Signing Time!

A couple months ago I got an e-mail from Rebecca, saying Signing Time! was auditioning for some new episodes. We sent in our audition tape and found out that even with all of the nose wiping, they wanted Liam.

Last week they started filming, so we spent a couple days in front of the camera where some dude would say, “Now can you smile at the camera, Liam? Can you smile while you sign ‘play’?” Obviously that dude hadn’t watched the audition tape.

This morning we got to meet the Signing Time! cast: Rachel, Alex, Leah, and Hopkins. Just for fun, I asked Liam to smile for the camera. Instead he gave me this look:

Real Estate Riot

Here’s a little update on our housing situation:

After we found out that our seller went bankrupt, I called our realtor to see if there was anything we could do to fight the system. This is his first experience with a short sale turned foreclosure, so he wasn’t sure. He said he would get back to me. A few hours later, he called to say there was some paperwork that would need to be filled out saying the seller was not making a profit from the sale of our house so it didn’t affect his bankruptcy, and that it would take up to 30 days to get the paperwork processed, but that there was a 70% to 80% chance we would still get the house. Hooray!

Then, a few days later, the realtor called again. It turns out that Bankruptcy Guy was the one who would be filling out the paperwork, costing him time and money, and he was sick of it all. He decided he wasn’t going to help us out. Now we had only a 5% to 10% chance of getting the house. Bummer.

Then someone named Mike (Is that you, Mike Crowley?) left a comment on this post, saying we could probably work out a sales agreement with the seller's lending agency. Ben called our realtor to see if this was a possibility, and the realtor said it was possible but not really legal. This got Ben thinking about other possibilities, though, like suing Bankruptcy Guy to force him to fill out the paperwork or going over Bankruptcy Guy’s head to have someone else process the paperwork.

Turns out that Ben is kind of a genius, and now there’s a 90% chance that we’ll still get the house. We’re not sure what any of these percentages mean, since they fluctuate 80% from one day to the next, so we’re not getting our hopes up just yet. But we’re also not giving up yet. So thanks, Mike, whoever you are!

Weed Hound

Bucket of weeds, anyone?


You might remember that last year I absolutely detested dandelions. I picked those stupid yellow flowers every single day and never got any satisfaction from it. This year, things have changed.

I found this handy little tool called the Weed Hound at Home Depot.


This thing reaches down and grabs my dandelions by the roots without even making me bend over. I'm not much of a gardener, but this thing is SO gratifying. I think I'm in love.

Huh?

Our realtor called yesterday to tell us that the seller of our new house filed for bankruptcy without telling anyone. It was going to be a short sale, but now it will go up for review sometime in June and then become a foreclosure. Long story short: it’s no longer ours.

Did I mention we were going to close on it tomorrow?

Weekend in Review

Ben’s boss took us, along with six other employees and their spouses, on a quick trip to Las Vegas this weekend.

We flew in Friday morning and took a giant Hummer limo to the Venetian, where we checked in and then hung out in a private cabana by the pool for a couple hours. I really liked the cabana because I could lie in the sun (with my SPF 45 sunscreen, of course) and sip my drink without having millions of people around. Ben really liked the cabana because he could watch TV in the shade while eating nachos and wings.

Next we had dinner at The Palm and then went to see Phantom of the Opera. I hadn’t seen Phantom in 10 or 15 years, so I didn’t remember how awesome it was. Totally awesome. Afterward we went up to Ben’s boss’s giant hotel room and ate cheesecake while watching the end of the Jazz game.

The next morning we had breakfast at the Venetian and then went to the bodies exhibit at the Tropicana. Again, totally awesome. Then we moseyed on back to our hotel by way of the New York, New York roller coaster. Have you noticed that everything is better when someone else is paying?

Back at the Venetian, we had a quick lunch at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant out by the pool, then grabbed our stuff and got back in the Hummer limo. We were back at the airport after only about 28 hours. So that’s what I call a really fun really quick trip.

For Sale

Anybody want to buy my house?

Hypothetically Speaking

In case you ever have a baby with three holes in his heart, and you have to watch him scream his 4-day-old head off while doctors do all kinds of tests on him, you should know that it gets better. By the time he’s 2 ½ he’ll probably kind of enjoy watching the doctor experiment on him, and he’ll really only care about whether he gets a sucker after it's over.

Alert!

We’re moving! And we haven’t finished our taxes! And I have skin cancer!

Don’t worry, it’s just a little piece of basal cell carcinoma on my back. Tons of people get those, right? I think it just means I’ll turn into one of those people who says, “Did you remember sunscreen?” every time we go outside.

Apparently we filed for an extension on our taxes, and apparently it’s totally legal.

And we’re moving! The house is not very far from where we live now, but it has a dishwasher! And a master bathroom! And big closets!

I can’t wait to see what other news we get on Tax Day 2008. Anybody have anything?

Dungeons and Dragons, Anyone?

My brother, Toby, just returned from nine months in Afghanistan, where he was serving in the Navy. I e-mailed him when he got back and asked if his time in Afghanistan made him a real live veteran. Here is his response:

Yes, I'm a veteran. Now to avoid further confusion, I will list the warrior levels.

1. Veteran
2. Mongrel
3. Dark Knight
4. Wizard Apprentice
5. Master Wizard
6. Beast Master
7. Warlord

How lucky that going to war didn't take the dorkiness out of him.

Signing Trickster

Liam took a break from Signing Time for a few months, but now he’s back with a vengeance. We have five or six episodes saved on the DVR, and he would probably watch all of them in a row every day if he could.

Since I don’t sit down and watch it with him, Liam knows all kinds of signs now that I don’t know. Sometimes he asks me, “How do you sign blue?” And I say, “I don’t know, how do you sign blue?” And he shows me, while saying, “You make a B for blue, and then twist it.” And for a second I think he knows that blue starts with B, before I realize that he’s just repeating what the Signing Time lady says.

Yesterday we were going through one of these signing lessons when I got the feeling Liam was making up his own signs. It all became very clear when he asked me, “How do you sign Lisa?” Instead of spelling out L-I-S-A, I said, “I don’t know. How do you sign Lisa?” And Liam stuck his fist up by his nose and wiggled it all around.

I know I haven’t seen all of the episodes, but come on. This kid is totally taking me for a ride.