The one where my heart explodes

Hey! How are you? No, not you...You...Yes, you. How have things been? Anything exciting happening lately in your life? Say...you wouldn't happen to want to buy a house would you? It's a nice house in a great neighborhood. No? Oh well. You and nobody else either.

We have had NO showings on our house yet. I'm not quite sure why that is. I'm thinking that it might have something to do with the fact that our realtor is an idiot. A brand new idiot. He's so green that if he were an avocado he would be used as a projectile. He wasn't my pick. I want to fire him. I've wanted to fire him. A month on the market and no showings tells me that he's doing something wrong. But he works for Joe's best friend and so it's Joe's baby. When I decide that I'm going to do something, I want it done right away. I have no patience.

ANYWAY.

It's reached the time of the year where we are spending every weekend out in the woods. We broke down this spring and bought a used camper. It's perfect for us and it is very very nice to have. Now we feel like we have to make it worth our money by using it. All the time. I love to camp and don't mind getting dirty so that's ok. The boys love it too. Little Boy runs free with his friends and Teenage Boy (now AKA Mancub) explores. He's the coolest 14 year old. It's hard to gauge what he's thinking a lot of the time because he doesn't show much emotion. But he gets this twinkle in his green eyes that show how happy he is when things go his way. He's going to be deserting me for a few weeks this summer. He's going to San Diego for 3 weeks with Joe's oldest brother. It's going to be a great experience for him. I'm a little nervous about him flying by himself though. He just doesn't have much common sense it seems. He has an hour and a half layover in Seattle on his way home. I think he'll be smart. I hope.

*Recorded for posterity (and because the baby book is packed away)*
While camping last weekend

Little Boy: Here Mommy (handing me a wildflower), I picked this for you.
Me: Thank you sweetie
Little Boy: A beautiful flower for a beautiful mommy.

And then my heart exploded.

The hair...the song...the clothes (especially the jeans up to his nipples) and the dancing.

I spit water at my monitor. This? This is what I listened to when I was younger?

Where has the time gone?

Wow. It's been over a month since I posted? How did that happen? Where did the time go? All we've been doing is camping, cleaning, de-cluttering our house, landscaping, working, cleaning some more, de-cluttering some more, dealing with family tragedy, playing way too hard with our friends and listing our house to sell.

Oh yeah. So that's where the time has gone! So guess what! You get bullets! Woo-hoo!!

• The house is listed. The sign is going in the ground today. We have de-cluttered, touch up painted and landscaped. Our realtor thinks that it will sell very quickly. We stand to make $75,000.00 profit off of it. In 2 years. Amazing to me.
• We bought a little camper for ourselves. It's old (1986) and 19 foot but it's in great shape, can sleep all 4 of us very comfortably and everything works! We got a killer deal on it. And best of all? When it's raining in Montana and we're camping? Now we're dry! AND I don't have to pee in the woods anymore!
  
• My Uncle Al tragically lost a battle with cancer last Friday. He was my surrogate dad growing up. Since my bio-dad was nowhere around for most of my formative years, if I needed a daddy talk, my mom would call Uncle Al. Even though they lived 1000 miles away, I always knew that he (and my Aunt Gwen (my mom's sister and Al's wife)) would be there in a hearbeat if I needed them. I always knew how proud they were of me. That's a great feeling to have. He was diagnosed at the end of March and went very quickly. Teenage Boy and I leave tomorrow morning and are driving to South Dakota for the funeral. We come home on Monday. It's going to be horribly sad but, through it all, I know there will be lots of laughter. That's just the way my family is. We make sure it's all about the good memories intermingled with the tragedy. And one thing my family knows well is tragedy. My cousin lost her husband 2 years ago. This is her dad. It sucks.
  
• Last but definitely not least, Teenage Boy graduates from 8th grade today. I can't believe it! I just keep remembering him in his little frog shorts and t-shirt on his first day of kindergarten. He was so stinkin' cute and still is. I'm very proud of him! He turns 14 on Saturday and I'll be 31 on Sunday. Amazing how time flies.
  

OK, I've got a ton of stuff to do before I leave. I'll update more from the road, I'm sure.