Home is Whenever I'm With You

The photos of our house on the realty site.

Well, kids. It's the lucky number 13th anniversary of me closing on our house. I honestly never thought I would be able to afford a house, but because of President Obama's $8,000 for a first time home buyer deal, an FHA loan, and my brother fronting me the $8,000 that I paid back once the government sent me the check, it actually happened, Soooo, thanks Obama!...No, really. Thank you so much.

Of course, I could barely afford to pay my mortgage, my insurance, my taxes, and my mortgage insurance (basically a poor tax) when I was single and both my girls were in high school. On top of my full-time job, I mowed lawns, and donated plasma, and squeaked by every month.

Our house now.

About a year and a half later, John bought into the mortgage, and helped put down more money, so we could refinance and stop having to pay the stupid mortgage insurance.

We also spent about $10,000 to get our crawl space encapsulated, so we don't have any moisture down there, and we haven't seen any termites since then either.  Whew! That was basically the reason our house was on the market for two years before I bought it.

The photo of our kitchen on the realty site.

Our house was built in 1950, and in addition to the crawl space work, everything else needed love too. Even with both mine and John's contributions, we haven't been able to take care of everything at once. We've already done two different remodels on the kitchen. The first was new countertops, painting the walls and the cupboards, and removing the upper cupboard doors.

Our remodeled kitchen.

The second remodel was a couple of years ago. We (meaning John and our friend, Seaghan) had to rip up part of our kitchen floor to replace some joists that were damaged when we had all of that moisture in our crawlspace, or when something leaked, or both.

We also repainted the walls, scraped off the popcorn ceiling and painted it, replaced the ceiling fans, replaced the floor tile, replaced all of the appliances, and my brother put in a hood vent for us. It's almost a whole new kitchen, and we'll probably have to do a few other things to it eventually.

Like I always say, I'm glad everyone is different and has their own tastes, or the world would be a very boring place.I love our older house, and I like to have decor according to that period, but also a little more updated. I like chrome, and checkered floors, and our gigantic porcelain sink in the kitchen. At some point, we'll do a backsplash, but that will take some more money savings and time. For now, I love our kitchen. It's huge and funky, and colorful...And you KNOW how much I love color...

Last year in December, my brother gave us the wonderful gift of staying with us for 10 days and fixing up our bathroom. It had been really disgusting before that. He changed out the sink, retiled the floor, and took out the surround and replaced it with white subway tile in the shower, put in a new faucet in the tub and sink, and painted our wainscoting. John installed new lights, and sealed everything, and I scraped, sanded and painted our window and the ceiling and the walls. It's still very small, but it looks like a dream to me. Thanks, Uncle Bill! We stuck with the black and white tile for the floor and used a green and rust color scheme for the paint and towels and bathmats.

Our living room when we first moved in. I painted it a camel color because it's such a dark room and I wanted it to feel warmer

Back when I bought our house, we had very little money for furniture. Our old apartment just had a futon couch and a Papasan chair. What some people would call dorm furniture, but I would call poor people furniture. I wanted something better than that, and there used to be a Kalona Furniture Store place on the Coralville strip. I was able to buy a couch, a loveseat, and a big chair for a little over $300. One of my co-worker's gave me her old 1970's style coffee and side table, and I bought a rug from Target.

For $300, those couches and chair sure held up well, but they were definitely not my style, they were too big for the space, and after 13 years, they were really starting to show their age (something I totally understand). So, last year I looked at a sectional from Ashley furniture. They were having a big sale, and I almost pulled the trigger, but I'm glad I didn't. I went home and read reviews and they all said that after a few months the fabric pilled and looked gross and it was cheaply made. 

We kept saving, and about a month ago, I started looking online and pricing furniture, and reading reviews, and I settled on Albany Park for our couches, and Burrow for our coffee and side table. I would have bought the couches from Burrow too, but they were a lot more expensive, and the reviews said they were more narrow and not very comfortable. They also didn't have an olive green color, which I think looks great in our mid-century house. We still have an ottoman, and a swivel chair coming from Albany Park, but it's taking WAAAYYYY longer for them to deliver those.

Our new TV console, and yes, we do still have DVD's and CD's. We're old like that.

 The last thing we wanted for our living room was a TV console. We wanted a walnut color to match our living room tables, we didn't want it to be too bulky, and ideally, we would love for it to have covered storage. Looking for a TV console under $1000 sucks! We wanted real wood. I bought our last TV stand at Best Buy when I first bought the house and it was made of particle board, and looked like crap, but it was all I could afford. John and I both looked online and read reviews, but anything we could afford was not going to be made of real wood, or if it was, it was going to be all cheap and janky looking.

Last weekend, John and I decided to go shopping in real stores, so we could see what things looked like up close and personal. We both HATE to shop, and when I told The Youngest our plan for last Saturday, she asked, "Who ARE you?'

We drove all the way to a furniture store in Williamsburg. It wasn't really our style, and it was all so BIG. So, we went to Ashley in the mall (lord help me) and that was the same. The sh*t there was all pretty heinous, and too expensive for "manufactured" wood. So, we went to the rich people store called Dwell. They had a few things we liked, but I wasn't trying to spend my life's savings to buy it.

Then we headed to Amish country, where there are about a bazillion antique stores. That was all way more our style. There was a lot of really cool stuff, and it was all pretty affordable. I did find a cute little cupboard that would have worked had it been twice as big, or there had been two of them and I could have smooshed them together.

We tried one last stop on our way home, and went to Restore. It's the Habitat for Humanity store and they have all kinds of furniture and old doors and windows. Most of it is donated.We got our super swank front door there for $25 a few years ago.

There are two parts to the Restore venue. One is mostly doors and sinks and old bathtubs, and we thought we'd check it out in case there were some old cupboards we could use. There was not. Then we went to the furniture store part, and the minute we walked in, we saw a guy moving a TV console in on a dolly. We rushed right over and checked it out. It was all wood, and not too bulky or wide, and it was a dark color, just not walnut. It didn't have much covered storage, and it needs to be sanded and refinished on the top, but we bought a runner for it for now, and I'll sand and refinish it when it warms up outside. The best part of all, was that it was $38. FOR. REAL.

I like that we didn't have to buy something new, and I love the price. Now, all we have to do is get our ottoman and swivel chair, and our living room will be set for now.

I'm hoping to paint our tiny hallway and work on our laundry room this Winter. I know people like to buy new houses, because they're less work and all, but they don't stay new forever, and our 1950's house really is built like a tank. 

 

 

 

So, happy 13th anniversary to our homeownership! We've had so many memories, both good and bad here. Of course, my favorite memory is when we got married in our upstairs dormer room with our daughters and their partners as witnesses. I hope to be able to live here until I die...Or until they carry me away to the old folks home, whichever comes first. I'm pretty sure we'll still be working on this place until that time as well, and I'm good with that.

 

I Don't Know Where I'm Running Now, I'm Just Running On

Handing off my baton at The State Track Meet when I was 15.

Well, I finally got some good news...Or at least better news. I had a follow-up appointment last Friday for my Grave's disease and to see how my meds were working.They ran a bunch of blood tests, and most of them were good. He said my thyroid numbers were still almost non-existent (I went from a .001 to a .01), but my free T numbers were getting much better. I guess the meds can take up to six months to get to where they need to be. So, the doctor said I can just keep on keeping on with it, and come back in another few months to reassess.

The best news was that he said I could start getting my heart rate up to 160. I'm a big heart rate spiker. Which means I'm still going to have to be careful, but I can start running again as long as I gradually ease into longer and faster runs. I know a lot of people who would go searching for a second opinion, if their doctor told them they could start running again, but when my doctor told me, I almost kissed him.

I was still running at least 35 miles a week in my early 40's here.

 

 I know I always say this, but running has been one of the true great loves of my life. Not to be overly dramatic, but it pretty much saved my life during the worst parts of it.

I got into running in 1975, the year my mom died, and I was heartbroken, and we moved to a suburb on the South side of Chicago. My parents weren't into sports, and I went to one of those "Free to be You and Me" schools in the 70;'s in Arizona where we didn't do things that were all that competitive. But it seemed like everyone in the Midwest played team sports. I've never had the attention span for most team sports, and I was never very good at them. Then we had a little school track meet in 5th grade, and shocker of all shocks, I found that I could run. Not only that, but I LIKED to run. 

The first real benefit I got from running, was finally being able to sleep at night. I used to have a horrible time sleeping when I was a kid (my poor mother), and when I got into running I was suddenly sleeping through the night. It was amazing.

Of course, when I started running, no one I knew had ever heard of running shoes. We all ran in our cheap, gym shoes that we got from Venture. There also was no such thing as a sports bra. We all just wore regular bras. Once during the state track meet, my bra strap broke at the beginning of my split of the 4 x 400 relay, and I had to hold my bra strap with my hand the entire rest of the race. I was so embarrassed. 

The first time I ever saw women wearing sports bras was in 1983. The rich girls from Valley High in Des Moines showed up wearing them at districts, and we all kept asking each other, "What's wrong with their boobs?"

Of course, now there is a ridiculous amount of gear for runners, and it's a million times nicer to run when it's below zero out, and you aren't wearing big, cotton sweat pants that are so drenched with your own sweat that they freeze hard while while you run.

I got really into trail running in my 50's. It helps my foot pain to run on softer surfaces.

 Running has always been my sanctuary. People didn't own their own personal treadmills to run on for years after I got into the sport, so I've never really used one. I run outside, and that combination of moving outside, and a free high has helped me through the worst times of my life. 

After a few years of finding out who the hell I was and what the hell worked for me to be a happy human in my late teens, where I was only running sporadically, I found an article in Runner's World magazine about how to get into the habit of running. It said to just start doing a short distance. I chose a mile. They said to run or run/walk that almost every day, until it felt easy, then bump it up to two miles. When I was 22 I tried that. After about a month of gradually increasing the distance, I could run almost any distance. 

From then on, I ran at least six miles a day, close to every day until I hit my late 40's. I started having really bad problems with metatarsalgia, where the balls of my feet would feel like they were being stabbed with ice picks if I ran more than six miles. Then that distance shortened to five miles, and now it's closer to three. When I was around 50, I needed to wear a patella strap on my left knee when I ran. I sometimes feel like I'm being held together with band-aids now. Thank jeebus my husband works at an orthopedic clinic...

I've always known I wouldn't be able to run forever. When I was about 25 I thought that if I was lucky, I'd be able to run until I was 40, and that seemed so old that I was satisfied with the prognosis. Now, I'm 57 and I'm still limping along. I had to take three months off while we sorted out my hyperthryroidism this Fall. But last Friday I was given the green light to start again. I "ran" 2 miles that day, and every other day since then. Of course, I'm running those two miles slower than I thought it was possible to go and still call it running, but it feels SO. DAMN. GOOD. to be shuffling along outside, and that runner's high after the first mile is still as as lovely as ever. I once told a friend of mine that the reason I never got into doing drugs was that a runner's high was so perfect and there were no side-effects. To which she responded, "Well, the side-effect is that you have to run to get that high." Touche'!

So, if you happen to see me out limping on down the road with my very distinctive gait, and you wave at me, and I don't seem to recognize you, just know that I am as high as hell, and don't take it personally. I may not be able to keep it up much longer, but I feel so lucky to have found the thing that I love to do that has helped me physically, mentally, and emotionally at such a young age. Some people never find that.