April 13, 2006

If only the memory of summer lasted long enough to get me through the cold

I knew I should have saved before I stood up. Another post bites the dust.

***

I've decided that winter is like childbirth. The last few days have been so gorgeous, so green and sunny and gloriously warm, that I can't believe we're leaving. I've already forgotten how suck-ass the last 6 months were.

I took a walk with the girls yesterday to get the mail. The flat part of the driveway has trees growing on both sides. Deer are forever running across right in front of you, and if you look closely, you can see them wandering around in the trees. Sometimes they are close enough that you could hit them if you threw something out the car window.

Jamie was having a blast, picking up sticks and leaves, running her hands in the dirt, chattering and singing. Katie loved riding on the Toro the best, bouncing and cooing the entire ride (we rode partway - Katie is getting too heavy for me to carry 1.2 miles without a sling or anything, and sometimes even with.) She kept grabbing the steering wheel, which almost caused a few accidents, but made her giggle.

I can't believe that I'm giving up all this space. I love the green grass so much it hurts sometimes. (The grass in Texas isn't as foot friendly, and often contains fire ants.) The horses would be such a blast when the kids got older. (Of course, the "kid" horses will be dead by then, one already is!) So would the creek, and the pine trees and the trails and the chores. It's so hard to leave these things that I love and hate with the same thought.

Of course, I'm pretty sure Texas is where we need to be. I can feel winter coming already.

Posted by me at 4:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2006

Test run

Rex has started his first week of a new contract in New Mexico. He'll be gone until early Friday morning this week, and Sunday through Thursday next week. This is the first part of the sacrifices we're making to move back to Texas.

So far, so good. Although, this is not an accurate representation of what life will be like when he's traveling and we're in Texas. My dad came home around 3 today, and was around to occupy Katie while Jamie finished her bath and got tucked in. Hopefully, the conveniences of the new house will make daily life enough easier that the inconveniences of being alone won't stand out so much. I can hear you all laughing, and you're right, but right now I need my little fantasy.

We've been looking at houses online, and have tickets to fly to Houston next weekend. We've found a few places that look great on paper - one had a floorplan I loved, and was brand spanking new and priced to sell. It's gone already (although the realtor said it had been on the market for a looong time). Two more are on a cul-de-sac street. They are both significantly larger than the house we had before, which actually puts them in the holy-cow-does-this-place-come-with-a-maid category. I like that the street should be quiet, and they are closer to some trails and the pool/park area.

We're also looking in our old neighborhood. This is a little crazy to me. On the one hand, we really liked the neighborhood. It's proximity to, well, everything. The people, although many of the ones we knew have moved. Walking distance to the park. There are several cul-de-sac homes available. Of course, we took quite a hit the last time we sold a house there. The neighborhood is being annexed by the next town, and we aren't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. And how weird would it be to drive past "our" house every day? Speaking of, I wonder what the new people have done to it?

I'm still not sure this has all sunk in. I haven't done any packing yet, although I'm not that worried since half of our stuff is still packed anyway. Most of the other half is stuff we're still using. I have so many things to do, but I can't do a lot of them until we know when and where exactly we're moving.

Posted by me at 9:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 7, 2006

Houston, you're about to have a problem

I've been back and forth. Hither and yon. Over hill and down dale.

We have tickets to fly to Texas to pick a house out of the stack I've found online. Jamie will stay with my dad, the baby flys with us.

I'm honestly terrified of this. I usually know what I want and what to do and aside from hating to part with a penny, the decisions are easy.

This decision is based on our best guess. There's no security, no guarantee. And I know nothing is ever *really* guaranteed, but we literally have no idea what Rex will be doing for his company in 2 months, and that scares me to death. Maybe we should rent until we know more, but I'm not really sure there's any advantage to that, either, since our best guess includes the possibility of a new employer.

I wouldn't mind making a mistake so much if I weren't dragging two kids and three cats down with us. I hate to uproot Jamie now, and I sure as hell don't want to do it twice. I already dread pulling her away from her beloved Grandpa. I know people move all the time, and kids bounce back, but I want to settle somewhere and live where my memories are. I wish we could move into our old house and reintroduce myself to the memories of bringing Jamie home.

I;m gonna start crying again. It must be time for bed.

Posted by me at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)

February 28, 2006

I think I might throw up

Rex got the call. The contract we've been waiting for so we could move has been signed.

Holy shit.

I'm having the same feeling I did when we first went off birth control. We were ready, we had made the decision to have kids, all our ducks were in a row, but the day I went off bc I started wondering if we were *really* ready. I questioned everything.

I'm freaking out now. So many unknowns. So many ways that this could be the wrong decision. For my husband. For my kids. For my parents. For me.

What the hell am I doing??

Posted by me at 8:45 PM | Comments (2)

February 10, 2006

I hate when my head and my heart disagree

Well, we've decided to move back to Texas. For sure, no doubt, it's gonna happen.

I don't know when or where, but it's going to happen. I'm guessing in the next two months, but obviously I've been wrong before.

I can't wait, and I'm terrified. We need to pick a city - Houston, Austin or Dallas, and I'm afraid to pick the wrong one. Each has some very compelling attributes making it the top choice. We just have to decide which attributes are the highest priority and then go to the city that has the most and highest ones, right?

Ironically, Maryland has every one of the attributes, and yet it's not the right place for us. Which means that picking based on priorities isn't necessarily going to lead us to the right conclusion.

I'm so gun-shy now, since I'm the one who made the decision to try to come up here (with agreement from Rex, of course, but I was the one who pushed for it) and it turned out to be such a rousing success.

I try to keep in mind that if we move somewhere and hate it, we can always move again. Nothing has to be permanent unless we choose for it to be, although at some point being nomadic with kids gets a little ridiculous. I really want to be settled for the next 15 years by the time Jamie starts school, at the latest. I'm already concerned about how she's going to react to moving this time. This time, she's old enough to remember living with Grandpa (a great thing!) which means she's also old enough to miss him.

I think the only thing worse than not knowing what's going to happen is being the person who has to make the decision while at the same time feeling totally unqualified to make it. Of course, being in the position to make the decision is also the best thing about all this. After all, we're getting to choose our own fate to a large degree.

I'm going to need more chocolate.

Posted by me at 9:54 AM | Comments (0)

December 6, 2005

OK, maybe it wasn't just for a minute

I think I might be a little emotional. I just got teary at a Pamper's commercial.

I think selling the house has totally thrown me off. I really did think that it was never going to sell, and I had resigned myself, rather happily, to going back to that house in that neighborhood. It's hard to face the fact that we're homeless (although not without a place to live). When I picture us in a house again someday, I'm still picturing *that* house.

I actually wished for a minute today that we could back out of the deal now, but it's too late.

Posted by me at 3:09 PM | Comments (0)

December 5, 2005

The check's in the mail

Jamie brought me a book to read tonight. Barnyard Dance. It's one of the first books we got for her, a gift from my brother. Coincidentally, it's also the border I picked for her nursery. I busted my ass to get it, since it was discontinued. It took us several tries to put it up, and a lot of cursing. It made me cry to read that book, knowing that we don't own that house anymore. We'll likely never again see the room we lovingly prepared for our first child. The room where she learned to walk. The cat door she'd lose socks through. The patio where she learned to love playing naked in the water.

There are so many firsts in that house, Rex's, mine and Jamie's.

It's official. Our house has sold.

I didn't say anything sooner in the interest in keeping Rex's company motivated to move us back to Houston. It's still our first choice, I think, although now that we don't have a house there, Austin may be moving up.

Everything went pretty smoothly with the sale. They had an inspection, we only had to pay out about $140 bucks to have an A/C guy out and to replace some breakers in the fuse box. The real kicker was the closing, which was supposed to happen last Wednesday. I found out Wednesday morning, when I called the title company, that the buyers didn't have all their documents in to their lender. Then the lender had to send them to the title company, who had to do some things with them before they got sent out to us. I'm still not sure why no one (including our realtor!) bothered to fill us in on that little detail. We finally got the papers Friday evening, signed them in front of a signing service notary, at the added cost of $125, and sent them off Saturday. The buyers signed today, and the check for the balance is being overnighted.

I was thinking about it in the shower the other day, the amount of money we lost on the house. Between what we paid in the four and a half years we owned it, what we lost outright in the sale (mostly to goddamn commissions), and what we put into the house in improvements, we could have bought a car. A car nicer than the one Rex bought when we moved up here. A GODDAMN CAR, PEOPLE!

I'm not bitter.

Fuck that, I'm really bitter. But I'm going to recover.

And the worst part is that we're still trying to move back there. If we do move back, I'm really going to be pissed about selling the house and having to buy one basically up the street from the one we just sold. More on that at another date.

Posted by me at 9:25 PM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2005

Tis the season

We put up our Christmas tree today. I can't believe it's that time of year again already. I was editing some of my older posts on LiveJournal and I couldn't believe how much my daughter had changed, and how much my life has changed since we left Texas.

I still haven't figured out if the way I view my kids and my life now is a result of the climate, the living arrangements, the additional child or hormones. When I look at those old pictures, I think I was happier then, but was I really? Or is it just that I can't believe that I'm unhappy now?

I've recently become more entrenched in my life here. I had joined a couple clubs last year and this past summer, but I think I've only recently started feeling comfortable and a part of them. I'm really going to miss a lot of the women I've met in the last year, and the friendships I'ms starting to develop.

It's sad that I'm already pulling away in some ways, like not making plans too far in the future. Not accepting obligations that I'm not sure I'll be here to fulfill. And yet I don't really know when or where we're going.

Posted by me at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2005

The not knowing is what kills me

Rex has gone ahead and asked his company what our options are as far as relocating back to Texas. We've given them a list of our "demands" - Houston is our first choice, then Austin (a long shot), then Dallas, we'd like to go ASAP, but it doesn't have to be this week, and that we still need to sell our damn house if we don't go back to Houston. Rex told them he needed at least a yes or no by November 1, even if they didn't have all the details worked out.

Rex thought they might get back to him sooner. Why he told me that when he knows I get all excited about "maybe" and "could be" is beyond me. I've been dying for news since he had that meeting, and we have yet to hear anything. I'm at the I have enough diapers for a month, but they're on sale, do I buy more phase, and I hate being in limbo. I almost think I would rather hear a no than not know one way or the other.

Scratch that. It's cold outside. I'd rather have some hope.

Posted by me at 9:30 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Leavin' on a jet plane

We're heading to Texas tomorrow for almost s week to visit family and friends. We haven't been back in almost exactly one year.

I'm looking forward to the trip, but not to the crap that goes along with being a parent on a vacation. After all, it's not much of a vacation to chase your kids around someone else's house :) I already pity the people who are going to be on the airplane with us. Jamie has generally been pretty good every other time she was on a plane, even when she was younger and hard to keep entertained. Katie, on the other hand, is not known for her easy travelin' nature. And she's got a damn fine lung/vocal cord combo.

I'm also anxious to see how I feel when we're back in Texas. I'm anticipating a feeling of homecoming that for some reason I haven't experienced here in Maryland. Since we've just about made our decision, I'm hoping for that feeling.

Ah, well. It's going to be what it's going to be!

Posted by me at 1:35 PM | Comments (0)

September 5, 2005

Dare to compare - Advantage Texas

We visited my cousin and his family over Labor Day. I saw their house for the first time about 2 weeks ago, and have been raving about it ever since. It's big. It's beautiful. It's uncluttered and basically new and did I mention it's big?

And the hardwood floors. I'd give up my firstborn for them. Well, maybe just a cat or two, but still.

I'm envious. Jealous, even. Not so much of their specific house, although I'd love to have it. I'm jealous of the feeling I have when I'm in that open space. I realized while I was there that the space we're currently living in really affecting the way I live. And the way I feel. It's not just cramped and crappy, it's not mine. Not mine to decorate. Not mine to fix up. And although my father would certainly let me do those things, I don't intend to be living in this house long enough to want to make it a cozy home for us and then have to leave it.

I hate the way this place makes me feel. I hate that I don't have a cute nursery for my baby, and my two-year-old didn't get big girl furniture on her birthday like I had planned. Rex and I would like a king-sized bed, but it won't fit. Hell, I'd like to get an exersaucer for Katie, but I don't have room for that either.

I know a lot of these are superficial things compared to what others in the world are going through. I should be thankful for what I do have. And I am. But I have all these things in Texas already, and it pisses me off that I can't do anything with them.

Advantage - Texas

Posted by me at 9:41 PM | Comments (0)

September 1, 2005

Wanna buy a house?

No, really. Wanna buy it?

We have this house. This big, beautiful can't-convince-anyone-to-buy-it house. In Texas.

Have I mentioned we live in Maryland? And that in two weeks we'll have been here for a year?

We've had a lot of showings, and one lowball offer. In the beginning, no one said much about the paint colors. (I should note that I hate white. Beige is the new white. I didn't have any purple rooms, but I didn't shy away from color either. And I'll give them the kitchen. We painted right before we found out we were moving, and even I kinda wanted to repaint it when it was done.) Lately, everyone likes to rag on the colors. They can't see what a nice house it is because of the colors. Ask for a painting allowance, for god's sake! I'm willing to paint the damn house back to beige for you! I'm not bitter. No, I'm not.

We're at the point where we don't know what to do. It seems unlikely that we'll be able to sell the house for anything less than a huge loss. Like, tens of thousands huge.

And this is just one of the big issues in the debate: Maryland or Texas?

Posted by me at 3:03 PM | Comments (0)