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A long time ago Nathan and I decided to buy a house.  It took us a year or so to find one horrific enough to buy, but we did.  We bought the worst house in an awesome neighborhood and we spent the next twelve years turning it into our own little palace.  We did such a good job that when I found a 4000 square foot dream home in our price range we sold our little palace in 24 hours.  One showing, one bid, done.

And so the nutmegs lived happily ever after in the six bedroom dream home with cathedral ceilings, french doors, open living space, gas fireplace, three full baths, two and a half car garage, floor to ceiling windows…

Not.

Crazy lady rescinds the sale, jerks who bought little palace won’t budge on the closing date, Nathan and Meg spend endless hours scouring the net for home they can afford and then Nathan finds it. 

The most dispicable home in all of Pennsylvania.

In the most delightful neighborhood in all of Pennsylvania.

And it’s cheap.

Really cheap.

And now it’s ours.

Here’s how I explain it to people:  If a famous person was the previous owner of this house,  it would have been Homer Simpson.  And he would have consulted Liberace on design.  

After we bought it, the realtor went through with a previously scheduled open house to which I sent my sister Jodi to check it out. 

Once she’d seen it the poor girl avoided me for hours.  She couldn’t think of anything nice to say.  When I finally cornered her, all she could say was, “I’m speechless.”

That bad.

The first floor had five rooms, all tiled in a different tile, each uglier than the next.

Most of the house was painted in one shade of puke gold or another with a ghastly faux finish including the kitchen cabinets.

The entire house was trimmed out in molding that you would expect to find in Versailles only it was cheap and ugly.  And some pieces were just missing.

Why try to tell you when I can show you!

A better shot of the spray-painted ceiling and check out the trim.

Groovy kitchen into family room.

Gold, Gold, and more Gold.

Speaking of trim…

And I haven’t even mentioned the outside of the house.  That’s a whole post of it’s own!  (Think rocket launch.) 

To be continued…

I know.  I’m incredibly sick of that prom picture too.  It wasn’t even a great prom.

And I’m the first on the left.  (The one who hasn’t posted in months.)

Why do I have that miserable look on my face?  Because my date was a dud. 

Albeit a very nice dud.

He gave me a desk blotter as a gift.

Enough said.

So I’ll be back full swing on Monday. 

Promise. 

The whole story.

With pictures.

Here’s a preview…

Don’t even try to think of something nice to write in comments - that’s a gold spray-painted ceiling you’re looking at.

To be continued…

Can you pick me out?

Check out my hot date!

Finn and I spend a good portion of our time together frustrated.  He says something.  I can’t understand it.  He says it again.  I get it wrong.  He screams in frustration.  I scream in frustration.  And if Rowan isn’t home to interpret, we return to our respective corners and sulkily eat chocolate.

Yesterday we had a moment.  Finn found me in the kitchen and said, “Me robbed the ligger.”

I made a mad dash to the bathroom hamper, dug under the stinky towels to find the vodka was still where it belonged and in tact. I asked Finn to try again.

“Me ropped the ligger.”

“Dropped?  You dropped something?”

“Yes.  The ligger.”

“What’s a ligger?”

And here is where my two-year old proved he is brilliant.  Hands on hips, eyes rolled to the ceiling because he has the thickest broad in the world for a mommy, Finn yelled:

“THE REMOTE!”

A synonym.  My brilliant kid found a synonym. 

Damn, that gene pool is good.

If anybody needs to find us after June 30th we’ve found a little alley off of Fifth and Arch that might be able to fit two large refrigerator boxes.  The space is occupied right now but we’re aggressive.

Last weekend fell short of spectacular: I discovered my new job was a huge scam to rob me blind, the crazy lady we bought a house from had a nervous breakdown and rescinded our sale, and my aunt’s legs stopped working.

I’ve spent the past three days at the hospital waiting for my aunt to be taken to emergency spinal surgery which finally happened last night and she’s resting comfortably today, hopefully with her mobility in tact.  Time will tell.  And yes, every time a nurse gives her that morphine I ask for some.  I’m so boringly predictable.

As for the job, que sera sera, which translates to mean life can really suck rotten eggs sometimes.  But I’m over it.  I’m not bitter.  Really.

And now, since we’ve sold our house and shall be homeless in approximately fifty-four days, we’ll be house hunting this weekend.  We do however have a backup plan to Fifth and Arch.  We live very close to a train station with a large parking lot.  We thought maybe we’d pay the fifty cents a day for a parking space and just put a POD on it.  We could even pay for two and put the kids in one.  Oh, Hell.  Let’s spring for three spots and we can have a little backyard.  We’ll park the grill and the swing set.  Maybe we could cut our rent down by stacking two PODS on top of each other.  Then we could have an upstairs and a downstairs.  We’ll just add a contingency to the sale of our house: sellers will need to use the bathroom for up to six months following closing date.  Problem solved. 

I think I’ll paint the downstairs POD a light blue - I hear it makes a small space look bigger.  With some pops of red, of course.

I’m nothing if not an optimist. 

The cup is only half empty because it’s vodka and I keep chugging it.

WARNING: very addictive!