country roads, take me home, to the place i belong...

I just read my last post for the first time in many weeks.  I was a bit amazed by what I read.

"But...I dream of space...and trees...and peace...and quiet...and stars...and maybe chickens...goats...barefoot girls running across a big open yard and around trees and squealing with delight...growing our own vegetables...fruit trees...blueberries... blackberries...scuppernongs...all those little trees and plants that Brandon has dug up on walks and transplanted and nurtured finally finding a permanent home...a quirky old house that doesn't have to be so perfect...room to roam and explore...room to be messy...room to create...somewhere I can plant herbs in an old sink and no one will complain...somewhere to reconnect and escape.

And Brandon would say, within a good school system and near a good grocery store. ;)"

We closed on the sale of 1928 Bungalow at the end of June.  In mid-June, my mother-in-law went back to the neighborhood where my husband grew up.  She stayed with her former next door neighbor and spent days visiting old friends.  In doing so, she discovered that the house across the street was coming up for rent in the next thirty days or so...and it was in our price range...and it was on two acres of land...and it was in a fabulous school district...and the homeowner has a HUGE garden between his house and the rental house...and that the owners were old friends of the family.

Tonight my children sleep in a large bedroom painted pink and purple, with room to spread out their toys and play.  Tonight we sleep with windows open to the sound of crickets. Tomorrow morning I will possibly see the family of deer that live in the neighborhood and visit us almost daily, including two fawns that have almost no fear of us.  Tomorrow I will drink my tea on the front porch which is just a few feet short of the width of our entire lot at 1928 Bungalow.  Tomorrow my children will run in the grass in this huge yard and look for the turtle that lives here as well.  Tomorrow we will take a walk down a quiet road where they can run in the middle of the street as we walk.  

The house is not old and it is not new but it is comfortable and it feels like home.  It is like returning home even though I've never lived here; everyone here watched my husband grow up and it is an amazing support network already built into place before I ever even knew it existed.  My children get to have my childhood, and his, and their own.  It feels safe.  It feels good.

As I sat and watched the girls play in the backyard the other day, I noticed how familiar the patio table placement seemed.  It's at the back corner of the house, under some trees.  It's not exactly like my dream but it's uncannily similar.

And the grocery stores?  Ten minutes away in one direction we have a choice of three situated across the street from each other.  And one more within ten minutes in the other direction.  And in between?  Pasture and fields...cows and horses, goats and donkeys...stars and open sky.

still waiting and dreaming

I don't have a lot to write about today but I want to throw some happy energy this way, and the last post was a bit of a downer, to say the least. 

I would like to say that I am quite amazed that we have kept a gingko tree alive in a pot for TWO YEARS, waiting for our next home and a permanent spot for it.  (See post farther down with pic.)  I was so afraid we had killed it by leaving it out too long last fall, but it came back more beautiful than ever this spring.  I'll have to post a pic of it soon.  And tomorrow I hope to borrow a few leaves from it to print for notecards.

We are still waiting on bank approval for our new buyer.  We had approval on the old buyer but when he fell through, it seems we basically had to start the process over.  UGH.  Fingers crossed that something will be happening very soon on this front.

Meanwhile, we're biding our time in the rental, which has spoiled us in many ways.  Both homes have, really.  I know our next home probably won't have a granite and stainless kitchen, and that's okay.  I will miss the large (by our standards) and private master bathroom we have now and our big closet (again, by our old house standards!).  But...I dream of space...and trees...and peace...and quiet...and stars...and maybe chickens...goats...barefoot girls running across a big open yard and around trees and squealing with delight...growing our own vegetables...fruit trees...blueberries... blackberries...scuppernongs...all those little trees and plants that Brandon has dug up on walks and transplanted and nurtured finally finding a permanent home...a quirky old house that doesn't have to be so perfect...room to roam and explore...room to be messy...room to create...somewhere I can plant herbs in an old sink and no one will complain...somewhere to reconnect and escape.

And Brandon would say, within a good school system and near a good grocery store. ;)

I worry that what I want doesn't exist anymore.  That there is no safe place any longer.  That crime and illness and pollution and worry and fear have creeped in everywhere and that it's no longer possible for my childhood or his to exist anymore.  I want that sense of exploration and wonder for the girls.  I grew up on a semi-rural acre of land, but roamed the creeks and woods and pine trees and hayfields (much to my mother's worry and/or without her knowledge).  Brandon grew up in a more rural area.  We both had to go "into town" for groceries...or anything else, I think.  I wonder if what we want (even if it's not always exactly the same thing) exists here or if we should look elsewhere...or if it matters where we look.  I remember one of our first conversations after we met being about how many generations of our families had been in Georgia, and how it just felt like home...how when I drove back to middle Georgia the feel of the land itself called out to me.  The thought of picking up and moving somewhere we have no relationship with seems very strange to me, although I'm sure people do it all the time.

For years I was content to live an urban life and go home on weekends.  Becoming a family changes your perspective, especially when your family size doubles all at once.  No school seems good enough, no neighborhood safe enough, no yard big enough.  I've become too picky and it has immobilized me.  I've thought too much.  How to let it go?  I have no idea.

Friends post photos that make me jealous...not of their homes, but of their sunsets, their sunrises, their trees, their trails and paths and rocks, their chickens and pigs and turkeys and bunnies and dogs, their snow covered mountains, their lakes, their children grinning and holding a duck.  I think that must be an odd thing to envy, but maybe not.  My sister takes a walk every day equal to my two block circle--and she only goes to her mailbox. 

Is there a term for cabin fever when it's actually marked by the boundaries of your yard? 

I had a dream several months ago of a house.  Not even a dream, really, just a brief moment of a dream right before waking.  I was walking around the corner of a white wooden single story home, maybe 1940s or so, simple.  I round the corner and come to a patio table and chairs, under a tree which is at the front corner of the house.  The table and chairs are on pebbles not grass, and the driveway--gravel and rock--loops around the front of the house.  I was carrying a tray of food, it was early summer, and it was perfect.  I woke up thinking, that's home.  Wherever it is, whenever we find it, and it's not anything like the house I thought I wanted.  But it's imperfectly perfect and it gave me pause, and hope.  I have no idea where our home is, or when we find it, but I have the feeling we'll find it even without looking.  (This is nothing like my usual organized, super-planning self.)

This is possibly the most rambly post I've ever made.  Thanks for sticking with me and listening. 

*This post is sort of a personal response to a home I found on Craigslist tonight.  I clicked the link and froze--THAT is OUR house, I thought.  I unplugged the ancient laptop and hauled it to Brandon, plugged it in, practically jumping up and down.  LOOK! I said.  LOOK AT THIS HOUSE.  Where is it, he asks?  Oh, he says...I'm not sure I want to live that far out.  And he rolls over to go back to sleep, obviously unaware that THIS. IS. IT.  So...maybe it's not it.  It's a dream, for sure.  But it's hope.  And that, for now, is enough.

a different sort of post

This is sort of a departure from the kind of posts I usually write here...but it was too long for a Facebook post, and the timing (Valentine's Day!) was sort of off.  So, I share it here so I can get it out of my head and go find the strength to deny my children mint chocolate chips for breakfast.

It's Valentine's Day, but I woke up (at 6am when the dog came to see if we were awake--ha! we are now!) thinking about grief and internet sharing (and over-sharing) and how people react to grief as well as how people react to grieving people. Grief used to be a pretty private thing, witnessed only by those close to you, but now it can be shared with dozens, hundreds, thousands of people--not only instantly but with a real-time play-by-play. It's interesting seeing how people react to those in grief, and how people often expect everyone to follow their predicted model. "If that happened to me, I'd be sitting in a corner crying--not on FACEBOOK!" But the reality is, you most likely have no idea how you would react. Every grief you experience is different, and every situation is different, and even YOU are often different in various stages of your life.
 

All this came into my thoughts this week when I read about a mother (who I won't name here, to prevent further drama) who lost her young toddler to a SIDS-like incident. This mom is a big advocate for attachment parenting, babywearing, and co-sleeping. Her post about her child's death was somewhat defensive and prideful of what she and her baby had accomplished toward these parenting goals...and probably rightly so. People would wonder about the death of a co-sleeping baby, particularly from a co-sleeping advocate. Her post stuck me as a little...off...somehow, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I finally just decided it was the tone of the post but that she was most likely trying to share her thoughts but in a way that let people know what happened and the lack of a reason why. I did a little searching and found sites where people were wondering if the whole thing was a hoax...all due to her reactions and posts. Ugly comments were put on a memorial page for the site but removed by moderators.
 

Another mom of a young child is on my mind this morning as well...a Georgia boy who had a limb fall and strike him on his head while at daycare. News reports say things like "...as he recovers in a local hospital" but his mother's Facebook posts are full of stark honesty. I can't bear to read them but I see them from time to time when a Facebook friend comments or likes a post. His mother is angry, scared, sad, frustrated...and full of love. She hates seeing this happen to her child and just wants him to have one day of peace with no pain. I cannot imagine her heartache.
 

Pain and grief used to be very private things, and now they are sometimes very public. I think part of our reaction to this is just how different it is...there's no "public face" to put on and everything said can be judged by anyone. If you sound too sad, people thinkyou are oversharing, and if you are too positive, people think something's up because you should be very sad and show it. That's a lot of standards to live up to.
 

I've seen a lot of loss in my circle of friends over the last few years. Loved ones have lost children, spouses, friends, and family. And while in many ways, Facebook and other social media seem so very superficial at times, they have also provided a window to my loved ones' souls as I see them struggling with these losses. Online communication provides a medium for this somehow, creating both a fast network of communication and also maybe a wall of sorts that they feel safe enough behind to share what they are going through. To criticize someone when they are most likely stripped of all awareness and simply reaching out to someone, anyone, who might offer a reason, a solution, or a hope is ridiculous to me...yet at the same time I've felt the same reaction in myself. Instead of criticizing, I've tried to examine my own feelings and figure out why and learn from it.
 

Ultimately, we are in control of what we read and see. I admit. I hid posts and eventually unfriended someone due to their overwhelming grief and inability to move on with their life. It wasn't because I thought they should be doing it differently so much as it was someone I felt I didn't know well enough to see this side of their soul and I felt helpless...yet I still feel uncomfortable that I just walked away.

  

The loss of these traditional boundaries sometimes makes us a little uncomfortable, but in a way, it makes it so much easier to let someone know that you are thinking about them.  I love that I can chime in and throw some love and support someone's way at such a minimal expense to myself (as selfish as that sounds).  Sometimes I do want to just unplug the modem and leave the online world forever and retreat to a more simpler way of living.  But I think I would also be depriving myself of this amazing connection (no matter how superficial it can be at times) to other people...people I love...and people I just met.  Some of the people I am closest to right now wouldn't be in my life at all if not for social media, most of whom I met in person at some point in life and then got to know better (or again) online. 

 

So I guess this post really does come back around to the importance of love and compassion.  Happy Valentine's Day.  Now go hug someone!

 

old is new again

Yesterday I was drooling over the FLOR catalog, when I realized we had carpet tiles in the attic (which I knew, since I helped store them up there) but we'd never put them together like a rug before.  We made a rug in the girls' room once (they have green and ivory Pooh Bear tiles), although now their room is so small it goes wall to wall!

In the dining room, though, I was tired of trying to sweep around the Persian type rug we had and tired of trying not to catch the fringe in the vacuum. And the cat had decided it was a perfect scratching spot, and the fringe overlapped the walkway from the side door and was getting pretty dirty.  Plus, it didn't fit quite right under the table and at dinner, your chair was always wobbling half on and half off the rug. So...Brandon went up to the attic and got the carpet tiles down (he actually threw them down...but whatever.  They're heavy!)  And...voilà! 

Love it!  I never thought this was the prettiest carpet in the world when it was our bedroom floor (wall to wall on a concrete floor), but it looks great as a faux sisal rug!  We've had these for years and they've been through at least one flooding incident (maybe two) and cleaned up great each time (pressure washed, etc).  When a tile gets dirty or damaged, just pull it out and clean it or replace it, without having to remove the whole rug. 

And now I feel like I've been shopping and can recycle my FLOR catalog without any more wishful thinking.

operation fiesta ware

I will never forget wandering around Macy's before we got married, trying to decide on a china pattern to register for because we were "supposed to."  We finally chose something blue and forgettable (I can't even remember what it was) and started to head home.  We got almost to the door and stopped.  We ran back and deleted all the blue and registered instead for a set of lovely and durable everyday dishes by Denby.

We still use them every day and have yet *knock on wood* to chip or break a single one!  We have mysteriously lost one bowl--last known sighting was at a Halloween party when I was pregnant four years ago--but the price of replacement pieces online has gone sky high and we refuse to pay that much for one bowl!  Which leads me to our current situation...while I love, love, love the Denby, I find myself wishing for a little more color from time to time.  Enter, Fiesta!  When we moved to the rental house, I was determined to add some color with chair cushions and tablecloths--and thus red, blue, green, and yellow entered our lives for the first time since we got married.  (Brandon is more of a "earthtone" sort of person.  Huge understatement!) 

So for my birthday this year, I planned, schemed, and connived to get these beauties:

Red!  Green!  Yellow!  Blue!  (The little yellow salt and pepper shakers had already made their appearance a few months ago.)  I took this photo about five minutes after I unpacked them--I washed one mug and made tea right away :)  I think they will fit in quite nicely here.  (The red cabinet in the photo has since been moved to another wall but still holds dishes.  I moved all the Denby to the dining room where it can hang out with the other earthtones and be happy.) 

Added bonus:  The girls had been eating on mostly plastic dishes.  My attempts to get them to eat using the Denby failed miserably.  "Those are grownup plates!" they would say.  I'm not sure what that says about Fiesta, but so far they LOVE it.  They've designated a color for each of us and the top shelf of the dishwasher--which cannot be set to anything without a heated dry--is no longer jammed with plastic.  We have four plates, four saucers, four bowls--just as you see here--and we wash them after each meal.  The dishwasher seems a bit empty and lonely this morning and I'm wondering if I'll have to find something to put it in so I can run the silverware and glasses later.

So...I know this is more a "buying new stuff" vs. "decluttering and making do" sort of post, but I think it most definitely fits into the "if you love it, keep it" category of home decor.  It certainly makes me smile and I almost look forward to washing dishes.  How weird is THAT?

a bit of a vow

I've let things slide here at 1928 Bungalow and for that, I apologize.  We are still living in the home we've rented from a friend, and 1928 Bungalow still sits waiting for its new owner.  We were certain we would complete the sale long ago, or we never would have left so soon.  A problem with our first buyer caused the sale to fall through, but we have another buyer on board and hope to get approval from the bank soon so that we can move forward. 

I'm mulling over ideas for a new blog, but until I think up an imaginative new name, I'll keep on posting right here.  All the ideas I mentioned ages ago are still on my mind, including urban (or suburban...or rural?  who knows what's in our future) homesteading, mindful living, bringing art and creativity into everyday life, and calming the clutter chaos.  And a love of old homes will also be on my mind.  So with that, I plan to start writing again and share this journey.  Thanks for hanging in there with us!

good morning!

Greetings this morning from our temporary home...a lovely 1927 bungalow that we are renting from a friend.  More info to come...

love letter

Dear House,

You've probably figured out by now that we are planning to leave you.  We never planned to stay forever, yet we lived here as if we did.  We sanded, painted, insulated, dug, planted, filled, and loved you fully.  You are a good old house.  You are solid.  You are strong.  We hope we leave you more beautiful than we found you; we know that others have left you as such before, and yet others have failed you.  We have shared much love, laughter, and tears within your walls and on your ground.  Your eighty-four years are so much more than the short five we spent with you, but perhaps we have made an impression.  Or perhaps our mark upon you will fade as others have...leaving only questions for those to come.  I am brought to tears when I think of leaving your safety; fear of the unknown makes me hesitant to leave you.  Yet I know that we will find the home we are meant to have some day, and you will be loved again, and someday you will find your keeper.  Stay strong and be well. 

Much love,

The Reynolds Family -- Nolan, Brandon, Hadley, and Emerson

long time no see

It's been a while since I posted about the house.  We've been working hard as usual, but have some bittersweet news to share.  We've decided to put 1928 Bungalow up for sale.  We're not really sure where we're headed next, so we'll trying to adjust to the idea of renting for a while until we figure it out.  We've done so much work on the house and the yards over the last five years, but we can only hope that the next owner will love it as much as we have. 

I'll be updating as we go along but thought I'd share a few recent photos.

meal planning follow up

Overall, I think we did pretty well in August by planning meals and doing most of the shopping in one big trip.  But toward the end of the month, I did find myself going, "But I don't want to make vegetable soup tonight!" and then my leftovers for the week (which were usually intended to go into another planned dish) ended up not existing and the whole week was thrown off.  We didn't get take out very often, so in that regard we did well.  And doing all the meat shopping for the month was great--we didn't run out and we actually have some left over!  A pork loin, 8 boneless chicken breasts, two pounds of ground beef, and a pound or two of smoked sausage are all still in the freezer, giving us a good head start into September.  We ate a ton of eggs, it seems, and even though I bought two dozen at a time, I think we went through 5-6 dozen over the month, maybe more!  We did make cookies and some other unplanned treats, so that accounts for some of it.  And breakfast for dinner on one night, too. 

For September, I have gone through the pantry and the freezer and made an inventory list of what we have on hand--the one thing I didn't do before making last month's meal plan.  So I plan to use that inventory along with my recipes to make plans for the month.  I think I'll make a more generic plan for the weeks toward the end of the month, like Pasta Thursday or Meatless Monday or even Big Home-Cooked Meal Saturday, and maybe that will let us add some variety in later on.  I kept thinking of things we hadn't had in a while or finding things in the pantry that I only had some of the ingredients for (like lasagna--three boxes!).  We have a ton of rice and pasta on hand, so I need some good recipes for rotini and penne, like a good baked pasta.  When I get my plan in place, I'll post and let you know how it's going.

adventures in meal planning

I remember when I was single...I'd have things for dinner like goat cheese, brie, crackers, and peppered salami...at 10pm at night....with a beer.  One of my greatest fears before having kids was that my kids would starve, since I am not known for following a schedule with precision.  I remember thinking, "Wow, I'll have to PLAN dinner and have it ready at a certain TIME?!  And have VEGETABLES?!"  The girls are two now, and dinner is at 5:30pm, maybe 6pm at the latest, and it actually seems easy compared to mixing formula non-stop or pureeing veggies, and the schedule itself has eased up as well from the newborn days.  We've been making an effort to eat at home more to save money and to eat more healthily, but I've discovered unless I have a meal plan in place, suddenly it's my nightmare come true--it's 4:30pm and I have no idea what's for dinner, and everything is frozen solid.  (Actually, my nightmare is that it's 10pm and I realize the kids are not only still awake, but starving and screaming.  Actually, any one of those three things at 10pm is pretty much a nightmare.)

I've been doing here and there, kind of casual meal planning for a few months now.  I dove headfirst into a ton of get-it-on-the-table-quick-and-cheap-and-organic-from-our-freezer-and-basement-stockpile-that-I-bought-solely-with-coupons-and-grew-with-my-own-hands kinds of books and was--of course--overwhelmed.  So I picked a few things out that made sense and started there.

• Plan meals for a week or more at a time
• Make a list from those recipes
• Stockpile if on sale and you have coupons
• Make certain parts of the meal ahead (if you are baking chicken tonight, cook an extra piece for tomorrow's jambalaya and you're 20 minutes ahead of the game
• Choose recipes that are easy and use ingredients you usually have on hand

The newest addition to the family!

-- Sent from the teeny tiny keyboard of my Palm Pre

updates on facebook

Since I'm finding it difficult to update things here regularly (although I am vowing to do a better job going forward), I've created a Facebook page for 1928 Bungalow.  I think this link works, but if it doesn't, let me know!

good fences make good neighbors

We already had pretty good neighbors, so the fence is really more to keep the kiddos inside and the random dogs (like the two pit bulls that came right up to us in the yard a few weeks ago or the crazed pug that chased my friend into a neighbor's yard this week) out.  It's one of those wonderful examples of DIY goodness--my parents, Brandon's parents, and my sister and her husband all turned out to share their miscellaneous knowledge and muscle power, and the result?  Better than we ever expected:

This shot shows the finished fence, including copper caps on the posts (and we added another one this weekend to the mailbox, to match).  We tried to stain it this weekend but it was too soon, and the wood wouldn't absorb the stain.

I like to call this one The View from Inside Baby Supermax.

We used the existing chain link fence poles on all the corners.  This weekend, we painted the metal posts brown with shiny copper caps.  Hopefully they'll match the cedar stain we picked out for the fence.

We had two estimates on having the fence done professionally and they ranged from $700-1400!  I've decided that nothing spurs me into physical labor like a free estimate.  The fence you see ended up costing approximately $335 and two days of manual labor.  The stain will probably add another $50 to the cost.

We managed to get a lot of work done on the house this weekend, although most were little jobs that we didn't want to do but that needed doing.  We put a latch on the gate to help make sure the girls can't escape so easily, and finished up the copper caps on the posts.  Brandon's mom came to visit and watched the girls while we climbed up in the attic to pull all of the insulation away from the eaves.  We got a ridgeline vent last summer with our new roof, and ever since the a/c unit can't seem to keep the house cool when it's very warm outside.  We realized part of the problem might be the fact that we shoved the insulation all the way to the edge of the roof, so we went up on Saturday morning to remedy it.  There was a lot of light showing around the edges (more than I remember before the new roof, hmm...), so I'm not sure what we did actually did a lot of good, but it did feel nice and cool in the house on this relatively warm weekend, so here's hoping.  We're not sure there are actually holes where the soffit vents are, so that might be the next step.  We're worried that the P.O. put vented siding over the eaves but that it's solid underneath!   We had a solar vent before the new roof and it worked just fine...the roof guy talked us into the ridgeline one and removed our solar vent (which we kept).  And now the house is hot.  Hmm.

We also noticed a spot where a support wasn't actually attached and the roof is sagging a little.  No idea how long it's been that way--2 weeks or 20 years--but we don't remember it being that way before, so we'll have to look into repairing it soon.

In other news, we've turned The Room of the Visiting Family Babysitter into an office again, with lots of bookshelves and the old futon.  We had a twin bed in there when Nana Reece and Aunt Kathy were so graciously helping out (we owe you forever!), but since I became a full time stay at home mom in January, we figure they can sleep on the futon when they visit.

And--you probably figured this one out already--in January I quit my job at the library and started staying home full-time with the girls.  It's been wonderful and I think it was definitely the right thing to do for us.  Much less stress...and much less money, but so far we seem to be doing okay.  Look for future posts on exciting things like menu planning, home made bread, and meatloaf recipes.  Woo hoo!  ;)

snowpocalypse 2011 (aka atlantartica/snowmaggedon)

Although colder weather seems to have returned today, yesterday was a glorious and sunny warm (50 degrees!) day here in Atlanta.  I love my family, but six days snowed in with toddlers and husband was a bit much.  (More about our storm prep and photos of our yard coming soon.)

Emerson handed me a book yesterday and opened it to page 98. The book was "Yesterday's Atlanta" by Franklin M. Garrett (an autographed copy, no less) and the page had a photo of the Ice Storm of February 1905. Appropriate, no?

And I think the quote on the page nailed it: "The Ice Storm of February 1905 stopped the city dead in its tracks. Trolleys were out of business, schools closed, telegraph and telephone lines broke, trees twisted, trains and mails delayed. Suffering and inconvenience stalked the streets. Here is a view of Piedmont Avenue, between Pine Street and North Ave., then all residential." (By residential, they mean ALL TREES!)

On a side note, I told Emerson the book was about Atlanta, which is where we live. So now when you ask her where we live, she says, "Lanta!" She says that Nana, however, lives in a "hole" which I think is supposed to mean "home," so we're trying to convince her to say "mountains" instead.

Photos of Atlanta's past snowstorms can be found here, including a photo of the 1905 storm.

raising them right

Hadley considers her manicure before beginning.

Emerson gets involved with her work.

 

Always color-coordinate your tools.  You can't go wrong with purple!

Check your work!

Daddy is a good helper, too.

Hadley works on the base.

A job well done!

dreaming of spring

Winter is not my season, folks.  If not for the invention of down everything and SmartWool, I would be pretty miserable.  I discovered these photos taken by a neighbor of our house and garden last summer for an East Point website, and it's given me hope that warm weather, green leaves, and flowers are not too far away.

Photos courtesy of Matthew Sweitzer.