Cheap labor

My awesome parents came to visit June 20-27. A whole week!! It was great to see them, and man, did they help us whip things into shape around the house. I had quite the project list for them, and they jumped right in to the manual labor.

Day 1: Josh and I had to go to work. But don't worry, we left the project list with Elayne and Guy.

The trash drawer in our kitchen had been bugging me for awhile. Our contractor did a shoddy job on it, but Guy Willis fixed 'er right up and changed my life.

Elayne and Guy painted Nugget's room the gray I had picked out to match the bedding.

Unfortunately, we weren't too pleased with the color (way too dark, didn't match the bedding at all), so...

Day 2: Elayne and Guy repaint Nug's room the perfect shade to match the gray bedding. Note the difference. 

Guy installed new non-80s ceiling fans in Nug's room, the guest bedroom and the office. Tom rested.

Day 3: Finally, the weekend! Elayne continues to paint a bookshelf and also started on an end table. I painted a toy chest. 

Guy and Josh put plywood down in the attic so we can actually store things up there. (Well, things that won't melt in bazillion-degree temperatures, that is.) A wire was accidentally screwed through. The house alarm beeped for about an hour. They discovered a frayed wire that could've caused a fire. It was a good day of progress.

Day 5: Elayne and I continued to paint and watch paint dry in four-hour increments. Josh and Guy installed wainscoting in Nug's room. And crown moulding! Cutest baby room ever? Probably.

Day 6: Back to work for Emily and Josh. Elayne paints the office/den. Now only one room of this house hasn't been repainted since we moved in. Before she could paint the office, she had to clear all of these bookshelves. Not fun.

But look how good it looks now! Well, it will, once I get the books back on the shelves. Note the new ceiling fan where one did not previously exist.

Finally, how many Willis/Samuels family members does it take to hang a curtain rod? (Note the new non-80s ceiling fan.)

Grand Totals

Trips to Home Depot: 12-15

Trips to Lowes: 2 (We like it better than HD, but it's farther away.)

Trips to Braums: 2 (Conveniently located in the Home Depot parking lot.)

Toenails lost: 1

Bags of cheesy puffs consumed: 2

Projects gone awry at one point or another: All of them

Coffee pots broken: 1

It was an exhausting week, but so great having my parents here. My mom got to feel Nugget kick a couple of times! I was so sad when they left. My mom will be back in October for one last peek at my bump before Nugget arrives. I can't wait!

Our first baby clothes!

Josh's Aunt Lori sent a package containing our very first baby clothes! They're so cute, and the card contained practical advice like, "Emily, take the drugs!"

Mistaken Identity

Sometimes my mom forgets that my name changed 2.5 years ago. The bank almost wouldn't cash this check for Emily Willis.

My humps, my humps, my humps, my humps

As I mentioned in my October blog post, there are some ground rules to this relationship when it comes to the Cardinals and the Cubs. One of those rules is that our children will be raised as Rangers fans. The Rangers can expect a new fan to arrive this fall, because Baby Samuels is due Nov. 1!

We're going to be surprised with the gender, so for now, you can just call Baby Samuels "Nugget" like we do. It's a term of endearment, and also a nickname that we sincerely hope doesn't stick. 

Here's Nugget's first picture at 6 weeks. As you can see, Nugget was already quite good looking, even at that early stage.

And here's the latest Nugget photo shoot, from 15 weeks.

Finally, here's me and my humps.

Family Traditions

My family has some time-honored and cherished traditions that have been passed down over hundreds of years, as exemplified in this conversation Granndad and I had once when he visited:


Granddad: You made chocolate chip cookies?
Me: Yes, they're just break and bakes.
Granddad: Those are the kind Grandma makes.
Me: I know. It's a family recipe!

We also have special names for things, that only the cool kids know about. Josh calls them Willis-isms, but these can actually be traced back to Gettings and Bowman origins:

Eggy bread [eg-eee bred] 
noun 
French toast 

Boosie [boo-see]
noun
Butt; short for caboose

(Note: I actually thought boosie was the real word for butt until about first or second grade, when one of the Hamilton twins said, "Why do you call your butt a boosie?" Thanks for that life lesson, girls. That's when I realized my parents made things up and passed them off as truths.)

Hootie Hoot [hoot-eee hoot] 
noun
Cardboard core of a paper towel, toilet paper or wrapping paper roll. Derived from the noise you make when you shout through one like a megaphone, "Hootie Hoot!"


We also have come up with some good survival strategies. One particularly useful strategy that has been passed down from generation to generation is the good old "cover your smoke detector with a shower cap when you're cooking something that's setting it off." 

In recent times, shower caps have fallen from grace, along with pantyhose and blue eyeshadow, but you can still find them. Mine was purchased specifically as a kitchen tool, not to keep my hair dry in the shower. I'm going to start keeping it in the drawer with other utensils. Make sure you don't buy the fabric kind that allow your head to "breathe." No. You want the plastic, make-your-head-sweat kind. Only that kind will keep burning dinner aroma from setting off your life-saving smoke detector.
 

My Worlds Collided

Since Josh is a Cubs fan and I am a Cards fan, we had to draw up some guiding principals to live by to maintain order in our house. They are simple but critical:

1. When the Cards play the Cubs, we watch it quietly without smirking and/or trash talking. We gloat silently in our heads, except the one time Josh lost control and covered me with a Cubs W flag while I was asleep.

2. Our children will be raised as Rangers fans. They will not own a single Cards or Cubs item of clothing.* Neither of us is allowed to try to convince the children to join our side.

These guidelines have worked out pretty well. We are united when we root for the Rangers, and it's nice to agree on a team for once.

When I first moved to Texas, I couldn't imagine my life in a non-baseball town. The Rangers weren't very good and attendance at games was low. I missed the atmosphere of baseball in St. Louis. I was shocked when we could go to opening day here without any trouble getting tickets. Now that they're good, we have to try to get opening day tickets via a lottery (never works out). I even consider myself a bigger Rangers fan than most who call themselves a Rangers fan these days, because we went to games when they stunk and the stands were empty.

But now, we are going through some trying times in our marriage since my worlds collided and the Cardinals are playing the Rangers in the World Series. I thought it was my dream World Series, and that I couldn't lose. I thought I would be happy no matter who won. I thought I could be neutral. But I guess you just can't reprogram someone after all those years as a fan, because I want the Cards to win. Bad.

Supriya, Josh and I had so much fun at game three. Two of us more fun than one of us. We saw Dirk throw out the first pitch, and Ronnie Dunn sing the national anthem.

Pujols hit his historic three home runs. Supriya and I were so excited, but my excitement was tempered slightly by Josh's creepy silent rage. It summed up Josh's night when, on the way to the car, he stepped in poop.

He perked right up at game four when the Rangers won, though. We saw Dubya throw out the first pitch, missing Nolan by quite a bit. The best part of my night was Zooey Deschanel singing the National Anthem. We stuck to the sidewalks this time, to avoid "the path to dookie," as Josh called it.

I can't wear the hoodie I wore to game four ever again on game day. I wore it once to Wrigley for Cards/Cubs, then to game four of the World Series when the Cards lost. It is out of the game day rotation now.

*I reserve the right to wear whatever I want when I'm pregnant, though, to include those shirts that say "Future Cards Fan" and have an arrow pointing to your tum.

No intro.

I've reached the conclusion that there will be no introduction. 


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that typically it's appropriate to kick off a blog by telling you who I am or what I'm going to talk about. And I agree with you. Because I am a RULE. FOLLOWER. But writing the beginning seems daunting right now, since tonight, there was a lizard incident, mixed in with a hooty hoot incident, followed by a trash incident. And that's what I'd rather tell you about because I am traumatized.


Like most days, there I was, minding my own business. Josh has class tonight from 6 to 10 p.m. Yes, that sounds horrifying after getting up at 4:45 a.m. and working all day. But it is not as horrifying as my night, so quit trying to steal my thunder.


I ran about 5 billion errands, and was just about drop-dead tired when I made it home, put away all of the groceries, and started to get organized for tomorrow. Tuesday is trash day. I am not the trash lady in this house, but being the trophy wife that I am, I decided I would put out the trash for Josh since prior to my night unraveling, he was the one who was worse off. I was able to avoid dry heaving, even though the trash was rank after a week in our 105+ degree weather, because I was telling myself what an amazing wife I am, and it distracted me. Pleased with my efforts on what would clearly be a strong point on my application for wife of the year, I went about my night. 


When I came home from the grocery store earlier, I noticed that someone had left a note on our door. I opened the door to grab it and throw it away, and that is when all hell broke lose. A hideous Dallas lizard seized the moment to attack me, and I am pretty sure in his mad dash into our house he touched my foot. Our cat, Major Tom, who is always ready always there like the National Guard, realized our safety zone had been compromised, and selflessly threw himself between me and the lizard while I screamed so loud that frankly, I am offended the neighbors did not come check on me. 


These lizards are fast, and Major Tom had him cornered on one of our chair legs, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something twitching on the floor. It was the freaking lizard's tail, all possessed and spasming there on the floor. 


I'm not going to argue with you over whether this was a lizard, gecko, chameleon, or any other equally disgusting creature, because I don't care what it was, but Dallas has an infestation. I am going to have nightmares forever because of Google Images, but I think this is an accurate portrayal of this beast: 

While I was screaming, Major Tom was calm and collected, like his combat training has no doubt prepared him to be in emergency situations like these. After about five minutes of me wondering what on earth I was going to do for two hours until Josh got home to get rid of this thing, Tom had bludgeoned it, and went about restoring order to our house. He went about this by attempting to eat the lizard. Since I didn't know if it was a poisonous kamikaze lizard, I realized it was my time to step up and return Major Tom's life-saving gesture by now saving his life. 


Let's pause here for me to tell you that my family calls those cardboard cores that are inside toilet paper and paper towel rolls hooty hoots. This is a term that has been in the family for decades, based on the sophisticated observation that you can yell through them, "hooty hoot." I'm not going to get into the specifics of why I had an industrial sized hooty hoot in my home, but it was probably a 5 1/2 foot hooty hoot.


When I was sure the lizard was dead and not faking it, I took the hooty hoot and so gently scooped the lizard up, ever fearful that it would come to life and run up the hooty hoot and onto my arm. In a moment of panic, I threw the entire 5 1/2 foot hooty hoot, complete with dead lizard, out onto our front porch and slammed the door. Meanwhile, as my back was turned, Major Tom devoured the lizard tail. The Maj. is alive and kicking so far, 2.5 hours later, so maybe lizard tail is a delicacy and not full of poison.


At about this moment, I realized that I threw away a Home Depot bag with four tiny screws in it. Dropping numerous f-bombs, I trudged outside in the dark, since none of our outdoor lights are working, and wheeled the stanky trash can into our garage so I could see to dig through it. I still had the lizard heebie jeebies and I KNEW a lizard had to be in our trash. After removing several feet of trash, one false alarm where I thought a lizard was on my foot, and having trash juice run down my arm, I returned to the house triumphant, with screws.


When Josh got home, I informed him that we had a 5 1/2 foot hooty hoot and dead lizard on our porch. He opened the door to throw it away, and THREE MORE LIZARDS RUSHED US. Josh killed two and lost one, which Major Tom later located in our coat closet. I'm about ready to go to a hotel for the night.


I won't pull a Mark McGwire and refuse to talk about the past or explain this blog title. I promise periodic flashbacks to the beginning. But I can't leave out the ridiculous things that happen on a daily basis. This was clearly a night worth documenting.