Highlights from the NC Museum of Art

Some highlights from the NC Museum of Art. We finally visited and saw the entire museum. It is an absolutely beautiful building and is filled with world-class art.
The restaurant is fantastic as well, although reservations are highly recommended.

Downtown Raleigh

A beautiful hot summer day, right about lunchtime.

ArtSplosion!!!

It isn't a real word, but these aren't real buildings. If I have time I might just take the $5 tour.
http://www.architects-of-air.com/

More pictures

The 'W' stands for...

Here are some more pictures of our new house. I'll put up one more set when we've moved in more completely and have pictures on the wall. We have a lot of pictures to hang, a fact that I am reminded of every time we move. We have so many pictures that my beloved posters (remember, I was once a college student) have no home. I keep them, and will likely continue to keep them for the rest of my life, rolled up safely in a series of cardboard tubes. On the off-chance that we will one day live in a house so big that we can have a 'poster room.' Unlikely, I know.

That was quite a digression, but it seemed appropriate. I discover many, many pounds of things that have been kept in boxes for years, from one move to the next. We did a fantastically good job of shedding much of our excess weight when we moved to North Carolina last year. But we didn't get rid of everything, and we didn't even git rid of the inessentials, the vestigal remnants of our past lives and fascinations.

As far as I can tell, the dogs love the new place. They have a yard to run around in (finally) and now that the large-scale moving has finished, Julian has relaxed a bit as well. He hates large, unfamiliar things (like packing boxes) and was very much on edge for much of last week. I felt really bad for him and am glad that he is now sleeping peacefully on the couch, leaving behind a large, contented drool stain.

We live here now!

I tried to put this up last night, but our stolen Wi-Fi isn't too stable, and it gave out before I could actually post these last night. We will be getting our very own internet (and cable!) connection this Thursday. More pictures to come as the house takes shape.

Yesterday was a crazy, long day. We hired movers to get most of our stuff out of The Mill - the spiral staircase made this an impossible proposition for just us. But we couldn't get everything in the truck in one trip and the movers' time was up, so we had to go back for a second trip ourselves. What would have taken the movers about five minutes to pack up took us nearly two hours. If you are ever moving, do yourself a favor and hire some professionals. Sure, the $200 - $300 price tag might look unappealing a week ahead of time, but by the middle of Moving Day, it sounds like a bargain.

We painted some rooms over the weekend, and those who have seen our previous homes will surely recognize the colors: turquoise bedroom, green living room, yellow dining room. It feels really great to be living in the midst of those colors again.

One week left!

Well, preparations for the move are picking up steam. The keys at the end of the tunnel are closer than ever - only one short week away now (!) - and the current structure of our home is disintegrating rapidly. Boxes are piling up, pictures are coming down off of the walls, shelves are emptying, and the refrigerator is emptier. And it is becoming practical to make actual plans now - on Monday I have to set up the utilities and arrange for a moving van and moving labor, and I've already changed the address on our magazine subscriptions, and we've even selected some paint colors.

Sorry posting has dwindled to a drip, but I promise that more will come out when we move, including pictures.

Impatience is a Waste of Time

We are on the verge of moving closer into town. You may have heard about it. I may have said something. We are obsessed. I can't think of anything else. It's a month away and we've already started packing. We've already picked out our paint colors - we want to be prepared, you know!

But there's only so much that can be done ahead of time. After a while, planning and preparation turn into academic exercises and, no matter how excited and motivated I may be, I really just have to wait. And that has become a bit of a problem, because it has left me feeling empty, impotent and frustrated. That, in turn, has caused a little bit of angst and a little bit of depression.

What I realized, however, is that I am living in the future. I spend every day fantasizing about how great the new living situation is going to be. Sometimes I find myself holdingunrealistically rosy views of things and I am reminded of a song from An American Tail, "There are no Cats in America." But the new house will be great - I don't even think that I'm being unrealistic about it.

The problem is that my life isn't terrible now. It's pretty great, actually, and when I focus on the future, I am missing - completely missing - what's happening right now! I don't want to miss the entire month of July just because I live in Wake Forest instead of Raleigh. And that's what I aim to do now. Forget the future. Forget the new house. Forget packing. Forget how much shorter my drive to work will be (2 miles down from 15!) and how much closer we will be to the things we love to do (our friends, Lilly's Pizza, Remedy Diner, the Rialto, the Farmer's Market, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's - coming soon!) and how great the house is going to be (fenced yard for the dogs, neighborhood dog park, screened front porch with a swing, a basement for me to brew beer). Instead I should focus on the things that are slipping by me.

Time is precious. I hope to live to the age of 60 - if I'm lucky I'll live to 75. Any way you cut it, I'm almost halfway done. This is by no means a mid-life crisis happening, but I am aware that my hours are limited. They are ticking down even now, each hour lost forever. And to spend even a minute waiting for the next one is to waste a very precious and limited resource.

This is it

As you may have heard, we found a place that is just perfect for us. More details will follow, but for now, I'll just discuss a few of the high points. First though, a feature that this house does not have is walkability. There are no restaurants or stores within practical walking distance (ten minutes). Being downtown, however, nearly everything (including work) is within ten minutes driving distance, which is fantastic. And although there aren't any businesses for us to walk to, there is an off-leash dog park (the only one downtown, in fact) that is in walking distance. Also, the neighborhood is beautiful, scenic and quiet, which is ideal for the dogs. Even better is the back yard which, if not huge, is fenced in. So Lux and Julian can have the time of their lives there.
Other features include: gas heat, a gas stove, a (operational) gas-log fireplace, a washer and dryer, a basement, an attic, hardwood floors, a carport, new windows, a screened porch (complete with porch swing) and a brass railing with a "W" monogram. It was meant to be!

We spent Friday and most of Saturday wracked with nervous doubt as our credit and background checks cleared. Of course there is no reason that there should be a problem, but still - you never know. And now we know. We are signing the lease tomorrow and moving in August.

Pictures and more details will follow.

Catch and release: pictures!

Here are some pictures of yesterday's heartbreaking, soul-crushing, emotionally draining search for a new house. These pictures are of two houses and are in no particular order. We said no to both - one decision was easy, one was not. But now on the other side of that decision, we are very glad with the choice we made. We are looking at three more places tomorrow - fingers crossed!

Catch and release

This week has been a flurry of house hunting activity. We saw one house on Monday and two more on Tuesday. One of the houses was actually pretty good, which was more of a problem than a benefit. Because it basically fit the profile of what we were looking for, it was automatically at the top of our list. But it also lacked... I hate to use the term, but it lacked an "X Factor." You know, it didn't have much in the way of anything special. But because it had met all of our requirements, it was very difficult to say no. But after much agony, we eventually did say no. It is far too early in the search to commit to a house that we are not wild about. House hunting - even rental house hunting - is a very nerve-wracking game, because houses don't just come off of the line (some do, I guess, but we're not interested in those) and the benefits aren't strictly comparable. As a result, the Perfect House may not exist. Or there may be many Perfect Houses and even more Perfectly Adequate Houses. And they are all coming down a conveyor belt and once you say no to one option, that opportunity may well be gone for good.

Man - if searching for a rental is this stressful, I can't imagine what it's going to be like when we look for a purchase in three years! Yikes!

Foggy Monday

Saturday was packed full of downtown Raleigh goodness. We went to the Farmers Market and had breakfast and picked up some fresh squash and onions. The Farmers Market is huge - when we live closer (and no matter what we find for housing, we will certainly be closer), we will be able to go to there as an actual regular produce market. They sell fresh baked goods, fresh local goat cheese and local honey in addition to the local fruits and vegetables - many of which I have never seen before.

After that we went and checked out houses. There was a pair of houses we had marked out specifically to visit, but after seeing both of those (both were good, each had pros and cons and they both depend on seeing the interior) we moved on to driving up and down and in and out of neighborhoods. Now that we have a large list of prospects, it is getting very exciting. We're starting to think about painting, which we did not do at the Mill (thank goodness!).

The benefits to moving into town are tangible and exciting - not only will we have quick access to restaurants and coffee shops and Whole Foods and, in a year, a new Trader Joe's (the one that is here is in Cary and not exactly convenient), but we'll also be in a neighborhood with people. Not that the Mill doesn't have people, but they are kind of reclusive. They are the kind of people who enjoy living in relative isolation (there's a Super Target ten minutes away, so it isn't quite the middle of nowhere) and not really fun to spend time with. However, there are also some things that we'll lose by moving. Things like this beautiful morning, as you can see below, will be missed.

Not yet

Another near miss - or is it a near hit? We found a place that may well have been perfect but at the last minute turned out to be... um, not available. So that was disappointing. Because we're both obsessive and paranoid, we're having a hard time remembering that this is pretty much the absolute earliest possible time we could start looking. The fact that we haven't found a suitable place to live after less than a week of actual research isn't cause for concern.

Hunting Season

Over the past twelve years I have lived in eight different locations. Some moves were short (from one apartment in Lake Ivanhoe Shores to another) and some were long (Winter Park to Wake Forest). None have been easy, none have been cheap. There has been a compelling reason for each move - I consider each one to be an upgrade of some kind. I've never lived in a single place for longer than two years. Lake Ivanhoe Shores is nearly an exception, but although we stayed there for four years, we moved from a one-bedroom unit to a two-bedroom unit. Our house on Kentucky Ave in Winter Park was fantastic. Although it had some very real problems (terrible AC, windows that didn't open, rats) it also had some very real benefits (location, architecture, plenty of space, yard care) that I really miss. I think that, if we had not moved to Raleigh, we might have stayed there for several years. That might have been the last house we ever rented before buying. Clearly things did not work out that way and although I do miss that house, I am very happy with the course that our lives have taken.

So here we are in Raleigh, living in an old mill with rough stone walls, high ceilings and in the middle of nature. As with everything else, there are pros and cons. And without the least bit of bitterness toward the Mill, I am happy to announce that the time for us to move is nearly upon us... yet again. We still have a few months left at the Mill, but the search for a new home is officially underway. We're looking for another rental. We've heard all of the arguments for buying a house, but we just don't feel prepared for it. The plan (there is one, believe it or not) is to find a place fantastic enough to stay for three or four years while we save money for a reasonable down payment for a house. We visited our first prospect on Friday. Sadly it was not for us, but not to worry - there are plenty more where that came from.

Although moving itself is a hassle - a real, literal physical struggle and emotionally stressful - I always look forward to the exciting elements, such as finding a new grocery store and a new route to work. And in this case, since we'll be moving much deeper into Raleigh, we get a whole city to explore on a completely different level. At the moment, we go into Raleigh often enough - I go in practically every day for work, in fact - but it is not convenient to go shopping or out to eat. We live outside of the city, and this distinction is much more significant than it is in Orlando.

We'll keep everyone up to date on our house hunting adventures!

The art of View-Master

We took a recent trip to Selma, NC, to visit their antique district. The town itself was a bit of antique, a portrait of what the world used to look like. It was a little unsettling to find it so apparently deserted on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, but I guess if I lived there, I would take every opportunity to leave for more exciting venues.

The antique district itself was impressive - at least, to people like us it was impressive. We went with open minds and an open wallet, expecting - hoping, even - to find something to take home. Sadly, we found nothing except for a booth overflowing with an excellent collection of View-Master reels. I bought quite a few fantastic reels and, when we got home, I pulled out my existing collection and viewer and spent hours flipping through them.

If I haven't mentioned it before, I'll say it now: I love View-Master. I think it is an art form that is nearly totally lost. In the time I've spent writing this post, I have also done some cursory research on making your own reels, and it is still possible, although slightly expensive - $100-$200 for a working vintage camera, $40+ for a set of 6 blank reels (apparently they are no longer in production), $50 for a film cutter, plus the cost of 35mm slide film and the expense of having the film developed. It is intriguing - I am inspired to make the attempt, although I want to make sure that it is a potentially sustainable hobby. For example, if the blank reels are no longer available, I doubt if it is really worth the investment of hundreds of dollars to produce a half dozen reels.

At any rate, as fun and rewarding as that may be, my real joy is discovering old reels. I love the slight discoloration that they have. I love seeing the old cars, the old tourists in their old clothes (ankle-length skirts and suits and ties to see Yosemite!) frozen forever in time. But more than that, they are captured in 3-D. There's something very special about that. It is also amazing to see the clothing that is clearly from an era long-gone posed next to vistas that are practically unchanged.

I am very interested in a d.i.y. View-Master hobby, but it will certainly require some research. There are plenty of methods for creating 3-D images from digital photography as well as film, but making it a View-Master reel is something special.

Please enjoy some additional photos from Selma.

Saturday afternoon at the Bain Waterworks

Please accept the usual apologies for my extreme negligence in failing to maintain this blog properly. We - especially me, since I do the writing here - have been extremely busy (not a real excuse, I know) for the past few weeks. More importantly, we haven't done much of interest lately. I don't really feel a strong compulsion to write or post photos when nothing of any real importance or interest has happened. Things have happened, now that I think about it - last weekend our friends Charlotte and Loren came over and we plunged into the chilly river behind our home. Bronwen put some pictures up on her Flickr account - you can check them out.

But this week - oh, boy. It was amazing! We visited the Bain Waterworks - a defunct old waterworks facility that has been cleaned up and touched up by a dedicated crew of artists. There were so many little details, so many heavy machines, industrial gears and pipes, switches, levers and peeling paint that we could have spent several more hours there just taking pictures. As it was, we took 197 photos between the two of us. It was wild and crazy fun. One of the most entertaining and unique experiences I've had since living here.

You can see our house from here!

Wow! A double header today! It's been a busy weekend for us. The weather was supremely beautiful (maybe a little cloudy on Saturday, a little too cool on Sunday) and we went exploring. Today (Sunday) we went to the top of the dam near our apartment. In the picture you can actually see the roof of our apartments from the dam - it's a little harder to see now because the leaves are all growing back, but it's the bit of white on the left side of the picture.

The whole trip up to the dam takes about 10 minutes and has the very real benefit of going under the road, so no street crossing is necessary. The dogs love the scenery and fresh air. As of press time they are both sleeping soundly, and we expect them to remain wiped out for the rest of the day.