Mystery Poster....Bill? Is that you? At grandma's house...

Spencer watches a movie in the back seat... "Mighty Machines: Diggers and Dozers"

Spencer with a bucket on his head...

Spencer and Freddie during intermission...

Bill got my laptop working today now that we have been at Grandma's two days and I think he did two identical posts. Not sure why, maybe he just really really really likes that song? I dunno.

Anyway we are here at Grandma's house and Spencer is having a riot. Right now they are baking Bill's birthday cake. Bill turns 43 tomorrow.

The drive up was pretty long, 17 hours but not that bad really. We took it over some days because let's face it, we have time to kill. Our house will not be ready until about August 25th. Maybe even later than that. We have to be back when school starts, but not before, so whatever.

Today they all went to a Beach Festival in Port Hueneme, and then they all walked along the pier over the ocean Spencer had fun. I stayed home and read my book and took a nap I was beat from the looooong drive.

It has been very very humid here, but we are surviving with fans and stuff. its usually not this humid here. It is only about 70 though, because Grandma lives so near the ocean. I am hearing that it is like 104 in Portland this past week, YIKES.. I am glad we are not there right now.

Tom Waits - Ol'55

What a great great song.

Fair, Stairs, Feeling Better.

Hey I know these posts have been LAME but we are hitting the road, and I promise they will get super exciting starting on Thursday.... Anyway..

Spencer Plays in Corn at the Fair. I guess he later buried that kid next to him...

Physics IS Fun

Yep. its that time of year again here in Canby. Today Bill took Spencer to the annual Clackamas County Fair for Kids Day. He had fun but there were a few weird moments. He loved all of the animals, he saw goats, cows, pigs, chickens, sheep all kinds of reptiles everything you can imagine. They also had a great area for kids called Physics is Fun or something where they can do little experiments with magnets and stuff he liked that a lot. He saw a couple of kids from preschool, and he rode a train they have there. He loves trains. Anyway, it was typical Fair stuff, and the usual stuff was there, however two sort of disturbing things happened.

The first was when he walked into the fair one of the first booth things was this Army Recruiting thing and the Army people were really nice, and they thought Spencer was `cute but they gave him a free dogtag with his name on it... Hmmm... Spencer loved it - he is FOUR. Bill was like "Uh Thanks.." but inside he was thinking "In the current administration in the White House that might just mean he will head to Iraq in a few weeks..."

The second weird thing that happened was this... There was this one booth that was made up of three tables and they had nobody in there - like no customers. So Spencer wanders in there, and they offer to tell him a story... Well he is FOUR, he loves stories. Bill was close behind so they sat down. Five minutes into the "story" Bill told Spencer it was time to leave. Apparently the story was all about hell and crucifixion, etc, which honestly Bill said he GOT their point, and HE is religious but they should have known that is too much for a four year old. So that was uhmmm disturbing.

The newly finished stairs from the livingroom. You can see how the entry thing turned out.


Stairs from the Dining Room. They still have to be stained.

Top of New Stairs. I asked them to please cover up the ugly pole there with something nice. They did a good job! I initially asked them to take it out, but apparently it holds up the second floor....bummer.

When you walk in the front door this is how it looks. Except mantle not up yet....
I think it all matches fairly well. Even the half wall looks okay!

Also Yesterday I went back to my MD for my parotid gland infection and he gave me some drugs and it feels better already!!! We are going to stay one more day in Canby and leave Thursday for Ventura to Bill's parents. Bill was going to go to Seattle on Business today but we found out it was kids day at the fair so he took Spencer instead and he will go drop off that stuff tomorrow. We ordered the blinds for the house today too.

We had dinner at the Top O Hill. http://www.canby.com/topohillrestaurant/ Lately I have been getting the "Half Sandwich and Soup"at almost every restaurant I go to lately. I am not sure why, maybe because I am an Old Lady. Or maybe because lately mostly we eat at these weird little diner type restaurants that have that on the menu. I gotta say we call the Top O Hill restaurant in Canby "The CB" which stands for The Country Bumpkin Diner but honestly they have great food really!! But then, my mom could not cook well, and neither can I so you know... maybe that's why I like it hahahah. I had turkey rice soup, half a turkey sandwich and some of their AWESOME potato salad today and it was just the best dinner! But then I live in a crappy hotel. I am just happy to GO Anywhere hahaha.

Really I have to say that I love that place now. You walk in there and they say HI SPENCER!!! They don't care if he switches sides of the table by crawling underneath, and at the end of dinner, IF he has eaten all of his "real" food on his plate (stuff like the chicken etc haha) he gets to go into this silly treasure basket and get a prize. He totally loves it.

Plus they have awesome pie.

More stuff done on house, not leaving town til Wednesday

You can see the new fence thing is on the porch.

Its not painted white yet, it will be. There is a RUMOR the house will be done by like Aug 25. I'll believe it when I see it... BUT that is finally the real front door, and also it will be painted black.

Close up of the porch fence which is weird looking to me- - like why are the STICK THINGS on the OUTSIDE??? but oh well, its in there now...

We are going to stay in this crappy hotel for another gozillion nights even though this room gets smaller every minute hahaha

Bill's going to go to Seattle for biz one day only, and Spencer and I will stay here. Its not like we would have a ton of time to go sightseeing, and they have an IKEA here now, so WHY GO? He's not gonna stay overnight. Then on Wednesday we will all head down to Ventura to visit Bill's parents. Spencer and Grandma have big plans to dig and build things and go to the beach, and according to Spencer he is going to teach Grandma Karate moves, and possibly the Crab Walk, and maybe they will cut down a few trees. You see Spencer, talks to Grandma like every day on the cell phone. They are making Big Big plans. At grandma's house I plan to sleep for 6 days straight, and reunite with my crazy family after that time if by then I have been adequately rested from this year. I will not be visiting the beach, as I do not see the point if I am not going in the water, and everyone knows I refuse to enter any natural body of water.

Seriously we have been locked up in a hotel room for like 12 days with this nutty kid and Cooking Camp was Cancelled. Grandma and Grandpa along with Aunt Dolly and Aunt Tamara and all the rest of Bill's huge Family can all take turns entertaining Spencer and he will have a RIOT. In the mean time, I need some sleep and Bill needs to get some work done. I am gonna see if there is a Curves near Grandma's house I can go to.

We wanted to be kind to the Earth and our wallets and take the Toyota down there, as it gets 33 mpg but I guess Bill has a ton of stuff plus the dog and the kid etc so we're gonna bring the van. It also has the DVD player which frankly does NOT hurt.....

New stuff is going on with the house...

bottom of the stairs... The treads will be clear varnish or whatever and the rail will be stained the color of the cabinets.

Top of the stairs, I don't know what its called I have always called that one part that sticks out the "ROMEO BALCONY"

Stairs as seen from dining room. Railing will match the cabinets in the background, which also match the kitchen.


Spencer, FINALLY ASLEEP in his Fire Engine.

Probably headed out...

We are probably headed to Seattle for like two days, for Bill to do some business stuff, and we will probably do IKEA there. Then down to Ventura, CA to see Bill's parents. The kid is bouncing off the walls, this hotel room is Wayyyyy too small for us and Bill can stop at a couple of places ( like San Jose) to do some work and do business stuff I guess.

So. We may leave Sat AM but who knows.

House should be done in like 2 weeks exactly. Today we picked out stuff like mirrors and towel racks, also where the mantle will go, and some bricks for this retaining wall in the front lawn. Each time I go in there I hate it because I want to stay and move in.

I am bummed they took away SCRABULOUS. it SUCKS.

SPencer and Freddy Bear talk to Grandma on the phone!!!

I just thought it was a cute picture

Question of the day: What color should the stairs be?

Posts going in and that little fence thing

We have to pick out a stain for the stair railing and its just going to match the cabinets. Today they installed the posts on the front and started in on the fence thing around the porch.

Stairs going in but they are not stained yet.

Cooking Camp Cancelled, but Spencer keeping busy anyway

Amy in Spencer's "fort"

We took Spencer for his first day of Cooking Camp and we found that it had been canceled and no one had told us. It was a total bummer he was looking forward to it.. However, we will find stuff to do with him this week. In the meantime he is taking very good care of Amy the dog. He tucked her into his fire engine bed at the hotel, and amazingly she puts up with it. Amy is like the perfect dog. She may eat a few guitar necks but she is great with kids. All the kids in our neighborhood take turns taking her for walks and often when we go to do something at the new house she can be seen running down the street with her leash trailing behind her and like 8 kids running after her trying to catch her. They all have a riot.

Today I took the tag that had the Goat Farm address on it off her collar and put on the new one that has our REAL house address on it. It was a good day! Also good news its gonna be like 93 today and then 97 tomorrow and the AC in this goofy hotel room just blasts until icicles for in your nose.. Seriously. I am LOVING it.

Amy's new tag with our REAL address on it

OFF the GOAT FARM FOR GOOD!!!!

Here is the dead carcass of that crazy Venini Lamp that my mom bought in Italy in 1956. It hung in my family room in my house since birth... but it did not make it through the explosion. Sadly, it was in a box in the bonus room.

Here is the new driveway and all the exterior paint is done and the rocks are all on. Or whatever those are called...

Here is the final paint job, and all the rocks but the front door will probably end up being black. The fence around the porch is not there yet either, but that is all that is missing and that is not our real front door.. And I am pretty sure the pile of rocks is not staying... but you never know...

Hello it is us, the Sploded Family, and we are here in Exile in a hotel in Tigard. This is like the Motel 6 version of the Residence Inn. The Residence Inn is where we stayed when the house first exploded. The Residence Inn is owned by Marriot and honestly it is like the Ritz Carlton compared to this place. Here they clean the rooms ONCE EVERY SEVEN DAYS, unless you pay $3 a day for housekeeping to come once a day. The internet thing sucks and it costs like $5 to join it but there is no GOAT and that means FIVE STARS to me...

Its a Very very very small room, and it has a queen sized bed. Every morning I wake up in a bed with Bill, the dog and the kid, and that usually happens, but this is not a King sized bed...We brought Spencer's fire engine bed with us and it barely fits but he has his bed and his fish lamp and he gets to eat breakfast from McDonald's EVERY DAY so he is diggin it. The TV has like maybe 25 cable stations and no icemaker in the fridge but we KNOW it is not our permananet home, so we are okay here. I got it using my vast knowlegde of priceline.com, when I used to book hotel rooms for all of Bill's musicians friends for their gigs out of town and other stuff. We are paying only $42 dollars a night for a room that costs $70 normally, so I am not complaining. They allow dogs, there is a full sized fridge and two burners and a little kitchen thing. it is NOT the GOAT FARM, and it has NORMAL WATER and now cows, pigs, goats, sheep, horses, llamas or camels living anywhere nearby and that is about all I need to know.

The move from the Goat Farm was hellish... probably the worst week of this whole thing since we moved from the Faux Chateau. I mean we did it practically all alone except for some help from Steve this one day. However on two occasions people took Spencer for a couple of hours and that was a TREMENDOUS help. One day the Dylan T Moms kept him for like 5 hours and he even ate dinner there, and then another day he went to Siri's and played with Donut and ate dinner there too. Spencer had a riot both places and while he always has a great time with Siri (she is one of THE BEST moms I know) we are definitely going to have more playdates with the Dylan T Moms. Dylan goes to Spencer's preschool and they get along great, and they really really had fun over there.

Still in three days we emptied an entire house and two barns, PLUS we filled a 30 yard dumpster and then yet another dumpster. We filled up two storage units and a POD. The only real casualty was the Futon which I was sad about, but whatever. Landlord Dude was kind of an ass at the end but whatever, it is done and honestly, his punishment for bein that way is that he has to LIVE THERE. He is going to try to sell the goat farm now and I wish him a lot of luck with that. The giant dog that used to poop in our yard AKA The Turdmaster did come by to see us off and I tried to soooo hard to get a picture of him but he ran too fast.

I was NOT AT ALL SAD to leave the Goat Farm. I might have mentioned that before....

SO Here we are and I keep getting us more and more nights at this place. Priceline is really pretty formulaic if you kearn how to work it. We have been here since Tuesday and we will be here at least thru this coming Saturday. So at least Spencer can go to Cooking Camp which he really wants to, which starts Monday (today). He will have camp all week from 9 to 1. I have a medical appt MOnday at 11 but after that I have nothing all week so I mean its a crappy hotel and everything but we really have not much to do so it s KIND OF like a vacation At the end of the week we will see where they are on the house and if it is close we will just keep staying in town The truth is that thoughwe would LOVE to go visit Grandma in Ventura, we are not sure it is a good idea to be gone while they are finishing the house. Things get messed up sometimes and though they are little things maybe we will not be able to afford to fix them later so we have to get it all correct NOW. We would be SO FAR AWAY and it would be difficult to make these kinds of decisions.

We did move some breakable stuff right from the goat farm to the house and put it in different weird cupboards and stuff. We are exhausted but frankly quite happy to be out of there. Even Bill was glad to go. Farm Living turned out to be not the life for either of us, though Spencer and the dog liked it there.

The house is really coming along and though there have been a few hiccups it is going fast. One is that though the grey exterior does look nice, it seems we somehow painted the house the exact color of the porta potty. The drive way and front walkway are both in, the banister is being finished, the floors are all in now, they are starting ont he trim for the windows, a lot of interior doors are in, and a bunch of other stuff.

The internet thing here at this hotel is pretty bad and so I have to kind of bear with it, and also the Facebook Scrabulous kicked me out I have no idea why I could not get in to take my turns, so I have to fix that I am going to look for the near Starbucks and start bringing my laptop there rather than put up with this weird hotel internet. Other than that, we are alive and living in Exile in Tigard.

Our Last Night on the Goat Farm....One Step Closer to Home, where we never left.

Elmo, we hardly knew you....

Well, we have to be out of here by Thursday but we are staying in a hotel starting Tuesday night. Tomorrow (Tuesday) they are taking all the rental furniture, which will make it a little easier to get the rest of our crap out of here.

I have this great great Tom Waits song in my head now...I have no idea why maybe because we are in the home stretch here and we are finally going to be headed home after a lonnnng time on the road.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x8RpnUne2U


One of the best.

Its going to be a bit of a challenge I think, even to go home, because the house is obviously ours, with the same exact floor plan, but it looks very different. I mean, it is exactly how we want it now, but still, it might take a while before we feel truly at home there. But then, what is HOME, anyway???

The one thing I have learned through all of this is something I have really always known... Home is not a PLACE. Home is just where my family and friends are, honestly. Even though our home exploded fifteen months ago, we were always at home, whether it was a Residence Inn, a hideous Faux Chateau in Occupied Fake France, or the Goofy Green Acres Goat Farm. We were always at home because we were together. That sounds a little Hallmark Card-ish, and I cannot say that I am happy about moving this week for the ninth time in 15 months, in fact I am incredibly annoyed. But tomorrow when my head hits the pillow at the Homestead Studios Suites I will not be filled with despair. We will be a little closer to getting back home, even though we really never left.

That makes NO sense. I need to keep packing.

House has been finished - at least exterior paint

This is pretty crappy picture.... but it is done There will be better pics later. That car in the driveway is that painter's.

Have to still decide on door color but that happens like LAST. We realized later that we have now painted the house the exact color of the porta potty.

How sad is that????

have to go Tomorrow they are coming for the rental furniture. Though we do not have to be out of the goat farm until Thursday we are starting our hotel stay tomorrow night. SO this is our last night with the goat.

Wow I just cannot stop crying...... NOT!!!!

House has been painted grey!

House has now been painted grey.
Its not the grey I wanted.... I wanted a brighter grey... but whatever.

The only OOPS so far today is that the garage was supposed to be WHITE and not grey. So they are gonna re do it.

The house is now being painted grey with white trim. However the garage was ALSO painted grey and that was supposed to be white. So we had to tell them to change that.

They are also inside the house putting in the flooring upstairs.

Not much else is new there. Here at the Goat Farm we are packing packing packing. I cannot WAIT to get all of this over with. Even though we do not have to be out of the Goat Farm until Thursday we are trying to get out by Tuesday or Wednesday.

We are definitely staying at the Homestead Studio Suites until Tuesday the 4th, but then after that we may go out of town. I am afraid to go out of town, because it seems that at ever turn in the house buildong process little tiny things go wrong and if we are not there to correct them they get finished wrong and then we are stuck with them wrong.

If I had my way we would get a motor home and park it out in front of the house. We could sit there alll day watching them finish the house. I would know it was getting done correctly but not only that, I am sure our presence would foster a sense of urgency. Right now I see no sense of urgency about completing the house. In the last three weeks the only thing that was completed was the stonework, even though we are due to hit the streets on July 31. I guess a lot of stuff is getting done now, but the last thing I wanna do is leave town.

On the good news side, I was able to get us a $75 a night hotel room on priceline for only $42 A NIGHT for a week. I am GREAT at getting hotel rooms for discount prices. I once got us the San Jose Doubletree for $35 a night, and when we were doing the move from San Jose to Canby I got us the Hyatt for three weeks for $41 a night. Seriously, people come to me to get good prices on hotel rooms, I am pretty good at this. I used to book all of Bill's musician's friends hotel rooms for the NAMM show and also for out of town gigs. But enough about me.... I have to go get a bunch of crap out of the barn and stick it in the POD. I HATE the barn it is full of ANTS SOOOO gross.

I am so SICK of this. I just want to be back in my house. I cannot believe we have now missed two full summers in our neighborhood. CRAP. It is SUCH TOTAL CRAP.

Look!!! Its Spencer and I, packing the POD.

We are covered in Barn Goo and packing muck.

I cannot help the way I look. I live with a goat.

Gawd maybe after all of this is over I will get a makeover of some kind. I think what would help the most would be some Botox, some Miss Clairol, less dorky clothes, WAY less dorky glasses and maybe a lobotomy to forget the past 16 months.

Also we managed to salvage our bathroom vanity. It was in the Sploded bathroom, where the one wall caught fire. This bathroom was across the hall from the laundry room, where the fireball blew through from the garage. The fire was so hot in the laundry room that all the clothes in the dryer melted into a big ball of melted laundry clothes goo. The finish on it melted a little and its yucky because its been sitting in the Bird Poop Barn forever, but it survived and we are gonna use it. It went through an EXPLOSION and its still here, sort of like us. It has character, a past, now, which makes me like it even more. Oh and also it has a granite top, and it was only three weeks old when the house exploded. It is going in the bathroom with the weird rocks on the floor.

Sploded Vanity - It lived through the explosion and through months of living in the back barn - Bird Poop Central. It deserves to go back in the house.

Holy Wandering Cows!!!! Mini Adventure, Only in Canby...

Only one cow was still out by the time I found my stupid camera phone

We were driving home tonight from our 19th trip to the storage unit and there is this dairy farm we pass all the time. In fact it it almost directly across the road from the Goat Farm. We never see the ACTUAL COWS out though. You can kind of see inside the barn, etc and you can hear and smell them when you are outside but that is about it. Except for toni9ght they were all loose just kind of wandering around all over the place,,, I cannot even describe how enormous these cows are.. I mean one would have just crushed our minivan.

We knew this was odd since they are NEVER out like this. So we drove up this driveway to knock on the door of this house to see if they knew why the cows were out wandering very close to the road.

The lady seemed sort of annoyed at first, but then Bill told her that there were cows wandering allover the place, and she ran outside. She walked down to the barn, clapped her hands and started yelling at all of them. Amazingly they all lumbered back into the barn.

Is this reallllly funny or reallly sad? Both, kinda. Finger is a little better

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46937

I mean, I GET it you know.... its funny...... BUT: THIS IS MY HOME TOWN!!!!!!

I liked this quote the best:


Ranneke acquired several Detroit commercial districts and the steel-and-glass 1970s-era Renaissance Center for $4,000.

"I did them a favor," Ranneke said. "Believe me, Detroit's been around the block. I was willing to take it off their hands for six grand, but I caught a glimpse of that Ambassador Bridge and I said 'no way.' I am not Santa Claus."

I got some keflex and my finger seems to be healing. Still packing up to move.

Drove around all morning, then off to MD. Finger now needs medical intervention.

Builder Nick and Bill in garage this AM at Sploded house. Nick in white shirt. Probably talking about wood. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I have to go see my MD this afternoon because my finger is really bad. We ran errands all morning. Canby Builders, preschool, sploded house, Walgreens, Home Depot, back to preschool.
I took only one picture, Bill and Nick at the house talking. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I may have to take Spencer to Dr with me. Dr hates that. Too bad.

Hard to type with bad finger. bye for now.

More Rocks are on the House today.

More Rocks from Far Away

Close Up of the Rocks

This has nothing to do with the rocks. I just like this picture of Joan Cusack in the movie Working Girl.

The flooring has arrived and it will go in tomorrow. It has to sit around for a day or two to acclimate itself to the air or something only Bill and other wood guys understand.

Also the exterior painting will happen on Monday. Also pretty soon, the banister guy is gonna put that in. I think after the floor guys. The paint guy told us that we can have the front door painted a different color than the rest of the house, as an accent. I think blue would be good, but then when given a choice I always pick blue. For like EVERYTHING. Red is good Feng Shui, but i don't care much about that.... but then after this year, maybe I should. Black hides the dirt. I dunno, we have to thinks about it.

I think a cool neon blue sparkly door would really brighten up the hood. Kind of a Disco feel.

The rocks guy is making progress on the rocks and he has like three of the posts thing done. There will also be a fence thing sort of around the porch but that goes in later. it will be like the old porch as seen in this picture. But we had to put the rocks on the bottom this time because the posts have to be anchored into the porch because of the foundation its complicated and boring but we needed to have rocks on the bottoms of the posts this time.



Ok this is kind of funny - I am pretty sure that the guy who owns the goat farm is renting a house IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!!! he is very anxious to get back to the goat farm, and we are just as anxious to get back home. its funny I can just see him complaining about the exact opposite of thing we are complaining about here:

"I have to get back to my goat farm. This water is so bland, the shower is so big and new I can hardly stand it, and I am freezing cold in this air conditioning. At night I cannot even hear any donkeys, frogs, or cows. There is NOTHING living in the fireplace here, how boring! The air smells so odd, no dead skunks, no Llama or cow poop smell, no gopher holes in the lawn, no goat.... I mean, how can these people live like this?????"

my finger still hurts

My Finger. Note: drawing not to scale.....

I have what is called a PARONYCHIA. No idea how I got it, but I blame the goat. It hurts a lot. Its hard to do everything. I have not seriously been in SO MUCH PAIN in like five years. I mean I had a C SECTION that did not hurt this much for this long. But I talk to my Dr every day about it and I am getting good advice.
No Fun.
Yesterday Spencer went to Kempo, and water camp. We spent most of the rest of the day packing stuff up. it does not look like we have done much but almost all the cupboards in the bathrooms and the entire kitchen are empty. We are working on the garage and now gonna start in on the barn after that. Bill is trying to finish instruments while we also pack because he will not have a place to work for the next three or four weeks when thehouse finishes.

We have debated about where to live, probably going to be motel 6, just because it is the easiest.

Rocks.

They added these rocks to the house today. They are not done yet They are also going onto the posts on the porch. They should finish this tomorrow. Also the wood arrived for the floors.


Also Spencer practiced his scooter.

Motel 6 or Extended Stay America? Plus, more critters

We've got woodchucks.
Who do you even call for this? The Vet? The ASPCA?
I freaking give up.

Decisions decisions. Right now we are faced with whether to stay in Motel 6 or Extended Stay America Suites, and for how long in one or both?

Its a tough call....they have parallel levels of suckiness.

I am also looking into renting a month long sublet from strangers on Craig's list.

Also, there is a REALLLLLY good rate on an Extended Stay place in Salem, but I wonder WHY it is so cheap..... is it surrounded by like crack houses or something? Not sure, but I am looking forward to finding out with my four year old in tow. "Don't worry about those syringes, Spencer. Just step over them, like Mommy does!"

I know even though a certain Ins Co is blaming a certain builder for a certain family's house build being delayed, and taking it out on said family, even though a certain policy is supposed to cover a rental for two years, it is still comforting to have such Good Neighbors.

Also I know we are moving out in 11 days and it is no longer my problem, but at the Goat Farm there is SOMETHING LIVING IN THE FIREPLACE. Like a bird's nest or maybe some freaking raccoons or a family of bobcats. They make a lot of noise, which is quite comforting.

I can almost be sure there is NOT a family of woodchucks living in our NEW fireplace, but then, you never know.

On the good side, we did buy a really nice used sofa at a garage sale.

Its a magical summer.