There is a Season - Turn, Turn, Turn

I think we found our dream house.  Is it weird that I have a hard time saying that out loud in my current home?  It's treated us so well, I don't want it to feel bad.  Then I come to my senses.  Our house is over a 100 years old and has houses lots of families; our family is only one in a long string.  407 West Will is likely ready for us to move on too.  It has been a great home - and through baby J's eyes I see how cool it really is.  The traffic and train both irk me but his favorite word is "car" and he'll drop what he's doing to go watch the train come through.  What I'll miss most are my beautiful hardwood floors.  What I'll miss least is the neighborhood, or lack thereof.  

The new house is old - 1973 custom build.  Having had only one owner it's full of retro, ahem charm we'll call it.  Some of this charm will remain like tiled kitchen backsplash in a color that seems to be a mix of harvest gold and avocado green.  Some of the retro touches will be updated, two words:  wood paneling.  Lansdowne is bigger and quieter but I am concerned that J will have no action to watch considering there is little traffic and the windows though normal sized are tiny compared to our floor to ceiling windows here.  I'm so excited though.  I can't wait to walk the neighborhood, or access the city bike path nearly just outside our door.  I can't wait to be 10 minutes from everything instead of 30!  We're closer to D's work, and to my favorite local escape, Highbanks MetroPark.  

We close on both houses in just over two weeks.  All inspections and appraisals seem to be going smoothly.  We've moved on to getting quotes on painting and fencing.  We spent part of this past week appliance shopping and I have a stack of paint chips nearly as think as my copy of Twilight.  We haven't entered the period of stress yet.  Once the packing begins though - ugh, I'll keep that thought for another day.

I've been trying to write about this for some time but I can't quite get the feelings across and I'm quite tired of the lifeless postings here.  Below are some started and never finished posts on the same topic - each gives a few more details on the past month.

Summer Switch-up . . . 

The good news is that we got our wish - house sold within 30 days!  We weren't sure it was going to happen in fact we were pretty sure it wasn't.  We'd had only 4 showings in 30 days and were in the process of switching agents when it happened.  In fact, the evening we had our new agent over and were signing papers was the same evening our old agent stopped to pick-up his sign and key (awkward - they were there at the same time too).

Summer Saturday . . . 

It's a lovely rainy summer Saturday.  I only wish I could hear it - it being the rain of course.  Instead I'm hearing J squawk through his monitor as he keeps sleep at arm's length.  Once he quiets I'll still hear the blowing A/C right next to me.  One thing I hope to have in our new house is the ability to open all the windows and enjoy the outside air, even if it is warm enough to warrant using the A/C instead.  Here we live too close to the busy road and I'd rather have A/C than exhaust and soot which I find on my front porch so I know it would end up in my home if the windows were open.

We close on a new house in just a couple weeks.  It was the only stand-out of houses online that we knew we'd like.  We looked at it the first night of our four days of house hunting.  I loved it right away; it made me smile.  I could see us living there easily.  However, it was obviously out of our price range.  After getting a bit more information, including the fact the vacant house had been on the market all last year, we decided it didn't hurt to put in a low offer and have back-ups for the good possibility that we could not get into our price range.  Not only was our offer accepted (without a counter) but they've also agreed to all our conditions (including repair requests).  

We close at the end of July!

missing people who aren't real

I'm sitting here feeling melancholy, listening to someone's music playlist.  My ipod is neither nearby or charged so this will have to do though I must say it's not nearly as inspiring as options I'd choose off my own list.  I have found a couple new artists though as a bright side.  On the flip side, I think these songs are adding to the melancholy.  I'm just melancholy enough to think today is surely Sunday though I know it's not; it's Monday.  Funny, that I prefer a day that is synonymous with bad to the supposedly carefree and relaxing Sunday.  

I've met some new friends recently.  They're imaginary.  Like the music, they don't belong to me either. And now they've gone on their way to live their lives in someone's space.  Even with the mocking I've taken from family and friends I'll miss them and I hope someday they enter my life again though I know it will be short-lived.

With this departure I've decided I need a rebound.  I'm not too familiar with rebounds though so I'm certain my methodology is beyond flawed.  I've moved on to some of THEIR favorites rather than delving into something that would have been mine.  I'm hoping to make another new friend or to at least enjoy a change of scenery.

THIS is exactly why I read non-fiction to begin with, so I should have seen it coming.  It's my own fault.  THIS is why I read about real people who are flawed regardless of how good they are.  I don't think I've ever become enthralled let alone obsessed over a real person, their life or the people in their life.  I mean, really, that would be crazy and potentially illegal.  But I can't help myself with some fictional characters.  I'm a character junkie - I'll read any crap plot you hand me if you develop the characters well enough.  I'm guessing it's got something to do with my imagination.  I must let it run in a different way when I read fiction than when I read nonfiction.

Perhaps the brightest part of the bright side of this is my renewed interest in not only reading, but writing.  I have not written for years.  I think I had the desire to write scared out of me in a small town in Colorado.  That was too long ago, and I keep saying I will use this blog to write more, or write better, but instead I don't use it at all.  So perhaps instead of, or better yet in addition to reading Ms. Austen, I should dust off The Portable MFA, Read like a Writer, or even just my dog ravaged copy of Bird by Bird.  I even went to the Columbus State website last night to see what fall classes they'd be offering.  Luckily the fall quarter class schedule is not up yet; it's for the best.  This will give me time to be sure this is nothing fleeting, but instead the rekindling of my relationship with writing - no rebound required.

springtime favorite

If there is one thing I over buy for J it's books.  I'm sure he could happily keep reading the same books but I get bored and there are SOOOO many books out there I just cannot resist.  I especially love TJ Maxx because they are the price of used books but in better shape.  Not that all used books are in horrible shape - I definitely buy a good deal from Half Price Books too.  Kids can just be so hard on books though that the used ones often show a bit of wear and I don't have an issue with that other than they will fall apart sooner once J gets a hold of them.  He doesn't chew them, thankfully, but he is rough on them all the same.  He has no concept of front/back cover and often tries to close the book in the wrong spot.  Another great source for books is Amazon because they often run sales on books if bought in 4s.  I think the sale was if you buy 3 the 4th is free and if you do that twice then you also qualify for free shipping!  That was quite a score for the holidays and his birthday but a bit excessive for an everyday purchase (even for me).

What about the library you ask?  Not yet.  When he is older and reading on his own we'll become frequent visitors to the library.  I have gained a new appreciation for libraries in the past year.  I had not taken advantage of the wonderful resource they are since probably middle school when my mother would take us to Westminster College's library.  They had an awesome children's section complete with a fort!  I am not embarrassed at all to admit that even in middle school I had as much fun in that fort as my much younger siblings.  I loved to climb up on top with a few books and spend a good bit of time deciding which in my pile would make the cut and come home with me that week.

This winter I found a book at Half Price Books that J never really took to, but I continued to read it to him anyway because it was MY favorite.  I loved the artwork - absolutely loved it.  I wrote about it a few months ago and if you don't remember take a look at it here.

Over vacation one of our bags was 3 days late in arriving.  It apparently wanted a separate vacation in Miami and St. Thomas.  J's bedtime reads were in it so we found a book on St. John for him.  It is my new favorite and this time J likes it too!  It's called the Secret Seahorse.  It's definitely a book I can see him growing with because right now he just gets the basics.  In time he'll see it's actually a hide and seek book . . . looking for the seahorse of course.  

For me, I love the artwork.  The winter book I loved the artwork also and wanted to live in it.  This book, I want to re-create the artwork.  The entire book is felt applique of different underwater scenes and various underwater creatures complete with coral, a shipwreck, and sparkly sequin fish scales!  

Photos are from the book ‘Secret Seahorse’ Stella Blackstone & Calre Beaton/Barefoot Books

toys

Where do vintage toys go exactly?  Are they buried deep within landfills?  How is it I can find vintage furniture, cars, flooring and fabric but barely any toys anywhere except apparently in Switzerland?  I'm going to have to investigate the exchange rate for "chf."  

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic but many of J's toys are built for the destiny of those vintage toys.  My toys were so much sturdier.  I wish my mother had saved more items . . . my treehouse for one.  I have wonderful memories of playing with that.  Secondly would be my shopping cart which I would love to have for J.  The third item is Ollie though he was sort of saved and died years later from the elements in his storage area.  My Ollie had wheels unlike the earlier version.  Last but not least is my Kermit the frog.  I have been given replacements but none of them are quite the same and the hands do not velcro like my old kermit.  

I guess I should consider this as I determine the fate of J's toys.  However, like I said before his toys are to some extent not build well.  Maybe I need to pull aside the few that are and save them?  Or perhaps my parents thought the same thing of my toys compared to theirs and I must stop the cycle!  There is a fine line between saving and hoarding and I only have so much space.  I can't keep everything nor do I want to be tied to that stuff.  

What preschool toy do you have fond memories of, and are you lucky enough to still have it?

some are silver and some are gold

I could move to Dallas.  I'm ready.  I find it interesting that I say that normally after two things . . . visits there and holidays away from there.  The rest of the time (especially early winter and all of autumn) I'm more than happy (yes more than) to stay put here in Ohio.  It's a frustrating see-saw, especially since the only way we'd move to Dallas is if D applied for and got a promotion.  So it's really a moot point that I need not consider as it's not really on the radar right now.  So why bring it up?  In part because we just returned from a trip there and it's fresh in my mind.  My sister-in-law's neighborhood has 9 houses for sale (4 on her street) and most could potentially be in our price range.  

There are definitely negatives to a move to Texas - a move that is by no means on the radar or happening any time soon but for which I feel the need to obsess and blog about.  It's hot down there and it's red - as in too freakin' conservative.  The schools aren't great though there are some that are apparently superb (Southlake comes to mind for one).  However not to ruffle any feathers of my six readers, but I don't want J taught stories in science - I want him taught science.  Back to weather though, it never snows in Dallas and I like the snow, at least for the first four weeks or so around the holidays.  I also really love autumn with it's crisp air and melancholy colors.  Last but not least, while I enjoy visiting Texas I don't have a lot of friends there.  I have one friend, 2 sister-in-laws, one cousin my age and 3 significantly younger.  

With that said there are negatives to Ohio too and the whole "I have no friends" issue with Texas isn't that much different here.  I have a bunch of "friends" on Facebook but even the activity on there mirrors real life.  As in there is no activity on there with or from my "friends" and in real-life I rarely see or talk to more than a couple of said friends.  So I guess the friend issue is a draw.  It does allow me to segue from my nonsense writing about a move south to, well to friendship I guess.

I have to say I'm not terribly outgoing.  I always tell D that being outgoing is a trait not a learned action but secretly I suspect that's false and just a cop out.  It's just a scary proposition to make an attempt to be more outgoing.  I'd rather get over a fear of spiders or tight spaces through systematic desensitisation than work to be more outgoing.  I wouldn't say I'm shy; I'm just slow to open up to people so I come off as cold (to say the least).  I would say the fact that I tend to find myself in friendships in which I do all the work is probably fueling the fire.  I don't know.  Maybe I can look at the friendships that are not one-way and learn something from them for going forward?  

Funny.  Funny to me at least.  Just last year I was considering joining a mom's group and didn't.  I wanted to join for J so he could play with other kids.  I was stressing because of the social interaction I'd be forced into with the mom's.  I wasn't interested in more/new friends.  My friendship situation hasn't changed since then but obviously my perspective has.  I really think it boils down to me being ready to have a life again so now friendships are important and what was enough last year isn't now.

I'm not sure how I'll be working through this.  I know I need to force myself to be more outgoing to some extent.  So when I take J to swim class or art class I need to be more social and outgoing with the other moms.  I also need to reach out to the moms I already know with kids J's age and setup some playdates.  Maybe by this holiday season I'll no longer be longing for the supposedly greener grass across the Mason Dixon line.