...even if they did leave the oven, washer and dryer a filthy mess. lol
Front room from the dining room. I'm not sure why the doorknob is so high on that door. Childproofing? The light above the camera is on a nice digital dimmer. There's no light in the living room so I'll have to use my floor lamps. There's also a secondary light on the front porch that I have no idea how to control. It may not be hooked up.
Kitchen. Behind the pocket doors at the end is a small laundry room, the main door to the left is a pull out pantry. Lots of cabinet space and a fair amount of counter space. The stove is gas, fairly nice but really needs cleaning. Also looks like I'll have to do some work on the washer and dryer. They're newer but pretty banged up.
Master bedroom. The shelving on the right has hookups for the speaker system wired into the house. Not sure what I plan to do with that.
Office. If I have room in here I may try to put a pull out bed for guests. Love the storage in here. Very nicely crafted.
Dining room and doors to the deck and the back yard. You can see the access to the attic from here, on the right side of the dining room. TV will have to go on the right wall, so it's going to have to be rewired for it.
Master bedroom, entry to the bathroom. Not sure about this color. I'm thinking of something greener, maybe. I'll have to see how well the artwork I have fits into what's already there.
Master bath. Ahhh subway tile! That shower head is going to have to go. All my showers in Europe have had a nice sprayer on a metal hose. I kind of like that. We'll have to see how it's plumbed.
Built-ins in the master bath. There isn't much in the way of linen closets so this really makes a difference.
Closet in the master bedroom. I'm honestly not sure if this will fit all my clothes or not. I'm going to have to see. It's got space to the left of the door as well.
That's about it for now! I'm excited to have a place of my own again after almost 4 years. I've already started moving in little things and I think I'll pick up some more cleaning stuff and bring over a few more things tonight. Last night after I got some boxes moved over and unpacked, I was standing outside and my whole back yard was filled with fireflies. They're something I was really looking forward to when I moved here since you don't really see them in southern California, and I've rarely seen them here with how paved the apartment complex is. It's just nice. :)
Yesterday I was talking with someone about how busy life has been lately when I realized just how busy it's actually been: I've been to 5 countries in the last 6 months, and some time in between that, work and life in general, I may have bought a house. I'll know for sure in a couple of hours. lol
Spain...I'm not sure where to begin. I took almost 400 photos in the few days I wasn't on a train and pulled a few dozen out to post here. My Flickr account is expired for the time being so I'll post the whole mess of them up there once I renew it. Spain was an amazing place, full of color, style, brilliant food and art-laden culture that you could practically trip over (and one or two people did). Wine was cheaper than soft drinks and sangria was consumed more often than water.
I may come back and write up the whole experience when I have more time, but for now a few pictures will really have to be worth a few thousand words. :) I'll try to keep them in some kind of order.
or at least I hope it does. :)
Vaya con Dios, mis amigos.
In about a month summer should slip officially into full swing here in the south (and really, everywhere else in the western hemisphere) and then with any luck a couple of days later I should close on the house. I've received my initial loan approval, the appraisals came back fine, the inspection is done and the amendments signed. All that really seems left to do is prove to the bank I have the money to close and then file a bunch of paperwork, or so says the lender.
It's such a strange and disconnected process this time around for some reason. Not that I'm not excited about it; I am. It just feels sort of remote. I suspect part of that is simply because of the way we do business in this day and age. We get E-mails, we print things in the office, sign them, and fax them back to people we've never met in person. We talk on the phone (if we're lucky) and make appointments through SMS and texting. I suspect I could actually buy a house through text messages. And somehow I just think that seems...wrong. I'm not really sure I can explain why, though.
It's not so different from the first time I bought a house. I actually never met anyone involved in person. The bank owned the house, the broker was in another city and we did absolutely everything by phone, fax and mail. Actual mail, not E-mail, since I didn't even own a computer then. At least this time I have an agent who'll probably at the very least shake my hand and hand me the keys. We'll see.
I'm looking forward to it, to time out on my deck with friends, watching the storms through the big windows, cooking on a gas stove, cooking period. I'm looking forward to having a garage once again, to building things, fixing things and being able to think creatively about a space that's mine. I have to pick a color to paint the bedroom and for the first time in forever that color is not white. Liz has volunteered (insisted) on re-painting the guest bathroom for me, though we both know she's only doing it so she can steal the light fixture. I'll be "helpful" and remove it ahead of time so it's not "in her way." Then I'll lock it in a safe. :)
In the personal world things are strange, too. This is the longest I've ever lived in any one place in my entire life. And I mean since birth. I may have blogged about that before but I don't think I really expanded on what that really means. I've learned a great deal about myself the last few years, about my strengths and weaknesses, faults and flaws, about letting go of old ideas and holding on to beliefs. It's a challenge to accept that you might not be who you thought you were or wanted to be, even if the person you really are isn't so bad. I used to have this mantra I would say to people all the time. "You've gotta be who you are." I said it all the time and kind of forgot to actually do it. Oops. So I'm trying. And for the first time in a long time, maybe forever...I actually want to put down roots instead of just saying I do because it was what I thought I was supposed to say I wanted to do when people asked me. Try wrapping your head around that one.
I'm also single again - which while not my favorite thing to be in the world - is okay. I have a lot going on, a lot to do and things to get into a row. I want to be in a relationship again, to meet someone amazing (who doesn't mind that I'm...complicated) but I don't want to force it. If it happens it happens. And if not, well, there's always mail-order. *kidding*
So there you have it. The strange days of summer have begun and I'm really hoping they'll be incredible. I don't mind strange, in fact I think I require it. I'm still hopeful that like the song, maybe this year will be better than the last.
Even if it's a strange one.
“I think that people don't know how to do anything anymore. My father was a janitor. He could take a car apart and put it back together. He could build a house in the back yard. Today, if you ask people what they know, they say, 'I know how to hire someone.'” - Walter Mosley, American Author
I like that, though it makes me kind of sad. Maybe it's better for the economy not to do stuff yourself. I don't know. I do know that I couldn't build a house in the back yard if I wanted to, though. Not because I don't know how to, but because I don't have a back yard. Which sucks.
So I bought one.
Fortunately, it came with this neat little house in front of it. :)
I still have to get through appraisals, some inspection stuff and the final steps of some other junk...but if everything goes well my back yard is just past the hardwood floors on the other side of those beautiful glass doors.
I don't plan on building another house out there, but I might take a car apart and put it back together in the garage. You just never know. Isn't she beautiful? :)
I used to work with this crazy cat back in the desert who would screw things up all the time. He was something like a combination between Hunter S. Thompson and whoever the shortest guy in Revenge of the Nerds was. Really, if those two guys manufactured a 5 foot 5 guy out of their own DNA with retro black glasses and no sense of smell it would be him. Not too strangely, I miss the guy. Back then, though? I mostly wanted to strangle him. One of his favorite (and more irritating) things to do was to screw something up royally and get yelled at. Someone would say, "You made it so much worse!!" And he would reply, leaning in conspiratorially, "Worse, or beeetter?" He would even draw out the syllables and raise his eyebrows so you had time to ponder whether or not he was serious and right. It was hard to argue against! Mostly, we thought he might not be right in the head and would just leave it alone. Now, I know the truth. He really wasn't right in the head. But he was a damned genius.
I mention it now because I'm searching for a house. I have the MLS, agent sheets, the Interwebs, Google Earth, every mapping technology available to me and so far it's really just been frustrating. I have to wonder...is all this making it worse? Or better? Beeetter?
It's nice to be able to see a street view of a neighborhood, to see what the adjacent houses look like, what kind of condition they're in, how well-maintained the street is, whether or not it has curbs or sidewalks, street lights or junkyards, all from the comfort of my desk. And that's great. I think the problem is that while it allows you to go through a tremendous number of properties quickly, it also allows you to go through, well, a tremendous number of properties in general. And for some reason, that's just a little discouraging. There's just a lot out there. Not really complaining (I think the general consensus is that it helps what is an otherwise daunting and rough process)...just pondering.
The first house I bought I stumbled on. Literally. I was lost in a neighborhood, turned the wrong corner and almost ran over the curb. And there it was, standing magnificently on a hill above all the other houses in all its 1904 bungalow glory. I peeked through a window and fell in love instantly. A few months later, we moved in. The next time, we used an agent. There was prequalification, a description of the house we were looking for, a weekend trip to see 7 or 8 and we bought the last one we saw that weekend. Again, saw it, loved it, loved the neighborhood, made an offer. Easy.
But this time I'm going through 100s of listings in multiple areas. I'm looking at images from Google Earth, checking the street view, looking at values around it and trying to do this as responsibly as possible. A friend is helping me sort through them which really is helpful and I have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for, which also helps. Still, it's a lot of work. I guess I want it to be fun, to be this adventure and maybe it is. Perhaps I'm looking at it all wrong and just need to be open to the process and go with it. I like that plan.
Wish me luck. :-)
I wrote out a long post about the trip but Vox slayed it...I take it as the Universe's way of telling me just to smile and go with it. :)
From my favorite night...
"Can I tweet this?"
"Wait 'til you see my smooth moves."
"There's jumping up and down in the Macarena?"
"Step to the left, to the left..." "Is that a ledge?"
"If Prince were a gay Jamaican cowboy..."
"Ow! I hurt my shoulder." (dancing injury)
"Do you think this is too far to jump?"
"Is that Jamaican cowboy singing Johnny Cash?"
"Bah. 10 more minutes for a drink."
"Will you be my Temporary Jamaican Wife?"
"I think we just renewed our vows."
"Is my ass burning?"
"You're the prettiest East Atlanta Knitter I've ever known."
"I'm the only one you know."
(brings me a drink) You're the most beautiful woman I've ever known!"
"I think I'll call it a cow."
"How are you?" "I'm beauuuutiiful, mon."
"Wow. That's a damn shame. Want another rum punch?"
"Yes, please!"
"Hey, did I nap long?"
"About 2 and a half hours."
"Hey what do you wanna do today?"
"I was thinking, beach, drinks, lunch, nap...?"
"Perfect!"
"I'm glad we're here."
"Me, too."
the warm, sandy beach or the chorus of frogs that sang at sundown each night. Each night the sun set in the same place and rose
once more in the eastern sky, yet no two days or nights were alike. The sky and the ocean would blend into one and give an eerie sense of infinity, of being lost and found at the same time.
"One day you'll meet God and He'll ask you what you did today. You should be able to tell him you lived, not just that you were alive."
"You really have skull and crossbone bandaids?! SHUT UP! You rock."
Life is good.
Other moments I'd like to remember...
Casting on. (You make ovaries. And then poke them with sticks. No, really.)
First drinks at whatever cantina they stopped at.
"I'm tanner than you." "We're just different colors of tan." "You're in denial." (Yep, so long as "denial" is a dark tan color.)
"Dude, it's a fish buffet. They have crab. Do something for me for once!" "*blink*" (laughs)
The seemingly electronic chorus of frogs that filled the early evening air each night at sunset.
The clouds overhead promise a tin drum percussion and a bass line to match, but not just yet. Instead, the dark, backwards street at the end of downtown nowhere is quiet except for a strange wind passing from secret tunnels and unlit back alleys. There's a promise of something in those winds, something more. A man lurks in the shadows watching our every move. I'm watching him, too. The door ahead is marked only by a barrage of tattered posters of past acts layered one atop the next, a musical orgy in dirty sheets.
We enter anyway.
Hard hitters want small change and the deal's done. The table awaits, sultry in the red light echoing off raw brick walls and a concrete floor. I sit down and drink it all in. It's everything a night in a jazz club should be: smooth rhythms in the air, beautiful women at my table, Tanqueray and tonic in my hand. Time passes and I can't tell if it's real or something more. It could be 1am in 1948 Los Angeles, or 10pm in 2009 Atlanta. It's hard to tell from this place but I don't mind. They bring us jalapeno cornbread, fried plantains and shrimp & grits, martinis and beer, and my beloved gin & juice. On stage they're tuning up, getting ready but for what I'm not sure. I don't care, though. There's a perfection in the scene that's hard not to roll with.
I roll with it.
The first simple rhythm starts with reckless abandon, caution to the wind and no direction but forward. It's meaningless phrasing, a statement of fact that the bass line picks up like a conversation between old friends and before I know it, it's a shouting match, a synchronized cacophony of sound that flows over me in waves, pulsing loudly enough to change the rhythm of my heartbeat and make my body move in time. I look around and it's not just me.
The beat goes on.
More players randomly join, no introduction but the voice of their instruments. If they say the right thing - they stay, if not - they go. It's a simple equation, like a pass-phrase at a secret door: Know it or get the hell out. All are welcome if they know the code, though. A woman slips up on stage and surveys the secret society. They're in their own place and time and I wonder if she knows the right thing to say, knows the password. There's a breathless anticipation as she starts to move, eyes closed, body swaying like a slow willow in a lazy storm. Her mouth opens and suddenly the storm is her and we're the willow and there's nothing lazy about any of it. She makes it up as she goes along, matching phrase for phrase the random rhythms of the band, like a snake charmer. It's the same dance...she moves, they move. We move. ...hypnotic motions I start to feel in my head and hips. She's got them under her spell now and somehow the random jam slides seamlessly into a song the crowd all knows and cheering erupts volcanically behind me, crushing me between the music and the force of their elation. I practically weep at how fucking cool it all is.
And so it goes.
Drinks come and go along with singers and players as the crowd sways and cheers with each new groove. It's standing room only, a feeding frenzy for the senses and everywhere I look people are lost in it, food for the masses. Someone brings me Death by Chocolate and I'm ready to die because I know what heaven's like. I dive in with the same abandon the band taught me hours earlier and it's everything I expect it to be. I'm surprized when I don't die.
Suddenly it's 1:40 am.
The band's jamming randomly again, wild horses in need of a cowboy. The cowboy turns out to be a skinny white girl with killer boots. The crowd is dubious but I'm smirking; I know the type. She lets them run free for a bit, let's them sow their oats for a few minutes more and just when they seem like they'll escape she brands them with a high note she drops through 3 octaves and then wrangles them into an 18 minute version of Sade's "No Ordinary Love" that ends with another vocalist joining her from the side as they improv with the band. The crowd's waned in the witching hour but you can't tell from the final applause. She smiles as if she knew all along, walks off and downs a drink at the bar. Just another night around downtown nowhere.
Outside the clouds have started a jam session of their own. I don't mind. It's hard to beat the storm I just stepped out of.
I smile and walk into the night.
It's funny how the littlest things can make you an absolute wreck, throw you off of everything you do, keep you awake at night and make you tetchy with people you care about.
It's also funny how a little thing can turn that all around and just make you smile like an idiot. Today it was a plain white letter in the mail.
It said: Biopsy results benign. No further treatment is necessary.
I can't even begin to express how terrified I've been, or how ecstatic I am in this moment.
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Recent Comments
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dsm said:
[this is good]Congratulations on the new place. Looks great. I wish I was there to help you move...or at least sit back... read more
on There's No Place Like Home -
Bulletproof Monk said:
Thanks, Kim! If everything goes well I totally want to have a housewarming! And of course you're invited. :) read more
on A Place for Your Stuff -
gollykim said:
Nice hardwood! When is the house warming party? Don't forget to invite me. :PHey Mari and I just signed up... read more
on A Place for Your Stuff -
Ha, Thanks, David! Yeah, around moving time the song "Where Have All My Friends Gone" does come to mind... read more
on There's No Place Like Home