where the cat ran off to

Enough of you emailed, me that it seems like y'all might want to know where I ran off to. So here is where I landed for now:

misfit motherhood

More motherhood, more pictures and more snark (just for Cali).

xo

Fair Thee Well

As a very dear, and frequently right on the mark, friend of mine said recently.


"Sometimes you just have to know when to leave the party."


And so with that sage advice, I take leave of this place.

It has been an emotional few months trying to find the proper words to say it. Feeling like I am betraying / abandoning my community, my support network.

The truth is there is nothing left to say here. Not on this topic anyway.

We are happy, the goal has been met, with a cherry on top.

If you can't bear to lose contact with me email me and I'll give you the URL to the newest place where I fart out thoughts.

There are so many of you to thank, there are some of you I can never thank enough because without you I wouldn't have survived. You know who you are though because you have become sisters... family. Every one of you is special to me and I wish you lightness on your path.

These archives will remain as long as Blogger and the Internet exists. It feels right leaving it, so that people who come after know that we do win. We do survive.

And then some...

Pure and simple toddler update

All done! Hurrah. Now to turn attention to the next paper due in a week. I did sign up for this willingly didn't I?

Enough of the schooling updates. You are probably wondering if we still have a child. We do he is big and strong. 33 1/2 inches tall and 26 1/2 lbs at the last visit to the Dr. just last week. The little man is full on running about, scribbling with crayons, chatting up a storm in his special little baby talk which frequently now morphs into actual language. He's acquired a LOT of words... which is so much fun. Ball and Car are the favorites currently. I suspect that may be the beginning of a lifelong love affair with those words. There is also Boat, Airplane, Flower, Open, Closed, Go-Go, All Gone, Yeah, Neah (nose), Broco (broccoli), Cheese, Down, Please, Uh-Oh, Cat, Dog, Bird, Butta (butterfly), Apple, BallBall (this only applies to footballs), Purple, Red, Blue. There are more everyday, it's like he wakes up and boom more words suddenly appear in there. How does that happen? It's amazing!

His teeth are coming in all over the place. Molars, front top and bottom lots of teeth. He's got a big mop of hair! (a photo soon I swear, just have to get the photos out of the camera).

He is imitating us which is adorable. Cooking... that's another word. He likes to cook in the kitchen with me.

See I can be a gushy babbling mommy... sometimes :)

This summer was torture being away from him, it was like floating in a dark messy cloud of sweaty loneliness. We both felt that way, the mister and I spent our time well and don't get me wrong we enjoyed ourselves but it wasn't as a family or with a whole feeling. It's hard to explain he was missing and it wasn't just physically. We were sick with it. In the end though the summer was so special for him. He spent it with people who love him, he was safe and learned so much. Most importantly he will be happier in life for having a bigger life, for knowing a family that is willing to open it's doors and enjoy life with him. He doesn't need to know that it makes mom and dad so sad.

Maybe I finally understand what parenthood is about.

when your house is in order

at least when mine is i know there is something i am not doing. something i'm ignoring or just trying to put off.

the dreaded first paper...

why did i think it would be any easier this time around? school is school no matter how interesting it is.

so what else around this place needs cleaning?

what do you do to procrastinate?

help me waste some more time and entertain me a little.

paper is due monday.

crap.

long way

This is a video of an old friend's band. I saw them perform one of their first shows. I still have the video of it in fact. It's a sight to see. My buddy has come a very long way from those days. He always had talent. For over 15 years he's been passionate about this band. Here is the fruit of that labor.

I'm really proud of him. He's the lead singer. Enjoy if it's your cup of tea if not know that for the genre... it's pretty good.

Cheers all.


ps: the music box feature is shut off for a bit while this post is first. it will be back. they just upgraded the service with lists... oh... lists...

after the silence

School started today. Yep that's right summer is over folks, at least for moi. Where it went is unclear but it's out the door and not asking any questions as it fades away into the distance.

Then I realized holy crap I have a blog! In fact other people have blogs, there is an Internet out there that I've been ignoring. Well, OK I have not been ignoring ya'll. At least not on purpose. It's just been one of those days that turned into one of those weeks that morphed into a month like that and then wow... a few months. You get the picture.

So if you are still reading or checking in at all. If you care, I'm still here just deep in living life and finding time to write in the midst of it all is proving difficult.

I hope you all had a good summer whatever you were up to. Now that I'm in school (wiggle with glee) I will be around a computer more and will of course need study breaks ... so I'll be catching up with what you are all up to very soon.

As for the three of us and happenings at the HOM... we are tired, our house is a little more like a home and less like an indoor camp ground. If I ever get time to download photos I will put them up.

Renovating a house by the seat of your pants is hard.
Everything takes 2 or 3 times as long.
Everything is a learning experience.

I can now light a boiler and a water heater tank. I can use a table saw (whoo hooo!). I've seeded a lawn, battled weeds of unknown origin, managed a clan of stray cats, purchased my first major applicance and generally begun to learn that living in a home is much different than living in an apartment.

We have not finished everything we set out to do at the start of this summer but we did get the major things done and a few major things we hadn't planned on. Like that pipe the last owners sawed almost completely through and then just walled up and left us. That pipe that was the pipe for the toilet in our tenants apartment. Why you would saw through a pipe and then leave it there... I'm at a loss. Poo raining down into your bathroom from your tenants bathroom is not pretty. Old poo is even worse.

Slowly but surely the house is turning into our home.

It's late, I'm tired and have to study. Did I just say that?

Um... wow.

So kiss kiss until next time there is a space to breathe.

finally civilization

Or at least coming closer too it. I have DSL. Hurrah!

Catherine asked for some photographs. Since working on the house is making me bone tired I shall kindly oblige. Writing anything coherent is out of the question.

Here's the front, you can see the tree from the front sidewalk peeking into the photo. There is one more story cut off... yes the house is Yellow.


These next photos are of the Tenant's space which we have been redoing. The floors are new pergo floors, the faux fire place is reinforced now so someone can actually put something on it.








the angle on this shot
is kind of wonky -->
it's the den off the bedroom.













Here are some backyard shots from the beginning of my weeding expedition.
I've found strawberries, figs, apples, roses, hydrangeas, grapes, virginia dayflowers (i think), a pretty pink flowering weed like flower that I'm keeping, mint, clover, pokeweed (uprooted that immediately, too dangerous to have round kids). Found a mystery tree I can't identify. Pictures of that soon. I'll give a prize to anyone who can ID it first and help me save it. The damn thing appears to be dying before my eyes.

Ok shut up Cat you are probably thinking you said you were not going to talk... for christs sake! and there you go using the lords name in vain again. You really just need to put up some more pretty photos for us to look at. Here goes:


I weeded out the path and the entire back yard now. The bush to the left in the photo is pruned as well as the Hydrangeas a bit, there is a night blooming Jasmine I found on it's side in a pot in the yard and it now sits on that brick on the right.


This is under the grape arbor, we brought in 20 bags of stone, raked out the old and put down this with the old benches the previous owner left us it is a really good refuge from the heat. The grapes are growing well too. I just might make a bottle of wine this year, my first.

The garden is going to be a cross between organic and mechanic. We have a muffler that will become a garden snake (dream big folks) and this little brick is so very robotic don't you think?

Orga vs. Meka

Next up:
The Knife Throwing Board, ID that tree and save it and Super Robot Garden Snake is born. Oh and if I remember... a shot of the new ink. *yes more, snicker*

Until next time. Ciao Bellas.

Into a very large pit... in which we hope to not throw too much money

Last time we surfaced we were still alive. We are still in a state of aliveness. Albeit dim and wretched... it is still breathing...

Of course I protest too much. Or do I?

Maybe it would be the cable appointment gone awry... which stretched into today. For a second visit from the cable man. Only to have access to the cables next door again closed off. Even after we checked and called and made sure. They were still not there. So we remade the appointment. 3rd time's a charm?

What does a girl have to do just to get some NY1 around here?

I am still typing this from a d.... i.... a.... l.... up connection. Similar happenings along the lines of the cable fiasco are afoot with the DSL installation and well... I'm living in the dark ages of the webernet. *gasp*

I seriously forgot dial up existed. Until this happened. So quickly we forget.

The flooring that we bought for the tenant's apartment came and was defective, so we sent it back to big chain store and big chain store gave us a great deal on better flooring, then they lost our invoice in the system it was there and then 12 hrs later *poof* it was gone. The delivery of the new flooring was today. If you live in NYC you know that today was an extremely rainy day. Our flooring was delivered at the start of this very rainy day. By the start I mean exactly at the moment that the guy dropped off the supplies curbside, a torrential rain started to come down! The street began to flood... with our new, much nicer good deal floor in the street., becoming increasingly wetter.

My brave and strong partner decided that he would heft two boxes of the flooring at a time into the house and rapido. I dried the boxes off, clearly I got the easier job here. Luckily they were covered in plastic. Luckily we got to them very fast. We carried up 26 boxes of Pergo floors to the 3rd floor and ripped open every box to check for wet boards.

Only a few were actually wet and are already dry as I type this...

This house has been a battle between luck and mojo.

As soon as we loaded the last board into the house... the rain stopped, the sun broke out for about 15 minutes before it proceeded to rain again. As if to say... gotcha.

The original flooring we returned is still in limbo. For some reason no one can ID it and count it as ours... we have a receipt, we can prove they picked it up. This will be resolved. It will just be a royal pain in the arse.

May I tell you I'm hating big huge retail chain home improvement stores right now... HATING Them...

What else... well... the house didn't flood. That's good.

Do I sound a little down? Yeah... I'm disconnected lately. Literally and spiritually. Friday I have a reschedule for the DSL installation *fingers crossed*. Hopefully then I will at least return to online, catch up with ya'll and feel a bit connected again.

In all this have I mentioned how much I miss the little man? I do, every day, like an ache. It's horrible. Maybe that's part of the down feeling. This house though is just not safe yet for him and his grandparents are entertaining him in high style while we are working our butts off.

Three days a week we escape to the shore and see the Mini. It's heaven... it goes far too fast. The next four days of the week drag on like months.

Will it always feel like this when I'm apart from him?

What are you all doing? I miss you.

Alive...

Yes we are still alive and kicking at the HOM. Which really is now a house... a whole damn house. We have been battling roaches, neighbors that act a bit like roaches, other neighbors that are afraid of the other neighbors that act sort of like roaches and just generally learning to live in our new abode.

It's sort of like camping... with 4 walls around you. Yeah sort of like that.


Currently I am down at the shore taking a couple of days to sit in the air conditioning, in a clean house. This is where our son has been safely stashed for the summer while we make the home livable... Thank god for Grandparents!


Uh... have I mentioned the roaches?


Anyway... Friends have come over and tell us that's it's not as bad as we feel like it is right now. We are walking around in a heat exhausted daze wondering why we emarked on this adventure. In time it will all come together, we are taking it one hot hazy day at a time. Our evenings are spent in the yard, what I've been able to weed out so far, drinking wine and licking our wounds from the day's hard labor.


A few disjointed thoughts and tidbits about the house before I flee to enjoy this respite and my kiddo.

We have three stray cats who have adopted the house. We named them: Orga, Meka and we have not named the last. Maybe Rocky. He seems to be the leader. Good name for a leader.

We are fairly sure that the basement is haunted.

Dragging a water soaked matress out of an already moldy basement is NOT a fun job in summer heat.

The sidewalk caving into a sinkhole in front of the abandoned property next door may be a blessing in disquise. The city has been called... 7 - 10 days till they come... I have a complaint number... and so it begins.

Underneath possibly 3 or 4 layers of linoleum there is a hardwood floor... we think, we pray.

Most construction jobs take about twice as long as you planned. Especially if your husband decides there is no way that you will be able to get that screw out any faster than him. 45 minutes later you will remove the screw in under 3 minutes. He will stare at you in awe. You will explain that gentiles have a knack for these things and perhaps you might want to leave the screws removal up to me from now on.


There is beauty here, we will try to reclaim it from underneath at least fifty years of abuse and neglect.


"Nothing Without Great Labor"


This has always been our motto... it certainly fits this chapter in life.

apologies for calling you bitches and a much more sober cat celebrates the spoils of homeownership

Yeah... *looks around uncomfortably*

Did I call ya'll bitches last night? I meant it in the most loving way... really. We do this sort of thing round here when we are inebriated and happy.

You'll have to trust me on this one and know that I do not think of any of ya'll as female dogs. Well unless you are joining me in a round of panting at some current hottie.

*big satisfied stretch*

I woke up this morning feeling... better. Then suddenly... full.

Full of lists and jobs. Full of promise and projects. Full of energy.

I gaze at the bouquet of flowers plucked from the urban jungle that is my backyard now and see the beauty that can be pulled from this house.




It will take time and patience. Luckily I have the first one in abundance... we will have to work on the second one.