ummm

the first smart-alec instance! ella and i met up with s. and aurora on friday afternoon at long hill, and s. was saying something and said "um..." and ella said "ummm..." and then realized that we thought it was funny. so now every time someone says "um" she repeats "ummm" with a glint in her eye.

punky.

j. and i spent saturday morning viewing houses. which was semi-depressing. one of the homes was from 1800 and just about everything would need to be done over. and one of the places had extensive water damage (missing walls, missing floors, missing bathroom fixtures, etc.) and still was asking for $204k. one of the places was nice, but just too small (and asking $269k). and the final place (the townhouse i linked to) was just amazing and perfect...and way too expensive. we're realizing that we need to look for places no higher than very low $200k-ish, if not lower. but it is so hard to find anything for that price around here. i've come across two places in the mid-to-upper $100k range and they both are "affordable state housing" with an income limit that puts us just a few thousand too high. grrr.

but i looked at a place on sunday that was okay. it's not in ipswich; it's in the next town over. but it has good high-way access (which is good for commutes, but bad for asthetics). it's definitely bigger than what we have now, and it has 1.5 baths and 2 bedrooms and a large kitchen and living room. it's a condo, and has high condo fees, but they include heat. they are asking $179k. which is probably the best part about it. it could be a good starter for us, since the only changes that need to be made there are things like carpeting and paint. so if we got it for a good price we could fix it up and resell it when the market goes up again. but we have to be willing to live there until that happens...and i just don't know if it's big enough for us to continue to grow our family over the next few years (i'm still not in any huge rush on this, but have to think ahead). plus, i would really miss the ability to walk downtown here. i love ipswich. everything i love is close by: library, ebscoland, my gym, the river, the shops, my toy store, green grocer, natural food store, crane beach, russell orchard, my CSA, appleton farm... would i really want to live a 12 minute drive away from all that?

well, it's a lot to think about. but we just have to not be in a rush about this. i am glad we're looking now, though, since this is the year the government is giving new homeowners money and the interest rates are dropping and the prices of houses are going down. who knows what can happen?

tomorrow is ella's 1 and 1/2 year birthday! i am going to make some chocolate cupcakes with frosting, which will be quite the treat.

elenora's new favorite book is "bendemolena," which is a book about a kitten who has 9 brothers and sisters, so she puts a pot over her head to block out the noise, but then she can't understand what her mother is asking her to do and all kinds of funny things end up happening. like, her mother asks her to tell her brothers and sisters to "make up a drink" for supper, and bendemolena thinks her mother said to "put a horse in the sink." the pictures are really well done.

i'm reading "my antonia" right now. it's set in nebraska, where momby grew up, which is fun to think about.

it took me 2 hours to fall asleep last night. i had so many thoughts racing through my mind about the condo i looked at. "if we put the couch here, the chair could go there...if we re-painted the kitchen, what color would it be?...if we re-did the carpet in the living room, would we use the same carpet to do the upstairs?" etc.

i need a nap.