Tag Archives: NaBloPoMo2017

Diversions, National Blog Posting Month

Five huge properties for sale in the United States

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One of my favorite pastimes is looking at real estate on the internet. It’s both a hobby and an addiction. I hurt my shoulder raking leaves today, so I’m going to be phoning it in with this, a list of:

Ginormous Houses You Can Buy For Less Than $200,000 in the United States

Cullman, Alabama


1465 Orchard Drive Northeast looks like it needs all the work, but it’s more than 11,000 square feet and it comes with a pool and an indoor fire pit. What even is that? It used to be “The Larkwood Club.” It’s on 4+ acres and includes 85 parking spaces. This would be an excellent location for an expansive hippie compound.

Mobile, Alabama


1004 Government Street also looks like it needs a bit of work, but it’s a 5,700-square-foot beauty that was built in 1896.

Screven, Georgia


The master bedroom at 319 S. Forks Road looks like it might be bigger than my entire house. The 5,284-square-foot house is on 9 acres and looks like a barn, which is only one thing that would make it an excellent place for you if you’re looking for a horse ranch.

Superior, Wisconsin


I have always wanted to live in a church, and 1831 E. 4th Street is amazing. BRB, moving to Wisconsin.

Dakota, Minnesota


You know what else would make an awesome house? An elementary school! Or maybe it would be creepy. How about you buy 220 Golden Rule Road and let me know. It’s 15,200 square feet and includes a gymnasium, and the Mississippi River is right across the road.

Family matters, Flotsam / Jetsam, National Blog Posting Month

Baby’s first existential crisis

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The author as a young philosopher, probably 1982.
When I was very, very small, my family lived in what felt like a big, rambling house out in the country. The house was on a corner. Across one street there was a sugar beet field, and across the other was a little corner store where my mom worked for a while.

In the back yard there was a swing set that had an exhilarating tilt when you were too enthusiastic on the swings and an expansive garden where the sunflowers towered above my head and I ate my first bite of raw garlic. There was a playhouse on the other side of the garden, and that’s where my cat Rainbow had her kittens. A small boy ran screaming “Creatures! There are creatures in there!” when he discovered them. I don’t remember who the small boy was or why he was in my playhouse.

Across the garden was my best friend’s house, and the neighbor on the other side had raised boxes in his side yard where he raised snapping turtles. They were terrifying and thus magnetic. My first school was just down the street. My best friend and I once ventured into the fields beyond the school and found a huge beaver dam that we revisited again and again until the deep snows kept us away.

There wasn’t a garage on the property when my parents first bought the house, but my dad wanted one. So he and his brothers built one because that’s the kind of thing they did back then. I remember the day the concrete was poured. My dad held me at an awkward angle and I hovered over wet concrete and pressed my hand into the corner. Someone — probably my mom — carved my name and the date next to it.

Later, after the concrete was dry and the walls were up and the doors were installed and shelves lined the walls, my dad was working on something in the garage and I was in there with him, not being particularly helpful. I don’t know what I was planning, but it involved climbing the metal shelves against the wall. They sat in the corner above my handprint, and they were one million feet tall. Dad worked, and I climbed. I reached the top and cut my hand on a sharp edge.

It hurt, but not enough to make me cry. But then I looked at the small wound, and I was mortified.

I’m not sure where I got the impression that the inside of a people was roughly the color, texture and density of bologna — which is probably why I have never been able to eat bologna — but I was mortified to discover that the inside of my hand was decidedly un-bolognaish.

I wailed, and I launched myself from the top of those metal shelves. My dad stopped what he was doing and came to help. I’m pretty sure he thought I was overreacting, but that’s just because he thought I was crying about a cut when actually I was enduring my first deep existential crisis.

If we weren’t all bologna, what of my other assumptions were wrong?

A lot of them, as it turned out. A few years later my mom packed my baby brother and I up and moved us back to her childhood home. She sold my playhouse to one of her friends, and quite a long time later my dad sold the house altogether.

I drove past the house a few years ago, and it looked exactly like and not at all like I’d remembered it. The tree I rode my Big Wheel around was still in the front yard, and the turtle boxes next door were still there. The swing set was gone, though, and the rough pink-and-grey siding was gone.

I’ll bet my handprint and my name are still in the corner of the garage, though. I’d like to go inside and look at it some day.

Bandwagons, National Blog Posting Month, Photos

Hey hey it’s picture day

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Today is #OneDayHH day on instagram. It’s the brainchild of Laura Tremaine of the Hollywood Housewife blog, which isn’t actually a blog any more, but she’s still around and so is her yearly photo hashtag adventure.

The idea of #OneDayHH is that you spend the whole day sharing glimpses into your life, however mundane or exciting they might be. This is the fourth year I’ve participated (2014, 2015, 2016). We’ve eaten out on three-fourths of my #OneDayHH days, and I’ve eaten cake on half of them. That could turn into three-fourths of them, but I don’t anticipate a cake materializing for me before midnight. But a girl can dream.

This year’s #OneDayHH project started earlier than usual, because I’ve been getting up to help Pete get ready for school and weirdly they make those kids start really early.

6:35am | I still haven’t taken them all

Good morning, friends! Good morning, #onedayHH! Good morning, #fishoil and #vitaminD and #loratadine! I woke up with a headache, so I also added an ibuprofen to the mix.

7:20am | Goodbye, gents

Marsha T. Cat and I bid farewell to our gentleman, who were off to work and school. Neither of us are generally as perky in the morning as that ear might suggest, but some geese performed a really tight Flying V maneuver over the house this morning and we were both happy to see it. #winteriscoming

8:20am | Organizational efforts

I was trying to get Poppy’s work for the day ready and get my ducks in a row before heading out, and that was more difficult than normal because I needed to leave early.

9:20am

I had to leave early to catch a very patriotic Veteran’s Day performance at Pete’s school. The kids did a great job.

11:20am | I love homeschoolers

We crafted haiku at homeschool co-op. We also talked a bit about musicians we like today, and the following conversation made me laugh:

Me: What kind of music do you like?

Child 1: I like Dusty Springfield. And Nina Simone, and James Brown.

Child 2: I like Taylor… what’s her name? Taylor Swift.

Child 1: Who’s that?

1:45pm | #YayFriends

A post shared by Nichole (@nicholebutterscotch) on

It was hang-out-with-Rachel time at co-op! #yayfriends

2:40pm | Formidable flora

A post shared by Nichole (@nicholebutterscotch) on

I wandered around a parking lot waiting for the eldest to finish her video production class, and I’m thinking it’s probably getting too cold for this guy.

3:45pm | Art in progress

Our friendly neighborhood video store was getting a new mural! Boba Fett was in the works when we stopped in later. I tried to take a better picture, but my phone died just as I was about to take it.

4:57pm | A treat for the Potterheads

After being out for most of the day, I was not amused when I realized that I’d forgotten to take our overdue books back to the library. But when I got there I realized it was the last day there for the librarian with whom Poppy has been volunteering, so I was grateful for the chance to thank her in person for being so good to Poppy. As for the photo: Our library has the first signed US edition of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” — which they won in a contest from Scholastic — and it’s always fun to visit.

5:50pm | Downtime

I’d planned to have roast chicken and sweet potatoes for dinner, but oops I read a book instead of starting it. Sorry fam. Let’s go get some tacos. (The fam was not terribly upset.)

6:30pm | A little spicy

I opted for chicken tortilla soup. 🐔🍲 #soup #dinner #ididnotmakeit #notataco

7:29pm | Insta Blog Inception

Blogging in the gloaming. #nablopomo #onedayhh #instabloginception

8:23pm | Tim Gunn time

Poppy and I like to watch “Project Runway” together. We’re an episode behind, so no spoilers.

9:35pm | Stranger Things

This was a very TV-heavy day for us. All of Poppy’s friends watch “Stranger Things,” and Rockford was thrilled that she finally decided to watch it with him.

9:55pm | A cake manifests

A dream is a wish your heart makes, and a mug full of cake is a wish your tastebuds make. This means 3/4 of the years I’ve participated in #onedayhh have included cake.

11:30pm | Bedtime for Bonzo

And just like that, another fine #OneDayHH is in the books.