This is the key

I have noticed this so many times during my life. Occasional events, acquisitions, occurrences, praises, acknowledgements, celebrations seem to make us happy.  Actually, the joy which we were each meant to experience in our lives has been lost and replaced by these fleeting pleasures, which seemingly alternate with equal amounts of gloom, as though we spend our lives on a slow teeter-totter, up and down, ad infinitum.

My reading this summer has brought me to the understanding that joy, or the happiness referred to above by Deepak Chopra,  is a state of being.  And as Deepak says, it requires no reason.  That's good news. 

Now, if I can just figure out how to access that state after decades of the habitual pain vs. pleasure flip flop.


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How pinteresting

I've always loved pandas.



I don't know what Pinterest is and frankly, I don't have time for any new pursuits, so I'm not interested in Pinterest.  But Pinterest is the source of this really cool photo.

And apparently Pinterest is allowing me to use this cute koala as well:



Thank you, Pinterest.

On a related topic, I enjoyed this viral video yesterday of a koala spying, swimming to, boarding, and finally being given a ride on a canoe.  I wish I'd been there to see it happen!





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And on top of that, Be Kind

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Thank you, Lynilu, for posting this on facebook.  Each time that I encounter this wisdom about kindness, I nod in acknowledgement and say to myself that I won't forget it this time.

But then I do forget.

I forget about kindness when I have been neglectful of my inner peace.  When issues are left unresolved, when responsibilities are neglected, when I fail to examine my words and deeds, that's when anger sneaks in and spews its poison.  Anger is not kind.

My intentions for kindness are useless unless I take care to establish the necessary peace of mind from which it emanates.

Peace of mind may arise from daily examination of any internal disturbances caused by one's behavior, interactions or thought processes.  Meditation, journaling, exercising, counseling and various spiritual pursuits help maintain that peaceful state.

Does this make sense to you?

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typical Sunday

Just behind my house is this entrance to a very inviting urban park which I strolled through this past Sunday.  . 

The lake is stocked with fish normally, but right now it is waiting to be re-stocked after a fountain was installed. 

In the gazebo a concert was taking place, with what looked like impromptu dancers adding to the performance.  One of the dancers had ridden into the park on a scooter (the old fashioned, foot-operated kind) with his wild costume blowing in the wind.  It was quite a sight.

Next I headed to a  popular eating and food shopping mecca a couple of blocks from the park. 

It's always full of people.

The pedestrian nature of this urban neighborhood invites chance encounters.  As I approached the park on my way home from the farmer's market, I ran into a friend from work and we spent the afternoon discussing work issues. 

And by the time I got home it was nearly dark.


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Back to bloggiing

Well, let's see.  A lot has happened since I last posted.  I sold a house, bought a house, moved and just returned from a visit "home".  In this instance, "home" refers to the place in upstate NY where I was born and raised and where my father still lives.  In fact, I have a few photos.

 This is the street I grew up on, where my father still lives.  The hills in the background are the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.

This is my father, all but hidden behind one of the many stacks created by his wife.  He claims that she subscribes to entirely too many magazines and insists on keeping them all.  Forever.

And this is a Rose of Sharon bush.  There are many of them around the perimeter of my father's house, as there were when I was a child.  I am fond of Rose of Sharon and recently bought a couple of them for my new yard.  I hope they thrive the way they do around my childhood home.

The interior of my childhood home is dark, messy, and smells of cat litter boxes.

Fortunately, my new house is much more appealing.  And has no odor.

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Happy Mother's Day

I spent the day unclogging a bathroom sink drain using an all-natural method incorporating baking soda, vinegar and boiling water.  At the end of the procedure, when the drain was still clogged!, I used my own enhancement to the online unclogging recipe- a cheap sink plunger from Target.  Lo and behold, I heard a mighty "swoosh" and the drain now operates the best it has in the 11 years I've lived here, and that includes the time I paid a plumber to unclog the drain of the very same sink.

I may not feel like the world's greatest mother this Mother's Day, but I do feel like the world's best all-natural plumber.  And I'm happy to cross one more burden off my to-do list.  (That sink was so severely clogged that it was unusable!)

Now I have to figure out how to fix the hardware for a curtain rod in that same bathroom.  I have fixed it so many times that the bole for the nail is enlarged.  Now the nail just falls out.  I guess I'll try spackling the inside of the hole to see if that helps.  And if it does, this will have been a great Mother's Day. 

I hope you and your mothers are enjoying the day!

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Please advise

My realtor just called to say he wants to hold an open house on Sunday (yes, Easter Sunday) at my house.  And he has reconsidered my question about whether the price should be lowered.  He agreed. 

You see, I've been trying to sell this house for a long time.  Even now, after the renovations, it is not selling.

Here's my question.  Is this shower curtain OK?

It's spring-like and cheery.  It's brand new.  But I am starting to lose confidence in my ability to figure out what people like and dislike. 

Thanks for any opinions offered.



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OK, I'm ready

Yes, I think I've done everything I can to make the dream (of selling my current house and moving to my preferred neighborhood) happen.  Now my house looks like this:

And this:

 

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this (basement):

And this (basement):

And this:

So I'm ready for this to happen.  I'll keep you posted.


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another decision

I have to buy a small elevated bistro table with 2 chairs for my kitchen.  The kitchen is not yet finished, but here's how it looks now:

I have narrowed my bistro search down to 2 options.  This is option A, available in a local store:

Well, I know it's fairly impossible to tell anything from these photos.  I can assure you that being able to see the kitchen and the bistro set in person doesn't help much.

Option B would be ordered off the internet, for 60% of the price of the other set:

Option A can be brought home the day I buy it.  Well, almost.  The store has only one stool, and it will take 2 weeks to get another one.  If I order option B (free shipping) it could take 2 - 4 weeks, I'm estimating.  My kitchen should be finished by the end of this week, so it would be nice to have a table and chair.  My old table and chairs are NOT going in that kitchen (especially seeing as how they'd no longer fit).

Option A would be easy to return if it doesn't work out.  I am willing to bet that option B would be a hassle to return AND it has to be assembled.  (How does one return an item which must be assembled?)

I really doubt that option B would have to be returned, though.  It's pretty straightforward, and I was ultra careful with my measurements.  Option A is a bit more...well.... off-the-beaten-path, shall we say.  It looks kind of space-age.

  And here is one more option, also available at a local store.  Please note that this option, also 40% cheaper than option A, at first glance may seem the obvious choice.  The problem is, it is nearly twice the size of option A, and I am squeezing this bistro set into a tight space:

What do you think?


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Bye 2011

Well, I sure did try to make 2011 the year that I finally moved to the pedestrian neighborhood near downtown where I want to be.  2011 was the best time to make that happen, because when housing prices begin to rise again, the prices there will rise at a much faster rate than the rest of the area.  It is really difficult to live in a house which has to be available for showings, but I did it.  There was at least one showing per week for several months until July, when activity pretty much stopped.

No offers were made on my house, not even low offers.  I came to realize that the house would not sell in this market unless changes were made.  So my kitchen is being renovated and the rest of the house is being dealt with as much as I can afford..  I am doing what I can myself, and have become rather adept at plaster repair and interior painting.

Then, in early spring, the house will go back on the market.

Meanwhile, I have a different relationship with this house.  I never really liked this house before, and I was always very detached from it.  I never made it a home.

Over the past few weeks I have put a lot of effort into carefully choosing paint colors and small upgrades like outlet covers.  I really like the new colors I've applied, except for the bathroom which has 2 impossible per-existing tile colors.  I ended up having to faux finish the walls of the bathroom, and the resulting wall color is OK. 

When the house is placed on the market again, I will have a new attitude.  I will know that I have made this house as appealing as it can be within a reasonable budget.  The house looks a million times better that it used to.  Maybe its "energy" has changed.

Happy new year.



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Renovation

This is from my final set of photos taken of my kitchen prior to renovation:

And this is what that view looks like now:

A picture is NOT worth a thousand words in this case.  It all looks very neat, orderly and acceptable in this photo.  It looks as though the renovation is not disrupting any lives; it looks as though the house this room is in is still functional.  It does not appear that the homeowner is losing her ever-loving mind.

The horror stories you've heard about kitchen renovations are all true.  Guaranteed.  I just hope the one thing every survivor claims, about the renovations always taking twice as long as promised, is NOT true. 

I suppose that if this were a bigger house, it wouldn't bother me so much to have workers in it 7 days a week.  There are only 4 rooms in the house.  I can't stand to have this much contact with other people.

I also can't find anything.  Now I realize that I used to store a shocking number of non-food items in my kitchen - necessities like scissors, paper, writing utensils, important papers and contact information.  (It's a four-room house after all.)  I can't find anything now, even though I am the one who hauled everything out of the kitchen.  It's a tiny  house, which means that accessible and viewable storage of displaced items is not an option. 

It goes without saying that it's extremely challenging to live for weeks on end with no kitchen.  It's impossible to eat properly with no kitchen.  I suppose if we lived near a health food store, it wouldn't be so bad.  But we don't.

And then there are situations like this morning.  I never get sick, and one of the reasons I don't is because whenever I feel anything coming on, I go straight to the kitchen to take whatever remedies apply.  I eat garlic or onions (natural antibiotics), take some echinachea for general malaise or some cherry bark syrup for a sore throat.  Well, you know where this is going.  I could barely get out of bed when the alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, and I knew I needed echinachea.  And yes, you guessed it - I haven't the foggiest idea where it is.

It is notable that the only time I have ever failed to get The Child to school on time occurred last week.  My life is so turned upside down that I failed to awaken last Thurday when the alarm went off.  The Child was forced to go to detention because of it, even though I wrote a lengthy note to the school administrators explaining that it was entirely my fault.  I should have been sent to detention.  In fact, I should have been sent to detention for making the decision to renovate. 

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Some time has passed since I began writing this post .  Here's what the kitchen looks like now:

It doesn't look much different, even after more than 2 weeks of work, but there's been a lot of electrical work to re-do that doesn't show.  The renovator (who usually works alone without helpers) often talks to himself or whistles while he works.  I like that.  He seems to enjoy what he's doing, even though he gave me such a low price that he's probably not making any money on this job.  I also like the fact that he works 7 days a week. How many workers do that?  (I can just imagine the outcry if the employees at my workplace were asked to work 7 days without a day off!  Heads would roll!)

No matter what the new kitchen ends up looking like, I guarantee that I'm going to be thrilled to have one again.  

Meanwhile  I have begun painting elsewhere in the house.  I painted the master bedroom pale yellow, as Cinderella suggested.  I think it looks really good.  The room (which is where The Child sleeps) is  a wreck, so I'm not posting photos.......well, actually, I will...............

Here's before:

Here's after:

Cinderella obviously has a good eye for color.  I am very pleased with the room.  Thanks, Cinderella!  Next, when I have time to shop, I am getting new carpeting for the room.

Progress is being made.


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calm before the storm

Peace prevails, but not for long.  Next Monday I will be turning my house over to the renovators who are re-doing my kitchen.  I have heard horror stories from those who have endured kitchen renovations.  I never thought I'd be joining their ranks.  Yet here I am, bracing myself for my small house to become engulfed in turmoil for at least a month.  And I will have no kitchen during that period.  I just hope it doesn't send me over the brink.

I never gave a hoot what my kitchen looked like as long as it functioned.  (And it did.)  But ohhhhhhh nooooooo.  It's not good enough for the people who viewed my house when it was for sale.  They found my kitchen unacceptable.  I hope they realize that now, after spending a ton of money on renovations, I will have no room to negotiate when the house goes back on the market in the spring. 

Of course I'm scared.  I just can't figure out what my biggest fear is.  I suppose it's that the renovations I'm doing won't be enough.  Is it enough to do the kitchen, the floors, and paint the walls?   I can't help but notice that once you start making changes to a 50 year old house, everything that isn't changed stands out more than it did before.

I worry that the renovated kitchen will end up being mine, and it isn't being designed for me.  It is designed for Jane Doe Homebuyer.  The plan is that I am supposed to be able to sell this house after the renovations.  But the plan may not work, and I don't need or want a new kitchen.

I am scared.



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Kitchen confusion

This is my kitchen.  Apparently many people who have had showings at my house (which is for sale) have considered this kitchen to be unacceptable, in that it is small and in need of updates (according to them).

Sometimes that assessment feels like an insult, since I personally have no problem with the kitchen (although I'll admit that it's small).  How is it that this kitchen is good enough for me but it's not good enough for other people?

My realtor, who really is good at his job, claims that in the current market, my house will not sell unless I have certain renovations done in the kitchen.

Yes, the cabinets look worn.  They are 50-year-old high-quality cabinets.  They don't look particularly impressive under a microscope but they function perfectly well.

Yes, the oven and stove are dated.  But they work perfectly well.  (The oven is beside the stove, above it and to the right.)

The refrigerator is not stainless steel  Who cares?  It works.

The floors are "vintage".

I wonder if flooring sold today will last 50 years.  Let me guess.........

The countertops - well, even I don't like the countertops.  But....yeah, they work.

Why, I say why do so many people find this peninsula offensive?   Seriously.

When I moved into this house, the cupboards above the peninsula had doors on them, making the kitchen tiny and dark (and yet I bought the house!).  I removed the cupboard doors, which instantly brightened up the kitchen.

As it is, the peninsula divides the room into a (small) kitchen and a (small) dining area.

The renovation recommended by the realtor calls for demolition of the peninsula.  (This was originally my idea, but I have since abandoned it.  The realtor has grabbed onto it like a bulldog.) 

I think it would be a mistake to open up the area into one room.  It will then be about the size of a normal kitchen (although still not a very big one).  The realtor wants me to get rid of my current table (rectangular with leaves) and replace it with a small round elevated cafe table with 2 chairs.  (Augh!   Is he nuts?)  I think the proposed plan will look awkward and will draw attention to the fact that the house has no dining room.

These 2 comparative drawings put it all into perspective:

As it is now, I could probably fit 6 people into my dining area if I tried.  Maybe.  (I have never tried.)

The realtor's (and contractor's) plan includes painting the cabinets white, replacing the countertops with granite, moving the (new stainless steel) refrigerator to the end of what is now the dining area, getting rid of the soffits, removing the wallpaper (I'd do that myself), installing a new stainless steel stove, ceramic floors and of course removing the peninsula.

Here's what I think:  I should replace the counters with black granite, install white and black large checkered vinyl flooring, remove the wallpaper, replace the refrigerator and stove with stainless steel, leave the old oven in place (it can be used for storage if it's not needed for baking).  Leave the peninsula as is.

I am not a realtor, nor am I a renovator.  And I am the type who has a hard time spending money.  But tell me.  What do you think?


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progress?

Well, my house is still for sale.  No offers.  Not many showings.  The comments are that they love the location on the park, they love the setting, but the house needs too much work. 

I guess it shows that a single mother with no handyman-type skills and no family in the area has lived here for over 10 years, with a young son and dogs.  If my father lived  nearby, things would be different.  He probably would have helped me keep the place up.  As it is, he's never even set foot in my house.

Over the years I've doled out thousands of dollars to handymen - it's not as though I've neglected the house.  But apparently those thousands of dollars were not enough.

I have listened to the comments.  I have already made some changes, slowly and carefully due to my concern about money.  I had new oak floors installed in the living room and hallway, and the guest bedroom floors refinished. 

That was a good start, but not nearly enough to make the house sell.  A generous friend who just bought new furniture gave me her old living room furniture, so now my living room looks like this:

It's a vast improvement, but not enough.

I have touched up the paint on all the walls, and when I have time I'm going to paint the master bedroom.  I'm also going to have new carpet installed in the master (after the paint job is finished!).  I will also attempt to re-grout the shower myself, despite dire warnings from everyone who knows anything about it.

I'm in the process of deciding how much money I'm willing to spend to renovate the kitchen.  It is a tough decision, because I am unlikely to be able to justify expensive renovations with a high selling price.  My  house is still going to be extremely small, with no backyard (but a lot of landscaping maintenance) AND another house on the park (a house bigger and better than mine) just sold for a very low price ($30,000 lower than my asking price).  (That will affect the offers on my house, if I ever receive any.....)

It would make sense for me to wait until the market improves EXCEPT for one problem: the neighborhood I want to move to will never again be as affordable as it is now.  When home values begin to rise again, the values in that neighborhood will rise much more dramatically than in this neighborhood.

Sighhhhhhhh.


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dream adjustment

Over this past summer I have contemplated giving up on my dream of moving to a Victorian house in the downtown pedestrian neighborhood which I am crazy about.  I don't want to give it up, but my attempt to sell my current house so that I can buy in the desired neighborhood has not worked out.

I think each individual has to do what it takes to thrive according to his or her unique preferences.  Some of us consider marriage, children, living in a certain part of the world, or maybe a certain job or salary level to be preferences necessary for thriving.  I did have a goal of finding a job in a field where jobs are scarce, and fortunately that worked out.  Ever since then I have focused on the elusive goal of finding a house in a pedestrian neighborhood.

I already know what it's like to live in the neighborhood downtown because I have lived there in the past.  I did thrive, since it seems to be in my blood to live in a pedestrian neighborhood.  I grew up in that type of neighborhood and never even owned a car until I moved to the city I now live in.  Every once in a while someone will ask me why I'm so hell bent on moving to that neighborhood.  This is not a casual whim; I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what "home" means to me, and the neighborhood near downtown is it.  And I really can't think of anything else that I have wanted during recent years.

Maybe most of today's adults did not grow up in a pedestrian neighborhood.  I'm glad I did, because it gave me a lifelong standard .  I never forgot it.

However, I am now frustrated by it.  I don't really have a lot of others dreams or desires.  I've always been pretty low maintenance, I think, except for my fussiness about houses.  I have never been one to spend a lot of money on things like travel, clothing, furniture, jewelry or cars.  The only thing I have really wanted is a Victorian house in the pedestrian neighborhood near downtown.

I do have options, of course.  I can lower the price.  I can renovate my house.  I can just keep waiting (my house has been on the market since March) for that elusive "right buyer" to come along with a purse full of money.  Or I can give up.

The Child and I have lived in this house for ten years.  I bought it because I thought its location on a park made it the ideal place to raise a child.  Well, looking back, I'd say that my particular child didn't give a hoot about growing up on a park.  He turned out to be a computer nerd who spends all of his time indoors. 

From the beginning it was clear that this house did not suit me at all.  A friend came to visit from out of state after we had been living here a few months, and I vividly recall his observation that I was "failing to thrive" in this house.  It's very small and poorly laid out.  I never found the right spaces in this house to do what I need to do for work.  Even the outdoor space was a disappointment, since there is no backyard for me to create the kind of outdoor space, complete with a fish pond. which I want.  Its late 50s/early 60s architecture is very unappealing to me.  I dislike the low ceilings and wall-to-wall carpeting.  It's ranch-style, which means it's one story.  The kitchen is so small that two people can't be in it at the same time.  Because the lot is small, the house can not be enlarged.

So for the past ten years I've wanted to move.  I tried to sell it five years ago, and it was actually in contract.  The buyer ended up freaking out and backing out of the contract.  No other buyers made an offer, so I gave up after eight months and my realtor took it off the market.  During the interim, I have made the best of it.

But that's not thriving.

Yes, I know that I'm being a spoiled brat, and that our true home has nothing to do with a physical structure.

But I still want a Victorian house near downtown.

Just kidding- I don't expect to end up in one this big!!!

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Design disaster

OK, it's not exactly a complete and total disaster, but this is the master bedroom of my house which has been on the market since the end of March with no offers.  The house was built in 1962, which happens to be my least favorite era for architecture and interior design.  I bought the house because of its prime location on a beautiful and popular park.  I thought it would be the ideal place to raise a child.  Perhaps it was in some ways at some times, but now The Child and I are over it and ready to take on a more urban lifestyle in, hopefully, a Victorian house (my favorite style).

There is a cute alcove which I used to call the "library".  Now that The Child uses this room, it has become more of an office, featuring his elaborate computer and two large monitors.

The bed is covered in 3 of these photos with a red flower print with a light blue background.  I think maybe it looks better than the white coverlet in the first 2 photos.  What do you think?  And what do you think of the multi-colored (yet discreet) curtains I made out of shower curtains? 

 

And here, to the right, you can see the alcove with the patterned bed covering.

Down below, you'll see the hideous photo which appears online with the listing for my house.  It's a photo my realtor took 5 years ago when my house was on the market.  (It didn't sell, and I couldn't tolerate the constant showings, so after 6 months we took it off the market.  It actually was in contract but the buyers backed out.)  The reason I'm including the photo below is so that you can see the basic features of the room.  How would YOU go about decorating this rather odd master suite?  (The wall color is pretty appealing, and the paint is in good condition.)