avablog

It’s like things are picking up steam, and I know it, but I’m not willing to confront it.  I have this silly idea that somehow, some way, everything is going to get done with the move and the new house on time and on budget.  Go ahead.  Laugh if you want.  On the Internet, no one can hear you guffaw.

We have done a lot, actually.  The painters, plumber, and electricians are lined up, and I’ve scheduled with my brother to do some demo work on the existing kitchen counter before we have the new one put in.  Shades are ordered.  Stove is almost ordered.   Kitchen faucet is in hand.

Ava seems to be getting used to the whole moving idea, too.  We were looking at shade colors the other day, and she kept flipping through the short stack of color cards we’d given her and yelling, “This is for the living room, and this is for the bedroom!”  She has the hang of it.

I only hope we get a weekend like this upcoming one for the move.  Can we be that lucky?

I keep saying that to myself, over and over, but the number doesn’t sound any smaller.

EDIT:We chose the Blindsgalore double cell cellular shades, cordless.  There was a promotion on until yesterday that got us 20% off an order of $400 or more, and we ended up saving about $450 on the 20 shades we ordered.  Most of the windows are in the 27″ to 29″ width range, with the longest being 56″.  So nothing terribly wide.  I’m looking forward to getting them installed.

My dwarf irises. I know “dwarf” isn’t the politically correct term these days, but flowers don’t have ears.

Yes, yes. Nothing’s stopping me from planting irises at the new house, and I just might. But I’ll still miss these plants.  I could transplant them, but they seem so happy there.  There’s enough transplanting going on already.

Every spring for the last couple years, we’ve gotten sweet eating ants in our kitchen.  They invade for a couple weeks and then, after getting a bellyfull of the Terro I put down everywhere, disappear.  Whether they actually die or just start doing something else away from our kitchen, I don’t know.

I was looking at the Terro box the other day and noticed it’s bilingual now.  There, across, the front, it says, “Mata hormigas.”  I love it that one of the shorter words in the English language has three syllables in Spanish.  Webster says ant came from Old English.  I wonder what hormiga’s past is.  Too bad I’m not related to any graduate students in Spanish….

Ava was in bed with us this morning about 6:30 as we were getting ready to roll out of bed.  She was just kind of playing around and chatting to us and to herself about nothing in particular.  Then, out of nowhere, she rolled towards Leah and said, “You have sweet nipples.”

Leah broke into laughter immediately.  I was a bit taken aback.  Mostly, I was surprised that of all the lurid, semi-porny things I’ve said in my life, I can’t recall ever using that exact phrase.  Ava’s connotation of “sweet” here, obviously, isn’t the teenage boy “I-just-jumped-my-bike-over-a-creek” kind of sweet, and I’m not sure if that makes the statement more or less innocent.

I was reading a blog post yesterday by an EMT who was describing the consequences of not wearing seatbelts.  He went into some detail about the various things that happen to a body when it goes from moving, say, 40 m.p.h. to 0 m.p.h in the space of a second.  There were obvious things, like hitting your head on the windshield or being ejected from the vehicle.  But there were less intuitive injuries, like internal organs being sliced in two by tendons as they rush to the front of the ribcage, or femurs being driven up through the pelvis.  It was horrifying to consider all the ways the body reacts to what the author called “free floating energy.”

I thought about this some more this morning in the wake of the insane shootings at Virginia Tech.  Before I was a parent, my reaction to tragedies like these centered mostly on the victims.  Think of what they lost.  Think of the things they’ll never get to do or see or be.

But today I find myself thinking of the parents.  How do you handle something like this, when your child’s life comes to such an abrupt, unexpected end?  What happens to all that love and pride and concern, when it suddenly has no attachment?  What becomes of all those memories?

Poom Poom shipped Ava a kite a couple weeks ago, and we’ve been waiting for a warm(ish), breezy day to give it a go. Today was the day.

It wasn’t just a good day to fly a kite. It was an awesome day to fly a kite. Near perfect. Ava’s kite is a little ladybug that has a special bow on it that vibrates and buzzes when the wind hits it. It’s a lot of fun.

I was sitting at my desk today when the phone rang.  I’d barely said “hello” before I heard Ava’s sweet little voice say, “Hi!  I went poop in the potty!”

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Leah and I have very different taste in music.  This Friday, my brother and I are meeting Kevin up in Decorah for a Kurt Elling show.

I understand that Kurt is not to everyone’s liking.  So be it.  I don’t listen to much Top 40.  I’m looking forward to the show.  Leah recently got us tickets to a Greg Brown show here in Iowa City, which is nice.  We’ve seen him a number of times at a benefit he does in Decorah for Seed Savers every year, which is an amazing show, but it’s gotten way, waay too big.  I like Greg’s music, but an Iowa City show is going to be mobbed.  Not my scene.

When we picked up Ava at daycare the other day, she was running around her room in big circles with all the daycare workers and the other kids, country music blaring from the CD player above the changing table.  Country.  Whew.  So much about having kids is about letting go.  I suppose this is another of those trials.

Mark always swears that, for one disconcerting moment, he thought the surgeon had pulled a miniature version of my father from my abdomen during Ava’s delivery on September 17, 2004. He says that Ava looked just like her “Poom Poom” (the name my father actually WANTS Ava to call him) in those first few seconds after birth, and she does, indeed, look like one of us Klevars, with round, full cheeks to prove it. Now it turns out that Ava’s also inherited the Klevar gift for gab, proudly passed down from one generation to the next–father to daughter to daughter.

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We’re in Grand Island, NE, this evening.  I’m going to refrain some saying anything about Grand Island, other than that the restaurant we ate at this evening screwed me on the number of “drummies” that were supposed to be in my order of hot wings.  But it was a microbrewery, surprisingly enough, and their beers weren’t half bad.

Ava’s dinner consisted of lemon wedges (this kid loves lemon; I bought a container of that Realemon stuff, and Ava stands in the kitchen with her head tilted back and has me squirt it straight down her throat), baked beans, and the ripe olives off the frozen pizza the place was passing off as “homestyle.”  *sigh*  The Osborne porto I’m now sipping out of a plastic Holiday Inn room cup is easing the pain somewhat; don’t leave home without it.

Tomorrow we’re home.  Finally.  It was a great vacation, and it’s always nice to spend time with Rachel and Kevin.  I start the new job on Monday, and we’re getting closer all the time to moving into the new house.  So, things will keep moving along.

Kevin got a speeding ticket just as we were leaving Winter Park, and all Ava could say on the way across NE was how she hopes the police don’t stop Uncle Kevin again.  She keeps reminding us she’s 2 1/2.

I almost forgot to write this down, but it’s a biggie.

When we were at the Holiday Inn Express in North Platte on the way out, Ava and I took a dip in the pool. We’d been promising her she could go swimming, and there were times on the drive when it was the only carrot we could use to get Ava to calm down for another mile.

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So much for the Icebox of the Nation.  The high in Fraser today is going to be 51.  In Iowa City?  Thirty-six.  Looks like it’ll warm up a bit before we get back, but not a whole lot.  Spring.  Feh.  Go figure.

In case any of my loyal readers are curious about where we’re staying this week, here’s a link to info about Fraser, CO, co-claimant to the title of The Nation’s Icebox.

It’s been very nice while we’ve been here.  Mostly sunny, highs in the lower 50s.  Yesterday was a bit windy, but today’s much calmer.  This is pretty much the last week of the ski season up here, so things are a bit slushy and muddy.  But the scenery is gorgeous, and the beer tastes pretty much the same as it does down on the flatland.

Just got into our room a bit ago. It’s pretty nice. Here’s a shot from our window:

Ava never did nap today, and she spent the last couple hours of the day running around at her cousin Zack’s birthday party. You lucky registered users will get to see the fallout from that in a subsequent Moment of Cuteness post here in a minute.

Pretty uneventful day on the road. Before we left, I got my camera out of my bag and set it next to the driver’s seat, just in case. It wasn’t long before I saw something I wanted to get a picture of.

So, this guy buys a Navigator for God knows how much, and when he gets ready to take the family on a big vacation, how does he load the thing up? That’s right. Black trash bags strapped to the roof. Klassy.

Recent blog comments indicate I’ve missed posting about some recent developments. So, here goes….

First, the new job. I interviewed and was hired for a new position in my department, so I’m not going anywhere. It’s not only a new position to me, but it’s a new position in my workplace, and my first order of business will be designing the job I’m supposed to do. Scary and fun all at once. As a hint, here’s a piece of software I’m looking to evaluate.

The vacation: Friday morning we’re heading off for North Platte, NE, where we’ll overnight before driving on to Denver for Saturday night. We’ll attend a birthday party for a relative, then on Sunday morning sometime we’ll go on up over Berthoud Pass and end up in Fraser, CO, where we’ll stay for a week. Leah’s sister and her husband will join us Saturday evening and then join us in Fraser for the week. I anticipate a very nice time.

The house “matter” is progressing. We plan to close on May 24th and will actually move out of our place the weekend before. We’ll take possession on the new house May 28th and begin doing all sorts of stuff to it. We’ll move in sometime mid-June. I’ve got to start lining up moving help here soon….

So, that’s where we’re at.

Leah and I stopped by a local joint called The Blind Factory at noon today to look at window shades for the new house.  Leah spends a lot of time walking around in the buff, so shades are a top priority for her.  I’m a bit more modest, so I don’t see the matter as being quite so pressing, but we were near the store, so we stopped.

I’ll cut to the chase.  $3,000 seems like a lot of money to spend on window shades.  And these aren’t even top-of-the line window shades we’re talking about.  So we’ll look around online and see what we can find.  It’s bound to be less expensive than what we’re finding here in town.  Why does anyone even bother to open a shop like The Blind Factory anymore?  Tax shelter?

I’m closing up my old position at work in preparation for starting my new job second week in April. Also, I took a half day of vacation today to get the car into the shop and to meet a plumber and an electrician over at the new house for bids. We also had an appraiser come by to take a look at our current home so that our buyer can get a loan. Hope that turns out all right.

In the mail today we received some books on tape we ordered for our upcoming trip. Mouse Tails Tales and Frog and Toad. Oh, and the Frances books. I sure hope Ava enjoys them. I think we’ll try to hold off using them until things look desperate, if it gets to that point.

Tonight we’re off to dinner with friends. This vacation is going to be upon us before we know it….

Another crocus. Cool!

And the daffodils opened up this weekend, too. Nothing like a little warm air, sunshine, and rain to get the garden moving. I’m most excited about my scabiosa, which looks like it may have survived the winter alive this year for the first time. I can’t wait to see if it blooms.