. We don't use credit cards, haven't in nearly two years, yet we're still paying them off at those high rates. I also thought long and hard about where we stand as far as equity, as so much of what I am reading about the current foreclosure crisis can be attributed to people treating their homes as if they were ATM machines. Even given the current climate of reduced home values, we are fortunate to have substantial equity in our home (thanks to selling our MA home in a seller's market) - so, while using the HEL funds does deplete some of that equity, I am comfortable with where that leaves us. The fact is, this is debt that we already have accrued, NOT a decision to take on MORE debt to finance something frivolous.

The current plan is to throw all of the money we were paying out to the various cc companies at the HEL and have it paid off in three years, while continuing to operate on a 'cash and carry' basis. Provided nothing too catastrophic occurs (a big if, of course), I feel like we'll be on track to be where we want to be within the next few years, especially as certain financial obligations (daycare and student loans) are eliminated from our ledger. I have to say, for as much as I went back and forth on this and worried about it, it felt awfully good to send off those checks and 'please close...' letters. It feels good to do something concrete and to feel like we have a plan.

Hope I didn't just make a huge mistake!!!!

Pix of Hair, Redux

So, I really hated that picture I posted yesterday of my new 'do. So, here's another round - I think I've got the hang of styling it down now.


front - ignore the very dark circles under my eyes...



Back - kicky, isn't it?!?!

Random Stuff.

As the pictures below show, we had a really nice weekend. Friday night, I joined the LADEEZ from my neighborhood at a chance auction and dinner to benefit the elementary school. Guess what I won? Tickets to Disney!!!! How awesome is that? This really helps defray a big part of the expense of the trip. We will still need to buy a 1 day ticket for Sadie, but we are talking 1/5 the cost I expected to pay for all of our tickets. In addition, I won a five piece set of luggage. I can't say that we desperately needed it, but we will definitely use it instead of kind of throwing together the random single pieces we already have. So anyway, that was one highlight of the weekend.

Another highlight was buying chairs for the dining room. I'm so happy with how it came out, and we got a great deal on the chairs. Seriously, I'm such a dork that I actually spent about an hour last night, just sitting and admiring it. It really transforms the look of the house as you enter it. Though Sadie will surely miss her dance floor, it definitely is an improvement. In a word (or three!), it looks...complete. done. furnished. Can't wait to have people over now.

We also got a ton of yard work (mowing and weeding) done, in between the raindrops on Saturday. We remulched the front beds and got everything ready for planting. Hopefully, we'll find some time next weekend to do that.

Yesterday we took a trip to the Liberty Science Center. What an awesome museum. Loads of great exhibits, and very interactive. I think the most amazing thing about it was that each and every exhibit had something that was interesting to Evan and me, as well as the girls. Not an easy thing to design.

So, all in all, a full weekend. I got almost nothing done as far as housework, but I suppose the world won't end if I fall behind on the laundary or vacuuming.

it won't, right?

The last few days, in pictures

First up, 'the haircut'. I don't love it, but I don't hate it, either. I will say that this isn't such a great photo of it, but I just had my coworker snap one quickly.




Next up, the dining room! I definitely LOVE this, and cannot wait to entertain.

Followed by some pictures from our excursion to the Liberty Science Center yesterday (a great trip, btw!).

Love me some of this...

I'm picking Sadie up at lunchtime on OUR bike for a ride in style to kindergarten. She's so excited!

In other news of today, I'm getting my hair cut and colored today, and am leaning toward a drastic change. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

I'm excited!

I've been waiting, oh so impatiently, for one of my favorite authors - Jhumpa Lahiri to come out with a new one. It has arrived. I'm off to Borders after work to snag myself a copy. Honestly, is there any better feeling in the world than cracking open that first page of what you know if going to be an awesome read?

There's always a silver lining

I am sitting here reflecting on the really great weekend that is drawing to a close. It was full of the things that I enjoy the most - beautiful weather, activity, down time, and family. In spite of an iffy weather forecast, Saturday turned out to be a gem of a day. We got to try out our kick ass new trail a bike, and it is a huge hit. We did a nine mile ride, and Sadie pedaled almost the entire way. I couldn't see her but Evan said she had an enormous grin on her face the entire time. We also hit a great playground down in Spring Lake and enjoyed lunch out at Sadie's new favorite, Schneider's. During our bike ride, we took a brief break and stopped in to visit my aunt and uncle. I hadn't seen them since February (my bad), so it was good to catch up. Saturday night, we had my parents over for dinner.

Today was, true to forecast, cold and crappy out. But, it was the perfect day to catch up on laundry, vacuum, organize the toy shelves in the den, go grocery shopping and bake brownies. All things that needed to be done (well, I guess we didn't really need the brownies...), and so it is good to know that the week is going to start on an organized foot. We went over to Jen and Jason's for dinner, and the girls were all adorable together. At the end of the evening, Eden and Sophia went to hug and kiss goodbye, and the sight of each of them puckering up and leaning in was hilarious. I'm really looking forward to the two of them spending lots of time together this summer, as they are pretty darn cute together.

Anyway, as I sit here thinking about what a nice weekend we had, I'm remembering that this weekend was the original date we had planned on for our 'couples only' trip to the tropics. And, while the thought of lying on a beach somewhere and enjoying quiet time with Evan is pretty appealing, I'm not sure that it would give me the same warm, fuzzy, and satisfied feeling that my decidedly NOT couples only weekend does. If I were there, now, I wouldn't have had this wonderful weekend here.

I (heart) Craigslist.

We have scored some pretty awesome things off of craigslist (3/4 of the decking for our new deck being our biggest purchase). Yesterday, we got a much-needed file cabinet for Evan's biz papers for $25. And today, Evan is heading down to Sea Girt to score possibly the most wonderful thing of all...a trail a bike!

The bike trailer has been awesome, and I do feel that we certainly got our money's worth this past year with it (we bought it new), but Sadie is really getting too big for it. I have some birthday money set aside that I planned to buy a trail a bike with (they retail for $125-$190, depending on the brand and model), but on a lark, I took a look on craigslist and there is one available. According the the seller, it has been used about 5 times and is in good condition. She wants $40 for it. So, Evan is going to take a look, and hopefully, he'll be returning with one that we can use this weekend (it is supposed to be gorgeous all weekend). Can't wait!!! I'm so excited to start biking all the time again.

The Dining Room is Happening.

I'm getting pretty excited about our dining room. Evan is almost done building the table, and figures it will take about a week of finishing before it is ready. So now I'm on a mission to get chairs. We're opting to buy unfinished ones and finish them ourselves, to save some money. I had been trying to figure out what kind of stain to use to complement the (maple) table, when Evan turned me on to the idea of actually painting the chairs instead. So, I looked around and I think we're going to go with a sage green, distressed effect. Something along the lines of this:

the green will go with the couches in the living room and kind of tie the two areas together, and I just like the red. I'm leaning toward these chairs:


And, finally, I want to get cushions for the seats, and thought I could pull the whole color scheme together with something like this (the top one):



I can't wait until it is all set. I'm already trying to figure out what our first official 'event' should be to utilize the room - possibly a Mother's Day brunch for my mom and my aunt. Anyway, I'll definitely post pictures once it starts coming together.