The Homestead

Wow, so, holy crap. The south is crazy.

My life has been insane.

The end.









I kid!

I'll give up some of the details, starting with a bit of advice: Don't ever live in someone's living room. Especially your boyfriend's dad and stepmom's living room.

Really. Just don't. And their garage? Probably not a lot better than the living room.

Yeah. It was horrible.

But now we have a house! It's junky and drafty and in a teeny tiny little town (Aynor, S.C., population: 640) and it has stinky cupboards and a garage that looks like a barn and I absolutely love it.

But it's tons of work. We got a good deal, but when we moved in, there was dirt everywhere. Gross dirt. Other people's dirt. A thick orange syrup covering the bottom of the fridge with hunks of mac and cheese in it. Cat food scattered under the sink, covered in mold. A freezer full of mildew. And cockroaches -- or, excuse me, palmetto bugs -- everywhere, dead. Upturned, legs in the air -- they left rusty spots on the floor when you scraped them off the hardwoods or the bathtub. Dead lizards in the windowsills.

But that? The scum everywhere? The smell of cat urine in the laundry room? Not the worst of it. The worst was the NASCAR room.

Oh yeah. You got that right. It was painted glossy black, and someone had applied a checkerboard wallpaper strip all the way around the room, plus wallpaper strips of the NASCAR logo placed randomly about the room.

Still. Despite the scum, the cockroaches, the NASCAR logos, we could see the house's charm. An acre. A porch. Two rows of 50-year old muscadine grapes. Enough rooms for all of our crap.

So now, we've been here for two weeks, and everything's different. Before, we were actually fighting from time to time -- something we'd never really done before. Not bad fighting, but fighting. It's amazing what a home does for you. We're both in such better head spaces. The other day, Roomie was singing a song in the kitchen. The words? "I'm so happy ... I'm so happy ..." ... and this is coming from someone who's taking calculus.

We've worked our asses off, and there's more work to do. But here's ye olde photodump:

I heard once that Oregon is one of the least-churched states in the U.S. Well, folks, I now officially live in the Bible belt. And church is allllll up in my face, considering what I now do (if you missed out on that: I work for a company whose clients are all churches). Plus, there's a church on every street. I drive an hour to work every day, and I haven't counted the number of churches I pass on my way to work, but suffice to say it's a lot. A lot a lot. There are two big ones in my tiny town, plus I see signs all the time for churches that meet in smaller places, houses, community centers, malls. If I were a photographer, I'd start a photo project on the churches. I love the quaint chapels with the manicured cemeteries, and I love the gospel barns (photo to come of that one). They're just so damn cute.

This sign sits at the end of a vacant lot across the street from our hardware store, which is right next to the tire center. We also have a tiny BBQ joint I haven't gotten to try because it's only open during lunch hours, and "sometimes on Thursday and Friday nights," according to a sign in the window. My new doctor says it's been around forever and it's owned by a "nice black family" and it's "real good." I can't wait to try it and guest blog about it on Donuts 4 Dinner.

Hipstermatic shot of the front door and the 1980s crappy stained glass.

We painted out living room smurf blue to cover up the painfully cheery peachy color. I like it.

We also bought edible lettuce plants, a good plan since we can't install a huge garden like we had originally hoped, on account of the fact that there's a chance our landlord doesn't own our house and we may have to move out. But that's another story.

Yard! Ball! Cilantro!

When you live in a tourist destination, you think the tourist crap is stupid. Fortunately, my girlfriends realized I'd have a different opinion once I left. Yay Bend! Now, where is my University of Oregon gear?

The former NASCAR room. It's now Kermit green. We also have an elephant gray room. Don't diss the mistint aisle at WalMart.

Ain't she sweet? We just need some rockers. Maybe a swing.

Last Christmas, I made you a pie

In case you missed the memo, I'm kind of into baking. As in, I dream about opening a bakery one day -- I may even have a name for my bakery picked out. (The first three letters of my last name are PIE, after all)

Problem is, once you start getting into baking, you become accustomed to your own tools. Because I don't settle for mediocre baked goods -- I use a digital scale to measure flour, people. And right now, I don't have access to my kitchen (it's still in a trailer in the driveway). This is all to say that to me, the idea of making pie crust without a rolling pin, pastry blender, food processor, or digital scale is ... well ... it's just not happening.

So for Christmas I ... I ... this is hard to admit.

I used store-bought crust.

Which I then filled with delicious Martha Stewart chocolate pecan filling. And when I had to use 4 oz of chocolate chips from my 12 oz bag, I made do.

The pie, by the way, was pretty good. But the crust about made me gag. Cardboard. I've heard that Whole Foods makes a good pie crust, but there ain't no Whole Foods out here. I have my choice between a crappy Food Lion and Wal-Mart. And, I hate to admit this, but I prefer the Wal-Mart. (I can't believe I'm already a Wal-Mart shopper. The south really does change you.)

Otherwise, my dinner was splendid. And while I know this will pain certain of my family members, I have to admit this: I've never really loooved mashed potatoes. They're, you know, fine. I guess. Just a vehicle for getting gravy into my gullet, really. But mashed SWEET potatoes? With hot milk and butter and salt and pepper and a few tablespoons of brown sugar and absolutely no effing marshmallows? Creamy, fluffy, delicious. I'm never going back.

And another thing. Please don't even try telling me that my dog isn't basically the prettiest dog ever. (And lately, shockingly, she's been a downright good girl. Probably because we keep shipping her off to live with strangers and then not returning for a week. I'm guessing she's afraid that next time, we won't come back to get her, which I suppose is a reasonable fear.)

Poor Kaya. She's the sweet one, but just not as photogenic. Always in the shadow of little sister. In other news, Roomie and I have decided that Atta Boy food is totally sexist. So we're going to make our own dog food, called Atta bitch.

In other random Christmas news, how rad are those vintage Season's Greetings glasses? I kind of love them. (Note, too, the hand-hewn, salvaged cypress bar top. Ahem.)

And guess who woke up to a actual show falling out of the sky and sticking to the ground the day after Christmas?

Of course, it was a mess of slush by noon. Whatever. I'm hoping for more snow, but mostly because folks here are so terrified of snow they're apt to shut down roads and businesses, so I could actually get a snow day. It'd be a nice change from Bend, where they run school buses across sheets of ice in blizzards, and where I worked for the newspaper. The actual apocalypse wouldn't get me out of work. In fact, the apocalypse would sell some damn papers. They'd probably call us all in on our days off to cover that shit.

Reasons for not blogging

Here's me: I get up before dawn every day (on a rare occasion even early enough to go to the gym) and then leave the house while the rest of the household members are just waking. Then I drive 1 hour and 15 minutes to work. Then, they still expect me to work all day (seriously!). After all that, I have to drive back home. Guess how long that takes? Yeah. A long freaking time. Next up: Cooking dinner. (Please don't make me explain why I cook dinner for Roomie despite my horrific days. Trust me, he's more than earning his keep). Then there's eating. Then dishes. After all that, I'm ready for bed. Except I'm poor right now, so I've been doing some freelance writing to make extra cash. So before I go to bed, I work on that.

I know. Woe is me. I'm the big dummy who decided to move across the country, thus deliberately making my life harder. Boo and a bigole hoo.

However. I have upsides to report. Writing freelance trivia stories is the SHIT, compared with writing for a newspaper. I mean, it's trivia. Definition: trivial. So it doesn't have to be timely. No one has ever asked me for a nut graf. And attribution?  Not really a huge whoop. It's HEAVEN compared with newspaper writing.

Also, my mom and dad sent me a box the size of a medium-sized dog. The box was stuffed with gifts and hand made cookies, candies and dessert breads. The box gushed love. The stuff was practically seeping out of the seams. I didn't know you could mail love like that. I thought it was restricted, like mailing paint thinner.

Oh, also. I had a birthday. I'm 30. I went to Charleston. In Charleston, I did some fun stuff, like saw sea turtles. Right up close and personal in little tanks at the sea turtle hospital at the Charleston aquarium. We were instructed not to put our hands on the edges of the tanks, lest they snap off our fingers. They were hungry.

Hewo wittle turtle! OK, I kid. This sucker was like 250 pounds.

This was the scotch sampler at this sweet cigar bar upstairs from a tobacco shop in Charleston. I like scotch. Scotch, scotch, scotch.

I also like a crab shack that has buckets set into the table for your crab shells. It's just damn convenient. (And yes, his sweater says "COMPASSION" because he's the BEST kind of hippie. The kind who's nice and likes animals, but still eats them, and who also smells good.)

And another thing that's maybe small but perhaps also worth mentioning. Things? For me? Since moving? Pretty hard. But the guy I moved here for with? Totally, 100%, worth it. Seriously. Want to know how strong your relationship is? Try living together with your partner in his parent's living room for awhile.

Actually, you know what? Don't do that. It's terrible.

In other news, here is a weird thing about the south: Girls here are really into monograming everything. I'd been told this more than once before I figured something out. I'd seen cars all over the place with these stickers across the back windows. The stickers were usually pink, curling cursive letters. Three letters. I kept thinking they must be letters signifying high schools or sororities. But that's because I'm stupid. You've figured it out, haven't you? Yes. Girls here monogram their CARS. With big stickers in ugly, overly-feminine fonts.

And no, I didn't get one for my birthday.

Oh, one more thing about southern girls: If they don't like you, they can be MEAN. And, well, if you're doubting my sincerity, let's say I'm a pretty keen judge of mean, having practiced the art misself. I'll say this: I'd think long and hard before starting any sort of shit with these southern girls. That is, if you're given the chance to avoid it. I'm not entirely convinced it's possible.

Related note: I have a new favorite new phrase, one I'd love to try out in a sentence: "Now, I don't mean to be ugly, but ..." and then say something suuuper mean/insulting/likely to start a fist- and/or knife-fight.

So that's it for now.

God bless America.

Wait, no! Sorry! I mean, Merry Christmas!