Are you kidding me?

This might be taking the whole "baby" thing too far.

July 15, 2010

Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous? Poor Cheetara. If you’re grossed out by facts of nature, you may want to stop reading here.

Over the last couple of heat cycles, Cheetara has started having, well, a period. It’s very common for in tact animals to emit drops of blood during estrus, but neither of our girls ever did until just now. We’re taking it as a sign that her breeding years are behind her and it’s time to get her fixed, but with the move and neverending heat cycles, we haven’t had a chance to do it yet.

Which means that I have a teenager having her period wandering unprotected through my house. And that is just not OK in my book. I know it’s just biology and this is how the miracle of life happens and all that, but seriously, ew.

Luckily she and Atti wear the same size.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, crazy cat lady

Crafting FAIL – again.

May 27, 2010

I bring you another entry in my series of screw ups, proving that I am fumbling my way towards crafty success.

I started a new herb garden – in pots this time so it can travel with me – and painted the ceramic pots with a high gloss latex. I’ve done it before and it worked just fine, but this time….bubbles.

I specifically asked the paint guy if I could use high gloss paint as exterior paint and he said yes. I spent a whole day and made a big fat mess painting ten of these pots, and then their first night in use…bubbles.

Beats the heck out of me.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Stuff I Make

The new digs

April 29, 2010

So, we’re here. And we have a roof over our heads. Which was kind of a miracle.

We had a house all lined up, arranged through friends of friends, it looked like it was going to be smooth sailing. Until we couldn’t get our phone calls returned or questions answered and we started feeling suspicious. The couple that owned that house are moving into a custom built home and their move in date was pushed back by the contractor. So instead of calling us and saying, “Shucks, looks like it’s not going to work out.” they strung us along until we had six days before the movers arrived and no place to have them bring our stuff.

I collapsed, hyperventilating, into a corner while Bear hit Craigslist and found this place. It’s going to be a great place to live, it’s in the area of town we wanted, it’s got tons of space and a backyard with roses, but it’s also going to need some TLC. I seem to be on a mission to rescue houses from bad paint. The houses call to me or something.

I’ve had a terrible time trying to get pictures that show the color, but here you can see that in one room you have a deep mustard yellow butted up to an acid green, with apricot on the third wall. The staircase wall is painted primary color yellow, and each bathroom has some weird faux treatment where it looks like somebody just took a paint brush and made big C’s all over the wall.

I can see what they were going for with the apricot and acid green. In the right light, they look nice for a nursery or something. But that light is very rarely present in this house. And I have absolutely no explanation for the mustard yellow.

We didn’t realize this until after we moved in, but not a single window has any kind of coverings on it. Every window, including the window in the bedroom closet, had curtain rods left hung in place, but not a single blind to be had. We’ve been living in a fishbowl all week. Luckily they’ve agreed to put up blinds in the bedrooms and the front of the house, so we’ll get to change our clothes in the light eventually.

Lighting is going to be an issue in this house. Every room has a central ceiling fan with lights, which means that every room is well lit, but with very harsh light. I might have to invest in some lower wattage bulbs or something. Trying to watch TV at night is like trying to watch it with a spotlight in your face.

But that’s all I really have to complain about. Which I recognize is kind of a miracle as a renter of any kind, let alone moving in from out of town with six days notice. Overall I think things have gone as smoothly as I could have hoped.

We’re about as unpacked as we’re going to get for a little while. There is NO WAY I am living with these colors on the walls, so as soon as the blinds are up and the landlord won’t be in and out of the house, I’ll be painting. I’m trying, and failing, to be patient.

The fridge gets delivered today (we haven’t had a fridge for a week! I am desperate for something to drink besides soda), but we still won’t be able to put this enormous kitchen to use for another week. The movers left all our utensils, not just silverware but my knives too, at our old house. Luckily the new renters are our friends, and luckily we’ll be back down in LA next week for a convention of things that are awesome, so we’ll be able to pick them up. But meanwhile, it’s more fast food for us. And boy howdy am I looking forward to that being over.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Grand Schemes and Other Plans, My Dreamhouse in Progress

Packing Up

April 22, 2010

Moving day is already upon us. Movers come today for all the packing I didn’t get finished, tomorrow they load the truck, and then Monday we’ll be unloading in Modesto.

Which means I’ll be largely cut off from the internet for nearly a week. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bear it.

I’ll be back just as soon as I can get the internet turned back on and the computer put back together.

See you all in Modesto.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, My Dreamhouse in Progress

I’ll Miss My Garden Most of All

April 21, 2010

There’s a lot I’m going to be sad to leave behind in my house, but most of that can be replicated or an opportunity for something new. What I’m having the hardest time with is my garden.

I have about five of these rose bushes peppered through the back with other rose varieties, but this kind is my favorite by far. I always thought that either a rose was big and beautiful or it was fragrant, but this John Paul variety proves that to be a lie. The blossoms get just massive and the aroma is the sweetest. When I bring in a few of these it makes the whole house smell beautiful.

I started this herb garden just under two years ago and it’s taken off like a wild thing. I use it every single time I cook.

The smell of lilac just takes me back, and after a little scare I’ve nursed this plant back to health and it’s now dripping with blossoms. Just in time for me to miss them all.

And in abundant foliage waiting to shoot their flowers straight up…

Since we’ll be renting, I can’t really do any gardening in the new place. I’ll get some herbs started in some containers, maybe next year I’ll reclaim the bulbs currently in the ground and get those started in pots too, but no fresh tomatoes this year. No more little lemon tree. Oh sigh, it’s so sad.

The good news is that since land is plentiful and affordable in Modesto, very much different from San Diego, my dream of a farm is suddenly worth working towards. So now I’ll just have to hang on to that day and think about orchards just outside my backdoor.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Stuff I Grow

As if I wasn’t already enough of a good Mormon lady

April 14, 2010

Last week I got an email from my friend Cynthia.

“Hey, I’m making jam. Wanna come over?”

Because I am drowning in this dang move, I said, “Absolutely!” but I begged her to tackle it the next day when I could get away. Or so I thought.

I make my way over to Cynthia’s, after two other errands, no nap for Atti and with a Dr’s appointment to get to afterwards, and we completely disrupted her domestic bliss with my frazzled self and a screaming baby. In one of the most charitable acts ever she volunteered to trek all her canning supplies and her two delightful children over to my house so that Atti could have a nap.

Cynthia is a computer programmer and professor, and her razor sharp analytical mind is evident in everything she does. Look at her canning procedure set up as if by a surgical scrub nurse.

She walked me through the process, complete with entertaining enactments of what the jam mixture would look like when it reached the properly volcanic boiling temperature, and then when we were all done she offered to let me have all of the spoils. Not only did Cynthia drag all her stuff to a second location, but she gave away the fact that she didn’t even *really* need to be doing it at all. She orchestrated this whole canning adventure just for my benefit.

Canning has always been THAT THING for me. You know THAT THING, the thing that you don’t do, that you feel you must do if you’re going to call yourself a good wife/homemaker/mother/educated person. THAT THING that really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things, but about which you have always harbored a secret shame that feeds an inferiority complex? I know I’m not alone here. I know canning probably seems a totally random THING to get hung up on for most of you, but coming from my Mormon heritage, it was a really big deal to me. For some reason I internalized this thought that I couldn’t call myself a Good Mormon Woman unless I had a cellar full of put up fruit. I know it’s ridiculous, but aren’t we all?

Cynthia has created a monster. I’m moving to the place where all this stuff is grown. I’m going to spend my whole summer putting up tomatoes and tomato sauce, pickles made of every vegetable, jams and jellies in every color, syrups and fruit butters, you name it. I’ve been interested in local and seasonal eating for ages, but I love food too much to sacrifice. Now I won’t have to.

And I’ll have to find some new THING to obsess about. What is it for you guys?

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Stuff I Cook, The Good Life

I swore I’d never…

April 9, 2010

I had to share this blurry photo from our big drive, Atti slumped over like a couch potato, eyes glazed over watching Elmo, chocolate smeared all over his face from a cookie he found under his bum.

I think this one photo represents eating every word I ever said.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Atticus

Goodbye REINS

April 8, 2010

This morning we’re sitting around the house, Atti’s crawling around playing with his toys and I’m hopping all over the internet trying to cross things off of my massive to do list. A free morning is an extremely rare thing around here, and ordinarily I’d treasure it, but today it’s sad. We’re only home because we’re not at REINS.

For the last three months we’d get up early every Thursday morning and drive out to the country so Atti could ride horses and I could soak up a blessed half hour of tranquility. It was the highlight of my week, every time.

But it’s done now. Once everything became final for the move, it was time for Spring Break. Now that Spring Break is ending, we’re too close to the move to keep going.

Just in those three short months, Atti has made such tremendous progress. He’s sitting up so much taller, his little tummy is so much stronger. And he loved those sweet gentle horses. He’d pat them on their fuzzy rumps, or bury his little fingers in the hair on their neck. Whenever I talked to him about his horses, Pancho or Grand, he’d just light up and then rock his body back and forth in a riding motion.

I’ve already looked into similar options in Modesto and there’s several to choose from. We’re moving to a more rural area, horses are not going to be hard to come by. But still. It’s sad to leave such a beautiful place where everything was going so well. Going there made us both so happy, and helped us both in our own ways.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Atticus, The Good Life

Back from Modesto

April 5, 2010

This weekend was a tough one. A 7 hour drive, followed by three more driving around town, a baby at the limit of his patience and no naptime, a whole family sleep in a bed too small for a little someone who likes to sleep perpendicular to the rest of us, another day driving all around town, panic attacks at what was – and wasn’t – available, and then another 7 hour drive home.

Long story short, we still don’t have a place to live. We have a couple more leads we’re chasing down, but it looks like our choice is going to come down to “really great house in an area we didn’t want to live in” or “smelly old house in a good neighborhood.” The area we didn’t want to live in is actually in Ceres, which is 5 miles south of Modesto, and a pocket of new builder homes in a really run down area. The house is pretty awesome – granite counters that sent Bear off into a dreamland of perfectly rolled pie crusts – plenty of space on a quiet street. But the rest of the area, it’s fairly dismal. It looks like the last few years have been really hard on Modesto and the surrounding areas.

This is the local landmark – the Modesto Arch. It’s inscription reads, “Water, wealth, contentment, health”. A reader from the area shared a laugh with me about the town’s reputation when she wrote that the motto is often replaced with “Murder, meth, and auto-theft”. We kid because we love. It’s not a dangerous place to be, unless you’re a car, but that’s what people know about it.

We were flying around town so fast I really didn’t get a chance to do a proper photo tour or anything, but I snapped this one at a red light. One of my favorite things about Modesto is that it is absolutely awash with art deco influence. It’s obvious that it’s first boom time was in the 40’s. You can feel that inspiration everywhere.

This is the new Gallo Center for the Arts. It’s only been open for a few years. Unfortunately, I think we just passed through the most recent boom time. This art center was built and there were probably thousands of new homes built, brand new builder homes – McMansions, if you will. But when the housing market burst, so did the economy of Modesto. The only industry here is agriculture. Most of the people buying homes were people who commuted out to San Francisco every day, and when they couldn’t make their mortgage payments and pay for the gas to drive in, they walked away from the homes.

It’s pretty sad to see it, this city I loved is going through a rough time. We saw entire streets with “For Sale” signs out front. Areas where building had been abandoned half way through. Beautiful homes on one side of the street, overgrown vacant lot on the other. And of course, no one willing to lend money to buy any of those homes.

But, despite the recent hardships, it’s still a great place to live. There are two things fighting for top billing in my list of why I love Modesto. 1) It’s a small pond where the fish are helping each other get bigger. Down here, there’s really no such thing as city limits. A San Diego get together encompasses the entire county. Which means a lot of competition for everything – opportunity, attention, space. In Modesto, you have a community that’s apart from big city influence, but with big city aspiration. I have a buddy I used to sing with who might be an opening act in that big fancy Gallo Center. I had friends who featured in the local galleries, who put on big events. This is a fantastic place to be for a creative type. Lots of opportunity without all the big city competition.

And 2) Where else can you spend your whole summer going from one festival to the other? Off the top of my head we went to the Asparagus festival, the Garlic festival, the Chocolate festival, and the Fruit and Nut festival, but I know I’m missing some. Every little town has their own point of pride they celebrate come summer time, and that celebrating always involves fried food. That’s something to be proud of.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, The Good Life

The Hardest Part

April 1, 2010

I really love how so many of your comments about our move have been along the lines of, “But your house!” Because that’s exactly how I feel.

I’m trying really hard to not think about it. I’m a problem solver, so I’m trying to just focus on the problems to be solved in front of me. But it’s really difficult. I love this place.

Honestly, I’ll be fine if we can find a good rental place. I’d almost managed to get this house just the way I wanted it and the thought had crossed my mind – What would I blog about then? A new place presents a whole lot of opportunities for new creativity.

But what we’re finding online is not pretty. The rental market seems to be pretty tight there, and without a 20% down payment, no one’s giving loans right now. So even though we have a renter for this place, we can’t buy another unless we managed to find about 50 grand in the couch cushions. That’s not likely to happen.

We’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning to drive up and see what we can find. I just keep praying that a place will be prepared for us.