final weekend in CV

the last few months i've often said to myself, "i'll never get to do _____ again..." a while ago it was walking home from work with M. then it was working w/ last year's recruits. now it's everything we do in our apartment & our neighborhood. funny thing - a few months ago i was complaining about how bored i am with Charles Village - i've walked everywhere i can walk from here, been everywhere around, there's nothing new, it's always the same old thing. but those are all things i'll miss a lot. we can't walk to the waverly market or downtown or to work or around guilford or to the book thing or the bank or to the halal meat & grocery. we will no longer be 10 minutes from everywhere (this was never really the case, but it sure felt like it).

we've packed up most of our belongings, moved a good bunch of them to the new place (thanks D for all the heavy lifting). there's still a good amount of stuff in here but it's strangely echoey. feels pretty crappy. i can't wait to get settled into the new place. it's hard to feel unsettled - especially for home bodies like me. it makes me a bit nuts.

side note: i hate bugs. i don't actually hate bugs. i usually do my best to capture & release them outside. but not these annoying little bugs that are suddently all over our apartment. i've never seen them before. they're similar to fruit flies with dark brown bodies. i don't know if they started in the flour or if they found the flour, but that was the first infestation i discovered. i cleaned out our pantry cabinet today & found them in 75% of all the dried grains and beans. gross...

so we finally heard back from the owner of Lino's House with a counter offer of $5k less than the asking price. we offered $20k less, so it's still a bit of a jump. it's not that we can't afford the asking price. i don't happen to believe the house is worth the asking price because of all the "updating" required (i don't consider adding a tub/shower to be updating, but whatever). i also worry about us being able to afford house payments if we were to start a family somewhere down the line & one of us was not working... & when we started this whole house hunting process, we both felt sure we wanted a house that needed a little cosmetic work - definitely nothing that needed this much of an overhaul. but here we are. we both like the place a lot - manageable size, affordable price, lots of character... i guess we'll see how it goes. once we agree on a price, we still have to do the zoning appeal for a driveway. who knows what will happen with that. we may not get approval & the whole thing would fall through & that would seriously suck. cross your fingers that all goes well.

D has now taken to calling me "Mrs. Ed" & telling me i eat like a horse... he's so fun.

the weekend's over already...

sometimes life scares the crap out of me... i can't explain it. it's not about death or anything quite so heavy. it's about choices & am i making the right ones... i don't know.

my parents came for the weekend and it was the first time in a long time that i felt like i needed to entertain visitors. it was a good visit but for some reason, i wanted to do more. i was the grown-up kid dragging all my toys out of the toy box to show off... but it is what it is. now they're gone & i'm sad & i feel very alone - even though i'm no more alone than i was friday before they came. it's just strange - that i feel the need to live far away. i'm not sure why we live here anymore. i mean, over the years, i've had lots of friends but i'm slim on close, local friends these days. all the good people keep moving farther & farther away.

we had dinner w/ the beej & aimee last week - which was great fun & i was belly laughing like a fool - and we discussed slogans for baltimore, deciding on "baltimore, keep moving". but we're not moving. we're trying to buy a house. i have a lot of hopes for said house - whether it's the current one or another one. i want to feel settled. i'm tired of wondering where we should be... because this is where we are.

at the same time, i'm not sure how long we'll stay. what if i don't go to school? what will we do for the next 5 years? i guess we'll figure it out, just like we've figured out the last 7.

sometimes, i wish i could just go home & be taken care of again & not have to make any of these decisions or have any responsibilities. hiding out from real life.

i know that's not what i really want. sounds good when i'm freaked out though.

so, we have to move out of our apartment in 2 weeks. we've got a big stack of rubbermaid tubs & boxes just waiting to be filled. (one tub has become a temporary sink for dishwashing as our kitchen sink remains clogged after 1 week & several plumbers...) i can't believe we have to leave this place. this is the longest i've lived anywhere since i left home for college. this place, as much as it makes me nuts, is home. i don't want to take everything off the walls & pack all of our crap in boxes. but it must be done. moving sucks. good thing i like adventures & new beginnings. hamilton, here we come...

Lino's House

This is the place we keep looking at & thinking about...

Front w/ wacky awnings & lots of trees...

West side yard - big & sunny for gardening!

"Back yard"

East side yard w/ patio

Half the living room w/ our realtor

Other half of the living room (future 3rd bedroom?)

Dining room

Kitchen (wish we could have the table & chairs..)

Office - open to kitchen

1st floor bath - I mean 1/2 bath... There's no tub/shower!

1st bedroom

2nd bedroom

Basement (w/ darkroom)


Basement shower - walls of siding (3 different types) - not tall enough for Dan to stand up in

Saturday's harvest:

swiss chard, basil, green onions, beets, lettuce, carrots

random phone pics

dan driving, 2007

close up of dan in bed, 2007

me in the kitchen, 2007

more of the same, 2007

katie modeling her straw hat, 2007

cabinet doors i made at my previous job, 2007

me at my previous job, 2007

bottle cap katie, 2007

ricky elz in our kitchen, 2007

mom & grandma playing cards, 2007

U2 in 3D, my birthday, 2008

2 snakes in my compost pile - can you see 'em? 2009

my first squash, 2009

these days...

i've learned it doesn't pay off to be full of rage & completely stressed out. of course, i knew this before. but i'm learning it all over again as my physical therapist beats the crap out of my neck/shoulders/back twice a week, bringing me to tears. i'm not sure if this is better or worse than the days when stress went straight to my stomach, leaving me constipated & sometimes throwing up uncontrollably. i think this is better. it's closer to the top of my person which means it's closer to leaving me, right? maybe i'm getting a little better at dealing with it?? i think so.

can't wait to get out of here & at the same time, i'm nervous about being gone (missing things at work, falling behind, leaving my intern w/out supervision) & about how "relaxing" our trip home will or won't be... i feel like we have to move closer to home in order to graduate into taking actual vacations by ourselves.

bizarro world

so, we had this "team building" thing at work this morning... it was pretty lame. for several of the activities, we broke into pre-assigned groups. guess who was in my group of 6... that's right, mm was in my group. what the hell? somebody's got it out for me. our first group activity was listing all of the things we value in a work situation. most of us said things like "honesty, integrity, communication, openness..." mm contributed things like "sacrifice". huh.

our final activity was to create values statements for terms that our group was assigned. what did we get? honesty & integrity, of course. the whole time i was thinking it was all too bizarre. why did this happen? was i going to bust at the seams & go on my soap box about everything? i sure felt like it - though i know that's not something i would ever seriously consider doing. we had no productive conversation - we stole the values statement example from the lame facilitator, verbatim. she didn't even realize it. our conversation revolved around what our new email address should be. pretty productive.

on the way back to the office, i spilled my guts to my supervisor. it was kinda freaky at the time - the words were just pouring out of my mouth. anyone who knows me knows how well i hide my emotions/thoughts... all of my frustrations came out. my supervisor agreed with all of my criticisms & said he's voiced his opinion many many times over the years. but it always falls on deaf ears, so there's really no point in sharing my thoughts... i'm so grateful for the conversation because i feel heard & now know i'm not alone. lots of folks feel the same. thank god. when i got back to the office, my face was flushed & the intern asked if i'd been out doing some public speaking (because she knows i get flustered in that instance...).

i feel better.


so, that was my day.