The Deed is Done

It’s official. WE SOLD OUR RALEIGH HOUSE.

Sing it from the mountain tops y’all: HALLELUJAH, PRAISE JESUS AND PASS THE CORNBREAD!!!!!!!!!!

Ever since we decided to take this crazy plunge and move back to Asheville, it has been one wild (and costly) ride.

I’m trying not to dwell on the money lost. (OMG – nauseating.) But sometimes that’s hard to abide by. It’s also hard to ignore the doubts.

Was this the right decision? Should we have held out? Why did we buy the house to begin with? Etc.

In those delightfully enchanting moments of self-doubt, it requires tremendous discipline to make the voice of calm compassion reassure the voice of hysterics. We made the best decisions we could at the time. Perfect decisions? Maybe not. But they were not poor decisions. And really, who could have predicted a national housing market crash way back in early 2008? Certainly not these two young kids:

Aww..young love.

But now it is done. The decision has been made. The deed has been signed and the keys handed over.

I hope the new owners enjoy the home. We did during our time there and for that I’m thankful. We have some great memories, despite the struggles since moving. And I am incredibly, incredibly grateful to our fabulous neighbors who looked out for us from day one.

So you live and you learn. And while that money could have done a lot (A LOT) of other fun things….at the end of the day, it’s just money. And that is no substitute for good health or lots of love. My bank account balance is significantly lower…but my cup runneth over in the other departments.

I’ll take it.

The problems of a first world white woman in a multi-cultural relationship…

So in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Somanna is Indian. Like In-dee-yaahh with tea and curry and call centers. Not Indian with tepees, tomahawks and sports mascots. Just to use a few racist generalizations 😉

To further state the obvious, we live in America. The United States. North Carolina. Asheville, my beloved little Southern mountain town.

Our day-to-day lives are pretty American. Specifically white, middle class. (Can you tell I minored in sociology? Yay Liberal Arts!) As much as we love Western North Carolina, the fact is – it’s just not a terribly diverse area. Definitely one of the cons.

I grew up on Southern, American food. I cook Southern, American food. I have a Southern accent, we live in my home state and both the activities of our lives and the aesthetics are very much American. Very Western.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Except.

Except that one of us is not Western / American by origin.

So how do I create a home that reflects that? How do other intercultural couples or even just couples with vastly different aesthetics approach decorating their home? That is the question I’m posing to the interwebs tonight.

I desperately want our new home’s decor to showcase both our backgrounds and perhaps highlight Somanna’s background a bit more. If I can’t take the sweet man home but every two years, then damn it I’m going to bring home to him. I want a space that reminds him of touches of home both in India and Zambia (yeah – he grew up in Zambia – it’s wonderfully complicated :))

So how does one do this? I’ve found a few decorating blogs on Indian decor and I’ve searched Amazon for some books. And of course, Pinterest. I need inspiration. Indian Inspiration!

If you’ve got any suggestions: resources, tips, links, blogs, books, pictures, magazines, movies, places to shop, anything – I’m all ears.

Or words.

Whatever.  I’ll take it!

Help a sister out y’all!

The Joys of Homeownership

So, in an effort to prep the house for our big move, I’ve been running around doing all of those things that we should have been doing the whole time we lived here, but were too busy sitting on our rumps complaining about having nothing to do and watching movies.

So I haz been kind of busy.  Cleaning, sorting, etc.  Which reminds me….

May I just take a moment to say, MY WORD the clutter! MY WORD! Scary.

Anyhoos, in the throes of cleaning out, organizing, sorting, chucking, painting, and the like, there’s been a wee bit of repairing. And the first thing on my repair list was the GFC outlet in our kitchen that had kicked the bucket, oh, about 2 months ago. Leaving us a kitchen with only three functioning outlets.  Kind of a problem.

Day 21: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

As you may recall from this earlier post, we have been debating getting a Christmas tree around these parts.

Well friends, cue the Charlie Brown music and check out our “compromise” Christmas tree:

I know, woh-wohhhh.  But hey, we got this mini pre-lit fiber optic tree for our apartment days and still had it around.

Maybe it looks a little better lit up??

Le Sigh.

Day 1: What We Do Best

Well, seeing as how I’ve committed myself to yapping your ears (eyes?) off these next few (cough, 30) days, I figured I’d start with explaining our conspicuous, or rather not so conspicuous, absence from the blogging scene.

Oh Dear Reader, it has been a whirlwind of a few months. Let’s start back in August when we officially fell off the planet.

And then Mother Nature laughed in my face

Remember way back when we set out to save some ki-za$h by not running the A/C so much?

Remember?

OF COURSE you do….because I’ve only written like four posts since then, so it’s not exactly like you have to hunt through our bare-boned archives.

And remember how this summer, Summer 2010 was the fourth hottest summer on record? And how several cities such as DC and Baltimore and New York all had their hottest summers to date? Remember?

Yup, that all happened this past summer.

But “what about Raleigh” I hear you ask.

Yes, about that.

Motherly Love

This weekend, Somanna and I tackled our bare dining room walls. They now have color. A color I chose after much deliberation.

Alas, now that the second coat is up and dry, I’m not quite 100% happy with it. I chose Bradstreet Beige by Benjamin Moore, a lovely color. However, this color possesses an ever so slight pinkish undertone that threatens my very sanity.  Is it a bad color? Well, no. Does it look horrible? Not really. It looks quite nice actually. It’s just not…quite what I wanted. It’s that blasted pinkish undertone I tell you!  I find myself staring at the wall until I start to twitch and mutter things under my breath.

Pinkish Undertone! It’ll drive you MAD!

Somanna contends that I am crazy, that there is no alleged “pinkish undertone” and that the color looks fabulous.

But I went ahead and called my mother anyway for back up to lament about the pinkish undertone that threatens my sanity. She in turn, proceeded to recount how I won an art award in sixth grade for “good use of color” and that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt (or an in-the-flesh-husband) that if I say there is a pinkish undertone, then there must be one. Mama also instructed me to never doubt my color judgment skills because clearly this award indicated that I am in fact, a color prodigy.

I hung up feeling vindicated, err better.  Even us crazies love some good ole Mama praise. I mentioned this conversation to Somanna, in passing of course, you know just to rub it in that there is a pinkish undertone and that I am a color GENIOUS, HA!

He just looked at me said, “Yea, well she can’t see what you’re wearing.”

Cheeky.

Em-Barrassed

We have lived in “nuestra casa” for almost two years. In fact, our two-year closing anniversary is next month.

And this entire time, we’ve been especially thankful for our oh-so-helpful neighbor Rob. Whom we have called by name many, many times. And he always responded with a friendly, but slightly generic “Hey guys, how’s it going?” We just assumed he was hesitant to pronounce Somanna’s name and that he probably didn’t know mine since he and Somanna tend to chat more. No big deal.

At least that’s what we figured.

Turns out his name is Bob, not Rob.

Good to know. Especially for this year’s Christmas cards.

It’s Hot as Bizalls

Well friends and loved ones, it is officially my favorite season: SUMMER!! Woo to the Hoo indeed!! Blazing sunshine, rising temps, big bugs and even bigger hair have set upon us. And this Southern gal couldn’t be happier.

Or sweaty-er.

Admittedly, the humidity ’round these parts is a major buzz kill. But ya know, if you just adopt a “It’s just like the spa!” attitude in regards to the outdoor sauna that is Eastern North Carolina, then suddenly it’s like nature’s own free facial every day!

Or not. But I’m a glass half full kind of gal.

Anyhoo, as you may recall, Old Man Winter and I do not get along. But Summer? We go waaayyy back and every time she comes back to town, I am so utterly, deliriously happy to see her again. Sing it with me now, reunited and it feels so goo-oodd!

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby Right Round

I know. I know! It has been far too long since we got our blog on. It’s a travesty really. It isn’t that we don’t have perfectly blogable things to well, blog, about. It’s just that we’ve been kind of busy.

And out of town a lot. That definitely has something to do with it.

But here we are (again) trying to climb back in the proverbial saddle and keep on riding, err blogging.

So without further ado, I give you a tale of victory. A tale of triumph!