Odds and Ends

Every time I actually get a chance to sit down and post, I feel so fulfilled. And I check my friends’ blogs daily for updates. Yet, for some reason, I have a hard time just taking the simple step of logging in and beginning. Much like a child and a bath; don’t want to get in, don’t want to get out. So I am going to make more of an effort to just simply sit down and type, remembering that I don’t have to have a specific topic in mind, and that I don’t have to write volumes.

Today I am thankful for my sweet husband. As it gets harder and harder for me to do every day tasks as my belly grows daily, I appreciate simple little things even more. Today, Mark sent me an email asking what I wanted for dinner, and that he’d have it ready for when I get home since he’s leaving soon after to go skiing with some friends. The end of the day is hard for me, especially on Friday, especially after a week of Carter not sleeping well. Dinner’s the last thing I want to tackle. Somehow, though, Mark has the energy to work a full week, pick up and entertain Carter, make dinner, and then go skiing under the full moon.

This is why we complement each other well. We each seem to reach our limit at different times and are able to be the support and strength for the other. This past Monday, as I was feeling overwhelmed by bills and being pregnant and taxes and all the other minutiae of adulthood, Mark took the initiative to clean up the house. I hope that Mark is able to feel like I step up and support him on occasion as well.

Although somewhat of a mixed blessing, Mark and I have had one thing taken off our very full plate. After having a realtor do a market analysis of our house, we’ve decided not to move this spring. We would lose too much money and would not be able to afford a house we want in the mountains. Although both of us were looking forward to living in a place that suits us better and were very disappointed about how little our house is worth right now, it does mean that we won’t be in the process of moving with a newborn. We can focus on the other changes going on in our lives, not a short list right now.

Gaining Control

Mark came home Friday with the announcement that the science courses at the high school will be changing district-wide. Notably, the course he is responsible for teaching will be now offered in the middle school, and his course will be replaced by something resembling environmental science. Mark has never loved the school he's been at, but he's endured because he has really liked what he's taught. Now he doesn't have that holding him. Meanwhile, as I've mentioned before, my position is in peril due to funding, so my future looks very unclear now. I'm guaranteed a job, but not the one I have.

Considering we've already begun to get our house ready to put on the market, in some ways it seems like the stars are aligning for us to make a big change. We've always talked about moving to a small mountain town, but it's never been the right time. Is this finally it? The housing market certainly isn't in our favor, and I still don't know definitively about my position, and, oh yeah, we're having a baby in three months, so not everything is pointing us in one direction.

In times like these, I don't find myself totally stressed out, but I do feel a heightened sense of responsibility to be doing research and thinking about such big decisions. There are so many things out of my control, like whether we'll be able to sell our house, what my job will look like next year, and when the baby's coming (although we do know somewhere near May 7), that I tend to want to do whatever I can to feel like I have some sort of control over something.

Before we're anywhere near the process of looking for new jobs or narrowing the areas we'd be interested in moving to, I have begun researching teaching salaries and housing prices all over the state. I eagerly grasp at whatever I can that bears a slight resemblance to being able to control my future, even though it has no bearing on the actual outcome. Some people put off all the research fact-finding until things are definite and they have a clear direction they are heading. I do the opposite. Research in all directions so that whatever happens, I will hopefully have a little background knowledge. This trait has really been brought out in me the past few months.

Life feels very uncertain right now, but not in a scary way, not today. Ask me again when the baby's due in a week and I'm interviewing for jobs all over the state, and I might have a bit of a different attitude. But for now, I'm coping the best I know how and attempting to take things day by day. When Mark and I are in the right frame of mind, we're pretty good at looking at changes such as these as an opportunity. I do my best to hold onto that perspective.

Home improvements

My last post was about how it feels like I have so little time. Apparently, I didn't have time to finish it. But I have this week off, and my parents have been here to help with a home improvement project in preparation for selling our house. We have removed all the peeling wallpaper from our basement, painted, and put up baseboard. It looks so much better and updated.

Mark thinks that we should have put up wood paneling instead. It's hard when your house slowly begins to not feel like your own, and that you're working on it for someone else, rather than for yourself. Although wood paneling would have been fine for us, it doesn't seem as sellable as a room painted, "sellable white".

Soon we will also be putting in a new kitchen floor, pergo most likely, something I definitely wouldn't pick if we were staying, but the cheapest way to replace our deteriorating parquet. Especially with the way the housing market is, it seems like we have to have our house in tip-top shape just to be considered in this highly competitive, over-saturated market. We can only hope things improve by spring.

Even trying to play the odds, though, it's impossible to know what the buyer will want. My parents recently sold their house, and one of the biggest selling points of their house, they thought, were the woods that lined the backyard. Apparently the new owners have cut down most of the forest so that the yard is now a stump graveyard. Who would think you wouldn't want some trees for privacy, shade, and lushness?

Who knows, maybe we'll get a buyer who will put up the same wallpaper we just put down and wish our kitchen floor was linoleum. I guess you can only shoot for the middle and hope to please most of the people who view our house.

I'm looking forward to when we own a house that we plan on staying in for awhile and can make our own. We could put down plaid carpet and paint the walls pink if we wanted to, and won't be worrying about its resale value any time soon. But, until then, we'll be playing the guessing game of improving our house in ways that others will hopefully like, without much consideration of our needs and tastes.

catching up

As many of you may have noticed, I have not written in awhile, and it's not for lack of things to talk about. It's more that life is so busy I have not had time to record and reflect. The biggest news, which many of you already know, is that I'm pregnant. Yep, due May 7. Perfect timing, too, because I'll have six weeks of maternity leave and then 7-8 weeks of summer before having to go back to work in August. What can I say? Mark and I are pretty good at timing. Anyway, so I've had quite the dose of morning sickness that, as soon as I begin to think is tapering off, returns full force. I'm also so tired that I have a hard time making it to 9:00 before going to bed. Between a husband, dog, 2-year-old son, a baby on the way, and a full-time job, I'm sure you can imagine what state our house is in.

But we've been having fun, too. Last week for fall break Mark's family came out and we drove to Moab, Utah and met up with my family. We saw some beautiful sights in Arches National Park, did some hiking, and some of us got to go canyoneering. It was also a great time for both sets of parents to be together since that hadn't happened since our wedding. Mark and I even had a night to ourselves because Carter had a sleepover with my parents. It was a treat.

In my free time I'm trying to get in as much climbing as I can because I know the time is rapidly approaching when I'll have to take a break from the sport for a few months. There have also been trips to the park since we've been having such beautiful fall weather, and lots of backyard playtime.

We're beginning to think about getting our house ready to sell in the spring since the bedroom layout isn't great for two kids. We're planning on taking off the wallpaper in the entire downstairs and then repainting, and also replacing the kitchen floor. We'll see how that looks and then go from there. Mark has some other grandiose plans, but I'd rather leave the house just presentable and do improvements on the next house. We're hoping to move up the hill somewhere near where we used to live, if you're familiar with our cabins. We want to still be commuting distance from my job because I really love what I do, and it's the only position of it's kind I know of.

I think that's a quick synopsis of what's going on here, and when I can, I'll write. Maybe I'll begin to have more energy second trimester and I won't feel like I'm living for bedtime. Hopefully, I won't go as long without writing, though, because I really do miss it for my own personal reflection and musing. Don't give up on me yet.

The Roller Coaster

For the past week, Mark and I have been riding the house-hunting roller coaster. Sunday morning we innocently decided to take Winston and Carter for a walk in the woods near where we used to live. It's an area we love and would love to move back to, but there's never anything for sale, much less in our price range. Well, we just happened to drive by a great house right on the creek that was for sale. Even though we thought it would be way out of our price range, we thought we'd just call to see. Our former realtor answered and even recognized us. The house was much lower priced than we thought, so we set up a showing for that afternoon. And we fell in love with the place. It seemed so serendipitous that it was meant to be.

And that's when we boarded the roller coaster. We began talking about making an offer, then found out someone already had and were in the process of going under contract. Then the contract fell through but we found out about foundation problems. During all of this, Mark and I are trying to learn about how to sell our house while under contract with another house. An "offer with a contingency" entered our vocabulary. We learned about bridge loans and first right of refusal. We had a comparative analysis done to estimate what we could get for our house and became fluent in using the mortgage calculator. We crunched numbers and tried to figure out what our income would be when I start my new job. And we worked on scheduling showings at other comparably priced properties in the area. Did I mention this was all done over three days? With full-time jobs and a toddler? Oh, and WInston got sprayed by a skunk on Wednesday.

So, after all that, we finally decided it was too much of a risk too far out of our price range with too little information. After feeling like the house was slipping through our fingers as other people were preparing to make offers, we finally let it go. It was sad to feel like we were giving up an opportunity that wouldn't come along again, but a bit of a relief to not wonder whether we were rushing in too fast without all the facts.

But of course, now that we've started the process, it's hard to stop. I already have another house I want to look at and have begun thinking about what we need to do our house to get it ready to show. But I think we'd both like to wait until we know what my salary will be (kind of an important unknown) and know we'll be in town for awhile (we're out of town for what feels like most of June). We'll see. I think we've stepped off the roller coaster for now, but we're already in line to ride it again soon.