The Good Thing

New Selling Point for our townhouse:

Did 'ya know if you turn the heat off in the dead of winter to keep the skunk smell from being sucked through the house, you can test just how well this house holds heat? Well, I'll be damned if the house only got down to 61 degrees with the heat off for 9 hours! Now that's a sound building!

We have an appointment for someone to see the house tomorrow night and the night after. Please, please, please cross your fingers that the skunk smell is gone. Really gone, not just covered up with lots of nose-burning candle fragrances. But come on! Only 61 degrees in the dead of winter! That's got to count for something!

Skunk Custard & Cherry Jubliee

Yep, that's what my house smells like as of this evening. Like the nastiest dessert ever created.

Want to come over?

Yep, I don't blame you. Damn skunk.

We've Been Skunked.

There are few disadvantages to living in a community that backs up to a forest preserve. It's fairly quiet, it's fairly beautiful, and it's fairly full of critters. I don't mind critters...usually.

Because of the forest preserve, we have an abundance of feral cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I love animals of all kinds... feral cats may be the one exception to the rule. Oh, and skunks.

Our lovely neighbors feed the feral cats, who then sleep in our driveways, on our porches, shit under our deck and pee in my flowers (when they aren't eating them). We see nary a cardinal or squirrel because the damn cats eat them. Last summer, a goose was hit by a car and somehow made it into our neighbor's driveway before expiring. The cats dragged it into the backyard and had a feast of it all. Feathers and goose carcass everywhere. Lovely. But when you aren't dealing with all of that, we have skunks who love to eat the food the neighbors leave out for the feral cats. And I don't know about you, but I'll take a raccoon eating cat food over a skunk every time. Here's why:

We have 2 dogs. Skunks are fast. But they have this lovely flag of a tail that makes them incredibly noticeable to a dog that wants to chase something fun and colorful. Our lab mix was sprayed 3 times this summer, once directly in the face, and pretty much smelled like a skunk for the entire season. You can wash a dog's body, but you can't get that damn smell out of it's membranes. She reeked. Our other dog is always on a tie-out, since she is the notorious feral cat-chaser, so luckily, she just smells like wafts of skunkiness when the other dog gets sprayed. I'd take a big fat raccoon tearing apart our garbage on a weekly basis versus a skunk any day- you can sweep up garbage, after all.

Last night, in the dead of winter, we got skunked. Not the dogs, mind you, but the house. The house we are trying to SELL. About 11pm, the holy hell of skunkiness made it's way up through our vents, to the point where we began to investigate if a skunk was IN our house. We turned off the heat to stop the sucking of nasty air through the house, checked the window wells to see if a skunk became an unsuspecting prisoner, and peeked through every window for a sign of a skunk. Nothing. But, oh nasty, does it smell like skunk. Our best theory is that a skunk was either hit or attacked or just plain ol' pissed off somewhere near the sewer line that our sump pumps dump into. And that lovely perfume just worked it way up to our basement and all through our house.

Now, I hope that skunk isn't dead and sitting in some spot that is going to KEEP permeating our sewer line with it's stink. I certainly hope it trotted off, proud of itself for smelling our house, and probably all of our neighbors, to holy hell. For the love of GOD, what do we do now???

I'm off to the store to buy some cookie-smelling candles for each floor. I've opened the windows, because the outside smells like heaven compared to the inside of our house. Yes, it's freezing outside, but freezing can be fixed- skunkiness is a much more serious problem.

If someone calls and says they want to see the house tonight, I may just die. Who wants a skunky house? Anyone have any ideas on how to de-skunk it other than windows and candles? Should I just bake until I can't bake anymore, so our house smells like chocolate covered skunkiness? Help!

A Bottle Of Sunshine

My son has a cd of kids' tunes from "Jack's Big Music Show" on Noggin, and thankfully, I like the songs. We get in the car and immediately he says, "Can we yisten to MY music?"

One of my favorite songs is called "Bottle of Sunshine", by the band MilkShake and if it weren't on the kid's cd, it could truly make it as a pop feel-good song. A one hit wonder, maybe, but fun and happy. I like it a lot and find myself singing it around the house while doing mundane chores. But it got me thinking- how often do feel-good songs make it? Don't people prefer the down and out songs, the heartbreakers, the angst and depression-filled melodies that tend to top the charts? I know I like those, too, but being a relatively happy person, I tend to prefer the happy songs. Am I the exception to the rule?

I started thinking about this, and I think maybe I am. I began thinking of my friends, my family, my acquaintances, and thought, "Oh my, I'm a freak!". My family is full of alcoholics and people who just can't seem to contribute to society on a regular basis. They can't hold jobs, they can't handle stress, they look to a bottle to fill the void. Thankfully, my brother is the exception to the rule, somehow being given the upbeat, good humor genes. Thankfully, I can also call him one of my best friends. Don't get me wrong, I have dark and unhappy moments, but for me they are just that- moments. I don't suffer from any medical issues other than insomnia, I've suffered several losses in my family in the last few years, and I have a somewhat stressful job, especially when you consider I don't get paid for it, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm pretty lucky. I'm flat out happy. Sans medication.

My friends are all over the place on the happiness scale, with several being "the world can't beat me" kind of people who fight to keep their heads above the water when things are thrown at them, and several needing medication to make it through the day. I only have 2 friends that I can think of that, no matter what is thrown in their face, they are still happy, still optimistic, still of the mindset that everything happens for a reason. Maybe this is why they are some of my closest friends, because I can easily identify with them. Or maybe they can identify with me. Who knows. One of those friends has the same sort of family that I have, and on top of it, her mother is dying of cancer. And yet, she is strong and happy and breaks down only when she reaches a breaking point, and then she dusts herself off, and climbs back on the horse of life. She amazes me. I have friends who think the smallest set back is the end of the world, and friends who forge ahead over whatever giant speedbump life sets in front of them. I have friends from every walk of life and with every interest you can imagine, and I love them all. But I can only imagine some of them being able to tolerate "Bottle of Sunshine." I imagine that some of them would yank the cd from the dashboard and fling it out the window.

Am I a freak because I am a happy, optimistic person? Maybe. Maybe I'm just lucky because, once I vent and get something out of my system, I'm fine. If I need to cry, I cry, and I'm done with it. If I need to scream, I scream, and I'm done with it. Very few things eat at me. I like to look forward to the life I will have and enjoy the life I have today- A healthy son, a strong marriage, good dogs (usually), and a job that, though it doesn't pay any of the bills, makes me feel fulfilled at the end of the day. I wish all my friends could enjoy a bottle of sunshine. Yes, maybe I am a freak that enjoys songs that are happy and upbeat and full of hope because I am happy. Maybe you can only appreciate happy songs when you are in a happy state of mind. I get that. And heck, I think I'd go see The Laurie Berkner Band in concert without my son right about now (ok, it might be better to bring him with), just because I like her happy songs as much as he does. If you enjoy happy music, you can watch some fun stuff here (warning- it's happy!.

For now, I'll leave you with a bottle of sunshine. I hope it lifts your spirits, one way or another.

Bottle Of Sunshine lyrics

Missing In Action- an overview

So, it's been some time since I've had the time or the desire to log on and write something here. I've been busy with a capital B!

We decided to start up house-hunting again, in hopes of getting some winter prices before the spring market gears up. So I went to see a few places with our realtor, and found one I REALLY liked. So we made an appointment to see the place on the following Friday evening with my husband, and all hell broke loose:

"Dawn! There are TWO offers on that house and they are going to decide TONIGHT. Can you guys come today to see the house????" Ummm.... sure, just let me call my husband and see if he can skip out of work early. Husband even contemplates putting an offer in without even seeing it because I like it so much. I refuse to let him consider that at all. Hello? I'm an impulse buyer. I need him to rein me in!

So we go and see the house, which my husband agrees is what we've been looking for. We make an offer- higher than what we planned, lower than what they wanted. They pick us and counter offer. We low ball again, knowing what number they really probably want. But, we are now under contract for a house. Ours isn't even on the market yet.

There is lots of scrambling, cleaning, rearranging, disposing as we schedule an open house for this past weekend, which went fairly well, but of course, we're still on the market. We've figured out how to swing the downpayment for the new house should we not sell ours, but we're hoping to god we don't have to do that. But we may.

If you've never had an open house with 3 dogs and a toddler, let me tell you, you need to break out the vodka and take a few swigs. Thankfully, my mom watched all 4 of them, but only for the night before. Therefore, I was cleaning until 3am, and back cleaning again early the next morning. Things you learn when cleaning for an open house:

- Dry Erase marker does not dry nor erase when streaked across the master bedroom carpet (cream-colored, mind you) an hour before your toddler leaves for grandmas.
-Spot Shot stain remover is a GOD.
- Fabric Softener Sheets removes toddler-sized crayoned alphabet letters etched into the newly painted basement wall.
- Fabric Softener ghost letters left behind after the crayon is removed do not remove as easily.
- Potty training during the course of trying to sell your house is pointless. Poop and pee ends up where it shouldn't, and you will have an ulcer from the stress of keeping a "spotless" bathroom.
- Chocolate milk spilled the on an upholstered chair the night before the open house is still visible the next day. You only hope the people are staring at all the cleaner things.
- You will clean and organize and paint and rearrange, only to say "why didn't we do this 5 years ago???"

I'm busy as hell. But we need an offer. So cross your fingers really hard. And your toes.

I'll try to keep you posted.