Househunting and other slow-moving things

So we’ve been here, dog-sitting the poor, pathetic, sad, blind dog, since Wednesday. We’ve toured about 10 houses and made an offer yesterday on a fixer-upper in a great part of town, and still waiting to hear back on that. Turns out that our price range … well. When you sit down and chart it out, trying to buy a house on just one schoolteacher’s salary is like trying to frost a cake with your feet. You’ll get something eventually, but it probably won’t be pretty.

And my god. Have these people not heard of staging? Or, I don’t know, Lysol? Soap and water? Storage? One house was especially foul and stinky and dirty, though you could see how someone with money could come in, gut it, and make it fabulous. We are not that person. Other houses are brimming to overflowing with lace and ceramic cats and Nascar memorabilia. I haven’t got the slightest problem with any of those things — if you’ve seen my collection of wicker baskets, you know I understand — but in this day and age I really expect people to clean it up a bit, you know? Ah, well. Perhaps I’ve watched too much HGTV.

So, as I’ve said, we put an offer in on a fixer-upper that’s within our budget. The drop-dead gorgeous Victorian with brand-new kitchen, four bedrooms, and two full baths turned out to be about 30K above what we could comfortably afford and still have money for mac’n’cheese. Sucks. I mean it really, really sucks. I planned the rest of my life in that house the moment I walked through the front door. Oh, well. If we get the fixer-upper and fix it up, it’ll be all right. And if we don’t get it, that’ll be all right, too, because to really make it work would require us building an addition down the road.

Aren’t y’all thrilled? Isn’t this fascinating? I know it’d be way more fascinating if I could give you MLS numbers and whatnot, but I’m not gonna. Sorry. There are wackos in the world and you might be one of them.

So, in sum: I hope to hear from our lady realtor tonight or tomorrow, and then we’ll know if we should settle in for the long haul and wait for more houses to come on the market, or start researching kitchen remodels at Lowe’s. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, most of my updating is happening at Twitter, usually at least one a day. The dial-up situation here is killing me, in addition to making me feel like a.) a spoiled brat who can’t deal and b.) a junkie with a wicked case of withdrawal. Typical.

July 26, 2008 | Filed Under daily grind, house | 8 Comments

Hither, whither and how!

Lord, I can’t wait to move out of this house. We brought everything back from the storage unit (long story) and it’s stacked, boxes floor to ceiling, in various rooms. Nothing is where it should be. It feels like a cave of Wicker Wonders in here, and it’s making me claustrophobic.

We have yet more packing and dismantling to do, and phone calls to make, and temporary address changes to file. Next week we have an ill-timed stretch of promised dog-sitting to undertake, and I hope we can coincide that with some house hunting.

In Pennsylvania.

Buried the lead again! ha ha.

So the cat’s out of the bag, we’re packing up house and home and moving to Pittsburgh in, oh, three weeks or something ridiculous like that. After the dog-sitting but before Iain’s starts the new job. We’ll be living out of boxes in my in-laws’ spare room for the foreseeable future (starting in August), so my paltry posting will probably either skyrocket in frequency (I predict many Starbucks runs) or drop to near-record lows (inertia is my enemy). Just fair warning.

I have a big Moving Post I want to write, and of course a Farewell to Baltimore post, and lots of other things, but with so much to do and so many tiny little people trying to help me do it, I don’t figure you’d better hold your breath. The mind is willing but the dial-up won’t be able.

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, daily grind, house | 13 Comments

But first, this vital piece of nail polish information!

Things are pretty much squared away at work, so I will be coming out of the closet re: moving plans pretty soon. But first —

Nicole by O.P.I., color “Blush of Adrenalin”. Best nail polish ever. I’m not a varnish snob or anything (except for the fact that in my head, I put on a British accent and call it “varnish”); in fact, I probably wear nail polish (varnish!) maybe four times a year. But when I find something I like, I can’t stop marveling at my luck. This stuff is perfect. It gives me Martha Stewart hands — no-nonsense yet beautiful, capable of primly folding a napkin or angrily thrusting hand gestures. It’s barely a color, which I like. It dries fast. It paints on thin, but the right kind of thin. It lasts for eight hundred years. It’s not too expensive.

Anyway. Roll the credits, this has been the first and hopefully last (not to mention unpaid and unsolicited) Supafine nail-grooming-related public service announcement ever. You’re welcome.

July 19, 2008 | Filed Under check it out, minutiae | 4 Comments

I think I’m a Glamour “don’t”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but over the last two weeks or so I’ve been documenting my outfits over at Flickr on a daily basis. I kept going until I ran out of outfits. It took a surprisingly short time. And when it happened, I was tempted to just start photographing myself in various modes of ridiculous dress — bridal gown, bikini, three piece suit, monkey costume — but in the end, sanity and modesty won out. As it typically does with me. (Iain says the last one should have been me in a barrel with a sign saying “Laundry Day.” Only he didn’t say “barrel,” he said naked. But I left that bit out for your sensitive ears.)

(and your sensitive eyes.)

Anyway, here’s the set. You may marvel at my monochromity, my apparent devotion to Gap Inc., and my increasingly haphazard attitude toward footwear. You may also marvel at my credenza. And maybe my size 9 feet.

July 19, 2008 | Filed Under daily grind, geek | 4 Comments

never mind the walking, here’s your trouble

He’s forwardly AND upwardly mobile. Pray for me.

July 13, 2008 | Filed Under toddler | 5 Comments

Ticking along

So, things are going well. We got the inspection report and repairs request from the sellers last weekend and it wasn’t too bad, considering. We’re looking at a grand or two of repairs, I think: trimming a big old oak tree, inspecting the chimney, some small electrical repairs, a few other things. We have to hire contractors to do the work in a “workmanlike manner,” with receipts. Weird. I mean, just weird that we are hiring contractors to do the work, because I have never hired “a guy” to do house stuff since my husband and father-in-law are practically experts. It’s actually kind of nice. Like hiring a maid: someone else to do the dirty work.

So I’ve been on the horn with contractor guys all week, or at least trying to get them on the horn, and set up dates, and have them come out to look at things. Then we still have under a month to get things packed up and outta here. Holy crap.

We’ve also been in talks with a new mortgage guy, who sounds good and came recommended; he’s going to present us with a list of financial options tonight after the kids go to bed, and I sure hope one of those options is labeled YOUR DREAM HOUSE HERE.

In other, totally unrelated news, we found out yesterday that Mackie has a heart murmur. Surprise! (Does that explain the screeching?) Fortunately it’s a functional heart murmur and nothing to be shook up about. I have one, too, and I think my dad does as well. But it’s still a little unnerving to find out your heart’s heart isn’t working as pristinely as you want it to be.

July 9, 2008 | Filed Under baby, house | 6 Comments

One-sentence dream synopses

(My family will tell you that these are the most concise renderings of any dreams I have ever shared, ever, and you should be grateful the telling isn’t taking half an hour each over dinner. I read something in Carolyn Parkhurst’s Dogs of Babel that inspired the construction.)

I experienced clairvoyancy and escaped the Klansmen. I was lost in a blue, foreign airport. I was lost in a night-time shopping mall. I was lost in my friend’s giant estate house. I crawled up a tiny staircase and through a tiny door into a regular-sized room. I was wandering a department store with my father at Christmas. I impressed my ex-boyfriend with my intelligence or foresight. I could grow people in a filing cabinet. I was on the run but the bad guys shot me. Aliens or terrorists bombed my town. Giant ants walked on two legs in my backyard. My house caught fire and I saved the stereo. My best friend sat on a horse and looked down at me. I forgot the baby. A skunk clawed and clawed me. I took photos with a tiny Polaroid camera. I breastfed the baby. The South bombed New York. My Decemberists album came to life.

July 6, 2008 | Filed Under neuroses | 8 Comments

Library haul: oh cool! edition

So last week I left the kids with Iain and wandered off to the library, as I love to do. I picked up a copy of Miranda July’s short stories (No one belongs here more than you) and ran out of ideas. As I was browsing the posted list of New York Times bestsellers for ideas …

A DINOSAUR CAME OUT OF THE MEN’S RESTROOM AND ATE UP ALL THE PATRONS! OMG

Just kidding. Duh.

… PAT ROBERTSON BEGAN SINGING KARAOKE UPSTAIRS BY THE DISPLAY OF GOSSIP GIRL NOVELS!

Hee hee. As if.

… A HIGHLY LOCALIZED WEATHER SYSTEM SOAKED EVERYONE IN THE BIOGRAPHY SECTION WTF!

Whatevs, that would never happen.

No, what happened was that a lovely woman named Paula, a librarian, recognized me from my blog. From my blog! A real reader out in the real world. Even better was that she sent me home with an armful of good picks to last me a couple weeks.

Without further ado, last week’s haul:

In order of reading, from the bottom:

The Dive From Clausen’s Pier, Ann Packer
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
No One Cares What You Had For Lunch, Margaret Mason
Lost and Found, Carolyn Parkhurst
One Hundred Demons, Lynda Barry
No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July
Dogs of Babel, Carolyn Parkhurst
The Ivorybill Hunters (Iain still reading)
Schuyler’s Monster
Life of Pi
The Stolen Child

Not pictured: yet another issue of Entertainment Weekly

July 5, 2008 | Filed Under check it out, geek | 9 Comments

Warm lump of motherly love

Turns out there is no good way to photograph an injury on your rear end that you intend to post on the internet. There is no angle, no camera setting, that does not immediately say HEINIE!

So I’ll have to tell you, instead, with my powerful words of … telling stuff.

I can’t sleep right now, because I have a throbbing, heart-shaped bruise on my left hip. I’ve been thinking of it as my heart-shaped bruise of love, because it’s an injury I sustained while mucking around on the rocks in the creek at Double Rock Park. And I was mucking around on the rocks in the creek at Double Rock Park because that is what Owen loves dearly to do, and I dearly love him, so I do what I can to see that squinty, happy smile he does.

You may be able to tell, from my hockey-player’s toothless grin, that I am less graceful than most people. I have a strong tendency to meet the ground with body parts other than my feet. Between the moment I lose my balance and the moment I hit the earth, my body also forgets how to brace itself for impact. So I usually land pretty hard. Today I was following my little explorer up the banks of the creek when I stepped on a slime-covered rock and landed on my endside in three inches of orange-ish, germy, foamy water, watching my right Birkenstock sail downstream and hoping I caught it before it hit the pool with the dead worm in it (having already reconnoitered the area, I knew what horrors lay below). In that regard, at least, luck was in my corner. Sandal was retrieved in short order; with wet shorts, though, dignity was much harder to reclaim.

But later this evening, as I stared, fascinated, over my shoulder at my tangible proof of maternal sacrifice, I understood that river-smelly sandals and an alarmingly hot-to-the-touch butt bruise are a small price to pay for the mental photograph I captured today. My little brave son, standing with his chest thrust out on a smooth rock precipice 15 feet above me, dappled by leaf shade, shading his eyes against the glare and surveying his conquered territory. Seeing him as I knew he wanted to be seen — not as a preschooler in galoshes, but as a strong, clever swashbuckler, able to leap from rock to rock, outsmart his enemies and protect his loved ones from danger.

He loves the river, and I love him, therefore I love the river. Even when it bites me in the ass.

July 2, 2008 | Filed Under motherhood, preschooler, sappy crap | 5 Comments

Maghound

An item while debating internally whether my Gmail is broken.

… (Gmail not broken, as I have just received tantalizing e-mail from Apple about 3G iPhone. Not-so-surprising follow-up: I really, really want an iPhone.)

As I was saying, an item. Was reading Romenesko, as is my wont on a Tuesday, and read that Time Inc. will be launching a sort-of Netflix for magazine freaks such as myself, called Maghound. A subscription service for your magazine subscriptions. There are several price tiers: for $4 a month, you can get three magazine titles; for $10, you can get seven. The best part is that you can change your title selections from month to month. I love this idea. Sometimes I feel like WIRED, sometimes I feel like Better Homes and Gardens, sometimes I feel like BUST. As certain people of my acquaintance will tell you, I myself am a magazine fanatic (only poverty prevents me from subscribing to dozens). I regularly check them out at the library (does anyone else do that?). I save them. I hoard them. I have to be sternly instructed to get rid of them.

So, to have a good rate on popular magazines with the option to mix it up month to month? Sold. Can’t wait for the launch.

Update: Good points on why it won’t work, though

July 1, 2008 | Filed Under check it out | 7 Comments