Ok, so this is an update—and it will probably be me babbling nuttily—but there you go.
First, my “eye” is coming back. After the break in, after seeing so much of my personal art work ruined (mostly covered w dirt and mud from shoes and the knocked over plant—I don’t think I threw anything away—although I don’t know what I plan to do w anything), I lost my desire to really DO anything, either drawing or painting. I noticed the desire to look at things in an artistic manner, using my ‘artist’s eye’, coming back more and more of late. It started last week, watching R as he got dressed one morning. Now, I wasn’t wearing my glasses—and my eyesight sans glasses is roughly 20 over 220. So, to say I could ‘see’ anything doesn’t really mean a great deal. But I see shapes. The blurry lines of my love’s shoulders and back got my hand twitching w the desire to dip a finger or two into paint and trace paint onto paper, to capture those sloping sculpted lines.
Recently, I’ve gotten similar twinges over trees, snow fall, my son sleeping…different things. Today I was upset w myself for not remembering to grab my camera as I left the house this morning to take E on a shopping run. There was this magnificent tree, stripped of leaves, thick white trunk, thin beige twigs for branches, literally, and it was all canted over towards one side, unlike every other tree in the yard, and on the street. It was so beautiful. Now, I know we can go tomorrow and get a picture of it—and we are going car shopping tomorrow too—so it really isn’t a loss, per se. But it was a huge eye-opener into the fact that I really am much more ready to dive back into things than I have been.
The weather is beginning to warm back up somewhat of late. One reason I stopped working on N’s sweater was because the weather was so cold—and I am using metal needles to make it. Between the cold weather—and my walking back and forth between houses—and the metal needles—I just couldn’t manage it. My hands were all too sensitive—my entire body gets ultra-sensitive w all the cold—handling metal needles—and not my knitpicks ones—just the ones we bought at Michael’s when all my needles were packed up (I think Boye, maybe Bates). I have started to dream in yarn again. I have found myself knitting that sweater and finishing it in my dreams—and watching N try it on and run around in it, like a hyper chicken on cracked wheat (joke)—for well over a week now.
Sleeping w R, I have had a variety of strange dreams of late. More on this later. At some point.
I have also heard the whispers of a certain Cheerleader doll, waiting to be crocheted and turned over to her rightful owner. I hear more from the cheerleader when I am awake though.
The house, my house, is roughly 95% unpacked and put away. I think R and I are buying a truck or SUV, and like, soon too. We could buy one this week and take it to Chicago this week-end—that’s how serious he has become. Not that he wasn’t serious before—but between my urge for all things Ikea (well, not ‘All’ things) and him figuring out he is making more money while having less bills, I think this may be the week he buys something. Then, we get to take a day trip to Chicago. Neither R nor I really like Chicago, so a day trip to Ikea is the best option for us. Even if we do have to stay somewhere overnight, it won’t be Chicago.
I still love the history channel or discovery channel or whatever programs they were that I watched on the Chicago eons ago—so, hint, paraphrasing here is typical. Chicago is of course a swamp, drained. White man’s battle against nature. A place that sinks ever deeper into the swamp as the city grows. A haunted and fevered place. The tales of ghosts and curses that abound on that land. I have always thought of Chicago as the opposite of New Orleans. New Orleans is a magic place, where the dead walk hand in hand w the living. The one place where I feel at home, completely. That utter sense of belonging and …acceptance. Chicago is a dead place, where even the dead fear to tread for the most part. I am not saying there are no ghosts there—I am saying there are different types of spirits. There are dark things and there are light things and there are the things that are in between.
Anyway…
R was looking through the ads that came today and we might have found the kitchen table I want—of course, I probably won’t buy anything until after we go to Ikea. But, the option is there.
We found a terrific restaurant right up the road here. Pearl Café. R and I have been meaning to try it for months. The family who owns Thai Kitchen, much farther up the road, owns this restaurant. We love Thai Kitchen. They make R’s spaghetti w peanut sauce. Pearl Café doesn’t make that dish. They do however make the most incredible food. Drunken noodles, with either beef or shrimp, is absolutely incredible. We also had panang curry—which is utter bliss w chicken. We had dessert—because of one of the family’s young children were having a birthday party at the restaurant and her mom was setting up as we were finishing our meal. We each got a cupcake. It was terrific. The food, the atmosphere, the people, everything was just awesome. We will be going there again, a lot.
Now, I had someone ask for more information on our living situation. Technically, for all intents and purposes, R and I are living together, and E too. N on the weekends too. But there is sort of a grey area, due to where all our stuff is located. Not that he doesn’t have plenty of stuff at my house. He does.
First of all, we didn’t buy the 2000+ square feet of living space, w 5 acres of land house, because it required cashing in all our reserves and savings plans. We could have done it—we would have had no problems making the payments—but we’d have no reserves. Neither of us was comfortable w having no savings plan, no back-up.
R and I have been planning to get into real estate investment since I was pregnant w N, what, 7 years ago? R took me w him to a real estate investment seminar back then, so he could make sure I had some sort of fluid income coming in. I was in massage therapy school then – and we already knew I wasn’t going to enter into that whole spa mindset -- give a massage for an hour, 5 minute break, if that, give massage for an hour, rinse hands, repeat—most spas, especially around here, are all about working the therapist to exhaustion. I have watched many a massage therapist burn out in under a year under that sort of pressure. My grandmother told me to make sure I had something else to fall back on too—as did the instructor at the massage school—statistically massage therapists burn out in 1-3 years. All I ever wanted was a few clients a week. Enough to cover our expenses and a little extra. Which is still what I want to do…and pretty much I do that now, with a lot more extra—but I normally give R all the extra.
Yes, let me re-iterate, I did graduate from massage school. No, I did not seek to become state certified or nationally certified. I do so many more things than massage. In fact, other than my kids and the dogs (yes, I did indeed take pet massage courses outside of the normal massage curriculum), I do massage on R only. He was always my best training partner when I was in school anyway—my best guinea pig.
Real estate. We had already been heavily discussing buying a rental property—that’s how we found the big house in the first place. We knew we would be buying a property. R had everything in place. The pre-approval, the research, all of it. All we needed to do was find a house. Then the house across the river was broken into—and it was all too easy for us to quickly come to the agreement that we should buy that first rental property and that the kids and I should live in it while we fix it up and get all the incidentals associated w beginning real estate investment in line. It was also understood from the beginning that it was only a matter of time before we got this settled and then we buy “our” house, the next big house. When we all live together.
Now, what I didn’t expect, and I am guessing R didn’t either, is our complete unwillingness to be separated at night. While we were staying w R in between the break in and the move in, R and I solidified a great many things, whether on purpose or not. One of these things is—we need to be together. Honestly. Neither of us can really function without one another. We need to sleep together and cook together and eat together and shower together and sit together. And all the other things we do every day as a couple. We genuinely like to be together as much as we possibly can.
You can say it’s the honeymoon period—except—we’ve always been like this. We haven’t always been so physically close—we haven’t always showered together—that sort of thing—but we’ve always enjoyed one another’s company—and now that we are a romantic couple, it is so much more—amazing and vital.
Yeah. Love is like that.
Real estate. So, we bought our first rental property, together. Technically, R did all the paperwork. All I did was give him money as I could. Everything in his name, for now. So, we can say he bought me a house—because he did—but I helped. We moved all the kids and my stuff into the house. Every morning, R gets up. He goes to work. I get up—then E gets up, and we walk to our house. I work from my house during the day, working on arranging and unpacking—although this week it has been more arranging than unpacking. Every evening R gets off work, he picks the girls and me up and takes us back to his house. Nine times out of ten, we take Ken and Princess w us. Those two are bloody well inseparable these days.
R and I are now joking about how my house is more of a storage area than anything else. However, we have also had chats about when we do start sleeping there. And we will. But when we do—so will R. There is no middle ground w us. I do not have one house and he has the other. We have two houses. As soon as I am more comfortable, as soon as we have things more set up to my satisfaction, as soon as we have both kids and their beds set up, we will be doing a lot more at my house, even though R is the one w the 42 in tv in his house now!
Last year, when we went to Pagan Picnic http://paganpicnic.org/ , R told me that this year we would get me my own booth. Well, first of all, my art work was destroyed. Not every bit of it, but enough. Then, while moving, I donated a huge bag of knitting and crocheted goods – never thinking hey, here’s what I could be selling at that booth…
However, it’s January. Even though I have a sweater to finish, a doll to start and finish and socks to finish—there is actually still plenty of time for me to create plenty of both art and hand-made items. All I really need to do is set my mind to it. I haven’t unpacked all my crochet hooks or scissors yet—but I can get to all my knitting needles—including my Denise interchangeables. Which I still need to return that one US 9 for a replacement—that was always my only irk w them—that 9 not holding the join.
So many choices. So many ideas. So many plans. The dolls, the Spirit Dolls, the other eclectic art that isn’t done with pencil or paint. There’s something I need to put on the list to sit and contemplate –set to planning things and seeing what I can accomplish in regards to all the other things I have on my plate.
Warning to all my facebook friends and family:
E is playing on facebook. R started it. He lets her handle his Farmville. Yesterday, she started on MY Farmville. Then it was fishville and petville today—now she has discovered farm town and yoville and who knows what else. So—if you think it’s me—it isn’t—but she loves it when someone sends ‘us’ anything—and on mine she is allowed to send whatever she wants to whomever she wants—and she can visit all the friends who are adjacent, where there are farms involved and whatnot. R won’t let her do that. At least not yet anyway.
Hmmfph. For now, I guess that’s it. Have fun. Until next time.
Ciao.
