It's Safe to Look Now

Well, maybe not, but I feel really good about this house. The last one I blogged about was indeed jinxed, perhaps by my premature public declaration of love, but we are past the first hurdle on this one, so I show it to you without fear.

Ok, it's not anything like what I imagined what we'd end up in, but that's the beauty of being flexible, right? In this case, while the house is very well done, it lacks the charm of the house I had my eye on before. This house overcomes that with it's location: near a pool, tennis courts, park, public golf course (yes readers, I have been known to swing a club), and the Cherry Creek bike trail.

Additionally, this house has the biggest yard we'd seen to date (yay for Oscar!), a finished basement including wet bar (party at my place!), and room to grow when I finally allow my motherly desires to take over. Oh, and did I mention the convection oven? Be prepared for some future food blogs!

So, cross your fingers. This house in under contract, and we hope to close by the end of June. We'll all be lounging on the back deck sipping margaritas and BBQing in no time (like it's never been done before)!

Fasting for Imagination

Last night I began a fast...of television. I will allow myself a very limited amount of viewing. I have deemed that only weather reports, and certain HBO programs will be worthy of my attention from here on out. And if you're saying to yourself "hmm, this fast conveniently coincides with the finale of American Idol, The Office, Scrubs, and 30 Rock," well, you might be on to something. I can only imagine what I'll do once Project Runway comes back on.

So what did I do with my first night of freedom from the evils of television? Perhaps I worked on a writing project for a few hours, cleaned up the kitchen, vacuumed my car, or caught up with family members I have been out of touch with? No. Perhaps I went for a long walk, cooked myself a fabulous dinner, or finished reading the novel I've been neglecting for the past two weeks? No. I read a magazine and fell asleep. Not even the ring of my cell phone with David beckoning on the other end could rouse me. And every few hours I opened my eye just a
crack to see my partner in crime, Oscar aka Mr. Blackpants, basking in the new freedom of being so recently released from the shackels of worthless programming.

Tonight I am going to lay a shroud over the television, to symbolize its death in my living room. Not too big of a shroud, though, I might need to watch something, just a short little something, when there's nothing else to do.

Bowling Bummer


I went bowling last night. Perhaps I should begin this rant by explaining my relationship to bowling, as well as my competitive spirit. Then I will summarize it all for you in a somewhat inconclusive manner that will leave you wondering about your own bowling drive, and, ultimately, how it connects to life overall.

I've been bowling for most of my life. My parents, recognizing that bowling was a great family activity, would occasionally take us all down to the bowling alley, tie up our toes in those delightfully distasteful shoes, and help us select the proper weight ball. One thing they never gave us, however, were the gutter bumpers. We were going to learn how to bowl properly. Fear the gutter, aim for the highest pin in the formation.

In high school I took an individual sports class, where I learned and was tested on bowling etiquette, scoring, and terminology. I already knew most of what we learned, since I'd been tallying score cards for a few years. However, I don't want to make myself sound like a big ol' bowling expert, or like I'm even a good bowler. The most I learned in the bowling class was how to approach certain shots. I throw the ball very straight down the lane. There's no fancy spin, and I'm not even particularly graceful . Frequently, I find myself lining up a perfect roll, only to have all but one pin fall down. To pick up a spare on the 7 or 10 pin in the back, you shouldn't bowl along the gutter. Try coming across from a different angle.


So, last night, with all this bowling history behind me, I want to bowl well, like I always do. I can usually expect to break 100 (I told you I wasn't very good), and on a good bowling night I break 120. My best score is 142, and that was very exciting. I'm always salivating for that next high score, I'm always out there to beat myself. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have competition on the team. It keeps me modest, mostly, and forces me to realize that even though knocking down nine pins seems quite good, it does nothing toward launching my score to the unatainable (at least for me) 300.

I had a horrible bowling night. The first score was 102, the second 82. There was some beer drinking involved, but I really can't blame that. And each time I let the ball slip off my fingers at 14 mph, I thought If I practiced, I could be better.

But in this case, I don't think it's true. I took bowling for an entire semester, and my score virtually remained in the 120s the entire time. Maybe bowling is the one thing I can't be better at. Maybe we just have to accept that we'll never be able to do everything. I have to accept that I'm never going to be a good bowler.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Awww, it's enough to make you feel cozy, thinking of a charming house with the little panes in the windows and the breakfast nook and the veranda and the porch swing that you're going to put up so you can sip lemonade and watch the sunset behind the mountains. That's what we're going after. Yep, we're packing up and heading back to Colorado.

Looking for houses hasn't been awful. Luckily, it's a buyer's market, so it feels like we've been able to walk among houses and raise our nose in disgust at all the bad apples. But we've also been able to locate the house I described above for a reasonable price. (No, it's not this house pictured...if I publicize the house we want too much, it might go away.)

But it doesn't feel like the house search has just been about finding the house of our dreams. I'm sure we don't have enough money for that. I've resisted falling in love with any house, especially ones out of our price range, or this house that we are about to put a bid on. If I fall in love with it, my heart might get broken, and that's not a positive way to settle back into my home state. So what I'm going for here is finding a good place to start. The current house on our radar has a lot of good things going for it, but there are certainly some traits we're willing to overlook. I know I'm not going to be attached to any house until I can sit on the grass in the front lawn and listen to the wind rustling through the trees overhead, and know that the sound will always calm me down.

Until then, we're still searching for home.

Where Has My Imagination Gone?

I keep trying to think of things to write. I keep trying to let myself be swept away by a thought. I keep trying, but apparently you can't force it. I'm stuck in an
imagination rut. Perhaps it's because I've just finished school and my mind has decided to turn itself off for a while.

On Wikipedia, imagination is defined as: the innate ability and process to invent partial or complete personal realms within the mind from elements derived from sense perceptions of the shared world.

I'm feeling abnormal because I'm not able to access my ability to invent realms. I try to access the creative part of my brain, the part that seemed like a floodgate every time I had a deadline. Now it's my job to learn how to imagine things because I want to, not becuase I have to.

But it's not like I haven't been trying. I've been at my computer several times since my last day of class, trying to work out this character I've had in my mind, but my mind feels stopped up. At first I thought I was just tired, but now I feel like there might actually be a clog somewhere in my brain.

I need a brain plunger. Or a brain plumber. Or a brain vacuum. Or maybe I need to just settle down.

The Day Has Come

I finally get a weekend where I don' thave to worry about getting my homework done. After dreaming of the possibilities (there was hope for a camping trip), I've decided my time would be best spent at home, cleaning up after myself.

Let me explain the significance of this: I hate cleaning. My house has gotten so bad that I am unhappy when I come home. Seeing clothes strewn over every possible chair arm and back possible does not make me happy. Not being able to sit in the loveseat by the computer does not make me (or Oscar) happy. Not being able to navigate my way through the bedroom because there are so many pairs of shoes, dirty clothes, bags, mismatched jewelry, etc. does not make me happy.

So I'll be folding laundry with a spring in my step, doing the vacuum cleaner cha-cha, and dusting away all the accumulation of the past few months--the stress, the late nights, the work I was forced to do. It's spring cleaning, and this will be a great way for me to step into my new freedom. A Clean Home is a Happy Home, and the People Who Live in a Clean Home are Happy Too.