Powder Room, After

   The ‘before” shots again, just to refresh your memory:

And the almost finished “after” shots (we still plan to darken the trim a bit…previous owners stripped off old paint and coated with poly, but the wood is lighter in here than in the rest of the house…we’ll fix that soon):

 

Framed prints came from a children’s book, Brian Wildsmith’s Birds, a garage sale find that was a tiny bit too musty to read through bu the artwork was too fun to part with…voila!  Wall art!

A Peach

“When are we getting another dog?” my son asked. 

His question seared my heart because we had lost Riley only two days before and losing a beloved companion, a dog with such presence, had left me reeling.  It wasn’t that I had not thought of having another dog; when you have a dog whose health is as precarious as Riley’s was, you consider the idea of what you will do when she finally loses her life’s battle and there was never a question, or even a doubt, about getting another dog.  But not yet.  I explained gently to my sad four-year-old that we needed to spend time thinking about the dog we had loved and lost before we could welcome a new life to our home. 

“But Mom, we are a two dog, one rabbit family.  We need to get another dog.” 

Time went by, and by some people’s standards it wasn’t much time, only weeks.  But this is what I knew for sure about Riley: She was a shelter dog.  She and her littermates were found next to a dumpster in Virginia, six weeks old, alone, without their mother.  Someone had left them with the garbage, had thrown them away, and this puppy who had once been so unwanted and unloved became one of our best friends.  In my mind, there is no better way to honor her life and the impact she made on our lives than to find another shelter dog for our family.  We understood that any new dog would not fill the hole that Riley left, but we also understood that the grief we feel over the death of a loved one can be tempered by new life, by new adventures. 

So it is in loving memory of Riley that we introduce another shelter dog to our family circle.  This is Ginger, or “Ginny”, who hails from Georgia, where her mom and littermates were due to be euthanized, but instead will all find homes in New York this holiday season.   I think Riley would approve.

Riley

Rest in peace, pretty girl.

A Few "Before" Pictures

It is always good to have a point of reference from which to see how far you have come. These are the bathroom "before":

These were taken before we bought the house, so all decorative accents are from the previous owners. The room is slightly odd-shaped, with one small section of wall that is set on a diagonal to the others, and the ceiling is quite high.

Brendan and the kids actually started the makeover project back in September, when they installed a new faucet, towel holder, and toilet paper holder. They are such good little helpers!

I hope to have my "after" pictures ready by the end of the weekend. Next up: the living room gets an overhaul. If you'll remember, it looks like this:

The wallpaper border has already come down, the thermostat has been moved (updated to programmable and removed from it's cage/lockbox), and remember, the decor belongs to the previous owners.

The fireplace has really pretty tile that we spent days scrubbing back to its former shine. We discovered the tile has a lot of light blue in it, so we're pulling the color for the living room from the tile.

The chair rail is not original and wasn't installed with supberb attention to detail: it was hung to high for any artwork to be displayed at the proper level for good viewing and the style of the trim itself does not blend well with the trim in the rest of the house. It feels like a belt cinched too tightly around the room's waist, if you can bend your imagination a little. I cannot wait to rip it out, repaint the walls, and polish the rich woodwork to a high gloss. Adding curtains and new light fixtures will really make it feel like the space we imagined when we first looked at the house.

Powder (Room) Blue

There comes a point when I just cannot clean any more. Not because I am finished, but because I simply cannot spend one more day cleaning up a mess that should not have been made in the first place.* So much repetitive cleaning means that nothing else is getting done, which feels like a complete stall of all progress. Things needed to change, so I took the most rational step I could think of: I gave up the cleaning, hung the rags out to dry, washed out the bucket and put it away. Shelving those bottles of Murphy's Oil Soap, Pine Sol, and Old English felt like a small victory in a week's worth of defeat.

And then I started attacking the first floor half bath. It wasn't quite the glorious feeling of ripping out the second floor bathtub doors using only a box cutter and a putty knife (did I not mention that escapade? Oh, it was fantastic!), but it saved my quickly sinking morale, for sure. I patched holes, rolled a bold blue paint over the country-gone-wrong sponge painting we had been left with, and suddenly the powder room went from an eyesore to something so much more us. It is still a work in progress; today I procured a new mirror and ripped out the old medicine cabinet, which required another round of spackle. Tomorrow I hope to finish the second coat of paint and hang up the window treatment. We still need some artwork for the wall opposite the vanity, either a small series or one large piece, but it is coming along and progress feels oh-so-good!

*For those keeping track, we are waiting to receive a check for nearly $700 from the duct cleaning company to cover the cleaning costs. Ridiculous that I had to fight for it, but I am proud that I didn't back down.

The Starting Over House

When we bought this house we cleaned and cleaned for days on end in an effort to scrub away the grime left by the previous owners.

Then we had the floors upstairs refinished and although the workers did a really good job of keeping the dust to a minimum, we had to wipe everything down again when they were finished.

Then we had new windows put in, and although the installers took all of the various old window pieces with them, they left behind a trail of dust and footprints throughout the house. Needless to say, it took a few days to clean up after them.

The house was looking good and we were unpacking at a steady rate when we had the new furnace installed. The new furnace's blower packs a more serious punch than the old furnace and blew a lot of dust, debris, and soot all over the house, causing us to have to clean it top-to-bottom yet again. This was when we realized that we probably should have had the ducts cleaned before installing the new furnace. Live and learn, right?

We finally got someone in to clean our ductwork yesterday. And today? I will be spending today cleaning 1/4 inch of soot, dust, bits of plaster, someone else's dog's hair, and more off of every surface of our home, including curtains, bedding, sofas, area rugs, etc. Does anyone else see a pattern here? Are we just stupid, or is the universe mocking us?

And this is where I need to say that I am trying to remain level-headed about all of this because I know this is not a real tragedy. No one died, no got hurt, and we weren't robbed or anything, but what happened yesterday goes down as a disaster in my book. I am not going to go into minute detail of yesterday's events, but I will sum up:

• At least five vents were not cleaned on the first floor, such that they still contain pennies, lollipop sticks, piles of sand, etc. It is harder to tell on the second floor because the vents all come in through the walls, but I will venture to say that if the first floor was not thoroughly cleaned the second floor cleaning was probably spotty as well.
  
• Three large vent covers on the first floor were left off, leaving an open space with jagged metal edges that our kids' and pets' feet could have easily slipped into, casuing injury.
  
• The items removed by hand from the vents and returns were left on the floor next to the vents, rather than being cleaned up.
  
• In the process of cleaning out vents (using a high powered air hose) dust, soot, chunks of plaster, and pet hair from the previous owners' pets were blown all over our bedrooms, curtains, the quilts my grandmothers made me, etc. We were given no warning that this could potentially occur.
  
• The worker, Alex (his real name), spent a lot of time telling me about his college degree and how he hates his current job, and then stared inappropriately at my sister for some time.
  
• When in the basement blowing out the cold air returns, Alex somehow managed to blow all of the contents of the returns into my house rather than into his vacuum device. My living room, foyer, dining rooms, and kitchen are covered, and I do mean covered, in soot, dirt, dust, pet hair, etc., making my house nearly unliveable at the moment. The compensation offered to me at the time? $20.00 off the cost of sanitizing the ducts and a lame excuse about how my ductwork and returns were not properly installed. Funny how the guys who installed our furnace never mentioned that last week after a thorough check of our system!
  
• When the work was done I was not given an adequate amount of time to check the work completed, nor did Alex try to show me any of the work. He told me he needed to get to another job so I (stupidly) signed the receipt and paid him.
  
• More than once how he had never gotten so dirty from a house before, how he hates old houses, etc. He repeatedly told me how things in our basement are "bad", assumed a lecturing and patronizing tone when "explaining" to me that there are wiring issues, some of the vent work looks old, etc. I already knew about all of the things he pointed out, having attended and paid attention to our home inspection. I have been in many, many basements of old homes and ours is not anything I would label as "bad".

After Alex left I had a chance to look around at the house and see what had actually been done. That's when I found much of the unfinished work, opened vents, and lack of clean-up. I called the company and told them what had happened and the manager on the phone said that Alex was supposed to have covered every vent except for the one he was working on so that nothing blew out the other connected vents. That didn't happen. They said he should have cleaned up any visible mess left by the duct cleaning. That didn't happen. They said he should have replaced all vent and return covers because not doing so is a violation of their safety procedures. That didn't happen. They said the worker should have maintained a professional attitude at all times. That, obviously, didn't happen. I demanded a full refund, spent a significant amount of time on the phone with the company getting nowhere, and finally told them I was cancelling the check. They stated that we would certainly be getting a ful refund, but that if we felt it necessary to cancel the check that would be fine with them. I am still waiting to hear if we will be receiving any compensation for the massive amounts of cleaning that are now required.

We're back at square one, starting over, the house once again covered with the grime and ick of the former owners. If this weren't my house it would almost - almost! - be funny. Right now nothing seems funny at all. I am angry and frustrated and feeling allergic. Worst of all, our duct work still is not clean. We decided last night that we will clean it ourselves. Google, I'm headed your way.

Focal Point

I am avoiding the kitchen.

Actually, I am avoiding the kitchen, the garage, the upstairs bathroom, the entire third floor, and my bedroom. But mostly I am avoiding the kitchen. Which makes it hard to cook, I will admit, and since I am the primary preparer of food for the four of us, this has created some interesting and somewhat sparse meals as of late. Let's just say that our crock pot is seeing more use than it has in years and we have had sandwiches...a lot.

I am avoiding the kitchen because it is such a mess of boxes and packing paper and the ephemera of our indecision about what to keep and what to get rid of for the last ten years that every time I dare enter its space I feel unhinged, perhaps even a little dizzy. I don't know where to begin to find order in there, so I keep one section of counter cleaned up for dinner-making activities and once in awhile I make a stab at opening a box. Ah, there are my cutting boards! Hooray! But beneath them lies a sea of kitchen gizmos that we barely use and they don't fit in any of the kitchen drawers because none of the drawers are deeper than 2 inches (no joke) and then I don't know what to do with them so I close the flaps of that box and move onto another. And so it goes, such that the kitchen now contains about ten half-unpacked boxes.

I don't believe in aiming all of my crazy in one direction, so I have also pulled down the front of the wallpaper border in the living room, leaving behind the white paper backing which makes an odd stripe above the chair rail. I did the same to the powder room and I am tempted to tackle the third floor bath border as well. I move from room to room, attacking whatever suits my fancy in the moment, leaving behind a trail of missing borders, stripes of nail holes where chair rail once resided, and the occasional clean surface where once only dust seemed to live. But I have yet to get my clothing unpacked, yet to find the box that hopefully holds my winter wear and sweaters. I have patched holes in our bedroom but I cannot focus on a color to paint so it remains a patchy pink that hurts your eyes to awaken to. I took the doors off the bathtub upstairs weeks ago, yet they still sit there waiting to be discarded. I think I have ADD when it comes to my house and the only cure is to keep working, just keep unpacking and finding places for unlikely belongings and trying to make it work.

It feels like nothing is getting done, but there is one bit of respite in my unpacking despair: the front half of the formerly divided living room (perhaps what would have been known as the parlor?). In that one space we have order and calm, even an area rug to keep the chill off the floors, a table lamp to read by, and books on the book shelf. That room, right now, feels like an oasis of coziness amidst this storm of cardboard and stuff and I find myself sitting there often, just wishing the rest of the house would come to order. I focus myself on the living room as I work through the boxes and try not to make Brendan crazy with my flitting around. He's a good sport, mostly, and I think he understands my need for tangible, visual results that the unpacking of boxes does not always afford. Even if he does not understand, he tolerates me well and for that I am thankful.

Where have you been?

Ok, so you haven't heard from me since early September. Well, as you may have guessed from Sara's posts, we are in our new house! We have had no shortage of things to do since day one. So what have we been doing?

The first day we spent getting a valve in the basement to stop leaking. Luckily, it was leaking into a sink. We spent the first few nights sleeping on air mattresses in the dining room and living room with pretty much nothing else in the house. We made attempts to clean, clean, clean. We're going to need a lot more elbow grease. After a few days we had our first POD delivered and were able to sleep on real mattresses in the dining room and living room and had a couch to sit on. We also managed to get the kids rooms painted. So far, those are the only rooms painted.

We then had the wood floors refinished on the second floor. While this was being done, we opted to move out and stay at my parents house for several days. The dust and smell was a bit much. Coincidentally, the person I hired to refinish my floors was the same person that had just refinished the hardwood floors at my fraternity house. I had no idea I was hiring the same guy. The owner's son, who was one of the guys actually doing the work, noticed my Clarkson Alumni plate on my car and mentioned he was friends with some fraternity brothers and he finished the floors of the house for free.

Last week we had all the windows on the second floor replaced. All but one anyway - apparently the window guy can't measure. The last window should be replaced within the next couple of weeks. We currently have the last of three PODs in our driveway and it's mostly empty. This Monday we'll be having the 40+ year old furnace replaced.

Outside we finally got the pool closed, did some tree trimming, and did some raking. I have to say one of the best aspects of this place was the playground. The kids can spend all day on that thing.

There is a lot of chaos in here right now but, everyday it's feeling a bit more like home.

Ceiling Paint

I'm painting our son's room today and, like any good do-it-yourself-er, I started with the ceiling. I don't think ceilings are generally thought of much when people set out to paint the rooms in their homes, but what a difference a coat of paint makes! It brightens the room incredibly and it just feels good to have a fresh, clean layer of paint overhead. In our first house I was meticulous about the ceilings and painted each one two shades lighter than my chosen wall color. This was a fine idea and looked great, but must have been a pain for the woman who bought our house when we sold it just one year later: all of the ceilings had the popcorn-type of finish and were incredibly hard to cover the first time, perhaps worse when she tried to recoat them. I am not making that mistake again; all of my ceilings will be flat white this time around.

It should be stated that I do not like painting ceilings much at all. Cutting in is a pain because I am on the short side and cannot reach the ceiling well with a paint brush, and rolling the paint on involves much guesswork until the paint is dry and I can see all of the spots I missed. And today, to top it all off, a spider that I didn't notice jumped onto my nose as I was cutting in and caused me to emit a horror-film-worthy girly scream that was, ahem, a little embarrassing. Thank goodness I was the only one in the house at the time and was able to catch myself before I fell off the ladder. All in a day's work!

Moving Along

The hardwood floors on the second floor have been refinished and we can start moving things up this weekend! I cannot even describe how good it will be to have accessible living space somewhere other than the first floor. The first floor is spacious, but realistically we are tripping over each other down here and trying to get kids to sleep while we're still awake ten feet away has been a challenge.

Next items up on the Big Things To Do list are windows and furnace. The existing forced hot air furnace works seemingly fine, but is powered with oil and is older than 60 years; we're nervous that in the midst of a deep freeze this winter we'll be left without heat, so we're taking advantage of the rebates and tax credits to install a new, high efficiency furnace that will be powered by gas. No more having to call up the oil company for delivery, no more chance of sooty walls. Anything we can install that increases the energy efficiency of our Old Lady is a good idea.

Windows...can I just say that there are 29 windows that we wish to replace, and that is leaving off all 3rd floor and basement windows, plus most of the kitchen windows? All of that lovely natural light comes at a price! We had an estimate for all 29 windows which came in at over $15,000 so we decided to start with the second floor where the bedrooms are. The new windows will be installed in mid-November, just before the really cold weather hits. The house might look a little funny until we can get all of the windows done, but we will gladly trade funny-looking for being warm. I like to be warm.

As the various workers and estimators have been in and around the house I find myself wanting to over-explain, to tell them that we do not normally sleep in our dining room, that our kitchen is not always overloaded with boxes and packing paper and the constant sea of papers and projects that trickle home from preschool. For a long time now I have had this feeling of slight panic at not knowing where things are...having no idea where to find a pen, no less a sweater now that the mornings are chilly. Slowly we are unpacking this second PODS container, slowly we are regaining both our belongings and our sense of belonging. The pieces in this giant puzzle that we began last spring are finally starting to fit together, one funny shaped bit at a time. And I refrain, for the most part, from explaining to the workers that we do not sleep in the dining room all of the time. I just tell them we've only lived here for a couple of weeks and then their faces light up with a sympathetic, knowing gleam: we have all moved at one point or another, and I guess we all know how crazy it can be.

Up, Up, and Away

Ten

I forgot to mention that we also celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary! Our anniversary was the same day as our closing for the new house, so it was a bit busy to say the least. We did our final walk thru in the morning, drove to Latham for the closing, and then arrived "home" to start cleaning. PErhaps it wasn't the most romantic of celebrations, but I do think it's pretty cool that we bought each other a new house for the ten year mark!

We're Here

We are in the new (old) house.  We are here, living with odd sleeping arrangements while upstairs floors are being refinished, piecing together a new life with various odds and ends of stuff from our old one, making due with what we have this day, while we wait for the rest of our belongings to arrive and be unpacked sometime in the (hopefully) near future.  We are all, relatively, unscathed by the move.  Except for Charlotte, who has taken to defecating in the house and generally being a big pain in the bum.

Let it be known that moving is not easy.

In the space of time that occurred between my last post and this one, we have:

1. Celebrated Emma's THIRD birthday

2.  Said goodbye to our home of over five years

3. Had a lovely end of summer vacation at Lapland Lake

4. Celebrated Emma's very first day of preschool

5.  Celebrated Harry's first day of Pre-K

6.  Walked to the balloon festival from our new-old house

7.  Shuffled back and forth to different beds no fewer than six times while waiting for closings and for our floors to be refinished (stinky oil poly)

8.  Welcomed the new West baby to the world.  Congrats, Jeremy and Michele, and big siblings Isaac and Isabelle.  We can't wait to meet the new little guy!



It's been a busy few weeks and we are, understandably, kind of exhausted.  We're hoping to get back on track now that we are finally living in our house.  We have a million things to do but most importantly we are trying to maintain some sort of schedule, some sort of sanity and security for our kids whose lives have been so disrupted these past few weeks.  Soon, I tell myself, soon.

Home(ish)

After a brief vacation and a fairly painless real estate closing, we are once again "with home". I can't quite say that we are at home because it just doesn't quite feel like it yet. But we are here, all of us together: parents and kids and dogs and rabbit, under one roof that has our names on the title. Home...I keep trying the word out and I know that one of these days the word and the house will become entwined enough with our lives so that it finally does fit the definition.

So, the house is dirty. And not just"Oops! We forgot to mop these last couple of weeks" dirty, but more of a "Mop? What's that?" kind of dirty. Dirty to the point that I could scrape my fingernail along the powder room floor and the grime would flake off in chunks (before I scrubbed it, Cinderella-style, that is). Dirty to the point that even after mopping, twice, I still don't feel comfortable letting the children walk barefoot indoors anywhere. So, there is dirt and grime to be dealt with and every day we tackle another section, another wall, another floor and eventually we know it will be clean.

The outdoors, where the dirt is supposed to gather, is also messy. Pieces of plastic, hundreds of cigarette butts, wadded up school papers, empty tuna fish cans, etc. are all clogging the soil, making me wonder what sort of people once resided within these walls. We certainly have our work cut out for us. Fortunately, Brendan and I both enjoy work that produces tangible, visual results, so there is a great deal of personal satisfaction built into the clean-up for us.

This house will be beautiful; we know this in the same taken-for-granted way that we know our names and the faces of our friends. Once clean, the woodwork is rich and shiny. The tall ceilings, hardwood floors, and old carved pocket doors make the house feel grand, and the layout and flow of the space is really, really good. The kids can watch tv in the living room while we listen to music in the kitchen without the sounds competing, yet we can still keeo a good eye on them. The Rainbow Systems playground in the back yard has been our saving grace this week, with swings and a fort that all of us can play on. The kitchen, although somewhat cobbed together, is huge and airy and feels good to be in. The fireplace, with years of grime removed, has sparkling tiles and gives the room a graceful elegance. The front porch is perfection, and I know I will spend many hours there this fall, knitting and watching the world go by.

There is much work to be done, but we are here. We are home. This house has a new family, a new life to fill its walls and halls, and I hope that it has, in a house sort of way, breathed a sigh of relief at our arrival. I like to think so, anyway.

Homeless

Well, we've accomplished one very large milestone to getting into our new home. We've officially sold the old one. This past Thursday afternoon we signed all the necessary papers to turn over our home of the last five and a half years to another family.

As we scrambled to get everything out of the house just in time for the closing we took a moment just before shutting all the doors to take a last look around. It was kind of hard to walk around and say goodbye to the rooms that my kids were growing up in, the basement room that took me years to complete, the deck that my father designed and helped me build, and the marks on the inside of the bathroom closet where we checked the kids height.

We'll miss a lot of things from this house, particularly the proximity to some good friends and neighbors. It was a good home to us, but I try to remember the reasons we're moving to the next one. I know we'll build new memories in the new house and I'll always have the old memories from this past home. I'm proud of the work we did and very happy that we were able to leave this home better than when we found it.

For now though, we are officially homeless.

For Real

It looks like we really are moving!

Our buyers got their mortgage commitment, the closing on their house in Fishkill has been scheduled, and our sellers are ready to go. All that remains is for us to move out, schedule the closings, and move in (and have our daughter's birthday party, attend a Weezer concert, get all four of us to the dentist, pack and go on vacation, and start school). Woohooo! Let the panic and craziness begin!

Summer Days

Summer has arrived in all of its steamy, sticky glory and we are glad for it!  After nearly two solid months of rain, days spent poolside and frolicking in fountains seem extra sweet, and our little ones drift off to sleep at night with bodies that are bone tired and happy smiles on their faces.  Ahh, summer days...we've missed you.

Why are you moving? - Part 3

We like old houses. We like the look, the style, the charm, the details that you just don't find in most modern day homes, and the history that goes along with an older home. Sara and I both attended Universities in Potsdam, NY (Sara went to SUNY Potsdam and I attended Clarkson University) where we each spent some time living in an older home. Sara rented a place with several other students and I lived in a fraternity house. I think these houses, particularly the fraternity house, are what sparked us with such an interest in older homes.

This is a picture of the fraternity house that I lived in at Potsdam. My room had the two dormer windows in the upper left. This house had a lot of charm - great fireplaces, the cherry wood work was amazing, and full wrap around porches on the first and second floors. It's been a while since I've been there but, I've heard the current brothers have brought the wood floors back to life as well. This house had quite a bit of history to it. It boasts being part of the underground railroad and has been said to have several hauntings (although I didn't witness any of that). In a bit of irony, the original owner, George Wing Sisson (married to Sara Hamilton Sisson), was born in Glens Falls.

We know it'll be a lot of work (and as such a drain on the wallet) but, all that weighed in on the decision to buy this particular house. Like most people, we didn't buy the first house we looked at. Here are a couple that we didn't buy and why.



This house is the first one that really sparked our interest. Sara saw this one in the local paper. The price was right but, it was obviously in need of some repair....or rather a lot of repair. I thought she was crazy for even wanting to look at it. She called one of her real estate agent friends and we went for a look. I originally had no interest in this house but when I saw the wood work, the stained glass, the multiple fire places, the pocket doors, the marble wash sinks in all the bedrooms. I thought it was great. Unfortunately, it was just way to much of a project for us. That much work would not have made for a good environment for our kids and it was just going to cost to much. We were very glad to see that someone else has taken the challenge with this one. I hope they do it justice.



This house was very grand and seemingly well maintained. The most unfortunate part of this house (which is why I'm guessing it's still on the market) are the cats that live there. Not one or two cats but rather twenty of them. We attended an open house here where, in a very nicely done bathroom mind you, our feet stuck to the floor because of the cat urine that was all over it which appeared to have been there awhile. Oh yes, and there was cat vomit on one of the dressers. Forget going in the basement - our noses just couldn't take it. I was very upset to see such an amazing home being 'let go' in such a manner. Beyond that, we didn't like the kitchen and it's on a busy road in town. The price (once you add in taxes and utilities) would have been a real stretch for us too on one income.



They just don't make homes like these anymore. This type of craftsmanship is lost on so many modern homes. So, I guess what it all really boils down to here is that reason number three for moving is ...history.

Buyer No. 4

So this whole blog may seem a bit silly since we've been talking about a house we don't actually own but rather have been trying to purchase since early March of this year. Is this move actually going to happen? We just don't know and we wonder about that ourselves on a daily basis. Currently, we are working with the 4th person to make an offer on our house. It seems pretty solid this time but, we are skeptical. Our buyer has a mortgage commitment due on the 20th of this month. Once we have that piece, we'll then consider actually packing up the rest of this place. As the school year approaches and the colder months are getting nearer, I have to say if this one doesn't work out - we're done.

Forget Have-a-Heart

We have-a-hawk!



Actually, we have a hawk family.  They seem to reside in one of our old oak trees and they have pretty much eradicated our chipmunk population, which we estimated to be in the hundreds, if not thousands (lots of dead wood in these woods, left by the builder).  We've also noticed that our flying squirrels have either relocated or worse and our garage doesn't seem to have any mice this summer.  All good things in my book.



Now, if only we could teach the hawks not to scream at each other all morning we might get to sleep past 7am!

Mobile

When mom and I went to Korea to bring Emma home we had the opportunity to rock the babies at the intake hospital at Eastern.  The baby boy that we rocked the most was a bit older than the other babies because he bad been quite ill when he was first born, and as such had been held and loved by the nannies for months instead of the typical days or weeks.  Most of the other babies in the room were days old, tiny and sweet, but this boy was plump and cute and better able to demand out attention.  We took turns rocking him until we needed to put ourselves to bed, and then he was placed back into his bassinet.  Hanging over his tiny little bed was a mobile, light and delicate and perfect.  It was so simple, just yellow origami paper folded into cranes and strung on thread, but I never forgot it, nor the baby whose early life was spent sleeping beneath it.  I still wonder where he is.

On Saturday I had a Mommy Date with Emma and we wanted to find something to keep us busy during these looooong rainy days.  We were looking for lino block printing supplies, but instead we came home with origami paper.  We made our own crane mobile:



Ours is certainly not as dainty or refined as the one in Korea, but I love its color.  What you cannot tell from the picture is that it is constantly in motion...it softly twirls and sways on the slightest of breezes.  The top of the mobile is a branch from our maple tree.

You can see another crane mobile here (scroll down to see photos).

Why are you moving? - Part 2

We do have a very nice home here currently which is another reason why I think people wonder why we would move. One of the things we originally liked about our current residence is the fact that we are in a neighborhood with other families but our particular lot is very private. Our back yard is all woods with no other houses in sight.

On any given Saturday moring in the summer however, I might sit outside on the front porch and drink my morning cup of tea. What do I hear while I'm out there? Click, wurrrr - that would be the sound of all the neighbors central air conditioners (our house does not have central air). Not a person in sight. It's almost a little creepy sometimes. It's kind of like that all year long. Somewhere between 6 - 8pm we do see some folks walking dogs or jogging but, that's about it.

So when the isolation of this ghost town gets to us, we hop in the car and head out. When we get to the end of the neighborhood we come out to the main road. "Which way do we go?" is the question we ask on a regular basis. Go right, and get to Saratoga in 15 minutes or go left and get to Glens Falls in 15 minutes. It seems we're 15 minutes from anywhere.

As we travel through the city of our future home we constantly see people walking about. There seems to be a much better sense of community. Additionally, we'll be able to walk out the front door and walk to local parks, playgrounds, library, restaurants, pubs, stores, the kids school, and even the Civic Center.

So, reason number two for moving is community. But wait....there's more....

Family

A couple of hours ago friends of ours went to JFK and met their son for the very first time.  They are on their way home now, the last leg of the journey their little guy has made from the other side of the world to his new home and the first precarious steps of their journey together as a family.  As Harry said, this is a Big Day and I am so happy for you, Stephanie, Jay, and Jack!  Don't forget to eat and sleep, and remember that this is going to get easier as you all figure each other out.

Big Day

As I was tucking Harrison into his bed tonight I told him how happy I am to be his mom, how much happiness he brings to my life and how much joy he fills my heart with.  And I wished him a happy airplane day, because four years ago today was the day he flew to the US to join our family.  He smiled, looked into my eyes and said "Happy airplane day for you, too, Mom.  It was a big day.  A happy and sad day, wasn't it?"  And I said yes, it was both happy and sad.

My dear Harrison, so wise beyond your years, I love you.

Why are you moving?

That seems to be a popular question amongst friends and family. Be reassured I have not lost my job and I am in no danger of having my home foreclosed upon. There are a number of reasons we considered this move. Believe me, with all the crap we have in this house, I didn't take this decision lightly. So how did we get down the path of deciding to move? Let's begin with our current house. Five years ago when we built this house, it was a bare bones place with all white walls and not a bit of landscaping - just dirt.....well, sand actually. The price was right and it was place we could make our own and improve over time.

When we moved in, it was just me, Sara, our dog Riley, and our rabbit Max. We were planning on having kids, trying to have kids actually. We planned on living on one income so that Sara could stay at home with the kids but since the kids weren't coming, the cash was flowing. As we discovered our infertility problems we did what anyone would do. We got another dog, Charlotte. We were making great strides in home improvement. We painted every room in the house, we had the yard fenced, gutters put in, the driveway paved, and a water system installed.

We then made the decision for adoption. We've had lots of questions on the path we took here too. Bottom line on adoption is we wanted a child. We didn't care about race or blood lines. We didn't want to go to extreme measures and extreme financial burden for a "maybe" and putting our own bodies at risk. So, we adopted two great kids from South Korea, Harrison and Emma.

As our kids grow and are starting to become of school age, it's become obvious to us that the diversity in this school district is well...non-existent. I've had multiple people tell me that "kids won't care that he's asian". Well, that may be true but I'm less concerned with what the other kids are thinking and more concerned with my kids self image. We started doing our research and began looking into areas with at least a little bit more diversity that wouldn't be to much of a commute for me to work and wouldn't put us in a school district that is enormous. Glens Falls seemed to fit the bill.

Another plus, and a very happy surprise to us, was St. Mary's Academy also located in Glens Falls. This is the school I attended from Kindegarten through eighth grade. I haven't exactly been an active Catholic since I left my parents home, but that's a topic for another day. Sara seemed against the idea at first but I insisted we at least look into it. We attended one of the open houses and were amazed at the diversity we saw roaming the halls. After that visit, Sara was convinced. Our current plan is to have both kids enrolled there starting in the fall of 2010.

So, reason number 1 for moving. A school district with diversity for the kids. Now I understand I don't need to move right away to send my kids to private school but, more reasons to come....

Hiking: Pack Demonstration Forest, Nature Trail

These shots aren't the greatest because I was fighting a mostly dead set of camera betteries, but someone told me I have been negligent in my sharing of photos of the kids so I'll post them anyway: