The Truth

I can't write about February without complaining. It would feel too much like lying. Because that's what I did in February this year: complain. There's the weather, of course, which has been so cold. And my calling change (sunbeams to CTR 7s). And the wrenching feeling I get in my gut everytime I pay $7 a pound for cheese, ($14 for ricotta or feta, which I never buy anymore). But most of all, there's the house.

No pussy-footing around it this time. My house drives me crazy! I know, I know, I'm lucky to have a house and there are lots of people that don't. And I do try to have a good attitude about it. But darn it, it's pretty tough for one bathroom to handle six people--there are baths to be had, teeth to be brushed, and, you know, other stuff. Yes there's the downstairs bathroom too, but a toilet and shower slapped onto either side of a sink, with a few loose laminate tiles below and what looks like wrapping paper on ply-wood walls just doesn't quite qualify as a "bathroom" in my book. The bedrooms are just big enough for the beds, as long as we put them in the one location where they actually fit. Closets? Uh, sort of. See we've had to cram the dressers inside of them, since there's really no extra room. No electrical outlet in the bathroom. Really. Ancient kitchen cabinets with the most grotesque mismatched plastic-brass hardware ever. Also, an uneven basement floor clad in depressing gray carpet and accented with buckling wood paneling on the walls. Did I mention that there are 6 of us squeezing into these 1200 square feet? And that it's way too cold to go much of anywhere else?

But you know what? All of that wouldn't get to me quite as much as it does if we weren't paying so much for this place! See, we moved here at the height of an over-heating real-estate market, where most houses were selling before they even made it onto the lists. We got into this place for $50,000 less than other houses were going in the area, and if internet listings are any sign, we've probably managed to sit out a good 30-40% increase in value. But still. We paid more for this place than for our three-story house in Cincinnati--which paid for itself when we rented out the upstairs. That coupled with all the work we still need to do and that tiny little bathroom sometimes drives me C-R-A-Z-Y!

So if you ever notice that the vast majority of the pictures we take here are shot in the living room (the one room that I like--big fat south facing windows and my piano), well, now you know why. And if I spend a little bit too much time mooning over fancy houses in the midwest that are selling for a song, well, maybe you'll forgive me that too.