Domestic Psychology

But they were nice

// January 25th, 2012 // No Comments » // home

Despite my obviously high expectations about what clean-up should include, I do not have any complaints about the workers that the contractor tasked with repairing our house. They sang and danced to cheesy 80′s tunes. They joked with me. They played ball with the dogs. They were extremely interested in my 18-y-o daughter.

Okay, EXCEPT for the interest in my teenager, the workers were great. They didn’t even get upset with me when the contractor scolded them for leaving the house without a single exterior light. That wasn’t their fault. The house has no porch lights, flood lights, doorbell, or house numbers because I took forever to choose the new lighting and hardware. There are sooo many different options to choose from and I struggled with finding a balance between my desire for whimsy and not wanting an accidental homage to Prince Mongo.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I am very thankful and slightly apologetic to the workers who are responsible for making our home sturdier, safer, and infinitely more attractive.

More siding today

// January 12th, 2012 // No Comments » // flickr, home

Back of house before:

And after:

Side of house before:

And now:

no progress today

// January 11th, 2012 // No Comments » // home

The crew didn’t show up today. They missed four hours of bright sunshine, but they also missed a mean hail storm with excessive thunder and lightning. Tomorrow’s forecast looks equally ominous, so I don’t expect the crew to return until Friday. Unfortunately, the house is currently less prepared for bad weather than when the construction began.

Repair Progress

// January 10th, 2012 // 2 Comments » // flickr, home

First, there were a series of storms.

So, we removed the old shutters.

New windows replaced the broken, leaky windows.

New siding replaced the hail dented siding.

Sounds like winter

// December 2nd, 2011 // No Comments » // home, life

Our tiny neighborhood’s hills, trees and creeks combine to create an acoustic oddity that peaks when the leaves have fallen and the air is crisp. Unlike the muted, echoed or separated tracks of noise that you hear in a city, everyday noises blend in our spoon shaped hood to create a perfectly mixed symphony.

It’s a phenomenon that is so noticeable, prior to the real estate crash, a local band rented a home on the next street for the sole purpose of practicing. On their practice nights, every household opened their windows to breathe the musical notes dancing in the air.

During the day, the delivery trucks loop through each cove, like a soloist who briefly stands at the main microphone, before sitting down and rejoining the singularity of the orchestra. Dogs howling at airplanes overhead slow the music down to a melancholy that is universal. The sounds of children in every direction, both calm and energize the collective soundtrack.

Sometimes, I have to sit motionless and silent on the front steps, to let my body absorb the magical sounds in the sweet spot that is my home.

squirrel in the kudzu

// March 6th, 2011 // No Comments » // home, television

Doug knows that the quickest way to make me quit whining is to distract me. His distraction for my kudzu project complaining is project detail discussions. I don’t mind this particular distraction. The decade of ducks as a bathroom theme has ended and we have a new theme that is going to require a lot more effort to pull together. While the end result will be worth it, getting there is making this project akin to sweating blood.

“That is funny, but it doesn’t go with the theme.”
“Sure it does. It’s just a parallel universe connection to our theme.”
“No. It would look like a haunted house bathroom. Besides, that hand is a plot hole.”
“You know you like the idea.”
“I’ll think about it.”

Rocky Hill rocks

// February 22nd, 2011 // 3 Comments » // people

I recently made a joke on facebook about a house in our neighborhood that is home to several graduate students. It is easily identified by the couch in the yard, television on the porch and mailbox stuffed with frisbee golf discs. The twenty-something guys who live there always have bicycles or kayaks or some form of living life to the fullest strapped to their cars.

Someone replied to this facebook post that they are sorry, as if this house causes me strife. The people who live in that house are, like almost everyone in our neighborhood, very nice people who amuse me rather than annoy me. One person in our neighborhood is constantly burning brush in the drainage ditch. The fire department doesn’t ask to see his burn permit. Another neighbor uses fireworks to get the birds out of his vegetable garden. I’m no bird whisperer, but I don’t think birds remain bothered by fireworks for very long. I suspect that somebody just really likes playing with fireworks. In this neighborhood, it’s okay to be yourself. The fact that everyone tolerates the endless construction noise and mess at our house is the best example of a neighborhood that does not sweat the small stuff. The thing about our extremely tiny neighborhood is that it is completely surrounded by the city while we remain county. The neighborhoods around ours are filled with larger, newer and more expensive homes. Our neighborhood is symbolic of the vanishing middle class.

The people who live directly across from the graduate students work for the police department. A few doors down from them in both directions, there are homes owned by teachers. The people in our neighborhood don’t claim to be middle class while driving brand new cars and owning beach property.

Until the real estate market crashed, there was a very real concern by the homeowners in our neighborhood that parasitic developers and realtors would pay us pennies on the dollar to get out so that they could level our unique little homes filled with real people and replace them with the rubber stamp style neighborhoods and vanilla flavored people that surround us. When property stopped selling and the foreclosures began, the houses in our neighborhood started to empty. Once emptied, they stayed empty. I miss those people and what the neighborhood was before. I don’t want another soul to leave.

I wouldn’t trade those graduate students for anything.

running water

// February 10th, 2011 // No Comments » // me

I couldn’t lean back, touch the walls or let a single drop of water escape, but I took a bath. I took a bath in the new bathtub, in my bathroom, in my house. It felt amazing.

Unbeknownst to me, while the water filled the tub, the downstairs bathroom was taking a shower. Since there is no shower in the downstairs bathroom, the water pouring down from the upstairs bathroom made a large puddle on the floor. Hooray! I can take a bath. Boo! It floods the downstairs.

I think we’ll count this as two steps forward, one step back. Progress was made, but there are a few glitches. I can live with that. I hope I don’t have to live with that for long.

three different ones – pt. 3

// February 1st, 2011 // 3 Comments » // home, me

The boys stripped the upstairs bathroom down to nothing and the downstairs bathroom, directly below, became the only toilet for our seven person household. The youngest children hate the basement bathroom. It has been stripped down to the concrete foundation and cinderblock walls, so it is very, very cold. I dislike the cold seat, but my current complaint is the large hole in the ceiling where the upstairs bathtub plumbing has been removed. It is disconcerting to sit down in the bathroom beneath demolition noises while sawdust pours down from above. It is downright constipating to have family members peek down from above to ask questions about things like drain height at a time when you reaaaally need privacy.

All of that is just a long way of saying that I was feeling . . . cranky about some aspects of the kudzu project. I slumped around the house, trying to find where the children put the toothpaste while I talked on the phone. I spotted the toothpaste on the kitchen table, beside a small propane torch. You know, because everyone’s kitchen table has a torch and toothpaste on it.

Armed with toothpaste, I turned toward the kitchen sink where toothbrushing occurs during the kudzu project. My first step forward became a slide as I put my foot down on the unseen until that moment, square frame with wheels that Doug calls a dolly. There was nothing I could do to stop myself from doing a Jerry Lewis quality pratfall. My head and back hit the floor as my well padded seat and right leg slammed down on the aforementioned dolly of death.

“Did you hear that noise?” “Yes. What was it?” “That was me breaking my b*tt. I need to call you back after I curl up on the floor and cry.”

three different ones – pt. 2

// January 29th, 2011 // No Comments » // me

My kudzu project morning routine involves a microwaved bowl of water, soap and a washcloth. Since the bathroom has no door, the sorry excuse for personal hygiene happens in one of the children’s bedrooms. Sunday morning, I expected the demolition/construction to begin after my father got home from church and changed out of his good clothes. I shuffled back to a bedroom in my fuzzy robe and sleepily started my non-bath. I was mid armpit scrubbing when my father walked in the room with the door I had forgotten to close. My father silently spun around and walked, no, jogged away as I melted into the floor.

I swept up my dignity and put it in the trashcan with the shattered remnants of our old bathtub.