Write, Mama. Write.

Work phase: Adrenaline down, exhaustion up

I spent an inordinate amount of time this morning trying to figure out why the thingy on the dryer wasn't pulling out to turn on, and it never has.  My young fix-it farmer waitress was going to help me but then I finally realized I'm just too tired and had forgotten how it worked.  I also locked my keys in the glove box (infinitely better than locking a child in the car, I'd imagine) so we couldn't go to playgroup at the playground, to the paint store, to pick up boxes or to the library.  Instead we took a leisurely walk and smelled the lilacs in bloom, marveled at the cherry blossoms on the grass, and agreed wholeheartedly that it was fun to have a new home to look forward to and that sunny days are nice. 

I didn't mean to disappear from here, and I miss recording things.  I missed Mother's Day completely, didn't I, much like May Day and more?  We're taking turns working late into the night at the new house, with one of us doing the nightly bedtime routine at the "old home" with the boy.  Then, when the weekend hits, we are in the new place from the top o' the morn to late into the evening (finding quiet things to do during Pack-n-Play naptime).  It's all kind of a blur and when Monday hits we experience a bit of culture shock, going back to the routine of things (though the routine is wholly different now).  It's busy.  We're covered in paint speckles.  I bought a new kitchen sink and a DISHWASHER and the counter is too low and too small to fit a dishwasher so that'll take some thought...  I mean there is no counter, of course, but if there was a counter it wouldn't work.  I spent crazy money at IKEA and have to go back.  I'm tired.  We found beautiful, old stairs under the carpet (which is mounded in a stinky heap on the front porch), two mice nests and other things I've forgotten.  I think we're going to try to refinish the floors by ourselves.

Quilt Market on Thursday.

Woo hoo!

Work phase: Removal!

Thank you for all of that excitement and goodwill!  I'm writing back (slowly)...  Thanks for making us feel like everyone is as thrilled as we are about this new place.  We've had four days in the house and we have (with help from family!):
-made copious plans
-scrubbed the woodwork & walls in the bedrooms
-removed the appliances
-re-keyed the locks
-removed the kitchen counter & sink
-removed kitchen cupboard doors
-removed miles upon miles of green tile (it was on the counters and the floors in the kitchen and playroom...)
-lots o' yard work (it sat empty for awhile)
-removed a bucket's worth of hardware from walls, doors, ceilings, etc.
-removed old blinds, alarms, etc.
-shopped for fix-it supplies galore
-called for bids on various things you'd never want to do yourself (insulation under the first floor, refinishing painted wood floor, etc.)

OK, so listing it out makes me feel better.  Somewhere in there we walked to our town's annual parade and saw Carrie's beautiful exhibit at Art Walk (also, madly: finishing up the big tutorial contest and getting ducks in a row for Women's Clothing Month on the SMS blog).  The house to-do list is freaking me out!  No complaints though; we're so thrilled and excited!  I kept panicking our first work day because I'd lose track of the boy in the house.  I've never lost track of him in our little home because it's so small (there's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide).  He races through the empty rooms in the "new home," has quickly become a tool expert and lends a helping hand whenever it's needed (and often when it isn't).  Yesterday morning wall washing was not a hit but sorting the cupboard hardware was fantastic!

I think if I share before pics before there's an after you'll think we're crazy.  Here are some "durings" though.  I decided to go flash crazy in the house so the "afters" in natural light look way better!

The three of us were alone in the house last night, watching how the light moves through the home in the evening.  We admired the cherry blossoms from the porch and laughed at the grime everywhere.  We're dreaming, and happy.

Big news

We waited over three months to tell anyone about the boy, before we knew he was a boy.  It's an obsessive-compulsive/doesn't make sense thing; while I wait for anything to happen I can tick through the worries without stopping for breath.  I try to notice the sunshine and sing Zippity-Doo-Dah and laugh, but I still worry inside. 

It's not a baby this time, it's a home!  It wasn't nine months but nearly so, and I just couldn't even write about it and leave something in draft because I was sure I'd jinx things.  If you look back on any of my home entries these past few months they're all full of such frustration and deals gone wrong and sadness and every time I vented, someone or many someones said, "It'll happen... It took us a long time but we found the house we were meant to have... Hang in there..."  For the record: YOU WERE RIGHT (and, thank you).  We found a wonderful home.  There are kids in the neighborhood, we can walk to everything, there are nine foot ceilings and big windows, my sister's an eight minute walk away, there's room for a playroom (the type is all cool on that one but I'm saying it toddler-style like: THERE! IS! ROOM! for a... PLAYROOM!!!), a utility room with space for me to sew (DITTO!), old hardwood floors...  Most importantly it just feels like home.  Already. 

We're going to work on it for almost two months.  Yesterday my grandpa was re-keying the locks, Grandma was sweeping the steps, the little guy was helping everywhere, Dad and T were removing carpet, my in-laws were entertaining the boy and sharing in our excitement and Mom was doing a little of everything.  We got the keys Friday evening, and Saturday morning from 3:00-4:30 a.m. it hit me: we bought a house!

Big news.

Maybe

"Maybe!" you sing-song, and it could mean "Maybe we should have a cookie for breakfast" or sometimes it really means "Maybe my idea is warranted and you shouldn't dismiss it offhand."  Maybe it is possible to track down that girl from the cover of the Pottery Barn Kids catalog, the cute one in the pretty dress whispering to a friend; she does look like a fun girl.  Maybe you could take Daddy and me on your blanket train, with an elephant conductor and a pathway through the livingroom, and maybe we really could end up on the moon.

You nod emphatically and gesture like you're running for office.  It is possible.  Surely.  We can do it.  Let's do it!  Maybe we can make everything the way you dream it... Now.  And then, when we're pumped! and we buy in! and you have us hooked! you sometimes say: "Maybe Not."  There are wistful shakes of your head for what could have been.  There are convincing frowns for what you told us we wanted, and then removed with your two year old chicanery.  Every sorrow comes with a twinkle in your eye for what you control, and a consolation prize of Dinner! Now! In your room! With everybody! 

You're learning to make everything the way you dream it. 

You help me see things differently.  "Maybe" is a whole world of negotiation, luck, whiplash and possibility.  It's contagious, this heady linguistic push of determination and promise.  Maybe Daddy could have his own design business and I could write a book, we could paint your new bedroom light blue and cuddle under your quilt together after a happy day of family puttering in our garden. 

Maybe.

Little orange agate of an adventure

Picture our 700 square foot home awash in the smell of boiling cabbage.  Nope, we're not full o' Irish... Just trying to make natural egg dyes as the cumin tea cup boils over in the microwave.  Add the several day old mystery pee spot (where IS it?) in the boy's room (because the tub won't drain and he waited far too long without a diaper for that bath) and you get one stinky house.  This was the state of things when the hope of our back-up house love, complete with playroom and double lot potential garden space, died via the phone last week.  Whenever another viewing, offer, or online house match-up failed we always had our never-ending short sale dream.  Then it ended (We strung you along so long the market picked up and now we think we can get ever so much more for it!).  This weekend my sewing machine died; I can't find a pulse.  It's just been stinky and sorta blah around here.

The boy gets totally behind any suggestion of a plan though: "Yets DO IT!" ("Let's...", fists pumping air).  He jumps all over everything (our coffee spills on the couch) and it's decided we must salvage our weekend, leave three piles of laundry on the Morris chair and have an adventure.  A ferry adventure. 

The captain surely wasn't the captain because he wasn't wearing a cap.  On the return trip three painters, two life-vest-wearin' ferry workers and a priest walked through the cabin door, in succession, and we readied ourselves for a cosmic joke.  A train wound it's way through our island views (LOUD!) and we threw pebbles on the beach.  The boy found an little, orange agate.

The cosmic joke, of course, is how your house can stink, your sewing machine can die alongside home dreams, luck can fritz out a bit and life is still fully beautiful.

Just for kicks I'll share the current house standings

• Months looking, quite seriously: 5+

• Offers: 4

• True loves (old red, with an acre in the city, sun porch, crazy perfect): 1

• Disappointments, with a dash of mental anguish: 2.5

• # of weeks we've waited for our offer on a short-sale home: 10 (hence the .5 above... Who really knows what to think about that?)

• Counter-offers: 3

• Counter-counter offers: 2

• Pages signed and/or initialed: 70+

• # of times the boy has asked (as we look through someone's house) to get "Na, plees" or, "Down, please": roughly 80

• Average daily search effort in minutes: 30

• Points lowered (yippee!) and risen (gasp) since our search (drat those pesky lenders): too many to reasonably keep track of without another sobbing breakdown (see below)

• Sobbing breakdowns (me, of course): 2 or so

• Packing tape rolls bought in blind faith for our future: 8, yesterday (totally on sale at Costco)

• All it will take: 1

Edited to add 3/11: Disappointments are now at 3.5... Oy.

Edited to add 3/13: Disappointments = 4 because you have to be friggin' kidding me with this crap...  The "short sale" people decided, after stringing us along for 2 1/2 months, that the market is picking up again so they're offering it to anyone at a much higher price now.  I have lots and lots and lots of bad thoughts about you, Countrywide Home Loans. 

Isn't there some power ballad that would make a good title here?

I think I've used a picture like this before.  I can't find it in the archives though, and if I have only a vague recollection of it then I'm thinking you won't object too vehemently.  Our third eclipse last night was the boy's first.  My photos are all black, so you'll have to enjoy the incredible photos at shining egg.  We lost out on the house and the conspiracy theorist in me thinks there was something fishy going on with an agent buying it from the elderly woman.  And when I think "escalator clause" I picture everyone in town heading up a department store escalator with boxes of their possessions, looking down on us with grins as they go to their new homes. 

We're all fairly sick.  I hate that I can't do things as well when I'm sick but T says it's the average of my days as a mama that matter.  I sobbed, in return, that this week was bringing down my average.  Somehow he got me to bed, and with coffee this morning everything isn't quite as bad.  There's just sadness, hacking coughs, uncertainty...  So we'll do what I always do when things feel overwhelming: go outside. 

Total eclipse of the heart?!  See, that's funny to think about.  It's not all as bad as it feels.

'Cat'aloguing the developments, or lack thereof

We have stacks of wood on shelving between our house and the shed.  It's all under a roof, it's not ours (ahem) and it's on the other side of the wall from our bed's headboard.  This weekend all of the cats in the neighborhood, stray or no, decided it was a cat version of a Japanese love motel, lumberyard theme.  All through the night for two nights I ran outside hissing, water bottle as my spray defense, wielding a flashlight and just knowing there'd be a full-on attack.  Cats vs. me.  Terror.  Nobody appreciated my thoughts on how catastrophic the situation was and how catatonic we were after the lack of sleep.

Perhaps the lack of sleep led us to our inane, misguided attempts to get out and about.  It's a good thing we had breakfast on Saturday morning because it was downhill from there.  I think the house wait is this heavy cloud over us.  It settles over us adults, who unwittingly share it with the kiddo in little bits of worry and excitement and nervousness and frustration seeping through cracks.  It's complicated, but the essence of it all is that we don't know if we get to buy the house or not (still) and then, even if (pleaseohplease) it happens we don't know when we'll close because the bank (owner) has to have a little work done before closing.  There's nothing else.  We've been looking since October.  Our lease is up soon.  A 700 square foot rental in the winter with a busy two year old doesn't work well. 

It's the not knowing.  If I could mentally move on or mentally move in fully it would be fine.  I know it's a pretty good problem to have as far as problems go.  Moving is one of the most stressful life events though, according to those lists, and Not Knowing about Moving has got to be up there too.

Stinkarellibooboo, Kiddo, Sweet Boy, Wild Child or Stinkarelli (he actually smells quite nice) is a little wonder these days.  Last week we headed off to toddler gym to try it out only to find he's in KINDERgym now.  Last week he and I went to a preschool fair, just because I like to research and even if it's a long time coming (it is) I want to know what the options are.  Last week he "Ah-ah-ah'd" me.  When he was little, little he totally disregarded "No" so we developed a little "Ah-ah" sound that made him look and did the same thing without that word.  Now, along with telling me how to fix my hair, he "Ah-ah-ah'd" me. 

He knows what he wants to wear, where he wants to get dressed, precisely what we should do once we are dressed...  He thrills with talk of cookies, reading and adventure.  He yells, "Happy Birthday, Everyone!" all the time (quite randomly, with approximately seven extra syllables).  Last night our little "Goodnight Moon" routine where Daddy reads "Goodnight light and the red balloon" and then I echo "Goodnight light and the red balloon," etc., etc. was utterly different with Daddy reading and the boy echoing and tears of "Ohmygoodness... He's in Kindergym, someday he'll go to school, he's so capable-happiness" in my eyes.  He's growing up, so fine.

I just said we couldn't bring one of his toys with us to the Children's Museum.  He immediately yelled, "Hey, Dada!!" and then quickly realized Daddy was at work.  He ran off, rustled through every toy in his room and came back in with a toy phone held up to his ear.  Daddy evidently says it's OK to bring it to the Children's Museum and work is going well.

I discovered the joy of new pillows

The joy I feel about these pillows is totally disproportionate to the amount of effort it takes to whip up one of these babies.  The couch looks better, things are brighter, there's a bit of NEW in the air which has been stagnant with Oh-please-oh-please-
oh-please-Universe-let-us-get-OUT-of-here mumblings.  We put an offer on another house last week and still haven't heard because the fellow's bank now gets to decide everything.  Someone in California is making big decisions about our future, or maybe the issue is that they are NOT making big decisions about our future because we're waiting.  Still.  Waiting.  And I know that things happen for a reason and what will be will be and the right thing will come and we're lucky to be looking when other people have banks in charge of their homes.  Moving to our next step will happen and it will happen this year.  But this house (which someone else wants too) has a big yard and a laundry room and room for my machine to sit out while I closed the door to the rest of the world and... I've had far too long to move in, build a future and live a life in that home in my mind.  I want these pillows to be for our new house. 

Anyhow, I fell in love with that lotus print in red and waited too long to grab it.  Then I had the yellow sitting around here for months.  It was draped on the couch forever and we had these thoughts of it being to "wild" for our toned down, simple-simple sensibilities.  In a pillow it's perfect though, we all three agree, with some hand-dyed, super-soft cotton on the back from SMS (it's gone, but she does have everything else you could possibly dream up to love).  I have the cotton in many shades and I'm hoarding it like an invading army will come and ransack the house, looking for hand-dyed, super-soft cotton.  Like I'll have to use it to barter and feed the family or something.  If I don't use it, we can't enjoy it so I used the littlest bit.  The off-white fabric is this beautiful matelasse-like woven fabric.  I have a thing for the matelasse look.  White on white creating the texture.  Simple but not.

Lately the boy looks at me at totally random moments, grins and says, "Hi, Mama!" in the most sing-songy and adoring way.  It's like he's saying to himself: watch how I can melt her.  Those looks, his grins, the quick surprises in my gut of how deeply he is all that is good and all that we hope for... Those are the moments on moments creating the texture in my life as a mama.  Simple but not. 

Still
waiting.

Realty/reality (or, Crumbling foundations are not good)

The good news: I sewed something!  Finally!  The machine in the corner had become this elusive bit of my past.  Well, not really.  But it had been like a month and the consensus around here is that I am a bit dramatic at times.  People look at the boy and say, "I wonder where he gets it" and then they glance sideways at me and smirk.  Anyhow, enough of this "not enough time to do anything because we're buying a house" stuff and onto the sewing (see: The bad news).  Oh, and before we move on I just have to say I know this baby blanket has a 70's vibe with all of the ties but I like the 70's vibe in this particular case.  It's "cheater" fabric all sewn together, in the $1 clearance, and I had just found these shorts for the boy ($2... Size 5!) and love the look of the plaids.  I've noticed people in the PNW writing about how it's impossible lately to take photos because it's too dark... So true.

The bad news: The house deal fell through late in the game.  We spent much of our Thanksgiving "vacation" dealing with house inspections and almost every other house-buying-related person/situation you could possibly anticipate.  We had an extensive list of things to remedy and they were all things I felt confident we'd have the money for, could learn to do, etc.  I padded all estimations with my extreme rounding skills ($200 becomes $1000 if you have Norwegian ancestry and are thinking worst-case scenario).  Anyhow, it was all do-able until it wasn't, because if the house falls down around you on a rotting foundation there isn't much point in owning the house.  I don't know if the house was on a rotting foundation (well, I do in one place-- beetles) because we couldn't access the back corner.  The whole house would have had to have been dug out to get back there, and to meet code and/or foundation breathability standards (which is not a real thing but just my personal house-speak)...  Phew.  It goes on and on.  The upshot is we aren't in a dreadful situation.  I have house-speak now.  I'm on a first-name basis with permit, building and records folks who work with the city.  Inspections don't scare me.  We have a lovely home and we're still looking every day for the next little house dream (something that's getting a bit easier the longer it takes with current mortgage/financial issues, slowly shifting us to a stronger buyer's market around here). 

It's hard to let those little dreams go though.  I was really cautious about falling in love because we knew there were a lot of issues.  The house was built in the late 1800's and needs lots of attention.  We did a lot of dreaming in spite of ourselves though, about shorter commutes, walking the boy to kindergarten in a few years just a block away, about the cute family next door with a darling girl around the same age as our little guy, about where the bookshelves would go, which flooring we'd pick, about paint colors, where we'd eat dinner... About the life we'd live there.  Poof.

Life's been super-busy with the house and now, all of a sudden, I realized we have to get ready for our trip to Vegas in a few days.  Who takes a trip to Vegas in December?  I'm going to sew something, because I really should be packing, cleaning, organizing, getting ready for Christmas.  Yep.  I'm going to sew some more.   

I'll leave you with the profound Playmobile lessons on real estate reality I found in the toy store catalog the other day: The log cabin is do-able, leaving extra funds for little things like doors and windows.  It's undoubtedly in a bad neighborhood though, with approximately 15 cars parked in the driveways on either side.  At double the price you can get the door, a window and a deck (which might be falling apart due to shoddy construction) but it still won't be big enough and the schools will be bad.  The next step up, with a second story and cute factor is way out of price range and the Grande Mansion Expansion Floor is just disgustingly out of reach.  The expansion floor alone, without the Grande Mansion, is out of reach.  Anyhow, we'll find our (old but non-crumbling) little version of the red framework house.  I know we will.            

First entry in the home category

Really what's been on my mind lately, as I write about mittens and two year old birthday presents, has been a house.  Well, Handmade Holidays tutorials and a house.  We have a great, little place in a neighborhood we love.  It's the "after" of a big fix-up and beautify project, but it's someone else's after.  We're renting and I think I've harbored a lot of bad feelings about that recently, though I know I shouldn't.  People make so many quick judgments about such things, and it drives me nuts.  I think renting is a really smart idea when certain factors come together, but I also feel like buying is the right choice at a certain point.  We moved away from Seattle in (life) steps and with both moves the feasibility of finding what we want increased, even as our choices (the boy and one of us at home) seemed to push it out of the way.  Along the way we paid for degrees and took turns looking for dream jobs; I think there was a six month overlap where we both had "real, adult," full-time jobs right before the boy was born and we tucked one income away then for a rainy day.  We finally worked it out so it's possible, with a nice cushion for improvements and "oh dear" issues that inevitably pop up, but whatever we find will take us out of the "after" and move us to the "before," in a not-nearly-as-nice-neighborhood.  Money will also be tight again.  It's been so nice to gradually loosen these past two years, to rent a movie every so often or buy the good cheese.

I know we're ready though.  Ready for a home of our own where we can paint anything whatever color we choose, plant where we want and watch it and our family grow and thrive.  The whole house-looking and buying process is big, especially for someone who freaks out about change (seriously, when anything changes I experience minor to major discomfort... Difficult when life = change).  In the price range we're looking at the homes inside are, well, "Ewwww..."  I've got vision though, perhaps too much vision, and I can mentally clean, paint, move our furniture in and picture our family life just about anywhere within five minutes.  The mix of vision and reality and what ifs and oh dears with concern about finances has made me a bundle of nerves lately; one thought tempers the next and they all slug it out with the practical, the numbers, the elusive...  Every time I sit these past few days I cross my legs and shake the hanging one incessantly, without realizing it, nerves escaping.  All of that energy easily transfers to the boy so we're all wound up, spinning, shaking, dreaming and worrying. 

We found a place we could love and it needs some major work.  For the most part it's major work we could do (with a little knowledgeable guidance) and we could live in the place as we work.  We're fairly certain the bones are good and, if we progress to mutual acceptance on the asking price, we'll have a really good home inspection to help us (hopefully, mostly) avoid big unknowns. 

I've always had a thing for old barns.  It's actually one of the few, distinct loves and fascinations I can remember having as a child that has carried on through adulthood (along with books and the color blue).  I love the history of old structures and always want to fix them up; I don't know where I fall on the mix of nature and nurture in development but I do know there's a little of both in this love.  We have a rich family background of restoration work on Victorians, of learning through doing while fixing, of falling in love with what others can't quite envision and of sacrificing a bit for big goals.  It's not a barn, but the fascination and vision is there.  I think 99 out of a 100 people would glance at this place, guffaw and move on.  I suppose that's just what you want when you're the 1 out of a 100, and we are.  I had no idea how many different steps in the home-buying process there are where you can step away and move on to the next dream.  I don't know if our (low) offer will fly and I don't know if we'll find anything big to get in the way after that.  I suppose we'll all find out.  I do find a sense of calm in my determined feeling that if it's meant to be it will work out and if not, something else will come along.  I actually also find peace in getting this all down here because, other than foot shaking, it's been bottled up for a month. 

There are a lot of issues to resolve before anything gets really serious.  We laugh because we couldn't just go through the regular stresses of buying a house; we had to find one with all sorts of big issues just before our real estate fellow headed out for a vacation.  I spent the last two days annoying everyone who works for the city and energy company.  I talked with building people and planning people on opposite sides of a '60's room rife with fierce adherence to small bits of power.  We dropped ladybug boots in offices over four city blocks.  When it all got to be too much the boy and I walked over to the Japanese garden, connected via a parking lot to City Hall, and meditated a bit next to maple leaves floating over shy Koi.  No matter what happens in the next week or so (month or so?) I've learned a lot.  I feel like an adult.  I'm confident that we're ready for a big project and our next steps.