Who I want to be, where I want to be...
Mar. 24th, 2008 02:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameSo confused and frustrated about what to do next.
There is a property that I want so badly. 5 acres, pool with deck and safety fencing and brick, built in barbecue/firepit/smoker and POOL BATHROOM - it has a minibedroom attached to the master suite, for Jake and Elise. It has a breakfast nook and a dining room, off of the HUGE kitchen. It's a 3000+ square foot house, all single floor so we don't have to worry about the kids and stairs. Five acres of our own, cleared but surrounded by forest and across the street from a horse farm.
There is an idea on the table of me writing for a year while Grant takes off work, and takes the kids out and around places for 4 hours a day so I can do it. I have a whole mentally outlined plan for how this would work - the c/s book first, which is mostly planned, already titled, and I have a connection with a publisher for. Then the anecdotal short stories submitted individually to magazines until a couple have been published, so I can submit the collection to the same publisher that did the c/s book. Then 2 or 3 other things depending on how productive I was, I'm not sure I want to get into it but I feel like I can do it. In addition to the property, I also want this so badly.
I don't know how to explain what I mean by "so badly". I was trying to think of when and what I've wanted this badly before. The last three things I can think of were;
-to birth Elise naturally
-to finally be married to Grant
-to be able to go back in time and keep harm from befalling Aaron
It's intense. And to do both simultaneously - the property and the writing - would be so perfect I would be...ecstatic? At peace? Both simultaneously? But the property is more than most of the places we're looking at, though still a fabulous bargain - it would honestly strip us of a lot of other financial options as well as the writing year. There are many very nice, huge houses on small lots, and many other small houses on medium lots, and all sorts of things like that...for a hundred thousand dollars less.
It's selfish to pick me writing over a place like that for our family, I think. Except that Grant is really gung-ho about getting a different, cheaper place sometimes because it would mean we could also travel, and get a jet ski and just have a financial buffer in general - all of which are way up on his priority list. Really it's ridiculous to even entertain the notion of this place, when I look at our budget - we can afford it, and buy it outright with no mortgage, but it strips us of options like a financial buffer or traveling pretty thoroughly. We would have to take out a loan against the property for me to write for a year, which is just ridiculous - to get a large sum of money dropped on you and invest it such that you come out owing? That doesn't even make any sense at all...I've thought several times today that I need to just push this place out of my mind completely and move forward without it as an option.
We could grow all of our own vegetables.
We could have a bunny patch.
We could have chickens and have eggs.
We could even sell vegetables and eggs.
We could host homeschool groups like small farms down here do. For income and/or for fun.
Grant and I could be swimming naked in our pool on our land at night. Ok, with a baby monitor. That's ok.
I mean they listed it as having a 250 foot driveway "Perfect for kids with skates and skateboard and bikes".
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
All I've ever wanted to do is write. I had a novel mostly done in elementary school. I won ribbons anytime I entered a contest. The paper came out and I was on the front page, when I wrote a play in middle school, and we got 2nd up at the youth fair in Miami. I had a poem published in an anthology when I was in 6th grade. And I have a niche, here, and a real story, and a connection, and it could HAPPEN. I was laying in the hospital bed last year thinking I was dying and I missed THIS so bad, that this never happened, that it came through even in the midst of me worrying about my motherless children. There were three things I was desperate to get a chance at before it was all over - seeing my kids grow up, Writing For Real, and growing old with Grant. I was thinking of how Shaun's A+ term papers and the press releases for my mother in law, under her name to help her out, are not things that will outlive me. They're just scratching that itch, in the moment.
This fire and these inspirations, they aren't going to go away just because we live on a big old farm.
But I think I might regret not getting this place for a long long time if we don't, regardless of what else we're doing. It's not just rural and gorgeous, fancy and country, unique and unregulated - it's also 25 minutes from downtown IN RUSH HOUR. One mile from highway on ramps. I've never seen anything like it, and I have done a lot of combing real estate. You rarely get a really nice house with a pool on a farm, but you basically never get a farm this close to everything.
It doesn't help that in Florida, here or in Jacksonville, our other options are almost surely going to be closely-spaced, near identical homes in subdivisions where you have to ask permission to plant a garden or build a tree house, and they can tell you no. After the 60 day waiting period from when you submit your request in writing. I mean, no thank you, you know? There are 3000+ square foot homes with lofts and dens and garden tubs and cathedral ceilings, kitchen islands and hardwood floors, for BARELY over $200,000...if we're willing to not even have windows on the sides of our house because it's so close to the one next door, and write a letter 2 months in advance if we'd like to hang a plant on the porch.
Grant tells me we can get a big, nice house on a smaller lot for now, and I can write, and then when I hit it big we'll get whatever we want. I chuckle and change the subject because, for whatever reason, I don't even feel like I can entertain the possibility that I'll "hit it big" like that. It just makes me too vulnerable to failure; I freak out and panic, which for me means immediately going in a different route with the conversation. I know how profitable writing usually is...and I'm ok with that. I think I'm good enough to get published, to be available in some book stores and libraries and on amazon. I can imagine getting a couple of $10,000 advances, selling some stories for 3k apiece, maybe some $500 royalty checks, all over the next few years - and peppered amidst dozens of rejection letters, which are par for the course. That is what I "expect" - it's actually what I dream of and long for, to tell the truth. I think I might be able to supplement our income and make things like vacations or savings accounts possible that might not be otherwise - I don't know about supporting us all, especially when I don't feel I can do anything FULL full time, with Jake and Elise as young as they are and Ananda and Aaron's homeschool competing with so many other children for time and attention...
Anyway, we meet with the financial advisor tomorrow afternoon, who perhaps can shed some light on this in a new way. Then, almost immediately after he leaves, we're hitting the highway to Jacksonville to check some places out on Tuesday and maybe Wednesday, after spending tomorrow night in a hotel. We've discovered "Custom Built Homes" by companies like KB Homes, that let you pick a floor plan and then customize your options, at various communities...it's still subdivisions, but some of the lots are a LITTLE bigger, the prices are amazing, the houses are incredible, and I'm trying to think of the good in a subdivision: pool we can use, safe walking paths, playground for everyone, more friends around...blah. It also seems really fun to pick out what options we'd want and have them build it for us, and go with the kids to see it in progress and all.
The main reason we're going is because Grant and I have both come to think that this dream home we've only seen pictures of, read descriptions of, and talked about over the phone with the owner needs to be dealt with in person...it's going to be either "You know...this really ISN'T so great (location, condition of house, who knows)" or "THIS IS OUR HOUSE WE MUST HAVE IT". I've compared going to see it to taking a pregnancy test: it's really, really hard to wonder every day until that test whether you are or you aren't. Part of me is hoping the place sucks so I can just freaking forget about it.
But I really don't see how that's possible, with all the pictures, descriptions and conversations factored in...
We're still holding onto the possibility of putting our money in a cd or money market account for 6 months to a year while the housing market continues to drop: it would earn us a little more buying power, and gain us tens of thousands of dollars in interest, depending on the rate we got and amount of time we left it there for. But, it is hard to not feel impatient when we've so obviously and completely outgrown our living arrangements...then again, we've been happy and content here when we WEREN'T comparing it to other options, so... Comparing has changed a lot. I'm suddenly wondering if it might be a lot easier to keep things clean if we actually had enough room for all of our stuff, for instance, and whether or not more sleeping area might make bedtime a lot simpler and get me increased rest, and thinking of nobody ever having an accident because someone else was in the one bathroom we share when they had to go...it's alluring, let me tell you.
Grant Sr was out of town for two weeks, came home for 4 days, left for a week, came home for the weekend, and is gone for another week...I think he's only here to do his laundry, lately. Still and all that doesn't exactly gain us the bedroom and bathroom he occupies, or full on decorating privileges. Especially when I want to hang intentionally grotesque belly casts and things like that ;) Not to mention, that means he is still competing for laundry time :p He seems truly sad to be "losing all of his grandkids"...Teresa is moving to Lake City with Mindy's 3 kids, at the same time we're contemplating going North and at least definitely moving out of here. I really think it might be hard for him...he hasn't been "alone" since the divorce, at all. We moved in here right after his mother died in what has since been the kids' room. Grant is actually rather worried about him no longer having a sense of purpose and being needed in his life :/ I mean Robbie will go with Teresa and he is there whenever Sr is traveling, but he's been HERE whenever Sr is here, for years now with only short breaks...I don't know. This house will seem very, very empty though, I'm sure, with it going from him, his wife and kids, for a decade, to him, his son and his mom and his friend Cary, for 3-4 years, to him and all of us and Robbie for about 5.5 years...and then...just him. Especially considering that a LOT of what is here, is ours - the couches, the dining table and chairs, the beds in our rooms, a ton of the dishes and cookware and countertop appliances, everything in the hallway linen closet...I am actually kind of worried about him. He has one really good friend he sees like 3-4 times a year, and one casual friend he sees like a couple of times a month, has went on a single date since that divorce went down - and the woman DIED within the next year or two of cancer, can you believe that? He doesn't keep in touch with his brothers at all, and his sister only rarely.
Talk about a tangent, I'm sure Sr will find his way...
I think my ear is really healing, because it's popping open again today - 500 TIMES A MINUTE, which is driving me insane...along with the maddening deep itch that seems almost to be in the center of my freaking brain. Still and all, popping open and an itch is better than debilitating pain and the constant sound of my own pulse in swollen tissue - I was really over the heartbeat-in-my-ear thing. Grant is growing weary of me reeking of garlic, which is interesting for me as I can't smell it at all anymore.
There is a property that I want so badly. 5 acres, pool with deck and safety fencing and brick, built in barbecue/firepit/smoker and POOL BATHROOM - it has a minibedroom attached to the master suite, for Jake and Elise. It has a breakfast nook and a dining room, off of the HUGE kitchen. It's a 3000+ square foot house, all single floor so we don't have to worry about the kids and stairs. Five acres of our own, cleared but surrounded by forest and across the street from a horse farm.
There is an idea on the table of me writing for a year while Grant takes off work, and takes the kids out and around places for 4 hours a day so I can do it. I have a whole mentally outlined plan for how this would work - the c/s book first, which is mostly planned, already titled, and I have a connection with a publisher for. Then the anecdotal short stories submitted individually to magazines until a couple have been published, so I can submit the collection to the same publisher that did the c/s book. Then 2 or 3 other things depending on how productive I was, I'm not sure I want to get into it but I feel like I can do it. In addition to the property, I also want this so badly.
I don't know how to explain what I mean by "so badly". I was trying to think of when and what I've wanted this badly before. The last three things I can think of were;
-to birth Elise naturally
-to finally be married to Grant
-to be able to go back in time and keep harm from befalling Aaron
It's intense. And to do both simultaneously - the property and the writing - would be so perfect I would be...ecstatic? At peace? Both simultaneously? But the property is more than most of the places we're looking at, though still a fabulous bargain - it would honestly strip us of a lot of other financial options as well as the writing year. There are many very nice, huge houses on small lots, and many other small houses on medium lots, and all sorts of things like that...for a hundred thousand dollars less.
It's selfish to pick me writing over a place like that for our family, I think. Except that Grant is really gung-ho about getting a different, cheaper place sometimes because it would mean we could also travel, and get a jet ski and just have a financial buffer in general - all of which are way up on his priority list. Really it's ridiculous to even entertain the notion of this place, when I look at our budget - we can afford it, and buy it outright with no mortgage, but it strips us of options like a financial buffer or traveling pretty thoroughly. We would have to take out a loan against the property for me to write for a year, which is just ridiculous - to get a large sum of money dropped on you and invest it such that you come out owing? That doesn't even make any sense at all...I've thought several times today that I need to just push this place out of my mind completely and move forward without it as an option.
We could grow all of our own vegetables.
We could have a bunny patch.
We could have chickens and have eggs.
We could even sell vegetables and eggs.
We could host homeschool groups like small farms down here do. For income and/or for fun.
Grant and I could be swimming naked in our pool on our land at night. Ok, with a baby monitor. That's ok.
I mean they listed it as having a 250 foot driveway "Perfect for kids with skates and skateboard and bikes".
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
All I've ever wanted to do is write. I had a novel mostly done in elementary school. I won ribbons anytime I entered a contest. The paper came out and I was on the front page, when I wrote a play in middle school, and we got 2nd up at the youth fair in Miami. I had a poem published in an anthology when I was in 6th grade. And I have a niche, here, and a real story, and a connection, and it could HAPPEN. I was laying in the hospital bed last year thinking I was dying and I missed THIS so bad, that this never happened, that it came through even in the midst of me worrying about my motherless children. There were three things I was desperate to get a chance at before it was all over - seeing my kids grow up, Writing For Real, and growing old with Grant. I was thinking of how Shaun's A+ term papers and the press releases for my mother in law, under her name to help her out, are not things that will outlive me. They're just scratching that itch, in the moment.
This fire and these inspirations, they aren't going to go away just because we live on a big old farm.
But I think I might regret not getting this place for a long long time if we don't, regardless of what else we're doing. It's not just rural and gorgeous, fancy and country, unique and unregulated - it's also 25 minutes from downtown IN RUSH HOUR. One mile from highway on ramps. I've never seen anything like it, and I have done a lot of combing real estate. You rarely get a really nice house with a pool on a farm, but you basically never get a farm this close to everything.
It doesn't help that in Florida, here or in Jacksonville, our other options are almost surely going to be closely-spaced, near identical homes in subdivisions where you have to ask permission to plant a garden or build a tree house, and they can tell you no. After the 60 day waiting period from when you submit your request in writing. I mean, no thank you, you know? There are 3000+ square foot homes with lofts and dens and garden tubs and cathedral ceilings, kitchen islands and hardwood floors, for BARELY over $200,000...if we're willing to not even have windows on the sides of our house because it's so close to the one next door, and write a letter 2 months in advance if we'd like to hang a plant on the porch.
Grant tells me we can get a big, nice house on a smaller lot for now, and I can write, and then when I hit it big we'll get whatever we want. I chuckle and change the subject because, for whatever reason, I don't even feel like I can entertain the possibility that I'll "hit it big" like that. It just makes me too vulnerable to failure; I freak out and panic, which for me means immediately going in a different route with the conversation. I know how profitable writing usually is...and I'm ok with that. I think I'm good enough to get published, to be available in some book stores and libraries and on amazon. I can imagine getting a couple of $10,000 advances, selling some stories for 3k apiece, maybe some $500 royalty checks, all over the next few years - and peppered amidst dozens of rejection letters, which are par for the course. That is what I "expect" - it's actually what I dream of and long for, to tell the truth. I think I might be able to supplement our income and make things like vacations or savings accounts possible that might not be otherwise - I don't know about supporting us all, especially when I don't feel I can do anything FULL full time, with Jake and Elise as young as they are and Ananda and Aaron's homeschool competing with so many other children for time and attention...
Anyway, we meet with the financial advisor tomorrow afternoon, who perhaps can shed some light on this in a new way. Then, almost immediately after he leaves, we're hitting the highway to Jacksonville to check some places out on Tuesday and maybe Wednesday, after spending tomorrow night in a hotel. We've discovered "Custom Built Homes" by companies like KB Homes, that let you pick a floor plan and then customize your options, at various communities...it's still subdivisions, but some of the lots are a LITTLE bigger, the prices are amazing, the houses are incredible, and I'm trying to think of the good in a subdivision: pool we can use, safe walking paths, playground for everyone, more friends around...blah. It also seems really fun to pick out what options we'd want and have them build it for us, and go with the kids to see it in progress and all.
The main reason we're going is because Grant and I have both come to think that this dream home we've only seen pictures of, read descriptions of, and talked about over the phone with the owner needs to be dealt with in person...it's going to be either "You know...this really ISN'T so great (location, condition of house, who knows)" or "THIS IS OUR HOUSE WE MUST HAVE IT". I've compared going to see it to taking a pregnancy test: it's really, really hard to wonder every day until that test whether you are or you aren't. Part of me is hoping the place sucks so I can just freaking forget about it.
But I really don't see how that's possible, with all the pictures, descriptions and conversations factored in...
We're still holding onto the possibility of putting our money in a cd or money market account for 6 months to a year while the housing market continues to drop: it would earn us a little more buying power, and gain us tens of thousands of dollars in interest, depending on the rate we got and amount of time we left it there for. But, it is hard to not feel impatient when we've so obviously and completely outgrown our living arrangements...then again, we've been happy and content here when we WEREN'T comparing it to other options, so... Comparing has changed a lot. I'm suddenly wondering if it might be a lot easier to keep things clean if we actually had enough room for all of our stuff, for instance, and whether or not more sleeping area might make bedtime a lot simpler and get me increased rest, and thinking of nobody ever having an accident because someone else was in the one bathroom we share when they had to go...it's alluring, let me tell you.
Grant Sr was out of town for two weeks, came home for 4 days, left for a week, came home for the weekend, and is gone for another week...I think he's only here to do his laundry, lately. Still and all that doesn't exactly gain us the bedroom and bathroom he occupies, or full on decorating privileges. Especially when I want to hang intentionally grotesque belly casts and things like that ;) Not to mention, that means he is still competing for laundry time :p He seems truly sad to be "losing all of his grandkids"...Teresa is moving to Lake City with Mindy's 3 kids, at the same time we're contemplating going North and at least definitely moving out of here. I really think it might be hard for him...he hasn't been "alone" since the divorce, at all. We moved in here right after his mother died in what has since been the kids' room. Grant is actually rather worried about him no longer having a sense of purpose and being needed in his life :/ I mean Robbie will go with Teresa and he is there whenever Sr is traveling, but he's been HERE whenever Sr is here, for years now with only short breaks...I don't know. This house will seem very, very empty though, I'm sure, with it going from him, his wife and kids, for a decade, to him, his son and his mom and his friend Cary, for 3-4 years, to him and all of us and Robbie for about 5.5 years...and then...just him. Especially considering that a LOT of what is here, is ours - the couches, the dining table and chairs, the beds in our rooms, a ton of the dishes and cookware and countertop appliances, everything in the hallway linen closet...I am actually kind of worried about him. He has one really good friend he sees like 3-4 times a year, and one casual friend he sees like a couple of times a month, has went on a single date since that divorce went down - and the woman DIED within the next year or two of cancer, can you believe that? He doesn't keep in touch with his brothers at all, and his sister only rarely.
Talk about a tangent, I'm sure Sr will find his way...
I think my ear is really healing, because it's popping open again today - 500 TIMES A MINUTE, which is driving me insane...along with the maddening deep itch that seems almost to be in the center of my freaking brain. Still and all, popping open and an itch is better than debilitating pain and the constant sound of my own pulse in swollen tissue - I was really over the heartbeat-in-my-ear thing. Grant is growing weary of me reeking of garlic, which is interesting for me as I can't smell it at all anymore.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 08:28 pm (UTC)As for the writing, I can't help but feel there could be a middle-of-the-road solution that doesn't require Grant to give up working or you guys to take on debt. Presumably homeschooling is a non-negotiable for you, and understandably so. If I were you I'd look into finding a trustworthy nanny/babysitter, possibly a college student since they often have flexible schedules and their own cars, who could take your kids out and about for a couple of hours a couple of times a week. If you added that to Grant taking over for an hour or two in the evening some days, and just generally your kids growing up and getting more independent, you might be surprised how much you can accomplish without doing anything drastic.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 12:38 am (UTC)It's hard for me to try to explain to other people that we seem to have a really unusually high priority on time together as a couple and as a family - what you're suggesting with the babysitter makes sense, but then when you really break it down that means some of Grant's VERY scant time home is spent off out of the house with the kids, and some of my time alone with the kids is now me time while they are with a sitter...I would really rather move in the direction of all of us being together more, rather than less, at least while Elise is an infant and Jake is a toddler, and he's working 12 hour shifts, you know?
What you're saying about the savings makes a lot of sense! I'll think about that, along with a lot of things I learned about investing wisely today.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 02:27 am (UTC)I mean, what do women do after they've been raising kids for 10+ years? People go back to work, don't they? I'm not being snippy, I'm just thinking out loud.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 05:54 pm (UTC)Take what I say with a grain of salt, but private universities are giant, soulless, money-sucking leeches of doom. At least mine was. (Northwestern University - I don't recommend it to anyone unless than can afford to pay for it outright or make less than $30,000/year with no assets. I JUST graduated, and owe them amounts of money I'm not willing to post here. I will stop ranting now.) Some very top-tier schools, like Harvard and Stanford, are making great strides in helping students pay, but the current reality is that private schools are out of reach for anyone who is not either very, very poor or ultra-rich. Aid may be "need-based," but believe me - their idea of need is nothing like yours or mine. Also, their idea of aid made be largely loans, not grants.
Your kids are still very young, so maybe this will change by the time they're older, but then again, maybe it won't. It probably won't. Your kids may not chose to go to college, or they may get merit scholarships or they may go to an in-state school. I'm definitely not trying to push the idea of college savings accounts - I don't know what's right for your family. I would say, though, that it makes sense to either do it all the way (enough to pay for an entire private college degree) or not do it at all (which both gives you more money now and ups the chance of getting aid), instead of just saving a little for it. Just two more cents that I'm sure you don't need. ;)
If, for whatever reason, you're not overwhelmed enough with information and choices, and wonder more about college financial aid - my parents are about to put their fifth kid into college, and I could pick their brains. We've combined been to 2 private universities, 3 (soon to be 4) state schools, including 3 as out-of-state students, and 1 junior college.