Oh what tangled webs...

I would be remiss if I did not mention a little bit about my trip home to PA in January. I had a great time hanging out with my adorable nieces and nephew, listening to some of Justin’s new songs, and watching football with dear friends. We ended up cooking up a storm while I was there. Luke introduced me to the wonderful farm that they go to to get all of their pasture-raised meat (where they also have lard!), and I learned to make a pie crust. So even with nothing else, the trip was obviously a win.

But the other excitement of the week was that Mom and I got to spend two lovely days at Labadie Looms. If you live in Lancaster, and you have not been to Labadie Looms, it really is worth your while. The store is a fantastic collection of yarns (many of which have been hand-dyed and are just amazing), looms, knitting supplies, rug hooking supplies, and local crafts. Last year, we learned to spin yarn there, but this year we ventured into the world of weaving and absolutely loved it. Donna (the owner) is a great teacher, and at the end of the two days we were both the proud owners of a loom. As I sat there weaving away, I thought, “There is no space in my house, but I really need to have one of these.” When I expressed my concern, my mom said, “Surely you have an empty wall.” I just laughed. Tragically 750 square feet shared between two people who both have a book obsession doesn’t come with a lot of extra walls, but I knew we could make it work. I have already woven one little piece on my Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle loom, and I can’t wait to see what all I can learn to do with it. It is tucked neatly away behind the couch and ventures out into our only open area when needed.

Happy New Year in February

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, and I really am not sure what the delay was. It’s funny when you think about writing about your life and you try to decide if any given day is worthy of sharing with the world (even the little, tiny world of blog readers that I have). It makes you think about your days, and mine have been full.

Since being here last, I have celebrated Thanksgiving, finished a semester of grad work in biology, applied to multiple PhD programs, celebrated our first Christmas here in LA, visited family and chilled out in Missouri, transported frozen steaks and ground beef through airport security, celebrated my grandmother’s 80th birthday in Alabama, visited Pennsylvania and had a wonderful time with family, transported frozen goat and chicken though airport security, bought much needed sofas for our house, started another grad class in freshwater management, attempted to start a food garden only to realize that we are surrounded on all sides by shade, and finally settled for a few little flower pots on our front porch. Given the fact that we have already lost a few cactus plants, I’m sure the johnny jump-ups and primrose are shivering in their pots. Perhaps we should discreetly dispose of our shriveled cacti out the back door just to save them the horror.

Needless to say, there have been a lot of air miles and copious amounts of frozen meat transportation in the last three months. Even with all of that traveling and transporting, Rodney and I are finally starting to get settled into our lives here. It’s a slow transition. Since we hit the road pretty soon after getting married, we are now just getting our feet under us and finally buying things like Tupperware, a toaster, and sofas. I am a total sofa girl, so when we found two leather couches on craigslist for only $200 total, I about hit the roof. It only took us two weekends, one Uhaul cargo van, and two failed sets of Google directions to finally get them in our house, but we now have butt space, so feel free to bring yours on over and sit awhile.

Our great discovery of the week has been Descanso Gardens. Only five minutes from our house, this 160 acre park is a beautiful collection of camellia trees, streams, rose bushes, meandering paths, native California plants, and much more. We kept seeing the signs, but we had hiked above the place and decided that it was really small and there must not be much there. We were so wrong, and now we are members. The word Descanso in Spanish means “rest,” and it is the perfect place to get away and sit on a bench next to a little waterfall surrounded by green--a real commodity here in southern CA. Right now I am looking at a koi fish that is eyeing up a big pile of leaves in the stream in front of me. It is so pleasant and a perfect place to just be. I hope you are able to find those places of rest in your little part of the world...

All Sorts of Water

It’s our fourth straight day of rain here in the greater LA area which is an amazing thing. It’s so cold at our house that I need to turn on the heater, but given last weeks debacle with the plumbing, I think I will wait until I cannot wait anymore.

For those of you who did not know, our kitchen sink was clogged two weeks ago. I tried everything...I mean vinegar, baking soda, boiling water, taking the trap off under the sink (Ok, Rodney did that), and finally I resorted to Drano. After an entire bottle of Drano Max Gel, it was running a little better, so I thought I was going to fix this once and for all. Despite my parents explaining to me that I should just talk to the landlord, and this is why you rent so you don’t have to deal with clogged sinks, I was determined to solve the problem myself. So I drove all over town and bought the only bottle of Drano Foaming Cleaner that I could find. I poured it in, and not much happened. I was discouraged, and I resigned myself to calling the landlord. When Rodney came home, however, the sink magically started working better. We flushed water down it, we ran the garbage disposal (with a bucket over it on account of the Drano), and voila’, we had a running sink. Victory! Who says you can’t be your own plumber?

I headed into the bathroom to take a shower after the victorious moment of realizing that I had stuck with my problem and solved it. I pulled back the curtain with a flourish, only to be greeted by two inches of sludge sitting in my bathtub. Apparently pipes are connected. With chunks of gunk pouring out of the overflow valve whenever we turned on a faucet, this was one plumbing problem I felt no compulsion to solve on my own. Needless to say, we got to meet a very nice plumber that night.

But I think I’ll wait on the heater just in case. No need to meet all the repair men in one month.

Wonderful-Crazy Life

I am so happy to be back in LA. Despite the still-problematic kitchen sink and the traffic and the gas prices that are now decidedly above $3.00 a gallon, it feels good to be in a place that we can call home. I am sitting in a coffee shop that I frequent, and I have already been to Trader Joe’s and picked up a bunch of wonderful groceries. While this coffee shop is ok, I do, however, wish that there were a more cozy coffee place, but cozy is not a term that can be used very frequently in the “citburban” areas of LA. Hopefully I can manage to have a cozy house to spend time in. I have dreams of a couch with pillows and the perfect cup of coffee all inside my own space. I have my eyes on the Hario Ceramic Coffee Dripper 02 that I saw in a shop the other day. It is such a beauty.

Last night I went on my first little hike since landing out here. I think one of the things that surprised me the most about LA was the topography. There are hills and mountains everywhere, and while you are still very much in the city, and often your only reward for climbing is a better view of a freeway or a power station, you can still hit a dirt trail and head up into the hills.

There is a place on the road between Rodney’s work and our house, and last night we took a stroll up the hill. It is a great dirt path that wanders through trees and then heads almost straight up to overlook the 2. It was nice to get out a little and when you are on the backside of the hill, it is really quite peaceful.

I guess it is worth noting that no matter where you are, it is important to find spaces that you can carve out for the cultivation of sanity and quiet. Jonathan Kaplan has written a book about this, and I am looking forward to having some time to sit and read it after both midterms and moving are finished. It is called Urban Mindfulness: Cultivating Peace, Presence and Purpose in the Middle of It All. I think the title is just what I am looking for. That, and the ceramic coffee dripper.

But even in places that are not urban, I think it is important to cultivate a life that intentionally creates space for just being. I have tried to do that where ever I have been. Sometimes it involved heading to a monastery for the weekend, and sometimes it was going to get pancakes in a quiet cafe where I could take time to read a book and sometimes it was just a day at home where absolutely no cleaning whatsoever occurred. But more often in my life, things have been crazy, and peace and sanity seemed to be firmly drowning under the driving sentiment of survival. In those times, I am learning that cultivating a sense of quiet in my being is still essential to surviving, even if it involves no pancakes at all. Either way, I often have to seek the space out, and I am looking forward to discovering more places here that allow for me to develop a sense of peace in the middle of my wonderful-crazy life.

Visiting

Just so you know, this post contains nothing about LA, but it is all part of the story. And sometimes finding our place requires that we go home for a while too.

I’m writing this from 36,000 feet in the air, and despite the hectic pace of the past several days this week has been full of great things. When we pulled into the airport his afternoon to head home from our trip, it dawned on me that I am getting far too comfortable with airports these days, but sometimes you have to leave where you are to see the things that mean the most to you, and airplanes are awfully handy when you live thousands of miles away from those things.

I spent the majority of my week in PA where I got to spend quality time with my brother’s newest little addition. She is precious, just like her brother and sister who entertained me on my trip with Old Maid and a preschool field trip to a farm as well as conversations about the merit of freckles and the need for my six year old nephew to “do something with his hair” because he thinks he “looks like Vincent Van Gogh.”

My time at home also included a trip to Labadie Looms, the place where I first learned to spin yarn, and where my mom and I found more wonderful fibers to spin up. I also ventured out for my first facial,and I have to admit that I had never really seen the appeal ( no pun intended), especially given that my answer to “What is your skincare regimen?” is “Nothing.” But after lying there for 50 minutes with someone massaging wonderful lotions on your face, neck, and arms, the appeal becomes decidedly evident.

I also got to go up to NYC during my time back East to see my brother’s solo act, Via Linota, perform at New York City’s oldest Rock Club, The Bitter End. No matter where you are in the world, there is nothing quite like the energy of NYC, and I love getting to merge into it all. We got to catch up with some friends while we were there and really had a delightful time all around. The food at Arturo’s was great, and the performance was equally exciting.

Later in the week, I left for Boulder where I met up with Rodney. We went back to empty our storage unit and start the process of having all of our belongings moved to LA. It was an interesting day as I watched them unload things I had not seen in a year and a half and some things Rodney had never seen because they were well in the back of that storage unit before we ever got married. Relationship to stuff is a funny thing. I find it both intriguing and stressful. While I loved to see my shoes and books and my keyboard, I also realized that I was now going to have to find a place to put them. But we are just so glad to no longer be storage unit renters. I think that might be one of the more freeing moments I have had in the last year. There is something about having everything in one place that makes it easier to breathe. I can say that now because I am not crawling over boxes in our new house, and I may have a different perspective come Thursday when the truck arrives, but I’ll be sure to let you know if I do.

But Boulder was certainly not all work. We were able to spend time with good friends playing Settlers of Catan, a game I am not sure I really have the focus to master, but one that I think is fun nonetheless. We were also able to make it into Boulder to eat some of our favorite foods at the Boulder Farmer’s Market. If you are in Boulder, you really do owe it to yourself to get both a gyro and Sister’s Pantry Dumplings. They are worth all of the parking headaches, and getting to eat them outside in the cool crisp fall air surrounded by yellow-leaved trees is pretty much perfect.

In the evening we were so thrilled to meet up with a lot of our wonderful friends whom we have missed. We hung out at Southern Sun, and it was so nice to see them and hear what everyone is up to. We felt truly blessed, and after months in a new town, it was such a treat to be surrounded by friendly faces we know well and care so much about. Thanks all.

The weekend ended on a delightful note. With an overcast sky and very fallish weather, we went to Lyons with some dear friends and spent the day brunching, drinking coffee, and kicking around the cute little town. After all of the rushing, a quiet “vacationy” day was just what we need. Many thanks.

So, we are getting ready to descend from 36,000 feet, and I know that when I land, another crazy week awaits as I work on a midterm and get the house ready and have all of our stuff delivered. But it’s good crazy. It’s the crazy that is made up of a life that is full of things like family, friends, learning, employment, and coffee. And that's a good life.

Back on the Bike

I remember the first time I saw a spinning class. It was a little room with an open garage door on one side and brick walls all the way around the rest of the room. The spindly little bikes were all being ridden by equally spindly people, and I was terrified. I had no idea what I was doing, and looking like an over-eager hamster for an hour did not sound like my idea of fun or sustainable fitness. After the soreness wore off, however, and as I started going regularly, I found that I loved spinning! I loved the rush of the music, and way that you could ride really hard for a particular amount of time that would eventually end. I loved that I could do it at my own pace, and if I needed to sit down and “recover” (the word spin instructors use that means drink something and calm down so you don’t pass out and fall off that thing), I could. There is very little coordination necessary to start, and I never feel like I used to when I would go to an aerobics class and be falling on and off some hot pink and teal-colored step like an epileptic hamster. And even if you do look a little wobbly, almost every instructor I have ever had has been so nice and encouraging.

Now that we are finally settling in, I decided that it was time to finally get back on the bike. So I signed up at the local spin studio that is only two blocks from my house (Pedal Spin Studio), and I couldn’t be happier. When life is up in the air, and you have trouble making sense of all the craziness, sometimes you need to ride until it all disappears. And even when you get home and the kitchen sink still isn’t draining, you feel better anyway.

A Place of Our Very Own

I am sitting on the front steps of our new apartment waiting for them to deliver our new washer. That’s right...we found our own place in LA...at least for now. Although we had come to LA hoping to buy right away, we decided not to buy unless we found something we really liked. As the weeks went by, we realized that we were not falling in love with anything we had seen, so we decided to abandon the house-buying adventure and move on to the world of renting. Because I had to be out of town for a couple of weeks, the renting search was fairly brief, but we felt so fortunate to actually find something we both liked. We called and emailed about a lot of places, actually went and looked at about seven, and settled on one of the first ones we looked at.


From the time we knew we were moving to LA, there were three things that I really wanted--a washer and dryer in the house, a dishwasher, and a yard. As we started looking, I also realized that I did not want to be in a regular apartment complex. We found a cute little quad-plex that is cream and green with hardwood floors, trees right out front, washer and dryer hook-ups, and a dishwasher. While there is no yard, there is a little space right out the back door that has steps and room for some potted plants. It is on a quiet street and really close to Rodney’s work. I feel incredibly blessed!


I am already trying to figure out where all the furniture in our storage unit is going to go and scheming about what we have to have and what we can jettison, but I haven’t seen half of what’s in my storage unit in three years, so I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things. The biggest adjustment is the addition of a new washer and dryer and refrigerator. I don’t think I have ever owned my own appliances. LA is funny because almost none of the rental units have a refrigerator. We were informed that refrigerators are “personal things,” so given that, we are just happy to have a toilet and a shower. :)


Rodney and I have been married two years this month, and this is the first place that we are going to get to settle into. The first eight months we were married, we lived in his place that consisted of half my stuff, his stuff, and a path through the center. Since then we have not had a place to call home. 16 months of life on the road and moving in and out of other people’s spaces has certainly affected my way of thinking about place and things. I am oddly both more and less attached to stuff. When your life is so stripped down you learn the valuable lesson of what is essential to have which seems to be in vogue with the simplicity movement. But that all depends on how one defines simplicity, and living a very stripped down life (translated only having what you can fit in your car), also teaches you that sometimes having certain things makes life a whole lot easier. I guess the trick is learning which things those are.


The other day I saw a picture of me in a shirt that is in storage. I had forgotten about it, and when I saw it, I did not think, “Good, I can get rid of that because I haven’t needed it for the last year.” Rather, I was really excited to get it back. There are quite a few things I am looking forward to having again like our Cuisinart and my keyboard and our camping gear. I’m sure it will also be good to uncover the things I now know I can live without too. But for now I am just going to enjoy the empty feeling of a space we can truly call ours. The sheer idea that I do not need to look for new lodging and move in two months is exhilarating. Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make us truly happy.

There and Back Again

I realize that I have not posted in three weeks, and a crazy three weeks it has been. I have spent the majority of the last three weeks, not in LA. I had a chance at the last minute to go to my brother’s CD Release Concert in Pennsylvania, and I was so excited to be able to support him and to get to hear his awesome performance. It was truly a well-done show, and the night was a success. At one point my six year old nephew turned to us and said, “It just doesn’t get any better than this,” and he was so right. To check out Justin’s new CD, got to vialinota.com to hear some of his work and buy the CD. You will not regret having this on your computer and in your car.

I returned to LA to see my parents who were out here on business. We had a great couple of days bumming around the area and checking out some wonderful places to nosh. If you know my parents, you know food is pretty important, and few places are as great as LA for finding good food. Mom and I discovered a wonderful little cafe in Burbank called Studio Cafe Magazzino with great sandwiches and cappuccinos that would make an Italian swoon. We had pancakes and french toast galore at the Granville Cafe also in Burbank, and we had a delightful Italian dinner at the Market City Caffe where the breadsticks are as “to die for” as people claim. On Wednesday morning, we decided to venture into Beverly Hills to get lunch, and after a hectic trip we were repaid with a good lunch and absolutely amazing desserts. If you are in Beverly Hills, and you do not visit The Farm of Beverly Hills for their cobbler or bread pudding, then you have only yourself to blame, and your life will indeed be lacking. For all of you foodies out there who are in or plan to visit LA, I highly recommend the website eat-la.com. It is a wealth of restaurant information and recommendations that you can search by area in the city.

After the culinary tour a la’ Anderson, my parents headed south for some more business, and I took to starting my graduate classes. Since our move here, I have signed up for graduate courses in biology at the University of Nebraska Kearney. They are online, and since school started, I had a lot to catch up on. The catching up, however, was cut short. For the weekend, we headed up to Sequoia National Park to sightsee and just get out of town, but while we were there, we got the call that my grandfather had died. My distance from the airport and the need to get to North Carolina quickly meant that we drove straight from the mountains to the airport, and I flew out on Saturday afternoon where my parents picked me up. In ten days, my parents had picked me up at the Baltimore airport, the Los Angeles airport, and the Charlotte airport. I think that is a record for all of us.

The funeral went well, as well as these things go, and we were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from so many people who are in my grandparents’ lives. My grandparents had a similar penchant for dining outside the home, and people from a local restaurant even came to the viewing. When we went to Cracker Barrel a few days after the funeral many of the employees came up to express their condolences to us. It was truly touching, and it was nice to see that so many people cared. As with most funerals, getting to see family was nice. All of my cousins were able to come, and we were just able to spend some time together. After spending a few days with my grandmother helping her and my mom and aunts, I headed back to LA to yet again catch up on my classes and resume the apartment search.

When I was at my grandma's, I was helping with her thank you notes for the funeral. When I looked in her address file, there was our card with just our names across the top. Maybe we've been on the road a little too long. I am really looking forward to the time when we have an actual home in LA. As much as I love the Residence Inn, it is a little difficult to feel very settled with maid service every few days, and I miss my gold pans from Williams and Sonoma, which can only be taken out of storage when I have an actual place to live. So here's to residences and giving my grandma a little more contact info for that sad little white card.

So much to do...

Yesterday I noticed a rattle in the back of my car. As first, I was a little disconcerted thinking that the spare tire cover had come loose, but then I quickly remembered that the slight clanking was my newly acquired beach chairs. Yes...I own beach chairs because I am now a southern Californian. Whatever one may think of LA proper, there is a vast and delightful world beyond the boundaries of the city. While getting to that world may require Herculean efforts, it is there nonetheless. Since we have been here, we have already been hiking in the mountains and spent a day lounging on the beach. The ability to do both within a day’s drive is a delightful change for a water girl who has spent the last five years landlocked.

I am continually amazed at the diversity here in LA that evidences itself in almost every arena. The variety of cultures that co-exists leads to a panoply of languages and food that is rivaled by few places. But the diversity is not just multi-cultural in the sense we have come to learn. There is also a diversity of lifestyle that ranges from beach bum to ranch hand to swanky Hollywood chic. We are currently living in Burbank, a town where many places bear the name “media city,” and Jay Leno’s nightly show and the Warner Brothers studios are right down the road. A short drive around Griffith Park (home of the Griffith Observatory), and you are in Los Feliz, a trendy area that boasts one of the best bookstores in LA (skylightbooks.com) and some equally wonderful-looking food. Only twenty minutes north is the La Canada area, a community full of well-to-do lawyers and doctors that looks a lot like most suburban neighborhoods in the rest of America with a Target and a aTrader Joe’s, but where the price tags on homes usually include the words “point” and “million.” And in and among each of these areas is everything else you could imagine.

If you drive an hour to an hour and a half in any direction, you are in either mountains, desert, or on the beach. Some people here drive every weekend up to a ranch to ride horses in the desert. Others do what we did last weekend and load up the beach chairs and umbrella and head down to the water for a day to just chill. And others stay in the city to have an early afternoon brunch at one of the many breakfast places that have a line stretching out the door and around the block.

Pretty much, whatever you want to do in LA, you can do. It may take you awhile to get there, but even with the traffic, it’s a lot quicker to get to the sand and surf from Burbank than it is from Denver, and this ocean girl is pretty happy about that.

Learning to rethink

Growing up my family traveled the I-95 corridor along the east coast more than most people, and on any trip, we always visited a Cracker Barrel. The reason? Consistency. That and the availability of vegetables. My mother liked that she knew what we were getting and the opportunity to get something green.

Now, however, I have to admit that I have very mixed feelings about the homogeneity of the United States. In am not a huge fan of shopping centers or driving through a town and seeing all the same restaurants that I see in every other town. I am sad about the loss of local establishments, local color, and a sense of community that I imagine these establishments to provide. Anywhere I go, I search up and down for a good coffee shop, and I am not usually happy until I find one that “feels right.” I often prefer the unpredictable. I am often dragging my husband into places that look a little sketch, just because they have a “local” air about them, and I am willing to take the risk.

But being new in LA has challenged my usual distaste for the predictable.
Today I went to Whole Foods. Sure there are plenty of other grocery stores around, and I’m sure they are all just fine. I am even loving checking out the Trader Joe’s that I always wished for when we lived in Colorado. But I didn’t go to Whole Foods because they are better or have better options. I went because they are familiar. They are known. When I wander up and down the aisles, the offerings are predictable, so much so that when I found a jar of 365 salsa, I hugged it to my chest and smiled. For the last two years, I have had a lot of issues with food, and Whole Foods is one of the places that I have been able to find a lot of foods that I can eat. For this reason, I love walking up and down the aisles and feeling at home.
Since our move here, Panera has been a similar experience for me. When I walk inside, I know what to expect. I know that I can eat a bagel, and it will be good. I can use the internet, get work done, and the atmosphere is fine.

This is not to say that I have not tried out new places. I have visited a cute cafe for lunch, and I have tried out a local bakery. I have also had fun visiting a local bookstore and discovering a local yarn shop. But I am surprised by my desire to find something that is known. In the midst of upheaval and transition, there is something comforting about walking into a grocery store that I do not have to figure out. And there is something calming about seeing a Panera sign and knowing what it is and that I can get wifi there.

This realization is a challenge to me and has made me think about community and comfort and that maybe there is a place for all types of establishments. I still really dislike how everything looks the same everywhere, but maybe homogeneity is not always at odds with community. Or maybe it just has something different to offer. Either way, I was glad this week for the salsa and the chance to think about some of my assumptions.

Citburban

I grew up on the East Coast. I am used to traffic, and I have parallel parked a Crown Victoria in downtown Boston. But I am also used to real city, the kind that has subways and metros and allows you to live car free, if you so desire. LA is not that city. In fact, I am even wondering if LA is a city at all. These days, it seems to me to be more like a whole herd of little citylettes all shoved together in the same suburban area. But even more shocking than the lack of city-like amenities in this city is the complete lack of suburban-like amenities. The really baffling thing is laundry detergent. Where in a non-city, non-suburban world does one buy laundry detergent if they do not want to pay grocery store prices?

I know many of you out there are thinking, “duh Walmart,” but that in and of itself is an interesting situation. For some reason in this craziness of life that I like to call citburban, there is apparently one Walmart for every 2 million people. Kind of makes you think of Jan and Dean. At least their girl to boy ratio was a little more favorable.
From where I am living in Burbank, the closest Walmart is 10.6 miles away (a distance that google estimates to be up to 25 minutes away in traffic), and the shopping experience promises to be delightful with reviews like “i live here in panorama dis place is ghetto the way i grew up” and “It is located in Panorama City which is not the safest location at the corner of Roscoe and Van Nuys Blvd (gangs).”

So enter the in-mall Target. In downtown Glendale, in the Glendale Galleria is a three-story target with all the laundry detergent that your heart could desire. With the nifty little cart escalators (escalators made just for your cart), the shopping experience is great. And the funny part is, that to get back to your free mall parking in the four-story parking deck, you tote your Target bags, the pack of paper towels and the ironing board you just purchased back through the mall past Forever 21 and the Apple Store. Citburban indeed, but a girl’s gotta look good in all this traffic.

Freeway Flyin'

There is something they don’t tell you about LA.  Sure there is a lot of talk about traffic.  Terms like commute and reverse commute, the 210, the 405, metered merges, and the like are on the tips of everyone’s tongues.  But what they don’t tell you is that here in LA, you get to drive really fast—almost all the time.  Because there is freeway access everywhere and these are the main ways of getting around town, if there is no traffic, you are going 70 miles an hour for most of your driving.  Sure, there’s a lot of traffic, but there is quite a bit of speed too.  I like it. 

Browsing vs. Buying

I never really thought much about homeownership. I’m the kind of girl that buys old cars that are odd colors just so I do not have to have a car payment. I do not like to be tied down. But now that I’m married and we have spent the last year gallivanting around the country, there seems to be a certain charm to the idea of settling down. The interesting thing though is that when you decide to start settling down, if you have never really thought about it before, you don’t really have a good idea about how to go about becoming a settled person. Don’t get me wrong…I love cute little houses and darling little yards, and even though I regularly point them out while we’re driving around, as far as my personal life is concerned, I had mentally gotten about this far—buy a house.

I am learning that it gets decidedly more complicated when you actually try to go buy one. First of all, there is the little matter of what to do first. Some people recommend that you get pre-approved for your loan. How you do this, however, is quite another matter. My favorite conversation about this topic was with my father. When I asked him about getting pre-approved and shopping for interest rates, he said something about how the newspaper used to print current interest rates and I could check there. Yeah…I’m thinking that my blackberry-toting father probably hasn’t done this in a while. Others recommend that you find an agent. Still others suggest that you take time and really scope out the areas. Some even suggest you live somewhere for a year first.

Then there are the more quality of life things like the type of house including layout, color, lot size, etc. And then there is the issue of where in this vast world that is the greater Los Angeles area would I want to live. Which highway views do I prefer to see while I’m stuck in traffic during my commute?
And in the midst of all of this there is the ever-clearer-growing distinction between talking about buying a house and actually buying a house. I drove past a house the other day that heretofore would have garnered an “oh, that is so cute…I would love to have a house like that “ from me. But this time I actually looked it. That tiny house…right, like anyone but Ken and Barbie could comfortably fit in there. Buying versus browsing…ah the differences.

You also see neighborhoods in a whole new light when you are thinking about actually plunking down your own hard-earned cash for a domicile. What before may have been like a “Hmmm…well the yards could use some improvement and it would be nice if more people kept up their paint, but it is a fixer-upper” conversation quickly turns into, “Did you see all those bars on the windows last time we drove through here? Lock the doors.”

When I moved to LA, I thought I would be choosing a house. You know…selecting. Like when you read a real estate ad in Atlanta or small-town Iowa about amenities such as granite countertops, two-car garages, an alarm system, and a yard, you think, “Great, I’ll have to check it out and see if it is the color granite I like or if the two-car garage is large enough for my two SUVs.
Here…they do not list amenities like that in our price-range. Here the scenario is more like. There is a structure in our price range. Let’s go see it. If it doesn’t look like it is right in the center of gang territory or it doesn’t need to be razed, let’s call someone to look at it. It doesn’t have countertops? That’s ok. I hear they are overrated anyway.
 We joked the other day that we just wanted to find a house that we could have our parents come to, rather than having to meet them at a hotel. Even a girl who never wanted to settle down has to have standards.

Surf's Up

Having just moved to LA less than 10 days ago, we have decided to hunt for a house.   In this economic downturn, we are figuring that it is a good time for us to dive on into the market and invest in a home of our very own.  Besides, I would really love to have a garage to store our amazing amount of gear in.  I would also like a yard.  I saw some urban gardening show years ago about a family in Pasadena who grew like 40,000 pounds of produce per season in their little urban garden, and ever since then some feat that approximates this wonderfulness has been my dream. 

So there you have our house requirements.  A garage, some grass, oh and a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen.  Pretty basic. 

Yeah…this is LA.  Enter the scene where your house dreams are a sweet little sailboat floating on a calm little sea flying a charming little blue and white flag of hope.  Suddenly the wind kicks up, the realtor you contacted replies to your sweet little email, and with one ugly, frothy wave, your dear little vessel is splintered into a thousand sharp pieces of wood on the cavernous rocks that are this downturned market.  And as your now seemingly tiny blue and dirty-white flag is snagged on the black volcanic backdrop, you realize that only a downdive of epic proportions such as people fleeing the state for fear of their lives would have made it easy for you to take a nice little dip into the homeowner’s world of LA. 

But we are not deterred.  Oh no.  Sure, this adventure may be a little more complicated than we first imagined, but hey…what would the experience be without a getting a little wet?  Maybe we need a surfboard instead.  So bring on your best wave real estate lady.  Or maybe I just need a new agent.  One that wants to ride the waves, because I have a board and a wet suit, and I’m ready.