Urban Exploration

These photos are from a Sunday afternoon wander-about that we did in downtown St. Paul a few months back. It was a crisp Autumn day, and it was quite lovely. 

Urban Land Rover. I do miss Rovey. This Rover is affectionately known of as "Steampunk Rover" due to the fact that it's not computerized at all... the levers and buttons all actually manually change things... with loud thunks and whatnot. It's charming. And easier to fix than computerized stuff. 

 I am hoping that my obnoxious urge to spell Mississippi every time we get in close proximity to the Mississippi River goes away soon. Because quite frankly, I'm driving myself completely banana sandwich with it. M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I! Not to mention other people who might just be hanging out near me.

 One the subject of houses: Living in rentals is not for the faint of heart. That being said, buying a house isn't for the faint of heart either. So basically, no one can have a faint heart and survive. Because clearly, being homeless wouldn't be for the faint of heart either.

 After all that nonsense, allow me to proceed with my thoughts on housing. I like to joke that we will be building the PERFECT retirement house after all this renting business, because we have definitely in the space of two rentals discovered what we like and hate in a house. I can't wait to see how smart we are after four rentals. **cough**

Anyway, at this point in our journey, living in rentals is the only thing that makes sense. So we shall embrace it, learn from it and enjoy the process. And complain, when necessary. Ha.

Tacoma Recap: The LOCATION of our house in Tacoma was a DREAM. I absolutely LOVED where we lived. It made moving from beautiful Wenatchee to Tacoma a really great experience... the Puget Sound a stone's throw away from my front door? Bliss. The house itself, however?! A complete nightmare. We decided on it for the location, and the fact that "it would do" otherwise. It was poorly maintained, things that had been fixed were fixed with dismal workmanship, and the floor plan was a nightmare. Basically, we learned what NOT to do in that house. I could go on, but I won't. :-) I will say that I am glad we lived there and learned what we learned, but I was NOT sorry to be leaving that house. It frustrated and/or angered me daily.

This house here has been all in all so far a much better experience. The space is laid out much better. Originally when Garrett looked at it, I was slightly terrified because it is huge... we'd never lived in a 2000 square foot house before--at 1900-something the Tacoma house was the biggest yet, and it was so poorly laid out it the square footage wasn't worth mentioning. But all homes here have basements (something about needing to dig below the frozen ground line anyway, so might as well put basements in?) so that space bumps this house up around 3,000 square feet. It's a cleaning nightmare. But, that being said it is SO great for having guests--since our guests are traveling farther and staying longer it's good to have space so everyone is not in everyone's pockets. And the first two floors really are wonderfully laid out.

We mostly live on the top floor--bedrooms, and the ground floor, living areas and kitchen/laundry, etc. The basement we originally set up as a play area for kids, computer/office area, sewing area, and school area, as well as backup guest area with a futon. So far the kids play downstairs when Daddy is on the computer downstairs, we haven't done school even once down here, and I haven't sewed at all in the basement. After just a few weeks I realized that I MUST have my sewing and our school within proximity to the kitchen and laundry room. Not to mention being able to hear Daria when she wakes up from naps. Also, the basement is FREEEEEEEZING. You have to bundle up, double sock, sweatshirt, blankets, etc., in order to sit still in this space. It's cold enough that your nose drips if you hang out down here. So, in short we have a bunch of unorganized piles and misused space that's not reaching it's potential at all. I am thinking we might use it more in summer, but in winter I'd feel really guilty even suggesting that someone sleep down here. We are slowly working on it, and I'm hoping to get in the mindset of using it more as time goes by. Because it really is a fabulous space.

When we moved to Tacoma within a few weeks I had things mostly organized and pictures hung. Here, even the thought of that kind of organization makes me laugh. I haven't hung a single picture here, and while things are put away and liveable, that's about it. It makes me crazy.

Daria has just, in the past month or so started occasionally sleeping through the night. She has thwarted every effort (good solid effort, I might add) that I have made towards some semblance of order and regimen around here. Loudly. Have I mentioned that she's loud? So, once we were moved in I sort of had to step back and prioritize, and it literally looked something like this:

Food

School

Cleaning/Laundry

Everything else, not even on the list.

So, if you're wondering what I've been up to, that's about it.

Back to the waterfront:

We were there for the magical moments before sunset.

And for the sunset.

Urban Jungle.

 School with these two yahoos has been a lot of fun this year. I'm thinking I'll maybe talk about that in another post.

My point of view.

Who's on first?

That's about it for this post today. Thanks for sticking with me!