Life in the Slow Lane

Ever have those weeks where each day holds something semi-significant? It's a storyteller's pet peeve. Something interesting happens, and in the midst of working it into an entertaining story, some other unusual event occurs. It's unrelated but still noteworthy. The story teller can't quite connect the events meaningfully, but to tell one story and not the other... That's what these past few days have been for me. A break-in, an escape. A near tragedy, a dramatic recovery. A stirring of a long-forgotten passion, and a surprising absence of one. Not a one is connected to another. The volume has been turned up. Or the picture just came into focus. Something must have happened to bring these all together right on top of each other. And surely, if I just listen a little harder or look a little closer, I'll find the pieces that make it all come together in a proper story. But how do you connect the careful calculation of an active thief (it appears the item o...

As the last few minutes of 2014 slip by, I offer you a few scattered thoughts for your edification. (Or maybe I am just hoping to diminish the number of unfinished drafts in my blog post file.) 1) Hotels are so worried about saving the planet through water use. Reuse your towels, and all that. But have you ever noticed how many hotel showers have the hot and cold faucets switched? I can assure you, that is not a water saving feature. 2) I hope SOS and I do not turn out to be a prime example of parents who drag miserable kids around on all of our adventures. I'm thinking the fix is all about controlling PR. We'll hang on to the pictures of them smiling and photoshop their grouchies out of the vacation slideshow. Keep the picture of them reveling in the feel of water gliding through their fingers… and not the picture of them crying and misbehaving on the Golden Gate Bridge. 3) I'm not worried about being nickeled and dimed to death. It's those quarters…the endless...

This is Part 5 in my series about living in a small space. If you've missed any, catch  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 , and Part 4 . Standing in my kitchen, I can hear my neighbor in hers. She's talking about her day, using the microwave, grinding her coffee. In my bathroom, I can hear my upstairs neighbor plunging his toilet, starting his shower. Not all small living is this intimate with neighbors, but for me, it often seems a natural extension. I stand in the open door while the kids retrieve the mail from the box across the hall. The hallway door opens and other neighbors pass between us, greeting us and naturally glancing past me, seeing most of our house. I'm not ashamed, I tell myself, hoping to one day make that true. I'm not the best housekeeper in the world, plus small children add their own special housekeeping style. But there is little I can do to hide it from my neighbor, since the routine of daily living opens up my life for them to see inside. I...

This is Part 4 in my series about living in a small space. If you've missed any, catch Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3 . About a year ago the kids and I got home unexpectedly early from a weekend visiting my parents and found the door unlocked and an empty house. Really empty. Like furniture moved out and nothing on the floor empty. Fortunately, I quickly realized SOS had taken the kid-free opportunity to have the carpets cleaned, and sure enough, he showed up a short time later chagrined that he hadn't been able to put everything back before I got home. Four-Year-Old Selfie, with Carpet But I was inspired. There was so much room! Just imagine what we could do with so much empty space! Hold a contra dance! Or put together a 5000 piece puzzle! Or maybe, just maybe, make a comfortable, non-cluttered home for a family of four. With welcoming SmilesBabyGirl and the explosion of accompanying girl-baby accessories, I had begun to doubt our condo really could be a comfortab...

This is Part 3 in a series about our small living space. Here is Part 1 and Part 2 . It was one of those moments where any mother would have beamed with pride. We had company over. Not our usual if-you-want-some-water-you-know-where-the-cups-are kind of company, but the kind of company where we actually found our dining table and brought out a wrinkled tablecloth to cover the goop which cannot be removed with mere soap and water. We were doing this company thing for reals. Except we forgot the small detail of sufficient seating. But our guests were graciously making do, and one had found a decent seat on the bottom step of the stairs leading to CutieLittleBoy's bunk bed. Let me sidetrack for a moment. SmilesBabyGirl does an amazing wedge impersonation. For being as robustly chub as she is, she has a unique talent of inserting herself in small spaces and then pushing outward until she is pleasantly comfortable. So our unwarned guest was making as much of a chair as she coul...

This is Part 2 in a series about living in a small place. Read Part 1 if you missed it. I chose to take a cold shower this morning. I took one yesterday, too. I have this to say: Brr. The water heater for our building has been sputtering to a painful death for awhile now, and it finally did so early Sunday morning. Eighteen households without hot water on a day when no one is going to budge an inch to fix the problem. Our HOA elections just might have been decided this weekend. But that was yesterday. Today maintenance was going to fix the problem. They just need to turn off the water for a "few" hours. Gentle Readers, water is critical when there are two sticky-fingered, chalk-eating, dirt-flinging, diaper-stripping, juice-splashing children in the house. It turns out yogurt makes some pretty nice splashes, too. A zebra, of course. Just thinking about it makes me want to go wash my hands and everything else the children have touched. So yes. My option...

"Do you think it bad," SOS confided, "that one of the main motivations for wanting to invite people over to our house is to hear them say 'Woah, you guys do live in a tiny place.' Is that a problem?" Ah yes, dear husband. I know what you mean. I've been thinking similarly. It could be pride. True. But I also feel as if we are on some sort of crusade to re-educate. When I say my house is small, I am not suffering from a false sense of modesty. Believe me. A studio, 473 square feet. The only interior door is the one on the bathroom. Until a furniture purchase a few months ago covered a built-in, floor to ceiling mirror, it was possible to stand at the entrance and see the entire square footage, minus the bathroom. The HOA documents call our unit "Bachelor's Studio." The official website for the condominium complex doesn't even acknowledge the existence of these smaller units. The previous owner (and perhaps several more before him) wa...