the selby

So we are kind of sitting comfortably on this side of the fence as home renters, peeking over to the side of homeownership. For years I was convinced that homeownership was the end all goal, but now that it is a little possible (maybe?) I am not so sure. We would have to sacrifice so much, you guys. We love love love where we live. We love out house. Our rent is really reasonable, since we have stayed put for the last decade. (!)

So there would be sacrifice. Primarily location. But within that, there is a lot.

Alternately, we could sacrifice space. There is a very nice, very small one bedroom house in our neighborhood that we might afford. People in New York share 1 bedrooms as a fammily of 3, no? 

Also financial. We are dead set in (should we embark on the journey) keeping the mortgage low. But I know all of the other costs of owning will sneak up on us. So yeah.  

The pay offs? Well. An investment. Of course. In 30 years we will have something that we can eventually pass down to Henry, instead of.... Nothing? And, you know. It would be OURS. We could do things like build a porch or take down a wall. Which brings us back to financial......

I'd love to hear from those of you who have had to make similar hard decisions. Did you skip buying in favor of renting? Did you take the leap, and how are you finding it? Do you live in a tiny place with offspring?

Under the guise of picking up a little something for Ben's birthday, on Friday my coworker and I headed over to the new-ish bottlecraft in Little Italy. Since they allow you to drink beer on premise and bring in your own food, we picked up some sandwhiches on our way from Mona Lisa and enjoyed a pint over lunch. Needless to say I was also taken with their simple + modern (+ just a touch industrial) design, and the pletiful brews. I will quite certainly be going back, family in tow.

PS it is beer week in San Diego, and it is kind of off the hook this year.

I have been kind of a bad blogger for some time. I am not referring to the long break, and the sporadic posting, but my general reciprocity. So many of you fine folks have been coming round and leaving delightful comments, and I so rarely have (make?) the time to check out who you are what you are up to. I aim to change that. And I'd like to share some of what I find (hopefully on a semi regular basis), cause you all are pretty rad!

First up is the crazy talented Jasmine. She got my attention when she mentioned that we had the same evening a while back. Well- she left a comment, I left a comment, and a couple of emails later we were chatting over 2 real beers (and one real baby).
Girl is as rad in person as she is skilled with a shutter. Keep up with her well photographed adventures on her (delightfully designed!) blog, the daily frolic!. DEF check out her wedding (photographed by James Moes) and wish that you had been friends with her so that you could have been there, BOTH DAYS.
(top image by James Moes, the rest by Jasmine Fitzwilliam)

As I already stated, I think that Saturday was possibly the best day of Henry's life. Not that we did anything that cool, but he was simply so full of joy all day. Even when we pushed his limits (extra long car rides, out to dinner past bed time, longer stretches of no napping) he was all grins and giggles. It was delightful. Not to say we didn't do some cool stuff. His his big cousin Presley is in town (they just met the day prior for the first time!) and thanks to a reader tip we went to the pumpkin patch at Suzie's Farm.

Then we had dinner at the Station. Cause that is what we do.

There is this little unassuming shop on a non major road that I drive up all the time. Score Footwear (vintage, handmade, limited). I had heard from friends that it was a great place, and Ben was always telling me what a cool guy the owner was, who he had met here and there. But from the big shop front window, it looked like it was exclusively vintage sneakers and athletic shoes. Cool, but not exactly my scene. Little did I know that front part is only like, 1/3 of the shop. There is a whole leather and wool and canvas and flannel and denim and wooden vintage cave tucked in back. It is amazing. My little desert heart was right at home.


Carinna wore home those patchworky looking beauties, and I acquired the little booties. (I needed another pair of vintage camel color boots like I need another baby in my belly, but hey). We also bought an AMAZEBALLS vintage leather belt as a gift.

If you have been living in San Diego in ignorance (like me), like me, go now.

If not, and you already know the pleasures of Score & it's charming owner Dimitri, good on you.

Last week, on the day after the first day of Fall, I came home from work to find it was so chilly I had to close all the windows in the house. But I'm not ready for a closed house, not yet.

Within a few days, and after a notably cold summer, we were experiencing record breaking heat, I was at the beach and swimming in the Ocean.

Two nights ago when we slept we had two fans pointed right at us (we don't have ac) and I could manage only a thin sheet on me. The house was quite warm still.

Yesterday, suddenly, it rained and stormed. There was thunder (!) lightning (!!) and double rainbows (!!!). Not everyday occurrences around here.

Last night when I went to bed there were no fans, the duvet was back on the bed, and in order to fall asleep I even needed to pull a quilt down for more warmth. I haven't checked the weather for this weekend, and I have no idea what to expect.

Photos from yesterdays post storm afternoon walk.

A weekend so full it needs a list (highlights in bold);

1) manray (of course)
2) hiking cowles with britt & carly where we saw
3) a HUGE great mountain dog
4) carly's appointment canceled for that day so she took us to a hidden treasure, what amounted to a huge indy liquor store with a cafe inside. featuring beer brunch. (i had the dogfishhead aprihop)
5) shed cleaning
6) bike riding to adams avenue
7) seeing John Doe & co
8) meeting John Doe, taking photo with John Doe, getting hug from John Doe
9) loitering, pizza eating, beer drinking with friends
10) mod swap with morgan & the boy where I
11) found a black bertoia lounge chair for 75 dollars
12) mini tour of little italy's best contemporary architecture + coffee at the new influx
13) the finishing of shed cleaning
14) retrieval of new bed (from hayden) where we discovered that he hangs his hat by his bed like Ben does and that
15) both carinna and myself were ridiculed separately by our men for our choice of shoes to move things (her= flats me= boots. what is wrong with that?)
15) retrieval of silk screening machine that will live in clean shed*, since hadyden is moving in with carinna and she has no garage
16) removal of carinna's old schwinn from our yard, where it had been taken over by vines
17) the requisite cat in new chair photo
18) I also went to ikea, cause new bed needed new stuff

*in exchange for a workspace, I get to USE IT!