Drought

It looks like I took quite a vacation from updating. Here’s a quick summary of what’s been going on.

1. Renée turned one. We had a party.
2. Tam and Dan visited. Joseph made them ride “trains” a lot.
3. We went on a short vacation and spent a lot of time at the beach.
4. We tried potty training again. It went just about as well as last time.
5. Tony and I spent (and continue to spend) countless hours trying to
convince our children that they do not really want to play with the same toy. This is how it goes:

Child #1 is playing
Child #2 tries to play also
Child #1 does not want to share and starts screaming
Parent tries to find another activity for Child #2
Child #2 likes the new game
Child #1 also wants to play the new game
Go back to step one

We work on sharing, too. But the outcome is usually pretty much the same. I'll post some pictures next time.

Breaking up is hard to do

I think that there is this thing that sometimes occurs in relationships. A person meets someone, and in the beginning, he/she thinks that this person has a quality that stands out, that makes this person unique. This quality might even be the main attraction, or at least a major attraction. But as time goes on, this quality does look so good anymore. It might just be downright annoying. It may even eventually be the downfall of the relationship. Time is a magnifier.

I suppose that buying a house is really the same thing as entering a relationship. And a lot of the problems are similar also. After some time goes by, one might wonder if the right decision was made. Can I overlook these flaws? Am I in it for the long haul, or is it time to say goodbye?

One of the reasons we bought our house was because of the old wood windows. They had panes and crossbars, and so much character. But after time, we could see how much maintenance they would require (and how much maintenance they had already required, but did not always receive). The cracks in a couple of the panes seemed much more problematic. They wasted energy, were impossible to clean, constantly dropped peeling paint and caulk, and sometimes even came crashing down unexpectedly. They didn’t fit our lifestyle with kids and no money. They could not stay.

We obviously started looking at replacing them with wood windows, but we quickly found out that we could buy a small house in this city for the same amount of money. And so, reluctantly, we had to buy vinyl replacement windows. It actually took us almost a year to come to terms with this decision. This might not seem like a big deal to some, but remember this was one of the main attractions for us. And in the end, the decision was not so bad. The new windows actually look quite nice on the outside, and not as horrible as I feared on the inside. They may not be a main attraction, but at least they are not an eyesore. I guess the question is, when that quality that was originally so great is gone for good, will it eventually be missed?



Update: I realized that some people might think that I was simultaneously talking about my relationship with Tony. Goodness, no. It's just the house.