Peanut Butter and July
The last week of July happened. Ready or not, here it came.
Now I just have to find a way to work peanut butter into the story somehow.
Let's see what we come up with...
Last Sunday we got a late start on our day; and so, by the time Athennia got home from the laundromat, we hadn't really broke ground on anything resembling a dinner plan.
I decided it was time to splurge on Raising Cane's again (on a Sunday no less, Chic-fil-AWOL), since we hadn't been there since Valentine's Day weekend.
This, of course, called for some photographic documentation; so, the moment we finished ordering, I whipped out my phone for a Surprise Picture Time!TM
As usual, Athennia got caught like a deer in headlights, but Riley was the fastest gun in the West...
Athennia: Nwheegeegge!
Riley: <fwoop>
There were maybe seven people in the entire restaurant—which is a packed house, by Riley's standards. She shy-turtled herself into her shirt and asked if we could take our food home to eat.
When we got back I tried to quick-draw her again, but she was still too fast...
I'm not sure why we each look mildly high in these pictures; but, you know who doesn't look high?
Our crappy downstairs neighbors' tire!
Once you lose a few more PSIs, your tire pressure might even start to approach your collective IQ!
I spent most of Monday on the phone with our realtor Angel (discussing the Kutztown property) and our contact Brody at Clayton Homes (trying to negotiate a workaround to the fact that Clayton isn't a fan of the USDA's proposed draw schedule for financing the construction process).
The problem is, the USDA minimizes the risk of a builder pulling out halfway through, by refusing to offer any down payment whatsoever: The first "draw" doesn't happen until the builder pours the foundation for the house.
But of course, depending on the build site, this step might not happen until significant land-development has been done: clearing trees, re-grading the landscape, installing utilities, performing stormwater management, and so on. So, what builder in his right mind is jumping for joy at the prospect of taking on a construction project with absolutely no initial funding to incentivize the lender not to pull out halfway through?
I totally see both sides. Just wish we weren't caught in the middle!
Excellent good fun though, let me tell you. Every second of it!
Later in the evening, Athennia picked Taylor up and took her on a tour of a local automotive training school she's considering attending when she finishes high school next year.
Tuesday, Athennia took off work in preparation to spend the day in her mechanic's waiting room while they looked at her O2 sensor: It turns out, it is the same one they replaced last month; and so, her mechanic Dave suspects the problem is most likely something else that's causing the sensor to fail (or at least act like it's failing).
The Check Engine light had since gone off on its own again by this point, and Dave recommended that Athennia head down to AutoZone to grab a new air filter and some fuel-injection cleaner—and then put some higher-octane gas in her tank—to see if this might help remedy things going forward.
While she was on her way back from this, Athennia witnessed a hit and run when some woman in an SUV blatantly ran a red light and plowed into a construction truck before just taking off again!
But, Athennia sped off after her and (surreptitiously) chased her over into Levittown until the woman finally parked the SUV in front of a random house and got out to start walking away like nothing had ever happened...
Athennia had 911 on the phone by this point and was able to give a full description—including the fact that the woman was staggering as though she was thoroughly intoxicated. Four cops arrived inside of a minute to nab her, and Athennia drove all the way back to tell the guy in the truck that they'd caught the piece of garbage who hit him!
Talk about saving the day :)
In the meantime, Riley spent the day cleaning out her closet—which would hardly be noteworthy, if not for the fact that she lugged out 14 trash bags full of stuff for us to feed to the dumpsters!
(Seriously. Athennia and I were actually kind of concerned at first over how much there was, and we wanted to make sure Riley wasn't throwing away anything she might come to miss one day. But, it turns out she's just at that age where it's time to put away childish things, so to speak.)
On Wednesday, Brody reached out with an update: He had managed to find someone at another Clayton location (all the way over in Delaware!) who somehow managed to get the USDA's draw schedule approved for a project once upon a time. So now, he's working his way up the chain of command to get to whoever was ultimately responsible for making that happen (to hopefully get them to do it again for us)!
No matter what happens, he's a hell of a guy. He has really, really gone the extra mile for us at this point. And, with any luck, it'll all pay off one of these days.
Thursday, Riley decided to try her hand at making pancakes...
She ended up with four of them and agreed to share when I asked if I could have one :)
Not quite a smile... but proof that Riley has a chin!
Friday night, I had tacos ready to go for dinner when Athennia got home from work.
I had also spent a few hours packing up a bunch of my books and a good portion of our living-room decor: I know our actual move is likely still months away—but, since my parents now have four decent-sized guest bedrooms they barely use, they were nice enough to say we could pack things at our leisure and store them over there so we can make a quick, clean break from the apartment when the time comes :)
So, after dinner, Athennia and I packed a few more boxes; and then she, Riley, and I loaded up the car and made a trip over to my parents'.
So, deconstruction has officially commenced. (And luckily, it wasn't quite as hot outside as it had been when Athennia got out of work...)
Saturday, our parking lot had a surprise visit from a true VIP...
Are you sure you're in the right neighborhood?
(Or did you just rent a Ferrari for the day to look like a big deal?)
Half an hour later, we were getting dumped on yet again...
I ran to the living-room window to see if Mr. Enzo and his Ferrari had been caught un-garaged... But, no. He had already left at some point.
The storm passed quickly. And the rest of the night was actually quite pleasant for A Midsummer Night's Nightmare of July humidity and... well, a bunch of Section 8 neighbors.
Athennia prepared chicken, potatoes, and green beans for dinner; and then we binge-watched four episodes of Lucifer and didn't get to bed until 2:00 A.M.
Sunday, we'd had plans to make another drive out to the Kutztown property—this time with our realtor—to officially walk the lot and try to chat with the neighbors a bit.
But Angel called us a couple hours before it was time to get on our way: He had a crack in his radiator and was waiting for a tow truck somewhere down in Philly; so, he wouldn't be able to join us... but he assured us that we were still scheduled and cleared to go walk the lot if we wanted.
Unlike the other five properties we'd looked at last weekend though, this one is so flat and open that we already had enough of a handle on it to be comfortable committing to it without another look.
And so, just like that, the big plans for a road trip we'd had all week had suddenly disappeared.
Naturally, the gears in our brains started turning...
I mean, it's still such a beautiful day. Shame to stay cooped up inside all afternoon...
And, think of what we would've spent on gas, driving all the way to Kutztown...
We can totally justify going out for dinner or ice cream somewhere... and maybe even load up the car and make another trip over to my parents' house, if we're heading in that direction...
Hell, why don't we see if they'd be up for meeting us for dinner at Applebee's or something?
So, yeah. We took a much shorter road trip over to my parents' house...
Then we all went to Applebee's...
Then, when we got back to our area, we stopped at Burger King in the hopes of grabbing some ice cream cones...
So, McDonald's ice cream machines are all broken? Well, whaddya know... Burger King's are, too!
With our plan thwarted to grab ice cream for under $3.00, we headed to Dairy Queen and spent $20.00 on Blizzards instead.
I totally would've walked over and snapped a pic of his license plate so I could properly publicly shame him, but he ended up driving away just as the girl was passing us our order through the window :(
But, getting back to our Blizzards, guess what flavor Athennia ordered?
Reese's.
As in, peanut butter.
Which brings us full circle to the title of this post.
—probably everyone, I'm sure ;)
And finally, that brings us to today.
Monday.
The last day of the month.
I spent most of it back and forth on the phone with Angel and Brody, and with Kirstyn from the USDA... just trying to get all the cogs in this machine to finally mesh so we can get some forward momentum.
Riley and I each had some Applebee's leftovers, so we ended up lunching together and hanging out at the kitchen table for half an hour or so too.
Then later after dinner, Athennia and I watched a few episodes of Lucifer to finish out Season 3.
And, as I sit here a day later putting the finishing touches on this post, guess whose tire is STILL flat more than a week later?!
...But, just because they're parked in the same spot they were in for the last picture, don't think that means they haven't moved this whole time: They're driving that thing around multiple times a day! I can't believe their rim doesn't look like a stop sign by now!
And now, buckle up for nine times the legal limit of cat pics in Pennsylvania! If a picture's worth a thousand words, just imagine what a thousand pictures are worth...
