Kind of boring here

Actually it's the calm before the storm as I may be moving in August back to the state where I was born. Guess where that is? Hint: It is across the river from the Washington Times building. No, it's not New Mexico unfortunately. I spent all Saturday afternoon putting together an offer for a house. Haven't heard back on that yet. About my current abode, had the house inspection today. I hope the inspector saw all that expensive insulation 4 of us homeowners put in the crawl space two years ago. Am starting to schedule visits for moving estimates. Everything must move quickly as my vacation starts July 16 so all must be done before then.
If any of you want to read my stuff on the Washington Times web site, go to the main page and in the search space, put in my name in quotes, ie "Julia Duin." For some weird html reason, that's the only way to call up all my bylines. I've had one story after another; black pro-lifers demonstrating on Capitol Hill, the latest Pew Forum survey on the religious views of Americans, a court ruling by a Fairfax County judge on an Anglican/Episcopal church split and today, a story about a Catholic bishop in Richmond who allowed a poor immigrant girl who was a ward of Catholic Charities (which operates under the aegis of the diocese) to get an abortion. That was in just one week. Then I had 2 columns and a blog to do - well, 7 article-like things; eight if you count the sidebar I wrote for our web site on what the pro-lifers said. Yes, that's like eight articles in a week. My brother Stephen does 3 columns a week and a blog for the Oregonian and calls THAT a full-time job. And gets paid a lot more than do I.
The photo is of Veeka in a cute little Chinese dress "riding" the duckies outside a Baltimore restaurant. The Little Darling does love to pose. It's been in he 90s here so we just go to a water park and I find a lawn chair by the wading pool and just let her splash about. She's becoming a little fish and sort of gets the concept of kicking. Afterwards we had a favorite: Pizza. She is a bit slow on the speech end but she can pronounce that.
There's so much you have to teach kids. Like how to eat a popsicle. They don't come into the world knowing that so you have to show them how to hold the thing, lick it just so and gobble it fast so it won't drip. Let's just say we go through lots of dish towels here. And thanks to Uncle Rob, she has a CD player and little earphones with which she likes to fall asleep. I gave her some New Age music tonight but it was not bouncy enough so I found a CD of Keith Green (contemporary Christian rock and folk) which she loved. I could hear her giggling as she fell asleep.

Beach princess

Well, here Veeka is at a beach retreat I attended last weekend on the Jersey shore. Note the cupped hands, the engaging smile, the little knee bent just so. I did not coach her at all; she just struck that pose when she saw the camera. I think some of the 15 folks at the retreat were not too sure about sharing time with a 3-year-old but Our Princess behaved beautifully; sitting on peoples' laps, quietly listening during our sessions, clapping during the music - I wondered if this was my child. I think she was also glad to be out of my clutches.
The good news is that another offer has come in and we are finalizing that contract now. Wednesday I go visit the house I most like in the neighborhood I'm looking at and hopefully make an offer soon after that. August may be a very busy month for me. Not much in the way of other news - at least news I can share on a public blog - but generally things are doing well. My twice-weekly column in the Washington Times, named "Stairway to heaven," is doing OK - you can read one of my latest here which was my ruminations on what is the besetting sin of Washington, DC. The columns, tho, have doubled my workload and the breaking news, which I also must cover, is not letting up. Last week I broke a front -page story about officials in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond helping a 16-year-old immigrant girl get an abortion (!) and there's more dirt to be spilled on that one. Generally to find my stuff, go to the Washington Times front page (www.washingtontimes.com) and put in "Julia" and "Duin" in the search field and you'll come up with some of my stuff. I am trying to get the web people to create a "faith" tab where EVERYTHING religious would be filed but that's not quite working yet.

Then again, maybe not

I got The Call this morning from my agent saying my buyer had chickened out. When he was late by several days in returning the signed contract, I began to wonder. Now it's back to keeping this place squeaky clean again - now into my 13th week. I had been fairly happy with the offer; it was one I could live with although quite a cut from what I wanted and the condo deserves to get. But real estate is so bizarre and quirky these days that simply everyone is having a rough time. It is not uncommon for homes to be on the market 6 months around here.
Meanwhile, Veeka and I are living large. The photos of her dressed up in a princess costume and blowing bubbles with a 4-year-old friend, Ruth Elizabeth I think her name is. She was at a babysitters when they were taken. Veeka likes to be babysat because she has a lot more fun than she does with Boring Mommy. Tomorrow Mommy is going to drag her to some house showings but Sunday she gets to meet her 2nd cousins, once removed, who are visiting friends in Annapolis. Their mom, Allison, and I, are planning a fun time in the hotel pool.
Her mother is also working hard at the paper. I have been given a twice-weekly religion column, called "Stairway to Heaven." Here is my latest entry which is kind of inside baseball for local Catholics but it sure got good react. Sunday, I'll be doing a column on Washington's besetting sin. Now if you look for me on the Washington Times new jazzy web site, you may not find me! Even we employees do not understand our revved-up site with the news "cube" (you press an arrow to 'turn' it to different stories) on the front page. To find my blog and articles, click on culture in the header and you'll get some of my stuff, like this blog here.
Now I am writing 2 weekly columns, doing breaking news (1-2 articles a week) and running a blog. That is 4-6 separate pieces a week. My brother at the Oregonian does 3 weekly columns and a blog and gets paid a lot more!

Finally a contract

Yesterday, on a blazing hot Saturday, I was seated at a Starbucks in Ashburn filling out my end of a contract to sell my condo. The closing date is August 11. Wheeee!
This is a huge load off my mind. It's been on sale for 12 miserable weeks; during which time I have had to keep the place impossibly clean. This was truly a burden on mornings when Veeka had speech therapy and we had to be AT the elementary school by 8:30. I had to have all messes cleaned up by 8:15; things vacuumed, breakfast dishes done and put away, all smudges cleaned off the walls - aaargh. I had realtors calling me at odd hours of the day and night wanting to show the place at very short notice. I think the worst was the person who showed up on Memorial Day, a day I really thought no one would be by. This realtor had called an hour before, I had not heard my cell phone ring and when she arrived and began walking in, Veeka and I were in the shower. I dashed down, with only a towel wrapped around me and Veeka stood, naked, atop the stairs, screeching.
And this past week there's a tree in my back yard that decided to bear huge blackberry-like things. Don't think it's a mulberry tree - I have no idea what it is but it has dropped squishy purple messes ALL OVER my back yard. What was once a lovely white stone corner looks like raisin pudding with all sorts of dark things interspersed with the stones. The birds love it but the backyard looks is a mess.
Anyway, the buyer is a single guy and everything looks good so I am praying and hoping all the other hoops one must jump through line up. Of course I have no idea where I will move to. I know the area I want but two homes that I very much wanted slipped through my fingers; that latter because I did not have a contract on my place. It's been the craziest market and all the regular real estate rules are not working any more. I am OK with the price I got; once I dropped 20K in the asking price (!) people came out of the woodwork to see the place and it sold.
The photo is of Veeka - about two months ago - sitting on my ironing board. I did not put her there; she climbed up there and posed there like you see. She knows she is forbidden to be up there but does that stop her? Nooooo.

Oma & Opa return

At least they tell me they're back in the country, having just come into Dulles this evening. And then back to Seattle on Saturday. And today is my brother Rob's birthday! It's pretty warm here so Veeka and I might go scope out some water parks as our pool (that I pay a hefty monthly condo fee for) is having construction work done on the pool house for the next month. Talk about absolutely lousy timing.
The photo is of Veeka and Opa while Opa was working at the computer a few weeks ago. The new car is doing well. Unfortunately I have not gotten ONE nibble on my home so today my realtor and I made the sad decision to cut the price by quite a lot of $$$. The going rate seems to be dropping by $1,000 a day in these parts.
For those of you who take a peek at the Washington Times web site [www.washingtontimes.com] my series on the sanctuary movement ended today. It ran Tuesday-Friday and was it a relief to finally get *that* published. It got good play the first two days, then so-so play the last two, to my disappointment. It did start on the front page all four days but it was a pretty slow news week to boot, so it SHOULD have started on A1. Don't think I'll propose any more series for quite some time, as certain folks on the paper basically got tired of the story by the third day. Sigh.
I took Veeka out tonight for her first ice cream cone. Bright bubble-gum pink and pretty messy.

Oma turns 80

Oma and Opa's car just pulled away a few minutes ago to speed toward Dulles airport and a Turkish vacation. They were here (with a one-day run up to Philly to see my Aunts Dottie and Lee) for about six days now. On Tuesday, Opa and I went car shopping; the result of which you can see right behind them in the photo of everyone posed in their church best by my 2006 Subaru Outback. YES - it is loaded with all sorts of cool things; a sun roof, leather seats, seats that HEAT up plus it's a cool color. And nifty things like a CD player (first time I have had one of those) and a gauge that tells you the outside temperature from inside the car.
Opa and I first spotted the car Tuesday in a Toyota parking lot (someone must have traded it in for a Prius) and from experience I knew that some of the best buys are when you buy a car of one make in the parking lot of a dealer specializing in something else. I'd bought my Honda Accord 9 years ago in a Toyota lot too - usually the dealers want to off load them fast, so they are willing to make some discounts. They did not take our first offer on Tuesday but by Wednesday night we had agreed on a price that everyone was pleased with. Opa and I had gone to another dealer to try out some Subaru Forresters but this Outback was by far the superior car. It was so nice to have someone with me who knew how to bargain down the dealers. Y'all know what it's like when you're a female alone doing the car shopping. Did that nine years ago - never again.
The Accord, by the way, went to a Christian car ministry to be given away after being spruced up a bit, as it has another 1-2 years on it. But at 185,000 miles, I figured it was time to switch.
Thursday, Oma and Opa and I went househunting in the area I wish to live in which, again, was helpful insofar as having more than one pair of eyes present. Basically though, they pretty much hung out, giving me some much needed time to catch up on stuff, such as going to the county courthouse to register Veeka's adoption with the state of Virginia and yesterday going to see the new movie "Prince Caspian." I have not been to a movie in SO long....
Thursday night, we went to a pretty waterfront restaurant to celebrate Oma's big day. They brought out a dessert with one candle so Opa and I sang to her softly. There were also lots of walks to the park, the Saturday market and time spent petting the kitties. Oma pioneered a new technique in putting pigtails in Veeka's hair as is shone in another photo taken this morning.
Tomorrow (Monday) is MY birthday.
In the top photo, by the way, Opa is holding Veeka's Sunday school drawing.

The little ballerina

I just wanted to post a photo of Veeka at today's recital. She's the third person from the left, staring off into space for some reason. It was so cute, the way all these 3-year-olds were lined up, trying to do something to the music but having no idea what! Five zillion little kids were whizzing around in all manner and color of tutus and hair ribbons. I didn't realize that it's the custom to present your kid with flowers when she has a recital. Hmmmm. I never got flowers during MY ballet career.
Then tonight I took her to a Kurdish party downtown where she bounced from table to table and charmed everyone and, of course, danced, until about 11 p.m. She wanted to close down the party but I said NO. Other exciting news here: My For Sale sign disappeared from in front of my house Thursday, so I filed a police report on the missing sign. Turns out the condo association pilfered it because they found something arcane in the by-laws that didn't allow something attached to the sign. Of course my sign has been up six weeks; am not sure why they went after it now - but when they got wind of the police report, they quickly replaced it, without the offending attachment.
Honestly these condo commandos are something. Neither my realtor nor I got any written note, warning, nothing. I was frantic to get it replaced by the weekend, which is the big time people come looking at the place. People show up at my door without even a realtor; they are in the neighborhood and want to see the place. Today Veeka was sequestered for a nap when someone knocked on the door so of course she bounced out of bed. I have to keep this place obscenely clean all weekend long just in case folks drop by which gets to be a real strain after awhile, especially after 7 weeks on the market. I will be so glad when this is over...