This May Be the End

Beginnings in Endings may have run its course. I may "begin" a new blog with this one's "end." I'll let you know, you 3 people out there who still occasionally check this blog =)

It's not that I don't want to blog; it's just that I'm not.

8 Places in 6 Years

We just bought our first house! We're all moved in, and the place is really feeling like home. There are still projects to be done, no doubt, but it feels amazing to be living in a place that is our own for the first time.

Strange enough, over our 6 years of marriage we have lived in 7 different apartments/homes - 8 if you count the fall semester that we lived with my parents while we raised support to go on staff with the Navigators. I don't think living in that many places in such a small amount of time is "normal," but Jason and I kind of liked it.

First was our studio apartment in Nashville Tennessee. It was in a beautiful old building off of West End Ave. Even though it was a studio, it was a great space for us. The price was ridiculous - we paid less for our 3 bedroom, 2 bath duplex here - but for our first place together as a couple, it was really fun. Hard wood floors, vaulted ceilings, black and white tile kitchen with the original sink from the 1920's. Really cute.

2nd place was a 1 bedroom apartment over a garage in Ladue (for those of you not in St. Louis, Ladue is where the mansions are). We lived behind a beautiful mansion on the grounds of the St. Louis country club - for free- and nannied for the 3 kids who lived in that beautiful house. We shuttled them to swim practice, guitar lessons, playdates, gymnastics - whatever! We spent a lot of time with them at their house too. During that time Jason and I would joke that we were indentured servants - if we lost our job, we lost our house too! It was pretty fun.

3rd place, the Chalet on the grounds of Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs. Lovingly referred to as the hobbit house. The house was originally a "doll house" for the daughters of the property's original owner, who also built the Glen Eyrie castle on the property. So, we lived in a life size doll house the summer we ran the property's day camp. It is an amazing property and it was so fun to live there. At dusk the big horn sheep would come down and eat in our back yard. We could run into the Garden of the Gods right next door. It was incredible.

4th place, my parent's house! When I got married, I certainly never expected to live with my parents again! After our summer in Colorado we decided to go on staff full-time with The Navigators (owners of Glen Eyrie). My parents generously offered my brother's bedroom (he had just started at Mizzou). We had all of our stuff in storage, and our piano sitting akwardly in their front room, where they already had a piano of their own! It was tight, but it worked, and honestly wasn't that bad.

5th place, a cute little two bedroom house in Colorado Springs. When I say little, I'm not exaggerating, it was really small, but it totally worked. I actually loved that house. It had a great kitchen, painted a great blue. The laundry was in the bathroom. Different, but really convenient. We lived across the street from an awesome walking/running trail that ran along a creek. The sun shines 350 days a year in Colorado, and even though it's cold and snowy, it's just so beautiful and sunny that you're still motivated to be outside. I have great memories of living there.

6th place, a strange house in Dogtown, back here in St. Louis. Moving back here for Jason to attend Law School, we couldn't look at places on our own, so I found things online and had my parents look for us. It came down to this house in Dogtown and a duplex, and I chose the house because we were expecting Amelia and I wanted our own place. Well, the kitchen was in the basement and the staircase down there became known as the "staircase of death." So as soon as that lease was up, we were moving on. But, I really loved living in Dogtown a lot.

7th place, our fabulous duplex in beautiful University City, blocks from The Loop. The space in our duplex was great, the neighborhood was fantastic. I think I would have stayed there a lot longer if it weren't for one big issue - no insulation between floors. Our first upstairs neighbors had 3 little girls age 5 and under. Their running upstairs would literally shake our china cabinet and even caused the glass light fixture in our kitchen to fall and break into a million tiny pieces. I could totally listen in on their conversations if I wanted to - which of course I didn't =) - and sometimes they would wake up Amelia and Isaac. Boo. They moved out this summer and we thought it might get better with the new people upstairs because they didn't have any kids. We love those neighbors, and the previous ones, but when you drop your cell phone upstairs and it sounds like you dropped a bowling ball to us, it just doesn't work. So, reluctantly, we moved from the area because we couldn't afford a good house there.

8th, and final(?) place, our new house in Rock Hill! We LOVE our house so much. We have 4 bedrooms, a great space in the basement for TV and the kids' stuff. It's a great location close to most of our friends. We are so blessed! It's been really fun to buy things with the mentality that this is our real home, and we are really settling in. Jason built us a pantry this weekend, we've been to home depot like 4 times in 2 weeks! It's really fun! Moving, not so much a new experience for us. Calling a place truly home, totally new and really exciting! I promise I will post pictures very soon. Just want to get things a smidge more settled first.

Spare Time

I'm sitting here in my new living room with spare time. I'm not sure how I've acquired it, but I have some and I'm choosing to blog. A good friend of mine recently mentioned that her relationship with her blog began even before her relationship with her husband. I've had this blog a really long time as well. At one point I actually blogged consistently, and many times it was about at least mildly interesting things. You can look in my archives from like, 2003, if you don't believe me. The fact that I have archives that old is a bit ridiculous.

Anyway, my point? Lately, this stupid blog is just another thing in my life that I can look at and feel like a failure. Everyone else seems to find time to blog about incredible creative and intersting things, and post pictures and valuable information like price books, or even just use it successfully as a place to vent and document their life. A very wise friend of mine listened as I cried on the phone with her yesterday and asked me to write down all of the expectations I have of myself. As I began writing I couldn't believe how easily I filled two pages. I'm realizing that I am literally expecting myself to be perfect, and guess what, it's not going very well!

So, from now on, I'd like to use this blog as a place to process a lot of overwhelming things in my life right now - like my mom having cancer, my 10 month old still not sleeping through the night, a new house we moved into a week ago, trying to live without cable! - and no longer look at it as another thing on my list of things to do, but rather as what it used to be, an outlet, a place to be creative, a tool I use on my terms.

So, if anyone even reads this blog anymore, that's what I'm trying to do now!

Max and Ruby

I would like to report two children to bunny family services. In nearly every episode these young children are pictured out and about without any parental or adult supervision. I have seen grandma once, but I have serious concerns as to the care being given to these bunnies. They seem extremely well adjusted, and appear to be clean and well-fed. However, little Ruby should not be carrying the burden of caring for and supervising her little brother Max the majority of the time.

sincerely,

concerned viewer parent.