Lost treasures

It is amazing what you find when you really clean your house. Just today I found the missing American Girl Doll outfit that I was supposed to give Madison last August on her birthday from Craig's parents. When I forgot to bring it to her party, I was asked to just give it to her for Christmas. No problem...that left me 4 months to find the pink and red little box that the outfit was in. As Christmas drew closer, I began to panic a little. I could not think of a single place that it might be so, as any reasonable person would do, I asked Madison where she got each and every outfit in her dolls' wardrobe--wondering if perhaps she had found it somewhere, opened it, and thought that SHE had misplaced it. It didn't take much to convince me that she had found it and her two dolls had been trading it back and forth for months while I frantically scoured the house wondering if this all was further evidence that I was losing my mind. When I found an empty AG clothes box under her bed I became further satisfied that the mystery had been solved, telling myself that I was still a slightly sane person as I halted the search. All was well...until today. As the final and top shelf of the linen closet was being sorted I stumbled across a small box. At first I was excited, but that soon faded as I realized that I have been blaming an innocent child for snooping and finding it 3 months ago (although I never verbally accused her or mentioned it to her). Oops. Sorry, Maddie. I guess I am at the age where I should have ONE (and only one) hiding place.

Apparently no one likes rosy pink toilet seats anymore. None of the major home improvement stores carry them and give you a funny look when you ask if one can be ordered somehow. (They can be, by the way, but they're 30 bucks and take 17 days. No thanks, I'm Dutch and impatient). I know they're all thinking something like "She looks kind of normal, but I wonder why she wants pink so bad. She probably has one of those houses with wallpaper everywhere, gold specks in her white counter tops, and lots of pastel walls." Not quite. Wallpaper was created only to annoy me. The gold specks have been painted over (in the pink bathroom, of course, and by the previous owners), and not ALL of the walls are pastel. There are a few white ones, but most have a little pizazz. We really just don't have time to do another bathroom remodel....
Anyway, back to the toilet seat. I did find one at a mom and pop style hardware store. The lady who looked like she was in pain every time she took a step led me to the aisle where a very lonely and ugly pink seat sat on the shelf. She unknowingly said "How about a pink one?" I smiled and said "Perfect, I'll take it." I think that she was a little surprised. She's probably been trying to sell that sucker for 25 years. I couldn't wait to call Craig, but he didn't seem nearly as excited as I am. We're one step closer to getting this house ready to sell. Since we're interviewing potential Realtors on Saturday and likely putting it on the market next week time is short.

On a different note, I am really missing my Christopher today. I don't know if moving the crib, maternity clothes, and all that we had acquired in anticipation of becoming parents to the storage unit last night started this or it is something else, but my heart is heavy today. Even though I can work around the house and get things done, thoughts of the little guy that I love and miss so much are never very far away...