Open Windows

Spring is so nice! I love the very few weeks of the year that we can open the windows and air out the apartment. They are rare... last year, I think I opened the windows about 2 days. This year, I am attempting to use less household energy and allow nature to cool the house. In the late afternoons, we lose our view out the front window, which faces west (though for some reason, I insist on believing that it faces south)- so every afternoon, the sun warms our living room (about half the house) to the point of intolerance.

Last winter, I put plastic on all the windows to keep the breezes out, then took it off in the spring, and opened the windows exactly once before the heat of summer necessitated the use of central air. I never got around to getting plastic on the windows this year...

Anyway, the point is, the weather is so nice!

Here's the big news: Potty training has officially begun at our house. (with Maia- hopefully that was obvious!) Yesterday, we wore underpants with no diaper under them for most of the afternoon. Having My Little Pony or Care Bears on the underwear is really a good idea- she doesn't want them to get wet. She wet the first pair and was very upset about it, but I played it cool, went and sat her on the potty- she didn't go, but the next time she had to go, she let me know beforehand, I sat her on the potty again- she didn't go, I put a diaper on her, she peed, then put underwear on again. I'm taking this as a positive step! She's still afraid to go on the potty, but she's gaining control, so that's good. Any bets on how long this will take? I have a positive attitude about it now, but I HATE POTTY TRAINING, so I'm anticipating that it will take all summer.

This evening, we go to Mitchell for Miss Rylie's first dance recital in the Corn Palace. Hopefully, she'll be early in the program because Sundays are busy days for us! I think we are going to go down early and have supper with Mom & Grandma Leigh Anne and anyone else who wants to join us.

Next Sunday afternoon is my home studio recital. Xander will be singing his first solos- "I've Got No Strings" from Pinocchio and "Waitin' for the Light to Shine" from Big River (about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn). I think several family members are coming for that, so he's getting excited. I think. I'm playing a piano solo for the recital. I like to either play or sing as the last performance of my studio recitals. It's a little tricky to sing classical voice kind of stuff when I don't have anyone else to accompany on the piano, so I'll be playing a portion of a big dramatic Beethoven Sonata. Only a portion for 2 reasons- I only decided to play something last week, so I'm learning the piece in 2 weeks, and it's probably 7 minutes long in its entirety, and that's just too long to ask a young audience to sit through.

Yesterday, got a phone call from the current landlord asking how early we wanted to get out of our lease because he has a guy who's looking to move to this neighborhood June 1st. Too soon, but encouraging! Apparently, our property management company has been sold to a new owner. He doesn't really remember the verbal agreement with the last landlord about no lease-breaking fee if we chose to leave in the summer.... grrr.... but the guy that I talked to first (Lee) was talking ridiculous fees for breaking our lease early- totaling almost $2400! The call I got yesterday, apparently his partner (Mark), sounded more like he's willing to work with us to find a renter in the summer. I guess that's good news. I might call him and ask if he needs any appliances for his apartments, because we are not going to need our refrigerator, stove, microwave, washer, dryer or portable dishwasher when we move to our awesome new place.

Our awesome new place has not had the lawn mowed all year. It's not officially sold yet, but the new owners (Mom & Jim) don't want the place looking like crap, so they have asked us to go over an mow the place. No problem, except that we don't have a mower, so we have to try to find someone to borrow one from for this first time before the new electric mower arrives from walmart.com.

I'm slowly updating my kitchen accessory decor in anticipation of moving. All my dishes are black and white, so I can accent them with any color. When in Marion, my kitchen was 100% sunflowers. No other accent was necessary. Here, it is all white in the kitchen, so accent colors took on a new identity. I kind of went with green & yellow because that's what I had, but then I got all this light yellow stuff for Christmas, because I had asked for it, and it's not the same color yellow as the sunflower yellow. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago when I was shopping at Hy-Vee, I noticed that they had some cute drinking glasses in a light yellow, orange & red stripe, so I picked 8 of them up. Turns out it's the same color as my new yellow stuff, and gives a salsa-y feeling to the kitchen (or maybe citrus-y). So I got the dish towels and an oven mitt yesterday (a mothers day gift from... Xander. Maia got me a gerbera daisy plant) :) A fairly inexpensive way to "cuten" up my kitchen a bit.

I had caffeine this morning. It's obvious. I'm typing really fast. I have a house to clean (in anticipation of the landlord potentially wanting to show it- good motivation!), and Xander's anxiously awaiting the use of the computer, so I guess I'll wrap up.