Forward progress was made. I just emailed the contact person for the Summer Riding Program, asking for more information, especially regarding equipment, fitness, etc.
And it's really sad that it takes me half an hour to write a three-sentence email. Part of that was trying to word it right (some days, everything sounds awkward), the rest was because I can not think when the baby's fussing in one ear and I'm trying to type with one hand.
But it's still progress.
I also made an appointment for the body work on the car. There's a three-week wait, but it's minor body damage and I've already been driving it that way for a month.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
More space issues
Two other space issues that irritate me about This Place.
1. Thanks to the lovely issues of space, we have a really limited amount of seating. As it stands right now, we had to get rid of the couch to make room for the glider and baby swing, and we sold the table and chairs to make space for the crib. That leaves us with the love seat, glider, and office chair. Which means that on the rare occasion that we have company, we're limited to three people at a time. And that's if someone chooses to sit on our lousy folding chair. Not that we have a lot of company anyway, but we'll never be able to have both sets of parents over at the same time or anything. No parties for us! Usually it's my parents, when Mom needs a grandbaby fix. And I swear, the last person who came through the door other than us? Was probably the HVAC guy to do the fall furnace checkup.
(And don't get me started on the lack of post-baby visitors. All the baby magazines and websites were full of people wondering how to deal with the flood of visitors at the hospital and home, and tips on getting the visitors to run errands for you. Our "flood" was my sister and one of DH's brothers. The brother's visit ended up costing us money. And my grandparents came for an hour. That's it. We had a drought, not a flood.)
2. The lousy floorplan also makes it darn near impossible to do any indoor exercise. I bought a yoga mat two years ago, with the intention of working out indoors with videos and the Denise Austin show on Lifetime TV. After I got home, I looked around and realized that, short of moving the love seat every time I wanted to work out, there's not really any spot in this condo where I can unroll the yoga mat and have room to stretch my arms to the side. I took a fitness class while I was pregnant, and the home workouts were pretty skimpy because we have such a lousy layout. Yes, I can go outside and walk, if the weather is decent, but sit-ups, etc, are better indoors.
In short, just two more reasons why we want to move, soon.
1. Thanks to the lovely issues of space, we have a really limited amount of seating. As it stands right now, we had to get rid of the couch to make room for the glider and baby swing, and we sold the table and chairs to make space for the crib. That leaves us with the love seat, glider, and office chair. Which means that on the rare occasion that we have company, we're limited to three people at a time. And that's if someone chooses to sit on our lousy folding chair. Not that we have a lot of company anyway, but we'll never be able to have both sets of parents over at the same time or anything. No parties for us! Usually it's my parents, when Mom needs a grandbaby fix. And I swear, the last person who came through the door other than us? Was probably the HVAC guy to do the fall furnace checkup.
(And don't get me started on the lack of post-baby visitors. All the baby magazines and websites were full of people wondering how to deal with the flood of visitors at the hospital and home, and tips on getting the visitors to run errands for you. Our "flood" was my sister and one of DH's brothers. The brother's visit ended up costing us money. And my grandparents came for an hour. That's it. We had a drought, not a flood.)
2. The lousy floorplan also makes it darn near impossible to do any indoor exercise. I bought a yoga mat two years ago, with the intention of working out indoors with videos and the Denise Austin show on Lifetime TV. After I got home, I looked around and realized that, short of moving the love seat every time I wanted to work out, there's not really any spot in this condo where I can unroll the yoga mat and have room to stretch my arms to the side. I took a fitness class while I was pregnant, and the home workouts were pretty skimpy because we have such a lousy layout. Yes, I can go outside and walk, if the weather is decent, but sit-ups, etc, are better indoors.
In short, just two more reasons why we want to move, soon.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Why we need to move
In a word, space.
In more words, not enough space, not enough storage space, and a funky layout that means the place seems practically not-child-proofable. Looking at it, it seems that the only way to make this place safe for a crawling El Burrito would be to back a dumpster up below the deck and throw away 95% of what we have, including part of the furniture. Even then, I don't think it would really work. There's a computer desk full of dangling power cords, and a 20-gallon fish tank with more dangling cords, and neither of them can be anywhere but the living room. Half the houseplants are probably poisonous. There just seems to be a lot of "stuff" that has no real out-of-the-way home. We're stuck with it living out in the open, where a crawler or toddler can trip over it, put an eye out on it, eat it, choke on it, or whatever. We won't even go into the stairs, the second-story porch, or the deck. Or the cabinet doors that don't have handles, just the little notch at the bottom to grab with your fingertips, that I'm not sure are compatible with those child locks.
It's also very dark, thanks to a lack of windows or built-in lights, and the air circulation is abysmal.
Space. We don't have enough of it, and what we do have is poorly designed and laid out. The fellow who designed these was obviously aiming them at single people, retired couples, and the like. He was also apparently freaking clueless about cooking, cleaning, and ventilation. And light. And had some sort of phobia about right angles, because the only square rooms are the two bedrooms.
We live in a 2-bedroom condo that's about 1000 square feet. It seems like a lot, until you look at it and realize how inefficient the layout is.
Other than a decent-sized closet in each bedroom, the only storage space is a tiny closet in the hallway. Ours holds the vacuums, coats, a broom, and a few tools. That's about all that will fit. There's technically a "utility closet" in the kitchen, but since it already has the furnace, water heater, washer and dryer, there's not a lot of room left to work with. Especially since the fuse box is in there, and we shouldn't block access to that. We managed to squeeze in a set of plastic shelves for canned goods, a plastic trash can for the recycling, and a few cases of soda (bought on sale). It's very frustrating to not be able to put things "away" because there's nowhere to put them. No closet for linens, towels, bathroom paraphernalia.
The bedrooms are a decent size, but thanks to the positioning of the doors (deck, closet, bathroom, and hallway), there's exactly one place to put the bed. Even then, the door out onto the deck won't open all the way. After putting in a nightstand, a dresser, and a chest of drawers, we're left with a path around the bed about two feet wide. To get the bassinet in the bedroom, we had to block off access to DH's nightstand, and if the bathroom door opened the other way, it wouldn't have worked.
We have no dining area. Actually, right now, we don't even have a table. To make room for El Burrito's crib, we had to move the computer into the living room. The only place for it was the corner between the entrance and the living room, formerly inhabited by the table that we never used. So we sold the table. And since we don't have a high chair yet (it's on the list for this weekend), we're feeding El B on the couch, which works surprisingly well as far as it goes, but doesn't really allow us to let him play with his food or anything. When we do get a high chair, I'm not sure where we'll put it. If it folds, we can store it on top of the washer, but I'm not sure where we'll put it while we're actually using it. The only options seem to be the middle of the kitchen (linoleum), or in the weird space at the top of the stairs, between the computer and the glider. The drawback there is that it's carpeted. Granted, we're going to replace the carpet when we sell, but still.
And a tangent - who in their right mind puts carpet in a bathroom? Or in what is supposed to be a dining area? Or just inside the door, where you can track snow and mud in? Gah.
Two things that I will not miss when we move? Light and air. Two big design problems here. There are three doors that don't really go anywhere - 2 for the screened porch, 1 for the deck, neither of which are connected to the ground. While those doors all have a big glass panel in them, the orientation of the building means that we get very little direct sunlight. The last owners painted the walls a pale shade of yellow, which added to the "I'm living in a cave" feeling. We repainted, which helped, but it's still dark. There are also practically no light fixtures in the place. Seriously. One over the stairs, one in the kitchen, one in the hall, plus track lighting over the kitchen/living room divider, vanity lights in the bathrooms and florescent tubes in the closets. Otherwise, zilch. The bedrooms are totally ignored as far as lighting. The living room has a ceiling fan, but they didn't bother to put a light on it.
We're thinking of putting a fan/light in the bedrooms, and adding a light to the living room fan before we sell. I wish we'd had this bright (pun!) idea a few years ago, so we could have gotten some use from them.
And the place has practically no air circulation. There's only one return-air vent, so the furnace air flow is sort of stagnant. I've got half the vents closed, trying to push some air into El B's room and the living room, but it's not working well. The temp drops noticeably when you go down the hallway. Even in the summer, with both porch/deck doors open, we rarely get a breeze through here unless the wind is coming from the west. All our doors are on two sides of the building, so there's no good cross-circulation, and the building north of us blocks a lot of the breeze.
I need to make a floor plan of this place. Maybe it'll give me an idea on how to rearrange what furniture we have, while not blocking the traffic flow.
In more words, not enough space, not enough storage space, and a funky layout that means the place seems practically not-child-proofable. Looking at it, it seems that the only way to make this place safe for a crawling El Burrito would be to back a dumpster up below the deck and throw away 95% of what we have, including part of the furniture. Even then, I don't think it would really work. There's a computer desk full of dangling power cords, and a 20-gallon fish tank with more dangling cords, and neither of them can be anywhere but the living room. Half the houseplants are probably poisonous. There just seems to be a lot of "stuff" that has no real out-of-the-way home. We're stuck with it living out in the open, where a crawler or toddler can trip over it, put an eye out on it, eat it, choke on it, or whatever. We won't even go into the stairs, the second-story porch, or the deck. Or the cabinet doors that don't have handles, just the little notch at the bottom to grab with your fingertips, that I'm not sure are compatible with those child locks.
It's also very dark, thanks to a lack of windows or built-in lights, and the air circulation is abysmal.
Space. We don't have enough of it, and what we do have is poorly designed and laid out. The fellow who designed these was obviously aiming them at single people, retired couples, and the like. He was also apparently freaking clueless about cooking, cleaning, and ventilation. And light. And had some sort of phobia about right angles, because the only square rooms are the two bedrooms.
We live in a 2-bedroom condo that's about 1000 square feet. It seems like a lot, until you look at it and realize how inefficient the layout is.
Other than a decent-sized closet in each bedroom, the only storage space is a tiny closet in the hallway. Ours holds the vacuums, coats, a broom, and a few tools. That's about all that will fit. There's technically a "utility closet" in the kitchen, but since it already has the furnace, water heater, washer and dryer, there's not a lot of room left to work with. Especially since the fuse box is in there, and we shouldn't block access to that. We managed to squeeze in a set of plastic shelves for canned goods, a plastic trash can for the recycling, and a few cases of soda (bought on sale). It's very frustrating to not be able to put things "away" because there's nowhere to put them. No closet for linens, towels, bathroom paraphernalia.
The bedrooms are a decent size, but thanks to the positioning of the doors (deck, closet, bathroom, and hallway), there's exactly one place to put the bed. Even then, the door out onto the deck won't open all the way. After putting in a nightstand, a dresser, and a chest of drawers, we're left with a path around the bed about two feet wide. To get the bassinet in the bedroom, we had to block off access to DH's nightstand, and if the bathroom door opened the other way, it wouldn't have worked.
We have no dining area. Actually, right now, we don't even have a table. To make room for El Burrito's crib, we had to move the computer into the living room. The only place for it was the corner between the entrance and the living room, formerly inhabited by the table that we never used. So we sold the table. And since we don't have a high chair yet (it's on the list for this weekend), we're feeding El B on the couch, which works surprisingly well as far as it goes, but doesn't really allow us to let him play with his food or anything. When we do get a high chair, I'm not sure where we'll put it. If it folds, we can store it on top of the washer, but I'm not sure where we'll put it while we're actually using it. The only options seem to be the middle of the kitchen (linoleum), or in the weird space at the top of the stairs, between the computer and the glider. The drawback there is that it's carpeted. Granted, we're going to replace the carpet when we sell, but still.
And a tangent - who in their right mind puts carpet in a bathroom? Or in what is supposed to be a dining area? Or just inside the door, where you can track snow and mud in? Gah.
Two things that I will not miss when we move? Light and air. Two big design problems here. There are three doors that don't really go anywhere - 2 for the screened porch, 1 for the deck, neither of which are connected to the ground. While those doors all have a big glass panel in them, the orientation of the building means that we get very little direct sunlight. The last owners painted the walls a pale shade of yellow, which added to the "I'm living in a cave" feeling. We repainted, which helped, but it's still dark. There are also practically no light fixtures in the place. Seriously. One over the stairs, one in the kitchen, one in the hall, plus track lighting over the kitchen/living room divider, vanity lights in the bathrooms and florescent tubes in the closets. Otherwise, zilch. The bedrooms are totally ignored as far as lighting. The living room has a ceiling fan, but they didn't bother to put a light on it.
We're thinking of putting a fan/light in the bedrooms, and adding a light to the living room fan before we sell. I wish we'd had this bright (pun!) idea a few years ago, so we could have gotten some use from them.
And the place has practically no air circulation. There's only one return-air vent, so the furnace air flow is sort of stagnant. I've got half the vents closed, trying to push some air into El B's room and the living room, but it's not working well. The temp drops noticeably when you go down the hallway. Even in the summer, with both porch/deck doors open, we rarely get a breeze through here unless the wind is coming from the west. All our doors are on two sides of the building, so there's no good cross-circulation, and the building north of us blocks a lot of the breeze.
I need to make a floor plan of this place. Maybe it'll give me an idea on how to rearrange what furniture we have, while not blocking the traffic flow.
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:
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.
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
- #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 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, March 6, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, March 5, 2007
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.
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.
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