Surrendering.

Our old kitchen...I miss that dishwasher...a lot.

I did it.

I finally caved and hired a house cleaner. Today was Yuliana's third time here. All it took was much badgering on Shane's part, Elder Uchtdorf's talk (slow down in times of turbulence) and then my SIL telling me that during a recent crazy, stressful time in her life she had a cleaning lady.

Fifteen months of sleepless nights have resulted in one tired mama. First it was the nursing woes...Micah and I would be up for an hour plus each time he nursed at night. I thought that was rough. Ha! Try getting up 6, 7, 8,9 times each and every night (for 10 months) to comfort an itchy baby. Sometimes it's easy and I just pop a binky in and we drift back to sleep. Other nights I'm in for the long haul....the walking and comforting, rubbing tummy or ears (his magic spot).

What took me so long to get some help? Some part of me felt that having a cleaner would be admitting that I'm a failure. I love keeping my home neat and clean. I love making everything from scratch (errr...used to). I love keeping it all together. But keeping it all together has been a distant memory this year. Unfolded laundry sits in baskets for a week at a time, floors gather dust and crumbs, dishes pile up all day long and we eat many a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner.

That said Shane is a marvelous helper. Guess who does the dishes most every night? Guess who makes yummy hearty breakfasts for his wife every morning? Pancakes, bacon and eggs, always something good to fill my belly. Guess who patiently takes Micah each morning at 4:30 AM so that I can get a few hours of real sleep? Only trouble is most nights we get the kids down and he hops on the computer and gets right back to work. Not much time (or energy) to clean at night.

We already love Yuliana. She comes once a week, cleans and even does some cooking. She showed up on her first day with homemade frijoles, tomatoes and peppers (from which she made homemade salsa) and tortillas. We gobbled her dinner down that night and we both agreed that it is worth every penny to have a clean home and delicious food that we had nothing to do with.

Casa Nueva

We decided we're up for an adventure. As long as we're going to rent this year why not rent a fun place like say a circa 1887 Victorian in the historic district?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I think about living there. No dishwasher (but I know a pretty good one named Shane), 60-year-old stove, no garage, creepy basement, no air conditioning--that's what fans and windows are for, right? Right? Riiiiight.



OK enough whining. It's 2 seconds from Pearl Street, Boulder's amazing downtown area. It's in the nicest part of town and just as quiet and lovely as can be.



Colorado jungle. Oh I mean our new backyard. But the consolation for all the yard work? Huge blackberry bush, plum trees, apple trees and grapes.




And here's what sold us: the infinity* deck off the master bedroom--if you can call it a master--our King bed will just barely squeeze in here. The view is perfection. We plan to spend our evenings out here and hopefully sleep out under the stars together. Micah did you hear that? I want to share my bed with my husband again...hope you'll cooperate.

*Infinity meaning a single guy lived here before and therefore there is nothing between the edge of the 2nd story deck and the ground. We plan to remedy that asap.