$2000 vs just a little piece of land

i'm looking for a place to live in santa barbara, my homeland. y'all know that. so as it usually goes in this little big town, i got a word-of-mouth referral about a house for rent. 2 bedrooms, 1 bath. walking distance to preschool. small but nice. just a regular looking house with aluminum siding, with very little of the charm you can usually find around here. funky details inside, not quite cute details, just funky. no garage, but a big, water-tight storage shed as well as a detached art studio space with electricity. it could be just storage, but it has a nice big picture window overlooking the spacious back yard, window is framed by cactus and aloe plants...far too inspiring for simply storing boxes!

so the backyard is about as much square footage as the house: one third is a covered patio, in red Satillo tile; two thirds is grass bordered by raised garden beds, oak, palm & lemon trees, with the backdrop of a steep but very picturesque oak and nasturtium covered hillside. this backyard and the art studio, these are the things that make the house. the things that i want for my daughter and i. the things that make me start to consider paying rent of $2000 per month.

then i step back and think whoa nelly, what the hell? two grand a month? to rent someone else's house? with their ugly carpet choices and their unwillingness to part from stark white walls? where i come from, paying even half of that is considered a mortgage on a very nice house. add that to the fact that i've been struggling to pay $1000-1200 for the last 4 years. what then possesses me to start even thinking about $2000?

it's that yard that's seducing me. how sophia's room has french doors leading right out to it. how there is no other house behind it, just the wilderness coming down to meet its neighbors. plus some spaces for us. sophia to have her own room. me to have a studio again.

i shake the fairy dust out of my eyes, blink a few times and realize i need to keep looking. for $2000, i'm finding THE perfect place, not a bunch of weird details to "settle" on. for $2300, i could likely find a 3 bed/2 bath spot, something easier to rent a room out and share the rent. Or for $1200 maybe i can still find a one bedroom in this town and I get a nice futon couch and give Sophia the bedroom, like many single moms i know in this town.

next time you see me, remind me to not give up the dream for that little piece of land for me and my little piece of girl to set our roots down in and bloom.

it's out there, right?

hmm well hmmm

Just haven't blogged in so long, I felt I needed to post an update. In no particular order.

So we did not get that house down in the previous post. Our dream home still eludes us here. But we found a fun landing place for 3 months, until mid-June, which gets us to a better rental time of year, when students are leaving, etc. In the meantime, we can take our time looking for the perfect home and for now, we are in a really nice 4 bedroom, 2 story house, with fireplaces (plural) and granite kitchen countertops, 2 car garage...all for pretty cheap because it's a temp rental and the landlord is a nice guy. Photos here are from Sophia's recent 3rd bday party at our house. You can see more photos here.

Riccardo is back in CA visiting us, in between going down to LA for work. He's been down there for a few weeks. For spring break, we went to SF with our friends, Jack, Diana and 3 year old Santiago. Visited the aquarium, saw sea lions on the pier, went to MOMA (great Calder exhibit!), the huge Apple store, Berkeley & the Children's Museum there, lots of bookstores & toystores & an art gallery & the Art Institute (got a tour from Michelle!), and rode street cars, the trolley & even a ferry across the bay! Saw our friends Michelle and Laureen (& all of team Hudson) up there. Fun, fun but ever so urban.

We're planning a trip to Sea World in San Diego for the last weekend of April. Sophia is currently obsessed with beluga whales, as well as her other favorites: orcas, dolphins, octopi, manta rays and anything you might have seen in Finding Nemo. She got a fish for her birthday, named it Dory of course, but don't tell Sophia it's only a betta!

All in all, in case I haven't said it yet, it's good to be home. Thanks to everyone who has checked in with us. We're doing well! And what's funny, I have a humungous house here, and I seem to find every bedroom full almost every night. We have one paying roommate, Aubri, and then there's me, Sophia, sometimes Riccardo, every once in a while an artist friend down on their luck or a visiting professor from Europe or all of the above at once! A friend noticed that I seem to have built a little village...and how it's funny that I went up to Portland seeking intentional community, and yet I probably had it all along here, I just couldn't afford a large enough house in Santa Barbara! But my personality type is one of open doors and hospitality, with a soft spot for the lost puppies of the world, so with any luck, I will be able to continue to manifest this kind of community and generosity, leading to always having a full table at dinner and finding all of my sheets in continual use!

homeless but home again

well we have been back in santa barbara for almost a month. still looking for a home, but having a roof over our heads thanks to the gracious generosity of friends. the house hunt has taken way longer than I'd anticipated, but thankfully Jack, Diana and Santiago are in Argentina and needing a house/pet sitter so we're on our way to tend gardens, chickens, snakes, mice, turtles, fish and a dog.

crossing our fingers that this might turn out to be our new house, so if anyone is seeing this, send us your good vibes around 2 pm tomorrow when i will hopefully find out if it's ours or not. we're meeting the owners and seeing if they like us and my credit report.

other than an insane amount of time-consuming house and preschool hunting and also the ever present trying to work without childcare, being back has been great. seeing our friends and being in this glorious sunny weather has been tonic for the soul. interesting to see what has changed here and what has stayed the same. most of it is probably changes within my own perceptions really. above all, i still carry the gratitude in my heart for being back home and am riding the waves of this transition with a positive outlook.

the return has been good for sophia, she is really happy to be back, but it's also been a lot of transition for her. and i am learning to forgive myself for that too. parents can be really really hard on themselves for their choices and i am no exception. i look forward to the calm that will hopefully settle back around our lives soon.

until then, it's springtime here and everything is blooming.

lupin growing on the roadside >>

"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems."- Rilke

RENTED!

OK the house is rented, someone signed a lease, we're on our way back home!!! Off to get boxes and mattress covers...hurrah!!

And speaking of reading...

OK got a crazy call tonight from my doctor, who apparently doesn't know how to read mammograms, and they want me to come back in soon for another round. There's a disparity between what the radiologist told me and what the dr sees there so I need to go back in. Lucky for us, I'm at the end of my menstrual cycle so the little bugger is bigger than ever, shouldn't be hard to spot. It actually feels lumpier than before, or bumpy, so that's odd and I haven't told them that yet.

I got a "mostly" good news report last week that it was likely just a clogged milk duct from Sophia's recent and rapid self-weaning. She just decided there was no more milk in there and told me so, then nursed a few more times over a few weeks and was done. So they said likely some milk is backed up in there and forming a little cyst, which should be monitored for 3 months and then drained by needle aspiration if necessary. Could even clear up with a few menstrual cycles, or could get worse, so we have to keep on top of it.

Tonight, the doctor called and told me they are unclear and want to retest. For those who have had the old boob-o-smoosh-o-rama fest, I've got smallish breasts (but boy I loved nursing, they were up 2 whole cup sizes for a good 3 years there!!) and the lump is high, above the fleshy part of the breast so difficult to capture it in the smooshy plastic chomper thing. If you haven't had one, just imagine trying to make a Xerox of your breast sideways, but the thing that is pressing down is like a machine driven vise grip...it smooshes your breast flat so they can take a picture, and you have to stand still, topless, and not breathe while this thing compacts you with pressure. Maybe not so pressure-y for larger breasted women, but I was leaning in with all my might just to get the lump area in. Of course there are other pains with larger breasts in the chomp vise, but I will just stop here!

Anyway, as I've said, I'll keep you posted. Funny tidbit, Sophia started puking when the doctor was telling me this...is that a sign? OK gross enough, and TMI for one post, eh?