I daydream of home decor to escape my anxiety.

I am thinking the jumping off point for the new house is fifties, but into fifties exotica. Not just Tiki - that's tired - but that fifties fascination for exotic cultures - whether Oceanic, Japanese, African, Indian, Morrocan. I think the classic fifties springboard is (the era of the building and) my precious Grandmother's influence. When I was a kid, she was my BFF for a number of years, so that influence was strong. I think the fifties exotica comes from my Grandpa (other side) and the sort of Panamanian souvenirs from his brother and the garage sale junkie bachelor pad thing he had going. My version of this is very different than his was, but I think that's where it started. And probably watching Road movies with my dad, you know, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby have misadventures somewhere exotic.

I want one of these from Lori Brown.

How about some of these to line the kitchen shelf?

Chandelier?

OMG

We bought a house. Our first one. It feels like getting married.

I had some anxiety trying to commit to what we wanted. I considered buying something really awful so we could lower our monthly costs. I considered buying far enough out to do some farming. In the end, we found a small house in good shape in a decent neighborhood, not too far from where we are now.

Chris is working a lot of overtime. I feel grateful to him. I'm trying to work just as hard at home while he's gone. We went to an apple orchard today. We hung onto our friends' son while they closed on their first house. It was fun to join them in their new home for the first time. We weeded.

I met a farmer last week who offered me a job. I can bring the kids. I think this would be a great step towards my next career as a micro-farmer.

All's well. Back at work. (have my camera.) We are very busy and I've realized I have to consciously schedule down time or it will get eaten up by all the fun places to go and people to see. I am writing down what to do and what we did in a notebook for now, hoping to get a bit more organized. Current house status: very tidy, 3 loads of dishes to finish, 7 loads of laundry to fold, 1 guitar to practice. The girls and I have plans to jog at 7:30, as we haven't logged mileage for our "race" in a while. We'll see how that goes. Eleanor made really cute paper dolls for her history club book report this week. I didn't help her at all. Will post pictures when the dishes are done. Charlotte made a ferris wheel car out of recycled boxes, etc. We are house hunting pretty seriously. We've been out twice and are on our second agent, who we're happy with now. We've seen some maybes. I'm really hoping for some studio space where I can have students, especially with the more precarious nature of my job lately.

I was really dragging my feet about going back to work because it's hard to homeschool and keep house and work, but I LOVE it. I love teenagers. They intimidated me the first year a little bit, but I feel like we're good now. And I like teaching art. I've taught the same courses now for 10 semesters, so I've got it pretty down. That's a relief - no more late night lesson planning. Of course I still tweak it every time.

We visited some new friends in Hyde Park this weekend. They were really cool and I can't believe how cool Hyde Park was. If we moved to the city, that is completely where we'd head. I love me some lake.

I had to cancel Eleanor's theatre class. It was too much. House-hunting is a lot. Next semester, Eleanor. I also regret sending Charlotte to the fancier ballet school. I should have saved our money and gone to the park district at this age. I might do that for the spring. I don't know what got into me. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

(thanks, Dee)

this is the girls' favorite song:

guilty pleasure:

Another irritating favorite of the era.

... I admit I am killing time/trying to relax till Chris gets home and I can run and see if my camera is still where I just realized I left it today.

Today the girls went horse back riding for the first time. Hopefully there are still pictures and a camera. I am a douche.

Gracie is screaming. I have clocked out after a full day of parenting. The girls journaled and sketched, found leaves and did rubbings - all in their bound books which I hope to have dozens of over the years. We jogged around the block twice today and did sprints, and we went for a bike ride on the trail - beautiful weather. They played Twister and read books and Eleanor did the lunch dishes. We ate minnestrone again. I spent almost two hours gathering family photos and uploading them for the girls' personal timeline projects and thank you cards and burned them to disc.
We drove to Wolf, where the disc didn't work and the girls wouldn't stop pushing buttons and I started to lose patience. Tried to find some (patience) in shared Steak n Shake milkshakes. Went to Hobby Lobby. Don't like Hobby Lobby. Went to Target. Officially running late now. Met friends at park for dinner picnic. Fun. Ever the sucker for late afternoon autumn sunlight. Came home, hosed down each girl, started reading Fair Weather by Richard Peck for their book reports next week. Girls in bed and done reading by 9.

9:30: Gracie is still crying but not actually leaving the bedroom, so that's not half bad.


Yesterday we did the journals and jogged and showered and ate lunch all by 12 to go to a baseball game. Wendy and John met us there. We went to a park afterwards, which I thought was more fun than baseball.

So far, we have set into motion no TV M-F, jogging, journaling, sketching, showering, teeth brushing, picking up after selves, and bed at 9 all daily. I see this as the base of our homeschool workings. The house is unrecognizably clean. I have vaguely familiar, yet foreign feelings of happiness occasionally wash over me.

This will all mudslide back to a state of constant pressure and overwhelm-ed-ness when I go back to work next week and can't quite juggle it all, all week.

My job may or may not phase out at the end of the year. I was first very sorry for the other people involved, but then surprisingly relieved to imagine just focusing on the kids and the house. I am trying to brainstorm how to live with less or make a little another way or maybe just keep going as is.

9:40: Gracie quiet

great day

Today was great. We rode our bikes to meet our friends for bagels. Beautiful day. Eleanor went home with Mary and Charlotte went home with Tracy for the afternoon. I made CDs and a grocery list while Gracie napped. We all met up at the park again where the kids play in the woods and paths and climb huge pine trees and play in the sand and on the jungle gym. It was so great that we didn't want to leave. We tore through the grocery store and had dinner at Chris and Bob's. They had a present for each girl. They spoil. :)

We started running our marathon yesterday. One jog around the block for the next two months logs the first 25.2 miles, then the last mile will be a race with other families. The girls also had their first Liberty Belles meeting this week. They had a Victorian tea party. Yesterday, we got together with our unschool group and Charlotte and Frankie built a sand castle for worms, designating which worms were princesses and which were bracelets. Charlotte is working on math with me and Eleanor is reading independently. She values a lot of alone time right now. Next week they start horseback riding lessons so we're reading Black Beauty before bed.

to move or not to move

We met with our homeschool group today for the first time in months. The kids played at the park for over four hours and I remembered how nice it is to get together with like-minded unschoolers.

The girls have been adjusting to our renewed no TV M-F rule. Also, computer games are a reward for a clean room. It's so awful in there. I'm supposed to be cleaning tonight but I am looking for houses online and sorting out my thoughts. (this is the sort of behavior I model for the little girls who won't clean their room.)

It looks like we may qualify for a small mortgage loan for the first time. I was thinking we could just buy the house on our block that is crazy cheap in short sale, but I was talking to the neighbor today and hearing about break-ins and druggies that I didn't know about, and maybe her negativity was just contagious, but I started wondering if I really want to invest in this neighborhood. Really, any place we can afford is going to have something wrong with it. So do we really want to buy with this budget?

Pros: take advantage of 8000 tax credit, build equity, get a dog, plant trees, paint the walls, pride of ownership...
Fears: neighborhood taking a dive, getting stuck with too many repairs, not being able to sell, getting stuck, ... commitment

Also, staying in town v. going country:
Country: I could raise chickens, I could market-garden, the girls could have farm life advantages, less crime, more land for less $
Town: we can easily participate in all the homeschool stuff we do now, we are close to friends and family, we are closer to the city

I am in a fear-of-change-mood. 2 days ago I was in an obsessed -about-buying-a-house mood.

... I just murdered another hour looking at property in the city.