The eyes of a child.

Riley had a little self-portrait session the other night. He had a great time with the flash. I love the last one--crazy extreme eye close-up. Spooky. 

Water baby.

Wondering what's up with the precious little man who shares our house? 

This week Riley begins his second week of ISR lessons. This picture above is Riley and me on the first day of lessons last week--before he knew just what he was getting into! If you aren't familiar, ISR=Infant Swimming Resource. These are hard core swimming lessons designed to teach young babies and children how to save themselves--or rather, buy some time--in the event they fall into a pool or other body of water. 

It's pretty crazy, and really hard work for him. He goes 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Supposedly, this reinforces what they learn and helps them from fatiguing. Obviously, it's a technique you hope your baby never actually has to use, but we thought it was worth it for him to learn...just in case.

We've been wanting to enroll Riley for awhile now, but the nearest instructor was over 30 minutes away, and since we go 5 days a week, the distance was kind of a big deal. Now, we have a great instructor who teaches only 10 minutes away. Hooray! Honestly, he's not loving his time in the water. But he's happy before and after and still loves baths, so we're confident we aren't giving him some kind of crazy aversion to water. 

Here's a cool video of an infant who has learned the technique. Pretty powerful stuff! Want to learn more about ISR? Check out their website: www.infantswim.com

Okay, I officially suck at blogging. Dare I say life is getting in the way of my fun? The short update is that there is no update. The house is showing pretty well, but still nothing in the way of offers or solid leads. Boo. We are SO over house selling. So over it that we need a new word for 'over.' BUT, we are staying optimistic and keep telling each other that something has to happen soon. MUST. HAPPEN. SOON.

So, let's see. Other than our slow-selling abode... Kevin is actively working to get the lease in place for Taste, part deux. We have a very cool location picked out that should be about 8 billion times better than the previous. Once we get past the hump of construction and rebuilding clientele, this will be nothing but positive. Many updates to come as the actual construction starts to unfold, but as of now, more waiting. Does someone think we need to learn patience or what?!

The timing is great in one regard... Kevin being home has allowed me to take on a couple of writing projects. So, while Kevin has lots of down time, I have much to accomplish. Things are busy in my little freelance world. A well-timed occurrence to be sure! We are heading to Tulsa later this week for a quick overnight to do background research on a big writing assignment and I'm also doing an awesome project for the Department of Tourism. 

Things are cookin'! For the low-down on Ri-guy, check out the next post. He's learning to swim...or at least to float. 

Hurry up and wait.

So, house-selling for us goes a little something like this....

1. Get the call that a showing is scheduled. (or in the case of this week, three are scheduled)

2. Freak out and get happy.

3. Start scrubbing the house. I take this part very seriously. I have to feel like I've done everything in my power to sell our house so I clean. And clean. And clean.

4. Collapse into bed with aching back and mostly clean house.

5. Wake up and finish cleaning.

6. Kick Riley and Kevin out of the house so I can clean alone. 

7. Join aforementioned husband and child so we can go run errands, eat, or do whatever else sounds interesting for the half-hour or so we have to leave. 

8. Return to house and enjoy the pristine state for 30 seconds until Riley unleashes his 17-month-old energy on all he touches. 

9. Wait. 

We are in a state of 'wait.' It's this full-on freakout to try and impress the total strangers coming to visit and then... Will a second showing come? An offer? Nothing? Sometimes, the realtors will leave feedback and then you get to discover some insight that is encouraging, some that is discouraging, and some that is just plain stupid, like 'I loved everything about the house. It was perfect. Except. Well... we really hated the placement of your toilet paper holders.'

Okay, so no one has actually said that. But it's practically that ridiculous sometimes. 

Here's hoping that something magical happened for a buyer or two in the last day or so. But in the meantime, we wait. And we clean....just in case.

Sell me.

After tomorrow's two morning showings, we'll be at three showings for the week....after no showings for three weeks. Told you the tide was changing. 

Send offer vibes...  I will sell this house today!

A real update, coming soon. Promise. First, I have to clean. :-)

They are a-changin'

I'm officially declaring this our climb back up. The past 4 or 5 months have been hard, hard, hard. I keep trying to pinpoint where the decline began and I have to say it was probably somewhere around that ill-timed refrigerator replacement before Christmas. I can distinctly remember thinking that things were going pretty good before that and it seems like most of my posts were happier back then.

Since then, it has been one. thing. after. another. It is completely true when I say not one part of our life has been untouched. Family, friendship, business, home, disasters of the natural kind, disasters of the personal kind. It's all been affected. And it has all been hard to go through. But, we've survived and are still here.

So, why am I writing this? Because as of today, our business -- the one that we spent months of energy, sweat, and everything else you can imagine creating and trying to build -- is closed. Kevin spent the last three days loading up the contents and dragging them to storage. I spent today helping him pack up the office, load up the plants, sweep the floors, wipe down countertops and say goodbye. 

Now, before you feel sorry for us -- Don't. Please. We closed a chapter. And luckily for us, we get a take two. This week, we begin rebuilding the business in what we hope will be a much better and more successful place. Closer to home, better populated, and hopefully a better fit for us. I don't expect our climb back to be easy, but I do think it's beginning. I think one of the bravest things that my husband could do was to admit that we couldn't make that business work there. No matter how hard he tried, the elements did not add up. We had lines to the door, but only for an hour a day. Just not enough people--no matter how good the food. He calls the last however many months a failure. I call it a stepping stone.

Anyway, this week marks the end of the crap if it kills me. I think we've all basically been stressed 24-7. There's been a dark cloud over our lives and we've been letting it get to us--bad. We've both felt pressure to stay optimistic, which can really be enough to make you crazy. And then, you start to think. I mean really, all you have to do is survive this mess, right? And even if it sucked, we did survive.

Rather than make this blog all roses and butterflies, I decided to kind of use it as an outlet for what we've been experiencing--without lots of specific details because we've really been dealing with alot of really personal stuff. But, because of the over-share, we've really gotten a ton of support from friends and family, with comments, emails, and phone calls. I'm not sure that we would have made it through this crazy time without the encouragement that this too shall pass. I know everyone is sick of the sad show we're presenting (we are too), but you never made us feel like asses for offering up bad news time and time again. And you kept taking our phone calls, which is encouraging in itself.

So, yeah. I think it's passed--or passing. I'm very, very confident it has passed. There's just a different feeling in the air and I genuinely feel optimistic. Not forced optimism. Not that we don't still have challenges ahead, but that the worst is over. The comeback is just ahead. And I can't freaking wait. 

Here's to April and all that comes after. I can't wait to see what's waiting in Chapter Two.