not that you asked...

Turns out my mom likes maple glazed, so... win?

Today is our 18th day living with my parents. It really hasn't been that bad, honestly. I mean, yes, we're pretty much just washing and wearing the same four outfits each and we don't have immediate access to the toys the kids sometimes remember they own and I have to wear a bra every time I go downstairs (HORRORS), but otherwise it's been fine. I think it was a little weird for Dave for a few days what with the fact that we are SHARING A BED in my CHILDHOOD BEDROOM, but he seems to be fine with it now. Last night my dad even took him outside to demonstrate how he catches bugs and feeds them to his pet frogs (YES HE IS STILL DOING THAT) and the other afternoon he walked by me wearing only his underwear, so I think he's pretty comfortable having us in his house, unfortunately for those of us who don't want to see him in his underwear.

The kids don't seem to miss our house at all; aside from the occasional request for a certain toy (requests include one fire truck, one dump truck, one talking Jessie doll), I think they think this is their new house and they are perfectly happy to stay here FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.

I mean, check it:

That's the UPSTAIRS playroom. The basement looks like this:

There are downsides to staying in this kind of place, though. They include:

And:

 
And I didn't even take any pictures of the potato chips. Thankfully, it could be way worse:

Somewhere in there, amongst the copious amounts of golf paraphernalia, is a treadmill.

The kitchen is coming along. Today our countertops will be installed. Tomorrow the electrician and the plumber are supposed to finish up, and Thursday and Friday will be devoted to sanding and staining the floors. We could very possibly move back in on Saturday and I will be spending the rest of the week ORGANIZING MAH THINGS. Surely those of you who have read this blog even TWICE will know how CRAZY EXCITED I am about this. I get to put things AWAY, exactly where I want them. My heart is beating faster just thinking about it. As soon as we get everything put away and cleaned up, I'll put up some before and after pictures. They will BLOW YOUR MINDS, people.

Ok, now I have to tell you a story and there's no good way to segue to the story so just pretend this is one beautifully crafted, seamless and hilarious blog post.

The other night Dave and I went out to pick up donuts for Saturday morning breakfast. Now, it was about 10pm by the time we made it to the donut shop, but it is a TWENTY-FOUR HOUR donut shop, so imagine my surprise when we walked in to get donuts and found that they were pretty much out of every popular kind of donut. I could understand that, if the place was going to close for the night or something, but TWENTY-FOUR HOUR DONUT SHOPS DO NOT CLOSE. How can you operate a 24-hour donut shop and NOT HAVE ANY GLAZED DONUTS? Part of the business model of a 24-hour donut shop should be ALWAYS HAVE DONUTS AVAILABLE. That's, like, the whole POINT of a 24-hour donut shop, you know?

Anyway, so we walk up to the counter and the clerk is a very unhappy man with a mustache and a gold chain who will not look me in the eye and just grunts at me when I make a request. GRUNTS AT ME. Anyway, so I start picking out donuts, but it is pretty hard to make quick choices about donuts when all the good donuts are gone. It takes me about three minutes to pick out eight donuts and during this time I am not even looking at the donut guy, but according to Dave, who is paying attention to the donut man, the donut man is getting really angry and irritated at me for how long I'm taking to decide on which donuts I would like put into my donut box. But it would take YOU a long time, too, if you were having to pick out donuts you would have never picked in the first place. I was in the process of putting together a whole box of second-tier donuts. (There should be a LAW against operating without chocolate glazed donuts.)

At one point I said something to him about whether he had some more glazed donuts, maybe, in the back? And he's all gruff about it and just grunts “NO” at me and then, without ASKING ME, turns around and dumps a plain CAKE donut in my box, AS IF THAT IS THE SAME THING AS GLAZED. And I was being TOTALLY NICE about it, you guys.

So then finally, I'm all, “ok, I guess I'll take a cinnamon sugared?” (which will be the ninth donut I have selected, I have THREE MORE TO GO to make a dozen) – and you guys, this is the HONEST TRUTH, Dave was a witness – the donut guy looks like he's going to bend down to the lowest rack of donuts where the cinnamon sugared donuts are stashed but instead, he just starts picking up donuts at random and throwing them into the box! BECAUSE I HAVE TRIED HIS PATIENCE ENOUGH, I guess? I am TAKING TOO LONG. He is ANGRY. He is ANNOYED. So he just starts chucking extra donuts in there, more than the box can even hold – he packs 15 donuts in the box, DONUTS I DO NOT WANT AND DID NOT ASK FOR – and then closes the box and tosses it on the counter and tells me, “Seven dollars and twenty-four cents.” You guys, he did not even include the last donut I asked for, which was the cinnamon sugar and he gave me MAPLE GLAZED, WHO EVEN EATS MAPLE GLAZED.

I kind of cannot believe we actually paid for them, but we were stunned and in shock, I guess. I mean, lowest level of customer service EVER. We walked out to the car and almost died laughing because YOU GUYS, the donut man actually got mad at me for taking too long to select donuts. And was completely passive-aggressive about it. And it's not like the line was out the door or even included ANY OTHER PEOPLE. It would have been so different if he'd been apologetic - “Sorry we don't have that donut, ma'am, can I throw a few free ones in there to make up for it?” but instead, he was just a jerk. Not that it wasn't funny, right? But still. He was a jerk.

Cars 2 Giveaway WINNAH

Thanks to everyone for entering! Reading your comments was fun - it's amazing how many of you are taking your kids to see this movie as their First Real Movie Theatre Experience. I am hoping it works out for you better than my OWN personal First Real Movie Theatre Experience, which was E.T., when I was three. Remember that part where E.T. pops out of the bushes and gives everyone a little jump?

Yeah, that's about when I jumped out of my seat and bolted from the theatre. NICE WORK MOM.

Our Cars 2 winner was determined by a random number generator. Out of 155 entries, the number generator chose:

Number 36!

Congratulations, Dani! Please email me to claim your prize!

Diapers are a step up from my usual method that involves paper towels

Huggies has graciously requested my presence alongside them at the Evolution of Women in Social Media Conference (EVO) taking place in July in Park City, Utah. I'll have you know that I have yet to meet anyone from the Huggies team in person, so this is a big risk on their part – I'm not going to tell them how much I tend to sweat in new or awkward social situations because I fear they'd back out. (HA HA HA JUST KIDDING HUGGIES, I HAVE IT ALL UNDER CONTROL.) (I'm going to need to stuff a couple of Little Movers diaper into each of my armpits.)

Anyway, the cool thing about this is that, as an ambassador for Huggies' Every Little Bottom program, I'm going to be at the conference with the Huggies team talking to people about Every Little Bottom and about diaper need in general. I am really really excited about it; excited to meet the Huggies team and excited about meeting some awesome fellow bloggers and getting the word out about this fantastic campaign; also possibly excited about the fact that I'm packing my new pair of (very flattering) white trousers which I will be wearing without fear of having my children wipe their sticky granola bar hands right down my thighs. I bought these pants THREE MONTHS AGO, you guys. I have not found the right time to wear them until now, when I will have put more than 2,000 miles between me and the aforementioned sticky hands.)

If you're attending EVO, please stop by and say hello! As an added incentive, we'll be raffling off a stroller, diaper bags, and loads of other products (like three-month supplies of diapers and wipes) at the Huggies suite, which is suite #323. (If you stop by on Friday evening, we're having milk and cookies.) (I will not be wearing my white pants then. I need to be CAREFUL with them; I refuse to take any willy nilly RISKS.)

One of the other cool things Huggies is doing is sponsoring a Wishing Tree. Stop by the suite and write down a wish or hope for babies everywhere – for each wish collected, Huggies will donate a pack of diapers to a mom in need. A WHOLE PACK, you guys, if only you'll stop by for a few moments and put a pencil to paper. I will be right there to help you through the whole thing. With diapers stuffed into my armpits.

(ALSO. Psssst! Hey! Plan to join me for a Girls' Night Out Twitter party on Tuesday. Mom It Forward will be giving away a $250 stroller plus loads of free Huggies products. To register, go here.)

Disclosure: I have partnered with the Huggies® brand to help promote the Huggies® Every Little Bottom program. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program, which includes writing about it here. However, my opinions are entirely my own.

Cars 2 Giveaway!

Cars 2 will be my kids' first movie theater experience. We TRIED to see Rio a few months ago and this is 100 percent true: We bought snacks and made our way into the theater and the kids were being SO GOOD and... THE POWER WENT OUT. And it took so long for the movie theater to reboot their servers that it was lunchtime before they got things running again and so we got our money back instead.

Anyway, they're WAY more excited about seeing Cars 2, and frankly, I am too, although not QUITE excited enough to brave the crowds and see it this Friday when it first comes out. The nice people at Disney contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in doing a little Cars 2 giveaway and OF COURSE I'm saying yes. (Although while I have the floor, here, Disney people: May I PLEASE request that you give girls more options for clothing/toys/merchandise for these movies? My daughter loves Lightning McQueen as much as her four-year-old brother and all I can find for her is Tinkerbell t-shirts. That just will not do.)

The prize package includes one youth t-shirt, three Cars 2 bumper stickers, two temporary tattoo sheets, and a puzzle.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I'll select a winner at random on Friday, June 24 at noon! Good luck!

Not that he's going to stop asking

And now, the best gift I can give to my father, who has asked me approximately 67,000 times whether I am going to "write on my blog" that living in his house has been horrible and awful and all manner of other vile things:

Dave and I are thankful, grateful, and very blessed to have parents (and in-laws) would would do this for us. We appreciate it more than you could imagine, and we are actually ENJOYING OURSELVES. (The free food helps.)

Happy Father's Day!

 (

MORE BIKINI

Apparently all I ever wore as a child were bikinis. Did you want photographic evidence? HERE. I HAVE A LOT OF IT.

And here is photographic evidence that children who wear bikinis go straight down the path of debauchery. 

It's not a ballet recital unless we have fishnet stockings, you know?

I mean, that is an ITSY BITSY bikini, you know?

So the kitchen is demolished and we've moved in with my parents for the foreseeable future. It's not half bad, actually – the kids are sleeping soundly in the same room together and there are lots of snacks and honestly, the biggest hardship so far is that my parents have a different cable network than we do and so finding my favorite channels has been more than a little bit challenging. Today the floor dude is supposed to deliver and begin installing the floors, and at the end of the week we are supposed to entertain visits from the plumber, electrician and drywall guy with the hope that next week we will have the cabinets and countertops installed. I am aware that construction and contractors are not known for making promises they can keep, so we will reserve the act of getting excited until something starts, you know, happening over there.

My grandparents are here visiting for the weekend and last night we had a little birthday party here at my parents' house for them (they turned NINETY within a month of each other) and somehow (GOD ONLY KNOWS) the dinner conversation turned to all the furniture we've seen pass through our houses in the last 30 years. I can, with PRECISION, remember every single couch that my parents have owned since I was born, and my parents are not the kind of people who become attached to furniture and keep it around forever – when my mother tires of something, she donates it to someone who can use it or sends it into the basement for the kids to jump all over and then she gets herself something new. This is how I want to live, actually – I am one of those people who is pinned down by the guilt that comes with buying something that I end up hating and desperately want to get rid of but feel compelled to “get my money's worth.”

(Current status of this guilt: DISHWASHER.)

After we had the couch discussions and everyone went home, I waited for the Tartar Sauce Lady to come on TLC and felt compelled to find photographic evidence of Couches We Have Loved: A Retrospective. It was only in the morning that I discovered THIS:

OH YES SHE DID.

First up: Blue and brown flowered couch. My parents had it before I was born, and I remember it being scratchy and kind of uncomfortable. We had this couch for YEARS – like, at least 10 years, but I don't have any super strong memories associated with it, even though we took a bazillion pictures in/on/around it for at least the first third of my life. Only a small portion of those were of me topless, I assure you.

I mean, YOU GUYS. Did they not invent sunscreen until 1984 or something? Or maybe it wasn't available in West Virginia?

We moved to Ohio when I was six and I think the blue and brown flowered couch became the Good Living Room couch (you know, the one you're not supposed to sit on?) and the couch we used in the Regular Living Room was the couch we'd had in the basement in our old house. At this point, all couches in the entire house are equally hideous, so I'm not sure why we didn't just cram them all into the same room and USE them, as there was no point in distinguishing either of them as “The Good Couch.”

All I'm saying is, furniture today could really benefit from some wooden armrests. Do you HEAR ME, Pottery Barn?

Also, we naturally had a matching chair:

OH HA HA HA THAT DOES NOT MATCH, LIKE, AT ALL.

When I was eight or nine, some friends of my parents moved from Ohio to California and at the time their daughter was going into her senior year of high school, so my parents let her live with us to finish out the school year. Free babysitting RIGHT THERE IN THE HOUSE was a totally genius move. And then one morning my parents went out to buy a NEW couch and left my brother and me in the house with a sleeping high schooler and I barfed ALL OVER THE FLOOR and I begged my brother to go wake up the babysitter and HELP ME except he was TERRIFIED OF BARF (this is a kid who couldn't look at pee in a toilet without gagging) (EVEN HIS OWN PEE) and wouldn't step over it so I just laid in the floor crying while my brother laid on the (soon to be replaced) couch crying and that's how my parents found us both when they came home two hours later.

They'd bought this while they were out. I ask you, was it worth the TRAGEDY they left behind?

This couch was our first SECTIONAL couch and it was ENORMOUS and also nubbly. And it apparently had some sort of superpower that wouldn't allow cameras to focus on it because that photo up there is super fuzzy (not that I want you to see sixth-grade me in full focus) and here's the only other one I could find of it, SIMILARLY FUZZIFIED. 

That's my dad, eating McDonald's on the couch with our dog Odie and our cat Missy - the cup says SUPER SIZE and it looks like some sort of... I don't know, wing basket? What IS that he's eating? Actually now I'm thinking maybe that food isn't something he bought at McDonald's; maybe we were the kind of family who saved plastic cups from fast food establishments and used them as dinnerware. 

Then we moved to Virginia when I was nine and look what became our regular everyday couch all over again!

Here I am on my tenth birthday, wearing what I remember as my VERY FAVORITE SWEATER (it had a matching skirt; here I am wearing... sweatpants) receiving dollhouse furniture as a gift. I did not own a dollhouse. I do not appear to be at all puzzled by receiving furniture for a dollhouse I didn't have, because I am an idiot. (The dollhouse was the final gift and was already assembled in my bedroom and I had no idea.) Nubby couch was moved to the rec room in the basement.

I never missed any of these couches once they were given away or repurposed, but I can tell you that I am still bitter, ANGRILY bitter, over the fact that these monsters I call my parents would give away our rocking chair. I loved that rocking chair. We used to spin in it and read in it and now it is in a LANDFILL SOMEWHERE. I don't know if I can ever forgive that.

Please do tell if you also have devoted way too much head space to remembering what kinds of cushy surfaces you have placed your rear end on for the majority of your life.

Cure AT/RT Now

I got a bunch of emails and comments after my last Huggies post wondering how the Mandells are doing. Do you know how happy it always makes me when someone asks? It reminds me of those few months in 2008 when Emily was able to get the best oncology care in the country because of the generous nature of the Internet and everyone who donated, sent encouragement, and prayed for this family. (For those of you who might be new around here, the backstory is here.)

So I already wanted to post an update on how they're doing, but then I went and ran a half marathon with Katie and her sister, Christie, over the weekend, and now I want to post something about them even MORE, because honestly, they are some of the kindest, most thoughtful and genuine people you could ever hope to meet and I just love them to pieces and am so completely blessed to have them in my life (so corny sounding, but so true). It turns out Brian is gearing up to ride in the Pan-Mass Challenge in August - a 192-mile, two-day bike ride. I will pause here so that you can take a moment to appreciate the challenge that is riding a bike for ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO MILES.

Brian has been raising money for cancer research since shortly after Emily passed away in 2009 – he has run the Boston Marathon twice now, but he's switching gears to the Pan-Mass Challenge because it will allow him to donate the funds he raises directly to research for AT/RT, rather than just cancer research as a whole. I mean, any money going to cancer research is wonderful and fantastic and obviously needed, right? But this is a personal thing for Katie and Brian. Their daughter died from an extremely rare, EXTREMELY aggressive kind of cancer that only affects children, and has a 10 percent survival rate. AT/RT isn't a “big name” cancer – it is diagnosed in something like 30 children per year – as a result, it isn't going to attract crazy kinds of funding like breast cancer or colon cancer does, so Brian feels personally responsible to raise as much money as he can in his daughter's honor, to make sure other kids get a better chance at fighting it than Emily did.

Here's the text from his fundraising page:

“My name is Brian Mandell and I am riding in memory of my beautiful daughter Emily. As many of you know, Emily was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive brain tumor in March of 2008 when she was just 15 months old. We made the decision to leave our home in Virginia and have her treated at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston because of the amazing work they do. Unfortunately, we lost our beautiful and brave daughter in March of 2009, but remain committed to fighting this horrible disease called AT/RT.

Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid tumors (AT/RT) are a rare, malignant cancer, usually diagnosed in the early childhood years. These tumors tend to be very aggressive and frequently spread through the central nervous system. While more children have survived AT/RT in the last five years as compared to pre-2002, this disease remains a tremendous challenge for our families and oncologists. Much has been learned about the underlying cause of AT/RT; the genetic mutations involved have been identified. But the overall survival from this deadly cancer remains low, too low.

In March of 2009, Dr. Susan Chi and Dr. Mark Kieren, two of Emily’s primary oncologists, started a fund at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, called "Cure AT/RT Now" that has been used as a source of funding for AT/RT specific research and the planning of future therapy strategies. Since 2008, about $400,000 has been raised for the Cure AT/RT Now fund, and this money has supported some very important research projects. While progress is being made, more needs to be done…and I hope you will help me endeavor.

In 2009 and 2010, I ran the Boston Marathon raising money for cancer research in honor of Emily. Many of you helped me then and I hope you will support me again as I ride in this years Pan-Mass Challenge. My goal is to ride 192 miles raising money for ATRT research. I am doing this for Emily and for all those tiny warriors still fighting this terrible disease. Please support my ride.”

I wanted to post this here because I know there are so many of you who still think of this wonderful family and were touched by Emily's fight. I wanted to make sure that if there was anyone who felt led to give, that they would know exactly how they still could.

Katie and Brian thank you, and so does Emily's new little brother, Nathan, who is now almost six months old and positively thriving. (COULD YOU JUST DIE FROM THE CUTENESS?) They're loving being his parents and are looking forward to the school year ending so they can be home with him as much as they can.

For comparison, here's a photo of Emily at Nathan's age - how much does that kid favor his big sister? I can barely tell them apart!

I also want to add that Brian is holding a raffle for anyone who donates $25 to his ride:

“For every $25 you donate we will enter one ticket with your name on it. Grand Prize is an iPad2 16GB Wi-Fi, second place is a $50 iTunes gift card, and third prize is an autographed picture of me in my bike shorts! Tickets will be drawn on 8/7/2011 after the race. All donations go directly to Cure AT/RT Now, for Emily, for all the other angels, and the warriors still fighting. For those of you who have already donated to my ride you are automatically entered in the drawing. Please share this event with your friends so we can make a big impact. Ride on baby!”

Does the autographed bike shorts picture not KILL YOU? Hilarious. I love it.

If you'd like to donate to Brian's ride, you can do so here. Thanks so much for reading, you guys. And if you want to leave a comment for Brian and Katie, you can do so on this post. They would love to hear from you. 

Tomorrow I am eating a very large cheeseburger to reward myself

In the category of News That Has Me Quite Relieved, I ran a half marathon on Saturday! Don't get me wrong, I love running and I love training, but I love training because it keeps me focused on a goal and keeps me motivated to get out there every day and get better. It doesn't mean I am always super enthused about MEETING that goal. It wasn't that I was dreading the actual race so much as the fact that it was impossible to turn off the part of my brain that THINKS about the race until after it was over. So now it IS over and I ran it five whole minutes faster than I ran my last half marathon, and I am a little bit angry that there was a two-minute traffic stop between miles 12 and 13 where I had to just STAND IDLY AT AN INTERSECTION while CARS DROVE BY and a policeman gave us a little bit of attitude for not liking the part of a RACE where we had to STOP RUNNING and STAND STILL and maybe CRAMP UP because that would have given me a time difference of closer to seven minutes and I WANT THOSE TWO MINUTES CREDITED TO ME, PLEASE.

(Not bitter. Not bitter. Not bitter.)

If we are going to be technical about it, I would also like the two-ish minutes back that I lost at mile six, when I decided to make a very quick pee stop, and ended up having a crisis of sorts inside the port-a-potty where – after I'd already gone in and locked the door - I turned around to find (I'm sorry about this, Weak Stomached Among Us) a rather enormous blob of poo on the back of the toilet seat. Like, super gross runner poo. And I had this two-minute wrestling session with myself over whether I could actually use the bathroom without getting any of that poo on myself and then realizing that even if I DID, that I'd have to be seen leaving this particular port-a-potty, and risking that the next person who went inside would think I'd been the Poo Fairy. Things I didn't want to do involved leaving the port-a-potty with my hands in the air, loudly declaring that it certainly wasn't ME who defiled the toilet seat, because that seemed somewhat less than classy and also there was the very minor chance that no one would be waiting to use it after me, so I'd look like a big stupid idiot for announcing it to absolutely no one in particular. This was a hard decision to make, you guys.

Anyway, what ended up happening was that I managed to pee, quickly, and then I Purelled myself up to my elbows and continued on my way, and refused to make eye contact with the person who was, NATURALLY, waiting to use it right behind me. GAH. Perhaps that's exactly where I shaved five minutes off my time? RUNNING AWAY FROM ACCUSATION? But TOWARD wine - they handed out little cups of apple wine at mile 10 and it was DELICIOUS, partly because it was about 20 degrees colder than the water they'd been handing us.

It feels good to be done and it feels good to have done well, and I'll leave it at that. I'm hoping to do a little more swimming this summer instead of all running, all the time, but I am a little nervous about infiltrating the Adult Swim sessions at the pool. I've noticed that the people who swim at the Adult Swim sessions are either A) SUPER elderly, or B) taking themselves VERY SERIOUSLY and gearing up with swim caps and two suits (for drag) and looking very irritable about sharing lanes with other people and I'm not sure I'm cut out for learning a whole new system of exercise. Running is so EASY, you just... run, and if you need to pass someone, you do it and then you never have to see them again. But swimming... I mean, swimming with people you know is one thing, but with strangers? I mean, if you pass somebody in a pool, chances are you're going to have to pass them again and again and again, because it's not like this pool is three miles long, you know? I wonder if it gets awkward. I am the WORST at awkward, because when I feel awkward I just keep talking, and talking when someone wants to just keep SWIMMING... well. I don't know if I'm cut out for it, but I DO want toned arms, so it might be worth a try.

Also, did you like how I just assumed I'm the world's fastest swimmer and will be passing people LEFT and RIGHT and how AWKWARD it will be for them when I do? I don't know what came over me there. Seriously, I haven't swam more than six laps in a row since 1997, you guys. And 1997 was a very long time ago and I swam those six in a row during a college swim class where I was singled out by the instructor and asked to demonstrate how to cheat at backstroke. HOW TO CHEAT AT BACKSTROKE. Which technically, I was really good at doing, because I hate backstroke, but it was kind of humiliating, the part about how the instructor knew the whole time and asked everyone to climb out of the pool and stare down at me while I DEMONSTRATED. About as humiliating as you can get, really – extra humiliation points awarded because I was in a bathing suit and swim cap.

It occurs to me that our seven-year-old oven has never been... ah, cleaned. Oops.

So. Impulse buying, right? Some people can't leave a store without a pair of shoes they fell in love with. Other people just go for magazines or candy bars at the checkout. Dave once had a boss who impulse-bought a Porsche on a donut run (true story). But it turns out that Dave and I tend to impulse buy... OVENS. OMG, we are SUCH DORKS.

This story wouldn't be amusing in the least except that we are repeat offenders. Did you catch that? We have bought an oven, on an impulse, and we have also done it ANOTHER TIME. We have bought two ovens, ever, in our whole entire lifetimes, and both were purchased very much in an OH, WHY NOT kind of way. Appliances are the TOTALLY the new US Weekly.

The first time this happened was probably seven years ago. We needed to replace the aging washer and dryer that came with our townhouse (the one that always sounded like we were washing rocks instead of what we were REALLY washing, which was soft, quiet laundry), and Sears was having one of those deals where one appliance is 15 percent off, and two appliances are 25 percent off, and buying THREE appliances gets you 30 percent off, and we weren't going to take home an oven at all, OR EVEN LOOK IN THE GENERAL VICINITY OF OVENS, except that we started thinking that we'd eventually need to replace it, so... eh? WHY NOT? Throw an oven in there, too, will you?

And then we did it AGAIN over the weekend. We went into Sears to purchase a refrigerator for our Brand New Kitchen (demolition starts next week!), and we walked out with a receipt and delivery slip for a fridge, an over-the-range microwave, and hey! A NEW RANGE to go UNDER the over-the-range microwave! We were only going to buy the refrigerator and the microwave, and come back in a few more months to buy a new dishwasher and oven to match (I'll get to that part in a second) but once I pointed out that two separate purchases would equal $160 in delivery fees, the sales guy said he'd throw in the delivery for free if we added the oven NOW. So we were all, eh? WHY NOT? Let's get the oven too! And they were all 30 percent off, which we felt was a decent price for stuff we're just going to sell along with the house in a couple years.

So now we are the proud owners of three stainless steel appliances. Eventually we will own four of them, whenever we feel the need to replace the dishwasher. (“Feel the need” is code for “when we have the money to buy one.”) Maybe you guys were around when I asked Twitter for advice last week? We were on the fence about whether to replace our fridge with a stainless steel one, or just a black one to go with our existing oven and dishwasher. We decided on stainless because we think A) it will raise the value of the property, and B) will likely generate more interest from buyers. Dave and I both agreed that a real estate listing showing photos of a kitchen with granite and stainless steel appliances would generate more showings and general interest than black appliances would.

And at first we felt almost guilty replacing perfectly good appliances, but by the time we sell our house our current oven will be closer to 10 years old anyway. So we'll try to sell it, and if we can't sell it, we'll donate it to an organization that can use it or give it away to someone who needs it. It irks me that the non-stainless house has a stigma attached to it, BUT IT DOES (you've seen House Hunters), and as much as Dave and I do not personally care whether our dishwasher is shiny like the forks we put inside it, and care more about whether or not those forks get CLEAN, other people like it to the point where it can make or break a sale and we are pandering to those Other People right now. We want to get as much money out of this house as we possibly can, because we would like to move to one of those houses with a yard and a basement, possibly even one of those houses that isn't attached to other houses, like ours might be, with the guy next door who plays Bruno Mars songs on his keyboard at odd hours that we can hear through the walls. (“I WOULD CATCH A GRENAAAAAAADE FOR YOOOOOOU!”)

I took some before pictures of the kitchen over the weekend, right before we packed up 85 percent of the contents of our cabinets and ripped the wainscoting off the walls. Demolition is happening either this Sunday or next, and we are going to live with my parents for a couple of weeks while everything happens (HA HA HA SUCKERS), because we only have two rooms downstairs and while the kitchen is being ripped to shreds with sledgehammers, the living room will be packed with all the crap we had to get out of the kitchen, like, oh, our table and chairs and all those aforementioned appliances. That leaves the kids approximately three square inches of room in which to fight over two identical Thomas trains, so... yeah. No thanks. Living with my parents will certainly be an adventure, but one I will happily HAPPILY take on. I am going to have a new kitchen! You are all invited over for the big housewarming party I'm going to throw when its finished.