London again??
Jul 21, 2005 Uncategorized
I just turned on the radio. There aren’t many details yet…
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The realtor came last night
Jul 21, 2005 The Story of My Life
He said the market is “soft” and one house in our neighborhood has been on the market for more than 250 days. Yipes. But he also said our house is one of the prettier (curb appealing) ones available (should we make it available) and that we also live on one of the nicer streets in the neighborhood. I knew this because, heck, almost five years ago we were looking for a house and I remember how this one showed better than the others. And that was before the new kitchen and all.
I’ll be sad to give up my new appliances but this is a starter home and I know you sell appliances with the starter homes.
I don’t know if we shouldn’t wait until spring to put it up. We’re looking at basically going on the market just as school starts and then there are the holidays…
I’m going to have to trust Brett on this. He’s pretty cautious and he’s doing more research than I am. But he was also interested in a bridge loan and there’s just no way I’d agree to that.
Our realtor, like my mother, thinks that we ought to consider the neighborhood where my sister lives. We could get a lot of house there. But I don’t like that neighborhood. I don’t dislike it — it’s just an awful lot like this one so why bother to move? We could get a bigger house but I’m not moving just to get a bigger house.
I’ve also been talking to people about our chosen area — how conservative is it? How diverse? It looks like it’s more diverse than the other area we like although less diverse than this area. I can live with that because it’s close enough to this area that we can still pick up activities at the rec center or library and as long as Madison gets to some see other brown faces in the course of her daily living, I’m not keeping a quota. Our window guy who came yesterday to take measurements lives in the district we’re eyeing and he said (and I quote) that things around those parts are “pretty mixed, I’d say, pretty mixed.”
As to conservative, well, yes, it is. Myabe not as conservative as this neighborhood although it depends on which street, exactly, we end up moving to. Our neighbor across the way here — he’s a good neighbor. He keeps an eye on our house when we’re gone, he checks in when the street floods, and they send over cookies at Christmas. He also told Brett that when he got his driveway resealed, he had to “Jew down” the guy on his price. He’s a good neighbor but I don’t want to hang out with him. I can take some of that in a neighborhood but it would be nice to find some people I like, too. I don’t need to fall in love with my neighbors or even become best friends as long as I can trust that my son won’t be proslytized to if he’s hanging with the kids. Or at least not by everybody (how to handle proslytizing is probably a good skill for every non-Christian American to have).
Yesterday I said to one of my friends, “Maybe living next to Republicans isn’t so bad,” and she said, horrified, “I can’t believe you just said that!”
Depends on the Republican, I say. And besides, I can’t afford the liberal neighborhoods, which seems awfully not very liberal of those neighborhoods. And Becca says she heard that my favorite one was filling up with conservative yuppies anyway. (By the way Becca? I’m totally with you about the sex tapes.)
Oh and on one street that’s kinda sorta a tiny bit near where we’d like to live there are currently four homeschooling families living there, two of whom I’ve been talking to about the area and who seem like lovely people. I was asking one about the politics around there and she said, “I wouldn’t know because I don’t discuss them.” Probably a good policy to have but not nearly as much fun.
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Tags: Becca, Erica, homeschool, Homeschooling, Madison
Please come talk to me
Jul 19, 2005 Writing
It’s the monthly edition of Talk Back to Literary Mama! aka: Your Commentary
Please click over there and check it out!
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Blog neglect
Jul 19, 2005 Race
I’ve been busy scouring this site for census information about Columbus-area neighborhoods. And the Great Schools site for more specific demographics.
The three neighborhoods we are considering all have less racial diversity than the neighborhood we live in now. This is troubling. However in at least one of the neighborhoods, we would still have quick access to this one (the same grocery store, for example). In the other two, depending on where we live, we would have some access but would need to make more effort. Also one of the neighborhoods apparently has a lot of movement from African American students outside the area. In Columbus you can choose your school and there are three schools fed by this mostly white district that are considered very good by Columbus standards. Just outside this area is a neighborhood that is primarily African American and that — shocking, I know — has schools that are on Academic Emergency. Some of the students there must have parents who are exercising their right to school choice.
There is a fourth neighborhood with similar demographics as the one we live in now and also has similar downsides (too far to walk to anything, few school choices should we need school). It’s also on the other side of town, making it more difficult to keep with our friends/family community in an everyday way and it would give Brett a killer commute.
We’re feeling really challenged by our options. It’s pretty damn difficult to measure the advantages and disadvantages and try to come up with the best mix. I don’t want to move to a neighborhood solely for it’s racial make-up if it means that it is in every other way less livable. If there isn’t foot-traffic, if it isn’t child-friendly, if the houses aren’t to our liking — that’s what we have here.
Oh if only Columbus had its own Shaker Heights!
Speaking of our neighborhood, our street is very short with only about a dozen houses on it. It dead ends into the cross-street at either end. Our neighbors are nice but all of them are older. In ten years it will likely start turning over and younger families will move in. (Too late for us.) Anyway, there is one black family who lives two houses up. The children are grown but I see the mom doing yardwork. I always wave and she doesn’t always wave back.
The other day I was following Madison as she toddled down the block and this woman was driving by. She saw Madison and stopped her car in the street to talk to her. Then she said, “You live here?” I said yes indeed, we live here. She said, “I have a 2-year old grandson who comes to visit, they’ll have to get together and play.”
So I guess we really are neighbors now.
Oh and I’ve added a new category; this is the first entry in it.
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So Brett and I decided we weren’t stressed enough
Jul 17, 2005 The Story of My Life
We were like, “So what the hell! Parents of a toddler, homeschooling an 8-year old (homeschool knows no summer vacation), working from home, working out-of-home, maintaining said home, lotsa angst over creative career — we’re not stressed enough these days. Let’s MOVE!”
And so we’re moving.
Well, not quite. See, we’ve been doing all of these home improvements so that our house will be all nice and lovely on the market and Brett went and talked to our mortgage broker about what we need to do to make ourselves presentable for next spring. And lo and behold, our mortgage broker (who is a kick ass broker used to working with people to get the most bang for their buck without risking bankruptcy — if you’re in Columbus and need someone, let me know) said that we already look great. So Brett, feeling frisky, got a preapproval letter.
We’re going to bring our agent in this week so he can help us get the house on the market MAYBE and help us see some houses DEFINITELY.
We don’t want to get in over our heads and likely won’t use the entire preapproval amount so we’re still pretty fiercely budgeted. Then it’s hard to figure out which concerns have the most merit:
–An aesthetically pleasing home so we’re happy living there;
–Compromising on aesthetics for improved livability;
–Finding a neighborhood with kids;
–Finding a neighborhood where we can walk to the park, coffee shop, etc.
–The presence of rainbow flags or other indications that we won’t move next door to gun-toting Republicans;
–A smaller house and smaller payment that we risk growing out of or a larger house with a larger payment that will also be more to heat and cool.
Where we’re at now is:
–frantic, late-night surfing at realtor.com;
–random panicking in the middle of the night, waking to say to the other, “But why move when we finally bought new windows????”
–calling our realtor to arrange some showings;
–trying not to think about it anymore then failing miserably.
And why are we moving when we finally bought new windows? Because this isn’t a neighborhood where we feel safe letting the kids roam and Noah’s itching to do some roaming. That’s the biggie. There aren’t even any kids near us so he can’t hook up with friends and arrange his own play dates. (We usually get like two Trick-or-Treaters a year; there are more kids deeper in the neighborhood but again, it’s not quite the roaming-friendly area.) Also we’re growing out of our house — it’s getting a little too small and there’s only one bath, which will be a problem the instant Madison decides she’s through with diapers.
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Tags: creative, homeschool, Homeschooling, Madison, Noah, working out