I cant win!

I have been trying all week to win tickets to see Muse on March 7th. I have been stalking radio stations like crazy and added all of them to the speed dial on my phone. So far I either call in too early and am told to call back or get the dreaded busy signal.
I cant justify just buying the tickets because Maor would need to be the baby sitter (we havent ventured into interviewing sitters yet...Im still scared of the idea) and I dont know anyone who is a big enough fan to buy tickets and go with me. It would be much easier to find a friend to go with me if I was like "hey, I have an extra free ticket!"
There is always tomorrow. Maybe my luck will change.

House hunting isnt going well. We went to 2 houses last night. The first one neither of us liked. The second one Maor liked because it had a huge master bedroom but I hated because the 2 extra bedrooms were so small you wouldnt be able to fit anything but a bed. A fight ensued over it.

This week is restaurant week. Last time it came around we went to a pretty swank french restaurant and got a $120 dinner for $60. It was so fancy they gave us foam to "cleanse the pallet". Last time Maors mom was around to babysit for us. This time we are bringing Lea with so I opted for a more family friendly Italian restaurant. I hope its just as good.

I'll be doing a show Saturday on CW at 9pm central time. If you can watch I hope you do!

Carnival

We brought Lea to the Purim carnival today. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. There were food booths, 3 bouncy castles for kids, a silent auction, a cake walk, and tons of games for the kids to play.
I was also pleasantly surprised at the costumes. Most people really tried to go all out. There was a good mix of store bought and crafted costumes too. My favorite was a family of bunnies where they took gray hoodies put bunny ears on the hood and a big mass of white yarn on their butts for tails. I need to remember that one later.
I did not dress up because the only costumes I have are not family day appropriate.

Lea was quite the stimulated baby. We gave her a noise maker and once she figured out how to get it going it was the greatest thing she had ever laid her hands on. To bad we lost it when she decided to play the "uh oh" game while we were walking through a crowd. We gave her a hamentashen. Its a hat shaped cookie. She enjoyed it. I may have to start making them. She also got to hang out with some other babies and crawl around a bit.

After we went to a nearby mall with another couple. Their kids were still pretty wound up after the carnival (it ended at 2pm) so they wanted to let them run around in the mall play place.
I dont normally hang out with this couple. My husband does. I tell my husband I feel weird not being part of the conversations (they are from Israel and speak VERY little English) but its really because they dont control their kids and while one is a little angel the other takes advantage of it and is an absolute terror.
While we were there the small terror started smacking the shit out of other children with her balloon. She was tracking kids down and smacking them around. It was horrifying. Mom didnt care. She sat there playing with her phone and I slid further away from her as parents glared at her and took their kids out of the area. I should have said something because they already think Im a snob but instead I took Lea over to a little slide and hoped that someone would go "Hey lady! Tell your kid to stop slapping my kid!" No one did...
Probably wouldnt have done anything anyway. The first time the little one figured out how to get out of the area another mom came over to us and said "Uhh your kid is running around the mall now."
The second and third time Maor caught her and threw her back in. He did get fed up and say, "You know in this country crazy people take kids right?" I dont know if that got through to them. We left shortly after because Lea was tired.

Leas first Cosplay

My girlfriends are not coming up this weekend. One has a flu so they have pushed back the whole thing.
I was really looking forward to a girls weekend.

Its Leas first Purim. The synagogue is doing a little carnival thing tomorrow so we needed to get Lea a costume. We seriously considered buying her a really cute Disney costume but in the end we decided $35 dollars for something she will only wear once was a bit too much.
So I slapped together a baby Pinkie Pie costume.

Its Lea's first cosplay!
Im so proud!

DAMN!

The house we wanted has offers on it. I couldnt get in to see the other half so we arent going to jump in the offer war.

The weekend at Grandmas was fun. My mom let Lea eat Cheerios off the floor....

Nothing too eventful happened. It was a pretty chilled weekend.
We had Gigis cupcakes. Good stuff.

I looked in my closet this morning and decided I want new cloths. My girlfriends are coming up this weekend for a girls weekend and Im trying to remember what I have to go out in but nothing fun is coming to mind. I dont think I can remember how to dress myself anyway. Makeup might also be a problem. I should pick up a new lipstick.

Meh, I'll probably just grab whatever isnt wrinkled and borrow their makeup. I might also borrow their shoes.....

Busy weekend

We have started the duplex hunting. My grandma actually grew up here in Minneapolis and most of her family is here so shes very excited about moving back. My aunt is a little worried that Gramzy will up and die after we move her here. I told her Lea will keep her too busy to die.

The first duplex we looked at was in the perfect area but needs to drop the price by about 200K before I would consider buying it. They split up the basement all weird and it honestly looks like they were trying to build more space to consider rentable even though because of zoning it wouldnt be legal. They try to word it that one half is 3 bedrooms and one is 4 bedrooms but lets say I have a master bedroom down stairs. I would have to go out through one door, up the stairs, down a hallway, then I could either go in the left door to one half of the duplex or right to the other half. Its just odd. There havent been any improvements to the upstairs so they pretty much sunk a crap ton of money into a mess of doors and little rooms in the basement.

The second duplex is pretty damn awesome. The kitchen is all new, its been kept up nicely, there is a finished area in the basement, and the master bedroom is huge. Im a little concerned that its by a major road and the yard isnt fenced...we would need to put something in.

So I sent my Aunt pictures and told the realtor that if the second half looks exactly like the first then we would take the next step. We might actually have a place to live by the time all our leases are up. That would be perfect.

Tomorrow Maor and I are going to visit my parents.
I need to pack. I kinda hate how taking a long weekend takes preparation now.
Im too tired. I might just put it off till tomorrow after I get off work.

Creativity

I said my new years resolution was to draw one thing a week. I havent done that. I feel like I have hit a creative wall. I actually feel that I hit that wall well over a year ago. I cant think of new things I want to paint or things I want to create and its actually driving me a little nuts.

I was watching Face Off tonight and thinking about how I really miss college when I was under pressure to create for a grade because I had some pretty awesome ideas. I also hung out with lots of creative people so ideas were constantly flowing. Now we have all gone our separate ways and I dont feel challenged so my creativity has just stopped.

Im trying to think of how to fix this because I love painting and I love drawing. I think I would be a lot happier with life if I could get past this and create again. I dont even know whats stopping me.

Its not Lea, I have enough down time after she goes to bed that I could easily pick up a project.
Its not Maor, Ive hit little burst of creativity around him to know that I can do it and hes very interested in seeing what I make sometimes he even gets involved.
Its just me.
What happened? Why have I stopped and how the hell do I start up again?

Valentines day show!

Tomorrow I'll be doing a Valentines day show!

It is currently unknown if it will be a solo show or not.
As of right now Maor is feeling like death warmed up. Ive pumped him full of medicine, OJ, and tacos (he didnt want soup) so hopefully he will feel better.

We can stay in America!

We just got the letter that Maors green card conditions have been lifted and hes allowed to stay in the US for another 10 years without getting questioned again! Yay!

With that fantastic news he jumped up and said "LETS GO TO ISRAEL!"

We have been waiting for close to a year for an answer as to if they would reissue his green card or not. It was a disaster process. First we filed the wrong paperwork three months before his green card would expire (and paid $500 to file the wrong paperwork) and were told that we filed wrong a month before his card expired. So we paid extra to get a lawyer to file the right paperwork for us on top of paying more filing fees. They did not give a refund for our mistake earlier.
A month later Maor was walking around with an expired card and no word on what was happening. So we called the office and they said "Oh, whoops. Yeah, it takes a really long time to get an answer from the office your paperwork went to so we will resend that paperwork that says we got your paperwork and the extension."
So its been about a year sense then of periodicity calling in to hear people say, "Nope, no decision yet"
Maors friends got their answers in four months so he was biting his nails at 6 months, had them down to bloody stumps at 7 months and had me almost worried we were going to have to start apartment hunting in Haifa at 8 months.
Now that we got the letter his family is celebrating our lack of an excuse to not come and visit. We were telling them that we couldnt leave because all he had was an expired card and a crappy photo copy of a letter saying that his card was extended because that is literally what the government sent us as replacement paperwork.Who the hell would let him back in with that?

So the first thing everyone in his family said when they heard was "YAY! You come now! We see baby!"
Uhhh....baby needs passport. Also, my passport expires next month. Not to mention we need our extra money for a down payment on a new place to live because we need to move in May (ok we dont NEEEED to but if I have to spend another year is this place I wont be happy). And even if we wait until after that my work gets stupidly busy in the summer so I dont think they would appreciate me leaving for 2 weeks straight.
Sadly even though Maor agrees with me that we should wait until Nov/Dec to go as soon as he said "My wife thinks we should wait" I looked like the bad person.

I need to start working on my Hebrew again...Lea wont be old enough to translate for me by then.