Alright, I openly (and obviously I am writing this on here) admit that I am not the queen of etiquette. I frequently cut people off when they are talking, wear white after Labor Day (or is that before?). and have no clue which fork or spoon to use at a fancy restaurant (but I have only been to one like three times so I get a pass on that one).
But I do know the basics: don't wear your hat inside someone's house, don't put your elbows on the table, don't talk with food in your mouth, chew with your mouth closed, place your napkin in your lap while eating, (can you tell that we are working on table manners right now!?) etc.
There is however a completely different set of etiquette rules when you are out in public. And while in Dallas I observed some great rule breakers. Now you have to understand that lasik is an elective procedure, so you would assume that those people waiting for their appointments at the lasik office would be of a slightly higher caliber of etiquette followers. You would be wrong. (Or at least I was)
When in a waiting room:
Do NOT engage in a phone call for 45 minutes about your bodily fluids and those bodily fluids of your family members. I am greatly sorry that you are sick, but that implores the question, why are you in this waiting room talking about it instead of at home or at a family doctor's office?
Do NOT talk on your cell phone so loudly that the entire waiting room can hear (that really goes for any place).
Do NOT curse repeatedly on said phone (again, goes for anywhere).
Do NOT read the subtitles on the tv out loud. We may all be in the waiting room to have our vision corrected but we can all read, to ourselves.
Do NOT come out of the bathroom and heave a sigh of relief while at the same time fanning your posterior. We ALL know what you were doing in there and we are all trying to rid that image from our mind.
Do NOT bring your toddler and let them run around the room grabbing and licking the tables. Really?
Do NOT allow your toddler to grab my purse. I may be a mom but I can still have my personal space. I will not be held responsible for anything that may or may not happen while your germ infested monster has her hand down bag. You have been warned.
Do NOT go up to the counter 10 times to check on the status of your appointment. It's only been 15 minutes dude, take a chill pill.
Do NOT go up to the counter to flirt with the ubber cute and skinny receptionists. News flash: they're 17.
Do NOT turn the channel on the tv. There's a clearly marked sign that says so.
I don't watch this show, but I had to post this tear jerker of a video.
Gosh, I'm such a sucker.
While Stu and I were in Dallas for my lasik, a close family friend asked the boys if they would like to come to the fire station where he worked. Of course the answer was yes!
*BTW, my mother is the commentator
At the fire station from Clarissa Doss on Vimeo.
{getting dressed after his shower}
Tucker: Mommy, what's that?
Me: What's what?
Tucker: That. (pointing to his pee-pee-ish)
Me: Your pee-pee?
Tucker: No! What's THAT? (pointing to his "family jewels")
Me: Well. OK. Those are your testicles.
Tucker: Tell-ti-culs.
Me: Kind of. It's test-i-cul.
Tucker: They're weird.
Me: Yup. They sure are.
Because I think this a super cool giveaway and I totally want to support any and all individuals who are attempting to adopt, I entered this giveaway.
BUT WAIT!
You can too! Just clicky-click on over to Pitter Patter and enter. :)
{really she's his great-grandma, but we don't tell}
Tyson bike-riding with Grandma from Clarissa Doss on Vimeo.
Last week (I think), we all woke up early and decided to go with Stuart to work. It was a great way to get out of the house and also to really "see" what it is that my charming husband does all day. Plus the boys got to see big 'ole tractors and such; you can never see too many of those.
Since we were so far down south, we thought it would be niffty to just go ahead and drive on down to Corpus and Padre Island.
Oh what fun!
The boys have never seen the ocean (or a large body of water for that matter) and the giggles and shrieks that came out of the mouths made the trip all the more worth it.
We started with lunch at a local eatery:
I'm over home buying and selling.
For real.
And it's not even that I am emotionally attached to buying or selling a house. It's just that the whole dang process of so laborious. And riddled with potholes and loopholes.
We put our house on the market October 18 with the knowledge that it might take awhile to sell due to the time of the year and the amount of "inventory" currently out there. No biggie. We were more than ready to wait and then end up having to make some changes in about 6 months. Not that we wanted to wait 6 months to sell our house, we are just realistic. A smattering of showings and then at the beginning of December a real offer came in. We were obviously thrilled and jumped on the chance to "unload" our burden on someone else. It's not that we didn't like our house; in fact, we quite enjoyed it. It just that making a mortgage payment plus utilities on an empty house ever month makes my anxiety meter go off the scale.
The offer was just under our asking price and the new buyers wanted to move in asap since they were also selling their current house. We would sign a lease agreement and in a matter of days close in the house.
Not so fast!
Does anything ever go as planned?
Nope.
One teeny, tiny detail in our contract with the new homeowners was the we could not close on our house until they closed on their house. Our Realtor assured us that this was not a big deal since our new owners were already in contract with their new owners. Just a technicality.
We move, literally, on with the assumption that we are closing on January 7th.
I was doing a little jitterbug as the date approached but then the smacked with reality when our Realtor called and said their was a little snafu.
The buyer for our buyer's house was having an issue with their lender due to some phrasing in the appraisal of our home owner's property. Apparently a horse barn was appraised at a very high value (it must be the Cadillac of horse barns) and so the verbage needed to be changed to reflect this. This ordinarily would not be that stressful except for the fact that our home owner's buyer is now thinking about switching lenders because he is so frustrated with Wells Fargo and their extra long process.
If he switches that means it's going to take XX amount of time to start ALL OVER AGAIN.
All the while, we are waiting (along with our buyers) for all this gibberish to happen so that WE can close on OUR house.
THEN (yes, there IS a then) I get a text from our Realtor yesterday evening that the gas had been shut off at our house because our tenants (I guess we are landlords until further notice) smelled gas and called the gas company, who then rapidly turned it off "to be safe." Again, this wouldn't have been that huge of an issue except that 1) last night was the coldest night of the year in Wichita Falls and 2) this is OUR problem because it's OUR house still.
No worries. Our handy little Realtor called her own plumber to head out to our house today and it was discovered that there were a couple of valves with issues (which he fixed). All is better now that the gas has been restored to our house and our tenants.
So here's the deal: we have no idea when we are going to close on our house.
And the nice little cold sores I got overnight would explain my anxiety over it.
we should have closed on our house yesterday but due to some verb-age on the buyer's house needing to be fixed, we are in limbo.
Tyson: When we have our baby, it's gonna like the strawberry green one.
{collective gasp and head turning to stare at Tyson}
Me: Oh really?
Tyson: Yeah.
Me: So {gathering my confusion}we're having another baby huh? {we are NOT}
Tyson: Yeah.
Me: Do you want to be a big brother?
Tyson: Well when we have another baby, I'm going to share my legos with him.
Me: So you want to have a boy?
Tyson: Yup.
Mimi: You don't want to have a baby girl?
Tyson: NO!
{hahahaha!}
Me: Who's going to have this baby?
Tyson: WE are!
Me: Oh really?
Aunt George: So you want another brother like Tucker?
Tyson: Well our baby is going to be my friend.
Me: Your friend?
Tyson: Uh huh. Then I'll have a brother and a friend.
Me: Well, alright then.
