privileged problems

I haven't posted much lately since I didn't really want to talk about the house -- there's a house that seemed virtually a sure thing for us, but due to... well, let's be charitable and call it ineptness (rather than crookedness, which is what I really suspect) on the part of the listing office, we're now in place as the "back-up" offer.

It was a lot, a lot of disappointment to get over, because while it wasn't our dream house by a long shot, it had so many things about it that we liked and a lot of things that we could do a lot with. There's still a shred of a chance it might work out, but we've both been working on letting that go.

I keep reminding myself, whenever I get another wave of anger or disappointment, that this is such a privileged problem to have -- too bad, we didn't get a house. Most people -- even most Americans -- never buy a house, and we really don't have anything to complain about in our lives. We're healthy, Silver has a good job, we're living in a beautiful place, we have a car that's exactly what we needed, and we're doing much better financially than we were back in Vermont, both because Silver's earning a little more and because the cost of living here is significantly lower. We have a nice, convenient, affordable place to live, we're close to Silver's family, and we have some very good friends here, and a very close-knit faith community.

Don't get me wrong -- I would love for us to have our own little place, where we could do what we liked with the yard (and actually have a yard), have worm compost again (it didn't do well under our sink), and have more room to spread out. And not be living in the heart of the college neighborhood anymore -- which isn't so bad except for the broken beer bottles on the sidewalk, occasional loud parties and drunkenness, and the smoke (cigarette and otherwise) that we run into in front of the building or which makes its way into our apartment. But by and large where we are is just what we needed; it's cheap, it's on the ground floor, it has wood floors (which is great since we both have dust allergies that would be agitated by carpet), and we're within walking distance to the library, Safeway, and all of downtown (which means coffee shops, restaurants, etc). It's also part of what's allowed us to go without a car for so long, which has saved us a lot of money as well. We've also got a really decent landlord, which I don't take for granted as much as I used to.

In other news, I'm still working on that first sock (loooooots of stockinette -- for me, anyway; I've never done a stockinette sweater or anything yet, so my point of reference is a little skewed), and, for the moment, nothing else, knitting-wise. I finished the Vintage Pixie Cap, a little hat for Trinity, a capelet for my sister, and now all I'm working on are these socks. So hopefully I'll get some pictures of completed things up soon.

Also, my due date (for all that that means) is three days away; it's at the point where the cashiers at the grocery store are asking me how long I have to go. One of Silver's co-workers bet him it would be the 11th, but we'll just have to wait and see. A few weeks ago I had a sudden feeling it would be the 6th, but clearly (unless I have a very sudden and very short labor), that's not going to happen. Later would be better for us, anyway, since Silver's last day of school is the 22nd, and it would be nice for him to have to make up fewer lesson plans.

I've also been doing lots of cooking and baking, but I've been very negligent about posting recipes that turn out well up here -- I'll have to get back in the habit. I baked two loaves of bread yesterday (the first version of the white bread recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice) that turned out really well, although they used a TON of flour (4 3/4 cups for two loaves -- I guess that's not that much for the yield, but it felt like a lot). Using bread flour rather than all-purpose makes a world of difference -- it also made the picnic wraps that I make sometimes more like actual tortillas, since they were a lot softer and more pliable. Luckily, our church's food stand at the flea market has flour coming out their ears, so we've got a nice half-price source of flour.

I'm also trying out a recipe for spicy German mustard (the same one you'll find over at Fake Plastic Fish), so we'll see how that goes. I'm trying to work hard on buying as few convenience foods as possible and making our own, with various levels of success. I made yogurt once, but taking the cooler down is kind of a hassle, so I haven't made it again, but we haven't bought tortillas since we moved here (I've been making those picnic wraps), and while we never really bought chocolate syrup before, I've made one or two batches of that and we're extremely happy with it (that recipe is also on Fake Plastic Fish). I have a mayonnaise recipe that I haven't yet gotten to try out (I'm the only one who eats it and our jar is seemingly neverending), and we haven't bought store-made bread in a long time (unless you count bagels, which we eat a LOT of lately as they've been on sale at Safeway for the past three months...)

I'm also going to try out a laundry soap recipe soon (Seppie got me all the fixins for it for Christmas), and as of today I've gone back to baking soda and apple cider vinegar for washing my hair (since the last of my store-bought shampoo is gone); it feels soooo much cleaner than it has in I can't tell you how long (but my hair tends to be really oily anyway).

Anyway, just wanted to give a little update of what I've been doing -- and right now, I need to go fold some laundry....