Happy Independence Day! …

Happy Independence Day! My first one as an American citizen -- now that's a startling thought. Worth celebrating, I think.

Jarmila's on vacation, so no nanny for a few days. It would have been a week, but I coaxed Simone into coming Tues/Wed morning. I think I can survive until then. So yesterday morning was mostly hanging out with Kavi, although I did manage to get the writing workshops set up. My timing is perhaps not the best, though -- right before a holiday weekend means most people are offline 'til Monday, I think. Ah well. A few people registered already, and hopefully more to come next week. Mama wants furniture. :-) It'd be lovely to be able to put our guests on an actual bed instead of an air mattress! It'll be a sofa bed, since the room is going to do double duty as a hangout space most of the time, but still, that's a step up, I think. Kevin claims that sofa bed technology has significantly improved in the last decade, and it no longer means annoying springs poking you in the back in the middle of the night. We'll see.

In the afternoon I went to Target, because both Kavi and Kevin were in sad need of summer pyjamas. And then I sat in the Starbucks there and worked on reading stories and writing up critiques. If I'd had more time, I'd have tried to write some fiction, and I have to say, it's a little surreal in concept, writing at Target, but in practice, I think it'd work fine. At our Target, the Starbucks has a back area that's pretty sheltered from the rest of the store, so it just feels like you're in a coffeeshop, not a megastore. Odd, but works fine. Would probably work even better if I ever remembered to pack headphones. (To be fair to me, Kavi managed to smash one pair, and the other pair is in the storage unit at the moment. Ah well.)

Nothing firm on the housing front, but our realtor called and made reassuring noises from their realtor on the probability of their coming back with a counteroffer soon that we can accept. I'm giving up on being totally mysterious -- it's the Beautiful Gunderson we're negotiating for at the moment. We're currently about $30K apart, and it's their move, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully they get their new house super-cheap at some point this weekend! I am crossing my fingers for them! Kevin pointed out that it would be sort of funny if they were trying to buy the Mad Hatter house, and that's actually not so improbable, since I think they're planning to stay in Oak Park (again, according to realtor rumor) and they like to renovate. If we were skilled renovators, who knew contractors who were reliable and would give us good rates, the Mad Hatter house would totally be a great deal. Plus, they have three kids, so they could probably use the extra space in that house. But I don't know if they want to renovate Victorians, or if they're strictly Craftsman folk. Ah well -- no real point in speculating.

In the evening, I went to Lori and Greg's adorable house (also somewhat Arts and Crafts-ish, I think) for a holiday barbecue shindig. I love the way they renovated the kitchen -- dark cherry cabinets with a complementary medium wood (not sure what kind) for the countertops. I'm not sure I could be careful enough with my kitchen countertops to get away with wood, but it was surely beautiful. And I saw the Craftsman-style bookcase that Greg built for Lori -- totally gorgeous. I need to talk Kevin into learning woodworking. (I would say that I need to learn woodworking, which sounds totally cool, but I already have enough hobbies. :-) Also, I'd totally cut off a finger or two on the table saw. I almost did in college theatre, building sets.) Much fun was had by all, although when Scott (new director of creative writing at Roosevelt) and Tommi showed up with their three-year-old Ava, I felt guilty for not bringing Kevin and Kavi. Ah well. We'll have to have them over here sometime -- or over to the new place.

Just sent out invites to a combination housecooling / birthday party here on the 25th. May be a bit chaotic with boxes everywhere, but I think our friends can cope. I want to say goodbye to this place properly. Plus, birthday! On July 26th, I'll be thirty-eight years old and seven months pregnant. Eep.

Okay, now I have to go research moving companies. Hmm....there's some chance that we'll end up having to leave everything in storage for a few days or weeks. Is there some sort of mover/storage combo that would help with that? I'd like to avoid having them unload everything into a storage facility and then reload it, if possible -- just seems to be asking for expense and more breakages.