House Hunting - why it bugs me

(For Jan, mostly, thanks for asking.)

House hunting lately bugs me for a couple of reasons.

A: General discouragement with the whole idea. In the five years or so that we've been looking, it seems like everyone we know has already moved. Some of them have moved more than once. Here's a list:

• My sister - moved from Detroit, to a rental in Indiana, to a house in IN, to Atlanta GA
• My much-younger brother - first year on the job, found a great farm just a few miles from our parents

DH's siblings (all older than DH, except #5):

• #1 - separated from wife, moved out, moved back in, divorced, rented a house, and now has a manufactured home sitting on a patch of ground
• #2 - moved once
• #3 - built Home #1, sold it, moved into #2, sold it, moved to rental, built #3, moved in
• #4 - bought a farm, moved into old farmhouse
• #5 - sold house, moved in with parents for a few months, put a manufactured home on 3 acres that the parents gave them from their land

DH has helped with all these moves, plus helped build and paint the two homes that #3 built. But, now they all owe us. And at least 4 of the 5 have trucks, so when we do move, we won't have to pay anyone. (evil laugh) My dad and brother also have trucks, and Dad has volunteered both stock trailers when we move.

DH has two close friends from high school here in town. One has moved once, the other has moved twice. I swear, other than our parents, we're the only people I know who haven't moved in the past 7 years.

Oh, and #4, above? Asked at Christmas what was taking us so long to find a place. I was very restrained, and did not ask him what was taking him so long to find a wife. I was very tempted, but I bit my tongue. Someone also told us at some point, "If it takes longer than 3 months to find a house, you're doing it wrong." I swear, if I could remember who it was, I'd make sure they were first on the list when we move the heavy stuff.

B: Realtors. We talked to two realtors, one of which took us to see a lot of places, and had found a home for one of DH's co-workers. The first realtor didn't last long. We spoke to him in the office one day, and that was about it. He called at least twice wanting to come look at the condo so he could list it, but never put any effort into finding us a place to buy. Sorry, no dice. I'm not listing this place unless we have at least an idea on where to move to.

The second one was better, she drove us to a lot of places and got MLS listings and all. But 90% of the time, we found the listing in the paper or the Real Estate book and called her about it, not the other way around. I was under the impression that if you told them what you were looking for, they would put in a little effort to help find it. Maybe she just knew we didn't have a deadline and weren't going to be moving by the end of the week. I don't know.

Tuesday tidbits, addendum

I was sorting through email last night, and realized I had a rotten coupon to the Childrens' Place that I could have used yesterday. $1 lost, for being disorganized. Blah.

Tuesday tidbits

It's been a sort of productive day, although I don't seem to have gotten a lot done. What did I do? Well, El Burrito slept a little later than usual. After breakfast I packed us up and we went to the library and the mall. We returned a very overdue library book, checked out a book called What Not to Build, and spent $10.75 at the library's book sale while El B grinned at the checkout clerk. Then we hit the mall for a few errands. We came home with stamped postcards, a safari hat for El Burrito from The Childrens Place, and the last season of Northern Exposure on DVD.

The hat is one that we need for this summer, and El Burrito de la Cabeza Grande is hard to find hats for. When we do find a nice one, they generally are sold out in his size, or don't make it at all. Last fall, there were scads of too-cute bucket hats on clearance. The Childrens Place Outlet had a bin full of denim ones, only $1 each, and not one was big enough for him then, much less six months later. Ditto at the Gap Outlet and the Carter's store. I scouted out a few stores at the mall on Saturday, and went back today to see if anything I found would actually fit. TCP had two of the khaki ones that I liked left in stock, and luckily one seems to fit. Our 9-month-old boy is now the proud owner of a hat that is size 18-24 months. You see why I learned to crochet winter hats for him?

I was ready to order the DVDs from Amazon, until I remembered the $3 coupon that was included with the last set. So I waited until Sunday and checked the Target ad. Jackpot! Target's price is $5.00 lower than Amazon's price, and I can use the coupon at Target. No coupons with Amazon. Score! It pays to shop around.

On the other hand, the shopping trip threw off the usual routine. I had lunch two hours later than usual, and El B's noonish nap didn't get started until almost 3:00. Now it's 5:00 and I feel like I've gotten not-much done today. I've been involved in a discussion online about color genetics in horses, and I'm not seeming to communicate clearly. And now I'm going back to my Yahoo Inbox, which at 1,554 messages, is threatening to stage a coup.

Eclipse photos

As promised, the best of my photos from the eclipse. None of these turned out as well as I'd hoped, but I kind of expected that. I am still figuring out the tricks of this camera, and making rude comments about companies who write a 95-page manual, but only send a PDF copy. Hauling the laptop out Saturday night along with the camera and tripod would have been a bit much. :) But, as soon as I get the focus figured out, I'll be set. Luckily, I have 5 months to get ready for the next eclipse.




This is the best shot, although it could have been zoomed more. This is cropped, and about 75% of the original shot was blackness. I wish I had zoomed more and used a higher resolution shot for this one. But, it's still pretty cool.



A longer exposure on this one, which is why the moon is so glaringly bright.




A more-cropped version of #2, so you can see the moon better.

Luckily, the next eclipse is in August, so I won't have to choose between manipulating tiny buttons with gloves on, or manipulating tiny buttons with frozen fingers. :) And next time, I'll try to remember not to leave the strap around my neck while the camera is on the tripod. It meant that I was hunched over for most of these shots, and probably wobbled the tripod a bit.

The Eclipse

I actually saw the eclipse on Saturday (today, in my mind, since I'm still awake, but technically it's Sunday). I was worried a bit, since it was cloudy and flurrying most of the day, but it cleared up about 4:00. The eclipse was mostly over by the time the moon was rising here, so what I saw was a moon with a bite out of one edge. Not as impressive as the total deal, but still pretty neat.

After we got back from the grocery shopping, I left DH and El Burrito inside while I went looking for a view of the moon. Luckily, I found a spot here at the condos with a decent view. From our mailbox, I could see a moon through some tree limbs. When I hustled out to the sidewalk next to the street (three buildings away), I could get a clear view. So I came back in to grab the New Camera, tripod, and my scarf, and hauled everything back out to the sidewalk.

Three little problems came up. One, it was very breezy out at the sidewalk. Apparently our buildings block most of the wind. My fingers were getting a bit numb, and the buttons on this camera are too tiny to work while wearing gloves. Two, having the neck strap around your neck while the camera is on the tripod isn't the best way to do things. Makes it hard to take a steady shot, since the strap is short enough that I had to hunch over. My scarf was tangled in the strap, so I just left it alone. And Three, I haven't figured out the focus on this camera yet. Even on full-automatic, most of the pictures are a little off. But there are a couple that may work out.

I took pictures with the new camera until I got too cold to stand it anymore. I tried most of the settings - full automatic, semi-automatic, full manual, Scene, and even took a short movie of the eclipse. Then I came back inside, grabbed the old camera, and took a few shots from the mailbox. The moon had risen enough to clear the trees that were in the way earlier, and the building blocked neogh of hte breeze that it wasn't too cold there.

If I've got any decent shots, I'll put one up here later. Until then, SpaceWeather.com has a gallery of photos for today's eclipse. Some of them (okay, all of them) are awesome. Since I don't have a telescope, anything I ever take will be more like this shot instead of some of the more close-up photos.

Eclipse this weekend !

In case you didn't know, there's a total lunar eclipse on Saturday evening. Here in the midwest, we'll unfortunately miss part of it, since it won't be dark yet. (We have to wait until August to see a full lunar eclipse.) But we'll get to see part of it, and how cool is that? This is the first one locally since 2004, I think. I've got about 24 hours to figure out enough of the New Camera to get a half-decent picture. I'll also have Old Camera ready to go, but it's flakiness lately means I won't be depending on it.

In other news:

El Burrito and I took DH out for lunch today. Then we stopped at the library, where we found a flyer with the dates for the next Big Sale (March 17 and 18th - wooo hooooo!), returned a few overdue books, and picked up a couple of holds.

We need to get back in this habit, now that the weather is hopefully no longer going to be hideous on a regular basis. Back in the Pre-Burrito days, I had lunch with DH every Thursday. I'd pick him up, we'd have lunch (usually Chevy's, sometimes Bandana's BBQ), drop him off back at work, and I'd go run errands and do the shopping. I also went to the library every Tuesday, to rotate the book stock and to hit the Friends' weekly sale in the lobby. Post-Burrito, especially this winter, that hasn't worked so well. It seems to take forever to get both of us ready to go, and timing it to coincide with a not-hungry period got tricky. He's finally going 4+ hours between bottles, which is good, but his schedule has changed lately. These days, the first nap hits sometime around noonish and lasts for about two hours. Given that DH tends to lunch around 11:30 and the book sale runs from noon until 3:00, there's a bit of a scheduling conflict. However, the mall tends to be best before noon (fewer people; no teenyboppers!) so I need to start doing mall runs in the morning.

And I just ordered some Breyers online. Blame Salem Saddlery's 50% off sale, and a person on my Breyer e-list who likes to find these sales and encourage everyone to shop. :) She told the list about a sale at American Livestock Supply a few months ago, and I think we may have bogged their server down, because they sold out of everything in just a few hours. Hopefully I'll have better luck this time. With the ALS sale, I ordered 6 or 8 things, and all but 1 sold out before my order shipped. :(

Yesterday, I finished reading The City of Ember - a "young adult" novel, but still pretty good. I'm wondering what the big Disaster was. And luckily, there's a sequel, The People of Sparks, which the library also has, and which I just put on hold through the wonders of their online catalog.

Just got some news about the Stargate SG-1 movies, which are meant to wrap up the series since the Unbelievable Twits at Sci-Fi decided to cancel the show. Gah. At least I have 9 seasons of DVDs to watch and re-watch.

One of the best episodes of Gilmore Girls is on right now on ABCFamily. Kirk running naked through the town. Luke & Lorelai finally kissing. Babette, Patty and Luke playing board games. What more could I ask for? The only downside is the whole Rory/Dean thing. What was the girl thinking? The last few episodes have been pretty good; I like reruns.

And I found the cutest summer hat for El Burrito in the Lands' End catalog last night. But get this. Sizes: XXS, XS, and S. That's it. Crazy, I tell you. And judging from their size charts, the S might fit him now. Maybe. But would be too small in three months when he'll need it. Back to the hunt.

Horses, Houses, and Dreams

Warning: this will be long. And probably whiny.

I want a horse. I had a horse growing up, and until I was 24, I couldn't remember a time when there wasn't a horse around. That was just the way things were, and it felt right. Then, on April 15, 2003, my gelding died and things changed. I had another horse for about three years, but it didn't work out and I sold him. Since then, I've been on a horse for about 90 minutes, in Ireland, and spent most of my free time and pocket change on horse books, horse magazines, and a decent-sized collection of model horses (mostly from Breyer, but also cheezy Japanese china horses, metal horses, and one wooden horse with metal inlay). But it's not the same.

For the past fifteen years or so, I've been holding on to the dream that I'd have a horse again someday. The past couple of years, I thought it might be close to happening. DH and I have been married for six years, money's okay, and we've been looking, off and on, for a place. We've got the same goal in mind - 20 acres or so, enough room for a garden, some chickens, a horse, a couple of steers for the freezer. Trees. Lots of trees. The ability to look at the stars at night. We both grew up out in the country, and we'd like to get out of town now. I love my neighbors (most of them), but I feel crowded all the time.

I've been thinking lately about whether I should keep holding on to this horse-dream, or give up on it. Yes, I've been in a funk, but it really feels like this just isn't going to happen, at least while I'm young enough to be able to do it. I'm starting to think that it's all been a pipe dream, and that I should just stop deluding myself, suck it up, and get used to the idea that all we'll ever have is a boring cookie-cutter subdivision house with a yard the size of a shoebox. It just doesn't seem to be working out. I swore two years ago that I would sign up for the summer riding program at a local college, and surprise!, I ended up getting pregnant. The baby was due the month before the program started, so there went that. The rest of it seems to be similarly jinxed.

We started looking for a new place about 3 or 4 years ago, and we actually went out with a realtor and looked at a lot of houses. We've slacked off in the past two years, what with the being pregnant and all, and haven't been out realtoring in two years or so, although we keep looking at real estate ads and listings. We can't really take the baby house hunting with us, and while he does have grandparents who'd gladly keep him if they aren't busy, they're 20 minutes away (one way), and by the time we drive out, do the obligatory chit chat, and drive back, it takes an hour if not more. (They babysat while we went to a movie last month. Start to finish, it took 8 hours. Seriously.) Unless DH takes a day off work to go out realtoring, it has to be done on weekends, meaning Saturdays, which are already in short supply.

But, although we looked at a lot of places, we couldn't really find what we wanted at a price we could afford. More on that later. Now, with El Burrito working toward crawling, and this place being seriously not childproof or child friendly, we're running out of time. So, unless we get very lucky and find the Perfect Place soon, we're going to end up buying a house here in town, with the idea of living there for five years or so, and looking for Perfect in the meantime. The problem with that is that we tend to procrastinate. Hell, we've been living here for 6 years, and looking for a place for most of 5. We meant to be in the new place before I got pregnant. Then it was "before the baby's born," then "before he starts to crawl." You see the pattern here? I can easily see us staying in the interim house for 10 years, just out of inertia and apathy. And that alternately frustrates me and depresses me.

Part of the problem is that land prices around here are freaking insane, in my opinion. Land outside the city limits tends to start around $5,000 an acre, and go up from there. Much of it, even farmland 15 miles past the city edge, is priced so high that only a developer can even think of affording it. A few years ago, we looked at an empty lot about 25 miles away, about 7 acres, nothing special. $75,000. It had a creek along one edge, and was probably a flood plain. Not where I'd build a house, thanks very much. We've found two parcels of ground that had a lot of promise so far. One, while almost perfect, was expensive enough that we would have been pushing our limits just to buy it, never mind building a house on it. The other place turned into something of a joke. The guy who was trying to sell it gave us the impression that he'd owned it for 5 or 10 years. Come to find out, he didn't own it at all; he had an offer in to buy it from the current owner and the deal was supposed to have closed a few weeks before we looked at it. The deal hadn't gone through, so he wasn't the owner, and I don't know what the *&^% the realtor thought was going on.

And don't even get me started on the county's rule against selling land in chunks less than ten acres without special permission. You end up with a lot of houses with 9.5 acre lawns, and 90% of the ones I've seen don't even bother to plant a tree, much less do anything other than mow their huge lawn with a lawn tractor. It wouldn't bug me so much if the owners would just do something with the ground - a garden, a few flowers, a couple of trees, whatever. But 9.5 acres of wannabe-golf-course just gripes me unbelievably. Good grief, people, do something with it! A sundial, a hammock, bird house, even a couple of practice holes for the golf game. Go crazy, fence it in and buy a steer for dinner!

But, anyway, I've been wondering why I keep holding on to this dream. Because it'll never be the way I want it to be. My childhood is gone, and I can't get it back. I'll probably never find another horse like my old guy, and if I did, I couldn't afford him and I don't know that I deserve another horse like that anyway. It was different when I lived at home - Dad had a lot of land for his cattle, took care of the upkeep on fencing, raised his own hay. Having a horse on my own would be a whole different ball of wax, and I don't know if I'm capable of taking care of everything. Lord knows, I do a crappy enough job of housekeeping and everything right now, and that's without a full- or part-time job, just a little boy to take care of.