My Values Are Being Tested

Value 1: If you want your kid to go to a good school, be a good part of the school community.

We sold our house in a good school zone. We may have jumped the gun, as now my husband doesn’t have another job and we’re not moving anywhere, well, we are, to another residence in the same area.

Except that we didn’t jump the gun because our savings is now the money we made off of the house, which we may need if my husband can’t find another job. My teacher’s salary only goes so far- especially when you have 2 boys who have decided to grow out of their clothes and shoes and need the food to sustain that growth.

Currently we’re in a short-term rental and the school zone we are in isn’t very good. Instead of staying there and not going through the hassle of moving, we’re moving. So I’m not upholding this value of working toward making a mediocre school a better school. In fact, we are going to move to an excessively tiny apartment in order to keep our oldest at his middle school and our youngest at a neighboring school. Which are good schools, even if I’m not involved in them.

Value 2: experiences are more important than things.

Last night, I cried many tears over the fact that we didn’t even have to move furniture in order to put up the Christmas tree in our old house. In the apartment that appears to be the place we’re moving, we won’t even have room for a Christmas tree.

A Christmas tree brings a new paradox to the experience/things value. It’s both. I mean, you can celebrate Christmas without it, but I love a good tree. It’s part of the experience.

This apartment is like living in New York at a quarter of the price but without the good restaurants, shopping, and culture. The front door opens to the sidewalk, 3 feet from the street. There is no porch. It is small. I feel confident that when I get out of our queen size bed in the morning, my knees will hit the wall.

It’s so small, we’re looking into building lofts. For everyone. Luckily, we like to do woodworking stuff and we like it more the more that we do it. There’s such an awesome feeling of accomplishment when you build something.

I’ve always wanted to have one of these!

So this value, experiences, not things- is being tested. But I think I’m coming out on top. We’ve chosen a small apartment in the school area we prefer for the boys. It’s about $350 less per month than all other rentals we have looked at. And we’ve discussed going on vacation over Christmas so we don’t have the sad lack of tree hanging around. But this apartment is smaller than the finished basement at our old house. And I’m struggling with that.

Experiences: better schools, vacation together… instead of a bigger house/apartment for our things.

Right now, I’m 1 and 1. Every win counts. Can’t let the haters- and by haters, I mean myself – get me down.

The First Rule of House Club…

Selling your house sucks seventy times seven. A lot. Here are some things you should know about selling your house in the modern era, in the event that you want to do such things…

1. The first rule of House Club is never talk about House Club. I love social media. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t log in to Facebook tomorrow Mark Zuckerberg would send someone to find me and ask what’s wrong. The day before our house went on the market, I got a talking to by my realtor. Don’t post anything, she said. You can share that you’re selling it in case you have friends who are interested, or even friends of friends. Once you post that you’re selling it, that’s it. Never speak of it again. She doesn’t even know how I roll online.  But what that means is that I can’t post that there are showings. Lots of damn showings. Every day. Sometimes I can’t go home for 6-7 hours. This sucks, especially when one works at home. +10 for having 2 dogs that have to go with me. Luckily they are crate trained and relatively chill little beasties. But I can’t post about that. Because if there are lots of showings and no offers, are people going to assume that something is wrong with it? What if you get an offer and it falls through? So NO POSTING. That being said, you’re reading this because we’ve closed and the house is officially sold. As I’m writing this (April 24) we haven’t yet had an offer. As I’m updating it (April 26) we have, we countered, it was accepted! But you’re not reading this until June when we’re closing.
2. Don’t take things personally. If your realtor is like mine, she’s going to share with you almost everything any of the other agents share about the house. When you were looking for a house, did you buy the first one you saw? (If you did, and you love it, good for you.) You probably didn’t. And when you didn’t make an offer on a house, you weren’t rejecting the owners or the style- it just wasn’t the right fit for you. That’s true of people looking at your house. It’s just not the right fit for them. It can be really frustrating when they say things like “don’t like the floors” when you spent 2 weeks putting in new flooring, or “too many updates to make” when you’ve spent the last 4 years updating the house. But don’t take it personally if your house shows 18 times and you don’t get an offer. It might be the 19th that wins them over. We showed ours 21 times in 9 days. It was showing #18 that made an offer.
3. You need a go bag. Find a tote bag that you like, because you’re going to carry it everywhere for a while. In my go bag right now: a Kind bar, my knitting project, a power cord for my computer, one for my phone, work papers, iPad, lip balm, head phones and my purse. (please note: I have not done anything on the knitting project because who has the time? Showing your house is a full time job.) Keep it relatively neat, because you’re going to want to find those things in a hurry when you need them. The bag is big enough to fit my purse because who needs 1 more thing to carry?
4. If you have kids, pets, or both, they need a go bag, too. Snacks, a book, things to do for the kids. For dogs, treats, poop baggies, and things for them to chew on while they’re stuck in your car waiting for the potential buyers to go away.
5. If you have kids, find all the places where kids eat free on certain nights. You will never eat at home again. I could probably eat pizza every night, but occasionally one needs vegetables. In the past 10 nights we have eaten at home exactly 1 time.
6. Speaking of restaurants, find one that has free WiFi and doesn’t mind if you camp out for a while. Some places get busy at lunch and want you to GTFO. Panera is good in the morning, but their WiFi slows to a crawl around 11:30. And then they kick you off after a half hour. Chick Fil A very specifically tells you not to work there at lunch time via a little card they leave on the table. Local bagel shop lets me stay and they have good sandwiches. Take all my money, Mr. J’s.
7. Go room by room when you’re getting ready to leave. It’s a lot easier to walk into a room, make sure it’s clean, dusted, curtains open, bed made, lights on  and then move on to the next room. If you try to make all the beds first, then open all the curtains, and whatever- it’s just maddening. Don’t do it.
8. Opposite of the go bag: have a stay basket. The stay basket should have your fresh towels to hang up, plates & cloth napkins if you’re doing the table setting thing, swiffer duster for the last minute sweep, packet of cleaning wipes to give the counters a once over. That way you’re not running around frantically looking for those things. Like I’ve done many, many times.
9. Plan to spend more money than you expect. You had to leave to show the house. You packed everything for yourself and dogs. You’ve even been packing lunches. But today it’s raining and you’re not sitting outside under a picnic shelter in the rain. You have to buy lunch somewhere. Or maybe you go to workout when the house is showing and realize you have no ponytail holders. So you can either stress yourself out and never make a mistake, or you can throw money at it and make it go away.
10. Have a pre-planned pick up spot if your kids ride the bus. Sometimes showings are scheduled when your kids get off the bus. Tell them to look for your car just down the street. We also have a “sign” – if the garage door is closed, that means you should try to find mom or dad in the car.

Those  are my tricks that helped me keep my sanity for the 10 days that we showed our house. Now it’s sold, hooray!

Stop saying, “I know how you feel.”

When someone shares difficult information with you, there are 2 things you can say that will immediately stab them in the heart:

1. Everything happens for a reason.

2. I know how you feel.

The person who has shared something with you has demonstrated through their words that you are close to them, they respect and feel accepted by you.You have shown them through your words that you don’t actually care. Saying I know how you feel says that their situation is not unique to them and that they should suck it up.

But you’re a decent person and that’s probably not what you meant. You really do care about them. You want them to know that you sympathize with them and their situation.

We live in a culture that glorifies independence and persistence. When someone tells you that they’re struggling with something, they’re telling you that it’s too heavy for them and they need you to share the load. But they’re not saying that specifically, because generally it’s not ok to say that.

The other thing you can’t say… “what can I do to help?” Because can you really do anything that they ask of you? Probably not- you have a job, a family, a life. And when asked in the open ended manner, the person who is already feeling overwhelmed by their situation is not going to say, “oh, sure, can you deal with this problem for me?”  They are probably going to say, “Everything is under control, thanks.”

You really want to help! What can you say?

• Would you like to talk about it?
• Can I take out out to/bring you a coffee?
• Do you need someone to pick up the kids after school on Tuesday?  (or walk the dog/feed the cat)
• I’d like to bring you dinner tomorrow, is (food) ok?

All of these make it easier on you:  you have a specific, time constrained way to help.

More importantly, it makes it easier on the person you want to help. If they’re struggling, the last thing they want to do is think of a way that you can help that’s within your budget and time constraints.

Whatever it is you do to help them, make sure your focus is on them. They’re busy being concerned about the situation, whatever it is, and they’re probably letting their self-care go. Demonstrating that you care for them is a good way to show them that they are valuable.

The Struggle With Stuff

Internet,

If you only know me from this blog, you don’t know that I’m moving. Well, I’m moving. My husband’s job hasn’t been a good fit for him and so he’s cast his net afield. In his particular profession, the jobs are few and far between- emphasis on the far between- so we have put our house on the market.

As someone who is looking at her 8th address in 15 years… and possibly her 4th state, you might think I am an expert at this moving thing.

Dear Reader, I am not. I freak out about it as much as the next person. I have a few tricks that I like to employ, and I have learned via failure of the ones not to employ.

Good trick: use clothes to pad fragile things- it’s like bubble wrap, but you don’t throw it away.

Bad trick: do NOT use shredded paper to pad fragile things. When you first shred it, it’s all fluffy. After sitting in a box, it gets compacted and does not so much do the job you intended. And it’s MESSY.

You may also think that I am good at minimizing what I move, since moving is a lot of work and the less you carry, the less taxing it is.

Again, Dear Reader, I am not. I have tons of crap. I have gotten rid of tons of crap. Our trash service started charging us more in the past month because we’re throwing away too much crap.

I’ve become a bit obsessed with getting rid of stuff. Someday I want to live in a small house. Not tiny, just really small. I want to have less stuff holding me down and more freedom to have what I need and nothing more. Our society is obsessed with that- just google “declutter” and there’s books and services and websites all dedicated to helping us get rid of stuff.

I realized, in a moment of angsty self-reflection, why it is exactly I just can’t give some things up even though I want to minimize the material items I hold… because of the nature of impermanence. We hold on to things that indicate who we want to be. We get rid of what we don’t want to be.

A few years ago, I lost some weight. And as soon as I shrunk out of an item of clothing, I got rid of it. I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I didn’t keep a lot of “skinny” clothes- except for 2 formal dresses for some reason. And now I’ve shrunk even smaller than those dresses, but I still don’t want to get rid of them because who knows when you’ll need a formal dress? I know exactly when: never.

I keep the binders of notes from classes I no longer teach because I enjoyed teaching them. I want to remember the person I was when I was teaching those classes. I loved those kids and I miss them. I keep books I haven’t read – maybe will never read? – because I want to be the kind of person who reads them. I keep books I want my kids to read because I want them to be the kind of people who read them and I want to be the kind of mom who gives them the key to the amazing worlds that can open up when you read them.

But books are heavy and libraries are free.

I realized today why I keep these things-

• When I see the scarf I knitted but never wear because I’m just not a scarf person- I’m reminded of the summer course on teaching gifted & talented students that I had to take after I was certified. I’m reminded of my friends in that course and how they marveled at how I could listen and knit at the same time. How I’ve lost touch with them despite the joys of Facebook, and how I wonder if they’re still teaching.
• When I see the book Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser- I’m reminded of my friend who recommended it to me. I’m reminded of how when we rented an apartment together and when I finished that book, how I threw it across the room and how she sympathized with my feelings about that book. I still hate it, but I’ve carried it with me.
• When I see the book A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn- I’m reminded of the first AP US History class I taught and how getting them to discuss things was like putting a cat in a bathtub, but eventually they started talking and I couldn’t shut them up. I’m reminded of the great times we had together and how I hold those memories so dearly in my heart.
• When I see the black formal dress with the beaded flowers- I’m reminded of how I wore it on my honeymoon in 1999 and how I wore it again in 2010 at the last prom I went to when I was teaching in the classroom. And how in between I had 2 kids, moved to a different state, went back to school, changed careers, gained and lost 50 pounds, and lived to tell about it.

And I have to remind myself that if I give these things away, I’m not giving away the memories that go with them.

But sometimes, it’s hard to remember that. And I keep them for just one more move.