The time I thought someone broke into our house

If you know me for even five seconds, you know that I am a huge scaredy cat.  Like, afraid of my own shadow scaredy cat.  

Anyways, owning a home has not made me any less of a scaredy cat.  One day the power went out in our cul-du-sac, and Peter wasn't home from work yet.  I called him to tell him the power went out, and he told me that I had to go in the DARK SCARY BASEMENT to check to see if it was flooded.  I ran down, put my foot down and it was dry, and then I ran back up the stairs and declared that I would NOT be doing that again.  

And once it's in my head that I'm scared about something, I am a wreck, jumping at the littlest things and gasping when I hear any noise.

The other day when I got home from work, as I was pulling into the garage, I noticed something was off.  A big something.

The door from the garage into our entryway/kitchen was wide open.  

Too many episodes of Law & Order flashed through my mind as I considered backing out of the garage, closing the door, and waiting until Pete got home from work so he could be manly and check everything out.  But then I thought that the murderer in the house would have heard the garage door open, and was probably hiding somewhere so that he could get me when I came in.

So I sat in my car considering what I should do, and TRYING to think logically about the situation.  The man-door to the garage was still locked.  Nothing in our garage was out of place.  

As I got out of my car, I left the garage door open in case I had to make a fast get away.  And then I glanced around the garage looking for something to carry with me as I went into the house (note: buy a baseball bat).  Tennis racket?  No.  Plastic shovel with metal edge?  Maybe...  New garden shears that aren't out of the cardboard?  Yes.  So I folded the edge of the cardboard down so that I could stab someone if needed.  Kind of like this...

You get the point.

I had also taken out my phone and dialed 9-1-1 into the keypad with my thumb hovering over the "call" button just in case I had to stab anyone.  I was ready to enter.

I walked through the house turning on all the lights with the garden shears leading the way.  I was suddenly very aware at how loudly I breathe.  

After I checked all of the closets, behind the shower curtains, and all corners of our suddenly gigantic house, I walked over to the basement door and chain-locked it.  That thing has never come in so handy.  

I texted Pete that he left the door to the house wide open and that I thought someone broke in, and his response was "whoopsie."  Uhhhh, yeah.  Whoopsie is right.

When he got home I made him check the basement.  No one was hiding down there.

Then he saw the hedge trimmers on the kitchen counter, and asked what they were doing there.  I told him that I needed them to protect myself.  

He laughed.

I asked for a home security system.

Adult Life: Living on 3 acres

So last summer when we saw our house for the first time is was sooooo nicely landscaped and had a HUGE yard and Pete was like "This yard is perfect for a dog!" and at the same time I was all "This yard is perfect for a pool!" And then we stared each other down while our real estate agent got uncomfortable.

We are especially good at making people feel uncomfortable.

Since we moved into our house on the last day of August (30 days has September, April, June, and November) August 31, and last summer there was a drought, we were all "Look at how great this landscape is!  Look at how awesome this yard is!!  We have a fire pit!  Let's have a party!!!" and we paid the neighbor kid to mow the lawn once and we were happy and naive.  

Then winter happened and we had the Amazon River at the end of our driveway aka a lot of moisture going on.  THEN spring came about 2 months late, and everything started growing.

And by everything I mean the grass.  The flowers.  The plants.  And the weeds.  At this point, I regretted two things.  1) Not taking pictures of the landscape when the previous owners had it done so that I could tell what should stay and what should go. 2) Buying a house that had a shit ton of landscaping and lawn.  

Finally one day in May when it was nice outside, I was all motivated and feeling earthy, so I decided to go out and pull weeds.  And pull weeds I did.  For two and a half hours.  

No, I could not move the next day.  But I went back outside and pulled weeds for three more hours.  And then the NEXT day I was like OH MY GOD I WANT TO DIE HAVING NICE LANDSCAPE SUCKS WHEN YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO HAVE SOMEONE PULL WEEDS FOR YOU AND YOU DON'T HAVE KIDS THAT YOU CAN MAKE DO IT.  (We are clearly not ready to have kids if the two times we've talked about having kids were when we wanted slave labor to shovel the driveway in the winter and pull weeds last week.)

BUT.  Worse than not being able to move for a week is looking like a schmuck for the summer.  Ok, well, I looked like a schmuck when I could hardly walk/stand/sit/move, but we live in a nice little cul-du-sac that has 5 houses, and our house is the dink.  I mean, I ADORE our house, but it really is the dink of the neighborhood.  

What I'm trying to say is that we need to keep up with the Jonses, so to speak.  They all have nice lawns and landscape, so come hell or high water, we will have a nice lawn and landscape too.

The landscape part we have mostly under control with the help of my supportive Facebook friends, and NOT the help of my a-hole sister who just said, "I don't think you should have pulled that one."  Well.  I KNOW that.  But we had to pull the plant because there was a huge grass plant intertwined and there was no way to get rid of the grass without getting rid of the whole plant.  But seriously, right now on my Facebook there are some pictures of plants that I don't know if I should pull or ignore.  Help.  Also - you Facebook friends are really making me laugh because a handful of you were like "You are cracking me up!" with my questions about plants, and I'm not trying to be funny.  I just have no idea how to figure this shit out.  So if you want to come to our house and identify plants vs. weeds, you are more than welcome.  I will cook for you.  And Peter will buy you a Summer Shandy.

ANYWAYS.

After many trips to the local hardware store (Tangent: One day Peter came home from the hardware store, and he declared, "Today was the best day of my life!" and then I glared at him and he said, "The SECOND best day of my life!!!!" And then he proceeded to tell me that Vern, who owns Vern's hardware, knew his name.  "Sar.  It was amazing.  He said, 'Hey Pete!  Come here, I want to show you something!'  So then I looked around, and I realized hey! he's talking to me! So, he showed me a joke that his sister-in-law sent him on the computer, and it was really funny!  Can you believe he knows my name?!"), we came home with a shovel thing, a little hand hoe thing, some gardening gloves, weed killer, and some candy.  I actually don't remember where I was going with this because I'm watching Newlyweds: the First Year on Bravo right now and I keep getting distracted.

I'll start over.

Over the weekend, Peter and I spent all day Saturday working outside again doing more weeding and looking at our huge effing vegetable garden (Ok, we think it's huge, but all of our super outdoorsy neighbors are like "That's tiny!" uhhhh... riiiiiiight...) and trying to think about what we're going to do with it.  I got sunburned and Peter got a little pink, but now he's already really tan.  On Sunday, we were both hobbling around the house because clearly we are NOT outdoorsy people.

The best news of the day is that the neighbor kid is going to mow the lawn this summer, so we REALLY won't look like the schmucks of the neighborhood.  

Also, we have a ton of mosquitos already, so we both have tons of mosquito bites.  

I'll put up pictures of our lawn soon.  I should actually take the pictures like, tomorrow because the lawn is mown and the weeds are pulled.  I think.

It's only May.  What the hay am I going to do when it's 100 degrees and 100% humidity in JULY and I have to pull those damn weeds??  Because we all KNOW that the last thing I want is for people to judge me based on the outdoor appearance of my house!

Disclaimer: I know that this whole post is categorized as the hashtag that I see people putting on Facebook #firstworldproblems.  I also know that it is classified as #stopbeingspoiledandappreciateyourlawn (it's really hard to type that without using spaces).  But hey!  Freedom of Speech - I can do what I want.  But don't stop reading; I like you!  I won't complain in the next post!!

Baby Boy

We knew he was going to be a boy in March, not because the ultrasound told us so, but because that's when he started giving his mom trouble.  Boys are always the trouble makers.

Not due until June 7, my nephew couldn't wait to join his wonderful family, and arrived at 10:29 PM on Thursday, May 2 - 5 weeks early.  And oh boy, is he a stud.

Let me formally introduce you to my favorite nephew: Joshua Thaddeus Schwarz.  

He weighs in at a whopping 5 pounds 0 ounces and is a shortie at 17.5 inches long.

The first few months of her pregnancy went really well.  Jenna was feeling great, and looking even better.

26 weeks

But then in the middle of March, when she was 28 weeks along, Jenna had some bleeding that put her on bed rest.  She was in the hospital for a week, and then got to go home on a "modified bed rest" that basically meant that she could do things that required little movement.  I went down for a few days to help her out with cleaning and laundry and Nora.

After being at home for only a week, Jenna had to go back to the hospital.  This time, she was at 30 weeks, but they told her that she had to stay in the hospital for the rest of the pregnancy.  

Then, about 10 days later, they let Jenna go home again.  This time, on FULL bed rest.  As in "don't you do ANYTHING except walk to the bathroom to use it!"  They scheduled for her to have a c-section on May 17, when she would be at 37 weeks.

 And, continuing the pattern, Jen had to go back to the hospital after being home for a week on April 29.  This time, she REALLY was going to stay there until the end of the pregnancy.  They moved the c-section up to May 10, because the baby would be just fine being delivered at 36 weeks.

But Joshua wanted to join the family sooner than May 10.  So he decided on May 2.

And he has been a champ since he was born.  No need for a feeding or breathing tube!  But I'll tell you what - he gave us all quite a scare for being such a little peanut.

On Saturday, my mom and I went down to clean the condo so that everything could be perfect for when Joshua and Jenna got home.  Nora was a big help with the cleaning.

And the distracting.

Jenna got discharged on Monday, but has been staying at the hospital so that she can be with Joshua.  Who wouldn't want to snuggle this little guy?

Nora's already being a great big sister.  Doesn't it seem like just yesterday that we were visiting her in the hospital?

And to everyone's surprise, Joshua got to go home today so that this little family of four can start their new lives.

I wonder if Nora is going to like Joshua as much now that he's home and invading her space...

I personally can't wait to snuggle the little cheese puff again.