The Quiet Life of Violet

Backyard Burritos

Roman and his Grandpa Clark.

 

We're spending our time with Dustin's parents with serious faces only and no fun at all.

(lies.)

 

 

Two Places At Once

As the boxes get packed, all of our sweet belongings, the pieces of our life as a family, are finding themselves taped up in cardboard boxes. All of my tea, Roman's baby dishes, the pillowcases where we laid our heads and all of the delicious books that we so eagerly read. The first onesie that Roman ever wore and the pearl tiara that sat atop my head as words of devotion slipped from my lips, my vows to the love of my life, they sit in a box. All packed. All of it.

Our house, the little 2 bedroom, one bath dwelling was where our Roman was made. That was where we spent our first night at home together as a family. Roman had his first Christmas there. Dustin and I watched Battlestar Galactica in its entirety on our yellow couch in that living room. Diapers changed, baby bathed and dinners cooked for the past two plus years in that 800 square foot house.

 

As the the newspaper finds itself wrapped around our dishes, I find myself a little sad. Sad that this chapter is ending. Us living out here by Berkeley and SF. The trips to the used bookstore after having Sushi-Ko, Roman kicking in my belly... it's all over. Yogurtland trips by the Shattuck Theater after sunset. Bums peddling newspapers, all the hippy-dippy store closed for the night. My scarf wrapped around my neck with my red jacket zipped to the top, Bubby pushing my through the icy Berkeley air on uneven pavement. Seeing the sea along the freeway as we drive to IKEA. Gosh, feeling young and free with my heart in so many places and completely with Dusitn all at once. How is that even possible? Come to think of it, most of the above took a backseat once the baby was born. Before Roman was born, we would head out towards Berkeley at least twice a week, after work dates, mid-week. Exploring San Francisco together... Japantown, mostly. Once we found a place that we liked, we'd go back again and again. We still do the same now, only the places that we choose to go are family places, places where roman can squeal, pickle in hand (this kid LOVES pickles) and we don't have to duck out of the resturant red-faces with our food in to-go boxes.

Our last family picture in the old house.

 

Our new home, the home that we hope to buy and continue raising our family in, will be ours on the first. My Uncle has been generous (in more ways than one) and has let us move our stuff in over the past week. This weekend was spent moving EVERYTHING out of the old house and into the new. The moving is done.

 

As I sit here finishing this post on my Mother-in-Law's couch, I can help but put things away at our new house, in my mind. This here, that there. We need to pick up one of those and two of these. This week will be full of "putting away" and finding new places For our old things. This week will be for a Sister Wives marathon and for switching our utilities from old to new. Forwarding our post and updating our accounts. Ordering checks with new addresses. Finding a dentist (I think I have a problem-tooth) and switching our doctors.

 

That home. That home is gone. I'm mourning the end of a chapter and doing a big squiggly happy dance for the beginning of the next. Is it possible for your heart to be in more than one place at the same time? Yes, friends. Yes it is.

 

Xo,

Hometown Violet

 

Mornings

Every morning, this little face smiles, blinks, Shrew-Faces, scowls, laughs and babbles at me. He is now pointing at anything and everything.

 

"Really Roman?

You want the toaster oven?

You're so silly, baby."

 

 

There's No Place

We found it. Well, I found it. Actually, it found me when I was a little girl and I didn't even know it. My aunt, Barbie, moved to my hometown and bought a house in the early 90s with her husband. Barbie and my mom were twins and grew up loving and depending on each other. My siblings and I spent part of our childhood visiting my Aunt's house and watching Mom and her sister chat like only twins do.

When I was about 19, we found out that my aunt had cancer. She was a very private person, so we didn't actually find out until it was discovered that her prognosis was pretty grim.  After trying different treatments, we came to the realization nothing was working and hospice took over her care. It was a very hard time on Mom, and like I mentioned in the above post, I just kind of pretended it wasn't happening because I couldn't emotionally handle it.

After my aunt passed away, my uncle remarried (and got two step-children out of the deal!) and he and his new wife (and kids!) continued to live in the house that he and my aunt had shared. Apart from inviting them to our wedding, we didn't see much of my uncle and his lovely new wife, mostly because Dustin and I were young and busy with our own stuff. We moved to Washington, then came back to California when my cancer returned the first time, and after treatment, surgery and healing, Bub and I just tried to go along with life like anyone does. Grocery store. Work. Christmas. Fourth of July.

Fast forward past classes and condos and more cancer and miscarriage and pregnancy and my sweet baby boy being born. A little bit ago, my uncle and I randomly became friends on Facebook, I can't recall who friend-ed whom or anything. Fast forward to Father's Day when I first had this inking of a desire to move back to our hometown, even after swearing I'd never ever move back there. Fast forward past budgetary planning and Dustin stressing out over his would-be commute and past me wanting Roman to spend more time with our families that live in our hometown. Fast forward to July 15th, when I just happen to log on to Facebook and see that my uncle was painting his house. He was renting it out because he and his wife moved into a much larger, newer home (how fun!). Fast forward past the days of me anxiously waiting for all the details so I could pitch the idea to Dustin. Past me reminiscing about the adventures and times I spent in that house and how amazing it would be to keep the house in the family in honor of my sweet aunt who was gone. Past me mentally putting our belongings into that house. Fast forward past Dustin telling me that it was out of our price range and past us crunching numbers and then coming up with a budget where we could actually afford the house without compromising our set monthly "savings" bill (Dustin's biggest requirement). Me agreeing, with clenched teeth, that our monthly "fun stuff" monies could take a giant cut in order to make it work (I LOVE going out to eat and shopping, so this was hard one for me), as well as our food budget. Snip, snip. Fast forward past detail filled emails with my uncle and talks of potentially renting-to-own this house. Fast forward past Dustin running numbers (based on what an online real estate price-er estimated the home to be worth) and him finding out that we might be able to do a 15-year loan and have the house paid off (insert his financial freedom drool here) before we are 45 yers old. Fast forward past us signing a rental lease and mailing a check. Mailing a check, folks!

 

Yes, friends, we are moving.
Moving to a house where I spend some of my childhood days.

 

We are moving to a house where our parents and siblings are 5 minutes away on any given day. Moving to a house where my boy will make memories like his Momma did. We are moving to a house that we will probably end up purchasing. We are moving to a house that will probably become our home.

 

(A doctored up Google Maps picture. Don't judge!)

 

 

 

Catching Up: This Is Why I Can't

I have post after post lined up in my (brand spanking new - back to school!) planner and in my sweet little head, but come my ever-so-coveted "Mommy Time" (10pm - 12am), I'm usually pooped and end up plastering myself to the couch. I feel like I've said this before on here. Have I? Do any of you have the same problem? Not having enough energy / motivation to do real, productive things at the end of the night when the baby / child(ren) is in bed.

 

I spend most of my day feeding, changing, dressing, loving, reading to and cleaning up after the sweetest (and most stubborn) baby in all the land. I don't know how many times I pause, turn my head to Dustin and say, "I just love him so much!" How many times I try to steal kissed and ruffle his hair and play with his toes. Don't get me wrong, he gets plenty of solo play time (LOVING the Weeble treehouse thing my Momma got at a garage sale), but when he crawls over to me and pulls himself up on my wheelchair or pant leg and does the hand-signal for "up/down", I can't help but scoop him up and breathe him in. Even when he stinks, he still smells good. Well, minus those foul poopy diapers. Those are just bad. Did I tell you that I had to scrape poop off of a Bum Genius with a plastic butter knife today? Daddy forgot to change baby before he left for work, so baby didn't have a flushable liner in his cloth diaper for his morning man-poo. You KNOW you love a human being when you find yourself un-buttering their diaper in the bathroom at 9 o'clock in the morning.

 

He is really blossoming into this tiny, little man right before our eyes. He points at everything, giving us a little noise when he wants to emphasize his desire. Sometimes he just points to random things, so happy with himself that he can get me to look at what he is looking at. Oh! This child is obsessed with light switches. Every time I entered or exited a room with him on my lap today, we had to stop so he could shut the light off. He's still working on figuring out how to turn the light back on, so I usually give him a bit of help. He claps, too! He is understanding that doing something neat (light switching, kisses, putting toys in his basket, closing and opening doors, drawers & books) warrants a celebration! He gets so happy with himself when he accomplishes things and I have this overwhelming sense of pride that I've never experienced before. I never thought that I would feel positively ecstatic about getting a kiss after asking for one or helping another person close a door.

 

 

My kid is amazing! My Husband has my heart! I am healthy!

 

Heck yes!

(totalllly not pregnant. Just a sloucher!)

xo,

Slightly Smokey

 

 

A local Chevron refinery caught on fire today. The smoke was headed right in our direction, so we packed up and headed out to my MIL's house for the night. The whole one lung / history of cancer thing leaves me weary of breathing crude oil fumes all night. Plus, my boy! I couldn't take a chance on letting this little guy's body/lungs get damaged in any way from the smoke.

 

(In love with grilled cheese sandwiches.)

 

I had a chicken roasting in the oven and it was almost done, so I took it out and used tongs to put it in a lidded stock pot, wrapped the pot in a towel and shoved it in a Trader Joe's bag. By the time we got to our home for the night, the chicken had finished cooking with the residual heat and we all feasted! Ha! At least I didn't forget about it until later tonight. There would have been two fires. Yikes.

There were no casualties, thank God. One guy had a minor burn on his hand and dozens of citizens were treated for breathing problems, but I'm hoping the fire will be contained and the smoke gone by tomorrow so Roman and I can go home! Dustin has to drive out to work, and we only brought his car, so I'm here until we figure out what we're doing as far as safely going back home. Ooooo... AND, Dustin went to open the garage as we were packing up and the door decided to break between the time I got home from the grocery at 4:45pm and when we left at 6:45. My car is stranded in the garage until we call our landlord and he fixes it. Creepy! I would have been stuck with no way to leave if Dustin hadn't gotten home when he did.

I hope you had an awesome, majorly less smokey night in your neck of the woods.

 

Xo,

Violet