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goodbye dreamhouse
Well, I let my dream house get away this morning. The owner called to offer me one last chance to rent it and I had to decline. I didn’t tell you about this because it was so secret and exciting I was afraid to bring it up on my blog for fear somebody who lives around here might read it and snatch up my dream house from me. But in the end Toby and I decided that we really couldn’t afford to be paying three times what we pay now in rent and so we let it go.
It’s tragic. This house is so perfect for us, I don’t think we’ll ever find one like it again.
I’ve walked by this old fifties beach bungalow for the last ten years and admired it. It has a unique triangular architecture and it is situated sideways on a full size lot where every other house is built to property line and busting at the seams with cement and stucco. It has courtyards on both sides and big windows from floor to ceiling to let all that garden light in. It has a breakfast nook and an upstairs loft. From the upstairs loft bedroom you can walk out onto a balcony that goes onto the roof and from there you can see just a little bit of the ocean. It has a two car garage with washer and dryer hook-ups. It has wood floors and in the baby’s room it has one of those closets that goes under the stairs so there’s a secret place to stash toys and hide out. It has a bell outside the kitchen patio screen door that you can ring when you want your children to come in for dinner. It has a back yard and a front yard and there’s a fig tree in both. There’s also a lemon tree and a peach tree and an orange tree and a funny fern tree with an orchid growing off the side of it. It has working sprinkler systems and on one of the hose faucets the handle is in the shape of a quail. It has built in dressers with lots of drawers and cupboards. It has a gas fireplace… I could go on and on.
This place was meant for me. It’s old. It’s quirky. It’s got a story at every turn. So why isn’t it for sale? I don’t know. But it’s not. The owner lives in San Diego and he probably pays his mortgage with the money we’d pay for rent.
I had quite a few conversations with the owner and he assured me that even though he couldn’t sell it to me, he wouldn’t tear it down and build condos like every other property owner is doing in this neighborhood. I think it would kill me if this house got torn down. I’d have to camp out in the big juniper tree in the front yard like Julia Butterfly and chain myself to it’s branches in protest. I shared with him my love of this house and he said in a few years IF he decides to put it up for sale, he’ll give me a ring.
I know we won’t be able to afford this house in a few years. It’ll probably be worth three million by then. But we can always dream. We thought about renting it for a few years but it just would be too hard to move out and leave behind something that felt so right. It would be like we were trading in our future for a short term vacation. It would also be hard to live in it and not make the repairs and investments that we would make if it was ours. We couldn’t put in track lighting in the kitchen or change out the electric stove for gas. We couldn’t re-landscape the wood chips on the front yard hillside into long grasses and native flowers… it would be like living a dream but knowing it wasn’t real, that you couldn’t keep it. In the end Toby and I decided we would be better off investing the money in something we could call our own. But it sure was hard to get to that point. I cried many tears over this house. It just felt like destiny it was so perfect.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
Part of me wonders if this is the devil’s secret plan to make me dissatisfied with my life. I have the most beautiful healthy baby girl who makes me so happy who I’ve wanted for years and years and years… Isn’t that enough? Do I have to have the perfect house too? When I put it in that perspective, I’m okay giving it up. I’m okay living in my pig sty apartment for another few years. Some dreams just weren’t meant to come true. And who knows, maybe the house we do buy someday will be even better.
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My Baby Goes to Meetings
What a week! On Thursday (tomorrow) or Friday I’m going to take Baby Bug into the conference room of a small office in a big business park and present a whole year’s worth of direct mail marketing concepts to one of my clients. That’s partly what’s been stressing me out so much lately. I’ve been trying to finish this up for months. Through thick and thin, spit up and exploding poop, aaaaa-booooh’s, pterodactyl shrieks and mandatory trips to the park…we finally got it done, Baby Bug and I. And since she’s been such a part of my life with this project lately, she’s going to the meeting to present with me too. How about that?
My client wanted it that way. When I got pregnant, I told them I couldn’t really keep working for them because I was going to be a full time mom. They were sad and said they’d get along okay but asked if there was anything they could to do to change my mind. I hemmed and hawed because this client is a really good client. They always pay me on time and they almost always love my designs. I love easy clients who give me freedom to do what I think works best. We negotiated and they came back with some parameters I thought I could fit into. Deadlines were off. I could take as long as I needed to get things done. I could phone in my meetings and they would send couriers to pick up my designs. And they said I could bring my cute little baby into the office any time I wanted to.
I think that’s what sealed it for me. I get to take my baby with me. Obviously a mother is running the show over there. So on Thursday or Friday, my mom and sister-in-law are coming into town to support me and we are all going to get dressed up in our most professional duds and present my marketing concepts. If only I had an Ally McBeal suit for Baby Bug. After that I’m going to go shoot an event at the local big mall and my sister-in-law and my mom are going to push Baby Bug in the stroller. I told you it’s a big week.
This is all fine and good and I’m actually excited about it EXCEPT….I think Baby Bug has officially entered the “stranger anxiety” stage of her development.
She pulled a screaming stunt last night that surprised even me. A friend came over for some last minute graphic design help (I swear I should open up my own kinkos in my house) and I handed Baby Bug off to her while I worked on scanning in her images. I’ve handed Baby Bug off to this friend plenty of times. Never has there been any screaming. In fact, at one point I was actually jealous of this friend who was so natural with babies. My own baby fell asleep more easily in her arms than mine. Well, not any more. Baby Bug screamed bloody murder. And she screamed and she screamed and she screamed. I think the neighbors probably stopped eating their dinner mid bite and looked at each wondering where that horrible screaming was coming from. There was nothing I could do to calm her down. Even Daddy holding her made it worse. It wasn’t until after my friend left and I held Baby Bug tight, singing “This Little Light of Mine” off key forty-seven billion times that she finally nodded off to sleep from exhaustion. Phew!
I can just imagine how things will go down at my meeting tomorrow if this happens. I’m sure it will be okay. I can always just drop off my designs and leave. But I really want to talk them over. It’s amazing how opinions can go from bad to worse if you aren’t there to hype your own work. I need to explain my thought process behind each piece.
One way or another, we’ll figure it out.
I have so many theories about why Baby Bug might have lost it last night that I confuse myself. It could have been because I took her on a really really long walk and for the first time she actually stayed awake and looked around her, taking everything in. Maybe her little brain hurt from trying to figure out why the sky was blue. My friend came over at seven, which is when Baby Bug usually starts her bedtime routine. Maybe she was tired and over-stimulated from a big day. My friend had a glass of wine before she came over and she smelled funny. Maybe Baby Bug didn’t like the smell of alcohol mixing with her perfume. Maybe Baby Bug is just a mommy’s girl because I hold her 24/7 and I really need to be around more people so she gets used to it. Maybe it’s because I’m teaching her to nap in her crib now instead of in the sling… Maybe all these changes are just too much for her. I could come up with theories until my face turns blue. All I know is that I just have to roll with it as it comes and somehow my mother instinct will know what to do.
I’ll keep you posted on how our meeting goes.
