Category: Home improvements

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Being a girl Children Dreams Endings Family Fashion Home improvements Humor Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment Writing

(A room that is important to you)

In the notes section of my phone, there is a list of writing prompts. The third prompt is “A room that is important to you.”

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My parents have a hot tub. The hot tub is just the latest item in a long list of reminders that I don’t live at home anymore.

How could they go from normal parents one day, to hot-tub-owning parents the next?

“But where is it?” I ask my mom over the phone.

“On the deck,” she says.

“What deck?”

“Oh yeah. We added a deck, too,” she says. Her tone is so casual, like she doesn’t realize she’s telling me about major home renovations. “You guys should come visit. You can sit in the hot tub.”

While it sounds amazing, especially now that California is having some actual winter weather, I can’t quite get used to that whole hot tub thing. I mean, I still feel homesick for the way our house was when I was a child – eight and ten and fourteen years old. It hasn’t been like that for almost half my lifetime.

I knew everything was different when I went to college. Not my freshman year, so much, when I still came home all the time and most of my stuff was still up on my bedroom walls. But once I started living in apartments, and my room at home started becoming storage, it was a slippery slope to “I don’t live here at all anymore.”

Probably moving to New York right after college had something to do with that. I didn’t go home that summer, except for a week or so before we got on a plane from SFO to JFK, in mid-August. And then I was gone for three years and the transition became even more complete.

I’ve been back in California for four and a half years. I have never in that time moved back home, and where would I have lived if I had? On the futon couch in the living room, probably. Despite multiple passings-off of my childhood stuff from my parents to me, there is still, inexplicably, more of my stuff in my bedroom, although it becomes more and more hidden among things that aren’t mine. My stuffed animals stick it out, though, sitting on a shelf above the bay window, covered in dust and, I’m positive, spiders. Every time someone suggests I go through them, I shiver and say I will as soon as they’ve all been run through the dryer or something.

The same thing happened to Drew. His room became an office, although his parents had to wait until we came back from New York and essentially stole all his bedroom furniture. But he and I are both in the same position of peeking into our childhood bedrooms and remembering them in a totally different way than they are now.

A few years ago, (after the my-bedroom transition but before the deck and hot tub,) my parents added a bathroom and walk-in closet onto their bedroom. Growing up it was always a point of contention/argument/self-righteousness (depending on one’s mood at the time) that our house only had one bathroom. But after the kids were out and it didn’t matter anymore, they fixed that. It’s good for resale, I guess, but I don’t even want to start thinking about that house being sold to strangers. It’s cool to see the addition, and cool that it happened, and surreal that there’s a whole add-on to the back of the house that wasn’t there when I was growing up.

I guess in a twisted way, that’s the room that is important to me. Because the addition, followed soon after by the deck and the hot tub, is something that I had no part in, I didn’t help at all with the planning, in fact I didn’t even have an idea something was up until it was already going down. And that just means that I definitely, unquestionably, 100% don’t live there anymore. The addition changed my childhood home in a way that putting in hardwood floors, moving the furniture around, and storing all the craft stuff on shelves in my old room does not.

Most of the time this doesn’t bother me too much. If my childhood home isn’t the same, well…neither am I, certainly. And it’s not like I want to stay in one place and never grow or change or move away.

But I’ve gotten so good at writing things down and journaling and documenting and taking photos – I wish I had been better at that at ages eight, ten, fourteen, eighteen. I wish I could remember more about all those summers spent at camp, or my 8th grade graduation dance, or some random trip my friends and I took to Cupertino my freshman year of college. (What the heck were we doing in Cupertino??) My memories of childhood are fuzzy. When I try to remember, I just end up picturing myself now, but like, wearing t-shirts with cat pictures and drawing with chalk pastels and making mix tapes.

On second thought, maybe the 90s are just not an inspiring time to keep constantly at the forefront of your mind. Maybe it’s good enough to know we made it through them unscathed.

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Awesome Beginnings Children Dreams Drew Family Home improvements Love Memoir Nonfiction Parents Pregnancy Self improvement Sentiment

Making excuses, and making babies

I’ve been absent, but I have a good reason.

This little guy arrived early last Saturday morning, just after midnight. He’s become the center of our universes and we’re determined to spoil him (at least until he gets old enough that it becomes a problem). He’s a good sleeper, a good eater, a good cuddler. He has some of the cutest facial expressions and mannerisms I’ve ever seen.

There are things I miss about being pregnant, but actually not as much as I thought I would. It’s really nice to be able to do a lot of the things that I used to do – and to eat things I couldn’t eat for awhile. He’s barely 6 days old and I’ve already eaten like 4 turkey sandwiches. And the things I thought I’d miss were all kind of sentimental things about the bond I had with this unborn baby…but now we have this whole new aspect to our relationship, which brings all kinds of new challenges and victories. (I guess that should have been obvious.)

I’m trying really hard not to completely forget my “old” life, and to transition smoothly into my “new” life. I’ll try to keep updating you with how that’s going. And I’ll also try not to go all “stfu parents” on you. But you’ll have to allow me occasional slips. Like this one!

AWWWWWWWWWWWW

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Being a girl cars Endings Home improvements Love Memoir Nonfiction Parents Pregnancy Sentiment Writing

The Circle of Life

Yesterday I got in the car and my left foot went automatically for the clutch, which isn’t there anymore.

That’s right. After eleven years, I’ve finally given up my little Saturn coupe in exchange for something bigger, sturdier, and safer. It comes none too soon, given that I’m due with my first baby in less than two weeks and, frankly, there was no way to fit a carseat in the tiny backseat of my Saturn.

I opted out of trying to sell the car. The Kelly Blue Book value was just embarrassing. It seemed like selling would be one hassle on top of another, and that wasn’t really something I was interested in taking on, especially when I stood to gain so little. Instead I looked into donation options, figuring that a tax write-off next year will be welcomed.

After choosing a worthy cause on which to bestow my 16-year-old donation, I filled out a brief online form and almost immediately got a phone call. Clearly, places that accept donations of cars are used to getting piles of car pieces that are mostly good for scrap metal. I was a little surprised at the questions: things like “How’s the body?” and “Is it in drivable condition?” Of course, I thought, I’ve been driving it every day. And the paint has some scratches but I somehow managed to stay body-damage free throughout those most reckless years known as “high school and college.” By the time we got off the phone, in my head, this baby was in mint-condition.

We decided on Saturday for the pickup. I was allowed to choose the time slot and I picked 10am to noon. This gave me enough time to take a little drive down Highway 1 in the morning, and reminisce about the good ol’ days. I figured I would be fine. I had come to terms with this. And I was trading up for something so much more important.

I got home from my excursion to Starbucks, and I was fine. When the pickup happened around 11:15, I met the guy outside to hand over the keys and sign off on the title. He looked up the street where he had parked the tow truck, and then asked me that now-familiar question, “Is it drivable?” Yes, I said, and he unlocked it, got in and started it up.

That’s when I felt that first hot sensation (not entirely unexpected) behind my eyes.

As he pulled away from the curb and up the street to the tow truck, I realized I didn’t want to watch any of this happen. Originally I’d thought I might take a picture of it on the tow truck (you know, for posterity?), but actually standing there, that idea just seemed sick.

I pretended the sun was too bright (absolutely not fooling Drew one bit), and shielded my eyes, and then turned around and walked into our apartment, dropping my donation receipt on the floor and going straight into the bathroom, where I proceeded to lose it in a way that both surprised and slightly embarrassed me.

It’s a car. It doesn’t have feelings. It’s not capable of thought. I know this rationally.

All I can offer in my defense is that I get attached to things. And after eleven years…well, this car was always there for me. Even when it was leaking oil and making the most intimidating growling sounds on cold mornings, it was a remarkably reliable little car. Especially since I didn’t always treat it as nicely as I could have.

I’m holding on to the idea that someone is going to do a little work to fix it up, and sell it at auction, hopefully to a young, fresh-faced kid who wants to drive a fun little 2-door with a iPod input and four relatively new tires. A kid who wants to get really good at playing real-life Tetris with all their possessions, who wants to teach their friends to drive stick, and who will learn some life lessons with this car in the background. Sixteen years is not all that old, after all, even for a car. It’s the circle of life, people.

And if you’re thinking I’m an emotional wreck…well, that’s probably true, also. Nine months pregnant, remember?

Originally published in the Lake County Record-Bee on 9/22/12

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Awesome Drew Fashion Friends Home improvements Memoir

My strongest suit

We’ve been cleaning and reorganizing, and last night Drew dragged out all of our “costume” stuff to consolidate it. For some reason – although maybe this won’t surprise people – we’ve been collecting costume pieces for awhile. We’ve got store-bought Halloween costumes, vintage stuff (mostly old-timey bathing suits and ladies’ gloves) from an estate sale a couple years ago, and the pieces that Drew bought/made in New York for some photos he was taking.

It took us awhile but we finally managed to get everything compressed enough to fit into this one storage tub we have. We’ve been moving certain things out into this cabinet we have in our carport area, which is coming in really handy. We now have things like Halloween and Christmas decorations out there, a tent for camping that we’ve never used, and with a giant box filled with all my stage management binders.

But costumes are irresistible, so before packing up, there was some modeling. Luckily, I was in control of my phone so there aren’t any pictures of me.

My favorite thing about this next picture is that I had to turn my phone on, select the camera app, and take the picture, using my nose, because I was wearing elbow-length charcoal gray gloves, and the touch screen doesn’t work with gloves on. (I hear I could have also used a Slim Jim, but a) we don’t have any here, and b) I don’t want Slim Jim grease all over my phone.)

When I texted this picture to Erin, her response was:

I mean, is there really anything else to say about that?

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Awesome Beauty Beginnings Being a girl Dreams Drew Home improvements Love Nonfiction Self improvement

Spring cleaning

This weekend has been all about cleaning. Yesterday we went down to Redwood City and, along with Drew’s parents, cleaned the heck out of his grandma’s house, since she’s on her way back from Hawaii. It was a warm day down there and by the time we were done, I was seriously worn out.

So this morning we got up and started in on our place – there have been all these things we just haven’t done yet since getting all our stuff into the apartment, and we tackled ’em all. I started with a short(ish) list of things I wanted to get done scribbled on the back of a bill, and then Drew added some things he wanted to accomplish…and 4-5 hours later it looks completely different in here.

At one point near the end of the frenzy, I had this flashback to being a kid, and spending the whole day cleaning my room (thanks Mom and Dad, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t do the bulk of that work myself), and how great it would feel at the end of the day. Peeling back the clean covers on a freshly made bed, straightening the alarm clock on a cleaned and organized nightstand, seeing everything around my room sorted and placed precisely in its spot…is there anything better?

And yeah, I’d say there’s still stuff we can do around here, but it feels more like maintenance now, than “finishing moving in.” And I even dusted things that didn’t look dusty, because that’s the way you keep them from getting dusty! Holy cow, it’s like I’m seriously an adult now. (Wasn’t one of my 2012 resolutions to become an adult? Or something like that?)

I just keep looking around at all the vacuum marks on the carpet, and how there are no clothes on the floor. It just feels so great. This afternoon, once we were done, I was stretched out on the (made) bed in a patch of sunlight, reading a fluffy nonsense book. It was a really great Sunday afternoon moment.

I will use this post – and this feeling – as motivation to keep this up for the rest of my life.

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Beginnings Drew Home improvements Pregnancy Sentiment

Cribs

We keep telling ourselves we have plenty of time to get everything ready for this baby, and that’s kind of true. But we had our crib just sitting around in the box, so today we put it together.

Here’s the “before” shot:

This was an exciting moment – realizing we didn’t need any additional tools and that all the pieces are carefully sorted and labeled for you!

So step one is to…dump all the pieces out onto the ground in a pile. (Bonus points if the pieces are about the same color as the carpet.)

After a false start or two, we got our sea legs and things started coming together.

Love the finished product! We still have 80% of “nursery” stuff to go – including a crib mattress – but if the crib is the centerpiece, then we made some real headway today.

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"Other people" Being a girl Home improvements Memoir

Missing: Very Small Reward

We cannot find our can opener. Despite the fact that we have TWO of them. Despite the fact that Drew swears he’s seen one of them somewhere in the new apartment since we moved in. But we seriously cannot find either. We have been through the entire apartment several times – usually every time we forget and buy non-pull-top cans at the grocery store – and still nothing.

What’s a girl to do? I mean, I have this Anderson’s pea soup, and I can’t touch it. That’s a tragedy right there.

I think I’m going to have to go buy a new one. As soon as I do that, both of the original ones will pop up again. Then we’ll have three, and this problem will never happen again.

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Awesome Books Friends Home improvements Love

Shelve all the things

Last night Erin came over to the new place to help me go through this:

 

After about an hour and a half, we took a break to get some water (and seconds of pizza) and admire how far we’d come:

 

And when she left an hour after that, we had filled all the shelves. Most of them were pretty themed. I tend to like to take all the books that

a) I like the most,
b) I’m proudest of, and
c) have the highest reread potential

and put them on the eye-level shelves. I don’t think Erin likes that very much. I think she wanted them more thematically arranged, and she didn’t seem to be a fan of Marian Keyes next to Ira Levin. But that’s okay. After it’s all done, I can always switch everything around. (JUST KIDDING ERIN.)

Anyway, here’s everything filled:

 

And all that remains is assorted fiction, which will hopefully fit on this one last shelf I have.

 

Oh, who am I kidding? I need to buy a new bookshelf!

(I promise, after this, I’ll stop talking about books for awhile. I know it’s been a lot lately.)

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Beginnings Being a girl Books Home improvements Sentiment Writing

Better late than never

Drew and I are in the middle of moving, as I keep mentioning. In fact we have given ourselves a goal of being completely out of here and living there by next Sunday. Which is slightly daunting.

This afternoon he went by the apartment and realized someone had left two pots of flowers on the doorstep. Since it doesn’t seem to be anyone that we know…I wonder if this means we have really sweet neighbors?

One funny thing that happened today as a result of being so far in the process, is that this afternoon I finished my other library book, and then I wandered around for awhile going, “What am I going to read now?” I had a few choices:

a) go in the guest bedroom and read a Cat Who book
b) read one of the (few) books (left behind) here that I have already finished
c) go out to my car and find something in the trunk

When Drew got home, he pointed out the Amazon box on the floor, under a box of ginger snaps, which I then remembered had 5 brand new books still in it.

See, every time I think we’ve got them all…

The other funny thing happened when we were unpacking all our kitchen stuff this weekend. We were pulling stuff out that we’ve literally never used. It’s mostly kitchen stuff, and, now that I think about it, it’s mostly stuff we didn’t register for, that we still liked, but just haven’t had the chance yet. For example, a sugar-and-creamer set…in a pattern that I totally adore, but we’re just not big coffee drinkers. (We should change that.) There’s also a wedding-style picture frame that we should probably use to display a wedding picture. One of these days.

A friend who was over helping us unpack suggested that it would make a good blogging project – to commit to using those things we’ve never used, and then chronicle that. So hopefully over the rest of 2012, I’ll be making an effort to get some of that great stuff out of its packaging and onto the table.

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Awesome Being a girl Home improvements Memoir Writing

Airing My Previously Dirty Laundry

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to submit a newspaper column once a month. I slacked off in February (hey, there was a lot going on) and while this one didn’t run until today, I submitted it back on Feb 28th, so I’m cutting myself a break on that. I will do better this month.

I also resolved to write one short story per month, which I neglected to do, so TWO stories in March!

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AIRING MY PREVIOUSLY DIRTY LAUNDRY

I am not a particularly domestic person. When it comes to cleaning, I’d say I’m more of a planner than an actual doer. Right now, as I’m typing this, I’m noticing how dusty my computer screen is, but I have no immediate plans to wipe it off. Let me try blowing on it and see if that works…nope, not really.

I do have general good intentions, and I make lists of things to do, like “fold all laundry” and “clean all dishes” and “vacuum all floors,” but when the weekend rolls around I cross off maybe one and half things and then applaud myself.

Drew and I are halfheartedly looking for a new apartment. Halfheartedly because we don’t really want to move anywhere until the end of April, and everything we look at now is available for new tenants on Monday. So it’s hard to look seriously at anything just now.

One of the amenities we’ve agreed that we want is a washer/dryer in the unit. Having a washer/dryer in your own place is amazing, no doubt. But I think I have discovered the downside to having such readily available appliances: there’s never an excuse to not do laundry.

When I have to walk it outside (or down four flights of steps) (okay, onto the elevator), I can always fall back on an excuse for not doing it today. I’ll do it tomorrow, I just put on pajamas. Or I’ll do it this weekend, I’m kind of sick today and don’t want to expose the rest of the building to my germs. Etc.

But when the washing machine is just behind a door (and not even a sturdy exterior door – just a flimsy interior door!), then I have no excuse. Oh look, there’s one full basket of dirty laundry. Why am I not washing it right now? There’s no reason to wait. In fact, there’s all the reason to do it right now. I’m not doing anything. If I wash it right now I can wear my favorite sweater again tomorrow. (Not that I will.) (But maybe.)

Heaven help me if I had to actually wash things by hand…like, beat them against rocks in a stream, and then wring them out and hang them up.

And let me be honest: of all the chores, laundry is one of my favorites. (Doing dishes is the other.) Because you start with a pile of something dirty, and then, a short time later, you have a pile of something clean. That’s progress. You know what I hate more than anything? Sweeping. Because after you sweep a floor, all you’ve really done is discovered that you need to mop it.

Tonight I’m on a weird little cleaning kick, and I finally tackled that immense, intimidating basket/pile of clean clothes. I folded like a machine, and I stacked and then I placed on shelves. There were nigh on six towels in that basket-pile. When I was done, I fetched the clean clothes from the dryer from yesterday, and I folded all those. You want to know how long it took me? Seventeen minutes. That’s the equivalent of four and a half songs playing in the background. My commute is longer than that. I’ve taken showers longer than that. And now that intimidating pile is gone. And I feel invincible. I even looked around for more things to fold, but no dice – I got ‘em all.

So what’s next? Will I clean the bathroom? Wash dishes? Vacuum out my car? Grab a Swiffer and wipe down my computer screen? Who can say? Today, domesticity… tomorrow, the world.