Posts Tagged ‘Moving’

Dogwood Garden

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Spring! Love it!
It is our second spring here in the new house. Can’t believe we’ve been here a year now. This time last year, we were so caught up in the move and unpacking and repacking and living at the lake, that I didn’t get to take much notice of what was blooming in my new yard.

So, right now we have Forsythia. Some bulbs (daffs, some purple/blue elongated guys that I can’t remember the name of), a few pink azaleas (why, oh why did Grandmas have to plant Pepto pink azaleas?), a couple of white and red azaleas. My garlic is coming up nicely, even though Tiller mixed the cloves up on planting, and so I don’t know which is which. Some of my lettuce for last year is popping up again this year. That was a nice surprise – Especially the arugula and swiss chard (my fave!). Daylilies are popping up in my monkey grass. I think i remember only a few of those blooming last year, so I guess I need to dig them up and separate them. Kind of sounds like a drag, since they are all mixed in with the Monkey grass.

I pruned a ton of shrubbery around the house. I am leaving the Camellia until next winter. I think I waited too long to whack it back now. Todd has fertilized and put out seed. Hoping that our shady back yard grass will take. Fingers crossed.

Todd and I built a raised bed, too. Need to level off the spot it will go into in the front yard (only place we have enough sun – hope the neighbors don’t hate it), and then get it filled up with the good stuff. I am hoping to grow some crazy veggies this year.

Finally, we put up a birdfeeder outside our den window. I can sit on the couch writing this blog post, and see the little birdies checking it out from the redbud outside the window. Oh! And the redbud is blooming! Dogwoods are just starting to come out too.

I love spring.

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Posted in food, Gardening, Home | No Comments »

Where I’m From. Where I’ve Been. Where I’m At.

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

I’m a little drunk. Ish.

So, i have been thinking about my neighborhood a lot today. A friend from my old neighborhood is grappling with the whole educating-a-kid-in-intown-Atlanta-schools issue. She asked my opinion on a living in my old neighborhood (EAV) vs. living in my new neighborhood (Northlake Mall/Lavista/Briarlake) vs. living in the real OTP burbs (I grew up in Roswell/Alpharetta. She is considering E. Cobb.)

I thought scads about all the different things that go into choosing what is not just best for a kid’s education, but what is best for a family. And all of that discussion confirmed for me that we made the best decision for us.

Also? It helps when my awesome neighbors call me at 3pm on Friday to bring the kids over to play in the sunshine, swing, slide, throw pine cones, and climb fig trees, while we drink beer and wine and order Mediterranean takeout.

I miss my old neighborhood. I love my new neighborhood. I wish they could meet each other, because, damn, they would get along really well together.

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Posted in Alpharetta, Atlanta, Dogwood Girl, East Atlanta, Education, Family, food, Friends, Home, Life, Parenthood, Roswell, Tucker | 3 Comments »

Goodbye, EAV

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Wrote this one my last day in the EAV house and never got around to posting it. I was feeling pretty sentimental, as I always do when i leave an old home and go to a new one. . . .

My last afternoon having snacks and blogging in the afternoon at the EAV House. Wow. A lot happened here. We lived in the Newton house when we got married and outgrew that one.

This is the house we found when I was pregnant with Rollie.


This is where we waited for the little booger to show up. (He was twelve days late!) This is where we sat in the den and waited for the hospital to call and tell me to come in to be induced, and it is where we brought him home. Mom and I stood with Rollie on the front porch that afternoon as Todd unloaded the car, and the sun broke through the clouds and we saw a brilliant, huge rainbow over the trees at the park. This is where we went sleepless for months and became accustomed to being parents. It is where we started having family dinners, and family Christmas, and Thanksgiving. It’s where we watched a shit ton of football on Fall Saturdays. Where we had birthdays and conceived Tiller and brought her home from the hospital, too. It’s where the kids learned to ride bikes and trikes and kick a football and hit a whiffle ball off a tee. It’s where both kids had their first big introduction to what it feels like to faceplant on pavement. It’s where we came home on Friday nights after family pizza nights. It’s where the kids giggled and ran around like mental patients at bathtime, and where we read bedtime stories every night for four years plus. Rollie started reading in this house, and Tiller knew her ABCs. It’s where we sang bedtime songs, and made cookies and ate popsicles on the patio.

I’m gonna miss that old house. It’s where I learned that being a Mom is the hardest job in the world, and the most rewarding one, too. It’s where I truly understood how much my Mom and Dad gave me, and how much they love me, and why Mom still waits up for me on nights when i stay out late. And it’s where I learned that if my marriage can survive having kids, it can survive anything.

Even a move to the burbs.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

These Important Years

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

So, you’ve probably been wondering where the hell I am, as normally I don’t take a shit without blogging about. I alluded to it in an earlier post, but we have our house under contract and are moving. I haven’t really had time to digest what that means for us, but I do know that I am having some serious identity crisis. I am a city girl now. I have lived in East Atlanta almost as long as I lived in my parents’ last house. But now the conflict between personal identity and parenthood has come to a head, and we made the decision to move into a better school district. We tried our damnedest to find a house we could afford in a decent intown school district to no avail. We just can’t afford private school. So, we are off to the burbs. No, we didn’t go whole hog and buy a house in Cumming or Suwanee, although we did consider the pros and cons of doing so. But when it came down to what we really wanted (shorter commutes, better access to the city (Braves game, etc.), and proximity to my sister (and my impending nephew!), we decided on . . . Atlanta. Turns out Atlanta is pretty big. The Atlanta we decided on is Dekalb Co., barely outside the perimeter, and in a great elementary district. We are getting a decent amount of house for our money, we will be close to some other friends who live in the area, and we will be staying true to our promise to educate our children well, which is the most important thing in the long run.

So, this week, Todd and I are counting down our last days in the EAV, and pretty bummed out about it. Sure, we will still come over here to drink and see old neighbors, and see shows, and for his book club, and when I just have to have a Blue Bacon Burger, but it is one of those moments where we feel really torn, and we know that having children means sacrifice and this is a sacrifice for us in many ways.

So, my sister (a.k.a. “The Best Sister in the World”) is watching the kids today while Todd and I make a seriously huge dent in the packing. (This of course also included a two-pint lunch at the Flatiron; All work and no play makes Annie very sad.) Afterwards, Todd started packing up Rollie’s room, and I have been packing the kitchen. On a side note, packing the kitchen is like playing a very weird game of Tetris; the spices are particularly satisfying to pack tightly together in the most streamlined of space-saving manners.

I was listening to an Itunes mix, with an ass ton of music on shuffle, and the Husker Du song, “These Important Years” came on, and I was reminded of the summer of 1990, packing up all of my stuff to leave for college, listening to that very song. It was one of those really strange deja vu moments, where time seems to have passed in a millisecond and to stand still at the same time, and I could be 18 or 25 or 30 or 36 (minus the tight abs and ass, of course) and I have that same sense of bittersweet excitement and sadness. The difference is that, at 36, I know that change is almost always a positive, and i have the power of hindsight, of knowing that i never regretted any of my moves, not one. They all meant the end of things that I look back fondly on now, but they also always meant that i was about to embark on something completely new that I had never experienced before: New friends, new love, new job, new place all by myself, new place all the way across the country, promotions, and learning, and husbands, and dogs, and cats, and kids. All of these were impossible if not for the constant change. Change is good. Change is responsible for these important years.

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Posted in Family, Music | 5 Comments »