Famous last words (in real estate)

There's nothing quite like putting yourself on record about something and then promptly changing your mind. Take these little slices of humble pie, for instance - so good they made it onto trivia napkins at our wedding:

As you well know, my relocated-from-Dallas, in-love self has been house-shopping with her pink-shirted, very relationship-material husband for some time now. It's been pretty painful. But it's also been full of funny moments, in a trying-to-maintain-a-good-sense-of-humor-about-things way:

I mean, finding the perfect house, but then realizing the basement ceiling is only 6 feet tall is funny, right? Who does that happen to besides us? So we moved on and bid on another house... and then were beat out on said house. And then we looked at another house, and it was teeny tiny and too expensive anyway, and then we drove a block over and sat in front of the short basement house a while. And then it hit us:

We don't need the basement for that house to be the perfect house.

And so we flashed back to how we felt in that house before we walked downstairs. We felt good. The house was built in 1906, and creaks in all the right places. It's a ten-minute walk from our Metro stop of choice, and the same walk to some of our favorite shops and restaurants. It's an end rowhouse, so it has a side yard in addition to tons of light inside. There are details begging for a renovation, but nothing dramatic needs to be done, and it's absolutely ready for move-in. It has my favorite kitchen of any kitchen we bid on - big, bright, room to eat and play and hang out, needing updates but not desperately so, not until it was time. It has three bedrooms upstairs, rendering the basement just an extra-large storage and laundry area, not an area we have to use if we expand. Maybe one day, we thought, we can figure out how to dig out the basement economically, or maybe we'll discover that the quote we got was astronomical, or maybe we can dig it out incrementally.

And so we jumped, and we put it an offer, famous last words and all.

And guess what? We got it. 

We embarked on the fastest close we or anyone we know has ever heard of... ten days. And guess what? The ten-day close ended yesterday.

We're homeowners!

For real.

This is going to be fun.

Bloom or bust

On Sunday we walked for miles. We walked downtown; we walked the Mall; we walked Capitol Hill. The weather was undeniably early spring - flower buds peeking out to say hello, sun warming up the cool air, folks happy to be outside. We stood on the Capitol steps and looked out over the Mall and the Monument, and we smiled. We're trying to buy a house here for a reason: we love this place.

We lost another house yesterday. That's our fourth unsuccessful offer, if you're counting. Each of the four houses we've made offers on all sold in about a week's time, all higher than list price. For two of those we were booked as second place "back-up offers," and for both of those we offered more than the winning bid, but were passed over due to high-cash offers.

This house was sort of European-dreamy... right off a park, pastel with flower boxes, room to grow for as long as we wanted to do so, but a slew of DIY projects we'd need to take on to make it ours. We have no fear; we're ready to knock down walls. Or were. Our agent said the scene at the offer presentations yesterday was ridiculous: a gaggle of agents in the lobby of the building where one of the sellers works, a rushed offer coming in at the last minute, a decision made, and then a buyer's agent crying as he begged the sellers the reconsider his clients' offer. Saying the real estate scene in DC is high drama is an enormous understatement.

No tears on our part, though. Maybe we're too hard and cold at this point to care that much. The winning bid on this house waived all contingencies to get it, including an inspection and appraisal. For a house built in 1909. And in case you're wondering, you didn't just flash back to 2001 boom years - this is happening today, in a supposedly down real estate market, in Washington, DC. The last house we lost before this one had four offers all higher than list price, including ours, and hadn't even been put on the market yet. People are hungry for homes here; weekend Open Houses are shoulder-to-shoulder with people. There are no quiet offer negotiations, only instant bidding wars and large-scale offer presentations due to multiple offers. It's exhausting.

So these springtime flowers and the sun that's pleasing everyone - I get it. But just as much as enjoying the weather again, a new season assures me that more homes are on the way. We keep hearing that folks are holding onto their homes until spring is here, and fervently hope that's true.

There are so many more stories I could tell, by the way. The house with my favorite kitchen and the basement too short for T to stand up in, and the ensuing $100,000 estimate to dig it out a stand-up-able amount? I've got that one. The guy who shows up to all the Open Houses who's bid on 14 houses in the last year, and walked away from five winning bids, thus wasting everyone's time and making it harder for all of us? I could rail on him too. The winning buyer on the first house we bid on, who came in $20,000 less than our offer but did so with 80% cash from her father, and all the many and varied ways I hate her and everything she stands for? Yep, I have that rant in my pocket, too.

But for now, I try my best to shrug off the frustration, and we wait.

Big bites and small towns

I fell in love last weekend. Twice, actually.

First things first: Volt.

Oh. My. Goodness. I loved every single bite. My dinner went a little something like this:

I. yellowfin tuna tartare avocado, chili oil, petite cilantro, soy air,
marinated whitefish roe

II. sheep’s milk cavatelli country ham, rye, broccoli rabe, parmesan

III. border springs farm lamb mission fig, licorice, farro, madras curry,
merguez sausage, roasted cauliflower

IV. goat cheese cake d’anjou pears, spiced vanilla, lemon balm

Just delicious. We got a kitchen tour and saw Bryan Voltaggio at work, bottling pork creamed sodas for the following night's Cochon 555 competition. We also eyed Volt's famed Table 21 tasting table in the kitchen. Mark my words, I'll have a seat there one of these days. I can't say enough about our meal: absolutely delicious, worth every penny. 

My second crush, then? The town! I fell head over heels for Frederick, MD. I forgot to charge my camera before the trip, so we'll have to revisit these stock photos since I don't have any fresh ones.

Imagine my delight at Frederick's downtown: historic and picturesque, yes, but also surprisingly large and fully-functioning, not a quaint snapshot of one moment in time. The small business mix is fantastic, the housing stock is great and a range of sizes, and more than that... Frederick feels like its own place. It's not responding to anything, it just is. My aversion to suburbs is smoothed over by my true love of cities (and the fact that T has to work in one anyway), but in truth I love small towns just as much. I felt like we were getting a peek into this alternate world of small town idealism last weekend, and I loved it. At some point on Saturday, after discovering a well-priced reclaimed wood industrial dining table (at a shop owned by two girlfriends who left behind their former lives as buyers for Nordstrom and Pottery Barn, no less!), but before hitting up the store where we bottled our own olive oil and vinegars from 30 or so tanks full of flavor, it hit me... I could live in this town. Uh oh.

And so of course H and I had to scope out local real estate, which only made the fantasy worse. Rowhomes nearly identical to the kind we've been trying to buy in DC, at less than half the cost. A regional rail stop right downtown, making for an easy ride into DC, or a stop at the end of DC's own Metro system, just a short drive away. Saving so much money on real estate that we'd actually be able to go on a real vacation. Awesome public schools, without the drama and heartache of charter school waiting lists. Uh oh.

So that was my weekend... lots of what-ifs. And here's where it all came crashing down on me: actually studying the train schedules and figuring out what T's day would look like, leaving his perfect small town surrounded by picturesque farms and heading into the city, where he has to be at work very early. The truth is harsh: he'd be on a train before 5 a.m. each morning. Or he could drive in at 45 minutes, but then have to battle traffic on the way home every afternoon, taking an hour and a half to get back. It's just not fair, no matter how I slice it.

Maybe in five years or so I'll revisit my Frederick fantasy. Maybe by then, our jobs and lives will be different enough that it might be doable. Or maybe - maaaaaybe - we'll find the right home in DC that will push my small town fantasies away for good. But until then, I totally want to take T to Frederick, eat at Volt again, and show him that dining room table.

(You know, for the dining room we don't have yet.)

Update: This piece on Frederick was just posted on the Strong Towns Blog. See folks, it's not just me!

Friday I'm in Love

Aaaaaand.... exhale. What a long week this has been. I hope each one of you finds yourself breathing contentedly this weekend - I sure plan on it. Here are my picks for the week, each one something that gets my mental wheels turning in different ways. See you on the other side! 

People's District

My new favorite DC blog is People's District, which spotlights regular folks who live in the District, doing their regular everyday activities. As someone who often passes people on the street and wonders, "Just what does that person do for a living?" or "I wonder what that person's life is like?," this blog is insanely rewarding. I love the story of the blog's creation, too - one DC resident deciding that rather than continuing not to know the strangers he saw every day, he's ask them about their lives, instead. Swoon. I truly believe projects like this one could make us all a little nicer toward one another, a little more gracious when we pass in the street, and a little more humble. For that and more, complete respect.

Writing Sheds

Since the whole primary home-purchasing thing isn't exactly going well, perhaps I'll spend the weekend dreaming not about my usual fall-back (beach houses), but about writing sheds instead. Staying small but dreaming big over here. Take a look at re-nest's inspiring line-up of famous authors' writing sheds, and I dare you not to dream about all the fantastic things you could create in one of them. I'm a Roald Dahl countryside shed kind of a person myself, but Michael Pollan's rustic-but-definitely-not-Unabomberish perch in the woods might be more your style. Other choices: Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, George Bernard Shaw, Dylan Thomas and Mark Twain. You're intrigued now, aren't you? Out to the sheds you go!

Grant Achatz on 'Fresh Air'

 Chef Grant Achatz has long been on my inspirational-as-all-getout list, and this interview with Terry Gross absolutely seals the deal for me. (Terry Gross is one of my huge NPR crushes, by the way - years ago I waited in line to see her speak like a total fangirl.) We can't even imagine his journey, truly: being as celebrated for your culinary genius as he was, then losing your sense of taste due to tongue cancer, then continuing to cook with your other senses, then fighting the cancer and slooooooowly regaining your sense of taste, then finally emerging healthy and more creative than ever on the other side. Mind: blown. I'm looking forward to reading Achatz's memoir, excerpts of which you can read at the NPR link.

Onward, scrambled

I imagine that my brain looks like one of those really delicious yet ugly scrambles you throw together on the stove for breakfast, using everything in the fridge because it's all about to go bad. Or some other metaphor for ugly mishmash. Onward, then.

This is the painting I bought at the Fearrington Folk Art Show with my mom. It's by Jackie Haliburton, who did my favorite piece in the entire show - at a scale and price a tad out of reach for me right now. But this little guy, so fun and bright and happy, he fit the bill.

See all those nice houses? We do not own one of them. Another crash-and-burn offer yesterday, for a place we adored. (It was RED. And had a CLAWFOOT BATHTUB.) You know how some girls carry around the "Always a Bridesmaid" hangup? My new (unintentional) motto: "Always the Back-Up Offer." I mean really, how many times can we come in second? That is no consolation, people. Give us a house already! The details I could share about the market here would shock some of you, I have no doubt...

Anyway, I'm obsessed with tulips this week. Also: acorn squash. 

Hey, remember my Calendar of Shame? I made it through the entire two-month calendar with long workouts at least three times a week. This doesn't earn me a Presidential Fitness medal or anything (remember those? yeah, I never got one then, either) - but after the previous two months of never once breaking a sweat, I feel good about it. Especially given how many weekends I traveled during those two months. I've actually even gotten to the point where I'm working out in order to release pent-up stress, because as you might imagine, I have a lot of it right now. And if you're wondering, having to face this calendar every time I leave my apartment really does work. Try it if you're having motivational issues.

This is all I've got right now that's bloggable. Now if publicly bitching were my thing (you thought this post was bitching? Not even close...), I could write for another hour. But I have a date at Zentan tonight with T, my sister-in-law, and Susur Lee's sushi and Singapore Slaw, so things are looking up. His signature slaw, by the way? Absolutely outrageous. And vegan, if you also have hard-to-feed (but lovable, not bitching!) folks in your life.

Crazy like a fox

This morning I was on my way out of town to our Virginia office, sitting at a red light on Constitution Ave, in between the White House and the Washington Monument. It was a gorgeous day, bright and sunny, hinting that maybe, just maybe, the weather will warm up soon. I was the first at the light; traffic was stopped. Suddenly, from my right - The Ellipse of the White House - a gorgeous red fox appeared at the curb. Its tail went up, it put down its head, and it raced across the lanes of traffic toward the Monument, directly in front of my car. Once on grass again, the fox raised its head high and raced up the hill.

I was flabbergast. My head shot to my right; the guy next to me was on his phone and didn't appear to have noticed. The drivers in the traffic lanes across from me looked zoned-out and bored. Had I really been the only one to see this gorgeous creature dart across traffic in the middle of the city, racing from one green oasis to the next?

 source

I'm taking this morning's fox as a stroke of luck, a good omen, a sign of magical moments to come.

North Carolina was certainly full of them last weekend: a terrific folk art show with my mom, a new painting to call my own, a day spent shopping with the whole crew for my cousin's prom dress. There's nothing quite like 12 hours of family shopping time to test everyone's goodwill toward one another. But wouldn't you know it, we were laughing all the way through. 

So DC, then, which is feeling rather un-magical this week... We halfheartedly bid on another house yesterday. We only liked it, didn't love it, and I think more than anything else I wanted to stir the karmic pot a bit, throw something into the universe and see what I got back. Our lowball offer reflected our low level of excitement, and we didn't get it. Which is fine and all... I just needed to do something. I suck at waiting. Our location of choice has such a deficit of listings right now you could throw tomatoes on the real estate map without the splatter hitting something for sale. T's studying for another certification exam. I'm realizing the Oscars got away from me a little bit this year, and playing in the kitchen instead of going to the movies. I'm okay with that. But all of this, really, just feels like me biding time. Which again, I don't do well. Quietly waiting for change to happen upon me makes me nervous; I'd rather have a hand in creating it. I want to be like that fox, hurdling myself across danger, racing into unknown territory, launching new chapters with force of will alone. I also wouldn't mind having super-cute ears.

Mrs. Fox: "You know, you really are fantastic.

Mr. Fox: "I try."

Pour, drink, repeat.

DC real estate sucks.

Whatever, I'm allowed to whine right now. No house for us. We did everything we could. Except sell organs to throw more cash at the thing. I was, of course, having a full-on renovation love affair with it in my head. There were so many weird signs that seemed to say it would be ours (how else do you explain Arcimboldo prints all over the house? I could go on...). Or not. We're 0/2 now, in case you're counting.Technically, we're the "back-up offer," but the consolation prize doesn't feel so great when they still get to hold a big check of ours and we still have no house.

But really, I'm not looking for sympathy. We'll figure it out. And blog-as-sympathy-device is utterly lame, anyway. I'd rather make fun of something instead. And so in the manner of Dlisted's amazing takedowns of the Food Network (see "Late Night Bacon," "English Peas," and "Dark Chocolate as a Snack"), I bring you my latest Freckled Citizen recipe: "Shot of Tequila."

Shot of Tequila

1. Pour tequila

2. Drink

3. Repeat

What the snow reminded me

And then, finally, there was snow. Not as much as predicted, but full-on snow, at last. In the midst of record white stuff all over the country, DC has had nothing but pretty dustings this year. This is just fine with the city; we got our fill last year, if you remember. Which is exactly what I was doing last night.

My sisters-in-law were visiting, and in the height of the storm the four of us walked back to our apartment from a neighborhood restaurant. We were tromping through the snow, barely able to see, tightening hoods and lowering hats, slipping and laughing at the absurdity of the mess everywhere, and for me anyway, having a full-circle moment.

Our anniversary as DC residents is in 11 days. We've been here just short of a year, just short of all sorts of snowy havoc. We're going through life right now obsessed with our real estate conundrum, feeling a bit lost, a bit untethered to anything resembling a concrete plan. Our "it'll be okay" gut feelings are leading us, but those gray hairs I mentioned are proof that the stress is taking its toll. I was thinking how strange this feeling of not knowing is for us, but then I remembered life fourteen months ago, when we were looking for jobs and a new life and a new city, sure somehow it would work out but not all sure how.

It did work out, beautifully. Here we are, in our first choice city. A city that has four true seasons, just like we wanted, including a winter that brings us snow. A city close enough to our families that we see them regularly, including T's sisters, who I love as if they were my own. In so many ways, we've made it. In the context of how big and full our lives are, whether or not we rent or own this spring is really just a tiny subchapter.

And so with heavy, wet snow pummeling my face, I reminded myself: we've already made it. Life is great. And maybe, just maybe, next week we'll make it even further.

This is what it looks like

This is what emotional fuel looks like.

A batch of breakfast burritos made this weekend, as sustenance for Open Houses ahead.

...

This is what thoughts of warmer weather look like.

Because after a weekend freezing your ass off, every springy thought counts.

...

This is what shame looks like.

When months fly by without exercise, nothing quite does the trick like a Workout Calendar of Shame posted on your front door. No more denial.

...

This is what trying to buy a home in DC looks like.

So... the whole "we might be homeless in six weeks" thing. It's, you know, a tad bit stressful. We lost out on renting the purple house, which the owners had led us to believe they'd be ready to sell to us in a year. (We also wasted a lot of time chasing this scenario, as you might imagine.) This weekend we found another place we love that's priced below market value, then discovered that it's priced so well because it's being sold closed/silent auction style, where offers will be taken for two weeks then all opened at once - with the highest winning, no questions asked or negotiation offered. Despite this craziness, we were actually feeling optimistic. Then last night, a local agent told us that it will probably go for $70,000 higher than the list price, no contingencies. Which sort of means that even putting in an offer is just an exercise in futility. Yeah. Moving on...


So how 'bout them community-owned, sexual predator-free Packers?

Dreams, deferments, and detours

So we didn't get the Pretty House. We found out on New Year's Eve, in the early evening. It took a while after we got the news for me to put on my party face and ring in the New Year. But I did. And then we celebrated.

Not toasting another year would have been a crime. 2010 has been intense, and we survived it. In the first half of the year, the world was our oyster: we moved to the city we'd been trying to move to for years. We set up a cozy apartment. We hung out in Europe. In the second half, though, we closed our circle in a bit, holding tight to family while saying goodbye to loved ones who left this world too soon. The second half of 2010 changed me. But now that it's 2011, I know that brighter times are ahead.

Which brings us back to the hunt for new digs. Our lease is up in less than two months, so the clock is ticking. Maybe we'll rent again, but we'd like to buy if we can find the right place at the right price in our very short timeline. The funny thing about house-hunting, I've discovered, is that it is exactly like everyone says it is:  highly emotional and completely stressful. I wrote about my concerns regarding the Pretty House here, but with each passing day, I was more and more sure that it was "the one." I had visions of renovations and a family and a life, all in that spot. Brains and hearts can so easily play tricks on us when there's a capital-h Home involved, can't they?

Since New Year's, we're not exactly back to Square One. There are a couple of interesting possibilities out there. One is purple (eek!). One is a renovation project (gulp-yay-dependingonmood). Maybe we'll see a slew of new listings in the coming weeks. Maybe not. Maybe I just want to make a decision so that we can move on with life. Maybe, as long as we're together, it really doesn't matter at all.

May your 2011 be filled with wonder, laughter, and joy.

Gorgeous papercuts and screenprints courtesy of Rob Ryan, my brightest-burning paper love.

A serious, adult, not-kidding-around question

There is a house for sale, in(ish) our budget, that we like a lot. It is very pretty. We call it the "Pretty House," in fact. Here I am outside of the Pretty House last night, feeling pretty happy about it after our tour.

It has almost everything we want, with one big exception: the kitchen is tiny. It's 8x9, in an otherwise roomy house. Opportunities for expansion are pretty limited, given the layout exist but are major long-term projects.

So here's my question: Can I live with this kitchen? You know how I feel about kitchens. What would you do? Does it say something that I was smiling post-tour last night, or am I kidding myself?

UPDATED

Per a couple of requests for more context, here's what you need to know - I've also answered specific questions in comments:

• This house is in our favorite neighborhood in Washington, DC - location is our first priority
• Real estate is very expensive in DC, so being creative with your budget and figuring out where you can compromise is a must for everyone buying a home here.
• The house is a historic rowhome with a rental unit in the basement (called "English basements" 'round these parts) with a separate entrance/exit that could provide rental income each month.
• There's plenty of space in the primary part of the home for our current and near-future needs, and the option of taking over the rental unit and incorporating it into the rest of the house is a great long-term option should we want or need more space.
• Did I mention our tight budget?

Beach Therapy

The perfect thank you, via Kirtland House

From the bottom of my heart, a sincere thank you for all the kind words that so many of you sent my way, via letters, calls, comments, tweets, you name it. Each one helped my heart feel a tiny bit better. It's been a very tough few weeks, but I'm really looking forward to a family-focused holiday and a much-needed new year. Besides our increasingly interesting real estate search, my big focus is hanging out at the homestead and watching my newest nephew experience Santa for the first time, among other quiet delights.

After spending so much time on the Outer Banks the last few weeks, I have a renewed appreciation for a cold, quiet beach. One day over Thanksgiving weekend a storm was rolling in, and I took my camera along for the walk. I like how the oncoming storm feels larger than life in these pictures. Or perhaps what I'm really sensing is the photographer's feeling of general powerlessness. Either way, these photos are perfectly suited to that weekend.

These were taken a week later, on a bitter cold December morning. It had snowed the night before - the first snowfall of the season for me, and it happened at the beach. There was something poetic about that. Walking on the beach that cold morning - all bundled up, ears whistling with the wind, cheeks getting chapped - was the best therapy I could find.

Any guesses how often the subject of buying a beach house has come up over the last month? Sigh. We at least promised ourselves we'd retire on the water, which is something, right? Only thirty years to go!

October dreams

Ahhh... Boston in the fall. There's no better time to visit.

And I just love my college ladies. We had a pasta and wine weekend, capped off beautifully by Sportello on Saturday night. I had the most revelatory dish of pasta I've had in ages: agnolotti filled with a mortadella mousse and tossed with roasted vegetables. Oh. My. Goodness.

N lives in a great old house in one of those classic New England small towns that she's renovating in between keeping up with her two-year old son and a busy job. I loved seeing how her mid-century modern aesthetic is blending with the farmhouse appeal of her home. N's doing a great job... and it makes me want to put my renovating/decorating chops to work in a major way.

Speaking of... I wrote a post about where we are in the real estate hunt last week on EAD. Decisions, decisions. Really, I'd just love a dining room that I can build around West Elm's Wood Slices Organic Dinnerware. One can dream, right?

City or beach?

It's pretty easy to get in a real estate funk livin' in the big city. We are not suburban types, which makes several factors more stressful for us as we househunt: space, neighborhood, transit accessibility, style, COST. Even still... walkable streets, people and activity around us, neighborhood shops and restaurants, urban parks, like-minded folks... these are the things we hope to continue to be able to prioritize.

Half of what I do for a living involves promoting lifestyles exactly like the one I just described, making them more possible through transit. We talk to community clients about the time savings and lifestyle benefits of one less car payment (or none at all), no commute, on and on. So I get that a higher pricepoint for a rowhome in the city comes with ample savings elsewhere. More importantly, I'm just happier this way.

But oh, the cost.

An Open House Sunday I wrote about here

I regaled my siblings over the weekend with the tragedies we've seen on Open House Sundays: the "value-priced" $500k rowhome that looked perfect from the outside, but was only 562 square feet inside. The places priced beyond our wildest dreams that still needed to be torn apart inside. The idea that asking for a third bedroom is the equivalent of needing to win the lottery (I'm not greedy, I just need a home office!). The concept that a million dollar home is not only not a mansion, it might not even have two bathrooms.

So here's my grand idea I shared with the fam: We forget about buying in the city, and instead keep renting, in a house in a great 'hood. And here's the kicker: we buy a beach house instead. Shockingly, beach houses are a fraction of the price of DC real estate. Also, in case you didn't hear that: beeeeeaaaaacccccchhhhh house! I think I've had beach house fantasies since I was in high school. But to have a retreat like this...

So sure, this is probably the stuff of fantasy, too. But seriously... kind of genius, no?

How do those of you living in expensive cities deal? No, really. I'm all ears.

Day in the Life @ EADL

Ever wonder what a lazy Sunday looks like for me? Over at EADL today, you can find out, via my "Day in the Life" post as part of the fun series over there. Go take a look!

Warning, though: I told my teenage cousin what we like to do on Sundays and she made fun of us for being boring. So.... yeah.

Empty boxes (for now)

You might think the fact that we've lived in DC for almost three months would preclude us from being able to just now remove four freshly unpacked large moving boxes from our place. You'd be wrong. Our apartment might be small, but it apparently contains a black hole of forgotten items (also known as the bedroom closet). But finally, they're out of here. And just like that, I own skirts again!

Last night was quite the burst of productivity - in addition to the closet project, we also finally decorated three different walls. But somehow we still have so much to do around here - life keeps getting in the way a bit. We are impatiently waiting for our terrible moving experience payout and a tax refund delayed by fraud, after all. And so the mismatched furniture and bedroom wall covered in paint samples and things that "will be" but aren't yet are going to have to keep waiting. I'm fine with that... usually.

There's also another reason I'm reticent to find the perfect pieces for certain spots: we don't want to live here forever. An infectious case of house fever is sweeping 'round our modern urban rental. On Sunday we walked around our neighborhood for hours, popping into open houses and oohing and aahing at various features... and then staving off heart attacks at the prices. But oh, the details!

After our walking tour, a funny thing happened. We drove over to another neighborhood to stroll around and stumble upon some dinner inspiration, and I felt it: that's where we are supposed to live. I'm not going to write about this magic neighborhood for fear of jinxing myself, but there are so many things that got me: patios bustling with eaters and drinkers, quiet tree-lined streets just off the main drag, families and dogs alongside singles and seniors, markets and crafts and things I love. It all clicked for me. So much so that I was immediately beaming, giddy with excitement about finding our new 'hood, inspiring our waitress to comment on our happy vibe, and basically bouncing out of my shoes. And I didn't take photos. That's how you know it was the real deal for me. With this 'hood, we'd move from "super trendy area experiencing prohibitively expensive housing bubble" to "steadily prohibitively expensive area." In other words, we've gotta save our hearts out - but hopefully get a bit more for our money in the long run if we can make it there.

So a goal neighborhood, then. And a year+ timeline to figure out how to get there. No small deal, right? But somehow, in the weird way my head works, knowing where I want to be but not knowing how we'll make it happen feels better than being in a place that isn't 100% right for the long-term and not knowing where we're going next.

That mismatched chair in the living room with a blanket thrown over it, then? Fine by me. For now.

Philadelphia, again.

The funny thing about Philadelphia is that once upon a time, it was the setting for my first glimpse of adulthood. I was 16 and enrolled in a summer program for fellow media nerds at Penn. We were a group of hyper-motivated, weird kids who found ourselves and each other immensely fascinating. Living in a dorm together for six weeks - attending classes, working on projects, traveling - made for the coolest summer ever. (Yep, "coolest summer" for me involved school - go figure.) So this is what college is like, I thought. So this is what living in a city is like, I thought. I had the bug, and ended up attending college in Boston two years later, a city lover already. Boston was my first urban love, but without Philadelphia, it might never have happened.

Save for a quick weekend in college, I hadn't been back to the city since. This weekend, we hopped onto a quick 2-hour train (I'm giddy at how easy it is to do this now that we live in DC) and went to see the most fantastic play and stay with the most fantastic people. They're old friends of T's family and are responsible for things like this at our wedding:

A truly fantastic couple, H&D, married for over 30 years and still having goodbye makeouts each time one of them leaves to run an errand. Here's just one lovely thing about H&D: they say that T is the reason they ever married at all.

See, T's parents had tried and failed to set them up. They were all living in Philadelphia back then, and my in-laws arranged a meetup at a local bar. Only, the plan backfired - D went home with H's roommate instead of H. Oops.

Some time later, they were all going to a toga party and came to pick up H. She answered the door expecting to see my father-in-law. Instead, it was my father-in-law's pal D, the one who'd gone home with the wrong girl (who of course wasn't The One), and he was carrying a baby in his arms. That was little T decked out in a kiddie-sized toga. H couldn't resist the sight of D with the adorable towheaded baby. They were married six months later.

H & D still live in Philadelphia, in a 150-year-old townhouse on a great street in a neighborhood dotted with local businesses and neighbors who recognize each other. With a skyline right there. And everything walkable.

Upon our arrival, we engaged in Battle Martini: Shaken v. Stirred (I'm a stirred girl myself, it turns out).We explored historic sites, visited the building T lived in as a baby, and enjoyed delicious food. We saw a play honoring one of my heroes, and it was wonderful. We walked home and drank wine and played word games (T and I are out of practice). We woke up early and had breakfast at a little neighborhood cafe run by a French couple who are H&D's vacation buddies. Life is good for these two. Their daughter's almost out of graduate school and is moving to DC (!) in the fall. They're dialing back their workloads. They're ready to enjoy what's in front of them. The decade between 60 and 70, H told me, is what she calls "the sweet spot." They're living it.

And so throughout that weekend, more times than I could count, the Philadelphia thing hit me again. Once more, I got glimpses of what being a grown-up could look like. (Why yes, I'm still searching for that reality sixteen years later, aren't you?) This kind of life - the walking and the history and the knowing your neighbors and the local businesses and the vitality of it all - is very much the kind of life that T and I would like to build. Not to mention the kind of partnership that's at its center. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us to make it happen (DC real estate voyeurism can turn into panic and depression really quickly, it turns out), but it's what we want. Someday. Maybe sooner rather than later. Our Life Plan feels a little less tenuous having seen a model of it in action, even if the steps to get there still feel enormous and slightly mind-boggling.

So progress, then. Baby steps toward the Plan. Found, once more, in Philadelphia. Who knew?

Any "Philadelphia moments" for you all lately? I'd love to bask in everyone's inspiration for a bit. With spring in the air, life feels so hopeful right now.