Hearts

Originally uploaded by nicolemperle

I'll get back to this blog one of these days, I really will.

In the meantime, happy Valentine's Day! It's always been one of my favorite holidays. After we moved into the house my parents' brought over (re: giddly dumped) some boxes of my old things, including some journals from elementary school. In first grade I wrote an entry about how Valentine's Day was my favorite holiday "because it's close to my birthday." My reasons for liking it are a slightly less self-centered these days- I like the cheeriness in the bleak winter, the chocolates (dark, please) and cupcakes, making valentines for my friends, the sweet sentiments, and the reminder to stop and appreciate the sweet things.
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“Who knows how to make love stay?

Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.

Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.” - Tom Robbins

Making home: 1 month in

As of tomorrow, we'll have lived in this home of our own for one full month. It's been a whirlwind of unpacking, visitors, a new job, setting up, cleaning, and getting reacquainted with this town.

We're at a point where we can cook meals in our kitchen and relax in our living room. Other rooms are still a work in progress: the office(s), the extra room, our bedroom, the basement. There are still new lights to put up and photos to hang- and plenty of projects big and small. We've managed to devote parts of each weekend to making a dent in those tasks though, and slowly this is becoming home. (I'm grateful that any further painting as well as outdoor projects have to wait until the spring- at least the pressure is off there!)

Being homeowners is great and stressful, fun and expensive. A new journey- one requiring patience, an emergency fund, compromise, creativity, and a lot of can-do attitude. We're feeling our way along, and picking up new skills as we go (home improvement area as well relationship!).

We're getting to know our neighborhood, too. We've already spent time at The Fountain, Ultraviolet Cafe, the Spectrum, and Spinners, as well as with takeout from Ichiban and Sake Cafe. We've made a list of places to try, and places to visit.

Transition is the theme for now- missing old places, discovering places both new and familiar, making a home of our own, finding and keeping connections. Looking forward to Christmas morning in our home, Christmas eve and day with family, and New Years with good friends. Salut!

With you my friend, I am there

It's a busy, busy week- new job, working on the house, packing, moving, you get the picture.

But I wanted to share one thing, as belated as it may be (and I hope it's not too late):

The beloved Adirondack Girl Scout camp that I attended for many summers - and that has been around for 70 years- is at risk of being closed.

Camp Little Notch has been among the very special places in my life-- and the lives of so many other women and girls.

For more information on the history of the camp, the issues at hand, the enormous movement that has been working to keep this amazing piece of land in the hands of the Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York, and to add your support to keeping Little Notch open, visit
http://www.friendsofcln.org/

And media folks, if you're listening: please consider covering this story. This is a story of love and friendship, nature and inspiration, of helping girls grow strong, and the power of place. And, sadly, it's the story of the economy and the choices that have to be made. It's a story worth telling.

Things I'm looking forward to in Albany

• Mozzarella sticks with raspberry sauce on nearly every menu. I'll say it again, Albany NEEDS to claim this as its own before the rest of the world catches on. These Albany Sticks are the best appetizer you'll ever have.

• Thacher Park just a short drive up the road.
• Shopping At the Warehouse on a regular basis.
• My favorite Albany restaurants, including Debbie's Kitchen (the #12!), the Gingerman, Bomber's, and Ichiban (my favorite sushi anywhere).
• Washington Park
• Sunday afternoons spent learning family recipes from my mom
• Coffee shops that are open past 7pm (specifically the Muddy Cup and Uncommon Grounds). I also have high hopes for the closest cafe to our new place: Cafe Perk Ups (bonus: crepes!).
• Not only being there for all the family gatherings, but being able to host them in our own home.
• More time to get to know Wolff's Biergarten
  
• Evenings hanging out with our siblings
• Reconnecting with our friends in the area, and the ones who pass through on a regular basis.
  
• More time with the family that also happens to be friends.
  
• Connecting with newer friends in the area.
• The Spectrum (the movies AND the snack bar)
  
• Mahar's
  
• The Miss Albany Diner (for sale! Buy it!)
• Being around to see the kids in the family as they grow
• Albany All Stars Roller Derby!
• The Adirondacks just a quick jaunt up the Northway
• On a related note, being able to hop in the car with my dad on summer days off to spend an afternoon sailing at the lake.

• Not having to drive over the mountains in snow storms to be there for winter holidays.
• Working downtown
  
• Checking out the Troy Winter Market (summer too!)
• Lark Street
  
• Time with our families being a normal part of daily life, rather than a drive and an overnight stay and packing every possible visit into one weekend.

(Again, I reserve the right to add to this list- and I know I will exercise that right.)

Things I'll Miss about the Valley

• The mountains. Small but pretty, different every day, visible almost anywhere you go-- including from our apartment. I'll miss hiking and driving up these mountains, and watching them change with the seasons.

• The restaurants. India House. Sierra Grill. Amy's Place. Apollo. Sunrise. Mount Tom's ice cream. I could go on and on.
• And on the topic of food: Trader Joe's. It's going to be so very hard to adjust to living far from TJs.
• The bike trails, oh the bike trails.
• The laid back, work to live, happy vibes.
• My Girl Scout troop.
  
• Walking to work through charming Easthampton.
• Berkshire Brewing Company's Steel Rail extra pale ale.
• Working on a beautiful campus in a beautiful building with great people.
  
  
• Our CSA farmshare, in which the farm was a 1/2 mile from our house, and picking up our share involved a weekly trip to the farm, picking flowers and herbs and raspberries, and seeing nearly everyone we know.
  
• The running trails along the Mill River, through the woods, past farmland and community gardens. My running buddy.
• Webs! (Although after packing up my yarn stash, it's clear I need to stay away from any yarn stores for a long, long while.)
  
• Strolling Main St., Northampton
• The potlucks
• Trivia, and the Plunder Cats
  

• Above all else (even above Trader Joe's), I'll miss the friends we've made here. We are so, so lucky to have found such great people here. I mean really, awesome people. I have faith that our friendships will endure the little bit of distance, that we'll talk often and see each other regularly. But it's hard leave these people that I love so much.

(I reserve the right to add to this list as more comes up, which it will.)

Addendum:

• The RMVs, which are generally pleasant, and a "long wait" is 15 minutes. And people still complain! They have no idea. I'm not ready to re-experience the Albany DMV hell.
  

Ours

We hunted and searched, found and pondered, weighed pros and weighed cons, worked and saved, stressed and fretted, laughed and squealed and gasped, gathered papers and signed our names a thousand times, took a deep breath and handed over checks with many digits, and then: the keys were passed, and the little house was ours.

Holding hands tight and jumping in with shouts of joy: Another Big Life Moment, ours.

Choosing Albany

Buying a house has been in our "next few years" plan for awhile. Originally we thought spring of 2010 would be a good time, but then these tax incentives came up and we found ourselves looking at the end of this past summer.

These grown-up decisions aren't easy- every part of this process has involved difficult choices.

I've spent years daydreaming about owning a home, but reality is different than those daydreams. We had to figure out what we could realistically afford (and come to terms with the fact that 'first house' and 'dream house' are two different things), and where this house would be. We had to think about what was important to us, and the types of visions we had for our life together. For years and years, our long-term plan has been to buy a home in Albany. This was the plan for a lot of reasons: our families are there, it's affordable, we like it, we feel a loyalty to it, we see exciting things happening there. This summer, we thought and reflected, weighed the options, and decided these things are still important to us. It would be difficult to leave our life in MA, but it was time. This place and these people will be in our hearts and our lives for a long time, I know. Our friendships are strong and will endure the distance, and we'll be back to visit often. But home is Upstate New York.

Over the summer, I was speaking to a friend who is expecting a baby in January. Her immediate family is spread out among four states (mom in South Carolina, brother in New York, dad and sister at different ends of Vermont, herself in New Jersey). She was lamenting the fact that she would have no family support system around her when the baby arrived. She had her husband, and there would be visitors, but all she wanted was to be in a spot surrounded by her immediate family.

Her story made me realize how lucky we are to have most of our family in one area. Our families are both tight-knit and great-- family birthday parties are regular events, cousins grow up close to one another, the support network is strong. We're not ready to have kids just yet, but when we are I want them to grow up in the middle of that kind of family. I want them to know our parents well, to see extended family more than a few times a year. That's important to both Patrick and I.

And then there's Albany itself. This city that I love, with so much potential, that needs people like us there. We have energy to give it, we see the good that is there and the good that can be there. We want to be a part of the community that is working to make Albany a great place to live. We've learned a lot from our time in the Pioneer Valley about strong communities and what makes an area vibrant. People in the Valley are proud to live here-- we want to bring that to Albany.

And so, if all goes well, we'll be Albany homeowners as of tomorrow. The next few weeks will be full of transition and sad goodbyes, but we're ready to return to our All-America City.