Mountain Mama / Dirty Hermit

Revisiting and updating the ol' blog today, naturally as a mode of procrastination, when I should be working on some art. Sound familiar? Exactly like this post from 2012. And here we are in 2017. I have officially circled back to being a procrastinaty, pajama-wearing SAHM, aka Stay at Home Mom, otherwise known as  "saaaaaahhhhm".
I mean, what I tell people is that I'm a self-employed freelance professional legit artist and all that jazz, and I truly do have several projects I should be working on. I just have very little to show for it since moving.

Now my kids are in 2nd and 3rd grade. (How the bleep did that happen?) Since they both started being in school full-time I've been working, but now that we moved and I quit, I am "free".
Little did I know time flies when you're free. Like...the seven hours between the time I put them on the bus and the time I pick them up from the bus feels like two hours and I'm all whattheactualeffjusthappened.
The past couple weeks I've been unpacking and getting settled in the house, but now that is mostly done and I have no more excuses to put off working on artwork...except, oh wait, I need to spray paint this patio set and hang these solar-powered twinkle lights on the deck...and now I need to blog. My sister says so.
I've also been Instagramming the crap out of everything because everything up here is so IG-worthy:

My writing brain is broken, you know. All I have is this colloquial conversational text speak now. No artful articulate literature for you! I also fear that now that my kids are potty trained I am going to be desperately lacking in subject matter. "No poo stories??" you cry. Sadly not.

OH BUT WAIT! BUT WAIT! YOU'RE IN LUCK! It just so happens that today we are having the septic tank replaced at our new house. Apparently the old tank had a crack in it and failed inspection, but there wasn't time to replace it before closing so the sellers just cut us a check. Boo-yah. Anyway, we are between tanks--tankless, as it were--and aren't supposed to flush.
This morning, my 7-year-old girl had to go #2, right as we had to be leaving the house (OF COURSE), and she flushed.
I apologized to the tractor fella that one of us *might* have forgotten about the not flushing and he goes, "I noticed."
OOOHHH SHIT.
Literally.

On a related note, we have horses again. From a mustang rescue though, so they are wild and we can't pet them yet and it's killing me. But they poop SO MUCH OMG SO MUCH POOP so maybe I can blog about that. Luckily horse poo isn't nearly as gross as kid poo, and far less gross than dog poo, so I don't mind having to pick up an entire wheel barrow full of it every other day.
The kids named them Professor Petunia and Lady Mike. They are both mares. The Professor might be pregnant. The Lady is a jerk to the Professor, but I don't totally blame her because Petunia eats all the treats. The end.

We live in the mountains now. Not the prairie, not the burbs. The actual mountains. We have views (unfortunately obscured at the moment because of all the horrific wildfires in the North and West). We have trees: mostly the piney variety but also a few aspens, which I love. We have tree houses (yes, plural). We have a mother-forking zip line. We have weird grey stripey mountain squirrels with pointy ears. We have mule deer. We have elk...poop, anyway...haven't seen the elk themselves yet. (See how I worked the poop in? Look what I do for you.)

The mountains feel more like home than the prairie or the city ever did.

Living in the mountains works well with my old saaaaaahhhhm wardrobe of athleisure-pajama-wear. I've pretty much quit wearing makeup (except Wunderbrow because you only have to do your eyebrows like once every three days, so, duh), and only wear sports bras and flip flops--in addition to a t-shirt and yoga pants, of course. Don't make this weird.
I miss wearing my cute clothes, and I miss seeing people more regularly, but...BUT...not really. I am quite the happy hermit to be honest. I love having company, but only if they don't care that I'm a dirty mountain pajama hermit.

I already acquired the necessary mountain home accessories: a hummingbird feeder, a wind chime, a hammock. My husband already acquired the "necessary" tractor--I mean, skid loader. My bad. He's going to use it to build his "necessary" shop, which I am actually in full support of so he can move all his tools and stuff out of my studio. YES, I have studio. It's attached to the barn. It has heat and electricity and windows and it's MINE. For now I will continue my tradition of using the dining room studio.

Which reminds me...I have 7 weeks to do 18 illustrations and then 2 months after that to do 4 more paintings before Christmas. Perhaps I've adequately procrastinated for today?

If I had to walk out to the barn/studio it would be much harder to be distracted by things. Just sayin'.

In conclusion, we are all spoiled brats now.

A NEW ERA

Well several major life changes are about to happen. The biggest changes we’ve had since buying our first house and having kids. Even bigger than having someone else's baby (in terms of our lives, that is)...

--Starting late August, my kids will both be in school full-time. Kindergarten and 1^st grade, baby.

--I will be working full-time. For the first time in five years. At a job I’m actually very excited about.

--We will be moving. After almost seven years in this house, we are leaving our first family home.

I am such a crazy mixture of excitement, sadness, and fear. So much sweet and so much bitter I can’t even comprehend it. 

All these crazy years I’ve been staying home with my babies as they grew into walking, talking humans—whether I was working part-time or home full-time, I’ve been dreaming of the illusory freedom of some distant fantasy future. I didn’t think it would ever come. I missed adult interaction. I was tired of cleaning poo. I wished I had a reason to put on pants more often. Real pants. And maybe some cute shoes. I wanted to feel like I was doing something more important than being “just a housewife”. I often felt like my brain was draining away. I often felt trapped.

Of course I mostly loved being able to be home with them. It's definitely love-hate. I am so thankful I was able to be with them during their littleness. I love them more than anything. And I would never trade my time with them for any career, ever. As my older blog posts have demonstrated, it just made me batshit crazy at times. And lonely. And depressed. And into the most antisocial hermit ever.  But I recognize that there is nothing more important that I could have done with these years. Nothing. 

My son was born a month after we moved into this house. I was able to stay home with him for six months, after which I worked at a childcare center so I could still be with him all the time. When my daughter was born a year later, I took to waiting tables nights and weekends so I could be with them during the day. I also taught art classes at a couple places, part-time, and have the occasional commissioned painting. HowEVER, my new job will be my first experience being away from my babies, "full-time".

I am both heartbroken and elated.

Which is also how I feel about moving. Leaving this house. Our first home. The “needs work” HUD home with purple carpet that we were able to buy with first-time homebuyer incentives when I was 8 months pregnant. The house we tried selling twice before but weren't ready. The house on two dry acres of middle-of-nowhere prairie where the kids drove their little electric cars and we kept my in-law's horses. The house where my sister and I rolled out a tiny patch of sod so the kids could have a lawn. The house where they played in the mud as toddlers. The house where they grew from newborns into kids that read and write. The house where my husband finally built us a magnificent new deck. The house I’ve lived at longer than any one place in my whole life. The house where we’ve worked and cleaned and painted and mowed. The house where we screamed and yelled and laughed and cried and played as a family. Our home.

I hate how far we are from things and how some nearby dogs never stop barking, but I will really miss it here. I always thought I would be happy to move, but now that it’s a reality, I am torn. I had a completely unexpected nasty snotty sobbing breakdown a few days ago when we first listed the house for sale, and I’m still pretty sad about the whole thing, but I think I’m coming around.

I think I’m ready for new things. I've been looking forward to this for years in many ways. But I am scared of change. I’m scared of what we’re losing. I’m scared I will miss the kids. I’m scared I won’t be able to function in a real person job, using my long-dormant brain and social skills. I’m scared I won’t like our new house. I’m scared I will miss my sports bras and sweat pants. I'm scared of how much work packing will be. And I’m scared we’re making the wrong choice.

But the more I think about it, everything has fallen into place in such a way that it must be the right choice. Maybe I’m just telling myself that, but there are a few things that make me think so:

--My husband got a great new position at work that he’s very happy about, but he will need to commute more often. He already drives over an hour each way, but now it will be 5 days a week instead of 4 out of every 8 days. That alone is a good reason to move closer.

--I got an awesome job managing a new paint and sip studio in almost the same part of town where he works. I don’t want to spend 2-3 hours in the car every day. It really makes no sense for both of us to commute that far.

--The couple buying our house loves it. They have a baby boy of their own. They have horses. We listed our house for sale on the *same day* they got out of a problematic contract with another house. I’m told that the wife said something to the effect of “Everything happens for a reason…this is the one". This makes me feel good. I feel better about giving up our house to them, even though I’ve never met them. Almost like it's meant to be.

--They are willing to let us stay here for up to two months *after* closing, allowing us more time to find a new place. This is huge because we would have had to crash in a friend’s basement or our parents’ house if we closed on this house but had nowhere to go—with two kids, three dogs, and two cats, it would have been quite the hassle.

--Our house sold in four days. Four. Days. Over full price offer. Even a little bidding war.

--There is a little more inventory on the market now for us to buy. Although the options are still limited, it’s not so dire. And now we can take a little more time in finding one. Maybe we’ll find a place where we walk in and can say with confidence “This is the one”. Fingers crossed.

SO... On with being terrified and thrilled and happy and sad all at once.

This is a for real whole new chapter in our lives. My stay-home mommy time on the prairie is over. Sadly. But my art business boss in the city time is coming, which is super awesome. (Although we can’t totally commit to living in the city, so we’re looking in the mountains thirty minutes from the city.) So I guess my art business boss in the city-slash-mountains? Whatever. It’s exciting.

BUT CHANGE IS SO HARD. So much anxiety. So much. Both good and bad anxiousness. Letting go of the familiar is hard. Leaving your comfort zone is hard. I am mourning and rejoicing. It’s weird. So this is my new mantra:

 

Now begins the Great Purging of seven years' hoarding. Wish me luck.

Obsessions of Old Blue Hair

Dooley and I are holding out on getting smart phones, like we don’t want to give in to the Man. The truth of the matter is we don’t want to pay the extra money for the required data or internet plan or whatever, and we don’t like being forced into things as if we have no choice. Pretty soon there will be no choice though. Like right now. Verizon doesn’t even sell flip phones anymore, do they? Plus if you have a flip phone of any kind, the cool kids will be mean and taunt you about your FossilPhone, because they think they’re so friggen cool with their InnerWeb Phones. Remember when the Razor was the coolest? (I mean RAZR. They’re that cool.) I had one in college. They are really terrible for talking hands free, squeezed between your ear and shoulder. I definitely don’t recommend trying it while you’re on the potty. Because it’s so dang thin. It slips right out and into the toilet bowl. So next time it’s 2004 and you buy the hot new phone, heed my warning. You’ll either get pee hand/phone, or a clogged toilet, or both; either way you’ll probably want a new Razr phone.

The other thing we were resisting together was satellite television. Or so I thought. We proudly told people we just had local channels and that we still had rabbit ears on our big ass TV (not big as in big screen—big as in deeper than it is wide), and then bit by bit, we were overtaken. First by an actual flat screen HD blah blah blah television, which came with a super sweet internet box, so we could stream Netflix and Hulu and Pandora, etc., etc., etc., which I actually do enjoy. We still had our local channels, and there was always plenty to watch. Then the fateful day arrived when Dooley joined a forking fantasy football league (whyyyyy???), and he wanted 24-7 access to all football. Imagine my excitement when he signed us up for a two-year contract where we will pay ridiculous amounts of money to get an asinine number of crappy channels Just. For. Football. Well, that and Rodeo stuff, and How It’s Made, and Storage Wars, and Pawn Stars, which are alright by me. But SERIOUSLY. There are less than ten channels that are worth a crap, and I, as foretold, spend the whole time scrolling the infinite menu of programming, and end up getting mad and  turning it off and sticking a VHS tape in our VCR. Yes we still use those. Guess how many stupid inputs we have on our TV now? FIVE. (TV, VCR, DVD, Internet Box, Satellite.) It is a little challenging to explain how to watch TV to our parents when they come over to babysit.

I am already an old man. Resenting the march of progress, lamenting the fact that things better back when. (You know, I was alive when gas cost $0.99/gallon!) But VHS tapes are just better than DVDs!!! They are so much more durable and long-lasting; they don’t get scratched or broken, so you can let your toddler handle them with minimal fear of instant destruction. And flip phones just seem more resilient than those touch screen things, so many of which I have seen shattered beyond repair. Like Humpty Dumpty. Plus people are all freaks about their smartphones. Like going out to dinner and sitting across from each other just looking at their phones all night, holding half-assed conversations because they're always distracted.
(That said, when I finally give in, I will probably be all over it too.)

I will also concede that the DVR is great, but only to record the shows I like which are on local channels anyway. (Or we could watch them on Hulu.) Of course, satellite TV does have What Not to Wear…because, you know, I need to keep my pajamas current and stuff.

I did cut my hair though. Really short again, which I like and don’t like. The last time I had hair this short was probably around ten years ago, give or take, which in and of itself is a depressing thought—thinking in decades—but the more depressing part of it is realizing how I’m not pulling it off as well as I did, cuz my face shape changed and I put on weight. I was telling a friend that on my fat ugly days I feel like a gross man. Makeup and accessories are my friend with hair this short, except I never leave the house so why would I do those things? Anyway, it’s actually a cute cut, brushed forward into longish bangs a la Justin Beiber, and I got purplish-blue highlights to make it more fun (except they’re still new and dark so the contrast is minimal and you can barely see them). I’d take a picture but I don’t have any makeup on. Kidding. But seriously. The shampoo foam turns blue in the shower, and if one blue hair falls onto the white porcelain of my sink, it leaves a blue line. So you'd THINK you could actually see that I have some blue hair...but no, only on closer inspection. Sadly.

But back to television. We are obsessed with the show Weeds. It’s funny and smart and gripping and it sucks you in bad. (Spoiler: *surprise!* it's about marijuana. Also there is bad language and sex. Don’t watch it with your kids or your mom…if she’s like my mom anyway.) We just discovered it, even though it’s in season 8 currently. We are in season 4 on Netflix, watching a few episodes at naptime every day, before Dooley goes to work for the night shift (he insists that I don’t watch ahead without him). The last show I watched fanatically on Netflix was Samantha Who, but there were only two seasons and I whipped right through it. I like Christina Applegate. And before that, our shared compulsion was Sons of Anarchy, which we are also behind on, and felt a gaping hole when we exhausted all three seasons that Netflix had to offer. 

I realized that I get sucked into these shows because they offer an escape to an entirely different existence, and when they are over I have emptiness and reality. And poop everywhere. Okay it’s not really quite that sad. I was also obsessed with a book series—now don’t judge, but it was about werewolves and vampires. I know! For shame! But it is NOT Twilight. It’s the “Parasol Protectorate” (as if that is less embarrassing) and it’s actually sort of clever and captivating…Jane Austen style/era comedy action mystery urban fantasy “steampunk” romance novel (see how good I’d be as a professional book critic?!) Yes, it is silly, but it was a very entertaining escape, and certainly to an entirely different reality. The point is, I keep getting sucked into series of things and tear through them only to be left with a big hole of boredom. I recently read Tina Fey’s autobiography “Bossy Pants”, which I loved; I just finished reading “Running with Scissors” and I’m in the middle of “1984”. While I enjoy both for very different reasons, neither of them really sucked me in. Any suggestions? Clearly I don't mind frivolity. Until I am *allowed* to watch Weeds alone, or if another season of S.O.A. is released (which I probably won’t be permitted to watch alone either), or until I get really into another book series, I will be forced to stay up all night blogging random rants like this one. At least while Dooley is working nights.

For anyone needing an escape, this is a fun read.