hello, day.

Last night I lost sleep; I was so excited to go house hunting with our realtor today that my sleep timeclock totaled about four hours. Daylight savings added to the sleep robbery.

For me, house hunting is like an actual opportunity to build a dream. Just the thought of living in a home I get to choose and love with my little family gets me giddy. I can't believe I've come to this point in my life - where things can be however we choose them to be, instead of settling for the best we can do.

I woke up with a cough and a splitting headache - and I never get headaches. We rushed out the door, and I completely forgot to grab the travel mug of Starbucks I'd poured myself in between sporadic chases after Carter to cram his feet into shoes.

I had a bag of various snacks to tide Carter over for the day, but as it turned out, he was too grumpy to eat more than a couple cheerios and bites of apple. The bumpy rash under his nose was flaring up, he was tired, and I think our realtor made him nervous.

She made all of us nervous. When we first met with her seven months ago, she admitted to openly hating the area we're currently looking in. Ever since we broke the news that we'd like to actually change our search to this horrid area, she's seemed outright pissed. I'm not good at breaking up with a realtor who's already invested, I dunno, twelve hours? into our cause. No idea how to go about it.

And I'm hoping? She's not a baby blog reader.

We saw ten houses. Maybe my standards are set too high, but it was like opening wrapped gifts on Christmas that had nothing inside them. At a few of the houses, we walked in the door then turned around and walked right back out. I had a hard time justifying my reasons for disliking some of them. How do you say you don't like a place because it smells funny without sounding stuck up? You don't.

I took a quick phone picture of the outside of one house. It was beautiful, brand new construction, but the layout inside just didn't feel quite right.

Carter didn't have much input. He let out an impressive Woahh at the sight of a little boy's room (which squished my heart, it made me want to go home immediately, paint his room bright green and give him a hundred trains and animals).

He had a mylifemayaswellbeover meltdown when we discovered and confiscated the large, brass coin he was proudly carrying around from a coin collection set as a display inside someone's glass coffee table. A true prize for any toddler; any onlooking, make-believe toddler friends would have cheered for him. I have no idea how he accessed it. Hopefully we set it back in the right spot.

By the time we reached the last house, Carter was shrieking through tears for me to hold him and ripping at my shirt, begging to nurse. Ermm yeah, try explaining that episode to your wide-eyed realtor.

Driving home, I felt so defeated by those houses. Matt boiled some pasta for me, and I put Carter down for a nap. I was so tired, my makeup ached. I washed my face, laid in my bed trying to ignore my still splitting headache and ate the most delicious spicy pasta tortellinis I'd ever had.

Then I slept for three hours.

And maybe this post is a little bit of procrastination from writing my Day 10 for Project 31 - Makeup. I love makeup, but the mood hasn't struck me yet.

Vote for my blog if you think Carter needs his own coin collection!