Sweet Potato Zimbabwe Cookies in my new kitchen!!

So we've officially moved into the "she who must not be named's" house or Voldy as I like to call her. Apart from the lunatic who is apparently wanting to pay her own and my legal fees-- all in all it's a much nicer house than our rental if you can get past the ruined carpet from the fly by night dog kennel she was allowing to roam free through the house. I have an island in my kitchen -- woohoo!! Plus lots of cabinet space and a bedroom for each kidlet. And my dear hubby seems to be open to having one last baby in a few more years. The baby is growing so fast; she's walking and trying to talk and I'm not ready to leave the baby years behind…sigh.

Anyway, so I am sure you are thinking, "Wtf? Zimbabwe cookies?" my dear darling daughter chose Zimbabwe as her country for the little social studies fair tomorrow night. For the cultural part, we are doing food for people to sample complete with recipe cards These are Zimbabwe Sweet Potato Cookies with a lovely lemon glaze. They have lemon and honey and nutmeg plus a cup of sweet potato. The baby loves these cookies without the glaze. Next up in the morning I'm making crock pot peanut butter stew except instead of beef or lamb we're doing turkey. I'm betting the stew is going to be delicious.

Ok off to bed. There are four more days of school left.

The Picture of Breastfeeding

Don't you just love babies? My 1 year old crawls into the bathroom and insists on getting in my lap, and then she pulls my shirt up and helps herself as I have to go potty.

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Fingers Crossed!

I'm so nervous!  We have two showings of our rental house today.  I have to run in about 15 or 20 minutes while one of them comes to walk through.  The other one comes later this afternoon. 

The landlord came and walked through a little bit ago.  She told me I did a wonderful job of taking care of the house for her.  I thought that was sweet. 

Cross your fingers that one of these takes the house.  It would be such a load off our minds.  When we looked at it last year, we were the first ones to view it and turned in our application that very same day. 

June Cleaver I am not

Dear god, my landlord is coming over today to see "what needs to be fixed to rent the house."  Hubby and I are puzzled over this.  Does she think we're hoarders or something?  And she couldn't fix things before we moved in?  I think it took me about half a dozen phone calls to get them to fix the rotted mailbox post when we first moved in.  The mailman said we weren't getting any more mail until it was fixed because it was going to fall on his truck. 

So she's showing up any minute and I've cleaned like a mad woman on Friday and Saturday, so it all looks perfect.  The first people coming to check out the rent house is tonight.  Cross your fingers they take it, cuz we need someone to replace us so we can stop worrying.  

Anyway, we spent all weekend working on the new house.  Hubby and I are experts at replacing screens that have been ripped up by huge dogs.  And....I redid the back door weatherstripping all by myself - woohoo!  And then my dear husband taught me how to use the carpet cleaner my parents gave us. 

I think he had ulterior motives because I've been the sole carpet cleaner since Friday night now, lol.  However, it has been an ongoing battle to get the dog pee stink out of the carpets, and I think I finally have a lead on the battle.  When you walk in the house, the stench of urine no longer hits you in the face and that's from an unbiased source, lol.  Now...if you want to smell the pee, you must stick your nose directly in the carpet.  I was worried the smell was never going to disappear, but it looks like we can make it til next year's tax return or a bonus for hubby before we replace the hallway carpets with ceramic tile. 

And best of all?  We went stove shopping and I got one on Saturday.  My mother-in-law met us for margaritas and then we headed to Lowe's.  It's all electric (blech!) so we knew we wanted a flat top range.  But I was set for the cheapie ones until I found a black Maytag on clearance (the rest of the appliances are black).  It had a textured top so it hides messes better, and it has a hidden heating element in the stove which we could only find in the more expensive models.  We got a $600 stove for less than $500 and they  had one last one in the box so no floor model for me.  I'm having it installed tomorrow. 

Part 4 - Will this ever end?

Apparently not...she has just informed my husband that she is not signing any papers...ever.  Her idiot attorney told her that her name would just fall off the deed and mortgage to the house.  He is so dumb.  I cannot believe an attorney who claims to have been one for more than 30 years would tell somebody something so wrong. 


The mortgage company says he's wrong.  Our attorney says he's wrong.  Everything I've read about this exact issue says he's wrong.  So...I've come the conclusion that she has not told him the correct information, how else could he be so dead wrong? It's that, or we may have possibly found the two dumbest people on the planet. 

So who's ready for Part 3? We got the keys - er...not quite

Well, we got "a" key tonight.  The ex calls my husband this evening because last night he finally demanded the keys by Saturday. (I thought I was gonna have to shove a backbone in him, but he suddenly found his last night.)  She agrees to meet him to give him "the keys" tonight.  He arrives and she can only give him 1 key and 1 garage door opener.  She says she'll have to get the other ones later.  [Insert eye roll here] 

When you agree to give someone the "keys," that is plural -- meaning more than one.  I assume her loser of a boyfriend (cough, who she cheated with, cough) has them.  I don't know if this is her power play to maintain some type of control or ownership of the house in this situation, but that is not happening, not with my children in that home.  But it doesn't really matter as that will all be remedied tomorrow.

But that is not even the best part.  The best part is...she took the freaking stove with her!  Yes...the entire range!  Can you believe it? The house is just now 4 years old and amazingly since June of 2009 both the fridge and the stove quit working and she had to buy  news ones, so she's taking both of them with her.

The fridge I assumed she would take, but the f*ing stove?  Come on, lady!  I mean, she's living in her mother's living room.  Where is she going to put the stove?  I told hubby to ask her if she wanted to sell it. Well, before that, he asked what broke on the stove -- she couldn't tell him nor could she remember when it was replaced.  So she filed bankruptcy, I'm thinking she's hurting for money and would sell it to us.  Nope, didn't want to sell it either.  I'm thinking the stove never broke and she just wanted to give my hubby another kick in the ass.

At that point, he asked if she took the dishwasher and built in microwave too.  She actually chuckled and said of course they were still there, like he was crazy for asking.  Geez lady, who takes a stove out of the house -- it's not like if you rent a place it won't have one.

So after she told us she took the stove, we were imagining the worst like the entire house was stripped of everything.  I was terrified of entering the house to see what we were dealing with when we got there tonight.  But we arrived tonight, all 3 kids in tow, and...it was not as bad as I was afraid of.  Don't get me wrong, it's bad.  The carpet is absolutely disgusting.  I refused to put my baby on the floor tonight it was so gross.  She basically allowed whatever animals were living there to piss wherever they saw fit.  You walk in the house and the smell of urine just hits you right in the face.  One place they particularly loved to piss was right in front of the study's doors. 

My wonderful father is bringing his carpet cleaner and cleaning the carpets for me tomorrow night.  Thank heavens for my mom and dad.  They're coming all this weekend to help us clean it up.  Unless we go terribly into debt for this and I have to use next year's tax return to pay off the credit cards, I'm hiring someone to tile the living room and hallways.  I think that will get rid of any residual disgusting piss.  Our rental home is like that right now, with only carpet in the bedrooms, the rest of the house is completely ceramic tile and I love it and so do my allergies.