[Taken 21 April 2013]
Looking through the kitchen window into the back yard.
I may have to get myself some sort of birdwatching reference guide — I know I’ve seen robins and cardinals, and possibly sparrows, but beyond that, I’m not much of a birder. Yet.
[Taken 9 April 2013]
My back yard has untold treasures waiting for the spring sun to reveal themselves. So far, I’ve seen these pink hyacinth, grape hyacinth, daffodils, and some tiny purple flowers that may or may not be weeds.
Nine years ago, when we moved from BG to Toledo, I didn’t have my camera with me to document the move. Now, I have a cameraphone — hell, who am I kidding? I have a handheld computer with an on-board camera that kicks the crap out of the digital camera I didn’t own until 2005.
At any rate, I took a ton of pictures this time around, and I’ll let them do most of the talking.
I was taking the framed artwork down from Connor’s wall and wrapping it in bubble wrap for the move when the emotion really hit me. We’ve been through so many changes in the past nine years. This house has been the setting for so many memories.
Waiting with Aaron and Eric in the still-chilly house on Moving Day for the tow truck to arrive and tow the empty U-Haul out of the mud.
Bringing kitty Mei home for the first time and watching her do laps, then lay down and sleep under the speaker stands or the recliner.
Quiet Sunday mornings lounging on the couch, reading magazines and petting Mei.
Playing with Mei and her kitty fishing pole, or the laser pointer, or her jingle ball.
Intimate afternoons with Aaron.
Parties with our friends, playing Rock Band, looking at photos of our vacations, enjoying adult beverages and sushi and roast pork (though not all at the same time).
Laying newborn Connor on the living room floor on the afghan Traeonna made for him, eating the Indian takeout Sheryl brought for us, just embarking on the very beginning of this crazy parental journey.
Flooding the bathroom with my first post-partum BM.
Nursing Connor in his room at 3am, both of us wrapped in a blanket against the winter chill, with Aaron laying on the floor to keep us company.
Rocking Connor to sleep, listening to Neil Young live at Massey Hall.
Letting Connor “cry it out” during a week of sleep-training, after Aaron spent four (FOUR!) hours one night trying to get Connor to stay down.
Connor falling down and giving himself a black eye at his first birthday party, only a few days after taking his first steps.
And now, Connor running around, chattering away, trying to get into everything, but being irresistably cute while doing it.
It’s not that I’m sad to leave our current home, per se. Our new home is going to be host to so many new family memories; it’s just realizing that our current home is already on its way to being just a memory, just a story we tell Connor, just a place we drive Connor to see when he asks where we lived when he was born. Soon, this place will be filed away in my mind with our first apartment together, and my one apartment on my own, and Aaron’s few apartments on his own.
We spent nine years of our life here. We’ll spend many, many more at the new house.
Back in 2004, Aaron and I scoffed at the idea of a “starter home.” After all, if we didn’t want to live in a house until it was paid off and we owned it outright, why not just rent? Why take that risk?
And so it was that we purchased our first home together.
We’d been living together in a duplex apartment for a couple of years, since before we were married (but after we were engaged for about a year). Aaron had moved from part-time to full-time at work, and we just felt like it was time to stop putting money in someone else’s pocket. We could own our own home for the same amount as we were paying in rent every month — why not put that money to good use for ourselves, instead of paying someone else’s mortgage?
Back then, we had a list of requirements: three bedrooms (or two plus a den), attached garage (preferably two-car), dishwasher, central air, and a pleasant neighborhood (where we could safely take walks). In the end, we got the three bedrooms, an attached one-car garage, and a walkable neighborhood. As it turns out, our house stays fairly cool in the summer, so the lack of central air wasn’t disastrous… but the dishwasher’s absence has been keenly felt over the years, as has the two-car garage.
Like I said, we didn’t expect to move. Ever.
We also didn’t expect to have Connor, or receive an inheritance. We didn’t expect to have the reason or the means to buy another home.
But here we are.
It’s a Sunday morning in the middle of a three-day weekend, and I’m relaxing on the couch in my yukata (Japanese summer robe), reading my final issue of Better Homes and Gardens.
I’m obviously not in their demographic, though, as their main stories this issue revolve around entertaining guests in the home during the summer months: garden parties, grill-outs, and the like. Don’t they know that most of my potential invitees have spouses, houses, children, and/or have much better things to do than hang out with me on a Saturday afternoon? Didn’t they get the memo that I’ve cancelled all future post-vacation parties, due to a lack of interest?
Hmph. Just as well that my subscription’s expiring, I suppose.
I’m fighting the urge to embark on too many projects at once. This is normal.
Would you believe that I still haven’t finished scrapbooking our honeymoon? From 2003? Or that I have 8mm videocamera footage from back in April 2000 that I never managed to edit together into a final montage? IKEA kitchen accessories purchased a year and a half ago, and never installed? Photos and art moved from our apartment back in 2004 that I still haven’t hung on the walls? Art that I’ve purchased, and photos that I’ve gotten enlarged, and haven’t yet framed?
I’m trying to make a concerted effort to finish these orphaned projects before I start on anything new. I’m also coming to terms with the fact that some things, like my three unfinished novels, may never be done.
I’m on Day Two of a new initiative to prioritize and get things done, and it’s going well. One chunk at a time, and nothing too overwhelming — that’s how everything will get done.
Maybe, someday, my desk will even be clean and organized.
Pshaw.
Aaron and I have spent the past couple of weekends purging our lives of various media that we no longer need. First, he went through his videogames and got rid of some stuff he wasn’t going to play anymore. Then, we weeded out our CD collection, ripping some of them to iTunes before trading them in to Allied Records with the games. After that, we went through the records and laserdiscs, offloading 150 LPs and 40 laserdiscs.
Today, we went through books. As avid book-lovers, we tend to collect cheap books that sound interesting. Sometimes we get a good deal; other times, we pick up books that we can never actually bring ourselves to read. We finally bid farewell to a few of the latter this evening, along with some books that aren’t relevant to us anymore… like these diet books.
I had picked up some of these early on in college; The Hilton Head Metabolism Diet, along with The 200 Calorie Solution, actually helped me lose 10 pounds one summer. The Setpoint Diet and Farewell to Fatigue were some other early purchases, and I do recall that they had some helpful (if typical) ideas. Of course, Atkins’ New Diet Revolution helped me lose 50 pounds (and keep 80% of it off). The rest of the books were in the review queue for my now-defunct Low Carb Lifestyle Podcast. I read The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet and found it to be something I wouldn’t feel comfortable following. (I hesitate to use the word “hogwash,” as I am not an M.D. like Drs. Heller.) I never got around to reading The T-Factor Diet or Protein Power, although I do remember scanning Sugar Busters and trading e-mails with an avid follower of that diet. It seemed fairly reasonable, as low-carb diets go.
Now that I’m having moderate (if plateauing) success on Weight Watchers, though, I feel quite comfortable giving these books to the thrift. Maybe they’ll be what someone else needs to get themselves on the road to good health.
You may recall that my oven had a breakdown last week. Well, the part arrived in no time, and Aaron and I installed it yesterday.
Although most of the breakers in our box of electrical magic and wonder are not labeled, it just so happens that the one for the range happens to be one of two that are. So, Aaron took charge, flipped said breaker, grabbed a couple of Phillips-head screwdrivers, and went to town on the oven. It took maybe five minutes, if that, to unscrew the mounting plate, pull out and unclip the old, broken element, clip in the new one, and screw it back in.
Nothing burned down, although the factory dust did burn off of the element for a minute or so, and I baked some VERY tasty No-Pudge Fudge Brownies later that day.
No worries. Our oven should be good to go for many more years to come.
