I loved the broken angel image that I had as my blog header - I'll probably go and find it again the next time I want to change things up. The broken angel was the point of that image, but the cemetery behind her - at once terribly sad and poignantly lovely, to my snow-loving heart - was the icing on the cake.
On that subject (broken angels - you following?), I have been toying for some time with changing my name from "the misfit" to "the littlest angel." There's a number of reasons for this. Starting with the misfit - I chose that name originally because I was entering the blogging world to find a place I fit better than in the world of swinging singles and glowing mothers, and I kind of liked the Flannery O'Connor reference - not suggesting I'm a serial killer or anything, but her writing was vibrant and intelligent and really pushed the envelope, and very very Catholic in a way people often don't really get, and I could see borrowing some of those ideas in blogging about infertility. However, it occurs to me that "misfit" may sound angsty and Goth, an angle I was not going for; as demonstrated, perhaps, by the fact that very few people are willing to call me that, even though it's a noun for a person - and people with whole sentences for names are called by those pretty universally. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
So anyway, the angel thing has been with me for a while - I was the "littlest angel" (i.e., attorney who gets the worst assignments) at my firm for a while, and in college - I'll try to make this not-horrifying - one of my non-Catholic friends came up with a substitute for the baseball metaphor (first base, second base, you know), that involved angels. I was dating my very first boyfriend (a mistake, but aren't they all? OK, Megan, not yours), and saw it as something of an achievement to lose a little of my innocence, but I reacted in HORROR at the suggestion that anything should happen to my metaphorical wings. I wasn't doing much with my faith at the time, but heaven help the person who threatened those wings. And now, here I am in the blogosphere - a prosaic Catholic struggling to fly, as grounded spiritually as maternally. (The angel I picked for my little icon is missing a wing on the same side as my defunct ovary - I thought that was fitting. Also, she looks a bit like me.)
What say you? Is changing my nom de cyber after I've started somehow untrue to my little world here? Are both names preposterously teen/angsty?
As for my current photo - I stumbled on that picture from Disney's Little House and that was it. It's a little like the house I'm living in - very small, in the middle of quite a bit of land. It's a little like the life I'm living in - picturesque but a bit unreachable. And it's fitting to have a house, because right now, A House is the top of my emotional priorities. I have found my house - yes, I know, I did that before. But that was a house I could buy if I could persuade the goofy owners to take a reasonable offer (about half what they were asking) when they are demonstrably unreasonable, and I had no idea what the inside looked like, and it would need repairs in the six-figure range. Yes, yes, it was in the perfect neighborhood...
Anyway, I just found the house. It's just been reduced to a price that (with a small bidding war, but nothing they won't be getting from absolutely any buyer - in the 10% range?) we could seriously pay. (I'm not even kidding.) Unlike the previous My House, it has a real yard (.35 acres), with a driveway (that doesn't sound so special, but the other house didn't). It needs a lot of updates, but it is not in actual disrepair, and definitely not falling over. It's on a street of the most lovely Victorian homes, in a historic district (and did I mention that it's affordable?). It's three miles (yes, I know, way longer than four blocks, but still) from a metro line that stops walking distance from my office; the stop near the house has a parking lot and also a bus goes there from near the house. It's half a mile from the local parish, which we both attended on Sunday (we visited the house and environs) and really liked. It's driveable to a place my DH is really hoping to land a job (but it will be a long time before he knows...unless they speed things up! Prayers! Please!). It's got an unfinished attic and basement, which means that if we unexpectedly ended up with a gaggle of children, we could finish those spaces and house them all. There's a good parish school at the church. It's in a safe neighborhood.
It's so cute. It has a lovable porch, and a pile of other features with which I am in love (sadly, the one room I don't specially like and can't think of a simple way to fix is the kitchen. And kitchens are important. But, many designers and architects have trod this road before, and I shall pore over their ideas.) I am so attached to this house that I won't even post its picture here because I can't bear the idea that it should be taken away from me. (Of course, there are four or five blocks of nearby houses that could come on the market...but doubtful I would be able to afford them.) But we can't buy a house until DH lands a job. In the meantime, we are dickering with our rotten landlords, who want us to sign a 12-month lease, or, in the event that our circumstances could change and we need something different, a 12-month lease. I've looked up the property - they bought it for $10 and are not paying a mortgage. And it's not in an apartment complex, they can set whatever terms they want. We might stay here for a year. But we won't stay another month if they decide that they don't have to negotiate at all. Because you know what...it's a buyer's market for rentals right now, too. SO THERE.
Anyway, such is the very small drama of my very small life.
I want a house.
