Please please please let me get what I want

Earlier this year I wrote about doing yard work at the rental house, that I wanted to leave it nicer than we found it, that I wanted us to be out by the end of the year but didn't have a concrete plan. Well, the wheels are now in motion, and, while we won't make it out by the end of the year, we will come pretty darn close.

Part one: We are selling the old abandoned apartment. That part feels like the snuffing of a dream. As long as we still had the old abandoned apartment there could exist a remote glimmer of hope of living in Ocean City again. It was a fantasy. An expensive fantasy. We've been living backwards owning a place we don't live in and renting the place we do live in. It could not go on forever. With my cousin and his wife as the buyers it's not as much like lemon juice in the eye as it could be. It's staying in the family--I think that makes it easier on my mom, too. It's just the end of a chapter, not the closing of a book. We can go back for a visit. We can stay there again sometime for a vacation. All mitigating circumstances considered I'll probably blubber at the settlement table anyway.

Part two: Our landlord is selling the rental house, the house I call Fig Point. Although it needs a lot, A LOT of work, Robb and I kept revisiting the idea of taking on the challenges and expense and making it officially our home. What's the worst she can say--no--right? We made our landlord an offer factoring in four years of rental and all the repairs. She liked our number. Yay! And said she would have to get her lender to approve the short sale. Boo! Our landlord has zero equity in the house. And no matter what sales price she likes, the decision to accept or reject an offer is out of her hands once her bank is involved. The bank won't be sentimental about our time here or consider all the rent money we've thrown away. The bank will lowball the cost of repairs to minimize their losses. Very disappointing. Our landlord's realtor comes this afternoon to take photographs and put a lock box on the front door just in time for Christmas. This part to me feels like the end of the world. So the Mayans were right after all.

Part three: We are buying a house nearby. We should be fully moved by the end of January. It has a detached two car garage for Robb's workshop. It has a fenced yard for Mo and Sukey to play in. It has a fourth bedroom for my studio. It has two closets in the master bedroom which will breed domestic tranquility. It has a terrible kitchen but not worse than the Fig Point kitchen, but we can fix it in a few years. It has several of Mo's tot friends right around the corner. And without the expenses of the old abandoned apartment, without our rent, and without a car payment, it has a lot less financial stress. It has vacations without me having panic attacks about money. This part feels like the sun breaking through clouds after a hurricane. Now we'll have to think of something to call our new home. We'll have to plant a fig tree. We'll have to paint the deck and hang curtains and gather our family and friends around the fireplace. I can't wait!

(*Post title refers to, of course, The Smiths.)

Spring harvest

Photo taken on Tuesday, June 26th. That's right, we were eating ripe tomatoes off our plants a full week before the 4th of July. That's an all-time early tomato record for me. And I totally beat my neighbor Sharon this year in the tomato race! Except Sharon has no idea that there is any sort of contest going on. She's just a really good gardener, and I'm always measuring my success against her. In other food news our early figs are rolling in. When fig trees are happy the produce a late spring crop and a late summer crop. In the past we've seen a handful of early fruits, but this year we have a substantial early harvest. And the figs are huge. Previously our fruits were about the size of chicken eggs; now they are nearly baseballs. I've been collecting the ripe ones in the cool of the morning before the birds come and peck them to pieces. There are so many though. I might have to make jam. Oh, and lots of wildflowers around this year. I'm loving the queen anne's lace.

Early spring

Not to talk about the weather, but how can I not? Once the heavy fog burned off this morning, the day became gorgeous with the temperature hovering in that 75-80 degree sweet spot. All week we've had lovely, lovely weather. More like May than March. The henbit has already peaked. The cherry blossoms are in full swing at Joe and Joanie's house across the street.



We (meaning Robb) have already mowed the lawn once, and we (meaning me) are almost done mulching the flower beds. Once they are done I want to scrub down the siding. The north end of the house is looking pretty mildew-y. Robb wonders why I bother with some of these projects since we're renters. But I want to leave the place a little nicer than we found it. And I am optimistic about my goal to leave this house by the end of 2012. I don't really have a plan at this point, so don't scrutinize that last sentence too hard.



Would you believe that dogwoods are starting to bloom? And that's just crazy--usually the last petals are falling right before Mother's Day.



Robb is hot and heavy into his model skipjack, the Maureen Elizabeth. (He originally planned to name it the Barbara Leigh, but that curly headed little cherub bumped me off the nameplate. I see how it is.) This is a picture of me holding the rudder. Kind of looks like a cartoon meat cleaver. Anywho, Sunday is his first race, and he's super psyched.



I continue to be obsessed with a place I call "the meadow." My favorite spot in the neighborhood.



I'm always snapping photos of it. Constantly. For the past three years. (That's why Robb says our hard drive is 80% full, and I need to start migrating photo files over to the external. But it's only 4 terabytes. I'm not sure that's going to be enough.)



Recently a for sale sign cropped up at the end of the driveway. If I had a million dollars I would buy the meadow...all 17 acres and the 6,000 square foot house that sits by the water's edge. I wonder if the new owners will love this place as much as I do. (And I don't even live there.)

Unseasonable

It seems incongruous that it should be a beautiful day and the end of January and Lisa's funeral all at once. (I read and reread the obituary, but it definitely fails to mention that she was the "beloved wife of Shawn"--am I missing something?) The twins flew to Wisconsin last night. I can't speak for the weather there, but here it is like spring. Even the flowers are confused. All the bulbs are bolting skyward and tiny wildflowers in the lawn are blooming.



We went for a long slow mid-morning walk.



Putting the baby in the bear suit was probably overkill.





Everything shiny from yesterday's rain but smelling like a spring thaw. I collected a handful of moss for a spontaneous terrarium. And as I review these photos I realize that the light sensors on my old digital camera are wearing thin. They tell the little mechanical brain to BRIGHTEN!!!! when not brightening would do nicely. But the old point-and-click will have to serve until I splurge on myself and get a Lytro (which will not actually be happening). There are worse things in life than chronic brightening. In fact I could use the brightness today.





Place turkey. Screw down the lid. And there you have it: sunny day preserves for the long winter ahead.

Thousands of finches

Each morning after Mo's been fed I wander into the kitchen in search of coffee. With the sounds of music and playing drifting down the hall I stand at the sink and sip. Just outside the window winter's cold blast surprised the hydrangea and made her drop her dress. Sheltered amid her naked elbows is a fat bird I have not had the presence of mind to photograph. He is two shades of grey: charcoal back and wings, lighter grey belly. Sometimes a mating pair of cardinals joins him in the sticks. I pointed him out to Robb and wondered what kind of bird it is.

"It's a finch."

No, I don't think so.

"Trust me, there are thousands of varieties of finches." That is probably a true statement if you add "in the world" to the end of it. This is another case of Mr. Science trying to bully me with his credentials when he's pulling something out of his ear. And if the topic wasn't birds he might have pulled it off. But he was trying to buffalo a girl whose favorite childhood book was the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds. I'm pretty sure my bird friend is either a bunting or a junco.

I returned from walking the dog and told Robb to check out the finches I saw on the walk. He leaned in close to the camera to see.



"Those are some really big finches."

Baby's first Halloween

On Sunday Maureen wore her scary costume: Ravens cheerleader. *shudder* Yes, I wanted to be a Redskinette when I was little, but that was completely different. Number one: it was the Redskins. Number two: there doesn't need to be a number two...it was the Redskins. Case closed.



Although I did not make Maureen's costumes this year, both costumes were recycled. We found the cheerleader suit at the Goodwill in Eldersburg with Charlene for $2. Robb noticed what we did not--it had LEAH printed across the back. I said, "This is such a great bargain, we will change her name. What do you think, Leah?" Leah smiled back at me. And that's the story of why we changed our daughter's name.

Er, I mean, and then I stitched a pair of white fleece wings onto the back to the dress to obscure the decal.



Of course there's the holiday bib shot.



Then on Halloween afternoon, we dressed Leah Maureen up in her turtle costume and hit the streets. She looks totally psyched about trick-or-treating in this picture. In reality she was not such a fan of having the hood up, but it was chilly outside.



The turtle costume was $2 at the Clarksville Picnic this summer, so we did baby's first Halloween for under $5.



We went to three houses. Each time we came to the door they said the same thing, "She's a frog!"

"No, she's a turtle," we said and turned around so they could see her shell.

"Ooooh."



It was more convincing when she crawled. And made growling noises at Peg and John's cat Shadow. In all fairness Shadow was probably asking for it.

Juiced!

And 112 hours later we have electricity at our house again. Robb will arrive there later this afternoon to assess the situation and deal with the horror that is our refrigerator. Bless him. Mo and I will join him in the morning. Once we've set thing in order and I've gone to work tomorrow and Saturday, we're off to OC for the week. Some vacay will do us good.

Portrait of the artist as a refugee

This week was E. Vent. Ful.

First, you heard about the earthquake, right? A 5.8 in Virginia last Tuesday. I was standing in the kitchen shaking my fist at what I thought was a convoy of construction trucks driving by our house because they have an uncanny way of knowing exactly when Maureen is napping. But then the noise changed and sounded like a very strong gust of wind except when I looked outside it wasn't windy. The grandfather clock started chiming loudly, the way it does when you walk past it too heavily. And the lantern hanging over the sink began to swing back and forth. My stomach went all queasy, and I realized we were having an earthquake. Mo slept through it. Robb was sitting at his desk on the boat, but it sloshed the water in the creek and shook the floating dock enough to bounce him around in his chair.

Second, NOAA sent Robb out of town Thursday to help with the hurricane response in Norfolk. Making new surveys of ports after natural disasters is part of his job description. He simply had not been called upon to respond in an emergency until now. Whoosh, off he went. That same day there was an aftershock of 4.5.

Third, without my usual childcare provider--Robb--I was unable to go to work on Friday and Saturday.

Fourth, I panicked about being home alone with a baby and a dog in a hurricane. So I packed up my show and went on the road to Mom's house where I would be safe from the long soggy arm of the storm. They were calling for 8 inches of rain at my house. Walking the dog in that nonsense is bad enough because Sukey refuses to relieve herself in inclement weather but begs to go out constantly, but trying to do it with Maureen in tow in a monsoon... I don't even want to figure that out. Mom has a fenced yard. Problem solved.

Fifth, Mo and I had a nice visit with Aunt Julie on Friday morning. Coastal Hospice ordered all of its patients to evacuate the Ocean City area well in advance of the storm. She and Uncle Rich came to stay at Paul's house. She looks astonishingly like a Brigham. That is to say she has my great-grandfather's thinness and sharp features and nearly has the height. Since I was little Julie always had more meat on her bones, and she resembled the Bealls more. But now she looks like Sissy except very tired. She was glad to see Maureen. And I was glad to see her glad.

Sixth, I fell on the stairs a Mom's house on Saturday afternoon. Mo was in my arms, and I missed the last step. I've walked up and down those stairs about five billions times in my life, so why would I now miscalculate the number of steps to the bottom? That information is a muscle memory. It's like knowing when to kneel, sit, and stand in a Catholic worship service. It's practically hardwired into my DNA. In the split second before my foot turned under and was crushed under the combined 200 pounds of us, I thought, That wasn't the last step, and then we tumbled down onto the tile. I managed to tuck the baby in like a little football. She was startled by the impact but not hurt. Thank goodness. We went to the emergency room, I had x-rays, and the doctor told me I broke my foot. A nurse splinted it and sent me home with crutches. The baby was an angel for the three hours we spent at the hospital. We all went home in the pouring rain.

Seventh, the hurricane cometh. No damage at Mom's house. And around 10pm we heard a large tree go over, but it was in the woods and didn't hurt anything. We lost phone, internet, and tv in one of the surges. Robb's parents in Howard County lost power, as did George and Chere near Baltimore. At our house at Fig Point a rain gutter came loose. But other nearby neighborhoods in Southern Maryland did not fare so well. Lots of trees fell on houses. A swath of Maryland from St. Mary's, Calvert, Anne Arundel, and Baltimore Counties is still in the dark. Including our house where electricity is not expected to be restored until Friday. Robb is sailing home tomorrow to take stock of the situation at the house. Mo and I and Sukey will remain here until we have electric again.

Eighth, I had a freezer full of pumped breast milk. A three week supply. It was my insurance policy against illness, injury, and intoxication. Gone. Justlikethat. I need to stop thinking about it now because I might start blubbering on Mom's laptop.

Ninth, I went to see an ortho on Monday. The ER doctor mis-read my x-rays. My foot is not broken. Halelujah! I have a sprain and a walking boot and no crutches!

Tenth, this week Maureen sprouted two front bottom teeth. One day nothing, the next day teeth were poking out. Crazy! She is so close to crawling it's not even funny. She gets up on all fours and rocks and kind of tosses her torso forward. And she discovered loud. She says, "huhhhHAAAAGHTH!!!!!!" It sounds like she might be gagging to death, but she looks terribly pleased with herself and amused while she's doing it and afterward. I made the sound loudly back at her, and she started to cry. Apparently when she does it it's hilarious, but when I do it it's terrifying. So now I mimic back quietly. The queen approves of this modification. When Robb called tonight I told him how she loves the barnyard sound effects that Gramma Lizzy adds to one of her bedtime stories.

Oh, and that Maureen said her first two words. Robb feels like he's missed all kinds of Mo-isms this week, so he asked breathlessly, "What were they???"

"Go 'Skins."

He paused, and in his best stop-teasing-me-voice replied, "They were not!"

Gloomidity

We're camped out here in perpetual twilight. There are beach towels and blankets slung over every window to combat solar gain. The lights are all off, and forget about running the clothes dryer or firing up the oven. As you can see I need to wash the dishes, but that would call for submerging my hands in warm water. Nope, not happening today.

If you haven't heard the East Coast is broiling these several days. Today is the worst of it. Temps are expected to top 100, and with the humidity factored in they will near 120. I'm off to work, though, where I expect we'll have busy night full of pets suffering the effects of the weather. Hopefully no tragedies. Wherever you are, stay cool. And bring your cats and dogs inside!

Separating wheat from chaff

I went a little crazy last week. Sorting the goodies from the baddies. Separating the wheat from the chaff. Except in my case I'm only interested in eating chaff. I read labels for wheat gluten and its many aliases. And checked expiration dates on packages. That led to some frightening discoveries. Mainly I need to clean out the pantry more often. Good rule of thumb: if you can't remember purchasing a particular food item, it's time to chuck it.





But it didn't stop with the pantry shakedown. I moved on to scrubbing the cabinet faces and the counters. And I while I was standing on a chair I noticed that the top of the curtains were dusty (moreso than I care to admit), so into the wash with them. Whoa, the windows look really huge with the curtains down. If we weren't renters I would have chucked those nasty old shades too. (They are all over the house, and our landlord is not interested in reimbursing us for miniblinds, so they will remain.) But check out our new canister set (Thanks, Aunt Bunny!). Red and white--that sends me to the moon! Also I would like to note that our drying rack that looks like a tiny lawn is ingenious and truly indispensable. It can hold a ridiculous amount of baby feeding gear and breast pump accessories. I highly recommend it.







Now it's all about modifying recipes like the burgers above. I crunched up Kix cereal to use as breadcrumbs, and it worked just fine. Yes, I could purchase gluten free breadcrumbs at the store, but that's kind of ridiculous. Printing the words "gluten free" on a package sets a tricky equation into motion:

"gluten free" + food = normal price x 2 

There are enough foods available that do not contain wheat gluten and do not need to be labeled as such, mainly found around the periphery of the grocery store. You know, all that unprocessed stuff. Eggs, butter, milk, veggies, fruit, meat. So there will be a whole lot more cooking from scratch around here. Especially bread. I need to start experimenting with gf bread recipes and soon because this pseudo-Adkins thing I've been doing has got to go. This past week I even got Robb to try (and like) paella. It's a brave new world here at Fig Point!

Yesterday morning...

...we woke up to two inches, and it was still snowing hard. This was our view out the front door. By the time I walked Sukey at 4pm, all the snow was gone. Hopefully that's the last of winter we'll be seeing for a while.