Ummm....hi

So, what's going on? Just a little too much. There's the new house that needs a bottomless amount of attention. Still unpacking, still finding places for stuff, still fixing things, still needing to buy furniture and rugs and a 3-page list of other items. It seems like every little thing needs to be thought through, just like when one starts a new job and every task that in a year's time will be second nature is for the moment a frustrating process of looking up information, asking for help, sorting through documents, and making mistakes. What do we do about recycling? How do we change the filter on the furnace? Should we keep the mops here, or here, or here? What happens if I push this button on the oven? I know we have lightbulbs somewhere, where are they? How would it look if we moved the phone stand over there? What color rug should we get in here? Just, so many discussions and decisions and things to be "looked into" or "figured out". On top of that, there has been drama at Dave's workplace that's set askew our still-shaky sense of security. And I'm learning that BIG things are sometimes too big for blog topics. But here are some little things I can share!

We set up our first Christmas tree this weekend. And I had a sublime moment on Sunday night as I curled up in our recliner, cozy under a thick green fleece blanket, in full view of the lit tree, drinking a glass of egg nog and reading Nigella Lawson's new Christmas cookbook. Very nice indeed!

Over the weekend I seem to have forgotten ALL my various work and Internet passwords. In fact, I had to reset my password just to post to this blog.

I washed dishes in our dishwasher this weekend! And as a result felt somewhat left out. Cheated. There's something satisfying and zen-peaceful about washing dishes, and I think I'll probably continue washing dishes by hand except when there's quite a lot of them or they're particularly icky.

Shopping the sales of Black Friday was a terrifying experience, and I won't be making that mistake again. Except that I did get a number of things we needed for pretty decent prices. But still. Not again. $10 off a blender just isn't worth it.

I find it odd that I'm not afraid of my basement. It's a scary 116-year old basement, with dangerous and uneven stairs, low ceiling, multiple doors behind which anyone could be waiting to attack, and going down into it feels remarkably like walking into an open grave (seriously...it's exactly grave-shaped), and yet this is the only basement I've ever been in that hasn't made me want to finish my business and hurry upstairs with borderline panic. Curious. I just realized that this weekend when I was humming and puttering around the basement -- at night, no less!

Our house looks awfully cute with a wreath on the door!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and can enjoy pre-Christmas!

Nesting

Things are heating up, as we endeavor to make Thomasina (our new house) a home.

She got a fresh coat of paint, turning her (in just one sunny Saturday) from a frousy, fussy stripe-wearing matron into a witty attention-grabbing sophisticate. Or, at least I like to think so. Judge for yourself:

And now there's also furniture, finally purchased after a full-month of measuring and comparison shopping. The furniture is assembled and fits Thomasina's new look. We seem to be going for a slightly bohemian look but with the organic symmetry of Arts and Crafts style. A place where perhaps Christina Rossetti might have felt at home, except in this case with television and multiple bathrooms.

And now Saturday we usher in the remainder of our dusty and confused belongings. They're not exactly being as thoughtfully packed as I hoped, and are instead being dragged out unprotected by tissue paper or bubble wrap, heaped together in laundry bins and trash bags, a confusion of things we forgot we even owned. The impending move apparently freaked our DVD player so much it simply quit working, choosing death over the chaos of a new home. The TV is threatening to follow suit. However it happens, we're moving as much as we can on Saturday.

It has been nice living with less at the house. There are a few things I'm learning we can do without...quite easily. For instance, since we don't yet have a TV at the new house, we've now gone without it for about 2 weeks. Actually, I do miss that a little. Especially watching movies. But we don't really need it. Same with the Internet and our land-line phone. I only have maybe 1/4 of my clothes and shoes at the house, and turns out that's actually about all I need. It gets boring after a while, but that's it.

On the flip side, we already managed to bring all our books to the house...and while unpacking them yesterday I discovered that Thomasina hasn't really felt like a home until that moment. Could we do without our books? Of course. But what, really, is a home without them? I unpacked those books with a contented sigh, just as I would after a feast of comfort food.

And one of the strangest aspects of all this is the ambiguity with which I've been viewing the home we're leaving. For so long all I could focus on is getting out of that little apartment, away from the rude neigbors, the sound of other peoples' stereos and arguments, the smell of other peoples' dinners, the space that never could contain all we needed and wanted to do with our lives. But now that I'm packing it all up I feel a real sense of loss. I miss always being so close to Dave. In the apartment, physically we could never be further than a room away; now, an entire floor can separate us. I remember not just the bad times we've had while in the apartment, but the many, many good times...reading Rebecca on the couch, glancing out the window while the snow falls quietly over the trees and electrical wires of the alley. How our little space shone at Christmas because our decorations filled it to the brim. They won't make much of a dent at the new house. I even kind of miss the noises and smells and the buzzing of lives going on just outside our walls. I suppose it's because we were caretakers for the building. I knew the place like most tenants wouldn't, and feel a sense of responsibility connected to it. While it was a hard place in which to live, it also served as a cradle for our goals and dreams. I owe it my thanks, and it deserves the dignity of a proper good-bye. After removing the last of our belongings and cleaning it for the last time, I plan to spend a private moment there before turning over the keys. I hope it's refinished and polished to a gleam...and eventually filled with another newlywed couple excited about their future.

The Mysteries of October

This has been the weirdest month.

First, the snow. Not even sleet, but real tree-padding snow. I'm out there at 6am, trying to leave for work, still wearing my spring jacket, desperately searching for an ice scraper, but at the same time distracted from my swearing and car-scraping task by the breathtaking, sparkling, otherworldliness of the first snowfall. And this year it turned out to be even more otherworldy because of the leaves still on trees, making it appear as if we lived in a world of giant cauliflower. For awhile, I felt awfully happy to live in Minnesota.

Then, Dave and I close on our house this Thursday. Which is also weird, because just a little over 2 months ago Dave didn't even have a job and a little black cloud constantly hovered over our heads. So how WEIRD it is that all of a sudden now we're going to have a house? How did that happen? It has a "poof!" wish fulfillment quality to it, even though clearly we put in a lot of work to make this happen.

Also weird: being a student again. The reading, the group work, the awkward ice breakers and small talk during breaks, the research papers, the funny little cliques and battling egos. It's pulling me back to the late 90s-early 00s when I was last a graduate student, feeling those insecurities and ambitions once more. But this time it's more complicated because I'm used to being in charge of the classroom now, and it's hard for me to not jump in and take the lead. After the first day I thankfully realized that I needed to tone down the Hermione Granger stuff, and allowed myself to be appropriately passive...which in the end made things nicer for all, myself included. But it only adds to the mysteriousness of this October...me sitting there in class thinking "what am I doing sitting here in a class?" as if just waking up from a fitful dream.

Hope your October is full of happy and mysterious surprises as well!

Neglectful

As it's been pointed out to me, I've been rather neglecting the blog. Not so long ago I was thinking of doing two blogs...and yet now I can barely maintain the one. Shows what I know.

But here comes the excuses.

Since Dave is now once again employed. And while neither of us make great money (that's what you get for going into social services), together we do ok. So we decided to gather all our resources, time and energy together and make the Big Move. Turns out buying a house is kind of an involved thing.

On top of the Big Move, I started my graduate program. And Dave, of course, is getting used to his new job.

Anyway, we found our "dream" house! Thank goodness, because for awhile there I was thinking we'd be stuck with "frustrating compromise" house. This afternoon we have the inspection, which is causing me some anxiety. I mean...it's become pretty obvious by now that things in my life do NOT often travel a smooth road. So I'm holding my breath, waiting for the next crisis to occur. Hopefully I'm wrong and those "wait...you CAN'T have what you want after all!" days are behind us. But I've thought that before, too, and have been proven wrong. Which is why I'm wringing my hands over the inspection.

I'll continue to post updates, and after today I should have some photos to share as well.

Oh Deary Me...

This has been a roller coaster summer. No lazy, carefree days...just arms-out screaming as life plunges us to the depths and then just as fast raises us to the heights, and nobody can see anything because everything is just moving too fast. Hair in our faces. Whiplash necks. Hoarse throats.

But at least we're on the upswing of the roller coaster now. Dave got a new teaching position, after a summer of much anxiety and dark imaginings. Which means we'll once again push forward on the house-hunting. It's funny how Good Things tend to come on their own terms. We wanted to buy a house in June/July because we knew that period offerred the rare window of time when we wouldn't be swamped by the "education calendar" ~ if you work in education, you understand the importance of timing everything out just so. So it's kind of another little test that we'll be (hopefully) buying a home/moving right at the beginning of a school year, while Dave is adjusting to a new school and while I'm adjusting to balancing full-time work with full-time graduate school. Literally, the timing probably couldn't be worse. But we really need to make this happen before the snow flies and (perhaps more importantly) before certain tax incenstives expire.

So I won't complain! Not complaining! We're very happy with this development. Perhaps it's just that the universe really, really wants to make sure we want this house...I mean, short of an avalanche or falling trees, it seems every obstacle has been thrown at us. Actually, I take that back. I better not tempt fate by saying more ~ I can already hear it mocking "I'll give you something to complain about!" All the best things in my life have come on their own tardy schedule, so I'll just be content that we're able to move forward now. But do know this. If we've ever done favors for people, we'll be calling in those favors over the next few months (I feel like the Godfather when I say that..."there may come a time when I call upon you to perform a service"). And I also suspect I'll be using my full allotment of vacation time by the end of December, which will make for a very grumpy spring.

Other than that great news, we've been getting healthier. I've been happily losing the weight I gained over this summer (at some point, both Dave and I decided that since life had become particularly hard, it meant that calories suddenly wouldn't count...like a free pass or compensation).

And for being such an axious summer, we have had a particularly good summer in terms of getting together with friends. Our friends are such a blessing! Never has that been more apparent.

Funny how all toppled things end up righting themselves in due time.

And now, I'm taking tomorrow off! We're meeting with a mortgage broker and enjoying one last splash of free time before Dave officially starts his new position on Monday. Yay!

HP Update

I've had some questions on where HP is at. How lovely! Thanks for asking.

This blog was meant to chart HP's progress, along with my thoughts on the struggles and victories found in writing my first novel. But it's turned into a more general "what's going on in mylife" blog. Especially because this has been such a frustrating and tumultuous year, it's been quite therapeutic blogging. Thank you blog! And thank you commentors! And more often than not, I find it difficult to talk about my progress on HP. I mean...I'm at the revising stage, so it's really the writing equivalent of cleaning out and organizing a closet, which is very time-consuming and involving for me but maybe not so interesting to other people. Earlier in the writing process would have been a better time to blog ~ that's when all the exciting stuff happens! But at that point blogging would also have been an unwanted distraction. So I've just been updating about HP when something interesting happens, rather than sharing what's been going on for the last month or two...which includes weeding out excessive "to be" construction, clarifying time shifts, questioning my overuse of adjectives, and other "house-keeping" (boring but necessary) tasks.

As for the blog itself, I'm finding that I'm not sure where I want to keep its focus. If I'll return to focusing primarily on writing/teaching/etc., or if I'll keep it focused on the general doings of my life. I need to think about that. The blog is 1-year old now, so perhaps it's a good time to decide what I really want it to be.

But to answer the questions about HP...I am working on it. Every week. In some cases every day. Never fear! Progress is being made. It won't be long before I'm trying to pawn copies off on people and begging for feedback. So, what IS happening?

Well, I thought the first 100 pages were totally finished. But then I read a printed version of those first 100 pages...and for some reason reading something in print is a very different experience than reading something from a computer screen. I tell my students that all the time. In fact, I go so for as forcing my students to bring actual printed copies of their drafts to their writing groups, and then read those drafts out loud to each other. And when meeting with students, we always start by reading part of their work out loud. The flaws usually become immediately apparent. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps when seeing something on a computer, your mind goes on auto-pilot and compensates for problems...or at least makes them easier to deny ("hmm, that doesn't seem right but nobody will notice"). But on paper it's far easier to read something the way other people will read it. It's kind of like the difference between purposely looking at yourself in a mirror versus accidentally catching a glimpse of yourself in a mirror. Know what I mean? So when revising this section on the computer, I was like "sure, that's good enough" and felt ready to move on. But by the time I finished reading it on paper, each page was covered with red ink, question marks, and frownie-faces.

Anyway. It needed some clean-up. Nothing creative or fun. Just proofreading. So that's what I'm doing now, and hope to finish today so I can finally move onto the middle part of the novel... which I've been talking about doing since last fall.

All this trouble will serve me well as an example next time I teach, when students suggest you can just read a paper over once and call it "revision."

Tall buildings, Impressionism, and Buddy Guy

Dave and I have returned from our escape to Chicago! What a swell way to celebrate my birthday. I'm going to be a lazy blogger and just list some of the fun things we did on our jaunt.

~ Took Amtrak down and passed the time listening to Devil in the White City on my iPod

~ Ate macaroni and cheese in the dining car (I've always wanted to dine on a train)

~ Deftly avoided most beggars

~ Had popcorn at Garrett's

~ Enjoyed brunch at the Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of the Hancock Building

~ Explored the Rookery and its Frank Lloyd Wright designed lobby

~ Ate hot dogs and chocolate cake at Portillo's

~ Saw authentic pirate ship treasure, dinosaur skeletons, almost every conceivable animal (in stuffed form), Egyptian sarcophogi (sp?), and took a stroll through the Earth's evolutionary history in the Field Museum of Natural History. Oh! They also had those cool plastic-molding machines that they used to have at Como Zoo!

~ Splashed around the fountains at Millenium Park

~ Saw French Impressionist, modern American, and modern European paintings at the Chicago Institute of Art (and yes, we did pose fittingly in front of American Gothic = see photo)

~ Saw these weird minature rooms at the Chicago Institute of Art...I can't describe them, nor did we think to take photos. They're like dollhouse rooms, except made with obsessive authenticity and craftsmanship, each room representing a specific country and time period

~ Saw Buddy Guy perform at his own blues club, and got his autograph

~ Successfully avoided shopping on Mag Mile (ok, I did stop in Macy's and Nordstrom's for somethings in particular but that was it)

~ Took tea at The Drake's Palm Room, and then spent the night (my birthday night) in one of their fancy-shmancy executive suites

~ Received a gorgeous (albeit cumbersome) bouquet of birthday flowers from wonderful Dave

~ At Oak Street Beach we fed a seagull some Garrett's Popcorn. He liked it.

~ On a blustery evening we walked along the lake to Navy Pier

~ Visited Navy Pier's stained glass museum

~ Took a skyline boat tour

Things we wish we had time for, but will have to wait until next trip:

~ Ride the El (didn't do it on this trip...we were within walking distance to just about everything and our hop on/hop off tour did the driving for us)

~ See more of Chicago's neighborhoods

~ Visit the Shedd Aquarium

~ Dave wants to see the submarine at the Museum of Science and Industry

~ Hit more nightlife (I was being kind of Old Lady on this trip; except for the blues club we took it easy at our hotel most nights)

~ Get some deep dish pizza (we did have stuffed pizza on this trip, but didn't make it to Pizzeria Uno or Gino's)

~ Do the architecture boat tour (and a history tour to boot)

~ Get on Oprah