I once had a quick text conversation that stays with me; it was about types of visual art. The friend I was texting with puts abstract art on her walls that I don’t like, myself, but it’s not my house, so who cares? She also has begun painting with watercolors, as have two other newly […]
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Maybe If I Consider the Maybes
A year ago, we were still in the trailer, in the campground in Wisconsin, looking for a house to buy. Maybe, if we’d spent less time house-hunting, feeling like the summer was a ticking time bomb, and more time finding a sustainable apartment (or rental house) that wouldn’t suck our souls from our very throats […]
What If I Insisted on a Dressing Table?
That’s what I said to Tracy this morning, as we were getting out of bed and talking about disentangling our insurance woes. My mom had a dressing table—that’s what we called it, but really it was a nook off the bedroom of the house where I grew up, between my parents’ walk-in closet and the […]
FOUR-inch Hail, and Other Larger-than-life Numbers
4 -inch Balls of … These photos of snowballs are not snowballs at all, they’re balls of ice, aka hail. Hail that fell on us for a few minutes a week ago. Some of these balls were made from several small balls smashing into each other and compacted into one, until they became so heavy […]
Yes, We Made a House Decision!
Ever since we got off the road in June, our lives have been hanging in the balance. What do we do? Get an apartment and a trailer? Buy a house? Split up so I can get healthcare while Tracy goes back on the road, then reconvene when I have stable health? (That one was hardly […]
FAQs
I’m calling this post FAQs, but, frankly, I don’t have enough readers for questions to be put to me frequently. I could call it “Misconceptions” or just random observations from what readers ask me. Whatever they are, you can count on me for having categorized them! Let’s stick with FAQs. Leaving the Road If you […]
8 Months Since, 4 Months In, 1 Month Until
I was going to call this post “Transitioning,” but when am I not in the middle of a transition? When is anyone? Here’s my stake in the ground right now: eight months since I called it quits with the road, four months into the apartment, one month until we move into the house, at least […]
Cautious Optimism on Two Fronts
Unfortunately, neither front is nationally; that I feel more and more pessimistic about that every day. The two fronts I’m talking about are in my small, personal domain. Cautiously Optimistic about the House You know that the mechanicals of the house are in worse shape than we thought when we bought it, which reduces our […]
A Hail-Mary Remodeling Contractor for the Score
Shortly after we bought a house in October, we began our hunt for a contractor to save us from what might have been a mistaken purchase. See, we’d had less than two hours with that house before we had to make an offer or not, and the summer real estate season was shriveling up. We’d […]
My Twilight Zone 28 Hours
Today is Thursday. My Tuesday and Wednesday were like a sandwich, with bread made of trivia games and filling made of thick-cut memories, gratefulness, high-end irritation, and a slather of strangeness. It tasted good, though. Tuesday 2:00 Tracy and I show up at the house with an inflatable mattress and linens, and I proceed to […]
