Pertinent to my Interests

I feel very busy lately, even though I’m not. It just feels like I have a lot of major projects up in the air, and a lot of upcoming chaos.

There’s old house stuff: make handyman list, hire handyman, schedule floor refinishing, schedule carpet cleaning. I’ve been researching the history of this house for years, and the time has come to put it all together into a book that we can pass to the next owner. Finishing the research has taken a good amount of my time lately, as has writing the rough draft. I’ve also been purging like crazy, making a trip to Goodwill every other week it seems.

There’s new house stuff: figure out what sort of work we want done before we move in, interview contractors, hire contractors, hire movers, figure out new furniture purchases. New furniture! I am so excited to finally have a desk! My kids will also have desks! There’s been an ongoing flurry of small appointments and communications with the realtor and the sellers and the title company, even though we’re still multiple months out from closing.

There’s our Japan trip coming up. Did you know that the new Nintendo Museum in Kyoto is running ticket purchases on a lottery system, and that the lottery happens three months in advance of the dates you need? Yeah, I didn’t either. Oops. But the itinerary is pretty solid now, and I think I’ve even got a handle on how to use the shinkansen. I am studying Japanese on Duolingo. I booked a house sitter. Next up: packing lists, I guess?

Oh, and did you remember that we have a cabin? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, me either. Last fall, on the last day before the dock came out, we discussed our cabin plans for the next summer and agreed on just two small improvement tasks to complete this spring. Those are both in progress as of the end of March, so now we just have to deal with the usual summer opening tasks: cleaning up the last of the leaves, launching the jet ski, dragging all the kayaks and paddleboards out of the garage and back down to the shore, the endless de-mucking of our swimming area. Oh, and I guess we should find time to enjoy the cabin this summer too, somehow.

It’s going to be a crazy summer. We close on the new house in mid-June and leave for Japan just a few days after that. We get back right before the Fourth of July, turn around and my youngest has his first sleepaway camp. Somewhere near the end of July or early August we will move, and hopefully swiftly put our current house on the market after that. And somehow we have to remember to make it to the cabin at least a couple times in there and make that mortgage worth it?! Oh, and then I go back to work mid-August.

Anyway, I am truly not THAT busy. I only work half-time. Yardwork season hasn’t started yet. I am literally the only person in the house who cares if the house is clean so I have just stopped cleaning. And I am very excited about the Japan trip, the new house, and standing in the lake at the cabin with a beer in my hand at least once this summer. So it’s all good.

I just have to keep all these balls in the air for a while.

I drove us all back from the cabin this weekend, which means I got to work my way through the entire Kacey Musgraves Essentials playlist on Apple Music. And now you get this endlessly compelling blog post.

1. Dime Store Cowgirl
   This is–in my mind–absolute Peak Kacey. It’s got all the country music twang I could ever want, and is a perfect snapshot of an up-and-coming musician making her way around the country (and then the world!). Extra points for both the Willie Nelson and Gram Parsons references.
   Favorite lines: Slept in a room with the ghost of Gram Parsons; drank some wine I can’t afford.
2. Oh, What a World
   Did I drunk-cry when she performed this song at that one concert I went to? Yes, I did. However, I could do without the weird production on the recording, and am still waiting for the acoustic version release.
   Favorite lines: Did I know you once in another life? Are we here just once or a billion times?
3. The Architect
   The philosophical younger sister of the song above, I just love the idea of God being surprised and delighted (or possibly disappointed) by his creations.
   Favorite lines: There’s a canyon that cuts through the desert, did it get there because of a flood? Was it devised, or were you surprised when you saw how grand it was?
4. Rainbow
   Fun fact: I also play this one on piano.
   Favorite lines: If you could see what I see, you’d be blinded by the colors.
5. Pageant Material
   More great country twang here, along with the musings of someone who has taken a step back from their natal culture and can identify the ridiculous parts. All cultures have ridiculous parts, and being able to identify
   Favorite lines: I’m always higher than my hair, and it ain’t that I don’t care about world peace, but I don’t see how I can fix it in a swimsuit on a stage.
6. My House
   Can harmonica music be defined as adorable? Because the harmonica lines here are adorable. Extra points for the Washington State reference.
   Favorite lines: Any KOA is a-okay as long as I’m with you.
7. Biscuits
   Are we seeing a pattern in my appreciation of country twang? This song is ridiculous, but has a great message.
   Favorite lines: Pissin’ in my yard ain’t gonna make yours any greener.
8. Space Cowboy
   It is admittedly strange that this one makes my top ten list. I mean the title alone is delightfully weird so that helps. She just has so many great lines in this one and great visuals. I always picture her throwing open the back end of a horse trailer and letting a flannel-clad cowboy drive his Chevy Silverado back out into a dating pool of horses.
   Favorite lines: You can have your space, cowboy, I ain’t gonna fence you in.
9. simple times
   I know, this is the only one from her star-crossed album to make it onto my top ten list. I certainly can’t relate to all the bits about hanging out at the mall with her friends, but I can definitely relate to the desire to pause this video game called adulthood for half a day.
   Favorite line: Wish that I could put this game on pause, skip this round, take the headset off.
10. I Remember Everything (Zach Bryan feat. Kacey Musgraves)
    I can’t personally relate to this topic; however, this song is the closest I’ve gotten to understanding what it must be like to go through a breakup with your first love. They reference their former intimacy, the man’s ongoing drinking problem, the woman’s childhood trauma, and then end by saying they wish they didn’t remember everything but they do. Also there are violins in the background and nothing makes me love a song more than adding some damn strings.
    Favorite lines: Blame it on the beach, grown men don’t cry.

I would be very curious to know what everyone else’s favorite Kacey Musgraves songs are!

I don’t usually like to put negativity out into the world, but there’s some shit I need to unload on the rest of you.

Do you have a local Buy Nothing group on Facebook? We do. I have used it frequently to rid my house of items that have outlived their useful life with us. It’s really nice to know that our old stuff can be used by another family.

But wow Buy Nothing has so many annoying rules that make me not want to use it anymore.

Here is one that really pisses me off. If someone asks the Buy Nothing group for a certain item, we are not allowed to comment telling them where they could purchase that item.

Okay, fine, I guess I get it. This is a group for reducing consumption, not encouraging it.

We are not allowed to do curb alerts. You know when you’re cleaning out the basement playroom and you’ve got like fifteen medium-sized toys you want to get rid of? You cannot just put them outside and post in the Buy Nothing group that you’ve got these items available and people can just come and get them. Why? Because this does not build community. No, instead you must upload a photo for each item, and then coordinate pickup with fifteen different people to get those toys gone.

Oh! And don’t go thinking you can just post those photos and immediately assign them to the first commenter. No! We are supposed to let things “simmer” for at least 24 hours. As the justification goes: not everyone is on Facebook constantly and everyone should get a chance to “win” these items. Best practice is to let it wait for twenty-four hours before choosing a recipient.

Once you get through all those hurdles, you have to coordinate pickup and that is the worst. People who were extremely motivated to inherit a used litter box (why?!) on Sunday morning can barely be bothered to respond to messages by Sunday night, and will no show multiple days in a row.

All this is to say, I had one of my most successful Buy Nothing purges earlier this week. I put four items up on Monday afternoon, and about 28 hours later every single item had been picked up with the absolute minimum of communication. It was awesome. I want to give gold stars to all those recipients.

How did I have such great success, you ask? Well… I broke one of the rules. I did not let stuff simmer for twenty-four hours and that seems to have really made a difference. I picked recipients pretty quickly, kept the momentum going, and wow that works so much better.

But I would also like to be clear: most of the stuff I’m getting rid of is going to Goodwill. It’s the stuff that Goodwill won’t take (a ripped tent, wall-climbing handholds) that I’m going to be putting on Buy Nothing for the next six months.

I realize this is a very niche post and most of you (the three people I know who read this regularly) will not make it to the end of this post. But I kind of hope that there will be other people out there who google “why is Buy Nothing so annoying and the worst” and end up here at my blog post somehow and feel seen.

I’m sorry to have left everyone on a cliffhanger. The sellers ended up decided not to conduct the “interviews” with the potential buyers, and we were surprised on a Friday afternoon with the news that our offer had been accepted.

We are so excited. The kids are going to have their own rooms! I’m going to have space in the basement for a treadmill! We don’t have to leave our neighborhood and can still walk back and forth to our favorite businesses and the elementary school!

The house is not perfect. There is no mudroom. The garage is definitely a downgrade from our current garage. My husband spends a lot of time fretting about the garage situation. I spend a lot of time thinking about all the stuff I’m going to get rid of before we move. And how we will actually have space for me to start buying books for myself again! And I will no longer share a bathroom with my children!

Now that this is real and happening I’ve started the final push on my house history project. I’ve been researching the history of our current house off and on for at least a decade, and I am very close to completing it. Of course, the research is the easy part–it’s the synthesizing and summarizing and writing that will be the hardest! But I am determined to create something to leave for the next owners.

So… between planning our upcoming Japan trip, purging and prepping for our big move, and completing this history project, I am feeling especially busy this spring. 2025 is going to be a big, busy year for our family.

We had a small blizzard come through overnight last night and I woke up to the news that school had been cancelled; students were instructed to log on for an e-learning day.

“Bye!” I shouted up the stairs to my husband as I left for work an hour later. “Have fun figuring out everyone’s Google Meet codes! Have fun with all the unsolvable tech issues that are sure to stymie all educational progress! And don’t forget: work-from-home is a fucking trap for parents!”

And then I gleefully made my way to a building where there were no children.

I love going in on no school days. Today there were just five of us in the building. We listened to Lady Gaga and then early 2000s hip hop while we worked. The halls and the walkie-talkies were silent. Nobody came in asking us for a band-aid or snow pants.

I do realize it’s ironic that in order to escape my stay-at-home mom lifestyle I took a job at a school full of small children. But I like that it’s a busy, slightly chaotic environment, my co-workers are the best people, and you definitely can’t beat the schedule.

And you definitely can’t beat the snow day. By the time I made it home my kids were already 90% done with their school day. And I avoided confronting my trauma around distance learning.

I did not realize what a luxury it was to be responsible for only my own healthcare and maintenance in my twenties.

I took it for granted back then. I had no idea what it was going to be like to be responsible for the healthcare and maintenance of two other whole human beings.

I try to get all of the annual stuff for the kids done in January. Every year. And every year I fail. I have to reschedule due to illness. Or the doctor doesn’t work on the days that we are available so then I have to slip an appointment in on a no school day.

It’s fine. It’s nearing the end of February and I still have an outstanding optometrist appointment for one kid. But it’s fine.

And then there is the dentist twice a year.

And the covid and flu shots every fall, which always feels like a massive undertaking.

And by the time the kids are out of the house and making their own optometry appointments I’ll be old and falling apart and will spend all my time either at the doctor’s office or waiting in line at the pharmacy. And nothing makes a person want to die more than waiting in line at the pharmacy.

I wish I had better enjoyed the freedom of being a healthy twenty-something back when I could.

Older people: what should I not be taking for granted right now in my forties?

I could live here. This could be home.

I should start at the beginning.

We signed with a realtor last fall. She is experienced, savvy, super familiar with our neighborhood, and utterly fabulous. But… we signed with her in November. It’s not exactly a busy season for real estate. Thus, we waited.

And waited.

But things were moving behind the scenes. First, rumors in her office of a house which checked all our boxes and was in our preferred location. Information flowed little by little. We got the address confirmed, the bed and bath count confirmed, and the house slowly moved toward the market. We were ready, but still several months away from getting inside–still keeping an eye on the listings.

“Would you like to see that house this week?” our realtor texted us. The sellers had decided not to go to market; instead they wanted a small group of potential buyers to be shown the property. Just a few realtors, a few families. No drama.

I responded to our realtor’s text with a string of exclamation marks. And two days later we were standing on the doorstep of this mysterious house.

Our realtor had warned us that the interior was dated. I was expecting loud wallpaper, scuffed beige linoleum, and multiple colors of carpet. Instead, I found spectacular wallpaper, only two colors of carpet, and a strange lack of linoleum.

I could live here. This could be home.

There was not a single thing I didn’t like about the house. Could there be a little more closet space on the second floor? Sure. Could the garage be a little bigger? Absolutely. The master bedroom is too big (I dislike giant master bedrooms), and there isn’t a good entryway with room for shoes but…

“It’s perfect!” I said as I practically ran through the house doing laps around the realtor and my husband who were both doing responsible things like examining the electrical panel and the boiler. “And spoiler alert: I’m gonna want to put in an offer.”

We put in an offer. We knew they already had another offer on the table so we made ours a really good one. Super good. I was feeling both anxious and confident. Then our realtor called a couple hours later.

“So… kind of a weird update,” she started. It turns out the sellers had decided that it wasn’t about the money, it was about the people.
“They want to meet you and the other potential buyers when they’re in town next week. Get to know you. And then they’ll make their decision.”

My response was basically another string of exclamation marks. We have to go through an interview process?! For this house?! This is like the worst possible scenario for an awkward introvert like me. We can’t just throw money at this problem, we have to throw charm. And I am only good for like twenty minutes of charm in any given day.

But I understand. They’ve been in this house for almost forty years, they’ve maintained it with great care, and they clearly love it. They want to make sure they are passing it on to good stewards who won’t let the roof deteriorate and will take good care of the vintage pink tile in the bathroom.

I get it. I will feel the same way about our house when we go to sell it. When we bought this place the yard was all hostas and weeds, and whenever it rained water would come into the house in seven different places. The basement carpet had been destroyed by a dog, the baseboard radiator covers were held together with duct tape, and the exterior trim was rotting away in all four corners.

We’ve taken good care of this place, for the most part, slowly bringing it back to life over the years. Yes, there are almost always toothpaste blobs in the bathroom sink and Pez under the dining room radiators, but overall we will leave this place in better shape than we found it.

So I get it. I am very nervous for our “interview” this weekend, but I get it. I just hope we can convey our love and respect for the home they’ve built together, and they will recognize that same love and respect in our family.

Now that we’ve told our favorite neighbors that we’re probably moving I can blog about our search for a new home.

It is difficult and I am very emotional about it all.

The last time we searched for real estate I was emotional too, but that’s largely because I was very pregnant for most of our home search. I remember going to a series of open houses the month before our son was born. I had to pee at all three open houses and it was terrible. After the baby arrived, we toted him along in the little baby bucket seat, which he hated. Sometimes he just screamed the entire time, even if I held him.

We looked at so many houses. We put in an offer on one and did not get it. Mostly we just saw house after house and shrugged our shoulders. Nothing struck us.

My husband came to the open house for our current home by himself. I had given up on real estate and refused to leave the apartment that afternoon, but he came back and said I really should see this one. We packed up the baby and I grudgingly let him drive us across the river to see this house.

I walked in and immediately felt that I could live here and that this could be home. The kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, every room and every floor.

I could live here. This could be home.

We moved in three months later and have been here ever since.

This time around the search for a new home feels harder in a lot of ways. Harder because we don’t actually want to leave this house. Harder because we won’t want to leave our neighbors. Harder because we’ve put a lot of money and work into this house and it feels like we’ve only recently got it the way we want it.

Harder because I thought we would never move. When I pictured myself trying to leave this place I would see the ending of The Haunting of Hill House play out in my head (the novel, not the movie or television series). Yes, this place is small, but it’s a good way to keep us from acquiring too much stuff. Yes, we need more space, but it’s nice to have forced family togetherness.

But the whole time that I was clinging to the walls of this house, things were changing.

The pandemic happened and work-from-home became a thing. Now my husband is able to work all day and still be home for dinner (life-changing!). That third room upstairs which was supposed to become our youngest son’s bedroom was pressed into duty as an office.

Our kids have shared a room for nearly a decade now–a room so small there is not even a foot of space between the two beds. They share the single dresser (two drawers each) and split the drawers under one of the beds (one drawer each) and the tiny closet. Their modest bookshelf creaks with exhaustion having been overloaded with Dog Man and Captain Underpants for years. New books do not fit; they are piled on top. There is no room for a laundry hamper.

Our favorite neighbors–the ones who have been a third set of grandparents for my kids for the past twelve years–admitted that they were thinking of moving to be closer to their actual grandchildren. I realized, I think for the first time, that they would not always be here.

I purged and organized and purged and organized this little house full of stuff. I got rid of so many of my beloved books because we had no space for them. I got rid of toys the same moment my kids outgrew them. I got rid of half of my clothes every year, culled small appliances, and donated piles of blankets and quilts that we simply could not store. I stopped to survey my years of work and realized that there was nothing left to get rid of. We simply cannot fit.

“It’s only six years,” I would tell myself. “Only six years until the first child goes to college, and the second not long after that. And then we’ll have more space than we need!” Except when they come home for holidays. Which I hope they do, maybe even with a girlfriend or boyfriend in tow. I hope they move back in for a little bit while they start their adult careers. Or what if the kids are moving back in just as our own parents are no longer able to live independently? Then what?

I have a friend who works in a hospital. Her job is to help people who can’t go home and live alone anymore figure out what to do. Sometimes that means a temporary rehab facility. Sometimes it means permanent residence in a nursing home. She sees so many elderly adults who should have gone into assisted living years ago but refuse to leave their homes.

“The worst mistake you can make as you age,” she always says, “is being too attached to your living situation.”

We have to move. I wish I had realized it sooner.

So we have a realtor and we are actively looking. We are so picky. We are no longer constrained by money (mostly), but we are constrained by geography. I refuse to make our kids change schools, and that limits us significantly. We both prefer older houses with creaky floors and lots of character. We don’t want to lose too much walkability. But we also don’t want to do any major renovations!

And, if all goes according to plan this will be our very last home purchase ever. The next move will be to assisted living, and that’s a lot of pressure! If it’s our last house, don’t we want it to be grand and nearly perfect?

Well, nothing is perfect. This house wasn’t perfect but we’ve been very happy, safe, and comfortable here. I just need to walk into a place and I’ll know.

I could live here. This could be home.

It’s that time of year when I rewatch Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl Halftime Show multiple times per day.

It is so fucking good. I love it. In the future I will force the robot health aides at my nursing home to watch this with me.

After watching the full performance with my youngest I had a hankering to watch Gaga’s old Bad Romance music video. I pulled it up on YouTube, hit play, and was immediately taken aback by the low video quality!

“Wow,” I commented to my kid. “I forgot how old this is! I forgot how poor video quality was in the 2000s!”

As a history-lover, I am finding it very exciting to be getting older. I was alive when this music video came out! I remember when Lady Gaga wore that meat dress to some awards show and people were super offended and lost their minds! If you gave me a list of her albums, I could pretty easily put them in order of release date because I was there and I vaguely remember it.

I had this happen recently when I was watching a documentary about the Bush family. I was taking in all this new information, watching these elections unfold in the 1970s and 1980s with the same interest I have in any historical moments that I wasn’t there for. And then we got to the 1992 presidential election.

I remember that election! It’s the first one I remember! I made a construction paper sign for Bill Clinton! I remember being confused about how Dan Quayle had the same name as the ridiculous little birds that ran around in our alley!

I was there and I remember it!

What a fantastic advantage to have actually lived through something! What a gift! I love that moments from my childhood are far enough in the past now that we’re making documentaries about them! In just thirty years I will be the equivalent of the old guys on History Channel with their USS Endicott hats who slowly relay their personal anecdotes from “dubya dubya two.”

Of course, I don’t have any good war stories. I didn’t have a front row seat for any major historical event. I can’t think of a single documentary topic that might lead to me being interviewed, now or anytime in the future.

My kids at least have one thing. They were five years old and seven years old respectively when the covid-19 pandemic hit. They were old enough to have vague memories of those years, but young enough that they will be some of the last people alive who remember that pandemic. I am hopeful that the AI documentarians of the future will deem them worthy of interviews!

And I will continue along just being delighted every time someone makes a new documentary about a major event in the 1990s, and then the 2000s and then the 2010s. I am going to be insufferable around the time I hit seventy, just wanting to talk about my inconsequential perspective on some random event from 2012.

My oldest brought home some strange homework the other day. He was instructed to list his three favorite words.

“Three favorite words?” I asked. “That’s a weird one.”

I do have favorite numbers, and I feel very strongly about numbers. Prime numbers are the best numbers, and eleven is the best of the best. Even numbers are the worst. It was a real struggle last year when I was 40 years old and the year was 2024 and everything was divisible by everything and I hated it. But now I’m 41 (prime!) and it’s the year 2025 (not prime, but an acceptable odd number) so things are better.

Anyway. Words. Do I have favorite words? I thought it over, and a few came to mind.

Asinine
Redundant
Entropy

I think those might be my favorite words, but I’m little disturbed by what that says about me. And why do I like them? Because of how they look? Because of how they sound? Because of their definitions?

I feel like as a mother I’m supposed to say “my favorite word is please and my other favorite word is kindness” but that is just stupid.