A warning for my gaming friends. Check this out.

I came out of the shower, having left my game running while I was away. I kept clicking on the window, trying to make it do something… anything. I’m like, “What the hell, why is it crashing?” Tried to move the window, clicked on the close button – nothing.

I turn around and there’s my hubby with a smirk on his face.

My game was minimized. He had taken a screenshot, and I was trying to click on a desktop background, lol!

Be warned, it could happen to you!

This is my “sunroom” on a not very sunny day. I envision two comfy chairs there for reading, and a houseplant that I’ll try not to kill, my desk to the side, and my bookcase. We have some unpacking to do before I take any real pictures of this apartment, but here is the view from our living room, the woods, a ravine that I hope Dylan won’t fall down, and some snow? The snow I was hoping to leave behind in Michigan. But it’s just a dusting, we’ll live.

We’re here. I’m sore as all heck, even though we hired movers. I feel like I just ran a marathon or something. Which I didn’t. But even with movers, there was still a lot of cleaning involved, and a lot of carrying things out to the trash. I have a funny story for you – or not funny, but so tragic that you just have to laugh. It’s called, “Hubby Was Right.”

He said we should have the movers take the vacuum. I said, no, we’ll need to use it. He said, but it’s too big to fit in the car – we’ll have to leave it behind. I said, no, I’ll make it fit, just let me try. So he did. He let me try. I love him for that.

It was a Dirt Devil vacuum, the bagless kind, not a Dyson or anything, but not cheap either. It even got a second chance, sitting there with the boxes, and Dylan’s big blue bouncy ball. The movers said, the vacuum too? And I thought about it, I considered it, but I said, no, ummm, no, let’s keep that, we should probably do one last vacuum before we go. Take the ball though. So the movers took the bouncy ball. The bouncy ball got moved. Dylan is playing with it as we speak.

We have a Pontiac Vibe. There were a lot of things we should have packed on the moving truck – dirty laundry, my filing cabinets, more of Dylan’s toys. Pontiac Vibes are SMALL. The vacuum didn’t fit, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. Most of the stuff we thought would fit didn’t. Not just the vacuum. Old towels and toiletries. All of the non-perishable foods we thought we might transport. Worn out pans and plastic cups I honestly stole from TGI Fridays back when I waited tables there in college. It was just stuff we threw away – old raggy towels and a couple of new ones too, our pillows, all of our dishes we didn’t pack, things I’d stocked up on in bulk, like my favorite Caress Tahitian Renewal body wash, which I found on sale, 3 for $7.99!

But we managed to save most of everything that had any kind of sentimental value or monetary worth, which is the important thing. I told hubby, the stuff we threw away was mostly junk. And it was, just junk we’d accumulated through the years. We didn’t have to throw away anything that mattered. We sold the washer and dryer. We gave away the half-broken treadmill to two young ladies who worked very hard to get it up our basement stairs.

I only have two regrets. Dylan’s training potty, just weeks before we planned on potty training. We were waiting until after the move to start. And that damn vacuum. We could have just had the movers take the vacuum, but no, I insisted we could make it fit.

And the stupidest thing of all was that we didn’t have time to do one last vacuum anyway.

Part 1: driving through the mountains in the snow

Dear Pennsylvania, your bridge is crooked.

And then it started to snow! But it’s okay, we’re from Michigan and we can handle a little snow. We managed not to fall off of any mountains and Dylan was actually really good the whole way down. Can’t say so much for the way back up though, but you know, he’s two.

Look at those snow clouds!

And we made it into Virginia finally, greeted by a very pretty sunset

Part 2: sometimes when you order a hotel “suite,” you don’t really get a suite

Slumming it in our hotel room, with a toddler. This is not recommended. Our hotel “suite” did not come with a separate bedroom (this is what you get for being cheap, I suppose). Blah! But it did offer free internet.

The blue lollipop of doom!

Part 3: Fairfax is pretty, but hubby needs the blue Metro line

So we spent our first day looking in Fairfax, because it’s pretty and family-friendly. But ultimately, hubby needs the blue metro line. Sorry Fairfax. Dylan liked your park.

Dylan

My boys

Part 4: little boxes on the hillside…

So the funny thing is, all the pictures I took, and I didn’t actually take any of the place we chose to live, lol. We were exhausted from looking at apartments, and it was raining. We chose Kingstowne, VA, which is on the south side of Alexandria, near Springfeild.

It looks pretty generic, really. But nice, suburban, generic. I saw on a message board that somebody called it a “strip mall on steroids”. And it kind of is. Think Weeds, only not in California. You get your movie theater, your Panera Bread, and your pretty little overpriced box to live in. Lots of trees and hiking paths. Our apartment has a “sunroom” = oversized livingroom with a lot of windows, that overlooks the woods, which I love! And it’s within walking distance to the Metro, which was top in hubby’s book.

I’m growing on the idea though. We get to belong to this community, and have automatic membership to gyms and playgroups and chess clubs (lol), and our little town center has shopping and banks and restaurants. But I think it will be a nice, quiet, safe, generic place to get our feet in the door out there. I was honestly giving myself a headache with all the different suburbs there are to choose from. The metro DC area is HUGE!!!

So we’ll live in our pretty little box for a year, and then we’ll reevaluate. Maybe we’ll even love it there, but I’ve always favored more unique towns, which personality and character, like Old Town Alexandria

Part 5: Alexandria rocks

Downtown Alexandria is about a five-minute Metro ride from Kingstowne.

Downtown, where hubby will work.

Not sure if I’m allowed to say where hubby works and all… but dude, I was just taking a picture

Maybe nobody else finds this amusing?

Old town is my favorite

Pretty row-house spam

Outside some restaurant.

This theater totally serves beer and wine with the show! How soon can we get a new babysitter?

It was really windy. They don’t look amused!

The Potomac River from the bottom of King Street, and the bridge to Maryland in the background.

So I’m not sure if I would actually want to live in the city, but it sure is cool. And it’s nice to be able to hop on the Metro and get there in five minutes

Part 6: Pennsylvania mountain spam (because Michigan is flat as a board)

Men: they don’t say what they want or need, don’t say what they’re thinking unless you ask, and not even then sometimes. Instead, they just frump around acting all moody and sorry-for-themselves, because they expected you to read their mind, and then were disappointed when you couldn’t!

That was written out of frustration this morning (frustrated and kissed and made up), but I have to say, this pattern has held true for so many of the men I’ve known. Funny that my two-year-old, who also happens to be little man, has absolutely no problem telling me what he wants and needs. I wonder when it stops?

The most difficult character in my novel happens to be a man. (Danny and Hannah’s father, Nick) I don’t think he is my most difficult character because he is a man, but just because I don’t understand his motives. I think I understand the other men in my novel pretty well, even when they’re being stupid or immature or selfish or petty – I understand where it’s coming from, even if I wouldn’t act that way myself.

So what I’ve done is pushed him away (Nick). I divorced him from his wife, estranged him from his children. I made him as cryptic and unreachable to them as he is to me. Is that a cop-out? Will that work? It’s certainly made things a little more interesting. More complicated. It’s made them all a little sadder, which was needed, I think.

If he were a Sim, I would probably just kill him off, lol.

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 1

1274 words (plus a couple paragraphs in notes for a later chapter)

The scene I’ve been trying and trying to dig into this week is one between Danny and his father, so I hope I’m not stuck! Eeek, stuck on day two, lol

Blue plaid button-up shirt and green camo pants?

I still love my honey, even if he can’t dress my baby, lol!

Last night we had a huge, bird-sized moth in our bedroom! Ugh, I hate moths! And if you can believe it, my husband hates bugs even more than I do, so guess who had to kill the damn thing?!? Ah, the things we do for love…

Fess up Friday:

I haven’t done this in a couple weeks, as I’ve been mostly in reorganizing mode. Well, I’m organized now. 13 chapters have become 18. Seven POV characters have become four. And I am really very happy with the new shape it’s taking.

Hmmm, progress? I don’t really know how to update progress at this point, as there isn’t really the same marker of finished-ness as there was the first time through. All of my chapters are in between some state of sketchily written and second-drafted (one problem chapter is on its fourth or fifth draft, lol). So maybe I’ll just update on precisely what I’ve done in the week?

My second-draft of chapter 1 is being polished up for my writers’ group. Having lost Danny’s father as one of my POV characters, I ended up writing my first chapter from a seven-year-old Danny’s POV, which I was scared to try, but I think it actually turned out well. I wouldn’t want to write from a child’s POV for a whole novel, but just one chapter was a lot of fun.

And having lost their mom as a POV character as well, I’m rewriting my third chapter from Hannah’s POV, when she’s thirteen, and it’s fun to see how the exact same chapter told from a different POV can become so totally different!

I’ve been digging into Hannah a lot this week. She’s Danny’s little sister, and she’ll be between 12 and 18 for the span of the novel. (Danny, Lexi and Sam will be between 16 and 22) Hannah is strange and ethereal and sometimes explosive and very mature for her age. She’s fun to write

But then, I think all my characters are fun to write, because if they weren’t they would be boring

That’s all, really. It’s raining outside. Dylan’s being a surprisingly good boy these past few days. One of his cartoons, Avatar, is really pretty neat. Sims continue to be simmed. Huge and whiny and annoyingly self-indulgent books continue to be read, for some reason. Playing Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough” on guitar this week. Eating tortilla chips with cheddar cheese. All that, and killing giant pterodactyl-sized moths at 1:00 a.m.

First of all, this is not a recipe, because I am not a chef – I just throw stuff in a pan and sometimes it works.

Second of all, be warned if you try this, your hubby just might freak out as if you’ve just served him a slimy green alien on a plate, and you might have a five-hour fight about it! Because apparently eggs and tuna should NEVER be mixed.

But it’s good

Serves about 3-4 adults, or if your toddler eats like mine (doesn’t) it’ll feed him for a week!

stuff you need:
pasta
butter or non-trans fat substitute
can of sliced olives
can of tuna
2 small zucchinis
pepper jack cheese
cream cheese (lite is okay)
mayo (lite is okay)
milk (skim if you want)
2 very offensive eggs

what you do:
Cook your pasta, about 6 oz. of it. Sautee your zucchinis until their done, toss in your olives and your tuna, about 1/4 cup of milk (maybe a little more? enough to make it saucy) and 1/4 cup of cream cheese and 3 oz. of pepper jack cheese, a little butter (not too much), salt if you like it, mine is garlic salt because I put garlic in everything.

Oh, and you should be pre-heating your oven, about about 425 or something, but you already knew that because you’re making a casserole, duh!

Get your pasta and your saucy zucchini/tuna stuff and bung it all together in a casserole dish.

Get your two eggs, about a 1/4 cup of lite mayo, and 1/4 cup of milk, hand whip, no need to get too crazy. Pour it over the other crap, and it will kind of fall down in the cracks. Bake until the egg is set, about 20 minutes?

That’s all

Prepare for your hubby not to eat it, lol.