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Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
February 2, 2013
Somewhere along the ticker, the calendar flipped, and we found ourselves scrambling around, back and forth, tinkering with our house in the city, living in suburbanland, all while layering up for sub-zero and running between the car and the heat.
I high five Kari as we switch and she takes the next shift at the house and I take the next shift with the kids and then we high five the next day and switch again, acting as single parents and general contractors and doing a below average job at both.
And it's February and The Year Of Slow is off to a fast start and the new years post I've had spinning circles in my mind has lost the race against the intrepid nature of time.
So we're here. Living in Indiana.
Some days I'm not sure what exactly we're doing. I miss the San Gabriels and the way they perfectly frame Los Angeles and I miss the freakishly consistent warmth and good lord do I miss the kids and late night beverages with friends on our thrifted lawn furnishings.
My three year old is homesick, and among other manifestations, has been insisting lately that her former housemates are actually her real brother and sisters. FOR REAL DAD, she screams in frustration, crossing her arms in a desperate attempt to keep them close. Poor kid. She has slept in six different homes and two different hotels since we left Los Angeles six weeks ago, all while trading daily outside adventures with her friends for the lifeless indoor playground of Chic Fil A.
The promise of a tree house and turtle at our new house can only take her so far. Soon, I tell her. We will move into our new home soon, darling.
I high five Kari as we switch and she takes the next shift at the house and I take the next shift with the kids and then we high five the next day and switch again, acting as single parents and general contractors and doing a below average job at both.
And it's February and The Year Of Slow is off to a fast start and the new years post I've had spinning circles in my mind has lost the race against the intrepid nature of time.
So we're here. Living in Indiana.
Some days I'm not sure what exactly we're doing. I miss the San Gabriels and the way they perfectly frame Los Angeles and I miss the freakishly consistent warmth and good lord do I miss the kids and late night beverages with friends on our thrifted lawn furnishings.
My three year old is homesick, and among other manifestations, has been insisting lately that her former housemates are actually her real brother and sisters. FOR REAL DAD, she screams in frustration, crossing her arms in a desperate attempt to keep them close. Poor kid. She has slept in six different homes and two different hotels since we left Los Angeles six weeks ago, all while trading daily outside adventures with her friends for the lifeless indoor playground of Chic Fil A.
The promise of a tree house and turtle at our new house can only take her so far. Soon, I tell her. We will move into our new home soon, darling.
January 7, 2013
Her name was Winona Marie Eads.
She was a mother to six children and a grandmother to eleven. From the artifacts and objects left behind, one can imagine she led a full and interesting life. Leftover polaroids show her gallivanting around the world. An old record player was in the hallway upstairs. Tucked away in the attic were a vast collection of road maps from the Eastern United States and boxes full of stamps. In the back corner of the upstairs bathroom were cutouts from the travel section of the Chicago Tribune. Old sermons and hymnals were strewn around the living room and dusty mustard yellow curtains hung over the large windows in the parlor room. In her bedroom, the remnants of at least a dozen picture frames could be found, in all different shapes and sizes, their position clearly outlined by the contrast between the clean wall behind the frames and the dusty wall next to them.
The neighbor on our left called her the kindest woman she had ever met. The neighbor across the street told stories of how Winona had tea parties with the young girl next door.
She died in the summer of her eighty-third year, on August 4, 2011. She was the previous owner of the house we purchased on Fletcher Avenue.
She was a mother to six children and a grandmother to eleven. From the artifacts and objects left behind, one can imagine she led a full and interesting life. Leftover polaroids show her gallivanting around the world. An old record player was in the hallway upstairs. Tucked away in the attic were a vast collection of road maps from the Eastern United States and boxes full of stamps. In the back corner of the upstairs bathroom were cutouts from the travel section of the Chicago Tribune. Old sermons and hymnals were strewn around the living room and dusty mustard yellow curtains hung over the large windows in the parlor room. In her bedroom, the remnants of at least a dozen picture frames could be found, in all different shapes and sizes, their position clearly outlined by the contrast between the clean wall behind the frames and the dusty wall next to them.
The neighbor on our left called her the kindest woman she had ever met. The neighbor across the street told stories of how Winona had tea parties with the young girl next door.
She died in the summer of her eighty-third year, on August 4, 2011. She was the previous owner of the house we purchased on Fletcher Avenue.
November 6, 2012
We recently trekked to Indianapolis, the city my youngest sister and parents reside in, to see if a move there would be something to consider more seriously.
A new adventure has been tugging at us ever since Leo was born and we have been tossing around ideas over late night drinks ever since. There was the six month camper van trip through Canada, from West to East, which we shelved rather quickly on account of the newborn which would have accompanied us. There was the temporary move overseas, probably to somewhere like Central America, where we could live on next to nothing, volunteer somewhere and give the kids a taste of another culture. There was Portland, which is always just sitting there being perfect little Portland, the utopia for free spirited, liberal, composting hippies who don't mind the rain. Not to mention some of our closest friends just inhabited the place.
Never would I have guessed we would be traveling to Downtown Indianapolis in the cold of November to scope the place out.
After a week of exploring the city, eating at places like Yats, drinking in bars like Chatterbox, and long walks through Fountain Square, one of Downtown's most promising neighborhoods, we were ready to take the cold dark plunge to the middle of America.
In the end, the difficult decision to leave our home and closest friends was made more bearable by the wonderful reality of being within walking distance of family. And we've always wanted to learn how to fix up houses, which every home in Downtown Indy seems to be in need of, sans the ones that are already boarded up. And of course, the possibility of our mortgage payment being in the same ballpark as Stella's preschool bill in Los Angeles is always a nice bonus.
We arrived back in LA on Sunday morning, just a few hours before electronically signing an agreement to buy the house above, a beauty of a place built in 1870, with high ceilings and big windows and ornate trim work that made my woodworking heart swell. It is also a glorified 2200 square foot dump, in need of just about everything you can imagine fixing on an old house, which will hopefully suit us just fine.
As long as the underwriter decides we are still loan approved, and the appraiser thinks the house is worth more than the loan we are asking for, and the second inspection doesn't reveal something catastrophic that the first inspection missed, this place will be waiting for us come Christmas.:)
A new adventure has been tugging at us ever since Leo was born and we have been tossing around ideas over late night drinks ever since. There was the six month camper van trip through Canada, from West to East, which we shelved rather quickly on account of the newborn which would have accompanied us. There was the temporary move overseas, probably to somewhere like Central America, where we could live on next to nothing, volunteer somewhere and give the kids a taste of another culture. There was Portland, which is always just sitting there being perfect little Portland, the utopia for free spirited, liberal, composting hippies who don't mind the rain. Not to mention some of our closest friends just inhabited the place.
Never would I have guessed we would be traveling to Downtown Indianapolis in the cold of November to scope the place out.
We arrived back in LA on Sunday morning, just a few hours before electronically signing an agreement to buy the house above, a beauty of a place built in 1870, with high ceilings and big windows and ornate trim work that made my woodworking heart swell. It is also a glorified 2200 square foot dump, in need of just about everything you can imagine fixing on an old house, which will hopefully suit us just fine.
As long as the underwriter decides we are still loan approved, and the appraiser thinks the house is worth more than the loan we are asking for, and the second inspection doesn't reveal something catastrophic that the first inspection missed, this place will be waiting for us come Christmas.:)
October 13, 2012
A while back, I stumbled upon an Apartment Therapy feature on Cathy McMurray, an artist from Portland. I was immediately drawn to her mixed media paintings of nature and landscapes, which are done with such vivid color and striking detail and originality that I hoped one of her works would eventually make it's way into our home.
In January, she posted a new piece, Caldera, which she painted on locally sourced wood, and then wrote beautifully about new beginnings, both of which resonated with me as we approached the one year anniversary of Margot's death.
After trading emails, Cathy and I came up with an art for furniture swap, artist and artisan, which involved trading Caldera for three hexagon shelves that I would make for her out of reclaimed pine.
A few months later, our trade was complete. :)
You can find more of Cathy's beautiful (and affordable) work in her Etsy shop. She also has a regularly updated blog, Habit of Art, that features new artwork and beautiful images from in and around Portland.
In January, she posted a new piece, Caldera, which she painted on locally sourced wood, and then wrote beautifully about new beginnings, both of which resonated with me as we approached the one year anniversary of Margot's death.
After trading emails, Cathy and I came up with an art for furniture swap, artist and artisan, which involved trading Caldera for three hexagon shelves that I would make for her out of reclaimed pine.
A few months later, our trade was complete. :)
You can find more of Cathy's beautiful (and affordable) work in her Etsy shop. She also has a regularly updated blog, Habit of Art, that features new artwork and beautiful images from in and around Portland.
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