Happy Thanksgiving!

(this is back posted - sorry! I forgot!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

My Thanksgiving was mostly good – Mr. Moose and I got into an argument in the morning while we were finishing the prep around the house and I realized how stressed I’d been feeling and overwhelmed, etc. Part of the problem is, I feel like I have no privacy right now – my dad has been coming over every day, somewhat unannounced, to work on the backsplash for the kitchen, Mr. Moose’s sister and BIL came into town on Tuesday and suddenly, our lives are not our own (they also showed up uninvited Wednesday night) and the house was still torn up and I wasn’t feeling well… you get the idea. He sent me to lay down at noon, not expecting guests until closer to 2 (which is when we asked people to show up, planning to eat at 3). Half an hour later, Mr. Moose woke me to let me know that his great aunt and uncle and grandmother had just pulled into the driveway. Oh boy. In my stupor I overheard something about a cat – his grandmother had brought her cat along in it’s carrier. Without asking or even telling us ahead of time. I like animals, don’t get me wrong, but most of his family is allergic to cats (though this is a Siamese, and therefore not nearly as problematic) and we have 2 very anti-cat dogs in our house (Buck moreso than Murphy, but still). I was ticked, but kept my mouth shut. She allowed us to put the cat in it’s carrier in the back room (the soon-to-be nursery, which I also didn’t like because I didn’t want to get dander and whatnot in the baby’s room – both of her parents have cat allergies, why borrow trouble?) but later, when she decided to take the cat out, she sat herself in the baby’s glider chair – the ONE piece of furniture in the house I have managed to keep completely dog-free. She kept him on her lap, wrapped in a towel (He’s still just a kitten and has limited manners, but if that cat had peed on her and gotten it on my chair, I would have been PISSED OFF).

The food was plentiful and yummy and it all worked out, despite my mismatched dishes (my knock-off china plates and plastic disposable cups – paper napkins left over from my wedding 2 years ago, etc.).

My exciting moment of the weekend, however, included the best garage sale find ever! My MIL and SIL, LB, went garage-saling on Saturday morning. They checked out some sales in a beach community (this often means people with serious money since between the waterfront – or close to it- property and the flood/hurricane insurance you have to have some serious $$ to live there) and found a travel system almost exactly like the one I have registered for (different print) which looked brand-spanking new. The lady claimed her daughter had only been in the infant carrier twice – and I believe her. It also came with an additional base and had nearly all the features I wanted (I still don’t like the main button that holds the 5-point harness together, but I CAN undo it, so I’m much less worried about it, even if I have to trim down my nails eventually to get it open easier). She was selling it for ½ what it goes for retail – so we saved approximately $100 on it AND my MIL offered to pay for it as a joint gift between her and her mother. The only ridiculously expensive item left on the registry is my breast pump (which is not one of those items that I even remotely expected as a gift – I’m simply hoping to get enough gift cards and cash cover it or something). On Sunday we even cleaned out my car enough and installed the carseat base and tested it with the carrier – it’s going to be a tight fit for the passenger seat, but it does, in fact, work, so I’m quite excited. The main thing we needed is here, in my house and I’m so thrilled.