Am I brave enough..

...to buy a house? That is the question that is making my stomach churn churn churn today.

I am 41 and have never owned my home, and I have always had a valid reason excuse why I haven't done it. Now that the kids are out of the house and I have tenure, those excuses are really dwindling away, and yet I still haven't done it and to be completely honest, I am pretty sure I don't want the responsibility.

At first, buying a home wasn't an option for us. We either didn't make enough money or our credit was too atrocious to even consider it. Well, those things are changing. We make a good living, and with that I have managed to rebuild our credit to a decent level.

But for the first time in my life, I feel like I only have to be responsible to myself and Mr. P, and I am not convinced I am ready to give up three times a year vacations for a new roof or wiring. I don't know if I want to spend weekends doing home repair and yardwork, when I can just call the rental people. I know, I know...it is a tax deduction...BUT, my argument there is that the mortgage I am willing to take on with the rate I am thinking I will get, will not put us into the Itemized Deduction category anyway...so no tax break...we could be building equity, not just paying rent, true. But if anything catastrophic breaks, I am not responsible...I call the people...not sure I want to be the people.

But all that aside, we have an appointment to go look at a house tomorrow at 1pm. It is a great location on a street we love. It is a bizarre, cute, older house---big kitchen, fireplace, deck. Big yard. But the price is WAY too right--about $20 a square foot less than the norm around here...

I know what we spent to get a RENTAL to my standards...what the hell will I want to spend to get a home I OWN to standards when I don't have the fall back of..."it's just a rental"... ugh.

Why did you buy?

Let's have a patio garden party!

The weekend weather was perfect to do outdoor work, so that is just what we did!

In July, I asked Mr. P for a raised bed garden plot as my birthday gift. My family pitched in, and yesterday it was realized. I love it so much that I get up from what I am doing and just go marvel at how it is exactly what I hoped it would be. The bed is fully planted with fall crops, and while it may not yield much, I get such a kick out of how a tiny flower with bees and butterflies fluttering about will all OF A SUDDEN be a tiny baby pepper or cucumber or eggplant.

My summer crops were a bit weird. Peppers? OH YES. Cucumbers? ehh...a few weird ones. Strawberries? 4. BUT OH MY berries, the absolute sweetest tastiest berries ever. And the strawberry plants that I thought were dead are coming back. Squash? Nada. NOT ONE. Ichiban eggplant? Scarce until the weather broke, and now that the temps are below 90 I have already eaten 4, harvested a grocery store size one today, and have 4 or 5 more growing. Apparently the eggplant do not love the Alabama heat like the peppers do. Melons? EPIC FAIL. Tomatoes? Grape, yes, and again, once the weather broke I now have maybe 45 blossoms, but not one regular size tomato all summer long.

Oh, I got sidetracked talking about the summer garden, when my point was to show you my fall garden party area. (I likely will not have a garden party, but I love sitting outside reading magazines in the sunny breezy gorgeous weather we have been having...and I call that my garden party.)

BEFORE: (now before you get oh so judgy about the hideousness of my yard, remember this is a rental!)

Way down at the bottom of the hill is Mr. P whacking weeds!

and NOW: TA DA!!

And the piece de resistace:

A different vantage point:

My summer garden...the frame thing is what Mr. P built so I could have all my plants at the apartment, and I still like it so I still have it.

It is kinda weird that we have all this set up in the front yard, but my back yard is all tree roots and shade. The "deck" and chairs were out back, but Friday night Mr. P and I sat out there with a beer, but Joe (the dog) kept wanting to be out front. We admitted we like out front better too...so we just said, "WhatEV" and put the garden party in the front yard because that is how we roll up in here.

I really love it, but now looking at the pictures---I am wondering if it is more really weird than kinda weird....

I am not mad

I have been out of blogging mode for most of the last year.

A few days ago, I decided to read my old blogs to see where I was, to see if I could relate to where I am now. DUDES. I was angry and bitter and then angry some more. I want to chalk it up to tenure tension, but even after I got tenure. I was upset and angsty and upset some more.

Maybe that is why I am less bloggy, I am not pissed at the world, when apparently I used to be. I love my life. I get annoyed and pissy, but in all seriousness, I am getting on board with my tiny house, I love my husband, I have tenure, so I only have to do work that I LIKE to do...I have money I need to pay my bills.

Nothing is that different from a few months ago. I wonder why I was so bitter---I am embarrassed by how nasty I was about my life.

Sorry life. I know it's good.

I do NOT want a puppy

First of all, thanks for the Frisky condolences. I haven't cried in two days, but I miss that pain in the ass, and I see her out of the corner of my eye a lot and it is either a bird statue or a tiger Webkin or a flashlight. Now, on to other animal things.

For the first time in the history of my life, I do not want a baby animal. I feel it in my bones, I know it in my brain, my heart does not have the capacity to love and lose another animal.

I have loved and lost nine dogs and three cats. I still have THE dog, but I am thinking the magic number of dead animals is going to be 13 for me.

Okay, I might be lying to you and myself. I might be able to love and lose another dog or cat. I think that I am completely over being responsible and living my life around an animal. We can't live in a sweet condo downtown because my dog is awful on stairs and he would not like having to always be on a leash. I schedule my lunch hours and work schedule around my mutt. He gets anxious when we are gone, and I alternate between being livid that he peed on the floor AGAIN and being petrified he will keel over and I will have a 110 pounds of dead dog to be hysterical over. Mr. P and I are going to be in the southern Caribbean for 10 days in December and I hate that he will be at the doggie daycare and kennel that whole time.

But, here is the bizarre twist of fate...Mr. P is wanting a puppy, but he keeps guising it as a present for ME. I told him in no uncertain terms...I do NOT want a puppy. BUT, I have brought all the other animals into the house, so I will not prevent him from getting a puppy---but it will NOT be mine. NOT mine. HIS.

I wonder how long it will be until we have a puppy.

most annoying creature ever

is how Mr. P refered to Frisky.

Disclaimer: This is a downer post, but I hoped writing would help. I can't tell yet, which is why I am posting anyway.

Our cat.

She was a TALKER and PURRER and BEGGAR of potato chips and fried chicken. She wasn't that independent, she spent most of her time with us. However, she would also randomly sleep in closets, drawers, shelves, cabinets or right in the middle of the floor or in the middle of the dining room table.

Then, yesterday morning I got up and was organizing some stuff, and went into the still very cluttered office to get a file folder, and she was under the desk. Not that surprising, until I talked to her and she didn't immediately talk back. I got really nervous and it was completely founded...our Frisky had died. She was 15, probably very close to the day. I am so sad. I don't even like cats that much. She was SO annoying. But here I am. Sorta heartbroken. I stayed home yesterday. I went into work today and trying not to cry made my stomach hurt so bad I had to come home and just cry. My nose is stuffy and I look a wreck now, but my stomach doesn't hurt anymore. But now Mr. P is on his way home, he has been out of town, and I have to look at his face, and he REALLY loved her, out loud and all the time.

I had to come home and look at pictures of her alive so that I could get that last memory out, but it won't go. it won't go. And while it is here, I can only cry for that damn damn cat.

Getting it together

We moved out of the house on June 30. Most of our stuff went into a pod type thing and sat in my sister's yard. Some of our stuff went with us into a one bedroom apartment. We squished in and were pretty okay. What made that apartment kind of fun is that there was no "upkeep". No consideration of painting, or replacing knobs, or major cleaning because we were only there for 30 days. Then on July 31 we moved into this house. We shoved most of the stuff into the 'office' and called it a move. We painted. Arranged. Pause. Now 30 days later we have put up some shelves. Unpacked our doodads. Repacked some doodads that still don't fit anywhere or that I decided I truly despise. Shoved that stuff and empty buckets/boxes into the attic.

I thought that we would be DONE today. Moved in so that we could truly begin to settle in so that this could start becoming our home, but our cable wires are too long (so they don't fit in the cable/hider thing), our kids didn't answer text messages about two more pieces of furniture that they wanted, I am short one accent chair that I want in the living room. The bathroom flooded.

Yep, flooded, water pouring out from the FLOOR. Stopped the whole process of washing clothes, etc. damnity damn damn.

BUT, we did manage to get our room done. I kinda love it.

Here is where we started:

Here we are today:

I sleep on the side of the bed cutoff in the picture and there is a long wall over there with no furniture and it has my favorite part of the room on it...BUT the picture is weird because I couldn't get it at a good angle in the 3 seconds I had in my room when the plumber guy wasn't going back and forth, and I wanted to do this blog post.this.exact.second.

It's all pictures of me and Mr. P...two of them are collages that I got printed as a poster at Walgreens then put into some frames that Mr. P "rescued" and repainted with some of our leftover trim paint. We also mounted my tv on the wall...which did cause some tension yesterday since I CAN'T REACH the power button. But whatev. I can deal. I tried three times to post a picture of how high the tv is (it works fine for sleepy tv watching...I fell asleep very quickly last night) but the bitchy police must be monitoring my activity as it kept failing. I will try to sneak it by tomorrow.

I hope this plumber guy is fast, I want a shower and to get in that bed before the sun sets. I am TIRED. I have my alarm set for 6am. The predicted temperature is 64 degrees. Perfect to getting my now bigger ass back into gear with a run/walk before what I predict to be a KILLER week of work---I have 6 research based deadlines and 21 projects to preliminarily grade and turn around to my grad students.

I got a major slump going on up in here

So, last I left you, Mr. P had been laid off and we were headed out for my birthday weekend. Let's see, since then:

• I turned 41. Mr. P threw me TWO birthday parties. One drinky party and one family party. My mom pitched a fit that she was not invited to the drinky party.
• We moved out of tiny apartment into tiny house. The house is tiny. Tiny. t.i.n.y. I got bummed out at the tinyness and the crampedness and quit unpacking about a day in. I am still not moved in nearly 6 weeks later.
• I kept Eli for a weekend. Wow. 4 is tough.
• Went away with my highschool girlfriends for a weekend. Awesome. Laughter. Hugs.
• Joined a new gym and got a personal trainer. Quit running. Quit everything. Even bailed on my trainer this week.
• Mr. P got a new job where he has to travel out of town at least one night a week. It is way harder than I thought it would be. So much so, that I went with him last night. (The job is great, he loves it, he is making more money than before, he is happy and he has a company truck that he digs driving around Alabama.)
• I joined a bowling league and on the first day I bowled a 150 and 141, but now two days later my knee hurts and my middle finger does too.
• I got a health screening and my numbers are good. (Blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc.)

I don't know what is going on with me. I feel guilty and shitty for getting behind on stuff. And my new diet of hydrogenated/fructose corn syrup snacks that I enjoy with beers probably doesn't help my attitude or motivation much either.

I took before pictures of the house o'tiny when we moved in. My plan is to be able to take the after pictures on Sunday. Plus, I have a huge harvest of peppers and I want to invite the family over for stuffed peppers next week. Will I get it done? Time will tell.