The Right Thing at the Wrong Time

We are doing it! We are moving to Switzerland!

My visa has finally been approved, the plane tickets have been purchased and we are leaving for Switzerland. First we have to pack though. Isn't that the worst?

After talking about it a great deal, we decided to sell as much as we possibly could. Like most Americans, we have been holding on to too much stuff as we travel around and really, it is just weighing us down. We have boxes and boxes and more boxes of books. Or did, two trips to the used bookstore ago.

Tonight I went to the used bookstore near me with a few boxes of books. This is a rather large bookstore with a lot of staff and I was told there would be an hour wait to receive my offer. Walking around the store I could see why... There were more people selling books than buying. o_0

In the end, I was offered $11 for around 75 pounds of printed material but it was worth it because now I have 75 less pounds to haul around.

We have a moving date!

We are leaving for Switzerland on August 28th. This gives me exactly a month to sell most everything and move the rest to storage. Yikes.

I am going to miss everyone here but I'm also excited for this new adventure. If we make it there in one piece, that is.

The good news and the bad news

We just received word that our visas have gone through! *do a little dance*

There is a housing office that takes care of temporary housing for people coming from overseas. There are only a few apartments though, so they advise you contact them well before hand. Husband sent them email months ago but they were dragging their feet, waiting for the visas. Now that we have visas taken care of, the housing office got back to us and you guessed it... They don't have anything available. So we are stuck looking at temporary studios for around $2000.

*sigh* Now I know why people don't move overseas.

Where was I?

Hmm. Long time no post. What's been up?

Well, S is getting a sibling. A younger one at that.

We are moving to Switzerland! Land of cheese, chocolate and cold weather. Can't wait. To prepare S for snow, I ordered a Warren Miller movie from Netflix. She wasn't impressed.

Green Baby Bargains

This website I recently started stalking, Green Baby Bargains, offers one baby bargain at a time for a low, low price. I could have sworn I saw bamboo cloth diapers on there but I didn't get them in time.

Did I mention I'm pregnant? w00t! And we are moving to Europe? Yeah, I've been a little busy. lol

We are done with nighttime (cloth) diapers!

I made a deal with S a week ago. If she went for one week with dry diapers in the morning she could get out of the cloth and into regular undies. She excitedly added a star to the calendar every morning and 7 days later, the week was full of stars. So tonight she gets regular undies under her pjs.

Here's to hoping I don't have laundry to do tomorrow.

Happy Birthday S!

My baby girl turned 4 last month. Things have been craxy around here with the husband finishing his PhD dissertation and me doing things like making Hello Kitty graham crackers for the girl's school.

Let's catch up. Yesterday S got her first bike from Craigslist. The ad said it was a Care Bears bike but it turned out to be a My Little Pony bike (her fave!) so she has been going around saying she loves mistakes.

Did I forget to mention we are moving to Switzerland?

I've been reading up on the subject because all I know about Switzerland is chocolate and cheese. Well, the husband (when he was just the boyfriend lol) and I went to Basel for 1 day.

OK, my last batch of Hello Kitty graham crackers are out of the oven and it is almost 2 am. Gotta go to bed.

The Cat Bite

Don't let your kids be bitten by a neighbor's cat. Especially if the neighbor hasn't had the cat vaccinated since he was a bitty kitty.

Kitty is now at the humane society under quarantine and being watched for rabies. Kid is taking antibiotics and had to have a tetanus shot.

Here's the thing. We are delaying vaccines for kid. The other day I looked up the vaccine schedule from when I was born and compared it to the current schedule. Our kids have over twice as many vaccines as we did when we were kids. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccines were combined sometime between the mid-70s and now into the MMR.

The Hep B vaccine is now required for newborns. Here's the deal, I was tested for Hep B when I was pregnant and it is a blood or other fluid transmitted disease. Why would I give this to my newborn? Why not wait until she was older and her body was mature enough to handle it?

A lot of people I know don't vaccinate their kids at all for various reasons. Some due to serious or fatal vaccine complications, severe allergies, religious or philosophical reasons. I, myself love science. I think it is great that my child won't have to go through certain things, like measles. I just don't think that scientists are infallible.

We were on a delayed schedule when we moved. Our excellent pediatrician was very thoughtful about which vaccines were important right away and which ones could be put off. We only wanted to give one vaccine at a time and none when kid was sick so her system wasn't overloaded. Then we moved and had to find a new pedi. We went through a few and TBH, I don't really like any of them.

I've probably done a little more research than the average parent and I recognize lies right away. As soon as I hear a lie, I will never trust the pedi again.

Well, today I heard a few mistruths and now I need yet another pediatrician.

Still Unemployed - Kind Of

Well, I am still unemployed and officially looking for work. The huge company I worked for doesn't appear to be hiring in this wonderful economic climate. The only bright spots are:

• Less stress - I am enjoying the time off.
• Contracting gigs - I found a company that hired me to perform contracting PHP development. It isn't the field I was in or want to be in but it pays. The jobs are self-assigning too.
  
• Losing weight - I am eating less and no take-out. Both the husband and I are shedding pounds.
• Personal projects - The mania of being jobless took over and I am cranking out those projects one by one.
  

Finally!

I've been in this city for 3 years now and I finally found someone who can cut my hair. The first 1.5 years I flew home to get my haircut but that was 2000 miles and kinda pricey. Then I hopped from one stylist who made me look like I should be coming out of my trailer in the 1980's to another who berated me for not flat ironing my hair. The second stylist charged me $100 for the privilege too. My hair began to look like an overgrown bush so I met a friend at her stylist and she did a great job.