A few delirious and sleep deprived ramblings

Jeffrey and I have taken this cold virus to new heights (or is it depths?). I enjoy many hours surfing the internet at 1AM because I'm coughing so loud I don't want to wake the baby, and he has stuff coming out of every orifice and is alternately miserable and energizer-bunny. We'll be calling the doctors offices as soon as they open to try to get this taken care of. I believe we've hit the point where antibiotics will do more good than harm. I may miss my midnight Twitter checks though. ;-)

Hopefully we can also have a plumber out soon. Our kitchen drain is completely backed up. We've been nursing a slow drain for weeks, and it finally bit the dust. You just haven't lived until you've washed dishes in the bathroom tub with bronchitis and a sinus infection.

Yesterday we went driving through a nearby town. I showed dh a house I had my eye on. Well, the owner saw us parked in front of his house for five minutes checking it out, and he invited us in! He and his girlfriend were very nice. The land is to die for - it's about 2 acres, just enough for us. It has a little babbling brook running along one side, and a teeny pond fed by a spring. A spring? Remember way back when, I was trying to name our little home here, hoping that *some* day I would have my dream home and take the name with me? Remember all of a few weeks ago when this blog had "Epiphany SPRINGS" up top instead of Epiphany Prep School? (you feed reader people probably haven't seen a difference, LOL). Does that sound prophetic? Hmmm?

Along one corner of the yard there is an electric fence visited by a few cows. The owner says that sometimes there are fish in the little pond, but that a heron often comes by and eats them up. Trees, but not TOO many, and a few good for climbing. I think dh is thinking it's all a little more work than he was bargining for, but I'm thinking the girls need more chores to keep out of each others hair.

Here are the pros and cons about the house, particularly the inside:

Pros -

• quirky layout (this is both a pro and a con - I like "quirky" but I need functional)
• woodstove insert in family room
• the owner will probably leave the riding mower as they are going to rent next
• nicely decorated without a lot to redo
• 2 master bedrooms - the older girls could have a bathroom to themselves which will be helpful when they get older
• 3 full bathrooms (again with the house of 4 teenage girls thing)
• the whole "back to nature" thing with the yard. Ahhhhhhh....
• a deep two car garage (we don't have one now)
• a small pantry right in the kitchen (we use shelves in the basement now)

Cons -

• the "quirky" layout is that the second master bedroom is off of the dining room. It just seems...weird. I think it would make a GREAT "bonus" room or homeschooling room, but then there aren't enough bedrooms.
• the bathroom in that bedroom is teeny. I'm used to teeny, but still...
• the current dining room looks like it will be too small for our family of 7. We would need to either use the living room as a dining room and/or break down the bit of wall that connects the living room to the dining room so that we can walk around our dining room table, and the table would probably jut out into the living room (it sounds worse than I think it would look)
• the kitchen has a breakfast nook that doesn't look like it could fit us all either. Although I think with a rectangular table and benches...maybe. It would be CROWDED then.
• stairs. Lots of stairs. There are a bunch of steps to get up to the front door. You can go in through the basement or the garage but then there are still stairs to get to the main floor, and then more stairs up to the top floor. We are not used to this, LOL. All the girls were like "whoaaaa, steep stairs!" It really wasn't that bad. We just have a raised ranch right now and our only stairs are two, short, 6 step ones.

The problem with all these cons, though, is that I don't think we can get much BETTER for this price. This affordable price. Definitely not with a spring out back! :) It seems rare to find a house with a huge dining room or a huge breakfast nook, YKWIM?

Thanks for listening to me ramble this morning. I'm off to figure out how to wash the dishes that are piling up. Maybe I can hide them all in the tub until after the plumber shows up??