City box

On September 30, 2009, M and I closed on our very first home, a midrise condo in a major metropolitan downtown area. Even as recently as June 2009, I was deeply skeptical about our ability to purchase a home in the area where we live, defined by any given statistic as one of the highest cost of living places in the United States. However, once M and I started seriously discussing our options, we realized that home ownership was in fact possible. The stars sort of aligned last year. We were able to take advantage of the First-time Home Buyer's Credit, the decrease in interest rates, and the fact that our home was pre-approved by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) which meant we could have a very low down payment (still comparable to a very reasonable down payment for homes in say, most other parts of the country, but that's a rant for a different day).

We came across our home in one of those fateful moments of chance. We went, we saw, we totally loved. We did not visit too many other places in person, but we looked at listings online for what I can only estimate to be hundreds of homes/condos for sale in a relatively wide range of zip codes within an hour's distance of where we lived at the time. But nothing came close in what that first place offered -- location completely commute-friendly, two bedrooms and two baths, and a new construction. Both M and I have this dream of purchasing a home (house-home, not condo-home) with a yard (or several acres), with lots of do-it-yourself projects that we'd take on and sweat over, but right now we are not at that place in our life. He is working full time and at the time had two years left of grad school, which means we have no time to dedicate to things like mowing lawns, raking leaves, gutting bathrooms, building sheds, and so on. These all sound dreamy for one day, but that day was not now. After many conversations, we decided to go ahead and take the plunge, and commit ourselves to the place we had first considered. That was the easy part. Then came several weeks of insanity.

You hear that there are lots of papers to sign, contracts to read, people to call. You have no idea until you go through with it. They make you feel like you are about to sign away your soul and your first born. You also start doubting yourself as you have to explain every little bank transaction in the last upteenth months. "Sign here, initial the next 43 pages, make 4 copies, fax to this number, email to this person, and meet with so-and-so four times this week." Huh!? It was crazy.

Our initial lender was nice enough but rather sloth-like, so we switched to a different bank and completely lucked out by working with a woman who I can only liken to a blond bulldozer. She promised us we'd close in thirty days, and by golly, she made it happen. August and September of 2009 are a blur comprised of nightly calculating and re-calculating of budgets, and emailing and calling our lender. I think both and M and I were incredulous at first when we realized that we could afford to buy this home, and yet once we decided to do it, the sacrifices we'd have to make in order for it to work started sinking in. There goes my boot habit, his Starbucks addiction, our movie date nights, Thai every week, our gym (I still miss you, Equinox!), and the little insignificant expenses that really add up every month. But, we hankered down, and on September 30, 2009, we became home owners!

Now, you might wonder about the title of this post. Well, "city box" is what I call our little home. You see, we have no yard, no balcony, and we are on the equivalent of the fifth floor. So, literally, we live in a box. An 1,100 square foot box. The first thing we did before even moving in was paint each room. This was the first time either M or I had lived somewhere we could paint the walls, so we went color nuts. A red kitchen, a half-red bedroom, green living room, blue bathrooms (there was a gray situation in there as well but it was recently redeemed).

One thing we learned about being home owners is that you don't have to have everything right away. So what if we lived for nine months with no window coverings in our living room windows? Our view looks out to the hills so no one can look in, and we really enjoyed the view. That is, until I nearly started breaking out in hives at the thought of looking at the black metal window frame for ONE. MORE. SECOND. So, Bed Bath and Beyond, we spent way too much money on your curtains! But, we now have lovely curtains.

So what if we (still) have tension shower rods holding up an amalgamation of shower curtains and old curtains in both bedrooms? They keep out the sun, and they are a vast improvement to the first couple of nights when, I kid you not, we blew up our air mattress and stuffed it in our bedroom window to keep out the light and noise from the train (Oh, have I not mentioned Pete and Bob yet? They will get their own post, I am sure).

So what if it took months and months of internet searching and penny saving until we finally bought our shag rug in the living room? Every day I step on it and smile, happy to have found him for half off at Macys.

So what if we searched high and low for the perfect duvet (who knew there's a word for that?!) until we finally found it for $29 in the clearance bin at Bed Bath and Beyond?

So what if for the first six months, I never stepped foot in any other department than the "HOME" department at Macy's? I didn't even realize it, and frankly, didn't miss it (I miss it now, because my boot habit is starting to rear its ugly head again).

So what if for the first ten months we only had a tiny little round bar table and no real chairs? We waited til the perfect moment and finally have our beautiful seats-8 table with high-backed chairs, from World Market.

It was an incredible feeling purchasing each of our big items, and even our little ones, like our plants.

We've also learned a whole lot. For example, hard water is a bitch. Yes, I said it, it's a bitch! But a $5 purchase of Lemi Shine from Target has literally changed my life. Or that Whirlpool service people might be in the same category as postal office or DMV workers who wish to suck your soul. Or that you should always be very careful about what you believe to be "real" hard wood flooring. It seems like all we have to do is breathe hard, and our hard wood floors dent. Or that black granite counter tops look lovely, but are a ginormous pain to maintain. Every drop shows, so M is constantly wiping them down. I call him "Cinderelly." Or that having a washer and dryer in my own home makes me happier than I could have ever imagined. Or that when you see how many tens of thousands of dollars have gone no where NEAR the principal, and are all in interest or taxes, no one is there to make it be just a bad dream. You also learn all sorts of fun acronyms like FHA, HOA, PMI.

I will be honest, it took a while for our city box to feel like home. But now it has, and I can't imagine not living there with the love of my life -- at least for the next few years, by when, God-willing, our property value will go up and we can upgrade, and start this crazy process all over again!

Home

Birthday cupcakes

For M's birthday a couple of weeks ago, we decided that we wanted to celebrate a deux, and I promised to make cupcakes, instead of buying a birthday cake. I looked around the internet for different recipes, and finally settled on white chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling from Good Things Catered, one of my favorite cooking blogs. However, I did not want to use shortening in the filling (shortening still kind of creeps me out), and Sharone was kind enough to forward me a low-fat, non-shortening recipe, so I used that instead. Then, I searched around for easy and waist-line friendly frosting recipes and found a chocolate cream cheese frosting (forget where). I was so excited to get a-baking, until I realized that I had pretty much none of the necessary tools. For one, I did not own a mixer. So off I went to Sur la Table, and back I came with my tail between my legs. Obviously, they were under the impression that money is falling out of my ears, because the cheapest hand mixer they had was around $70. So off I went to Target, and came home with a handy-dandy hand mixer which I already fantasize about trading in for a stand mixer. Sadly, this will probably only come to my counter when money is falling out of my ears...

I also did not have: cupcake paper cups, cornstarch, chocolate (white or milk), sprinkles, cream cheese, filling bags/tips ... basically anything involved in making my cupcakes! The only ingredients I had were flour and sugar... enough to make a sugary paste, but not enough for super duper birthday cupcakes!

After much fun was had exploring the baking isle at Safeway, I was revved and ready to bake!

Everything but the kitchen sink

Fresh out of the oven. Smelled delicious!

Now comes the filling! A bit messy but sooo yummy!

Ooey, gooey

Finished product

Recipe, as adapted by moi:

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

Cake Ingredients:
8 oz. Ghirardelli white chocolate chips
1 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 c. oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 c. canned unsweetened coconut milk
3 large egg whites

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare muffin tins with paper liners.
-Place white chocolate in metal bowl set over pan of barely simmering water.
-Stir until melted and smooth (this was really fun!).
-In medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt.
-In bowl of stand mixer, beat sugar, butter, and vanilla until blended and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
-Slowly add in oil while running and mix until combined.
-Add hot white chocolate to sugar mixture; stir to combine.
-Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with coconut milk in 2 additions, beating batter just to combine between additions. (I think I could have gotten better quality coconut milk, or maybe I'm just not used to its texture, but it was kind of clumpy).
-Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in medium bowl until soft peaks form. (umm white peaks didn't really form... this is where I need more practice)
-Gently fold egg white mixture into batter.
-Divide batter among muffin cups (about 1/4 cup each).
-Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
-Cool completely. (try really really hard not to eat the cupcakes)
-Using melon baller, ball out small portion of the top of each cupcake and discard. (or, as I did, EAT).
-Fill disposable bag with raspberry filling and pipe into scooped out portion of each cupcake until just reaching height of top of the cupcake. (this was a big mess!! definitely need practice with the filling bag!)
-Ice as desired. (I made a chocolate cream cheese icing that turned out a bit runny but I did not use as much sugar as the recipe had called for. I think that would have made it stiffer). I also sprinkled colored sugar on each cupcake for a more festive, birthday-ish feel :)

Raspberry filling:

1 1/2 cups raspberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
a small handful of Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips

In a small sauce pan, combined all of the ingredients and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Let cool. Take little scoops out of each cupcake with the fruit scooper thing, and using the frosting bag, inject a bit of the filling into each cupcake. Mine turned out a bit messy but no biggie. The filling turned out tangy and very raspberry-ish, which was perfect!

Gourmand ambitions

Something very exciting has been happening lately -- amidst a subtle and ongoing midlife crisis, I have discovered that I really enjoy cooking and baking; this is probably a felicitous discovery considering how much I like eating!

Since domesticity has never been among my strong suits, at first I was surprised by my own epicuriosity. I blame three people for this new interest: my mother, M, and Sharone. While my parents visited, my mother cooked almost daily, reminding me of how much I love her food. At first, I didn't understand why she wanted to spend so much time slaving away cooking, especially with some of the more time-consuming dishes she made. But then, I started realizing that cooking wasn't just meant to be a means of feeding us, but rather an expression of her creativity, ability, usefulness... in short, identity. When you cook something, you put yourself into that food, and it becomes a signal to those eating the meal that you took the time and effort and pleasure to create this food for them. You are nourishing them in a very particular way - your way, and at the same time telling them that they are important enough for you to cook for them, and that you are important enough to be trusted with this responsibility. I guess I am realizing that when not done out of sheer necessity, cooking can become an outlet for one's personality much like creative writing, painting, playing an instrument can. But unlike all these other outlets, it yields tasty, delicious food!

The second person I blame for my newly discovered passion is M. If he wasn't so supportive of all my whacky ideas, and didn't encourage me to do whatever it is that makes me happy, and didn't like to eat as much as I do, I may have been prevented from obsessively creating Amazon wish lists of all my new "must-have" cooking and baking needs! Our apartment would not suddenly feel too small because it cannot house all the hundreds of spice jars, dozens of baking molds, etc etc etc that I suddenly want to spend half my paychecks on.

Thirdly, reading Sharone's blog encourages me to take chances on things I never previously wanted to make. Her amazing ability to squeeze in time to create Margarita Cupcakes and gorgeous fluffy clouds of deliciousness while juggling wedding showers, work, grad school, and life has convinced me that there is always time for a tasty treat!

I think this cooking thing is part of a bigger picture. Lately, I've been overwhelmed by new hobbies that I want to pursue, from camping and backpacking, to spin classes and running, to cooking and becoming the next finance guru (okay, that's a bit far-fetched. But I do have this fantasy of creating a super-duper portfolio that is chock full of diverse investments, and participating in conversations in which I confidently command the usage of words like "maturity," "municipal bonds," and "hedge fund.")

Wherefore these interests? Wherefore now? I blame the clock. The clock that in a voice akin to Chinese water torture tells me each day, "You are getting older." And, without magical ear plugs to shut out this evil clock, I somehow along the way decided that "older" will not mean "boring," will not mean "settled," will not mean "slow" or "fat" or "dowdy." I have decided that if fate must be left to her devices and pull me into adulthood and all the things that come with it, I will do it on my own terms.

So, for now, I spin, I run, I ache. I eat, I cook, I bake. (I couldn't help myself!)

Thankful

This morning on KRTY, the DJs asked listeners to text in the foods they were thankful for, and someone must have read my mind, because they texted, "pudding." This may be a little-known fact about me, but I could eat chocolate pudding by the bucket-fulls. Pudding is delicious! But that is besides the real point, which is that the pudding text made me think of foods I am thankful for, and from there, different things over the past year for which I'm thankful.

I'm thankful I have friends who remind me it isn't proper writing etiquette to end sentences with a preposition (nearly did right above!). In retrospect, I did not spend nearly enough time during grad school getting to know the great people I went to school with, but somehow after school was over, I got to keep some of them as friends, and I'm thankful that I have peers who inspire me and push me to be my best.

I am thankful I have truly lovely parents, and that I live at a time of exciting technology that makes the world so small that I can talk to them and see them everyday without much effort. Just a few years ago, this would have been nearly impossible, and at the very least, expensive and frustrating. Back in 2003, internet connections were so crappy by comparison, that even a 5 minute conversation was a hassle, with the image freezing, and echoes, and so on. And speaking of technology, I'm thankful for our office copy machine! It scans documents directly to email, making my life infinitely easier when dealing with hundred-pages long applications.

On the topic of work, I'm thankful for my job, and that it's on a beautiful university campus with hundreds of trees changing their colors right about now. The people I work with or come across during my work day remind me how much one person can achieve if they set their mind to it. Sometimes there is so much ugliness in the world, and so many stupid people seem to populate it, that it's easy to forget there are many people who truly care to make this world better. Some of the things I do at work remind me that even when I feel smug about myself for the small accomplishments I have reached, I come nowhere near what others accomplish.

I'm also thankful that my job comes with a paycheck that allows me to enjoy other things I am thankful for, like my kick-ass boots. There are some articles of clothing that I become very attached to (in the past, these have included certain jeans and pajama pants that I literally wore until they fell apart, my Happy Bunny t-shirt, my silver purse), and my Born boots are my new obsession. I could wear these things all day (actually, I do!). They are the first high-heel shoes I can walk in for hours, and I can't wait to wear them with skirts. The only bad thing is they don't come in black, which I honestly can't understand. Who doesn't make boots in black?

I'm thankful that in a few weeks, I get to go away with my wonderful boyfriend for a little vacation. Even though we live together, and thus have lots of alone time, there is still something really exciting about the idea of being alone (amidst hundreds of strangers) away from home. Even more than being thankful for our vacation, I'm thankful for him, and for the little life we have together, and for the fact that he shares his family with me, and for the songs he sings to me when he practices on his guitar.

I'm thankful for many little things, like left-over candy corn that doesn't seem to run out and always waits for me in the cupboard. And my desk heater at work that keeps me cozy even when it's freezing. And the donuts shop across the street from our apartment that is open 24 hours a day, every day. I'm thankful for lemon pie, which I am seriously craving now that my coworkers went on and on about I'm thankful for my car, which I've had now for almost five years! And our swiveling TV that lets us watch "Dancing With the Stars" even when sitting on different couches. I'm thankful for country music, which keeps me positive and amused, and provides hours of guitar-playing and singing at our apartment. I'm thankful that one of the perks of my job is that I can use any library on campus and check books out for a year. Along that line, I'm thankful for literature, which constantly teaches me empathy. I'm thankful for books on CD, which make long drives feel shorter. I'm thankful that the Bush administration is nearly done, and we have a new chapter to look forward to in the development of our country, and I'm thankful that there are high expectations of our new president, so that he may reach high. I'm thankful for Facebook, which makes work endlessly more entertaining. I'm thankful for many, many things, and people, and hopefully I can keep that in mind throughout the coming year. It's a funny thing about holidays - for a few days, we think about the blessings we have, and appreciate them, and give thanks for them, but it seems like for the rest of the year, we take them for granted.

In just a few weeks, it will be "New Year's Resolutions" time. Last year, I didn't make any, so maybe this year I can make double the resolution to be more appreciative of the blessings I have. But that's not for another month. For now, Happy Thanksgiving!

What's in a week?

M initiated a kind of ritual that we have established over the last several weeks, of taking some time on Sunday night and reflecting on all the events that happened over the last seven days. What we have come to realize is that no matter how dull one's life may look like from a distance, if you break it down in such a way that you look at life day by day and week by week, you come to realize how much really happens!

As an example, I will share only the last seven days. Last Sunday night, I never would have thought that within the week, I would have traveled to Nebraska (and possibly for a brief moment, to Iowa!) and spent time amidst hundreds of miles of corn and soy beans, with people who refer to my presidential candidate preference as merely, "the idiot." Or that I'd have to say goodbye probably for the last time to a wonderful human being. Or that I would watch several thunderstorms happen hundreds of miles away, visible only because the land in Nebraska is so flat you literally see to the horizon. Or that I would spend more time with a screaming infant that I ever really cared to. Or that I would attend Sunday service at a Methodist church and meet the pastor. Or that I would spend hours upon hours in the Denver airport, to and from Nebraska! Or that I'd discover that I'm to be an aunt, making my little sister the first to reproduce and get married. Or that a friend of mine would get engaged! Or that I'd get a second callback interview and have it scheduled for the morning after our late return flight. Or that I would actually find myself very much enjoying Henry James's Portrait of a Lady.

All in a week's time, and all with absolutely no prior knowledge. Now, we stand outside on Sunday nights, and hope that the coming week will be as exciting as the last, hopefully with less sadness and with more happy news!

Pictures from Nebraska to ensue shortly!

Update Edition

After much popular demand (one very loving boyfriend), I have decided to come out of my writing hibernation and continue with this blog. I think after two years of intensive reading and writing, I was, what you may call, "over it." Mainly, "over" over-analyzing things to the degree that I felt compelled to write about them, but I have come to terms with and embraced the fact that I shall forever be an over-analyzer, and thus must reconcile with my bitty blog.
Today, I want to catch up on some of the things that have happened in the past couple of months that I have very much wanted to write about, but difficulties arose because I do not want to think about them. To write about something that you do not think about is pretty difficult. (I am realizing as I type that I am channeling the style from "The Princess Bride." Which would be ok if I didn't find the book's style really annoying... perhaps a stylistic rethinking is in order).
First of all, I had to say goodbye to my student status (though, my ID still comes with me in case a theater, any theater, offers a student discount -- and not a dang one around here does!!!). This was difficult for me. I love being in school, I love being stressed for time working on a paper, I love the comraderie that comes with school, and now the "real world" is loudly knocking. Actually, it is a combination of it and myself knocking alternatively. It seems that at times I am more than willing to join the real world, but it does not seem to want me. At other times, the real world is so much in my face that I want to call a time out. Well, school is over and I have a feeling that it is over for a while. I know that eventually I will get the itch. It is inevitable and I foresee it clearly. But the itch to prove myself outside the classroom is much stronger, though vague in where it really lies. With school behind me, I walked foot in front of foot into the real world, and the real world had one big time-sensitive plan for me -- to pack.

I swear, I feel like after I finished school, I did nothing but pack and unpack, pack and unpack for a month and a half straight. Graduation weekend I drove up (in my parents' car, as mine decided it did not yet wish to leave Orange County, and instead decided to break down on me) and came to look for an apartment. Within a week, we had picked out place and signed a lease, and whoa Nelly, was that a big moment! I had signed a lease before, I had in fact signed several leases before. And I had signed a lease with roommates before, but this, this was the first time I was signing a lease -- with a BOY! A BOY that would be there day in and day out, day after night after day after night. So, as any responsible lease signer would do, I left. Well, no, not really, I merely came back to Orange County to begin the loooong packing process of 2008. I packed my clothes. I packed my books. I packed some more books. I packed my toiletries, my linen, my posters, my shoes, and a few more boxes of Penguins (I have many. They are very pretty and shiny on my shelf, sitting side by side, little penguins all in a row). Then, my parents said, "pack this" so I packed some plates and some pots. Then, my parents said, "pack this too," so I packed some towels and some vases. Then, my parents said, "this too, pack it" so I packed some blankets and some patio chairs. Then (well you get the picture). Then, my friend Kristin said, I have a futon for sale, and I thought, we have no couch, nothing to sit on, I must have that futon. So Allie and I drove and packed that futon in the car. More stuff to be packed away. My dad and I got a truck. We filled that truck. We filled that truck with some dexterity that it not a damn thing could move around in there. And on Saturday morning, we set out early on for the drive, me in my now-fixed car (also filled with stuff), and my dad in the Budget truck. We drove and drove and drove, and finally, arrived in Palo Alto. We arrived at my new place. My new place where a BOY also lives. (The novelty has not yet worn off).
For the first few days, all I did was wake up, unpack, store, clean. Wake up, unpack, store, clean. Soon, the apartment was not quite as covered in boxes, not quite as crazy. So, I did what any other person in my position would do -- I left! Well, I had to! I had to go back to Orange County to begin a new cycle of packing.

My parents decided that with retirement would come a slight relocation. Oh, not that far. Only a hop skip and a 12-hour plane ride, a stopover, and another 3 hour plane ride away! They were moving back to Romania, and taking the whole house with them. SOooo everything had to be packed. Organized, packed, tallied, kept score of. All the plates had to be bubble wrapped. All the photo albums had to be sorted. All the trinkets, the toys, the treasures, had to be put into boxes. For a week, I packed. Then, their big ol' container came, and everything had to be put inside. So for three days, we lugged. Then, it was gone. Then, the house looked --- well, it looked full, to be perfectly honest! The couches had stayed. Nearly their entire bedroom had stayed. My piano had stayed (coming back to this later). I was supposed to return to Palo Alto, but I too, stayed. I could not leave yet, could not say goodbye to the place I had called home for the past 15 years. So, another week went by. I slept on the couch (not pleasant), I ate my mama's food (quite pleasant), and I got to see my parents for another few days. But, then, it was time for me to return to my own new home, laden with more things to unpack once I arrived.
Then, the visits started. When Marcello's family came, they brought with them much to be later unpacked. Then, a couple of weeks later, my parents came, bringing their truck (now, my truck) full of things to be likewise unpacked and stored. But two things I could not unpack, and store, were my parents. They only stayed for a few days, then we were off to the airport and I had to watch from outside the security line as they walked away and disappeared into the crowd, without shoes, without me.

This was the packing and unpacking saga of the summer of 2008.

Some more exciting things have happened since school ended. I went to the crazyness that is the Camp Pendleton Mud Run (as an observer, not a participant). I witnessed thousands of people running and sloshing and crawling through mud, and actually agreed that it looked like a grand ol' time. Then, last weekend, I went (also as an observer) to the Wharf to Wharf in Santa Cruz, where even more crazy people ran their butts off for over 6 miles. With all this running frenzy surrounding me, I decided that I too shall run. When I read Sharone's blog about the Disneyland triathlon, I got super inspired to get my big booty off the couch (though in all honesty it is not there that often) and give this running thing a shot. At first, I could barely run for 30 seconds without almost keeling over. This was harder than it looked! But Marcello gave me a good running plan, and after following it for three weeks, today I ran for ten minutes non-stop, and including the warmup walk before I started running, I did a 16 minute mile. Stop laughing! It is damn impressive, for me. Besides the joys of running, M and I have just joined a gym. It is lovely and shiny - and expensive! But I think it will keep me going there, and I am very excited to go all the time. Plus, too many people keep insisting on having weddings this summer, and I must look at least presentable, especially for one particular one. I am actually considering going tanning. (It came with the gym package! I SWEAR!) If you saw how pasty I am, and considered how good I have to look for this wedding, you'd understand. Stop judging!

Besides the running and the potential tanning, my life has pretty much been as domestic as it comes. I am still looking for a job, and it did come as a slight shock when hundreds of employers did not call, come knocking, or sent messenger pigeons, begging me to work for them. Alas, as CNN informed me today while I was on my very shiny treadmill at my very shiny gym, this is NOT the time to be looking for a job. So, while I wait, I have honed my skills at domesticity. I have to say, there is something VERY appealing about being able to go to the mall at 2 in the afternoon after having done the laundry, the grocery shopping, and watched back to back Golden Girls.

I have also had time to catch up on some "fun" reading, though someone may want to update me on what "fun" reading is, as two of those books have included Wharton's "House of Mirth" and Radcliffe's "The Italian," which are not exactly light summer reading. I also read (finally!) "The Godfather" (rave!!!) and am now finishing "The Princess Bride" (eh, half snore, half smile). Next on my list, "Good in Bed."

Ok, my first return to the blogosphere has turned into a marathon, so I shall call it a day.