childbearing hipster

Go. Go now.

Sometimes you just no longer feel something, and obviously, for me, this blog was that something.

I stopped writing here, more or less, at the point in time where talking about leaving California stopped being hypothetical and started being serious. Right, we'd been here before, but this time was serious. Only I couldn't really talk about it, because it would have been inappropriate for Dug's work. That's the peril of not embracing anonymity.

When you can't really write about the only thing you've got going on, or at least, the only thing you've really got to say, you end up not writing at all. And when the habit's gone, you feel weird trying to pick it back up, especially if it means starting with a "Well, here's where I've been all this time" kind of post*.

But space is good, and gives perspective. I don't really want to just write about being a mother, I don't really want to write about anything specific. I am no longer childbearing, and man, if there's a less appropriate and more loaded term to have thoughtlessly applied to myself than "hipster", I do not want to know about it. But I do, in general, still want to write, and I do, in general, still like the idea of pushing my mindgrape squeezings out there into the big wild world.

And so. I am no longer on the West Coast, and my family and I have a different-ish life now. We pulled the trigger, we moved to Minneapolis, and we're tearing it up, Mary Tyler Moore style.

If you want to follow along, come see me over here at The Middle Coaster. 

*But you probably want to know what happened to the chickens, right? Well, after providing us with limitless entertainment and more eggs than we could handle, we sent them off to live on a farm. Not a euphemism farm, a real honest-to-goodness farm in Gilroy, CA, where they were lovingly integrated into an existing flock by experienced home poulterers. Will we do it again? Hell yeah, in theory. In practice, well, that story will tell itself as we go.

In sum: If that's moving up, then we're moving out

The last month has been nuts. Trip to Kansas, two days sick in bed upon our return, scrambling to complete work for a new job, end of the school year, Daisy's birthday, Grammy visiting, and ultimately having to abandon new job because guess what, Dug finally hit his breaking point with California Living. Quite reasonably, I think, the man does not wish to work until he is dead just to pay off a mortgage. He'd like to spend more time with his kids. The cat is in the cradle, people.

Within one week of his announcement, I'd already signed papers with our realtor to put the house on the market. He's almost secured things on the job front. We're well on our way to having about half of our shit packed up for staging purposes.

It's kind of crazy. And it seems sudden to everyone but us (or at least, once I got over the initial shock it seemed logical to me). I knew it was coming, it's always been coming. It's the right thing to do.

Daisy, as you might think, doesn't really care. Molly has concerns and questions but since it's not a completely new idea for her, she's adjusting to it.

I'm going to miss the Peninsula weather (or lack thereof), but what I save on weather, I'll just spend on boots. It's a good trade.

Minneapolis, we'll see you soon.

And Another Weekend Update

Ask anyone who knows me in real life and they will probably agree that I've been on the verge of a nervous breakdown for a while now. The last few weeks were kind of the culmination of that almost-madness, but there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

We have gone back and forth about moving to Minnesota so many times that I seriously am amazed my hair did not fall out in clumps (although I did finally have to resort to age-old crisis management techniques and dye it a bizarre shade of red in order to cope. It faded nicely though).

Now we more or less know we're going to be in the Bay Area for a while longer. I'm at peace with that. We're almost certainly going to sell our current house and buy another one, and I'm less at peace with that part: buying a house in the Bay Area is probably best summed up as "OMG HOUSE!!!!*vomit*", and that's when completely stable and sane people are going about it.

I have to say though, sitting outside on Saturday night with friends old and new, watching the kids play, eating and drinking and laughing, made staying here feel like a pretty good situation to have landed in. Minnesota is still the long-term goal, but I can feel good about being here for a while longer.

Maybe we can move RIGHT NOW

I am doing some laundry--drying one load, washing another. Either the washer or dryer is making a very unsettling squeaky noise. I think it's the washer. The dryer gets louder every time I use it, plus the lightbulb inside needs to be replaced.

Every couple of months, our oven takes some time off (it's been looked at, nothing's wrong with it, sometimes it just...doesn't heat up).

It would be really nice to just have a clean slate. A front loading clean slate. A dual-fuel six burner clean slate. A clean slate in a good school district. Let someone else deal with the dryer light bulb.

Fireflies

"...and we'd spend hours catching fireflies," a friend wrote in response to a post of mine, talking about heading up to the Midwest for vacation, reminiscing about her own childhood.

We've talked about moving to the midwest, for lots of reasons, as Bay Area residents are sometimes wont to do. We talk about the pros and cons, and we weigh the options.

Another friend recently made the jump--a big deal for her two-mommy family, moving from Oakland to a smaller Midwestern city. We recently emailed back and forth a bit about it.

And in her last email to me, she said "Oh, you must. For all the reasons I said before, and for a new one, just discovered: fireflies! The Bay Area may have the finest restaurants in the nation, but the midwest has fireflies. No contest."

Easter in the Heartland

Dug and I both have grandparents in Kansas--his grandmother in Lawrence, my maternal grandparents in Pretty Prairie, in Central Kansas (but what my inlaws all insist on referring to as Western Kansas, no matter how many times I correct them). Every year we fly into Kansas City, rent a car, crash at Grandma Sally's in Lawrence for a night, drive down the next day to Pretty Prairie, spend an evening and a night and a morning with my folks, then drive back up to Lawrence, spend Easter Day, and head back to the airport.

It's always exhausting, always a blast. This year it had the added bonus of being warm and sunny, when home has been so cold and wet for so long.

Never mind chat. Here's pictures:

Warm spring night, Maggie on the merry-go-round

Molly won't be outdone.

With Great-Grandpa and with Great-Grandma

With my cousin, Brandon, who was the beneficiary of a grand concert performance by Molly, the lucky devil. She stood on the hearth and sang every song she could think of for him.

With the Nichols/Moore family in Lawrence on Easter Sunday after brunch. Molly's dress was hand-crocheted for me when I was her age, by my great-grandmother. Maggie's was purchased for me by my paternal grandmother when I was her age. My dress was formerly a square dancing dress, made and worn by Dug's grandmother, standing next to me in the pink jacket. Don't be fooled by the photo--I'm leaning down a bit, and that makes me look a little bustier and schlumpier than I really looked. Or maybe I'm just making myself believe that, but I honestly thought the dress looked great and I loved wearing it. Please to note the white shoes.