A Little Dream

I have another tasty morsel of excitement and I'm only slightly hesitant to tell you about it because it's
only 90% a done deal. Sometimes (if you believe in jinxing things) (I'm on the fence about it) you can destroy your own hopes and dreams by sharing them with people before they are true.
It seems like I'll be buying a new home next month but it's not just any home. It's a little place that I've loved for many years. A sweet little southern cottage, nestled into some mossy oak trees.

What's especially fun about it is that I was one week away from buying a different house. A 3-bedroom brick, fixer upper in a good location. I liked the house but it took a while for me to come around and accept it. BUT THEN! Just in time! We caught word that my little dream cottage was headed for the MLS.
"We've got to go look at it, Dad!"
And Dad understood. Mom also loves this little house. So we went to look and I prepared myself to hate it. "You've already got a wonderful home lined up. This little place will be dark and old and really small. You probably won't like it." I tried to not like it. Mom tried to not like it. Dad said nothing. We looked in that little house, gazed at the mossy oaks, noted the detached garage studio space, and then drove home and sat quietly in the living room.
Time passed in silence.
"You don't have to decide today." Dad said.
There was more silence.
"I've decided." I said.
"What are you going to do?"
I smiled a guilty smile. Dad rolled his eyes and I've been mentally decorating it since.

I'm very excited to get back inside and take photos. It needs a little bit of love and a new roof but Dad thinks I can move in sometime in January. Here's a rough Goggle map photo of the little dream I'll live in.

I'm stupefied that this is really happening. I get to have a porch! And a garden! And Pip gets a yard! And... it's even closer to Mom and Dad's house than my current home. Wouldn't want to get more than three miles away from those people. I might melt.

Ari & Nate

I had news before when I told you that Nate got a job in Charleston and that Ari was coming home in May but now I really really have news because Nate asked Ari if she would marry him and she said "Of course!" and now I feel all giddy inside.

Lots of things come to one's mind when their soulmate gets engaged. I'm trying to play it cool and not harass Ari with wedding questions even though I have at least 3 dozen things to ask about. Nate proposed on Thanksgiving and I waited with a giddy kind of anxiety all day to get the phone call from Ari : the phone call that would set into motion all the things we discussed as little girls. With that thought there, I'd like the record to show that Ari and I were not the types of teenage girls that had their weddings all planned out. In fact, a couple years ago I asked Ari what she had in mind for her Someday Wedding and she thought it was too embarrassing to think about. Short of knowing I wanted to get married in my parents backyard, I also refused to make wedding plans. I'm no girl. (I have recently, inadvertently planned lots of my Someday Wedding - but that is due to working in and seeing weddings every weekend - makes it easy to imagine what your day will absolutely not look like). So anyways I'm going to Athens next week to make Ari think about her wedding day and harass her with all of my questions!

I also feel as though I should tell you why Nate is the best fella ever because you've never met him and I never talk about him in my blog space out of a respect for his privacy - or something like that. Nate The Great has been a twinkle in my eye since Ari got an office tour from him on her first day of work at grad school. All I knew was that he was handsome and sweet and I fell for him shortly after hearing that he split his breakfast muffin with her early one morning at the office. 

"Ari! He likes you!" I declared and I was on Nate's team ever since, because I know why he liked Ari. How could one not like Ari? And thus, many moons have passed and I've never heard a single complaint from Ari except once when I made her admit that Nate couldn't possibly be perfect and even then she just said that when he gets mad, he needs time to cool off. That was the best she could come up with. 

Nate is smart and sweet and very polite. He has pretty eyes, a chocolate lab named Chester, and he loves plants a whole lot. Doesn't he sound wonderful! I'm so happy for both of them and after that, everything else in my brain is completely selfish because I'm thinking about all the wonderful times we'll have and how no matter how often I show up at their house, Nate's way too polite to ever suggest that I leave.

Three Posts in Three Days

You see how I've not been keeping up with my sidebar numbers game? I've been aiming for four posts each month - one each week perhaps - and this month I've really dropped the ball. I've been busy. Ironically, I thought November would be the start of seemingly endless oodles of free time since I've only got one more event this year and it's not for another five weeks. So I can't blame work things for my busyness factor even though I do log Lux hours everyday, somewhere in there. I've been busy being sociable and let me tell you, that'll really take it out of ya. For example, having a tiny dinner party involves a day of cleaning, menu planning, and general fussing and then another day to go to the grocery store, cook a meal, and feed it to people. Then you need a recovery day that involves neglecting your computer and going out for a mid-day walk to stave off your sleepiness factor. And when you get back, you have a nap.

Other days I have plans with a friend say at 2:30. That's the smack dab middle of the day. This results in feeling disinclined to start any large projects or jobs that you were hoping to finish in one sitting. So the first half of your day is spent on relatively inconsequential chores while you keep an anxious eye on the clock so that you won't be late for your social event. And anyways, by the time you fix and eat lunch, you need to leave in about an hour so why don't you just watch blooper reels on Youtube? Then you go to your social outing and some longwinded friend will be extra verbose that day and you won't get back to your car until 5:00 with a skinny yellow parking ticket tucked under your wiper blade and then you've got to walk the dog and fix supper and eat it and clean it and before you know it, a whole day just blew right past you!

In an effort to not hold off living my life because I'm not married (see Marriage post) I've been overbooking myself for fun time things and not leaving time for creative Laura things. I feel like a rookie in the game of work, social, and personal life balancing. Is this what you're supposed to learn in college? Is this why the most sociable people I know have bum-like tendencies?

Also I've been going to breakfast a lot. It's my favorite meal to eat out. 1) Because it's inexpensive 2) Because everyone in there still feels cozy and sleepy and 3) I like the clinking sounds that coffee mugs and tiny plates make in a large echo-y room. It's the Breakfast Noise. Mom likes the Breakfast Noise too.

So, I'm going to do three posts in three days to meet my four post goal before Friday. This worthless posts counts as one. And thusly, I will bombard you with Pippa pictures because she sleeps on my chest and it's the cutest thing. Also, she got a Christmas sweater and posed for school photos.

A Tiny Post

I keep thinking about how I really need to do a blog post and when I sit down to entertain you my mind goes blank about anything worthwhile to mention and instead it reminds me of all the different things I’ve been wanting to Google about. I’ve been Google-ing patio furniture sales, new music, flowers available in the middle of winter, and most recently, Penelope Cruz’s eyebrows.

I have finished my wedding season, organized myself for the off-season, done some grand scheming with Pops (that I’ll detail later), and just this morning received the heartwarming news that Ari and Nate are moving to Charleston. Nate is coming in January to start a new job at a great little firm downtown and Ari will come after she graduates in May. I’m arguably the most excited of the three of us. Ellen has started a new job working at the very place she and Dad go for their heinous morning workouts. I’m not sure what she’s doing there but it’s got something to do with the business management side rather than instructing the classes. She seems very happy about it. This gym really is her happy place.

I have a worry in this blog space about starting all of the paragraphs with the word “I”. Did you just go back and check? They all do. I try to not do that but it’s a difficult thing to do when you’ve devoted countless hours to writing about yourself. So for that reason, I’ll leave this little post right here.

A bit of Lu consciousness and a tiny news update.