The Money Pit

C--wearing her tool belt--trying to help me build a cubby (while L is in the sling).


I realize that I am dating myself by referencing a movie with Shelley Long movie, but sometimes I think we might be living in the modern day equivalent. OK, we don't own the place, so we don't pay for most of these problems, but that doesn't make them much less of a daily pain in the ass. Examples: you blow a fuse if you run more than one appliance in the kitchen (ie. you can't run the toaster and the dishwasher--the inspection date on the fuse box is 1929); doorknobs occasionally come off in your hand; hot is cold and cold is hot in our shower; the water pressure is non-existent in the shower; and you can hear the heaters hiss from the steam. But if it were all niced up it would probably be out of our price range.

Which brings me to another point: I miss our old apartment. I mean I like our new one--it is very pretty even with its 'oldness' and I like the added space, but I miss our old home. It felt like it was really my first home. I mean I brought three kids home to it. And mostly, I miss our old neighborhood. We now live close enough to walk to school, which is great, and we live very close to a street of basic shops, but it is nothing like where we used to live. We used to have a great park a block from our house. We could walk to the Palace of Fine Arts to feed the ducks. We could walk to the beach--even better, I could run to the beach! There were tons of places to eat with our without kids and there were two movie theaters. In short, I could live 95% of my life without ever getting in the car. I miss it. A lot. And I almost feel like I've taken one step into suburbia somehow (without the yard).

So while I'm glad we moved, and I really like our new apartment and the extra space, I am very wistful of what has now become "that time when"--when we had two little monkeys and could walk just about everywhere.