Category Archives: moving

redoing plans

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November

5-Ortho

9-Austin for KRW

10-Tay

LA mid-month

House remodeling stuff?

December

House remodeling stuff?

Hanging out in Fremont?

January

8-mouths for all

hepatitis follow up

check in at Santa Barbara?

Feb

DC?

Mar

Bath Ruby? -England

UK?

April

Isle of Ruby? – England

Ruby Elixir? – Taiwan

18-20- Japan for Ruby Kaigi

probably schedule trip back to bay area check on dental stuff.

30-May 2- Rails Conf Minneapolis

May

Ruby Hack- Ut

Utah?

June

Ruby Nation? – Va/Md

Not sure where

July

kids and I in UK?

Brighton Ruby? – England

dental cleanings due

August

Euroku? – not sure where

south east Ruby – Tn

September

UK?

October

UK?

November

UK?

Rubyconf? unannounced for date

Still not sure. erf.

Would I be able to do DC-England for conferences-Taiwan for conference-Japan for conference-Minneapolis-Utah without me killing my kids?

Looking at numbers

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Since the beginning of my time on Mint I have spent $671,557.96 on my house. That’s all spending.

I started using Mint in September of 2009. So 9 years of tracking. Noah and I were married for three years before that and he bought the house in December of 2002 I think. Let’s call it 16 years of paying on the mortgage. I’m away one year from being done with it.

Obviously the home equity line of credit would own my ass for a few years if I stayed.

If I look at just the bathroom remodel let’s say I put in 9 months of labor (I put in over 2 years) and that I worked 10 hours a day 5 days a week. (In reality I often worked 12-16 hours/day and 6 or 7 days per week.) But just to make the number not seem inflated.

Very conservatively that’s 1,950 hours. I’ll call it 2,000 just to make it easier. I mean… really.

Then there’s the garage. That was not as laborious, but it took quite a bit of work. And the yards.

I understand that a lot of the painting in my house (bedrooms, living room, kitchen) are on the chopping block.

So let’s say that I have put an absolute minimum of 3,000 hours of work on my house.

In between principal and interest and other major home remodeling stuff I’m going to guess that Noah paid $150,000 before I started tracking on mint.

So we’ve paid out of pocket probably at least $800,000 for this house and yard and arbor and play set and and and.

How much is my time worth?

How much is my creativity worth?

Now, paying a lot of money for something doesn’t mean you can get that money back. Sometimes you can’t. That’s a fact and I get that.

Houses in my neighborhood are selling in under a month for over a million dollars.

How much do I value myself and the future I can have with Noah and my kids?

Questions.

If I make the house neutral enough but leave some symbolic art pieces (most of the garage, the hallway, the bathroom) I can probably find someone who is genuinely excited to own this house with the art.

I won’t get to visit the art again, but such is life.

I wanted to sell to a friend. I wanted to be able to visit the art. But if life isn’t going to grant me that serendipity it isn’t. I can cope.

This is going to be complicated.

Everyone has a price.

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I’m pretty sure that everyone who reads this knows I have issues with control. Selling the house is hard on a number of levels. I have put so much physical and emotional labor into this space. It’s complicated because I never wanted to live here… but I grew where I was planted.

I was willing to accept half a million dollars below market value so that I could visit my art in the future and I could feel appreciated for having made these cool things.

My friend came over yesterday and told me that their intention is to paint over the whole house. I think they will keep the tile in the bathroom, but I got the impression that even the trees might be painted over.

I felt like I was punched in the gut.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

I can’t devalue how much of my body and life went into this house. I can’t fuck my family financially so you can erase me.

They are going to paint over it with a nice cream.

A nice cream.

I mean, that’s a lovely thing to want. But you can pay market value for wanting that. Market value in my neighborhood starts at $1.2 million, not $750,000. Shitty condos in my area are selling for more than $750,000.

I am cannot subsidize your dreams at the expense of all of my own. Accepting that much less money means Noah will have to wait longer to retire and one of our biggest stated reasons for selling the house is so that Noah can retire earlier.

No.

I can’t accept that offer. I will hate myself until the day I die for accepting that my work here was worth so little money in the scheme of what things are worth in this valley.

The house was a nice cream when I moved in. (Not really. It was a crappy white. But what-fucking-ever.)

No.

I can’t subsidize that. I can’t. It would be violent erasure of myself for me to accept that. It would be accepting that I only deserve to get the actual money I’ve already paid back and my improvements are worthless.

No.

That’s… no.

Apparently my price to be erased is higher than that.

a weekend update

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I am so grateful my husband is happy to take the baby for almost the whole day minus feeding time. I am so grateful that my third kid will tolerate being handed off like this. My older kids would have screamed the roof off.

I made my kids spend the whole weekend sorting their stuff. A box for Washington DC (daycare, dear child) (our first hop) and a box for Scotland (second hop) and long term storage and donations. I’m glad we’ve spent the last three months purging because this was still super hard and they didn’t finish.

I understand why my mom spent so much time screaming and hitting me when it came time to pack. This is frustrating as fuck. But I have time so I didn’t scream and I never hit my kids. I feel more compassion for her. She usually had to pack a whole house and move in a weekend or less. I’m spending 5 months on this process. I am creating the space for me to be calm while I do it.

I think most parents are assholes (when they are assholes) because they are overwhelmed and don’t really have enough cope/resources for what they are trying to do.

I spent a bunch of time looking into a POD type storage unit or a local in house place. Given that we have to come back and forth to this area for medical stuff, an in house place will be cheapest and most accessible. I’m pretty happy that we are going to be able to visit the library and check books in and out.  I don’t have to ask friends for very much help. This is ideal. I was anxious about asking other people to do work for me. That’s a good way to sour a relationship.

We are selling our fabulous art house to friends who will properly appreciate it. I’m pretty sure everything will be fine. Until that’s signed and delivered I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s some details about the situation I won’t post publicly. But I have a lot of hope.

It turns out we have too many books about religion to do all of the reading in a twelve month period. It’ll take closer to two years. We went through and put post its on the books today and my daughter laid out how she wants to tackle the subject. I’m proud of just how capable of forethought she is. She’s only ten. She decided that she wants to understand people better and she thinks she won’t be able to wrap her head around people until she gets their religions.

I look up to my daughter. She’s an upstanding little person. I learn so much about how to be kind and giving and loving from her.

My son reminds me every single day that my words have power. My body has power. I can intimidate people or I can help them feel safe. I can be nasty and effective or I can be kind and useful. I don’t have to be terrible to get shit done. He teaches me this deep in my belly. We remind each other to watch our tone because we both uhhhh kind of think hostility is the most comfortable approach. But it isn’t. We have to work on this. We try so hard together and we laugh at our mistakes. I’m so glad I get to learn with this wonderful person.

And our baby is the happiest baby I’ve ever been able to be near. I don’t know what the fuck happened. My older kids were not this happy. I think it’s because she loves her little pod of people. Last night at dinner for the first time I put the baby on a chair in between the big kids for dinner and gave her some toys. She was ecstatic to be with the big kids. She kept leaning towards them in this tender way and laughing.

I feel so very lucky that I get to be here. I am allowed to be part of this family. No one is going to make me leave.

It is very hard to believe this is my life.

I made a bunch of progress on packing the garage. Easter stuff is gone. That feels massive after all the Easter parties. I haven’t been ready to sort Christmas yet. We aren’t going to keep that big of a percentage of the stuff. Definitely the tree ornaments. How much more though?

What is important?

If you fail to plan you plan to fail.

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It’s hard to get my thoughts organized. I’m struggling on a few levels. I’m struggling with the need to organize my thoughts and my possessions for the move. I’m struggling with all of my feelings about gender and people transitioning and gender conforming behavior. I’m struggling with my various levels of tolerance for teaching people who are different points on the path regardless of age.

It was refreshing to me to see the counselor visibly coping with how upset she is that so many children at a camp for gender nonconforming kids are doubling down on the binary. Fluidity is valid. There is no trait that belongs to a gender (liking toys, tv shows, or colors, long hair).( deleted pissiness)

I am sometimes foolishly optimistic.

=================================

We’ve done a little bit of packing today. I am two boxes away from being done with adult fiction. I need more tape before I can continue. Whoops. We are instead sorting and organizing and putting stuff out on the table. All of the kid stuff that isn’t a book or clothes is now in one room. That’s a huge accomplishment for our little household. They have thrown up on my house over the last few years.

And realistically I haven’t taken things off the walls yet so there’s still school posters up. (Some are down already but not all of them.)

September

With a weekend long party that ends on the 2nd of the month I need to have the house cleaned up and mostly packed by the end of August.

11: Mexico trip. The only stuff left will be stuff that is coming with us on the permanent travel or stuff we will drop off at Goodwill on our way out of town.

I suspect I should order the pod/packing unit for September 24 and finish filling it by October 5.

October

Disneyland

Malaysia

Halloween at our house.

November

5-Ortho

9-Austin for KRW

10-Tay

Deal with selling the house? I’m still a hair fuzzy on how this is going to go. I am waiting for a few details on their end because that’s Important.

LA mid-month

Head to DC?

December

DC

January

8-mouths for all

hepatitis follow up

check in at Santa Barbara?

Feb

UK?

Mar

Bath Ruby? -England

UK?

April

Isle of Ruby? – England

Ruby Elixir? – Taiwan

18-20- Japan for Ruby Kaigi

probably schedule trip back to bay area check on dental stuff.

30-May 2- Rails Conf Minneapolis

May

Ruby Hack- Ut

up in the air.

June

Ruby Nation? – Va/Md

July

Brighton Ruby? – England

dental cleanings due

August

Euroku? – not sure where

south east Ruby – Tn

September

UK?

October

UK?

November

UK?

Rubyconf? unannounced for date

 

That’s the end of my steam for today. I’m weary.

I might be an asshole, but I still need to plan.

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There’s a bunch of stuff coming up and I’m feeling incredibly self conscious about the fact that my life is absolutely unfairly ridiculously awesome. What I am doing with my life is available to an incredibly small segment of the population and that’s awkward as fuck. But if I don’t plan because I feel awkward things will fail and then I will get to feel awkward and stupid instead of awkward and like I had some fucktastically cool adventures.

Need to pack more books.

Need to research DC more. Yes museums, but apartments and transportation and grocery shopping stuff. We don’t have dates of arrival yet so I can’t get too married to any one situation. But I should spend a fair bit of time staring at a map and figuring out where Pam lives and getting oriented about all the crap I’m going to need to know. Are there home school park days or drop in stuff?

I need to do more research on Malaysia. To some degree we are going to arrive and go “Now what?” but I want to have a very good idea of where things are. I may want to download a compass app for my phone. I look at maps a lot and I need to be able to orient my internal view of the city.

I have to pack books so I can see how much shit is going into storage so I can figure out what kind of storage company is the best deal. I want to put stuff in storage before we do fun pictures of the house. I need to schedule the photo shoot. We want a last photo shoot here so we can remember.

We talked about having a big party. Maybe. We do miss people. I don’t know how our bodies are feeling.

I need to do more looking around the UK. I’m torn between wanting to spend 6 months in Jenny’s city and knowing that people get awful sick of me and my shit. I keep friends better if I don’t overwhelm people.

Luggage stuff. At this point we have a whole bunch of small carry on bags, one giant roller suitcase, and two small roller suitcases of the carry-on variety.

I need to figure out some sort of frequent flier mileage program and figure out how we are all going to start collecting points. Because the next few years… we will want that.

Travel high chair/booster seat? The options are interesting. I don’t think I’d like one of the ones that attach to a table. I worry that the ones with a fully booster under then will be a pain in terms of bulk to carry around (but they put the kid at table height). Thee are also pure cloth ones that are light, easy to transport… but the baby will be too low to eat off the table.

Car seats. I think we are just figuring out public transit.

Today I should pack boxes. I was pretty lazy/restful yesterday. I should make progress today.

I packed two boxes. I loaded the table in the front yard.

To do list for moving/travel

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  • Update all passwords because I’ve been using the same fucking thing for over 20 years and that’s ridiculous. Luckily, I have infosec friends who will help me be less stupid over the next 20 years.
  • Go through pantry and make a physical list for Noah with meal suggestions. (It’s not fair to leave this mental task all to him.)
  • Fill out medical forms for travel clinic
  • Fill out legal forms
  • Contact lawyer for updating the trust & will
  • Drop off form to doctor
  • Pack books
  • Keep dispersing personal possessions
  • Make giant list of camping gear/trailer stuff for an ad. It’ll be easiest to get rid of all that in one go as a “Burning Man Special”

 

I’m sure there’s more. I’m so tired.

 

attempt at phrasing

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This sucker will have more than one draft so here I go.

Howdy family!

You are getting a mid-year letter because if I wait for Christmas it’ll be too late. We are changing things up in our house. By which I mean… we are getting rid of the house. Yes yes, after that really long remodel… we are getting rid of the house. The bay are is going through an absolutely absurd real estate boom and if we sell the house right now we are 95% sure Noah will get to retire at a fairly young age and if we hold on to the house he is going to be working into his 60’s. I like him and I’d rather spend the time with him.

So we are selling the house. That means we have to live somewhere else. Where? We aren’t sure yet. We have a wide variety of places we are interested in and we want to short-term rent apartments in places and see if we can find friends/home schoolers/tech people who will want us to stay longer. Most of the places we are interested in are other countries.

We want to try (in no particular order): Scotland, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Costa Rica and we really should spend time in Asia and Africa and I don’t know which countries yet.

So we aren’t settling down any year super soon. I suspect we will be in transit for at least two years and I’m not sure how much longer than that we will spend searching. It depends on if a place feels so much like home that we just can’t bear leaving.

We aim to put our house on the market in October. Thus waiting for a Christmas letter would be a bit behind the times.

We are getting rid of the vast majority of everything we own. We will travel with suitcases and we will put my library in storage. Eventually when we land somewhere permanently my library will follow us but it’ll have to just wait a bit. The next few years it will probably be best to not send us big boxes of stuff for birthdays and Christmas. What will be good presents? Gosh I don’t know. Long letters with stories we can savor? Food? I’m sure my kids will be thrilled about presents that allow them to buy digital copies of books because we are about to go through a long period where they aren’t permitted to buy physical books. This is going to be a challenge for us.

We want to learn how to live lightly. This adventure will be part of it.

Yes, I am bringing my cloth diapers. Every single aspect of handling a baby is more fun when they have an adorably cute butt.

 

I don’t love this letter.

Research

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Argentina- probably too politically unstable.

Australia- they even speak English

Canada- also English speaking, Jesus H Christ cold

Columbia- I need to look up more.

Costa Rica- I hear good things, a strong possibility

Ecuador- first glance around indicates expats like it but internet sounds too slow for us

Jamaica- could be fun

Mexico- I grew up in neighborhoods full of Mexicans. I think I could live near the culture with great harmony. I have a lot of faith I could make friends there.

Peru- Also a place I hear good things about but I need to learn more.

Spain- the primary European country I’d be interested in. I guess pushing my weak ass Spanish to fluency is more appealing than trying to learn another European language.

Uruguay- I don’t know much yet

In the US, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, or Alaska are the best choices which isn’t surprising. They are the more tempting states.

I need to start doing some research.

Things I want to know about all of these places: availability of internet, weather, what are they like culturally, is home schooling legal, and what is the situation like for expats?

Reading expat sites is fascinating. A lot of these people… don’t go meet the locals so they can’t find things. That seems so silly to me.

I clearly feel a strong pull towards the Spanish speaking countries. Noah knows a little and would pick up more easily. I’m 33% of the way to fluent according to Duolingo but when I worked in clothing stores and food service I could help customers.  I will improve fast. MC is already studying. EC hasn’t wanted to learn yet but I think she would pick it up fast if surrounded by it.

We need to research the shit out of these places and do positive/negative comparisons.

EC is voting for Canada so she can go meet youtubers.

That’s 11 possible countries. 2 still in North America. 3 are English speaking (Jamaica doesn’t really count but sorta). 8 are Spanish speaking.

Ok. Lots of research to come.

Go.

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Noah is asking more insistently about leaving the country. He points out that we are looking on the verge of fascism/revolution and uhhh my personality is the sort where I would probably be in the first wave of people who would resist in a stupid way and get shot.

He’s not wrong. I’m not secretive. I’m a fine activist in a democracy. In a fascist state I would be silenced.

History shows that his concern isn’t paranoia; it’s logic. I’m loud in a problematic way and I know it. But that does change the search for “where to go” by a lot. Marijuana is going to be one of our biggest issues. It’s not legal in many places.

This is going to be hard. But, we’ll figure something out. Anywhere these four people go will be my home. I’m glad that part is for certain.

Judgment and internal compass

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I feel like a flaming asshole for comparing the two dudes I saw at the party. I’m doing it less to make any kind of point about them and more to see for myself where my earliest judgments about people are proven true later.

My family is talking about moving constantly. It’s a huge focus of conversation and thought in our house. What is it going to mean to us? How is it going to work? No one thinks this house is long-term appropriate so moving is in the cards…

I am going to move somewhere and not have an entire back story with people. I will go to parties and not have a minimum of two former lovers in each room. It’s going to be… different. I depend a lot on the experiences I’ve had to decide if a person is safe or not. I’m going to throw out all of my hard earned experience and go start over.

Only I’m not really throwing it all away.

I’m thinking about the differences between the two men because I’m thinking about how to look for signals of appropriateness and compatibility in the future. Not for sex necessarily, but for friendship.

I like how God talks to me. Even though I was a very fucked up teenager who totally wanted to go there again after he realized that he didn’t want that kind of relationship with me he proceeded to enact healthy boundaries and stay my friend. He has never spoken to me disrespectfully in over 20 years of knowing one another. He’s not a braggart. He’s humble and giving and compassionate. His wife is a nice lady who has never boundary stomped with me and instead she is excruciatingly polite to me.

How do I look for people more like that in the future?

Well… for one thing when someone wants to sit me down to tell me how life is going and mostly I hear brags about how important they are at work… probably not going to be my kind of person.

It’s not that people are wrong for taking pride in their work. That’s totally ok. But if I’ve known you for a decade and we haven’t really talked in 3+ years and most of what I hear is that you are the only competent person at your job…

Mostly I’m going to hear that you don’t have a lot of respect for the people around you. Because in my experience most people who brag that they are the head of a department because no one else is competent… uhm… Hey… Dunning-Kruger…

I mean. I’m not saying that other dude is actually crappy at his job. I am not evaluating that in any way shape or form. But a complete lack of humility is a sign I probably won’t like someone.

And the fact that other dudes wife walked into the room and yelled, “AGAIN?! Don’t you know what causes that?!!”

Yeah. I know we had to go to the nice doctor who did the original vasectomy and get a reversal and then there was a whole process after that. Yup. I’m totally fucking aware of what causes my current condition.

And go fuck yourself.

Yes yes, you morally superior one and done people. I don’t give a flying fuck.

(I think it is fine for people to have one child. I think that it is obnoxious as fuck for someone to act like their choice is THE moral choice.)

When I had an issue with God’s parents… he stood up for me and did not allow them to verbally be rude to me. When I have issues with other dude’s family/wife… he just kind of looks down. Because he knows better than to sass the Head Bitch In Charge of his family… even as he snarks her and low level disrespects her constantly.

I want more people in my life who are consistent, respectful, and compassionate.

I don’t always pick poorly. Sometimes I manage to stumble across people who give me hope for my species.

It’s like my friend Y. A gal I’ve known since middle school. I visited her in Tennessee and I bought her the car. She’s generous, compassionate, and kind. Absolutely consistently across the board even when it isn’t easy for her.

I do have a good picker. Even though I doubt almost everything about myself and my ability to evaluate if people are good or not.

But then we get into serious asshole territory. I’m not actually evaluating if people are GOOD or BAD. I’m evaluating if they are compatible with me. I’m evaluating if they model the kinds of behavior patterns I want my children watching and emulating. I’m evaluating if they are people who will help me feel like there are people who want me alive and who care about me.

Not that my life should depend on the evaluation of anyone else. I know that’s fucked up.

But can I go find people who will treat me in a way I want to be treated? I’m a picky and demanding bitch. I’m also generous and compassionate and I’m quick to step up if someone needs help.

I like people who want to be the helpers instead of people who want to be told how cool they are.

And that doesn’t really make someone good or bad. But it does decide a lot about how compatible I will be with a given person.

There is a big piece of me that is fairly terrified of trying to build a new community. That sounds hard. But I think back to the people who joined the various communities after me. The people who bravely asserted themselves and created spaces that were uniquely *them* shaped.

I can do that. And if I can do it without feeling constantly haunted by all the rapists from my past… maybe it will even go better. It’s not that I will find a community free of rapists… such a place doesn’t exist… but maybe my avoidance won’t kick in for a while.

I don’t know.

I want to believe that I can go find new good people. I want to believe that I am capable of attracting people who will be good to and for me. Not attracting in the sex sense. Just in the friendship sense. Because in the long run, my friendship with God is what has made him so wonderful in my life. The hour we had sex…. well, it was fun… but that’s not what defines our relationship.

I am so grateful for the lessons I have been able to learn with the people I have been privileged to know.

But maybe it is time for some new lessons.