We closed on our Colorado house two weeks ago, meaning it is sold and gone.
Showing posts with label Colorado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colorado. Show all posts
March 20, 2019
March 11, 2019
A season for plowing.
At the beginning-ish of February we went under contract on our Colorado house. On Friday, we closed on our Colorado house. There will be a bit more on this to come (like the pictures of the final product), but that day, aside from the day Wells was born, was the best day of the last 12 months. There was nothing special about it really, but just to know that the weight and shift of responsibility was off of Scott's shoulders was meaningful. To know that, symbolically, it was no longer his to work on and mine to worry about was huge.
This is a post I wrote when we were in the thick of it. Or at least, when I was in the thick of it, mentally, back in December. This house was a mental battle for me over the last 9 months and a physical and logistical battle for Scott. As dramatic as that may seem, this was a hard-won victory.
My mother-in-law sends us these every so often in cards. It told me something I'd never actually thought about before.
As an older millenial, I've been taught to believe that your life should always be increasing and improving in standards. We, between the ages of 30 and 35, aren't like those younger millenials. They're happy with their $102,000 student loan debt, their parents' health insurance, their Ubers, their cheap travel, and their four roommates in order to afford city living, all while barely making enough to survive. That's the going rate as a college graduate over the last few years.
I was taught to believe that I would pay off my debt from college, I'd get a job right away, I'd settle down, build a house, and live the American dream. We say the American dream looks different today than it did 30 years ago or 50 years ago but, when I graduated from college in 2008, it was still a thing.
In the Army it works this way too: you get promoted on a schedule, you get pay raises on a schedule, you move up the ladder on. a. schedule. But as you grow up, things are supposed to sort themselves out and always get better, not slide backward or stall out or make you wait for what's next. That's what I always thought.
Then the last year hit me. Actually the last year and a half. It started in the summer of 2017 and has slowly been snowballing downhill ever since. I probably mentioned it in a blog post I never published, but there have been many days when the fact that I was pregnant with a healthy baby or the fact that we then had a healthy baby was the only. thing. that. was. going. right.
I've struggled (past and present tense) with how things are, how I want them to be, how they theoretically "should" be, etc. But sometimes you just need to go through things. And I never thought about it before, but sometimes it's just not our season for increase. Sometimes we need to plow. I knew I had been plowing, metaphorically, but sometimes when you're in a season for so long, you forget your focus. This season of plowing, to be honest, has probably been happening since we moved to Colorado and then it's intensified over the last 18 months.
It never occurred to me that that was just where I was, where we were, until I saw this devotional story. Everyone will go through a season of plowing. It's not a setback. It's not an increase. It's a season.
This is a post I wrote when we were in the thick of it. Or at least, when I was in the thick of it, mentally, back in December. This house was a mental battle for me over the last 9 months and a physical and logistical battle for Scott. As dramatic as that may seem, this was a hard-won victory.
My mother-in-law sends us these every so often in cards. It told me something I'd never actually thought about before.
As an older millenial, I've been taught to believe that your life should always be increasing and improving in standards. We, between the ages of 30 and 35, aren't like those younger millenials. They're happy with their $102,000 student loan debt, their parents' health insurance, their Ubers, their cheap travel, and their four roommates in order to afford city living, all while barely making enough to survive. That's the going rate as a college graduate over the last few years.
I was taught to believe that I would pay off my debt from college, I'd get a job right away, I'd settle down, build a house, and live the American dream. We say the American dream looks different today than it did 30 years ago or 50 years ago but, when I graduated from college in 2008, it was still a thing.
In the Army it works this way too: you get promoted on a schedule, you get pay raises on a schedule, you move up the ladder on. a. schedule. But as you grow up, things are supposed to sort themselves out and always get better, not slide backward or stall out or make you wait for what's next. That's what I always thought.
Then the last year hit me. Actually the last year and a half. It started in the summer of 2017 and has slowly been snowballing downhill ever since. I probably mentioned it in a blog post I never published, but there have been many days when the fact that I was pregnant with a healthy baby or the fact that we then had a healthy baby was the only. thing. that. was. going. right.
I've struggled (past and present tense) with how things are, how I want them to be, how they theoretically "should" be, etc. But sometimes you just need to go through things. And I never thought about it before, but sometimes it's just not our season for increase. Sometimes we need to plow. I knew I had been plowing, metaphorically, but sometimes when you're in a season for so long, you forget your focus. This season of plowing, to be honest, has probably been happening since we moved to Colorado and then it's intensified over the last 18 months.
It never occurred to me that that was just where I was, where we were, until I saw this devotional story. Everyone will go through a season of plowing. It's not a setback. It's not an increase. It's a season.
August 3, 2018
5 Things Friday.
+This news story about how amazing Colorado Springs is. I think the headline says it all if we're talking about how Coloradans perceive themselves.
I could go on (and on and on) about this, but my point is this: the median salary is $49k and the median house price is $255k. You can't afford the median house on the median salary. The math doesn't check out. The only thoughts we really have are What did we miss? We don't love the place. We lived there for 3-4 years (me for four solid years, him intermittently with deployments and this Wyoming stint). We didn't like it any better than any other place we've been. I worked with mostly civilians and the general public anyway so I think I got a really good feel for the place. (That being said, please buy our house there.)
+Wells had his first visit to a museum/historic site. Exciting! We went to the Wyoming Territorial Prison museum on Tuesday. I recommend it if you're ever in Laramie.
+Things Tidy People Don't Do. I fit this perfectly. It's why moving and change and no structure is so hard for me. I'm struggling right now.
+I'm thinking about trying out some different lipsticks. Do you have any recommendations?
I got pulled into the BeautyCounter website and started browsing. I tend to buy a new cheap-ish lipstick every fall and wear it for all of three days. Since I'm making an effort to brush my hair and put on makeup most days now, even if I don't get dressed really, I thought this would be a nice addition.
+Well, that turned into 4 Things Friday. I don't know what we have planned for this weekend yet since we did the one and only tourist attraction in Laramie (see above). Is anyone else just reallllllly excited for fall? I can't wait to get the 80+ degree days over with.
I could go on (and on and on) about this, but my point is this: the median salary is $49k and the median house price is $255k. You can't afford the median house on the median salary. The math doesn't check out. The only thoughts we really have are What did we miss? We don't love the place. We lived there for 3-4 years (me for four solid years, him intermittently with deployments and this Wyoming stint). We didn't like it any better than any other place we've been. I worked with mostly civilians and the general public anyway so I think I got a really good feel for the place. (That being said, please buy our house there.)
+Wells had his first visit to a museum/historic site. Exciting! We went to the Wyoming Territorial Prison museum on Tuesday. I recommend it if you're ever in Laramie.
Right before he peed all over everything during a diaper change.
Bench, diaper bag, his own head, etc.
+Things Tidy People Don't Do. I fit this perfectly. It's why moving and change and no structure is so hard for me. I'm struggling right now.
+I'm thinking about trying out some different lipsticks. Do you have any recommendations?
I got pulled into the BeautyCounter website and started browsing. I tend to buy a new cheap-ish lipstick every fall and wear it for all of three days. Since I'm making an effort to brush my hair and put on makeup most days now, even if I don't get dressed really, I thought this would be a nice addition.
+Well, that turned into 4 Things Friday. I don't know what we have planned for this weekend yet since we did the one and only tourist attraction in Laramie (see above). Is anyone else just reallllllly excited for fall? I can't wait to get the 80+ degree days over with.
May 14, 2018
Another half and half weekend.
On Friday, I drove to Wyoming with a car full of stuff and things and that was an awful drive. I was tired, probably slightly dehydrated, and the start and stop traffic made me horribly carsick.
I went there, instead of Scott coming to Colorado, because it was graduation weekend and the ROTC cadets he'd been working with all year were commissioning. While he's not part of the ROTC cadre at the university, he goes to their training sessions and goes to their retreats, etc. He commissioned almost 10 years ago, but this, oddly, didn't make me feel old. Most of the cadets were 22-23 and already seemed to be married.
Afterward, we went out for drinks (ha ha) with the other ROTC instructors. Staying out until 11pm was something I hadn't done since probably last summer. Also, I'm not used to going places that aren't work or the grocery store so it took a certain amount of energy that, let's face it, I do not have these days.
Before all of that though, we worked on putting baby things together and organizing the house and we also walked the dogs and whatnot. I LOVE living in a town again. It's so convenient. You don't have to plan your day around a Wal-Mart run. While no house or no town is perfect, the people we met on Saturday night love Laramie so I think we can easily make this our home for the next several months.
Our to-do list seems to be something we can almost keep up with now. Instead of adding items constantly, we're slowly keeping up with the influx and that feels better that it did over the last couple of months. This is, almost literally, what things have felt like since August:
However, the prospect of a Monday is still hard because it makes me feel like the to-do list just starts all over again.
Anyway, on Sunday, we both went back to Colorado, and started repacking, prepping, and planning for another week. Including finishing the basement ceiling (Scott) and painting the shutters (me).
I have 6 full days with kids left, 2 half days, and then 1 teacher day. Since I'll (and you'll) not likely see one of these again, here you are:
I went there, instead of Scott coming to Colorado, because it was graduation weekend and the ROTC cadets he'd been working with all year were commissioning. While he's not part of the ROTC cadre at the university, he goes to their training sessions and goes to their retreats, etc. He commissioned almost 10 years ago, but this, oddly, didn't make me feel old. Most of the cadets were 22-23 and already seemed to be married.
Afterward, we went out for drinks (ha ha) with the other ROTC instructors. Staying out until 11pm was something I hadn't done since probably last summer. Also, I'm not used to going places that aren't work or the grocery store so it took a certain amount of energy that, let's face it, I do not have these days.
Before all of that though, we worked on putting baby things together and organizing the house and we also walked the dogs and whatnot. I LOVE living in a town again. It's so convenient. You don't have to plan your day around a Wal-Mart run. While no house or no town is perfect, the people we met on Saturday night love Laramie so I think we can easily make this our home for the next several months.
Our to-do list seems to be something we can almost keep up with now. Instead of adding items constantly, we're slowly keeping up with the influx and that feels better that it did over the last couple of months. This is, almost literally, what things have felt like since August:
However, the prospect of a Monday is still hard because it makes me feel like the to-do list just starts all over again.
Anyway, on Sunday, we both went back to Colorado, and started repacking, prepping, and planning for another week. Including finishing the basement ceiling (Scott) and painting the shutters (me).
I have 6 full days with kids left, 2 half days, and then 1 teacher day. Since I'll (and you'll) not likely see one of these again, here you are:
April 21, 2018
Weekend Favorite: My house didn't burn down this week
#5 on the list almost burned my house down. Woo-hoo, right?
There was a fire in southern Colorado on Tuesday and, since it was a windy day, I checked the alerts on my phone often. I saw that people were being evacuated about 20 miles from my house around 1:00pm so I just kept an eye on it. I mean, the dogs weren't there (THANK GOD) and while I'd wish I'd had some of my things with me, things are just things and there was nothing I could do. At 3:20, I was told the neighbors were leaving and I would post some pictures of what it looked like for their drive out of the development, but it's pretty terrifying so I'll just not.
This is what Tuesday evening looked like in our "fair" state:
I left school (a 30 minute drive from home) 10 minutes later when the bell rang and made it to the intersection about 4 miles from my house. Everyone from our area was gathered and the police weren't letting anyone through. Again, while I wished I'd had some of my stuff with me, stuff was just stuff. Meanwhile, many were just trying to get home to get their horses or their pets and I couldn't even handle that (The dogs were with Scott THANK GOD.)
This is when I finally got to talk to Scott, on the phone, and we had to have that very real conversation about what we would do if our house burned down (We would salvage what we could this weekend. I would quit school early and just go to Wyoming. He'd stay here off and on to deal with insurance claims. And that would be the end of our time in Colorado.)
The neighbor gave me updates during this time, telling me the house at the edge of her property was on fire and fields were burning around our houses. Meanwhile, her husband and two other neighbors were stuck with police at a closer intersection, because they'd gone back to get their dogs (and luckily their houses didn't burn, anyway), but the police wouldn't let them leave the only presumably safe area they could see.
At this point, after about 20 minutes, I had to make some decisions. I went back to school to write up my sub plans. Our grade level was putting on a music program that evening and, while everyone told me NOT to come back, I quite literally had nowhere else to go, had just the clothes on my back, etc. So I just made some piles of busywork, got the classroom ready for the next day, and put in for a sub. When the kids showed up, I sent them to the auditorium with another teacher and told them I wouldn't be there in the morning.
Then, I went to Walmart and bought pajamas and toiletries (I'm apparently shockingly high-maintenance...that's what this taught me) and went to my friend's house. I've known her for almost 4 years now and she always offers up her guest room when this happens (because it's happened before). Around 7:30pm, Scott called and said the neighbor called him and said they were letting people back in (to where we lived, not to all areas), so I thought I'd at least go back and get anything I wanted to make sure I saved. I didn't want to miss my window of opportunity.
I got home 30 minutes later and it all still looked like a warzone and I couldn't really get a good look because it was dark. When I got to the main intersection, where I'd been stopped around 4:00pm, the police officer there asked me where I was going. He wasn't familiar with my address, and just told me that if I "run into flames", turn around. I could definitely see flames in the distance, but distance is hard to judge on the prairie.
I saw my neighbor standing guard, watching for embers, along the dirt road, and he told me the power was out because the telephone poles had burned down and gave me an update on what had happened. I told him I was just grabbing some things and heading back into town.
So, I shuffled through the house with a flashlight in my mouth, making sure windows were secured shut and gathering clothes, toiletries, computer, chargers, our "go" box of important papers, etc.
I noticed that all my neighbors were home and had generators running but I wasn't staying in a cold, smokey house by myself and the view outside was still apocalyptic. Plus, the warning is always that "if the winds shift..." you can be in trouble again.
When I was driving back out, I saw a few glowing embers along the dirt road, so I got out and dumped my water bottle on them and that's how I lost the straw to my Hydro Flask bottle.
(missing straw and all the dishes I had to rewash because they'd been sitting out and were all dusty)
I went back to my friend's house (another 30 minutes away, right near my school) and settled in.
In the morning, I went to the hospital to do my glucose test (since I had the day off), and then I went back out to our house to see the scope of the damage.
Everything inside had a fine layer of dust and there was a slightly smokey smell. I aired the place out and washed all the bedding, blankets, clothes, etc that had been sitting out. Unfortunately, I'd had ALL the blankets and ALL the dishes sitting out to be packed for Wyoming so that was quite the project. If the power wouldn't have been back on, I wouldn't have been able to stay and/or do anything but go back into town. Luckily the electric and phone lines were working again so I didn't have to hole up in a Starbucks all day or on my friend's couch with her dog.
Hank is such a good boy but has a thing for destroying doorframes.
The next day, I was able to go to work, but packed my bags and took them with me just in case. I have no faith or trust in anything at this point.
As the sheriff said in the many news briefs I watched about this fire, it spread 35 miles in less than 2 hours because there were 60 mile per hour winds. If that can happen, anything can, so I'm just in a place of survival mode at this point.
The aftermath: Anything you see that's black is burned.
Standing next to my car in the driveway, this is what I saw:
(I don't care how calm things appear in this picture...if a person moves to Colorado for the "beauty", they'll be seriously disappointed and poor)
Luckily, it rained yesterday and today.
So for anyone and everyone out there complaining about too much snow or not having warm, dry springtime weather yet, I have no comment. I can perhaps dig up some empathy for you (from way deep inside) but no sympathy is currently available. I'm not quite sorry about that either.
I am mentally exhausted.
There are very few things keeping me from saying screw it and driving to Wyoming and staying there. Mostly the fact that I have a supportive group of coworkers and neighbors who genuinely care about me/us. I wouldn't make it out here on my own. A lot of people love living out where we live because they have animals and everyone who has been interviewed by the news plans to rebuild. I get it. They have a real stake in the place and that's fine. I just don't, after living in a few different states at this point.
To anyone who just talks about how beautiful Colorado is, I've likely already unfollowed you on social media and please just know that your experience is not my experience. Truthfully, I always thought Alaska would be the hardest season for me, with deployments and loneliness and all that...it turns out Colorado, with deployments, remodeling, natural disasters, infertility, etc have made this duty station the toughest (yet).
March 20, 2018
Mid-March already(?)
+How does one even title weekend posts? This is ^ the best I could come up with.
+The weird part about blogging is that you want to document the happy and the good and interesting. Documenting the mundane is fine too. Documenting the uncertain, to me, is the hardest part of blogging.
+This is mostly the mundane and the uncertain. The farther we get into the school year, the harder Mondays get. Honestly, what's so hard about them is knowing that I have so much to accomplish in the next 8 weeks, professionally and personally, and then it's time for an official PCS to Wyoming and I break down at least once each weekend, just thinking about how much I *want* to do over the next couple of months. I won't bore you with the details but, I swear, I go day-to-day most weeks.
+I will also not lie and say I am very disappointed that I don't have The Bachelor to distract me from the new week's beginning anymore. It was blissful relief this past winter to just lose myself in nothingness on Mondays (and then finish it on Tuesdays because I would literally have to go to bed before the show was over).
+Scott was on spring break last week so he made it his mission to get allthethings done around the property. I'll give him this: he got a lot done.
+He bought a tractor and went to work. Pictures to follow...
+We are trying to sell the Nissan truck on Craigslist (if you know anyone who is interested in Colorado...).
+We are trying to get our house ready to sell. We're also trying to pack everything and get it to Wyoming in phases instead of all at once. This resulted in a major mid-week fail in which a snowstorm in Wyoming closed all the roads to Laramie and Scott just had to turn around and come back with a load of furniture.
+On Thursday, Scott encountered a grassfire on his way home from somewhere (probably Lowe's) and the sheriff wouldn't let him through, so they just watched the "fire tornado" from a safe distance.
+Most fires are caused by artillery training on the army base.
You might say that maybe the army base should stop doing live-fire training during the dry and windy days....however...the army base was here before any houses were. It was Camp Carson during WWII. People just happened to build neighborhoods all around the base. This may not be a problem at other bases, but it's perpetually dry and windy here. (Any fire that would get to us out in the middle of nowhere would be from something stupid like an idiot burning trash or a lightning strike or a cigarette...we're too far from the base for their fires to hit us and if they did, well, Colorado Springs would have bigger problems at that point as everyone else's houses would've already burned down.)
With brigades constantly gearing up for deployments, the artillery practice is going on almost every day (we can hear it at our house) and there's at least one fire every week. But they are literally doing their job and what they are supposed to be doing to keep our country secure, so it's a real dilemma concerning if you can get mad at the base. After all, they were there first and the neighborhoods came later. And the soldiers have to train, fire weather or no fire weather.
Anyway. That was the first half of the weekend. Fire weather causing us to worry and plan and mitigate. Nothing new about that.
Other things...
I did a lot of cleaning, per usual. Some cooking. I really feel like baking cookies, but that seems like a trap I don't need to fall into right now.
This quinoa mango salad was quite good.
+The weird part about blogging is that you want to document the happy and the good and interesting. Documenting the mundane is fine too. Documenting the uncertain, to me, is the hardest part of blogging.
+This is mostly the mundane and the uncertain. The farther we get into the school year, the harder Mondays get. Honestly, what's so hard about them is knowing that I have so much to accomplish in the next 8 weeks, professionally and personally, and then it's time for an official PCS to Wyoming and I break down at least once each weekend, just thinking about how much I *want* to do over the next couple of months. I won't bore you with the details but, I swear, I go day-to-day most weeks.
+I will also not lie and say I am very disappointed that I don't have The Bachelor to distract me from the new week's beginning anymore. It was blissful relief this past winter to just lose myself in nothingness on Mondays (and then finish it on Tuesdays because I would literally have to go to bed before the show was over).
+Scott was on spring break last week so he made it his mission to get allthethings done around the property. I'll give him this: he got a lot done.
+He bought a tractor and went to work. Pictures to follow...
+We are trying to sell the Nissan truck on Craigslist (if you know anyone who is interested in Colorado...).
+We are trying to get our house ready to sell. We're also trying to pack everything and get it to Wyoming in phases instead of all at once. This resulted in a major mid-week fail in which a snowstorm in Wyoming closed all the roads to Laramie and Scott just had to turn around and come back with a load of furniture.
+On Thursday, Scott encountered a grassfire on his way home from somewhere (probably Lowe's) and the sheriff wouldn't let him through, so they just watched the "fire tornado" from a safe distance.
+Most fires are caused by artillery training on the army base.
You might say that maybe the army base should stop doing live-fire training during the dry and windy days....however...the army base was here before any houses were. It was Camp Carson during WWII. People just happened to build neighborhoods all around the base. This may not be a problem at other bases, but it's perpetually dry and windy here. (Any fire that would get to us out in the middle of nowhere would be from something stupid like an idiot burning trash or a lightning strike or a cigarette...we're too far from the base for their fires to hit us and if they did, well, Colorado Springs would have bigger problems at that point as everyone else's houses would've already burned down.)
With brigades constantly gearing up for deployments, the artillery practice is going on almost every day (we can hear it at our house) and there's at least one fire every week. But they are literally doing their job and what they are supposed to be doing to keep our country secure, so it's a real dilemma concerning if you can get mad at the base. After all, they were there first and the neighborhoods came later. And the soldiers have to train, fire weather or no fire weather.
Anyway. That was the first half of the weekend. Fire weather causing us to worry and plan and mitigate. Nothing new about that.
Other things...
I did a lot of cleaning, per usual. Some cooking. I really feel like baking cookies, but that seems like a trap I don't need to fall into right now.
This quinoa mango salad was quite good.
And this is how I trick myself into eating vegetables:
I covered this with tomato butter sauce.
And, I had trouble putting this book down over the weekend. Scott bought me Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser back in November. I started it but didn't get very far because I wasn't in a non-fiction place (or a reading place, to be honest). When I really got into it last week, I realized OF COURSE I LOVE IT. It's a non-fiction account of the Little House books. It has some interesting tidbits I haven't read before (the Ingalls and the Wilders spent all their time, seemingly, running from debt) and their unsettledness makes me feel better about my own life.
So that was the weekend. I have four more days until spring break and spring break means I will hopefully get a paint some rooms in Wyoming (gray, of course).
And hey, at least it's Tuesday. Maybe tonight I'll be motivated to have something other than cereal for dinner?
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