Manor House

Well...it's selling. My little house. My safe haven of 10 plus years. I'm starting to feel a little like Noah (my 8 year old son, who is very sad we're selling) does about her. Though now that my husband has set up the rec- or is that "wreck!" room up with 3 different TV, movie, and game stations for the kids...Noah's missing Manor (so named for the street it stands on) a lot less!

I hope the new owner is nice to her. It's a guy leaving for Iraq. I'm assuming he has a wife or girlfriend that he wants set up in the house before he goes, because they're rushing us on closing (Jan 31st.) But his is the only name on the contract so I'm not sure. She is NOT a single man's house for cryin' out loud. I don't think she'd like to have a bachelor there!

Oh.. well... a house is just a place. As cliche as it is, it's the people that make it home. And she's been empty for almost 2 full years. It's time she gets to feel like a home again to someone. Funny... she sat empty for about that long before my ex husband and I bought her too. Maybe it's her Karma!

I asked my good friend (Design Goddess as a matter of fact) to help me hold a little vigil there within the next week to mourn Manor's moving on :)

Fitting I suppose, that she waited to sell until now that Anna is here. Manor is where I brought home my other two babies from the hospital. That's where I rocked them to sleep (if I was lucky!) and sang them songs. Where I took them for walks around the neighborhood's wide tree lined streets...where they learned to ride their bikes, and rid themselves of training wheels. It's where they first felt like they were at home. None of us feel that way about this house yet. I think it bothers my husband that I still say "my house" and "your house". It's not intentional...it simply feels that way.

Anna will help I think. She cements us as a family. Full circle. I never imagined I'd have another baby for sure. Yet miraculously here she is- (loudly!) demanding I pull out skills I had forgotten I ever possessed. And I am smitten (even when she's screaming.... but mostly when she's curled into my arms sleeping.) And I know that I will settle in here eventually... especially now that I have her ....and we will develope our own rhthym with each other.

Now to make this place my home. Still have to re-paint and tear down wallpaper here. Just didn't have time with school, Manor, kids, work, wedding, pregnancy, etc...This place still has the previous owner's (tacky) decor in most of it and what is changed has bad ex-wife karma. I think the best part of this house is the back yard. It's huge, with woods lining the back (that are protected between what we own and the owner on the other side so they'll always be here.) Sitting at the kitchen table and seeing those woods change each season... that's the part of this house that makes me feel at home.

Now that Manor will stop draining us financially, we will be able to purchase the mini van that was put on hold until the house sold... and here's something interesting. My husband has decided to keep my Jeep (the only vehicle I ever purchased on my own) as his car. It needs some work done and he has two year old Xterra, but wants to keep us at one car payment. He also has a beater pick-up truck, but the Jeep will get better mileage. So we'll trade in his two for a minvan for me and the kids. Strange...all my possessions that represented my single independent self are no longer mine. Like I said, full circle. Here I am wife, mother, and homemaker once more. When only two short years ago I was a single mother working full time and putting myself through college.

Well at least this time I have a giving, nurturing man in my life who is completely supportive. He wants to know when I want to get back into theatre (he works 12-14 hours a day 26 out of 30 days of the month! I've told him he does NOT want me to jump back into theatre quite yet!)

But I guess it is time to start writing one of those many books that have been stored in my head for years now!

Z