We put an offer in last night
Aug 16, 2005 The Story of My Life, Writing
Our realtor spends a lot of time in Vegas and this is his favorite part. He sat us down and told us our options, including the subtle nuances in the fine art of negotiation. Go too low, he told us, and you risk annoying them. Sometimes it makes sense to edge up in your opening price a bit in the hopes that they just take it. Plus, he says, sometimes bidding low right off puts you into a heated transaction where you may end up paying more because emotions get involved. So we went with a low-middle bid.
It’s kind of horrifying to talk to in real life people about the house. For one, it’s embarrassing to admit that we’re planning on buying it before we sell this one because that seems so insane. Also it feels like we shouldn’t have enough money to do that. I keep putting down the house. I go like this, “It’s a great location! But the yard is a mess. The kitchen is laid out really well! But the lighting is horrendous. It has a lot more living space! It smells funny.”
See, you don’t want to be too confident or excited about your endeavors; that’s a midwestern thing.
Because of the possible house-to-be, I’m not going to the writing conference I was thinking about in the spring. I’m not sure about this. It’s expensive but I was hoping the investment would be worth it to get me all inspired and stuff. But then I was thinking that what with the house and all the homeschooling activities coming up and then the high holy days and then the regular old American and Christian holidays, I’d be lucky to get any extra time to write before the New Year. So I came to the conclusion that ambition and inspiration is not something I need more of right now since what ambition and inspiration I have is actually a terrible burden that makes me feel put-upon and bitter.
But I’ll admit to a good bit of yearning.
All of this is to lead into this month’s Your Commentary at Literary Mama. Please weigh in over there!
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Tags: Erica, homeschool, Homeschooling
Here’s our kitchen remodel
Aug 15, 2005 The Story of My Life
This is our realtor’s picture: Brand New Kitchen!!!
Buy now! Cheap cheap cheap!
And here are the bookshelves Brett put up in the basement: Shelves galore!!! Along with the nasty overstuffed chair, which is used as a trampoline and a glimpse of Noah’s robot collection. (This is the basement playroom — the bottom three shelves are all the kids’ chapter books.)
Here is our living room with the trash picked couch and the rocker we bought for $10 at a garage sale: New Windows!!!
There you go — get it while you can!
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Tags: Noah
See this is the house
Aug 15, 2005 The Story of My Life
I found this last night. This describes the house we’re thinking about to a T. Ask The Old-House Doctor We’re first-time buyers. Does sweat equity pay off?
Look for a middle-aged ugly duckling with good bones in a stable neighborhood with good schools.…
Once you narrow your search to a few neighborhoods, look for houses with peeling paint, ugly wallpaper, outdated light fixtures, dirty carpets and overgrown or non-existent landscaping. Search, too, for houses that offer a lot of space for the money, especially those with a floor plan that makes sense and those with a functional kitchen, even if it’s outdated.
More below the cut again. Read the rest of this entry »
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Another house
Aug 15, 2005 The Story of My Life
Now you need to understand that we’re not really looking. At least not officially. But we are trying to get an idea of what’s available since we’re focusing on a really narrow area. If there isn’t anything that works for us, we would have to go back to the drawing board so we figure, what the heck, we’ll look a bit.
Well, there’s one house that’s price way under market because of cosmetics, which is a nice way of saying it’s cheap because there is hideous carpet in the bathrooms. And maybe — just maybe — we could swing it before this one sells. That’s a discussion unto itself but back to the house — I’m putting the pros and cons below the cut. Read the rest of this entry »
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I just finished a book
Aug 13, 2005 Parenting
If you haven’t read any books by Sharon Creech you should probably do something about that. They’re young adult books (young young adult) so you can finish one in an afternoon — you’ve got an afternoon to spare, right? Or a few minutes here and there?
In Sharon Creech books there is usually someone journeying through literally and metaphorically. Someone is breaking a path or crossing an ocean or making soup. And someone is trying to make sense of friendship or of family but most of all of themselves.
If you’re going to read Sharon Creech, you should make sure that you have some space and privacy to cry because almost all of her books are crying books but it’s the kind of crying that’s very satisfying.
So I just finished The Wanderer, which has an adoption story running through it (I didn’t realize that when I picked it up) and I was thinking about something that Manuela asked me, which was how I would feel if Madison decided that she didn’t want contact with J. And I was thinking about Manuela’s own story (part of which she’s shared here) and I was thinking about Cubbiegirl’s daughter’s story (part of which she shares here) and then I was thinking about Madison’s story.
When you read a Sharon Creech book you see how every person, no matter how young, has a whole world that is their own. And always in her books there is a grown person who is letting go of that child so that he or she (usually she) can figure things out. Before that child goes on her journey, there is a grown-up who packs a lunch and sends them off. Some of the older people have major roles (they are the ones making the soup while the child tells the story; they are the one who write letters that inform the child’s world view) and sometimes they are minor (they are the ones who wave good-bye). Very often the people with the smallest roles are the parents and it’s because those parents have stepped back that the child is able to find these other adults at all.
One of the most challenging things, for me, about parenting is understanding how easy it is for support to become overwhelming. Ballast is what they use to keep hot air balloons from floating away but if you add too much of it, the balloon won’t fly at all. That’s what parenting is like.
I was swinging Madison today and I was tickling her feet while she kicked and laughed. I was thinking about her feet, which look just like J’s. I was thinking about how we never ever had such feet in our family and I was thinking about how lucky we are to have a brand new person to come and light up our family tree. And I was feeling grateful to the universe who saw fit to mix things up so that somehow J’s feet are walking into our family so that it’s like J is here with us, too, and all of the people through the centuries who stand out behind her like a fan.
I wanted to say to Madison (Ok, I did say to her), “You are PERFECT! Right here, swinging in this swing, laughing, you are PERFECT!” Everything converged into this one moment of laughter in a swing.
That moment swinging is ballast. Telling her howright she is, how important and shining she is, that’s ballast, too. She has this whole life to discover and I just want to feed her up with good things to sustain her when it comes time to take her own journeys.
I didn’t get into parenting so that someone small would love me all of her life (although that would be nice). I got into it for the glimpses of divinity that happen when I watch Madison’s big feet kicking their way through the air as she swings. These are moments of such clarity and peace, knowing that my purpose is to give her weight now while she is small. I am her witness so that one day when she’s angry or hurt I can say to her, “You matter. Always at your center is a small perfect child who is laughing and free and she is so very, very loved. Nothing ever changes that.”
That’s ballast.
Now go read some Sharon Creech.
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Tags: Madison