Empty House

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to Sarah and Grandma Marcoccia as they were starting their adventure driving back to NY. It is never easy saying goodbye, so I always try to focus on when we will see them again and remind myself of the good times we had over the visit. We will see them again soon in October when Jill and Larry get married.

I think Sarah was ready to leave and get back to NY and her new apartment, friends, and job. It was fun having her here all month. I know it was good for Ellie. She loved waking her up in the morning with smiles and hugs. We loved having Grandma Marcoccia here, too. She has so much energy. I wish I could steal away just a little bit of it. So glad Ellie got to show her all she is doing now like the babble, crawling, and playing. Our little house felt very empty yesterday and last night with out them. Needless to say, we are missing our guests very much and looking forward to the next visit when we can see the whole family.

Love you all…

For more picnic photos look here…

Ohhh Sarah

Back in the Saddle again

It’s been a while since my last update. We took a little trip back to NY to visit with our family and do some house hunting. The family visiting was marvelous. Ellie entertained everyone and showed off her new skills. Gary got to celebrate his birthday three times this year once with Ellie and I out to dinner, once with my parents, and once with his family. He is a well loved individual. We got to visit with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins at Jessica’s wedding. What a beautiful wedding it was! The setting was perfect at a winery up on the hill overlooking a classic New York Finger Lakes landscape. We had so much fun watching the kiddos dance their hearts out and the ladies in the family as well. We also got to enjoy another trip to the Ithaca Farmers Market. Ellie got a fab T-Shirt from the Sundancer Designs Clothing Co. We also picked up some purple asparagus and a gorgeous white bleeding heart for Linda. So fun..

As for the house hunting we did good. We familiarized ourselves with the Ithaca area much better. We managed to narrow down our choices and pretty much came to the conclusion that we are in love with the village of Trumansburg. It is practically Mayberry reincarnate. We also learned that NY’s taxes are unbelievably high and painful. (We knew this, but just didn’t digest it until now) Yikes! We have decided to attempt a contingency offer on a cute little turn of the century farm house just out of the Trumansburg village. It sits on nearly 6 acres mostly wooded with trails and has a lovely distant view of the lake. It is a small house with a few imperfections but oh so cozy and warm and inviting and the property is so wonderful. So wish us luck. We still haven’t gotten any bites on our Timberlakes home for sale here in Utah but we are being patient and just keep trying to put good thoughts out there into the cosmic soup.

Ellie did good on the airplane. She got a bit fussy at times and tired of being held and the tight spaces but no major tantrums. On the way back we experienced the dreaded diaper blow out so we now join the ranks with Kim and Charie and the mile high diaper duty. I had to throw away the onsie and all! Nasty. She actually had quiet a few adventures, 6 plus full days of car rides and car seat confinement, 4 airplane rides, a two hour time change, a bonk on the forehead from a toy, and the porch swing breaking under her and Grandma Marcoccia. Well done Ellie your a trooper.

Getting Off the Fence

Ok, I have an emotional grip now I think. Gary and I have decided to mix things up a bit and relocate ourselves in the Ithaca, NY area for a while. We made the decision way back in January when we were on the long drive home from our visit over the holidays. Believe me it was discussed thoroughly as we had hours to spend on the topic while watching the yellow stripes pass by. I felt good about it for a while but I will admit that once I got home I found myself getting back up on the fence and avoiding the topic. I was finding that for every good reason to go to NY there was and equally good and opposite reason to stay. Family and friends being the best example of this. My heart aches when I approach the subject with my Mom or when our friends say how much they will miss us. Then I hear the excitement in Gary’s parents voices when we talk about the real estate we have been looking at and I get goose bumps over the prospects of being close to his family and discovering a new place. (emotional grip is lost as I have a big lump in my throat now) So we had another long talk the other night and we realized that we should do this. We are in a unique situation with Gary’s job (he works from home) and we should be taking advantage of the freedom it allows us to choose where we want to be and we should be doing it while Ellie is young. So who knows maybe in another three years I will be writing about our next big move to the coast of Oregon or the mountains of Montana or the beaches of the Great Lakes. The future is wide open…

Spring Clean

Oh yes, it’s that time of year again. Time to clean and I mean CLEAN. Months of dust and grime have accumulated in the Marcoccia home and with a fresh change in season comes a fresh home. Granted our snow is still here and apparently isn’t leaving anytime soon, but we are doing what we can to encourage things to come back to life. A few other motivators for this cleaning festival that I should mention as well are that we listed our Timberlakes home for sale this week with a realtor. I will write more about this when I have a better emotional grip on it, but for now we are scrambling to get this place “show ready”. Another motivator is to SIMPLIFY yes! I love to simplify and I was inspired to do so last night by this blog I discovered here good stuff.

So here are some highlights from our Saturday cleaning festival. First we discovered that our bathroom light fixtures are kind of cute they are frosted on the tips. Huh we had assumed the whole glass thingy was frosted the entire two years we’ve been here! This is bad I’m totally revealing what a bad housekeeper I am and how lazy I am. That light fixture has been screaming to be cleaned and polished from the very first time I saw it. Procrastination is a terrible thing.

Gary volunteered to watch Ellie as I attacked the bathroom. It was a little quiet after a while so I stepped out to see how they were doing and this is the scene I found…

Daddy’s little helper. She was content in the backpack for over an hour! I think we have discovered a new way to clean the house without interruption. Not sure who was more proud Daddy or Ellie.

So it Begins…

Well, here I go, this is my blog. It will showcase my family, projects, and life in general. Wish me luck!

I’ll start by sharing my Birds Nest Day. I noticed we had a bird’s nest in the sad little maple tree in our front yard last week. So, curiosity got the best of me and I retrieved it by standing on our old subaru and using some kitchen tongs (for extra reach). I’m sure it was a funny sight. Ellie was watching me from her seat on the porch. Anyhow, we both enjoyed checking it out up close.

View the larger photos at Flickr…