Beautiful Yard Today

Nine groups of visitors came to see the house today. Some seemed interested, staying over an hour. But talk and enjoying our air conditioning are cheap. Only a good offer will resolve our situation. But the yard is helping. It looks gorgeous.

Garden, cherry trees blooming in background, dogwoods almost open to the left.

Sunset, swingset, beautiful trees with purple flowers all along the branches. I don't know what they are. Does anyone know?

Blooming with Emotion

It has been hard lately to write because of all the churning emotions. Seeing a bunch of awful houses in Boston, finding a wonderful house, making a decision to make an offer on that house without having sold our current one, having people see and like the Fair Lawn house, not hearing from them again, worrying about money, realizing that this is what the years of savings was for, worrying about everything, collapsing with exhaustion, insomnia...

My life before last December would move up and down on an emotional scale of 1 to 10 (extreme sadness to happy mania) between 5 and 8. Now it feels like it's swinging from 2 to 7. I think when our house sells, I will hit a quick 10 then happily settle back to 5 to 8.

On a positive note spring is blooming... good for house selling, good for the heart.

Front garden bed blooming with ground phlox, daffodils, tulips. On the way poppies, paper whites, coral bells, irises and more.


Dogwood flowers small and light green. In a few days they will be glowing white.

Beautiful House, Blue Pictures

Here are some rather terrible pictures of the new house we've agreed to buy. Yes, I know it seems that something is missing since the last post, but I'm not quite emotionally ready to talk about finding this house yet.

It is actually beautiful, with clean, classic lines, bright spaces, and a feeling of serenity and care throughout. The yard is a paradise (1.5 acres) with bushes like a botanical garden, a meadow and elegant garden with brick walkway.

Front of house:
Back of house with deck.


We have a broker's open house tomorrow at the NJ house, and public open houses every Sunday for the foreseeable future. Wish us luck. We've done what I said I never would: agreed to purchase a house without having this one sold.

But the new house is so special. Finding it was fate. Now we need fate to steer that perfect special buyer to our home.

Visiting Boston

Just a little update on the HOME? front. Looked at houses yesterday in Newton and Lexington, MA. Didn't find anything that I felt right about. But lovely friends on facebook reminded me that I made my house much of what it is. When we moved in 16 years ago, it was kind of a mess.

Kids love the aquarium, science museum, navigating on the T. Restaurant food is very salty. I will write more when I get home. This is a stressful process.

Waiting for Daffodils

I should wait for the daffodils to actually bloom. That would make a better picture. But I can't wait, as I can't wait for the leaves... and a good offer on the house...


There's a house I love near Boston and it's been on the market longer than ours. I'm hoping it lasts until we can buy it. I'll be seeing it and others in Boston in 2 weeks.

Painting the Porch

This morning I found keys in the garbage. Asking around I found out they were Doug's office keys. The Hackensack office of his company is closed. The computers are on their way to Boston. Doug is "working" at home for the week. I'm sure there will actually be lots for him to do once the computers are hooked up. But until then he is working on the home again.

I'm not sure if you can see the sad state of the porch floor in the following picture, but it was peeling profusely.


A good day of work (note the long shadows) and the coat is clean and smooth.


The steps are refreshed too.


Another plus for the house, in case anyone shows up to see it. No one has come to see it in 2 weeks. But we're getting ready for open houses at the end of April and early May when the leaves are out and the yard is transformed. Note the daffodils about to bloom next to the mail box.

New Car Regret?

Here is Doug's rusty Dodge Dakota


and his new VW Jetta TDI.


You might think I was relieved that he has a better looking car. But I'm loving his old truck more than ever.

My sister recently turned in an 18 month old Prius for a used BMW convertible (?, don't ask). And I know people lease or drive cars for 2 or 3 years and turn them in for a newer model. I don't understand it at all.

While I pushed for this new car so Doug could do his NJ to Boston commute with airbags and better music than his AM/FM radio provided, I'm feeling bad about getting a new car while his old one still runs. For the commute he was doing from Fair Lawn to Hackensack the truck was great. It had been paid off the day we got it in June 1993. It carried logs and brush and grass seed and furniture. It was cheap to maintain and cheap to insure. He never had to worry about anyone scratching it. In fact, other people probably got out of the way when they saw it. The paint was peeling, but the toughness remains. In fact it has only about 115K miles, since it spent much of its life doing short commutes. My van has more miles, 118K.

Alas, maybe I'm just feeling bad about the car because of what it symbolizes. Doug's going to Boston, selling our house, moving, change. I guess it's not really fair to load all this baggage on a terrific little deisel that gets over 40 mpg on the highway. In fact, if everything works out, and Doug ends up with a public transportation commute in Boston, I'll probably use it all the time.