6 Month Catch Up

I love her chubby hands!

Playing with Grandma!

Grandma's Girl

Toes in the grass.

Oh what an exciting and stressful past two weeks this has been! My last two weeks at work were hectic trying to finish up projects and train my replacement. The reality still hasn't set in that I am not working there any more. I'm trying to let it sink in slow so it doesn't hit me so hard. I really liked my boss Gary. We worked together perfectly and were so comfortable with each other and loved to joke around. Gary is the only reason I stuck around that drama-inflicted law firm for so long. Three years is a long time to hang in there through all that stress, but hard to let go of at the same time. To sum up my relationship with Gary, here is what he wrote in my farewell card: "Krysta, I will never forgive you for leaving me after all the training I have given you and all the time I have spent debating the proper use of commas! I can't believe you would choose your baby over me. I am deeply hurt! However, best of luck in your new role, I hope you can enjoy lots of quality time with your family."

Speaking of quality time with family, this weekend we drove up to Oakley in the Bay Area and stayed the night at Art's grandparents' house on his mom's side. Let me tell you, you will never come across more good-natured and sweet-hearted people than his grandparents, Kathy and George. By the time you leave, you feel like you have been their family all your life. They were gracious enough to let my mom stay there with us and she wholeheartedly agreed. This is how cool Grandpa is- he has caught fish taller than himself. And Grandma is so cool that she has a MySpace and reads and comments on my blog. We had an awesome visit with them and the rest of the family, complete with a barbecue, homemade lemon cake, and breakfast burritos.

The next morning we drove to San Francisco for Keira's appointment at UCSF. On the way there we saw a bum passed out on the side of the street with one leg out in the middle of the road and his head all bent against the wall behind him. It was crazy. I am always amazed at how crazy it is there. We met with the surgeon and the news seems very good thus far. To rewind just a little bit, last week was Keira's 6 month checkup with Dr. Jones and he was shocked at how strong her legs are now. Where before she couldn't support her weight, she is standing quite well now- assisted of course. And she is rolling across the room like crazy and managing to crawl a little, although mostly backward at this point. He said he didn't note any weakness at all, which is miraculous based on the fact that just 3 months ago she was way behind schedule. She now weighs 15 lbs. 2 oz. (25th percentile) and is 25.5 inches long (50th percentile). She is just about to pop out a couple teeth too. The surgeon at UCSF said that her progress is a really good sign that the cyst could be clearing up on its own. When he reviewed the MRI images, he didn't note any solid matter in the cyst which would be indicative of a problematic cyst. He said it's fine if the cyst doesn't clear up as long as it doesn't get bigger and cause problems such as the leg weakness. The other good news is that there is not any likelihood of recurrence so she is definitely not looking at a lifetime of trouble and probably won't recall any of this.

They are going to have us come back to UCSF in 6 months to examine her again and make sure she is still making her milestones then schedule another MRI is 12 months to check on the status of the cyst itself. I am just in awe at how blessed we have been despite our obstacles. All of the prayers, fasting, and blessings did not fall on deaf ears. I had faith that she would be healed and that faith was not ill spent.

Today was my first day at London Properties. I haven't had enough time there to form any solid opinion yet, but I enjoy my bosses Cliff and Laura thus far. The office is intimidatingly large with a maze of desks and offices. The office is so large, in fact, that they have their own STORE smack dab in the middle wherein you can buy drinks, snacks, gifts, London Property logo items, you can have keys made, etc. It is pretty crazy. The only real work I did today was typing up a letter and making a few phone calls to follow up on offers. I also opened a new escrow. Nothing major. It looks like I will have to take a couple of their training programs on some of the software they use though. It's been challenging trying to recall my real estate knowledge that is stashed in the back of my mind from over three years ago, but I have been doing quite well.

On an entirely different subject, remember all that complaining I did last summer about not having air conditioning in my car because we saved up all that money then owed over $3,000 on our taxes and had to suffer all summer- pregnant- in a black car with no air conditioning in FRESNO??? Well, once again we had saved up enough money to have it installed, and got to making some phone calls to find someone to do the work, when we learned that Mazda does not sell an ac kit for that car any more and aftermarket hasn't started selling ac kits for that car. Now, I endured the entire summer in my pregnant state, and Art managed to survive, but I was not about to put my poor baby in that car in the heat. And Art gets SOOOO grumpy when he is hot, that we would surely end up divorced by the end of the year if we didn't get a car with cooling capabilities. The only logical solution, in my opinion, was to check blue book and see if my car is worth anything close to what I paid for it and trade that sucker in. Sure enough, it was still worth what we paid for it so we began our search. Our predicament was further enhanced by the fact that we incurred a large sum of negative equity on our auto loan when our Jetta "blew up" on us and we had to trade it in at far below our loan amount. The difference, about $7,000, was rolled over on our new auto loan. So even though our car was only worth about $10,000, we were paying on it like it was a $20,000 car.

I swore I would never return to Selma Auto mall again after our negative experience with them, so my brother suggested we go to the Fresno Chevy dealership and talk to a guy who treated him well. Since one of the cars we were interested in was the Chevy Equinox, we decided that was a good idea. They explained to us that the loan industry these days is not fond of making negative loans any more and that it would be wise for us to get a year-end 2008 with over $4,000 incentive discount to close the gap on the negative equity. Another $2,000 out of pocket and there is only a thousand dollars of negative equity remaining which is much easier to get a loan for. It also helped that somehow in the past year my credit went from ok to awesome. And I do mean awesome. They said my score is up to 788 which qualifies me for the lowest interest rate which is 4.45% instead of the 9% I was paying before. I am also happy because my insurance is going down $100 a month, which more that counteracts the fact that our payment will be $60 higher.

I am just so happy that we will be driving something that is worth the crazy loan amount we are paying for it, that is HAS air conditioning, and that the negative equity is almost gone now. An added bonus is that it's a crossover SUV and has WAY more room than our tiny Mazda 3 and we can actually fit the car seat in without having to move the front seat all the way forward and can fit more that just the stroller in the back. I know I will miss my awesome gas mileage, tight turns, and zippiness, but most of all I will miss the happy horn (see my old story entitled "The Happy Horn"). What I don't understand though, is why no one suggested that we get a year-end with an incentive when we initially incurred the negative equity. It would have saved us a lot of trouble and a lot of days of dehydration and heat exhaustion. Jerks...

Anyway, I do apologize for the lengthy nature of this entry, but I had a lot to catch up on. My life has been full of stress and happiness, and twists and turns, and I am looking forward to everything calming down soon and especially looking forward to all the time I can spend with my family now that I will be working part time. I can't wait to get rid of this constant feeling of failure and be the mother that I need to be.