Boulder visit

Last week I spent two days in Boulder, at the university, helping out with a site visit for the National Task Force for Excellence in Physics Teacher Education. (I was the non-Task-Force member of the site committee.) Boulder does all kinds of terrific stuff to turn out qualified physics teachers, and we went to learn all about how they do it. We interviewed everyone from undergraduates to chairs to deans to the Provost and the Chancellor, who, remarkably, knew all about the great physics education research that my colleagues there are doing. It was fascinating to get such a vertical slice of the university system. And it was entertaining to be treated like a visiting dignitary.

They kept us very busy, but we had time for a laugh in between meetings. Here I am with Monica Plisch of the American Physical Society (left), and my buddy Valerie Otero (right), who is faculty in the School of Education. It's her office we're in... see the mountains out the window? Boulder is staggering. If you can tear your eyes away from the mountains, you gaze out over the Great Plains, stretching out like an ocean as far as the eye can see.

Our new home!

The inspection was today, and it's solid! This will be our new home! What a glorious feeling. We are totally delighted. It was so easy to hang out in there while the inspector looked at every little thing, and it was such a pleasure, after the Greenlake debacle, to have him turn up plenty of good news. The foundation is poured concrete, solid as a rock. The roof and the furnace are both great, new and high-quality, and those are big-ticket items. He was also impressed with the basement, which seems amazingly dry and fresh and has great headroom. The house is move-in ready -- there's not a thing we need to do to it to enjoy living there, and none of the work that needs doing is urgent. There are some systems that have not had the updates that are due to them, and we need to plan for that in the coming years. Probably half the plumbing is steel that is nearing the end of its lifespan; the wiring is mostly the old knob-and-tube stuff; the ventilation and insulation in the attic are not the best; and the deck is an amateur job that is not holding up very well. We hope to live in this house for a long time... we want to take good care of it (and hope we can find the funds to do so). It was good to feel like the inspection was about getting to know the house and its long-term needs, rather than finding out that it was a falling-down rathole.

Jordan and Aaron's school is just a few blocks away, so as the inspection was winding up, I went and picked Jordan up early and showed him around. He was nervous, which I think is to be expected; moving is a huge change, and hard to imagine. But this was a start.

Here are the walkthroughs, one inside and one out. Enjoy!

Missed a cute one

No, it's not snowy here now, but I neglected to post this photo then, and it's so cute.

Construction walkthrough

We thought we'd share these little movies of the condition of the exterior.

Construction update

We have flooring in our entry today, isn't that great? It's been torn out since December 11. The new stuff doesn't match the kitchen flooring, but never mind. The two lights in the entry area and the front hall are still inoperative, the door has no trim around it, and we've put paper towels up in the entry window for privacy, since there's no blind there now.

At least the door doesn't have a breeze blowing around or under it now. For a while there were visible gaps around the framing, and even holes that an animal could get through. (The pictures below were taken on Dec. 16.) During that period there was also no ceiling in the entry - they put up plastic to provide some insulation and to catch drips (picture from Jan. 8).



The drywalling day was pretty intrusive (Jan. 16 - yes, for my birthday I got drywall). Of course they had to block off the entry for the day. We were home with Aaron, who was having is puking week, so we had to block him from that whole area with a baby gate. It was loud, and obviously we had no privacy. When we wanted to go out, they cut a big slit in the plastic for us to pass through.

When they were done with that, there were visible gaps around the door again. We notified the management and they filled them in with something.

Another oddity is in Jordan's room. It looks like some of their exterior work maybe became interior work accidentally, because up in the corner there are holes that appear to have been sawed in the drywall. Debris falls through or from them onto Jordan's toys.

The boys' favorite construction activity is when they haul large objects up to the roof with ropes that run up the side of the building. Dale caught a sheet of drywall going by; the rest is scaffolding, 8x8 beams, that kind of thing. The stuff whacks against the siding and the windows on the way up, which like I say thrills the boys but greatly disturbs me. It also leaves muddy rope marks on the windows. (Pictures from Jan. 13 and Jan. 21.)

All this is a drag. The real scare, though, was the other day (Jan. 20) when Dale was off to school with the boys as usual, Aaron walking by himself to the elevator, and as he goes around the corner, there are no railings. No plywood barriers, which substitute for railings where there's construction. Nothing. We live on the third floor. I don't even like to think about it. I understand (and hate) that they sometimes have to take down the barriers when they're actively working on something, but this area was unattended for hours. I complained repeatedly.

Almost home?

I said we were not going to fall in love with a new house every weekend, that we were going to dedicate ourselves to a longer-term process, that we were just dating, but we couldn't help it: we found a house, fell in love, put in an offer, and it's been accepted! Now we're waiting on the inspection (scheduled for Thursday). We are very hopeful that this one's going to be clean, and we think we're looking at our new home!

It's a great place. It's got a floor plan like the Ugly House, but the work is all done. It's PRETTY. It's farther north than we had envisioned, on a street with no sidewalks; but it completely won us over. Sensible floor plan, decent size rooms, updated kitchen, windows, really nice fixtures, vinyl siding, good roof, poured concrete foundation (whew!). Awesome yard -- big enough for kid soccer, with a deck and raised beds too. Carport. Big unfinished basement. Walking distance to the boys' preschool; one block from a good elementary school; six blocks to Thornton Creek, the alternative K-8 that my colleagues' kids go to. Completely quiet flat street, wide open feeling, not loomed over by giant dark pacific northwest trees. Walk around the corner for a glorious view of the Olympics. Two blocks from a big grocery store and a Rite Aid; three different bus lines that shoot down to the U. There happened to be an open house while we were there, and wow, the realtor could not have hired more appealing neighbors if she had spent a thousand bucks on movie extras. We clicked immediately with a family with two young boys; they live up the block, said they wake up every day filled with gratitude for having found such a hidden gem of a neighborhood. Lots of kids around, great schools and playgrounds, convenient, and just a great neighborhood feeling. How cool is that?

You can see photos if you go to the Windermere site and search on the address: 3045 NE 86th St, Seattle, 98115. Cross your fingers for us!

Rent unabated

Our attempt to get rent abatement was met with stiff resistance. They responded by voiding our partial check, refusing discussion, calling it nonpayment of rent, and beginning the pre-eviction process. That was not pleasant. I got a little freaked out. We looked into it, and although they'd have to take us to court in order to actually throw us out, we decided to pay up. Among other reasons, it's not our last month here.

There was a "construction update" meeting on Tuesday, attended by a number of angry tenants. Many of the units are much worse off than ours, and no one is getting a satisfactory response from the management. They have an email group and are coordinating their efforts! I was delighted to find this little rebel band, and even more pleased when I learned that they have met with a lawyer who is willing to represent all of us. There may be more on that later this week.

The day after I politely recounted my pre-eviction story for all to hear at the meeting, the management offered us a settlement: $128. That's not even per month - that's the total offer. And that's if and only if we sign an agreement stating that we will not seek any further compensation, that we understand this is not compensation for damages but merely a goodwill offering, etc, etc. This is laughable. We think that ten times that amount would be more fair.
We'll throw in our lot with the lawyer.

The birthday cake

I have fun making cake. Bekah asked me what flavor my birthday cake would be, and I told her it was cake flavor. Or really butter flavor. I love fancy hazelnut-mocha-cherry cakes or whatever too, but for my birthday I prefer to keep it classic. As you can see, the frosting was a totally retro pink. I did my first swiss buttercream, which is more buttery tasting and less chokingly sweet than ordinary frosting; it gets part of its structure from egg whites and you have to beat and beat and beat it. It's delicious. Dale still likes cream cheese frosting the best, but I think prefer that with a more strongly flavored cake.

Dating

Last weekend we saw the Ugly House again and it was worse than we had recognized; it needed not only paint, but also pretty major remodeling in the kitchen and both bathrooms.  That's a lot of work, and money.  We hope we can do better.  

And we decided we need to get off the househunting rollercoaster.  We had been lurching emotionally from house to house saying, "Is this the one?"  Now, we've decided to think of it more like dating.  You don't go home from every date saying Is This The One? -- you'd make yourself crazy, and it's not that good for the date, either.  Instead we are thinking of the whole thing as much more of a process.  We see how it goes, maybe we take the next step or maybe we just keep looking.  Unlike dating (?), we keep a database, and we are methodically touring six houses every weekend.  Thank goodness for Grandma's babysitting.

Healthy birthday

What do you know:  Last night after all that silly elderberry syrup and probiotics, Aaron had his best night of sleep in a week, and woke up completely well.  Maybe that stuff actually works.  His favorite is the eucalyptus chest rub.  He giggles and wiggles and imitates me doing it.  He still couldn't go to school (he has to have been puke-free for 24 hours), but at least he could digest his lunch, and chase the ducks at Greenlake.

I had a low-expectations birthday - it's hard to pull much together with the house having been in disarray all week.  But I got to have my very wonderful deep tissue massage, and Bekah and Bob came over with their kids and a big lasagna, and I made my favorite birthday cake, a pink retro layer cake featuring much butter.  Some other day I'll enjoy a sushi extravaganza at an old favorite place.

Thirty-eight, sheesh.  On his thirty-eighth birthday my father was a young lawyer, a few years out of school, about to experience the legal case of a lifetime.  And my mother, I think, was big pregnant with me.  Makes you wonder what might be around the corner.  How about a perfect house?  I'd go for that.

Coughing it up

Aaron got to try a half-day at school this morning, and he was so excited to go!  He ran into the building saying "Aslee?  Yoren?" (his teachers are Ashley and Lauren).  When he got to his room, there was a bin of multicolored mini pom-poms to scoop with a giant spoon.  It doesn't get any better than mini pom-poms.  He waved a perfunctory goodbye to me and got to work.  

Sadly, he puked at lunchtime, and I had to come and take him home.  He was bummed.  I brought him to the doctor in the afternoon and we got much sympathy and various herbal remedies.  He checks out fine - not dehydrated, lungs clear, all that.  He does have a very runny nose and a cough, and it turns out that at this point, the coughing leads to gagging and then puking.  This phenomenon is very common in toddlers.  sigh.  So we are treating him with warm honey lemonade for the throat, a eucalyptus chest rub for the congestion, probiotics to restore digestive health, and no cow's milk because it makes more mucus.  I have to admit that part of me was hoping for a hardcore Cough-B-Gone medication... but that probably wouldn't be any more effective.

3 out of 4

Three of us were in nearly perfect health today, thank goodness, but poor little Aaron is still barfing regularly.  It's been five days.  He's quite chipper between episodes but this is way too long.  (In addition to the obvious concern for his health, our work schedules are completely screwed up now.)

Aaron's digestive problem is coinciding with an extraordinary expressiveness about food.  He's hungry, poor baby, and he keeps asking for specific things:  "Muk!  Sausages!  Yogi!  Ap-sauce!  Ka-ka!  Kachi!"  (the ones you don't recognize are milk, yogurt, cracker, and ketchup.)  "Pancake!  Nana!  Wawa!"  He has also developed his own hand sign for "butter":  a pointed finger pressed along the table, like a knife spreading butter.  He insists that we butter pancakes, bread, etc:  he chews off the buttered part and hands it back for us to re-butter.  Another major interest for him right now is body parts.  Post-barfing, he's immediately cheerful, and starts poking his dirty fingers onto my face saying "Eyes!  Eyes!  Noose!  Maf!"  Great.  Apparently this is all very advanced of him, to have such a large vocabulary.  We've even caught the first few two-word phrases:  he pointed out a "doggie" to me through the window, and when the doggie left, he said "Doggie, home."  He's a genius!

Sick day

We're all four of us sick with some nasty stomach bug. A day of movies, Pedialyte, and load after load of laundry. Jordan is heroic about getting himself to the bathroom under difficult circumstances, but we just have to follow Aaron everywhere with a bowl. Crossing our fingers for a better time tomorrow.

Roller coaster

Househunting is such a roller coaster.  The Greenlake house is dead to us:  the inspection revealed that it essentially has no foundation at all, just a few stacked blocks every eight feet, which can move and have clearly done so.  Also a fresh dead rat in the attic, no insulation anywhere, and truly lousy parking.  We've moved on.

In the past two days we've had two other houses seriously catch our eye.  One of them we call the Piano House because an upright piano is included in the deal.  The nice elderly lady who lives in it caught me snooping around the property and was kind enough to invite me in.  I thought it was pretty great, partly because it seemed so solid after the Greenlake business, partly because it is cheap, and partly because of the location, walking distance from the boys' preschool and also elementary and middle schools we like a lot.  But Dale (who came later) was not impressed.  The main living space is pretty darned small, not much bigger than the Haddon house, and on a small arterial; we could squeeze into it, but in the long run it would need a second story to accommodate our family, and did we really want to get into building that?  Yech.

Driving around the neighborhood, depressed about not finding the right house, we found another house, and once again the elderly lady who lives in it let me in.  (I seem to have a way with the house ladies.)  This house is a lot like the Piano House, but with a second story!  Four bedrooms plus a rec room, how about that!  Also, it's on a quiet street, the garage is attached, and the deck overlooks the big flat backyard instead of an arterial.  It's really quite good.  The biggest tradeoff (that we know of) is the kitchen, which is small and isolated and doesn't have much promise for expansion.  The other big thing is that the whole house is super ugly.  Ug, Ly.  Terrible old wallpaper, awful fixtures, that kind of thing.  But you know what?  Paint is cheap.  So we're calling it the Ugly House, and we're still pretty interested.

All of this has helped us realize that we do have quite an affection for the Ravenna/Wedgwood zone.  This affection is increased by the total absence of options in Wallingford.  But even aside from that, there's a great alternative elementary school over on this side, the housing is very family-oriented, and there's good access to the U.  We just hope we can live a little farther up the hill than we used to.

And it's truly exhausting, picturing our family in these places, sifting through these fairly high-stakes emotional and financial decisions, changing our minds.  I have barely cooked anything in days because I have been spending all the time either looking at houses or obsessing about them.  

Literacy

Jordan is doing pre-reading exercises online at starfall.com.  Right now he's choosing the correct first letter of words.  For example, they show a picture of a man with "_an" underneath, and four or five different letters off to the side.  Jordan clicks and drags the "m" to the right spot (he has mastered basic laptop skills) and the computer says "Man!"  Dale asked him, "How did you know which one it was?" and Jordan said "Because it's a mman, mm."  Fantastic.

More snow?!?

Why is there all this white stuff on the roads again?  It's a couple of inches of slush, now.  I thought we were done with that?  Yeesh.  They say it will turn to rain overnight.  I hope so.  Any more snow days and all us parents might just go out of our heads.

Offer on Greenlake house

We've put an offer on this Greenlake house!  We're cautiously optimistic.  It's an awesome neighborhood and there is a lot to like about the house.  However, we have some concerns.  We hope those will be addressed on inspection.  This being a public space, we won't say more than that for now... Hoping for the best.

Rent abatement update

The apartment manager stopped by our unit on Friday to return our partial rent check to us, voided, with a letter stating that rent is due in full.  The explanation offered is that any rent abatement would come from the construction account, not the operations account (where the rent goes).  I said (in person, I hope pleasantly) that of course there's only one account on our side.  The manager referred me to the owner's representative, to whom I have placed a call.  He hasn't gotten back to me yet.  All of this seems very much to be expected.

If you're looking for that last post about the impending major construction, I deleted it, because it turns out it was sent to us in error.  Only the north side of the building is getting such extraordinary treatment.