Despite my best yogic efforts, and setting an appropriate intention this morning, I am no closer to knowing what the right number for this property should be.  Tick tock.  Should I drop my financing contingency?  Offer a lease back for 30…60….90 days?  Those, believe it or not, are the easy decisions.  It’s the number that is the tough one.

It’s in the details.

Offer too little and I’m out of the running.  Offer too much and I stand to make even less than on the last one.  And if I do get it, I just know I’m going to want to do it right.  The big stuff, kitchen – gut, bathroom – facelift, air conditioning.  Then there’s the small stuff that can add up big.  The doors – we’d need to part in sweet sorrow.  They were meant for a Cape Cod half house, not a South End Brownstone – hollow is not my color.  Then I’ll want the hardware, Olympia or Baldwin.  The floors need to be stripped and stained dark, the bedroom carpet taken up and replaced.  I wouldn’t even pretend to hide it from myself – I’d want Stark.  The closets, lordy I love a closet….so in case you aren’t hearing me, those would need to be changed too.  Then there’s the closet off the living room where traditionally a Parlor Level unit would have pocket doors.  I’d like to put a single murphy bed in there for guests when I’m lucky enough to have them.  It’s the perfect little boat cabin, and everyone knows boat cabins are expensive.

Sounds tres cher, because of course, it would be.  I hate leaving things undone.  It’s like wondering if you’ve left the stove on when you’re already halfway to Maui.  Can’t do anything about it, and still, it takes up valuable mind space.  I’m willing to bet that when this adventure is all over, I’ll have a list of all the things I didn’t do.  Maybe I should have set my morning intention on being at peace with all that I have done.

I think I’ll sleep on it.  Happy Sunday.

Did you say stud?  Why yes, take it all the way back.

Instead of the sound of sand beneath my toes, I’ll be listening to the sound of crunching numbers.  Instead of a cool breeze and an ocean view, I’m hitting the hot pavement, and investigating the insides of closets.  Since I’m not getting paid to be a life guard, this little life of mine will be spent in the city until I can get something to pencil out.  One can only hope that the cash buyers traded their Gucci loafers for a pair of flip flops and some cool shades, because losing really smarts like a bad sunburn.

No explanation required.

One can so easily feel like they are drowning when you lose out to others.  When our survival instincts kick in, logic often seems to take a vacation – in a foreign land – where it doesn’t speak a lick of reason.  While I love a vacation, and not speaking the language can be a welcome break from reality, my bank account will demand an explanation for my rash and emotional behavior.  So, how will I keep a cool head as the bidding war heats up?  Good question.

Kitchen Confidential

I’m beginning with some perimeters.  I am in the hunt for a condo that’s between $500,000. – $600,000. and in the low 800’s a square foot.  I plan to stick with what I know.  A one bedroom apartment in the South End.  Two properties were listed this week that fit within these perimeters.  They do now anyway.  What will happen come Monday when the numbers are tallied is an entirely different story.  The first is a wildly good price, but for a reason.  It really needs to be taken back to the sticks.  Even then, the best design can’t change the lack of natural light, and the narrow halls that make a gal like me feel claustrophobic.  I’ll pass.

The second is a corner building, on a quiet square.  Well kept, beautiful detail, untouched since it’s original conversion to a condo in 1986 – same Owner too.  Quite unusual.  This I pull out my pencil for, but when I do, I will be swimming out past the buoy.  No one will try to stop me.  Perhaps I should consult the life guard who’s in residence at The Ink Block.  Clearly I may need saving.  These waters could be treacherous.

On the bright side….

Seeing double in my experience, has never been a good thing.  It typically followed a night, where I might have accidentally had a glass of wine, or two, beyond my limit.  While limits can be soooo restrictive, there’s a reason they exist.  Regrettably I know why.  Believe me, I wish I was reporting that I’ve been on the receiving end of an eye-full, or two, of some mouthwateringly hunky cowboys, that were on the right side of the gene pool,  and decided to share those genes with one another, making the world a happier place.  Nope, I am reporting no such thing, only a mild headache and slight nausea.  Damn blurry eyed vision of the duplicate version.

My most recent double take left me feeling just about the same way without the fun night that preceded it to soften the blow.  Before I explain why, I want to say I am happy for that beard donning, mountain man that’s made the city his home.  In this case made himself very much at home in MY old home.  He changed it all, or his Interior Designer did, save for my sad little window seat cushions wondering where all their beautifully complimentary friends took off to, leaving them behind.

Milford Street . seen my way

I wouldn’t have even known, where it not for one of my friend’s ,who spotted it published in The Boston Globe’s Sunday Magazine insert.  There is was, all the sublimely calming Benjamin Moore Cloud Grey hidden under cream.  The sleek marble of the fireplace encased in a hewn wood, painted in the same color, my Arteriors Zanadoo Chandelier mysteriously missing in action.  I felt a little heartsick over it, which is so unlike me.  I barely give a backward glance when I turn the key for the last time.

Boston Globe Magazine . seen another way.

Some of the sting most certainly came from being referred to as the “single woman” that lived there before, – “lots of feminine touches”.  Hum, I object.  Grey is a neutral color!  Now I could see him objecting to the pale pink – Benjamin Moore’s Bridal Rose, but in my defense most people thought it was white.  They didn’t even see that it was really pink. Everyone knows that pink light flatters – don’t they?  I giggle a lot as I write that last sentence because, please….I desperately hope that most people, particularly men, don’t know any such thing!  I am wondering what the heck the next Owners of Waltham Street will think of my Benjamin Moore, Lavender Ice bedroom.  It’s definitely girly.  Oh wait, I am a girl.

Ok, enough of all that carrying on, it’s all in good fun.  I am very happy that Luke has made the place his own. It deserves to be loved, and lived in.

Oh let’s face, we’ve all gotten it wrong a time or two before.  That dress the sales gal told you made you look fabu, but the only thing fabulous about it was your decision to never wear it again despite the cost.  The handsome chap who’s kisses made you weak in the knees, but who’s weak character you should have spied, days not weeks, into the interlude.  I can’t tell you how many sofas I have purchased only to have my eagerly anticipated, custom order arrive, and discover with tears of frustration, that it doesn’t look at all like the life changing coach on display at the showroom.  How is it possible to be so sure about something, and to get it so wrong?

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Blue Jean Girl.

Prepare yourself for the cliques – Life’s too short to live with regret.  So what – you bought a dress that made you look short and lumpy.  Who cares you’ve kissed more frogs than princes.  Having the right sofa never resulted in familial harmony.  It is just a sofa.  Still, while we must forgive ourselves, it would be nice, now and again, if someone else would cut us a little slack for our transgressions.

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Forgiveness comes…Restoration Hardware.

I am happy to report – someone will, or in this case, some international conglomerate of a retail store will.  Bet you didn’t think that was the direction I would be going.  It’s true though, Restoration Hardware has a policy, albeit a tight lipped one.  If you simply can’t live with that “mistake” any longer.  If you are considering buying stock in Kleenex because the river of tears won’t relent whenever you are in the vicinity of the offending object, attendez.  RH will take it back.  That’s right.  You heard me.  They won’t give you all your money, but they will give you a 50% credit.  And by the way, it doesn’t even have to be right away.  I am returning mine, 3 months after its arrival.

I’m tickled pink.  That tiny bit of a swatch was never going to tell the real story, and the story is, it looks more like dungaree, than a sophisticated tweed.  I’m forgiving myself.  Oh there are plenty of other things I will beat myself up about, but getting half my money back for a future RH purchase isn’t going to be one them.  Sometimes you can get just the right amount of forgiveness to soldier on.

Some things never get old.  Staring out at the ocean, a cold beer after a day on the beach, celebrating America’s Birthday with good food and friends.  In celebration…some of my very favorite quotes on independence.

“The man who is aware of himself is henceforeward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.”  Virginia Wolf

keeping it real…perfect…living small.

“Unlike a drop of water that loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives.  Man’s life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.” B. R. Ambedkar

“Our founders got it right when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from nature and nature’s God, not from government.”  Paul Ryan

room at the Inn

“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….”  The Declaration of Independence

Hope you find your happy today.