It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
Posts tagged house
We Thought it Would be Worth it
15July 12, 2010
by Abby
in I do stuff to my house
Yes, it’s a great house. Yes, it’s in a perfect location. Yes, we knew it would be tight for a while. We thought it would be worth it.
Turns out, it’s just a house.
We find this American Dream to be bullshit.
Bryan and I have a different American Dream. We felt it for the 4 years we spent renting when we moved to Columbus, and we thought something was wrong with us because we enjoyed renting so much. We figured we had PTSD from our first home-ownership and renovation experience, but now we are embracing our renter nature.
We don’t want to pay this kind of money (or any kind of money) for just a house. We want disposable income. We want to visit our family in Michigan and take a real family vacation. We want to take the kids wherever they want to go. Right now, this means Comic-Con and The American Girl store and to little cabins on Lake Michigan and Tawas Bay. We want to take them wherever else they want to go. We want to go away for the weekend, just us two. We want to be tourists in our own city and anywhere else we feel like it. We don’t want to buy mulch. We don’t want to buy carpet. We don’t want to put in another new bathroom. We don’t want to spend the weekend in the yard. We don’t want to pull weeds. We don’t want to plant flowers. We don’t want to fix doorknobs. We don’t want to buy prettier doors. We don’t want to seal the asphalt. We don’t want to buy paint. We don’t want to go to the hardware store. We don’t want to buy more stuff to fill up this house. We don’t want to spend any mental or physical or financial energy on just a house. We don’t want to be in debt. We don’t want to keep up with the Joneses. And anyway, we suspect that the Joneses have at least 1 credit card that they will never be able to pay off. We don’t want that.
We want to do stuff, not buy stuff.
Except for consumables. I love to buy consumables. I want to go out to eat so much that I get sick of it. Also? I like to buy beer WHENEVER I WANT. I’m out of beer much more often than I care to be and that is not cool. And I think it’s extra important to have an unlimited beer supply when you have a mortgage that prevents you from doing the things you want to do with your life. You can see how owning this house is a lose-lose situation.
We’re not house people anymore and I blame HGTV for making us think we’re supposed to be house people. I’m totally deleting that channel off of my tv and I’m only ever going to watch the Food Network and the Travel Channel when I’m in the mood for reality tv. And then we’re going to follow Man V. Food around just for fun because that dude’s life looks AWESOME.
Yes, moving sucks b@lls, but owning a house sucks b@lls dipped in poop, and we are just not into that.
Oh, and the children? I was worried about telling the children because, after all, children are usually the reason people buy awesome houses in great locations, so I thought this house meant something more to them, but when they heard the plan, Liberty said, “Good, I’m bored of this house anyway!” and Lena and Maya agreed. One of the things HGTV told me was that kids need their own space to decorate however they want. They didn’t tell me that once the space is decorated, the kid will want to change it within a month, which is exactly what happened here. I laughed and laughed and laughed when first Liberty, then Lena asked me to re-paint her room. Now I know better. And all of the kids know exactly what they’ve given up in order to live in this house. It’s not worth it to them, either.
Feckless Friday: Passive-Aggressive Paint Job Edition
7January 29, 2010
Remember the other day when I said I might paint my entryway? Well, in a surprisingly not feckless move on my part, I painted the first coat that very day. It looks lovely, but I’m out of paint. I’ll get some for the second coat soon, I promise. Definitely by summer.
About that paint job…you know how I was born in Michigan and raised to be a UofM fan? And you know how The Ohio State University hates the Wolverines? And you know how I don’t really like to wear UofM garb this close to campus because dummies make snide comments? And you know how one time at Bryan’s old job his anti-UofM boss wrote him up for a safety violation for having a UofM pen sticking pointy side up in his pen thing? (Oh yes he did! Bryan had to petition to get it off his record and everything!) And you know how we bought a house right here in Columbus where everybody hates U o fM? Well, I subconsciously wrote Columbus a passive-aggressive note when I painted my living room and entryway:
*looks better in real life*
I think the note says, “Suck it, Buckeyes. GO BLUE!” Yeah, I pretty much painted my house maize and blue. By accident. Technically, it’s sweet maple and sweet sea or something like that, but still. I didn’t even realize it until I looked at it with Bryan and said, “I just really like how those colors look together,” and he very excitedly said, “Hell yes you do! Maize and blue, baby!” And I think he clapped.
Apparently, I’m a huge fan of college sports.
I Actually Acted on Info Gleaned From a Forwarded Email
8January 26, 2010
by Abby
in I do stuff to my house
And I’m a little excited about it.
Help me, people. I’ve gone insane.
My dryer hasn’t been drying my clothes very well and I read in a forwarded email that I should scrub the lint filter with a nylon brush until I can run water through it with no puddles forming. So I did it.
Do you see what January has made me do?
Also, I think I’m going to paint the wall that has been painted like this for at least 6 months:
I guess I got all burned out on painting after doing the basement, Lena’s room, Liberty’s room, Maya’s room, my room, the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room. I thought I had enough in me to do this small entryway, but once I put the blue on the wall, I lost steam in a big way.
Maybe this little project will kick off the finishing of a couple of other little projects, but I doubt it. I still need to paint a small hallway, and the stairway that leads to the basement. And the computer room. Damn, I forgot about the computer room. There’s a lot of crap in that room. Oh, and I want to repaint the kitchen and part of the dining room. I probably won’t, but still.
Painting Stuff and Things
4July 24, 2009
by Abby
in I very rarely go places
I’m busy and maybe I’m still in mourning. I don’t know. I paint stuff and take the kids to the pool and think about Michael Jackson and Walter Cronkite and run and play variations of hide-and-seek, but blogging hasn’t been on my to-do list.
We’re heading to Michigan today (not Cluck & Tweet’s Michigan, but still). My sister and I will beat my my nephew’s girlfriend and my niece in tennis on Saturday morning and then we’ll spend the rest of the day gloating about that while the kids swim in the pond and play with their cousin Riley. Sunday, there will be an Aldrich family reunion, and then a childless trip home as the kids are staying a few days in order to camp with my inlaws. What will we do with no children? Paint, of course. I’m going to paint 14 hours a day for 3 days. I hope I finish the whole house. After my 14 hours of painting, Bryan and I will eat at restaurants and maybe go to Zoombezi Bay one night. Who knows? We’re crazy kids, we could do anything! ANYTHING! As long as the painting gets done, I mean. The painting must get done. I will miss the children because they rock, but they’ll be in good hands and they’ll still rock when they get back. And the walls will be painted. Yay!
Oh, and new toilet! Monday! Plumber!
As usual, don’t break in while we’re gone and make sure you cry because you miss us. If you could videotape yourself crying and post it on Youtube, that would be a bonus. I’ll give you bonus points. (You didn’t know I’ve been giving you all points all this time? I won’t take away any points for that).
Old Man Cheezer and Maya’s First Blog Post
4July 16, 2009
We hired somebody to do the tile in the basement bathroom and Liberty has nick-named him “Old Man Cheezer.” I don’t know why. He is an old man, but he doesn’t smell like cheese and I’ve not seen him snacking on cheese.
Soon, when Old Man Cheezer’s work is done, our plumber (“Young Man Crackerz, with a ‘z’” says Lena) will be able to get in there and get that place toileted up. Then the big children won’t have to carry their tired tushies all the way upstairs and to the other side of the house in the wee hours of the morning when the tinkle fairy comes. They’re very sad and sleepy when that happens. Every morning I hear them dragging themselves up the stairs and through the house whimpering, “When is our bathroom gonna be dooooonnnnnne?” The poor babies. The worst part is, when Maya (whose bedroom is right next to the bathroom on the main level) hears the walking dead, she races to the bathroom and locks herself in there shouting, “I have to go peeeeeee! Really baaaaaad!” And then I imagine she silently cackles while Lena and/or Liberty stand outside the door yelling, “Hurry UP!” I told them the toilet would be in there this week. I lied. Old Man Cheezer is going out of town today and he won’t be back to finish his job until Monday. Then we’ll schedule Young Man Crackerz.
And now, Maya would like to tell you about this:
The water is super, super, super, super, super deep and nobody can touch. Moms and dads can’t touch. Big girls can’t touch. Teenagers can’t touch. Little girls can’t touch. Toddlers can’t touch. Babies can’t touch. There should be a baby diving board in the baby pool. <At this point, she switches to a commercial announcer voice> So come here and dive! It’s where the water slide is! And if you lay down on your back, you go super fast! And if you sit up, you go slow. So come here and dive off the little board and dive off the platform and dive off the medium board! So I want you to come here and diiiiiiive! It’s fun! And how you dive is you bend down and put your hands over your head together and make sure your hands go in first and then straighten your legs. Bye bye!
And she also wants to tell you about the water slide.
Hello, my name is Maya and I’m going to tell you about the water slide! Yay! The water slide is fun, you should come at the swimming pool and this is the same place where I talked about the diving board, so come here and go swimming! And you can do a bunch of stuff, but you can only go down on your butt on the water slide, so you have to come here and swim because <singing> it’s summer time, it’s summer time, and I love summer time! Now you sing it! The slide is swirly because it doesn’t go straight down because when you start going you go left, right, left, right, left, right, and at the end you’re in water. Right now come to the swimming pool! <singing> Boom boom, boom boom, boom boom. Bye bye!
