Here at 52.23 degrees North of the equator, the winter days get pretty short. Even with daylight savings, it is dark when we wake and start our day and by 430 there is no running the saw outside without lights. With all the business of Will and getting the house ready to sell and preparing for the move, we have begun to lean a lot on setting James up with a video just to make things manageable. I never thought we would stoop to the electronic babysitter, and James really wasn't interested until recently, but now there are pretty regular showings in our house of Cars, Bob the builder (occasionally Bob de Bouwer), and Thomas and his friends. James now even differentiates between "Old Thomas" and "British Thomas". They are all pretty harmless and we have gotten used to hearing the songs and dialogs, and though we try to limit his exposure, it really is the only option after weeks of cold, dark rain (we tell ourselves).
James is a huge fan of Cars, and has even worked 'Kachow!' and 'Light Green change tires!' into his vocabulary. Light Green is what he calls Lightning McQueen. Light green is also what he calls guacamole, which he is also a big fan of. The old Volvo that parks outside our house is now officially the fabulous Hudson Hornet...
It will be really interesting to see how his language changes as we make the transition to the states; he already has some pretty unique Dutch/English phrases that only we can interpret.
We finally bought our tickets to Atlanta, so it has been a week of logistics as we work through the lists of utilities and banks and closing accounts and opening accounts etc. Katharine has started back working which made for an interesting time for Mike and Will and his first bottle. He did great at first but then on the second try was just despondent at the lack of Mom in the equation. I'm sure we will all get used to it eventually. Another challenge is the house; we have a guy who seems pretty interested but he has just begun looking, so we will hear from him in the coming weeks. It is a distinct possibility that some people from the university will rent it while we are gone and a realtor is working on finding a buyer- which means a big logistical shuffling in that the house would need to be furnished. I'm sure it will work out and we are just trying to remain flexible to the last moment and keep positive about it all.
Katharine did find a Mother's morning out program with space for James in January which is a huge relief because the waiting lists at these places can be complete nightmares. We also arranged today to hire a taxi-van to take us, the kids and their car seats and strollers, all our luggage, and the two dogs and their kennels to Schiphol airport in time for a 10am flight. It should be a blast.
We had a great Thanksgiving party with a good group of folks, though as usual we did not get any decent photos. We are hoping that someone got a few good ones though, and we can post them here soon.
Less than two weeks until lift-off!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
House by Peter Binacci
My printmaking professor at the College of Charleston had a term for describing the action of messing up your own piece of art by going back to it too often. It is a natural inclination to keep returning to a work to "fix" things about it.
She described the infamous Peter Binacci, a neighbor from her childhood who spent the weekend painting the garage and trim. He got a little paint from the trim on the garage paint, and then when fixing that got a little paint from the garage on the trim, then when fixing that got a little paint from the trim on the garage, then... well you get the point.
The moral of the story is that there is a fine line between perfection and ruination.
Mike heard this story from me years ago, and we have brought it up a lot lately. The spirit of Peter Binacci is alive and well at Gronausevoetpad 102.
Mike has been working like crazy to finish things off. We have a potential buyer coming to see the house this Friday... a young single guy whom we hope finds exactly what he is looking for in this place. The house is really looking amazing. It is a shame we will have to leave it just as it is looking so great, but that's just the way things go. We knew we would not be in this house long.
In other news, our plans for coming to the states are solidifying. Still no plane tickets, but nearly so. Ghost is on a "fit under the price break" diet. At his current weight it will only cost us 150 Euros each to bring the dogs home. If Ghost gains a kilo he jumps to the 450 Euro price category. No thanksgiving turkey for him this year.
We called the plumber to give us an estimate on two radiators that were not working in the house. We'd put this off for weeks because we assumed it meant something was really wrong. I finally convinced Mike just to let me call the guy who'd saved me this summer, Ronnie, for an estimate. He fixed them both for 40 Euros, and remains my plumber-hero.
There are some new photos of the house on the huis te koop website. You can see the bathroom and kitchen floors now. Don't they look good! You can also see both sides of the glass-block wall, Mike's last big project. It focuses the view as you enter the house, while providing a ton of storage space and a thermal break between the front door and the rest of the house. Chuckle to yourself as you imagine how many times we had to say "no don't touch the wet paint" to James this week.
Finally, I had a telephone interview with the department head from the University of Hartford in CT last week. They are narrowing down the field to choose 2-3 candidates to interview on campus. We spoke for about one hour; it went really well, and she was super friendly and encouraging. It is a small, private school (approximately 5000 undergraduates) and they want to begin an undergraduate program (major and minor) in Environmental Studies in the next few years. It is also relatively close to the Heartwood School where Mike spent the summer, which means he feels especially confident about the possibility of joining the local timber framers network.
We will see what happens. We've been reading about the area ever since-- Laurens pointed out that the school was founded by Mark Twain's wife (Mrs. Samuel Clemens) and Harriet Beecher Stowe. I am dying to check out the museum of trash and Avery's beverage factory.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Please and Thank you and other words
James is of the age when it is time to begin emphasizing some manners and general social niceties. We've started with "please" and "thank you" with mixed results. Sometimes the interactions go like this:
James (ordering command voice): "toast! honey!"
Katharine: "how about we say 'toast and honey please'"
James: "yes"
Katharine: "say, 'may I please have toast and honey'"
James: "yes"
Katharine: "no, you say 'may I please have toast and honey'"
James: "toast, honey-- please"
It comes and goes.
For some reason he loves to thank someone after you say "bless you" after he sneezes.
Maybe its because the constant rounds of colds give him so much reinforcement, but whenever he sneezes and we say "bless you James" he pipes up with the sweetest, most heartfelt "thank you momma" or "thank you daddy". I have told him repeatedly that this will earn him super duper adorable bonus points with his grandmothers when he sees them next.
He is continually linking words into phrases and occasionally into recognizable concepts. Mike reads him a naptime story and I read stories at night, and now he will say at bedtime:
"Daddy won't read stories...bedtime"
He has also started asking questions, but without the all-important question words. So we get a lot of:
"Baby Will doing" or
"Keska doing"
without intonation, when he wants to know WHAT baby Will or Keska is doing. Ghost is pretty much always doing the same thing (sleeping) so it doesn't come up as much. Actually baby Will is almost always sleeping, too, but he's just more interesting.
We had a meeting with a second realtor last week. It is the guy who had such luck selling the other half of this place for our neighbors. Our neighbors told us before we met with him that they'd talked to him and he had a real interest in helping us rent it (not our goal). Well, he looked into it and apparently the type of mortgage we have does not allow us to rent the property out, it is meant for owner-occupiers only. That is fine by us, as we don't want to rent it -- we'd rather sell. However, he came over and was super negative about our place, which we in afterthought ascribe to the fact that he only had an interest in it as a rental property and not a sale property.
He just acted really strange. He kept pointing out what wasn't finished, to an understandably frustrated Mike. Mike had to say to him, REPEATEDLY "imagine that all of these things are completed", and THEN what do you think it would be worth. But this man just could NOT imagine anything. At first we were very disappointed, but after he left we talked about some of the strange things he'd said.
For example, he said ' you shouldn't rent it because from America you'd have a hard time collecting rent from the occupants, and the kind of occupants who would rent this place wouldn't be the type who would pay"
We were planning on marketing our place to people like us, because it would be furnished-- i.e. short term international academics at the University, so... not sure what he meant by that. Not exactly an untrustworthy or shady group as a whole.
He estimated that we would lose money on our mortgage, but said, if you're not planning on living in the Netherlands again in the future then you could just default on the remainder of your loan to the bank. NOT KIDDING. This is the advice he gave to us. I said very succinctly "we would never do that"-- and left it at that.
He acted as if we'd paid too much for this place and not improved it at all. It was strange. But I am terrible at quick thinking, and only later after thinking about it felt reassured as I remembered that when we bought this place we SCOURED the market for a solid place, with potential for renovation at a low price. There were two houses in decent neighborhoods meeting those criteria, we looked at both and this was absolutely the better of the two. Whether or not we have improved it is not a question for us.
We had a neighbor that we trust come over that night and talk to us about it. He was really reassuring and noticeably shocked by what this guy had told us. Now we feel that we are not crazy, and maybe he is a little offbase, or maybe just doesn't like Americans? It is hard to say what his motives might be. We have decided to contact another realtor, but this time we will make the house ready before we have him (or her- we'd prefer a lady this time) over to see it. We do realize we cannot depend on the imagination of the realtor. That is good to know. This also means that though my pregnancy leave is over, I am now taking holiday time to help out with the kids while Mike does the majority of the work-- though he is finally letting me help a little. Not sure what this will mean for our return home... we have to complete this before we leave, but we will keep our plans updated here.
James (ordering command voice): "toast! honey!"
Katharine: "how about we say 'toast and honey please'"
James: "yes"
Katharine: "say, 'may I please have toast and honey'"
James: "yes"
Katharine: "no, you say 'may I please have toast and honey'"
James: "toast, honey-- please"
It comes and goes.
For some reason he loves to thank someone after you say "bless you" after he sneezes.
Maybe its because the constant rounds of colds give him so much reinforcement, but whenever he sneezes and we say "bless you James" he pipes up with the sweetest, most heartfelt "thank you momma" or "thank you daddy". I have told him repeatedly that this will earn him super duper adorable bonus points with his grandmothers when he sees them next.
He is continually linking words into phrases and occasionally into recognizable concepts. Mike reads him a naptime story and I read stories at night, and now he will say at bedtime:
"Daddy won't read stories...bedtime"
He has also started asking questions, but without the all-important question words. So we get a lot of:
"Baby Will doing" or
"Keska doing"
without intonation, when he wants to know WHAT baby Will or Keska is doing. Ghost is pretty much always doing the same thing (sleeping) so it doesn't come up as much. Actually baby Will is almost always sleeping, too, but he's just more interesting.
We had a meeting with a second realtor last week. It is the guy who had such luck selling the other half of this place for our neighbors. Our neighbors told us before we met with him that they'd talked to him and he had a real interest in helping us rent it (not our goal). Well, he looked into it and apparently the type of mortgage we have does not allow us to rent the property out, it is meant for owner-occupiers only. That is fine by us, as we don't want to rent it -- we'd rather sell. However, he came over and was super negative about our place, which we in afterthought ascribe to the fact that he only had an interest in it as a rental property and not a sale property.
He just acted really strange. He kept pointing out what wasn't finished, to an understandably frustrated Mike. Mike had to say to him, REPEATEDLY "imagine that all of these things are completed", and THEN what do you think it would be worth. But this man just could NOT imagine anything. At first we were very disappointed, but after he left we talked about some of the strange things he'd said.
For example, he said ' you shouldn't rent it because from America you'd have a hard time collecting rent from the occupants, and the kind of occupants who would rent this place wouldn't be the type who would pay"
We were planning on marketing our place to people like us, because it would be furnished-- i.e. short term international academics at the University, so... not sure what he meant by that. Not exactly an untrustworthy or shady group as a whole.
He estimated that we would lose money on our mortgage, but said, if you're not planning on living in the Netherlands again in the future then you could just default on the remainder of your loan to the bank. NOT KIDDING. This is the advice he gave to us. I said very succinctly "we would never do that"-- and left it at that.
He acted as if we'd paid too much for this place and not improved it at all. It was strange. But I am terrible at quick thinking, and only later after thinking about it felt reassured as I remembered that when we bought this place we SCOURED the market for a solid place, with potential for renovation at a low price. There were two houses in decent neighborhoods meeting those criteria, we looked at both and this was absolutely the better of the two. Whether or not we have improved it is not a question for us.
We had a neighbor that we trust come over that night and talk to us about it. He was really reassuring and noticeably shocked by what this guy had told us. Now we feel that we are not crazy, and maybe he is a little offbase, or maybe just doesn't like Americans? It is hard to say what his motives might be. We have decided to contact another realtor, but this time we will make the house ready before we have him (or her- we'd prefer a lady this time) over to see it. We do realize we cannot depend on the imagination of the realtor. That is good to know. This also means that though my pregnancy leave is over, I am now taking holiday time to help out with the kids while Mike does the majority of the work-- though he is finally letting me help a little. Not sure what this will mean for our return home... we have to complete this before we leave, but we will keep our plans updated here.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The Push
The push is on as we get closer to our last weeks in Holland. The endless tasks of making the house completely ready are slowly being crossed off the list; some great news today is that our neighbors half of the building just sold- which means it is actually possible for us to find a buyer in the next month. We met with one realtor today and have a meeting on Monday with another.
James had a fever and had to be picked up from daycare yesterday- he was so sad and pathetic and hot- we treated with ibuprofen and rest and today he was off and on until about 5pm when it all just disappeared and he zipped around like his normal self again. It is crazy how fast they go from desperately ailing to revved back up.
He loves helping with anything around the house-
He always wears proper protection:
Here you can see the front entry taking shape, including my slightly over-ambitious, time- consuming double-sided, but eventually successful, glass block window design:
This is how you have to cut sheets of material in a tiny house when it is raining outside (as it has been for the last week). Its easy, you just walk in the gap between the sheets of MDF holding a running circular saw along the guide as your baby tries to sleep:
James loves being put up high to reach stuff and test out the light load bearing capacities of shelves...
More photos of nearly projects as we finish them off. I'll have to dig up a before picture of the bathroom- its just a little caulk and paint away from perfect now! This house will be perfect just in time to move...
James had a fever and had to be picked up from daycare yesterday- he was so sad and pathetic and hot- we treated with ibuprofen and rest and today he was off and on until about 5pm when it all just disappeared and he zipped around like his normal self again. It is crazy how fast they go from desperately ailing to revved back up.
He loves helping with anything around the house-
He always wears proper protection:
Here you can see the front entry taking shape, including my slightly over-ambitious, time- consuming double-sided, but eventually successful, glass block window design:
This is how you have to cut sheets of material in a tiny house when it is raining outside (as it has been for the last week). Its easy, you just walk in the gap between the sheets of MDF holding a running circular saw along the guide as your baby tries to sleep:
James loves being put up high to reach stuff and test out the light load bearing capacities of shelves...
More photos of nearly projects as we finish them off. I'll have to dig up a before picture of the bathroom- its just a little caulk and paint away from perfect now! This house will be perfect just in time to move...
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