For mama 

I'm on the hunt for a Boy Scout-esque group for the bean. Monst groups start at 3, but I thought I'd get a jump on things. I'd rather not have Henry involved in the Boy Scouts. There are the Spiral Scouts, which sound pretty cool, but there is no local chapter so I would have to start one. I'm also not Pagan, so I don't know if that would be a great fit. I would prefer something secular. Maybe we'll just do Roots and Shoots. At least I have about 7 months to think about it.

In other news, I got labels today. How very fancy pants of me. They ahve the logo and washing instructions on them. Now I just have to figure out how to sew them in without them looking dumb.

The sisters got back from Brasil last night. They got Henry a cool little t-shirt from a peace festival down there. It seems like they learned a lot about the political climate down there, it was really interesting. I can hear the shower going on upstairs. How much would you not want to go to work after spending 2 weeks on teh beach in Brasil. Yeah, I don't feel bad for them either.

My little nature boy. 

Apple blossom longies for mama. 

I just got back from rescuing Kyle from his hike. After a mile and a half of stright upward climbing, he threw in the towel and called me to go get his sorry ass. Anthony went on without him, a decision that Jess is thrilled about. It was bad enough that the 2 of them were going together, now he's all alone out there with the bears. Boys are dumb.

Snowflake longies Part II 

I had my meeting with the Mountain Housing Opporuntities (MHO) people yesterday morning. They had 2 programs to offer. One was very similar to the Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) program. The other was more of a work program. They have a big plot of land outside of town that they have divided up into 5 building lots. They will get 5 families to do cooperative building on all the houses. Each family has to put in 25 hours a week building the houses, and everyone works on every house. No one can move in until all of the houses are finished. In exchange for all of this work, they waive your down payement and sell you the house for about $45k less than market price-around $100k. You also have around $15k in equity immediately.

This program appeals to us in many ways: you work with your neighbors for months and months before you move in, so it is a true community, your mortage is affordable and you make a killing upon selling the house. There are also a lot of down sides: there is no clear time table for move in, it is farther away from town/work, that's a hell of a lot of work to put in while caring for a toddler and working full time, respectively.

We are going to have to sit down with a list of questions, get all of our questions answered and then figure out which program is the best fit. MHO has a waiting list for the NHS comparable program, so we don't know when we could get into that anyway. The MHO program is a bit better than the NHS program because they only want a $1k down payment, and the mortgage is almost the same as if we put down $5k with the NHS program. That would give us $4k more to put into savings. It is all very confusing and complicated. Lists clearly must be made.

In other news, I have officially started my grant writing class. I took the first lesson and took the first quiz and I kicked its ass with 100%. Go me!

Kyle and Anthony are going on their hiking/camping trip this weekend. Yesterday I brought Henry over their house to play with Noah and Anthony handed me a folded drinking straw with a huge grin and told me to give it to Kyle. I asked him what it is (a question he was clearly waiting for) and he revealed with glee that it was soap! He had lightened his pack by a whole .2oz by ingeniously pouring just enough soap into the straw and folding it up to carry! Wow! Amazing! He then told me that he had done the same with his toothpaste and other assorted items, and that Kyle should do the same. Should be a fun weekend. Except not. Anthony is clearly a Type A personality and Kyle...well, let's just say Kyle will probably be chucking some stuff into his pack approximately 5 minutes before we leave. I seriously doubt he will be spending his evening depositing minute amounts of various toiletries into pilfered McDonald's straws.

Jess and I are toying with the idea of having a slumber party while they are gone. Noah and Henry would have a blast and it would be fun for us to have a drink and paint our toes or something. We shall see.

Well, I just got back from my first housing appointment. It sounds like it actually might work out. The houses aren't that cute-they don't have any personality, but they are NEW and there are a lot of perks that come with that:

No unexpected repairs for a long time.
They come with all new appliances with 5-10 yr. warranties.
They are energy efficient.
The heating/cooling company is under contract to give you an amount your heating/cooling should cost per month. If it goes over that amount, they repay you the difference.
If we pick a house that isn't finished, we can pick cabinets, countertops, paint colors, etc.

The houses are 1250 square feet, 3br/2bath, with a full standing room attic, so we'll have plenty of storage. They are about $145k, but they put $45k into a 0% loan deferred for 30 years, so you don't ahve to worry about it at all until you sell it or pay off the first mortgage. So we'll have to get a mortgage for $100k and we'll only have to put $5k down which means we could actually get some furniture. Not that I'd spend $5k on furniture, but I'd like to go to IKEA and get a few things. AND, one of the best parts is that since they are putting $45k into the house as a deferred loan, that is way over 20% so we won't have to pay mortgage insurance at all. That will save us a ton of money. It looks like we can do this for about $700/month, which is less than we rented for last year.

We have a lot of people to talk to and a lot of hoops to jump through, but I am hopefull that this time next year we'll be in something decent. Yay!

Snowflake longies... 

Daddy and Henry got a new ride... 

Last night Henry only woke up once. I fell asleep with him on the evil futon of torture and woke up 2 hours later with pains in strange places. I snuck back into my comfy bed where I lay undisturbed until 6am. Woot!

We went for a drive on the parkway, but we were all a little crabby, so we didn't stop to take any pictures of the beautiful leaves starting to finally change. We decided we needed some fresh air, so we went to the Arboretum and walked around a bit. There were no flowers to speak of, but the little streams and fountains still had water in them, so Henry had fun running around trying to figure out a way to go swimming. Alas, he remained dry. We went on the trail for a while and collected a ton of acorn caps. I'm not sure what I'll use them for, but they'll come in handy some day, I just know it. Henry had fun searching for them and putting them in my huge cargo pocket.

We then returned home and decided to be brave and try the hole in the wall Thai place right down the street. It was awesome! The best pad thai I've had so far, I think. I guess sometimes it pays to be adventurous.

Tomorrow we are planning on waking up (Kyle waking up with the baby and me sleeping in, at least that's the plan. Henry will probably scream and cry until I finally give in and get out of bed, though. We'll see.) and packing a lunch to take up into the mountains for a picnic. I am going to ignore all of my knitting piling up around me and Kyle is going to ignore the paper he should write and we'll go get some fresh air. We can work on all of that other stuff during nap time.

Henry has decided that, out of all the kids' songs he knows, the only one with a religious tint to it is his absolute favorite. It is "Pharoah, Pharoah" by Billy Jonas. It is to the tune of "Louie, Louie" and goes "Pharoah, Paharoah, oooooohhhh baby, let my people go. UGH! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah". Interestingly enough, Henry only manages to get "Oooooooh baby, let me UGH! yeah yeah yeah". People in Target and the grocery store think that Henry is being raised on a steady diet of 2 Live Crew. We're going to have to work on that one...

Looking for acorn caps. 

Smooches? 

Walking around the rim of the fountain looking at all of the pennies. 

Mr. Independent takes some alone time to ponder the fountain. 

Running into mama's lovin' arms.  

Papa and the bean relax on the bench. 

On the bridge over the stream. 

Examining a leaf. 

Daddy bribes the bean with a Tootsie Roll Pop and the Teletubbies so he can comb the tiny dreads out of the back curls. 

A couple of apple hats I just finished for a set of 6 month old twins. 

Even with a nasty cold and a wailing, ear infected toddler, I rock the house, yo.

Yesterday I managed to wrangle an appointment with Mountain Housing Opportunities for next Thursday, the first step in getting us into an affordable house. Also? I signed up for a grant writing class at A-B Tech with their continuing education program. It is an online class that gives you all the info you need to start a freelance grant writing business, which is exactly what I had in mind. Perfect! It starts next week. I figure that after I take the class I can ask Erica or Adrienne to get me a couple of volunteer jobs for my portfolio. Then I will get my independent contracting paperwork done and blammo! Freelance Grant Writing here I come.

In other news, Henry woke up at 2:30 this morning and just went back to bed 45 minutes ago. I was trying to figure out how to get him back to sleep, finally gave up and put on last night's TiVoed 'The OC'. He was out before the end of the theme song. I should probably go back to bed myself, but then I'll just have to wake up again. I need to feed myself some breakfast. I think there's some leftover Halloween candy around here somewhere...

Well, last night was a giant suckfest. Henry's cold took a turn for the worse. When he started trying to sleep on his forehead so he didn't have to lay on his ear I knew something was wrong. When he started to scream "Ear hurt!", I was sure. I called the pediatrician as soon as they opened and lucked out with a 9am appointment opening. I loaded the bean in the car and off we went, yellow crusty nose and all. The problem with having a hot pediatrician is that it makes you self conscious when you show up with your crusty toddler with both of you still in pajamas. His perfect stubble and rollneck J Crew sweater mocked me. He confirmed that Henry did indeed have an ear infection in both ears, and said it would probably be 10 days before it went away completely. Ugh. I now ahve to drag the poor tired bean to Target to get his prescription filled and hopehopehope that he likes the chewable amoxicillin Rob prescribed because Henry doesn't do well with liquid meds. If anyone wants to send me massive amounts of chocolate, you know the address...

Henry has decided that he is a drummer. His favorite thing on Earth right now is to go to the pantry and take out an assortment of canned goods. He then arranges them just so on the step that goes from the kitchen to the living room. He gets 2 long Lincoln Logs for sticks and then he goes to town. He has talent for a 2 year old. If you put music on he can keep the time fairly well, and if there is no music, he makes up his own fills and things. He will go all down the row of cans with his drumsticks and then end with a cymbal crash at the end. You can tell that's what he's doing ebcause he always places the last can in the rown farther away so there is a pause: bada bada bada bada...bop. It's pretty cool. We had people over for dinner this weekend and he did it for them. They were very impressed. Kyle is talking about getting him a drum kit. I don't think so. Although I am sure that the sisters would love nothing more than to be awoken at 7am on a Saturday by the gentle sounds of a toddler and a drum kit, it ain't gonna happen. I think we should start with some cheap bongos or a drum pad or something. Maybe when we have our own house we can talk about it again. And if any drums show up this holiday season? Hell. To. Pay.

I took out my stash of bibs this morning because someone ordered some from the site. Of course they ordered the only one I no longer have in stock so I have to make one, but that is besides the point. Henry found the stash and cried until I agreed to put a blueberry patterned bib on him. He has been walking around with it on for about an hour now and refuses to take it off. He won't wear a hat, but the blueberry bib is comfy as hell. Hm.

In other strange boy news, Kyle has decided to go camping this weekend. On Mount Mitchell. Where they closed the Parkway because of ice. The hell? He and his friend Anthony are going to go hike about 15 miles up the mountain and camp on top. They are "fastpacking", which means they take as little gear as possible. They will be sleeping under a tarp instead of a tent and their stove is made out of a tin can. I suggested to Kyle that, since he hasn't hiked more than 2 miles in about 3 years and we haven't really camped in a long time that maybe they should not start with a 15 mile rapidly ascending climb to 6000 ft. in the middle of November. But he seemed to think their plan was perfectly logical, so I am looking forward to the story he comes back with Sunday evening...

Uncle J would be proud... 

Caboose longies I just finished for a trade. 

Happy Halloween hangover day! Last night went great. We met up with some friends who live next to the hoity toity part of town, so we met at her 950 square" house and walked the one block to the 3500 square" houses to get the good loot. I was kind of disappointed at how many houses kept their lights out, but then I remembered we are in the Bible Belt and Halloween is an evil Satanic holiday. Can you see my eyes rolling? The first few houses, Henry tried to push past the person giving out candy and go inside for the stash of the good stuff they bought telling themselves it was for the kids, but secretly hoped would be leftover so they could eat it all themselves. After a few houses he got the hang of it, though. At the local Bed and Breakfast, Henry had his choice between full sized candybars or pretzels. He took the damn pretzels. We'll have to go over the game tape for next year so he can learn from his mistakes. After about an hour we went back to our side of town to hit a neighborhood I've been hearing about all month. "Vermont Ave. is the place to be on Halloween", they say. "One house spent $200 on candy last year", I heard. So we went to check it out. It was everything they said and more. The sidewalks were packed and kids overflowed into the streets. Hipster adults showed off their cool DIY costumes they had been slaving over for the last 3 months. One house had their large side porch covered with a sheet, and from the street we were treated to a silouette show of some witches making a scary brew with ingredients that didn't want to stay in the pot. There were awesomely carved pumpkins and awesomely dressed kiddies. It was like the trick or treat scene from a movie. It rocked. Next year we will skip the fancy neighborhood and go straight to Vermont Ave. early, before the teenagers come out. That neighborhood reminded me of why I do love Asheville. It is such a great, fun, inclusive community. Now I just have toconvince Henry that no matter how many times he says "Trick or Treat", he doesn't get to eat Kit Kats for breakfast...

The real Ben Wallace... 

I know! The similarity is uncanny, isn't it???