Life in Amherst

Chocolate popsicle

In order to act like a completely bipolar person, this will be a positive post.  We had a great weekend!  My mom came down for her birthday and the girls and I took her to a paint-your-own-pottery place, where my mother naturally excelled and probably painted the most beautiful piece of pottery the shop had ever seen (this despite my mother's protestations that she was a terrible artist).  The girls had fun, too, and each got to paint their own pieces of pottery (I painted yet another coffee mug).  From there we went next door to the jewelry making/bead place and the girls and my mom each made their own pieces of jewelry with cool beads (Ella made a necklace and Maisie/mom made bracelets).  I must admit that they all turned out beautifully!

Sunday was a great day because Kim and I took the girls to visit Ella's summer camp, which was hosting an open house.  This camp, called Holiday Hill Day Camp, will be just fabulous.  Its only about 15 minutes from our house and a bus comes directly to our house to pick up Ella, take her to the camp, and bring her home again at the end of the day.  Her days will be spent outside doing all kinds of really cool stuff, like arts and crafts, drama, swimming (twice/day!), boating and just about every sport you can imagine.  They serve the kids a wonderful lunch each day (so glad I'm off lunch duty for the summer) and the kids also get ice cream every afternoon, which I'm totally ok with because they have the kids doing so much exercise that ice cream every afternoon will be perfect.  Two of Ella's little kindergarten friends are also going to this camp, so she feels good knowing she'll be riding the bus with them.  From everything I've heard from other parents, and from seeing the camp myself, I think it will be a really great experience for her.  I think it will be a welcome change from sitting in a classroom all day!

One reason we are taking this option with Ella is that our nanny, Amy, will be working at a camp for disabled kids this summer in Massachusetts, which is something she's been doing for the past several years.  I'll have Maisie attend Mishkan Israel for full days in July, which won't be the best thing in the world but is a pretty short term thing.  July will be an interesting month work-wise, as I'll have to hang  around and wait for Ella's bus, then drop Maisie off.  Then, for two mornings/week, I'll be teaching a health policy course at Yale.  I guess I'll drop into work for a bit after that, and then race home again around 3 to collect Maisie and meet Ella off the bus.  So much for a productive work summer.  I'll just have to make it all up somewhere....somewhere.

Still no news on the house, but I have a much better attitude about it all.  I went for a great run on Saturday morning and decided it didn't do me any good to obsess about selling the house.  From everything I hear, the market is absolutely terrible (unless you are a buyer, and then you have amazing options).  Our realtor was saying there are like 16-18 houses in our neighborhood that are in the same price range and haven't sold for months, so it really doesn't bode well for selling our house.  I guess we'll do another open house this weekend but my hopes are basically nonexistent that we'll actually sell the house this year.  Its extremely disappointing, but as our realtor says, she's never seen a housing market as bad for sellers as this one is.  Great to be part of history...

So, I'm going to stay optimistic by thinking of Ella's cool camp and enjoying the amazing weather we've had.  We have a lot of great things to look forward to and I'm just hoping that at some point we can make this all happen and transition up north.

In the meantime, it feels like summer here, and we've been doing a lot of popsicle eating...

House update

I desperately wish I could report that we had some good news regarding our house, but the truth is that we've had nothing...absolutely nothing.  We had an open house last weekend that was fairly successful in terms of the number of people that showed up (apparently 7-8 different parties), but was absolutely unsuccessful in terms of people making offers or even wanting to see it again.  Our realtor, MJ, said the house showed extremely well and that folks were very positive about it, but it just didn't result in any bits.  What's worse than that, though, is that the house has been on the market nearly three weeks and MJ has gotten exactly TWO phone calls about our house.  That's it!  It just doesn't really bode well for getting it sold in any sort of reasonable timetable.

We spoke to MJ this week and she suggested taking $20K off the price right away to at least get people in the door.  I don't think we're opposed to that, but on the other hand we are losing a chunk of change to take this kind of a hit on the house.  We're planning another open house for May 3rd, so we'll see how that one goes.  MJ says that houses in the 350-450 range just aren't selling...the only things really selling are the cheaper ones for the first time home buyers.

I'm sort of depressed entirely (I know, I know...after I was ecstatically happy in a post before)...call me bipolar.  I guess moving to Amherst just represents so much for me.  To me, its an opportunity to really change the way I live in so many ways.  Because I would be working from home 3 days/week, I would have the opportunity to spend so much more time with the kids, as I would get to see them off to school and pick them up at the end of the day.  The whole atmosphere up there is so much more family-oriented than it seems to be here, and I like the thought of putting family first rather than the competitiveness generated by Yale.  Its not that I don't like the work I do, as I really do, but sometimes the environment down here is just so filled with competition and achievement that it gets exhausting (especially if the competition is purely for the sake of one-upsmanship).  I long to live in a more laid-back environment where every bit of self-worth wasn't about how smart you are (a battle I rarely, if ever, win).

The clock is ticking, and its pretty loud.  We really need to sell the house in May or the end of June at the latest to make this whole move feasible in terms of relocating up there.  I don't know what we'll do if the house is still on the market at the beginning of July.  Wait until next year (seriously a terrible option)?  Rent out this house until it sells?  But then we'd have to find a rental house up there to occupy until we could buy, and the thought of moving twice is nauseating.

Anyway, I'm obsessing, and its not fun.  I should really just enjoy the beautiful weekend that we're about to have.  My mom is coming up tomorrow to celebrate her birthday, and we've got all sorts of fun things planned for the next day or two.  I should just be imbued with positive thoughts.

Well, here's a good start:  pictures below are from this afternoon at the playground...just a taste of all the great weather that's still to come.  Don't you just love Maisie's uncharacteristically pensive face?

Really, extremely happy

Well, I should be working, but instead I'm sitting here just feeling completely filled with happiness, which I must admit is such a wonderful feeling (and rare, if you really think about how often one is just completely feeling utterly happy).  When you think about happiness you can certainly think about moments here or there when you've been happy about one thing or another, but to feel so completely imbued is another thing.  So, instead of working, I'm just sitting here enjoying the feeling (with my office door closed so its not entirely apparent that I'm sitting looking out the window at the spring day and not really doing much else).

As usual, I went up to Amherst last night to meet Kim and I have come away knowing, really absolutely knowing, that Amherst is the right place for us. I wish I could put it all into words, but its hard to do.  Though it sounds silly, a big part of it is feeling an absolute sense of beauty of the area.  I've tried to describe it before, but I somehow feel that I connect with the land there in a way that I don't feel like I've done since I lived in Montana.  And maybe its because it reminds me of growing up in Eastern Montana that makes it all so likeable.  Though its many things, Amherst is a farming area with lots of wide open spaces.  Some of those spaces are fields where crops are planted, and other spaces are grazing areas for cattle or other animals.  On nearly all sides of this pastoral land are large hils/small mountains that rise up to about 1000 feet or so.  The Holyoke Range is at the southern end of Amherst (pictures from atop Holyoke Range below), and the northern end is surrounded by a different set of hills.  Beautiful little farms dot the landscape, and there are long, straight roads heading straight into the farmland that remind me a lot of Montana.

The center of Amherst, where UMass Amherst and Amherst College are located, is a great little old-time feeling community without all the usual trappings of urban centers (no Starbucks, no Dunkin Donuts, no Barnes and Noble).  There's young people everywhere, it seems, and they all seem progressive, funky, liberal, interesting.

But, one of the other things that's got me feeling so good today is the sense of community that I'm starting to feel there.  We went to a UMass Women's softball game last night, and the stands were filled (!!) with all kinds of people from the community.  Mostly, though, there were a lot of older retired persons there who clearly came out to enjoy the beautiful afternoon and knew every last player on the women's softball team (and probably every statistic of every player).  I've never seen anything like it before in terms of community engagement in a very non high-profile sport.  Kids were everywhere, and it was really a great family atmosphere.  Our good friends brought their three kids, and both Kim and I thought Ella and Maisie would have really loved it.  The whole experience, on this beautiful spring afternoon/early evening, was just cool.

Coupled with all of that, we found a house that we really, really like.  As it turns out, our friends found the house for us, largely because its more or less next door (well, two doors down) from their house.  The house itself is a beautiful Colonial, much like our house, and the inside is well-cared for. We had a really nice conversation with the owner (for sale by owner), who had been living there with her husband and (now grown) children for the past 15 years.  The neighborhood is one of those neighborhoods with nice, tree-lined streets and young kids in almost every house (and yes..the community is extremely gay friendly, as revealed by our friends who have lived in the neighborhood for over 10 years).  It would be so neat to live in this neighborhood, very close to friends that we already know, and kids that Ella and Maisie already enjoy hanging out with. I would buy the house in a second if I could.  IMPORTANT FOOTNOTE:  We cannot buy the house until our house sells, a point Kim has reminded me about over 100 times already.  But I can still dream.

I've visited the school that Ella would attend and have put down a deposit for a nursery school for Maisie, so I also feel pretty comfortable on that front that we're making the right decision.  Though I know that in many ways it will be difficult for the girls to leave their current environments, and particularly having the chance to see their father twice/week, I think that in the long run this is a good move for us and that we can work out arrangments so they can see him every weekend.  I have spoken to my boss at work and she has given me clearance to work from Amherst several days/week (and in fact, we may set up another study site at the Northampton VA), so everything seems to be falling into place.  Except the house...we must sell the house (open house this weekend!!).

So, I just feel euphoric.  There's so many things about Amherst that really work for me, and I think it will be a really wonderful place for our family.  I haven't even mentioned the running (oh, the running!).  The running up there is fabulous.  I found out that I can run, in one direction, 11 miles across the Holyoke Range, which makes me happier than almost anything.  I do want to run another ultramarathon in September so its good to know I'll have a great place in which to prepare for that race.

And, if all that weren't enough, as I've mentioned before, our good friends Sheila and Meg, and their kids, will be moving there this summer, so it will be nice to reconnect with them and have their girls and our girls hang out together.  Maybe we can even find another house for sale in the same neighborhood that they can buy (clearly, I'm all about community, and have clearly lacked a sense of community for the past 10 years).

Enough blathering for now.  Its just nice to be happy.  I'm sure something will come along at some point soon and rain on my parade, but its nice to enjoy the parade while it lasts.

Here's pictures taken by Kim this morning on our trail run (on top of the Holyoke Range), and looking out onto the Pioneer Valley.  The pictures don't do it justice:  its breath-takingly beautiful.

 

Marching forward

Here's the thing:  I haven't taken much time to write in the past six months because its been basketball season.  At least 2, if not 3, nights each week we've been glued to the tv watching Connecticut women's basketball.  As much as I love basketball, its always a bit of relief when its all over in early April and I can go back to doing the things I usually do at night (and it takes awhile to remember what I do when I'm not watching basketball).  I think one of the things was blogging.

Anyway...the house is officially on the market and the awful For Sale sign is in the yard.  I really hate For Sale signs as they just seem to be such a public outing of private plans, but our realtor says they're a must so we have one.  We have an open house this Sunday and I'm hoping it goes at least moderately well.  Its extremely difficult to sell a house with young kids underfoot, as it requires keeping the house relatively clean and clutter-free, which we are awful at doing.  I'm not sure how much explicit hope Kim and I are putting into selling the house.  It would be great if we could do it, but in this housing market and economy, it seems unlikely. 

We did get word today of a very nice house in Amherst that is pretty much next door to our good friends up there, so that's something to get very excited about.  The house looks nice, is roughly in our price range, is in a great school district, is in a nice neighborhood setting, and is only about 3/4 mile from Kim's work, so all of that is great.  Perhaps most importantly, as I mentioned, it is just a house or two down from our friends there with kids Ella's age (and those kids really like Maisie, too) so that would be a really nice house to be able to get for the kids' sake, as it might reduce some of the difficulty of moving out of our current community as we would give them something nice to look forward to in Amherst.  But, its all a waiting game, and I am generally terrible at waiting games.

Speaking of marching forward, I had a very nice conversation with the dean of the school of public health at Yale.  He and I are working together on a couple of research projects and I asked him about his advice for career advancement, either at Yale or elsewhere.  We had a very nice conversation and I got some surprising answers and perspectives from him, which I've been weighing over in my mind a bit this afternoon.  His wife recently died of breast cancer at a fairly young age, so I think his perspective is one of putting everything in context and weighing what's really important.  I'm not sure our conversation will necessarily make me do anything differently, but perhaps it might take some of the self-imposed pressure in terms of trying to do everything all at once.

One of the other nice things I've been doing is running with one of Ella's classmates' mothers.  She is training for a half marathon in New York City at the end of the month and I volunteered to help her get through her last few long runs in preparation for that race.  We've had two long runs together now, and I must say that its been really nice to run with somebody and chit chat.  I usually spend all of my time running alone in the woods (which is very peaceful and not at all lonely, but also doesn't allow for much social bonding).  I used to spend a lot of time running with other people in running groups or track clubs but that has all but ceased to exist, save for the occasional run with Kim (and sometimes we talk while running and sometimes we don't, which is also nice).

In theory, I'm still planning to run the same ultramarathon in Vermont at the end of September, and Kim has signed up for a triathlon in New Hampshire in July (which is very cool, as the girls and I will get to spend a day or two with my friends Kris and John and their kids).  Those races seem a long way off, and both of us have a lot of work left to do to prepare for them, but its always nice to set your sights on some distant goal and work towards it.

I think that's about it for tonight.  I'm alone with the girls tonight and that always makes me somewhat nervous on some level.  Not on the 'what if somebody breaks into our house'? level but rather the 'what happens if one of the kids is violently ill during the night and there's nothing I can do about it?' level.  I guess a perfect example of that was last Monday night when Maisie was really sick with a cold and there wasn't much I could do to stop her from coughing (except the hot steam shower at 3:15 am).  That did work, but I remain nervous nonetheless.

And this, if for no other reason, is probably the best reason why Kim and I should actually live in the same state.

Oh, and here's a nice picture of Amy and the girls from this afternoon.  I was trying to take a picture of the cute ponytail that Maisie had in her hair, but she wanted nothing to do with a picture so the only way I could remotely get her in the picture was to add Amy and Ella, too (not that they're not all photogenic!).

Easter Sunday with family

We had Easter dinner at our house this year, and I made my first-ever ham (dead pig, really, which only needs to be heated for an hour before served).  It turned out alright, I guess, but you can't really ruin a big dead piece of meat that just has to be heated up in the oven for an hour.  My parents and Howie all came over for dinner, and between the dead pig and the various vegetarian dishes I think everybody was pretty well satisfied.

Though it was sunny and pretty outside, it was pretty cold so the girls didn't get to do too much of an Easter Egg hunt.  My mom did bring a big bucket of eggs over and we hid a few in the year and some more in the house, which seemed more than sufficient for both of them.

Tomorrow is the big day when the For Sale goes up in our yard, and I'm nervous about it.  I have no idea what will happen with our house...whether somebody will be interested or not.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, we were really torn about whether to put the house on the market or not, but we ultimately decided to give it a try and see how things went.  We are also going forward with the three parent adoption thing, where both Howie and Kim get legal parenting rights of both kids, but as I mentioned (didn't I?), in order to do this we need to be Massachusetts residents, as its only legal in Massachusetts.  So, we'll see how everything works out.  I guess we're leaving it all up to fate, in some ways.  We do have an open house scheduled for next Sunday (the 18th), so we'll see whether there is any real interest in the house at that time.  We just have so much STUFF everywhere all the time that's its hard to imagine that anybody will be able to see through the stuff to our actual house.

 

Some hard decisions to make

As most of you know, we are on the verge of some very tough (and exciting) decisions about whether to stay here in New Haven or move to Amherst for Kim's new job.  Its certainly not an easy decision, and lately there have been a few things that have come up that complicate the decision.  Because I like lists, here's a quick run-down of the big issues, along with whether each issue makes me think we should stay or go:

1.  The girl's father:  Howie, the girl's father, lives in New Haven.  The girls have a wonderful relationship with him.  The stay over at his house one night each week for a 'sleepover' and he also sees them on the weekends.  Because of his job at Yale, he will likely stay in New Haven and not move to Massachusetts.  Advantage:  Staying in Connecticut

2.  Kim's job:  Though its not right now, Kim's job in the fall will become a 7-day/week job as she takes on sport oversight responsibilities and needs to work on Saturdays and Sundays.  This will be a huge burden for us, as then she'll be gone an enormous amount of time.  It would be much easier if we all lived in the same town so this wasn't such a burden on our family.  Advantage:  Move to Amherst

3.  Community:  Kim absolutely loves Amherst, as do I.  Its a very laid-back lifestyle, and its active lifestyle very much fits who we are as a family.  We have started to make some really great friends up there, and our good friends Sheila and Meg are moving there this summer with their daughters.  Amherst is closer to my parents than New Haven is, and its simply a wonderful community to raise children.  The schools are of high quality and the area is beautiful.  Advantage:  Move to Amherst

5.  My job:  I really love the research I'm doing at Yale.  I think I have finally found a position (after much searching) where I am happy, really like what I'm doing, and love the people I am working with.  I really have no intention to leave.  I spoke with my boss the other day about potentially moving and she is fine with that, and says that I can commute down to New Haven 2-3 days/week and work in Amherst the other two days.  However, my Yale job is just one of the jobs that I do, and I have a number of other consulting jobs that I do in Connecticut, which require me to be in Connecticut quite a bit.  I also do an enormous amount of interviewing of my research subjects, which isn't something that I can do by computer from a remote location.  The other issue with moving is that I would likely be gone from Amherst one night each week as I would probably go down to New Haven on Tuesday mornings, stay overnight Tuesday night, work all day Wednesday and come home Wednesday night.  Kim would have to pick up the slack. But, on the other hand, I would be home two full days each week and would be able to drive the kids to school and pick them up after school, so we'd really only have to have 2 or 3 days of a babysitter to help us out during the week.  Advantage:  Could go either way.  Hard to tell.

6.  Amy:  We actually really adore the babysitter we have now (Amy).  The girls think the world of her and so do Kim and I.  She is a wonderful babysitter and if we decided to stay in Hamden, it would be great to have everything stay the same as it is now in terms of her schedule picking up the girls (provided Amy wants to do that.)  If we moved up there, we'd have to start the babysitter search all over again.  I'm sure we could find somebody, but its just another thing we have to do.  Advantage:  Stay in Connecticut

7.  The housing market:  Well, its crappy.  We would have to put our house on the market for $50,000 less than we would have thought we would.  On the other hand, if we sell our house, we might be able to go to Amherst and get a great house, given how hard it is for houses to sell.  I think our house is a steal, so it could sell quickly, or it could not sell.  If it doesn't sell, then clearly we won't move.  Advantage:  Depends on house

8.  Three parent adoption:  Howie, Kim and I have begun to talk to a lawyer about the possibility of this thing called three parent adoption.  At present, Kim has legally adopted Ella and Howie is still technically Maisie's other parent (Kim hasn't adopted her yet).  If we moved to Massachusetts, there is something called three parent adoption, where three parents could legally be parents (and this isn't in any other state).  This would give both Kim and Howie legal parenthood protections of BOTH children, and would allow both children to have social security benefits from Howie, Kim, and myself.  ITs a win-win for everybody, but we need to live in Massachusetts to take advantage of it.  Advantage:  Massachusetts

9.  Our current neighbors:  Both Kim and I would be DELIGHTED to move out of our current neighborhood.  Neither of us see the situation improving at all after nearly two years.  We almost hate this time of year because it means more time outside and more strange, unspoken tension between our gay-hating neighbors and us.  I know it may not seem like a big deal, but it really causes us a LOT of stress.  I just can't imagine going on this way, seriously.  HUGE Advantage:  Move to Massachusetts

One in-between option to this confusion would be for Kim to rent a nice 2-bedroom apartment in Amherst (with a bedroom for the girls).  We could all stay up there on occasion (weekends when Kim has activities or other times as needed).  We could try this out for a year to see how it went.  I could continue to go up there once during the week so Kim and I could continue to have a nice night together during the week, and the girls might be excited to have a whole new bedroom up there where we could go on occasion and hang out with our friends.  Howie and I just talked about this yesterday, and it seems like an interesting idea.  This would rid Kim of her nasty apartment and would give her someplace nice to live so she didn't stay in her office working every night until 10:30 at night.  Of course, this still leave the majority of childcare burden on me.  I don't think this addresses the three parent adoption thing, though, as I think the girls have to be legal residents of Massachusetts in order for the adoption to go through.

There's lots more issues, but Maisie is now awake and I have no time left to write.

So, what do you think?  Should we stay or should we go?  What should be the highest priority in terms of all these factors in terms of making a decision?