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Showing posts with label house hunting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house hunting. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

House and Home

Today, we bought a house.

The past week or so has been a little rough around here. There was a kink in the mortgage process and things were a little uncertain for four or five days. Which was really, really hard. I had started packing and then stopped because I just couldn't. I couldn't pack away the home we had when the home we hoped for might not happen. I've written about disappointment in house-hunting before, but when you are literally a week away from closing and something comes up? Ugh. I shed some tears.

But we got through it, and today's the day we signed the final papers. Now our bookshelves are slowly emptying (so many books!), I am gathering more boxes, and we may move as soon as this weekend.

(This is also why it's been a bit silent around here. First I was discouraged, then I was busy.)

We're gonna need a lot more boxes for all those books!
We had our walk-through for the new house yesterday. I hadn't been in it for more than a month. It's a little weird, the way "home" is building up around this place and yet ... "home" is still this apartment. Keith and I have lived here since getting married; Michael's been here his whole life. It will be weird to see our furniture in another place, along with all our other things, because they feel like they belong here.

I wanted to take pictures of all the rooms before packing, but instead found myself capturing corners, little places and gatherings of the things that hold meaning for our family. The owl cookie jar, a gift Keith gave me last birthday, sitting next to the plants on the kitchen counter; the kitchen Madonna standing amidst the teacups on the shelf above the sink; a sunny corner of our back porch where the rosemary plant sits by the fire escape.

I feel that being a homemaker can be such a challenge. We are called to keep our eyes on the next life, and yet as homemakers--wives and mothers--we are called to make that vision present in this life for our families, and we do that using tangible things. A home is so much more than the material, but the material matters. Material things communicate and make possible the rhythm of our life.

I know how we live here. I don't know what that looks like for our new home yet. So while I can picture cooking in the kitchen or the boys playing in the backyard, I still have trouble picturing the material aspects of "home" in the new house--our couches, my teacup collection, the kitchen Madonna near the sink. But I know that when we move and the Madonna is in her place, and owl cookie jar somewhere on the counter, they will soon feel like they belong there; that "home" will continue to spread over this house as it has already begun, and then slowly grow into it, sinking down roots, accumulating meaning and stories and love.

Soon Michael will wake up and we'll head over to the new place to do some cleaning, so maybe I will have pictures for you soon. :) In the meantime, have a Michael:

Friday, August 16, 2013

Recuperating

I have very little voice today. As in sometimes I talk and there are holes in my sentences from where my vocal chords just go, "Nope, we aren't saying that word right now." That's what comes from too much coughing, I guess. Luckily one doesn't need vocal chords to blog, so ...!


1. Happy Feast of the Assumption! (Yesterday, that is--I'm assuming y'all went to Mass, right? ;) ) We went to Mass with my parents at the Oratory. It had been a while since I'd been to daily Mass there; it was so peaceful, and I was glad. Then my parents came over and we had pizza for dinner. I made tiramisu for dessert, for no particular reason except that I had a container of mascarpone in the fridge and Caitlin posted a recipe on her blog, so it seemed meant to be. I'd been meaning to try my hand at it for a while. I didn't use proper ladyfingers, but these margherite cookies, since that was what our grocery store had, and the internet said they were an appropriate substitute. But they didn't soak in the coffee well enough, which made for a weird texture. It tasted good though!  


2. Christine hosted an Assumption playdate at her house, but Michael and I didn't go because we were(/are) sick. (My definition of what a sick day entails is very different than Michael's. Sigh.) It looks like it was beautiful and a lot of fun, so I'm pretty disappointed we weren't there. But I think the other moms wouldn't have appreciated us hacking up a lung around their kids ...


3. My friend Lucas has just launched his new website, Catholicism Has the Answer. It is a great resource and I highly encourage you to check it out! Lucas is one of the most knowledgeable people about the faith that I know; he's the one I email when faced with a thorny, confusing, or otherwise difficult question about liturgy or Tradition or Church history. And he has an intense love for Our Lord and and His Mother. So ... check out his site. :)


4. Colleen at Modern Catholic Momnma was super sweet and passed on a Liebster award for my little blog. That was almost two weeks ago ... and I still haven't posted for it! That post is coming up this weekend. Promise. Thank you Colleen!


5. I mentioned my trip to L&D in my last post. Yesterday I had a follow-up appointment with my OB and everything is okay with the twins. No signs of "irritable uterus" or anything like that. Good to know!


6. Things are moving apace on the house-buying front. Which means slowly. But still, moving. In the meantime we've been researching about our future neighborhood and finding out its history and interesting quirks. For example, when you call the borough for pest management, someone can come and shoot that rabid raccoon with a gun ... or, if you prefer, they will show up with a bow and arrow. Your choice.


7. After hearing several friends talk highly of it for a while now, Jen's post about Breaking Bad has finally pushed me over the edge. I started watching yesterday when I was feeling tired and congested and wanted to do nothing but lay around on the couch. And that's probably what I'll keep doing once I finish this blog post, since Michael is kindly napping and I feel icky and I really would rather not face the mountain of yesterday's dishes in the sink just yet.

For more quick takes, check out Conversion Diary!

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Things I am excited about.

(Organized from most to least geeky. The best is last, so feel free to skip the geeky parts if you're not into them. ;) )

First of all, this guy.



Oh, I will sorely, sorely miss Matt Smith, whom I think made a better Doctor than David Tennant. But I am glad that we're seeing someone in the role who's over 50. It's about time. Although I like all the individual actors who have played it in the new series, I haven't liked the trend of the Doctor being played by younger and younger men. Our culture's need for actors and stars to be young and attractive all the time is immature and problematic; and while I've loved the whole 900 years old/young element that Matt Smith brought to the role ... I'm looking forward to seeing what an older actor like Peter Cafaldi can do with it.

Apparently he has played a minor role in the show before, and has also been in Torchwood. The latter fact I couldn't care less about. I hate Torchwood. I hate Russell T. Davies's writing. I hate Jack Harkness when he's not in Doctor Who. So whatever. But I'm looking forward to seeing what Peter Capaldi has in store for us as the Doctor.



Second of all, Bernie Su and Hank Green (of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries) have announced their next adaptation:


I am so flipping excited. I love Emma. I love Mr. Knightley. To be frank, everyone always gushes over Darcy, and with good reason, but I have always thought Knightley was better husband-material. (Although perhaps not for Lizzie. I will grant you that. Lizzie and Darcy are particularly suited to each other.) I also think this novel is particularly well-suited to adaptation as a vlog-style webseries, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with it. I already like what they're doing with this logo--it captures Emma's personality and well-intentioned meddling so perfectly! I have high hopes.



Third of all, as you can see, this kitchen has ugly pink and yellow tile and matching cabinets. Even the chandelier is pink.


What you can't see is that there's a big hole in the wall behind that cabinet where the insulation is now hanging out. (At least it's pink?)

But it has tons of cabinets and counter space, two ovens, a dishwasher, natural light ... and God willing, if things go smoothly with the inspection, mortgage, and whatnot ... this incredibly awesome and hideously decorated kitchen will be ours.

YAY!

If all goes well we should be able to move in mid-September. And then I can get all crafty and nesty and it's going to be great. We are excited and nervous as heck. Pray for us!


Oh, and Michael wants you to know that he is excited about his brand new spiky green ball.


Saturday, July 27, 2013

Ours

Oh look, I'm posting again! I feel a little bit like a blabber-mouth--ten posts in ten days!!

I was reading Bits & Pieces at Like Mother, Like Daughter and this bit really spoke to me:

We home-makers have to train our eye. Our home needs to be more than decorated. We can't really just aspire to decoration and leave it at that. Even the lowliest abode calls out to be made beautiful according to the tastes of the denizens. (Remember Ma's china shepherdess?) But that's not as easy as it sounds! I've found that I've had to study hard to know what our taste really is, and then work hard to try to make it come true within our means. Often my choices have been off the mark, but mistakes are part of the journey. I just keep reading books, magazines, and sites, trying to look past what is merely fashionable (or marketable) to what truly expresses my desire to bring humble beauty into our lives. 

This week I discovered Spoonflower and have been drooling over fabric for the twins' nursery. Serious nesting mode happening over here. I know myself well enough to know that, between moving and Michael and, well, my habits of procrastination, I will never quite create the picture-perfect nursery in my head.

But in general, what with house-hunting and new babies on the way, I've been thinking a lot lately about feathering my nest and making things pretty. One house in particular that we've looked at keeps popping up in my head, and I find myself redecorating it in my mind. (And believe me, it really needs redecoration!) This morning, while Michael and Keith both napped, I was making my coffee and looking at the plants on my kitchen counter.

I kill plants with good intentions; Keith loves them, and they love him back. But there are only so many windows in this apartment where they can survive and thrive. One of these is in the kitchen. I have made Keith promise that there will be no plants on surfaces for food preparation in our new home. I don't like having to clean up dirt before cooking food.

Anyway, I was looking at those plants and suddenly my whole vision of our (potential) new living room shifted. There would be plants. In every window. I hadn't even thought of it, because left to my own devices, they wouldn't be there. (I had a rose plant in my apartment when I lived on my own; that's it.) Lovely floral curtains, cushions on the couches, an upright piano--yes, these would all be in my home.

But in our home, there are plants. Always. Without them, a place would not be ours, would not be home.

And that thought makes me happy.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

And we are having ...

Today we got to spend some time with our babies via ultrasound.

And for those who have been guessing ... we are having two more boys!

I can only imagine that things are going to get a little louder around here over the next few years. But what an adventure! (Now to pick out names ... I have an abundance of girl names I would love to use, but I find boys much harder!)

Hopefully this means I'll have some baby knitting for the next yarn along. I have a skein of Tosh in grey that I'd decided to use for a sweater if we had a boy, so I can cast on right away.

In the meantime, Keith and I have gotten back to house hunting. It's been on the back burner for a bit while he worked on finishing his thesis. We've looked at three houses recently, and have two more that we're going to schedule soon. None of them are "perfect," but I am hopeful that one of them will become home.

The one that's currently at the top of our list is in some serious need of redecoration. Some poor design choices you can attribute to an era: carpet from the seventies or whatever. But this house? I told Keith I really couldn't imagine when or where buying kitchen tile so hideously pink and yellow was an option! But we both feel drawn to the house itself, and aside from being ugly, the kitchen is actually kind of awesome. (Tons of counter space, cupboard space, and TWO ovens!) I don't think any house quite matches up to the one we first fell in love with, especially since that one had so much room for us to grow ... but I am still eager to find and fall in love with our new home.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Unquick Takes ...?

I missed 7 Quick Takes because I am fasting from the internet on Fridays (although I may have checked Facebook in the evening. ahem.), but I had some bite-sized thoughts, so I figured I'd go ahead and post them quick-takes style. There aren't seven of them. But they're kind of chunky, so I guess it balances out. ;)

1. The past two nights Michael has "bonded" with an object or toy at bedtime, which he then refuses to be separated from throughout his nighttime routine. He does have a stuffed monkey that he cuddles with when it's time to sleep, but these have been random things. Two nights ago it was a road sign from a Brio set, which I made the mistake of taking from him when we settled down to nurse. Many tears ensued. Last night it was a baby hairbrush I gave him to play with while I changed his diaper. He held onto it throughout the diaper change and as I got him in his pajamas. He chewed it while Keith read his bedtime stories to him, and used it instead of his fingers to stroke the animals in his touch-and-feel book. I didn't take it from him while he nursed; since he couldn't suck on it at the same time, he decided that it should go in my mouth. We said goodnight to Keith, and then Keith was required to nom it. When we said goodnight to the Blessed Mother statue and picture of the Sacred Heart, instead of patting them like he normally does, he tapped them with his hairbrush. I think he would have snuggled up with it in his crib if I hadn't coaxed it away and replaced it with his monkey.

2. Recently one of the secretaries at the Oratory contacted me asking if I wanted to do some basic data entry work for them. I was just thinking that I'm at a point now where I have time to do something extra (especially since Michael STILL isn't moving around ... we're pretty sure at this point he's going to skip crawling altogether), so it's a great way to bring in a little extra money. More than I expected it to, actually. What a blessing. :)

3. I have all these intentions to write posts about Lent, but never sit down to put effort into writing them. I think it's some combination of laziness and lack of confidence. Which about sums up my writing life of late. I am applying to a fellowship, which is an act of faith for me of sorts. I don't expect to get it (although it would be PERFECT; I really admire Greg Wolfe and his work with Image), but if I did? To be honest, I think my first reaction would be sheer terror. Hehe. Anyway, applying is an action that I am taking, and while I do care about whether or not I get accepted, I see the true point of that action being simply to move, to break free at least a little out of this post-grad-school inertia. (I almost typed post-partum. But you know, I think it has much more to do with just feeling burnt out from academia ... and feeling like I am not as amazing as an MFA was supposed to make me.)

4. I missed the yarn along too, so I'm going to ramble about knitting a bit. I had a spare skein of Malabrigo Sock lying around, so I decided to participate in Malabrigo March. Any opportunity to win yarn is one I'm willing to jump at. ;) I'm knitting Poe from Corrina Ferguson's Seven Sonnets collection. I love pattern collections that are built around a theme or concept, and one that's built around poems? Yes!

I've also signed up for a class on triangular shawl design at Natural Stitches in April. I am pretty excited about this class. It cost a little more than I'd anticipated (I think because it's being taught by a well known designer), but luckily I already have all the supplies I need except graph paper. My only concern is that I won't learn anything that I haven't already from the Craftsy course. We'll see.

5. As part of Lent, I've been keeping careful track of how much we spend on groceries, and how much each meal costs us. I know we can spend less than we do and I'm trying to figure out how to do that. This week, we ate out twice--once for a friend's birthday, and once for brunch on Sunday. I knew that eating out cost more than eating at home of course, but I didn't realize how MUCH more. Yikes. It was pretty amazing having a night off from making dinner, but the cost kind of stressed me out.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Roots

I have some joyful news that I've been waiting to share until it was absolutely, signature-on-paper certain. And now that it is, as of yesterday morning, I finally feel comfortable talking about it on the internet.

Keith has a job. In Pittsburgh.

YAY.

It's going to be a craaaazy few months, because the job starts in July, which means he has to finish writing and defend his dissertation by then. But. We are staying in Pittsburgh. Praise God.

I have just finished reading this book--and again, I cannot recommend it too highly for all you fellow homemakers--and there is a quote in it from Simone Weil (who is one of my favorites). I just spent a lot of time trying to find it in the book, and I can't for the life of me, but I did find it online:

"To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul."

It has been such an anxious waiting, not knowing whether or not we'd be able to stay here. Here, where our families and friends are; here, where we have established our roots. So while this job may not be perfect, it is a huge blessing.



We are hoping, now, to buy a house by the end of the year. The interest rates and real estate prices in Pittsburgh right now are such that we wouldn't be paying a huge amount more in taxes and on a mortgage than we are in rent. We got a little overexcited and started looking at houses already before realizing that we couldn't exactly afford a downpayment pr get a mortgage until after Keith starts work. :-P But not before we fell in absolute love with a house.

It was a beautiful stone house north of the city, close enough for Keith to commute but also nearer our parents. It had a beautiful backyard to send kids out in, a flagstone patio, and doors that opened up top. It had wooden floors--some of which were covered by ugly carpets, but that's easily remedied--a working fireplace, five bedrooms, a big rambling and slightly creepy basement, plenty of closet space (especially considering the house was an older one), and a built-in china cabinet in the dining room. It was a bit dated; but who doesn't love the idea of adopting a house in need of a little love and making it their own, their home?

Keith can fall in love with a house almost instantly. It takes me a little longer. I get sad about the thought of leaving our apartment and our current little neighborhood; change overall is hard for me, and I find it difficult to initially picture any particular house as ours, filled with our things and molded to our lives. A house has to inhabit my imagination for a bit before I love it.

Well, when we realized we wouldn't be able to afford this house until August--and that it was highly unlikely it would still be on the market by then--Keith was able to resign himself to that and detach from it.

But me? I pictured my owl cookie jar on the counter in the kitchen. I imagined which bedroom would be our library, and how the shelves would be arranged. I pictured myself doing laundry in the exciting basement, while toddler-Michael had adventures in the dark corners. And I loved that house more with each image that flickered unbidden through my mind. Maybe it would still be around come summer.

And then on Wednesday the listing was removed, and our real estate agent told us someone had made an offer on it.

And while Keith is okay with that, I am still really, really sad. In my mind that house had started to become our home; I have nothing to replace it with, and when I imagine us living in a house, those are still the images that come to mind.

Well, I am trying to be patient. Before the house was sold (so far as we know) I prayed, Lord, if not this house, then please have a better one in store for us! ;) So, we will see.