Category Archives: Just Stuff

Sounds better than miscellaneous.

Snow Day!

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The miracle wasn’t that it was snowing at sea level, but rather the fact that Porter didn’t get hypothermia from running around outside without shoes on, and that I managed to convince Stella to wear both shoes and a jacket all at one time. Okay, really it was a sweater, but considering I regularly find her outside, standing at the sand table in 40 degree weather wearing nothing but a pair of underwear, this was HUGELY successful.

You’ll probably get bored with these after a while, but at least I’ll have proof when I begin incessantly telling my grand-kids about the great snow day of aught-eight.

snow flakes
(click photo to see the entire set)

Come join the fun! It’s Natalie’s New Year’s Pity Party!

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I know you are all sitting around waiting for me to finally get my butt in gear and post the sordid details from Holiday Season 2007. And you know what? So am I. I have most of the photos off my card, and have been loading them onto Flickr, set, by tedious set. However, based on the current reading on the Walston Motivation-o-Meter, a -5 isn’t really going to get you much. At this pace, it is probably going to be St. Patrick’s day before I get around to telling you about the obscene meal Steve concocted for his birthday dinner (hot dogs, wrapped in pastrami, smothered in 100-Island dressing, covered in a slice of cheese and toasted under a broiler), or until I am able to recount the steady stream of gift opening and food digesting that defined Christmas.

But the truth of the matter is that along with recovering from the holiday, and everything that entails, Steve and I both have had a hard time embracing that perky new year’s outlook. For both of us, work has been very emotionally draining, causing us to come home each day and threaten to quit everything and finally open that kitchen store. Neither one of us has been able to get back onto our exercise routine, and our commitment to quality parenting has been marginal, at best. Cereal for dinner, anyone? It hasn’t helped matters that we are now at week 14 waiting for a very expensive new bed frame that was supposed to have been delivered in 6-8 weeks. Follow that up with this little gem from Tuesday, and I guess you could say that although we are 9 days into our new year we are just not yet feeling the 2008 love. And have I mentioned the 7 consecutive days of storms that have knocked out the power twice?

Although we are feeling like we have started the new year with a thud, there have been some moments to help me keep perspective that not being able to return a pair of shoes isn’t exactly the end of the world. Like, finding out that a childhood friend died over the holidays. She was just 35 years old. She had been diagnosed with a partially in-operable brain tumor during the summer between our freshman and sophomore year, and continued to battle with it’s various complications throughout her life. Although we had not maintained a friendship through our adult lives, it was still painful news to hear. I felt especially sad for her mother, who had also recently lost her husband. Parents should not ever have to outlive their children.

Also, for the first time in recent memory, I can recognize and appreciate that all four members of our immediate family are simultaneously illness-free. No colds, no throwing up, no mysterious coughs and/or persistent runny noses, no ear infections, no sinus infections, no croup, no reflux, no antibiotics, no prescription antacids. After spending the last 4 years living with one, then two little germ factories – susceptible to any virus within a 10-mile radius – I realize the true miracle of this phenomenon. Now, if we could just cure The Angry.

I am sure that slowly, we will begin to find our 2008 mojo, and we can begin to focus on the important things, like how I am going to accrue the remaining 6 purse points to buy that yummy brown leather bag I have been eyeing since before Christmas. [You can imagine that this system – devised and scored by Steve – is rife with corruption and irregularity. However, I am confident that I can prevail.]

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it is time for me to go get on the treadmill…which is exactly why I am instead going to get a giant bowl of ice cream and sit on the couch and watch the E! Channel.

Perspective

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If I were to give a brief assessment of the last month, I’d say that we have been moving forward, but in a sort of bumpy and uncomfortable is-anyone-having-any-fun-here? kind of way. Unfortunately, it is this state in which our lives currently exists that prohibits me from being able to write a post without quickly digressing to a boring rant. Although I write this blog as much for myself as for anyone else, even I don’t really feel like coming back to read a sniveling diatribe about how tired, overwhelmed and depressed I am. Booorrriiiinnngggg.

One of the things I have learned in writing these pages however, is that in order for me to write about my life in a way that isn’t whiny and sour, I need a certain amount of perspective. The humor is born from the pain not during, but after. Periodically, I’ll look back through these pages for something and stumble across a post where I didn’t give myself the appropriate emotional recovery time-frame. These are the posts whose subtext reads: GET THIS WOMAN SOME PROZAC.

So here I am, unsure if I have enough perspective, but trying to get something down anyway. I am well aware of the fact that I have gone far too long without posting anything, during a time when there is more going on than ever, and I am compounding my stress by feeling as though I am missing my opportunity to write about some of the really the good things – because even in my spiral towards total insanity, I can see that there are some good things. I know this because they are the reasons that we have not given up entirely and knocked on the door at B Street asking, “Can we just have our house back, please?”

As for our new house, well, if I have to hear myself tell one more person how much POTENTIAL it has, I am going to have to personally tell myself to shut the hell up. Blah, blah di freakin blah. It is this perpetual need to not seem ungrateful and unappreciative that has been so tough. Yes, we are fortunate enough to have two wonderful children that are trying to kill us , and a new house that looks like it was remodeled by a blind person , and yet all I want to do is tell people how insanely overwhelmed I am. This new house of ours? Yeah, it’s kind of like having 10 newborns all at the same time. And, if having children has been any lesson to me, I have learned that the same things that bring you the most joy and happiness in the world can also bring you the most hair-pulling, scream-into-your-pillow, sobbing-on-the-bathroom-floor frustration. So I guess you could say it’s kind of like that.

In between the regular, day-to-day shuffle of kids and house projects that don’t get done, we have been inserting side-trips here and there. Steve’s father turned 70, and we traveled to the booming metropolis of Redding to celebrate in the festivities. Additionally, the season of Eskra has officially been kicked off, beginning with separate bachelor and bachelorette parties in Lake Tahoe that killed not just a handful of brain cells, but entire sectors of our frontal cortex. I think it was the altitude. In all cases, it was nice to get away from here for just the briefest of moments and to alleviate the pounding need to accomplish something.

There are a set of photos that Steve took the day after our offer on this house was officially accepted. For those who have not already seen them, you can flip through to get an idea of where the crazy begins. I have taken only a small handful of photos over the last month. You’ll note that there are no rhyme or reason to the subject, or even the quality for that matter. But for those of you suffering withdrawal, it should get you over the hump.

Now, where’s that Prozac?

All in a day’s work.

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Today we bought a house. Today we sold a house. It was a pretty good day.

The process of actually selling our house got more complicated than I could have ever imagined. After getting not one, but two offers in a 4-hour period, we ended up countering them both. Much to our surprise they both came back with a resounding, “We’ll take it!” This meant it was up to us to have to pick which offer to accept. Do you know how hard that is? Two great, enthusiastic buyers willing to do just about anything we ask of them just so they can become the future owners of the most high maintenance kitchen ever constructed. Little do they know of the floor, counter and appliance polishing that awaits them.

Our agent emailed us not only copies of their acceptances and counter offers (one actually nudged their bid $250 over asking price to sweeten the deal a bit), but she also attached their carefully crafted letters in which they laid out their case as to why they should be the new owners of this house. Seriously. So we did what any other red-blooded American would do – we sent it out to committee. We emailed the letters to friends, family and anyone who would read them and asked them all to vote for their favorite. The results came back unanimous. We had a winner.

As for our attempts at purchasing our little slice of heaven, we got the news that our latest counter offer had been accepted. Booyah!

We promptly scheduled another showing of our (almost) new home so that Steve could take an endless array of photos of boring things like window casings and eave overhangs. All things he will use in planning the infinite repairs and upgrades. A word to my father: consider yourself warned; you are about to be bombarded with remodeling questions.

And our new neighbors? Oh, just the most famous of all salad dressing dynasties!

Hidden Valley

(Yes, that actually says Hidden Valley Ranch. Try not to be too jealous.)

Friday the 13th, indeed.

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Yes, our house is now on the market. Yes, we are a bag of mixed emotions about it. Yes, I know the magnitude of selling the house we have poured our heart and soul into fixing up. The house we have fine-tuned down to the last window treatment. The house where we brought home both of our children. The house that holds enough memories to fill every square inch of our 1100 square feet of high ceilings and light-filled rooms. The house where we realized the emotionally devastating blow of a burglary, juxtaposed against the generous humanity of neighbors who offered to help us pay to have a security system installed. Neighbors we hardly knew. Yes, I have complained endlessly about this house. Yes, I will miss it more than words can say.

On Wednesday we went to look at a house that Steve began affectionately referring to as “the one”. By Thursday we began getting calls requesting that strangers could begin touring our home. And, as Thursday, the 12th, became Friday, the 13th, life as we knew, it started to change.

As of Friday morning, we had one showing scheduled for 6:30 in the evening. As the day wore on, more calls; more showings. I had scheduled to work a full day, and so it was Steve who had to wrangle both kids in and out of the house – on 4 separate occasions. It finally got to the point where I called Dore to ask if, after I got off of work, we could all just park it at her house for the remainder of the evening.

One other small item from Friday: we made an offer. This is the part where I have to qualify that “the one” is not perfect. In fact, it is far from it. But this is where the trade-off game has begun in full earnest. We don’t have the financial resources to afford what we want, in totality. Instead, we are going to have to make accommodations. And when it comes to weighing in on location, lot size and structure, the only real thing we have control over to change is the structure…which leads us to this house. It straddles between two desirable school districts, pushes us further Northward, is tucked away enough to feel a bit remote – while also not being more than 2 minutes from 101. The lot is a healthy, but manageable 1/3 acre with good South-West exposure and mature fruit trees. Then there is the house. Ah, the house. I won’t go into a long litany of the details, but will point out that it is a bit bigger (roughly 1500 sq feet), two – yes TWO bathrooms and three bedrooms. And as for it’s aesthetic features, well – we have some work to do.

By Friday evening we already had a counter-offer from our offer. And two offers had come in on our house. By mid-day on Saturday I met with our agent to do paperwork on three counter-offers. We countered both offers on 2323 B Street and countered the counter offer on the house at 111 Hidden Valley Drive. And now we wait.

I guess I’m a bit superstitious, but I feel like I am jinxing all of this by writing about it – like every offer, both incoming and outgoing are going to fall apart if I start speaking this out loud and in writing. But after the dozen or so emails and phone calls, plus the handful of comments on these pages, I feel that I owe it to you to let you know the full story. So stay tuned. One way or the other, there will be more to come.