For the past several months, we have been up in the air. To rebuild or not to rebuild. We have gone back and forth and forth and back. For a while I didn't want to rebuild and I dragged my husband around to look at homes that were for sale and he wanted to rebuild. My former neighbor bothered me and I kind of didn't want to go back, especially after the fire where she was more needy for assurance than I was (with the house burning) while shock took over my senses. Every week over the summer, my husband told me that we were going to rebuild "next week!" He told me about me having my own space and about redesigning my own kitchen and I started to like the idea.
About six weeks ago, he came home and said we were buying a house. I cried and said unprintable words. After a few days, I got past it (but not over it!) and we looked for a house. One day I was looking through a neighborhood and an agent was having an open house for other agents to see his house. I made eye contact with him and he yelled, "Come on in and check it out!" My five kids in the car scrambled out and tripped over each other on the lawn as he laughed and said, "Welcome home, Mom! Don't worry, there is nothing here they can break!" My kids were like a heard of elephants running through. There was a house across the street that we went to go look at that we liked better-- it was painted inside various colors and it was more "me--" the colors made me happy and solved the problem that I had of wanting color on my walls. It was a little smaller but it had more storage space. Lots of green. Toile drapes on the French doors that went to a tiny balcony that is just big enough to hold a telescope and my husband who likes telescopes and small balaconies, a rec room, a huge kitchen open to the living room, nice bedrooms with closets with closet organizers.
I was still blue. It is hard to explain-- I don't know if I could have been happy. The anniversary of the fire was on Friday of last week and I was just glum. Don't get me wrong, I was not depressed-- just sad. Moving was a Hurculean task that I had to do with some family members being not so good about helping to get their things together and another one who plays on his computer when I ask for help in cleaning the garage to get boxes out.
Today my best friend from elementary school came out. She lives out of state but came up on business. In all honesty, I wanted to just pack, but she needed me to help with her ten year old daughter while she worked and her daughter is sweet and fun. The two of them met me at my new house where we have not signed and I got measurements for drapes. My best friend was running through the house with the agent when I got there late and bubbling over with excitement. She knows me-- she had IDEAS where I could put things if I still liked them. It was like my "sadness glasses" were replaced with hope and I had something to look forward to.
Then one of my other friends came over in the evening. He grew up across the street from me. Before we ate dinner, I showed him my old house foundation and we marveled that I had 11 people there. Then we went to my new house and he was excited about my yard and kept saying, "This is a blank slate! At your old house, you had a problem with wilderness encroaching on your doorstep, but this is a nice yard begging for you to plant it with grapes and apple trees! If my wife were here, she'd be tripping over herself!" Again, I was looking at it with new eyes. Then I took him to the botanical gardens and he asked me what I loved and told me to start planning because I could plant them next year!
It was a funny thing because the last thing I wanted was to visit with my friends-- I cannot tell you how ticked I'd be if my husband wanted to go see his pals so close to moving. Part if me was irritated that they were coming as I was moving, but what can you do with business for two people? You take what you can and if it meant I had extra on the weekend or the week, so be it. I'd not seen one friend in 16 years and other other in 7. Now I feel like G-d himself planned it so that I would see them so close to moving in. I needed to see them today when I am reasonably certain that we are signing on the house and to have them be happy for me so that I would pick up on it. My guy friend was telling me how the sun will be and where to plant things-- suddenly it makes sense. I won't be spending $500 every summer only to not get anything planted. I know what to do.
Even with a great landlord, we have had a hard time putting emotional energy into our rental property. We could plant things, but we didn't know how long we'd be here.
For the past few months, my husband and I have not been getting along. I have had nothing happy to say about him (nor would he have anything good to say about me were he asked, but he is nicer than me and probably wouldn't say anything.) The stability factor in my life had been shaken-- my old house, everything that I knew, that was all thrown up in the air and even a nice new house was more unfamiliarity for me. I feel like having two friends who were my foundation for years while I was growing up have helped me take my eyes off the tightrope I have been on for so long to see the good.
Starshine, my tiniest one, is in preschool and she is my helper. I look forward to planting with her next year.
Now we just have to get things worked out with the bank and we will be in by the end of the week!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Saturday, August 07, 2010
School is about to resume! My life is about to resume!
I used to hate mothers who gushed about school starting and how they couldn't wait to get their kids out of the house, but it is for the sakes of the mothers as well as the children. Summer is fun for a few weeks and then it gets old and the kids like to have things to do. (Three months is really too long for a break, but having been in a custody battle in the past, I know that when judges split it between parents, the six weeks can be a great break to egt away from a parent that the kids can't stand.) This summer has been wetter than usual so there has been a lot of time spent indoors. As this to me feeling stagnant and a bit depressed and yes, I want them back in school. I can't wait to resume normal life with a routine and no fighting. They don't fight much when they can come home and gush about school and everyone has things to talk about.
This past summer has been pretty boring with Basil getting a broken arm. He is gaining full use of it and doing well since he got his cast of a couple of weeks ago. I got him a physical therapist, with no thanks to his bone doctor. I was galled because I used to be in sports medicine wrapping injuries on the field and helping athletes and asked for my son to get a recomendation to see a PT. The doctor refused saying that my son would be fine. What I saw in my work had been that athletes of all levels would get injured when they were not fully healed because they didn't know how to get back into shape, so I pressed on and got another doctor to write a prescription for it. Keep in mind that this is for several visits for rehabilitation of his arm before school resumes, not a prescrition for Rx! He didn't hurt, but he was very weak with that arm. I tried showing him some exercises, but Mom telling him to do some hand exercises is not the same as the uber cool PT. His PT is also a fox-- one of those athletic chicks who perspires "I have it together" and he likes working with her. (She could demonstrate wearing moose antlers and it would look cool!)
Because of Basil's injury, we have done very little-- his cast went up far on his arm and he had a hard time staying clean.
My older kids are officially at their new high school and middle school. Just knowing that we are probably moving to the neighborhood has changed my perspective. I feel like I can engage in life now and start to leave the fire behind. This is no longer temporary since we are not moving back to our old property: Cloud will most likely graduate from her high school and so, probably will Guy. I assume that they rest of the kids will, also from this area. They are in charter schools across town though so this will be "fun."
So now I don't have to be sorry about writing about the fire! It will soon become part of my past. I so much didn't want it to define me, but where you live is a big deal and I found myself talking about why I wasn't where I should be quite often.
We've not heard back from a bid that we placed on a house last night, but we are hopeful. My husband bid a little lower, but not much. Cloud kept talking about the house in particular and crying, "When will Dad bid on it? Someone else might take it!!!" The anxiety in her voice was causing my blood pressure to shoot up as I could feel her worry as I have also felt like this. When we were talking to he academic adviser at school she suddenly got sad-- she didn't know if she'd graduate from there and got really sad because she was excited about some academic programs that they have at her new high school. I wound up telling her and she shot up straight into the air and screamed and started jumping up and down hearing that we really placed a bid on the house that she likes. I swore her to secrecy that she not tell her brothers because I don't want them all worrying and asking. She felt better and in fact she hugged her adviser telling her, "I can ride my bike to school in good weather! OMG, this is the best day of my LIFE so far!" Then she paused as she remembered that the fire took her bike and then she resumed her joy, "I can walk to school in a half an hour or less!" She was so happy that when we went outside, she saw her younger brother who has Aspberger's (high functioning, but clueless half the time and we don't know what his him being a guy and his condition!) and she ran up to him and hugged him. He screamed and thought she wanted to give him a noogie!
This new area is great-- Cloud also explained to me that from the house we want that we can walk to church which is something I had envied people at my husband's church who lived near by. We even do it from our present location.
In the 12 hours since I last wrote of my frustration I am feeling better. We were at my church today for a children's function and I found myself thinking who I wanted to be friends with now that I know we won't be changing churches if we move because we won't move.
I am scared of a fire in the new house even though it is extremely unlikely. We will be buying escape ladders and learning to use them, as well as fire extinguishers and talking to the kids about grease fires (smother them with baking soda or salt, not water) and other ways to avoid a fire.
I adore my real estate agent and have entertained ideas on becoming a real estate agent because I can think of nothing as vital as selling someone a home.
My husband is going to give me a little dog for my stress over the past 11 months. Our real estate lady has a cute, cold nosed dog and I carried it around our marathon house hunting and decided that I liked it. It is a toy dog and he says that if I take it for walks that I will be trolling for eagles! I really like bigger dogs, too, but we will probably get a rescue for a bigger dog. We have one who came with us from the fire and he is great, but we want a couple more as our house will be bigger and I like not being alone.
Going though my rental house is a headache. How have we amassed so much stuff? What is worth driving across the neighborhood and putting some place?
I just want to get into this house soon. I will be more happy when we move in. I am not happy. I have not spent the last year being wistful, but I have never felt stable. I have become pals with a local artist who has a shop and with an art store owner and this has been nice, but I would stay friends with them anyway. If we get this one house, we will have a TV room and a living room and rooms for the kids, areas for PC's and laptops so the kids can work on school work and we know they are not playing games. There is a bar in the kitchen that stands alone that I can put taco or burrito fixings on, or maybe have potato night and put things on it, then we can sit down in the ample dining room. We can have my husband's sister's big family over. My husband says he will make a room for me in the garage-- nothing permanent, but I will be able to have space for my art supplies.
I got my kids into knitting and now Cloud has signed up for an art class. I so much didn't like my kids doing "my" stuff with me-- I didn't know how to share it and a cringed when I let them try. My eldest two daughters love to draw and paint in spite of how I was over my things and they are both very good, but I was over protective which is sad. I am buying good tools for the kids to use and showing them how to take care of them. I think part of me being OK with them using my stuff is that I have had an artistic friend show them how to do some things and they listen to her on taking care of brushes and use of materials where they won't listen to me.
I was getting sad a few days ago and Mudd had been given some plastic animals at a birthday party and he wanted to play with me and he held an elephant and I held a mercat and he had his elephant tell me how much it made him sad to see the mercat cry. I think I am getting better.
This past summer has been pretty boring with Basil getting a broken arm. He is gaining full use of it and doing well since he got his cast of a couple of weeks ago. I got him a physical therapist, with no thanks to his bone doctor. I was galled because I used to be in sports medicine wrapping injuries on the field and helping athletes and asked for my son to get a recomendation to see a PT. The doctor refused saying that my son would be fine. What I saw in my work had been that athletes of all levels would get injured when they were not fully healed because they didn't know how to get back into shape, so I pressed on and got another doctor to write a prescription for it. Keep in mind that this is for several visits for rehabilitation of his arm before school resumes, not a prescrition for Rx! He didn't hurt, but he was very weak with that arm. I tried showing him some exercises, but Mom telling him to do some hand exercises is not the same as the uber cool PT. His PT is also a fox-- one of those athletic chicks who perspires "I have it together" and he likes working with her. (She could demonstrate wearing moose antlers and it would look cool!)
Because of Basil's injury, we have done very little-- his cast went up far on his arm and he had a hard time staying clean.
My older kids are officially at their new high school and middle school. Just knowing that we are probably moving to the neighborhood has changed my perspective. I feel like I can engage in life now and start to leave the fire behind. This is no longer temporary since we are not moving back to our old property: Cloud will most likely graduate from her high school and so, probably will Guy. I assume that they rest of the kids will, also from this area. They are in charter schools across town though so this will be "fun."
So now I don't have to be sorry about writing about the fire! It will soon become part of my past. I so much didn't want it to define me, but where you live is a big deal and I found myself talking about why I wasn't where I should be quite often.
We've not heard back from a bid that we placed on a house last night, but we are hopeful. My husband bid a little lower, but not much. Cloud kept talking about the house in particular and crying, "When will Dad bid on it? Someone else might take it!!!" The anxiety in her voice was causing my blood pressure to shoot up as I could feel her worry as I have also felt like this. When we were talking to he academic adviser at school she suddenly got sad-- she didn't know if she'd graduate from there and got really sad because she was excited about some academic programs that they have at her new high school. I wound up telling her and she shot up straight into the air and screamed and started jumping up and down hearing that we really placed a bid on the house that she likes. I swore her to secrecy that she not tell her brothers because I don't want them all worrying and asking. She felt better and in fact she hugged her adviser telling her, "I can ride my bike to school in good weather! OMG, this is the best day of my LIFE so far!" Then she paused as she remembered that the fire took her bike and then she resumed her joy, "I can walk to school in a half an hour or less!" She was so happy that when we went outside, she saw her younger brother who has Aspberger's (high functioning, but clueless half the time and we don't know what his him being a guy and his condition!) and she ran up to him and hugged him. He screamed and thought she wanted to give him a noogie!
This new area is great-- Cloud also explained to me that from the house we want that we can walk to church which is something I had envied people at my husband's church who lived near by. We even do it from our present location.
In the 12 hours since I last wrote of my frustration I am feeling better. We were at my church today for a children's function and I found myself thinking who I wanted to be friends with now that I know we won't be changing churches if we move because we won't move.
I am scared of a fire in the new house even though it is extremely unlikely. We will be buying escape ladders and learning to use them, as well as fire extinguishers and talking to the kids about grease fires (smother them with baking soda or salt, not water) and other ways to avoid a fire.
I adore my real estate agent and have entertained ideas on becoming a real estate agent because I can think of nothing as vital as selling someone a home.
My husband is going to give me a little dog for my stress over the past 11 months. Our real estate lady has a cute, cold nosed dog and I carried it around our marathon house hunting and decided that I liked it. It is a toy dog and he says that if I take it for walks that I will be trolling for eagles! I really like bigger dogs, too, but we will probably get a rescue for a bigger dog. We have one who came with us from the fire and he is great, but we want a couple more as our house will be bigger and I like not being alone.
Going though my rental house is a headache. How have we amassed so much stuff? What is worth driving across the neighborhood and putting some place?
I just want to get into this house soon. I will be more happy when we move in. I am not happy. I have not spent the last year being wistful, but I have never felt stable. I have become pals with a local artist who has a shop and with an art store owner and this has been nice, but I would stay friends with them anyway. If we get this one house, we will have a TV room and a living room and rooms for the kids, areas for PC's and laptops so the kids can work on school work and we know they are not playing games. There is a bar in the kitchen that stands alone that I can put taco or burrito fixings on, or maybe have potato night and put things on it, then we can sit down in the ample dining room. We can have my husband's sister's big family over. My husband says he will make a room for me in the garage-- nothing permanent, but I will be able to have space for my art supplies.
I got my kids into knitting and now Cloud has signed up for an art class. I so much didn't like my kids doing "my" stuff with me-- I didn't know how to share it and a cringed when I let them try. My eldest two daughters love to draw and paint in spite of how I was over my things and they are both very good, but I was over protective which is sad. I am buying good tools for the kids to use and showing them how to take care of them. I think part of me being OK with them using my stuff is that I have had an artistic friend show them how to do some things and they listen to her on taking care of brushes and use of materials where they won't listen to me.
I was getting sad a few days ago and Mudd had been given some plastic animals at a birthday party and he wanted to play with me and he held an elephant and I held a mercat and he had his elephant tell me how much it made him sad to see the mercat cry. I think I am getting better.
Friday, August 06, 2010
The fire fall-out
I am still tlaking about it. I am more sorry that anyone can imagine.
All summer we had planned to build. In May I got sick of waiting and got my husband to look at real estate with me. He insisted that we build but thinsg were not happening. Our housing market is glutted and the bank was making it easier to buy an existing structure rather than rebuild.
In a nutshell, two weeks ago today my husband came home and told me that we needed to buy or size down out house. I am not proud of the new swear words that came out of my mouth. I adjusted, put 300 miles on the SUV and found houses for sale-- lots of them!
A few days later I had calmed down and I called an agent and that day my husband came home and said we could build. I was seriously furious and I topped the previous spree.
Over the last two weeks he has gathered information and we went back and forth and forth and back. Three days ago we met with the bank and it was confimed that borrowing for an existing dwelling would have a lower interest than borrowing for the house of the same amount. We palced a bid last night.
I like the house-- it isn't as big as the one we wanted to build, but it's lay out is decent and clever. The people who own it have loved it and taken good care of it. The kids love it, too and they like the neighborhood. We parked a ways away from it and walked through it about a week ago and Basil knows everyone now-- he is such a young politician in that regard! The neighborhood is full of pretty houses. Tiny front yards and bigger back yards, but as a whole it is pretty to look at. Some of the houses are tastefully bright, many have elegant rock gardens. (I want a pretty rock garden with a wroght iron table and chair duo for mine. I will sit and drink tea and look elegant! LOL)
Of course we made the bid and my nightmares began again-- several bedrooms overlook the garage and are quite high. The local fire department is very happy to come over when I am ready and show me and the kids how to safely use an emergancy ladder to get out of a 2.5 story window and show us how to use fire extinguishers, although I worry that my three middle sons will turn into pyromaniacs trying to find an excuse to use the ladders and the fire extinguishers! The chief told me that few have emergency equipment and fewer still know how to use them.
It is not the fire-- it is the year of transition that we have had that has been hard on me, personally. The kids love the adventure so I am doing well with it for them, but it was different for my husband vs. me. I am glad that he wasn't the one to light the candle that got knocked over. I think I am more careful than he is and I would have been angry at him. The kids could have been hurt, but once I got Starshine out of harm's way, I think she and Dmitri would have been fine. I took some very stupid risks as I had no idea what I was up against when I went into that room to put it out. What scares me more than anything was how close I came to being hurt-- a person running into a room that is on fire is likely to get hurt. They could have seen their mother ignite and the only thing Dmitri could have done was get out and get help and he'd be shouldering the what-ifs. I know better now and I am very blessed.
Anyway, I have been told by a professional that I am stage-specific where I need to by and I can put this behind me once we settle. I really wish we'd moved before school resumed, but now it looks like we will be moving int he first few weeks and this is a mega drag as the kids are in advanced programs with lots of schoolwork that they cannot get behind on. Transition is never fun, but we will make it through this, too.
All summer we had planned to build. In May I got sick of waiting and got my husband to look at real estate with me. He insisted that we build but thinsg were not happening. Our housing market is glutted and the bank was making it easier to buy an existing structure rather than rebuild.
In a nutshell, two weeks ago today my husband came home and told me that we needed to buy or size down out house. I am not proud of the new swear words that came out of my mouth. I adjusted, put 300 miles on the SUV and found houses for sale-- lots of them!
A few days later I had calmed down and I called an agent and that day my husband came home and said we could build. I was seriously furious and I topped the previous spree.
Over the last two weeks he has gathered information and we went back and forth and forth and back. Three days ago we met with the bank and it was confimed that borrowing for an existing dwelling would have a lower interest than borrowing for the house of the same amount. We palced a bid last night.
I like the house-- it isn't as big as the one we wanted to build, but it's lay out is decent and clever. The people who own it have loved it and taken good care of it. The kids love it, too and they like the neighborhood. We parked a ways away from it and walked through it about a week ago and Basil knows everyone now-- he is such a young politician in that regard! The neighborhood is full of pretty houses. Tiny front yards and bigger back yards, but as a whole it is pretty to look at. Some of the houses are tastefully bright, many have elegant rock gardens. (I want a pretty rock garden with a wroght iron table and chair duo for mine. I will sit and drink tea and look elegant! LOL)
Of course we made the bid and my nightmares began again-- several bedrooms overlook the garage and are quite high. The local fire department is very happy to come over when I am ready and show me and the kids how to safely use an emergancy ladder to get out of a 2.5 story window and show us how to use fire extinguishers, although I worry that my three middle sons will turn into pyromaniacs trying to find an excuse to use the ladders and the fire extinguishers! The chief told me that few have emergency equipment and fewer still know how to use them.
It is not the fire-- it is the year of transition that we have had that has been hard on me, personally. The kids love the adventure so I am doing well with it for them, but it was different for my husband vs. me. I am glad that he wasn't the one to light the candle that got knocked over. I think I am more careful than he is and I would have been angry at him. The kids could have been hurt, but once I got Starshine out of harm's way, I think she and Dmitri would have been fine. I took some very stupid risks as I had no idea what I was up against when I went into that room to put it out. What scares me more than anything was how close I came to being hurt-- a person running into a room that is on fire is likely to get hurt. They could have seen their mother ignite and the only thing Dmitri could have done was get out and get help and he'd be shouldering the what-ifs. I know better now and I am very blessed.
Anyway, I have been told by a professional that I am stage-specific where I need to by and I can put this behind me once we settle. I really wish we'd moved before school resumed, but now it looks like we will be moving int he first few weeks and this is a mega drag as the kids are in advanced programs with lots of schoolwork that they cannot get behind on. Transition is never fun, but we will make it through this, too.
Monday, July 26, 2010
And things get better. . .
Fortunately my sadness abated today as I took my 14 yo daughter out looking. By the end of the second hour, she was guessing prices accurately on houses and thier number of bedrooms and how big the acerage was. To say that I was impressesed is an understatement. At one point she said, "Four and three quarter acres. Lake view. Five bedrooms. $715,000. They will take $685,000." I split hairs-- what was 4 and 3/4 acres over 5? She said to me, "Look at the hill. It cuts off over there and I saw a lake on the other side."
She explained to me some other things that she saw at a glance, how other homes were being priced. She is turning into my mother with her eye for detail in the blink of an eye. I always thought my mom was psychic but her sixth sense probably has more to do with observation and mental figuring than anything else.
She was the same with places more in our price range and was calculating other factors. Could this girl become a real estate ace? I have to say that I'd not trade the day for anything, really-- my daughter showed a head for business. I will call my mom and tell her and she will be thrilled.
Basil got his cast off-- he broke his arm 6 weeks ago and he'd wanted to take it off on his own a few times (he is 11, my skateboarder.) He got it off today and felt terrible-- all those nerves that were quieted on his arm were not liking the new sensations. He asked the doctor for a brace (no way, he needed to start using it) and he came home and took a shower and got the dead skin off. Now he is pretty used to it. "Mom, may I go to the skateboard park?
"What would your doctor say?
"Never mind."
She explained to me some other things that she saw at a glance, how other homes were being priced. She is turning into my mother with her eye for detail in the blink of an eye. I always thought my mom was psychic but her sixth sense probably has more to do with observation and mental figuring than anything else.
She was the same with places more in our price range and was calculating other factors. Could this girl become a real estate ace? I have to say that I'd not trade the day for anything, really-- my daughter showed a head for business. I will call my mom and tell her and she will be thrilled.
Basil got his cast off-- he broke his arm 6 weeks ago and he'd wanted to take it off on his own a few times (he is 11, my skateboarder.) He got it off today and felt terrible-- all those nerves that were quieted on his arm were not liking the new sensations. He asked the doctor for a brace (no way, he needed to start using it) and he came home and took a shower and got the dead skin off. Now he is pretty used to it. "Mom, may I go to the skateboard park?
"What would your doctor say?
"Never mind."
Lingering in Limbo
I have a very frusterated post about building-- the house is not going up as we cannot afford it. I am shocked as I only suggested it in the beginning and after a summer of hearing how it will start "next week" and keeping me in the dark, I know it will not go up.
My original post was derogratory about my husband and while I mean it. I probably should wait a few days and think about it first. It was not written in anger.
I had hoped to be writing about rebuilding or finding a happy new house. I am not. Now I am sadder than I was right after the fire.
My original post was derogratory about my husband and while I mean it. I probably should wait a few days and think about it first. It was not written in anger.
I had hoped to be writing about rebuilding or finding a happy new house. I am not. Now I am sadder than I was right after the fire.
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