my other "hero"....

...is MJ. Why? Because she suggested last week that I fasten hanging toys to the handle of Ava's carrier/car seat so that she has something to entertain her while we're out. The obvious solutions to her fussiness elude me, apparently. ANYHOW, now when we go out I just swipe a few toys from the Baby Einstein thing, hang them on the car seat, and Ava either stares at them until she dozes off or she looks at them and smiles like it's the most awesome thing she's ever seen. Babies can be a challenge, but sometimes they're so easy to please it's almost funny.

Yesterday we went out and looked at houses. We live in a nice house on nice land and really like the majority of our neighbors, but while we've taken care of our property, many other people have not. There's nothing more depressing than walking around our subdivision and realizing that about half of the people take absolutely no pride in their property: weedy, patchy lawns and cars parked on the grass. I know not everyone can afford an irrigation system (we installed one last year and it got our lawn into good shape) and I know we're in a bad drought right now so nobody's lawn is going to look that great, but you can at least keep it mowed and edged. And don't even get me started on the parking of cars on lawns...we even have an unused portion of land on our cul-de-sac that some people feel is an appropriate place to put their cars. It looks like a trailer park, for heaven's sake!!! So, because of these things and a couple of other situations we are not comfortable with, we are in the very early stages of looking elsewhere. We'll have to spend more than we'd like, but at least we can get something in a neighborhood where people take care of their things, and it will be more of an investment. We'll see...