Does this Zipcode Make Me Look Smart?

Hubby and I made our annual trek to Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival in Manchester, Tennessee. If you are unfamiliar with this event, it is four days of music, 70,000 sweaty, stinky people and scorching heat. Doesn't that sound fabulous? Are you already making plans to attend next year?

Just in case you are undecided, let me sweeten the deal with camping. In a tent. I personally have been camping four times in my adult life. The first was when the kids were little, and I swore I would never do it again. Three years ago, I happily broke that promise to myself to go to Bonnaroo, and it was so worth it.

While we set up camp on Thursday (and by we, I mean mostly Hubby), I went around meeting our neighbors. Pretty much the first question asked is where are you from. We of course got very nice reactions when our answer was the Raleigh area.  Several people made comments about the education level of the Triangle. When one guy said there are a lot of very smart people in the Triangle, Hubby and I said in unison that an exception was made for us.  Several people asked if we were professors or worked at one of the universities.

We are no dummies, but around here, we are pretty much average joes. The Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area is always in the top ten rankings of most educated regions of the country, most PhD's per capita and most STEM workers. Living in the Triangle is like seeing yourself in a smart mirror which is similar to a skinny mirror except instead of reflecting a slimmer version of you, it reflects a more intelligent version of you.

Of course here in Cary, I am pretty quickly recognized for what I am which is a liberal arts major from a southern state school. When I tell people that I have a daughter who goes to Carolina, I'm often met with a look of skepticism.  I am sure they are thinking 'Really?! How could you possibly have produced a child smart enough to get into Carolina.' Oh well, I look smart to the rest of the world, so I am going with that.

Tiny House

Someone asked me today if there were any tiny houses for sale in the Cary/Raleigh area.  She did not mean a 1,000 square foot bungalow; she meant a tiny house.  As in the 250 square foot homes made popular by HGTV's Tiny House Hunters.  I was genuinely sorry to say I did not know of any in the area because I would love nothing more than to tour a bunch of houses with less square footage than the master bathroom of the houses I typically show.

Adorable Tiny House

The appeal of tiny houses is undeniable. They are just so darn cute with their cozy porches and pipe chimneys. They are filled with little cubbies and hidy-holes to store all of your stuff. And speaking of stuff, you would actually have to get rid of most of yours if you moved into one of these small abodes which is a dream of many people too.

I think one of the big reasons people like want a tiny house is they get all this fabulous cuteness for a tiny amount of money. But from what I hear, divorces are expensive, and I am pretty sure that is where Hubby and I would end up if we tried to co-habituating in a space barely larger than a king sized bed.

This is why instead of a tiny house, I want a tiny camper. I think we could survive a week together in a canned ham. After all we do five nights in a tent at Bonnaroo. Believe me, accommodations that include A/C, a toilet and a shower would be pure luxury compared to that.  Plus with a Camper, it is only temporary. A week in it and then I can spread out in my suburban palace with all my stuff again. Seems like the perfect compromise.

My Version of a Tiny House

Another Project

We have spoken a little about my Craigslist/thrift store addiction. I am on Craigslist at least once a day trying to find the perfect piece to satisfy my mid century modern obsession. To make the hunt more challenging, it has to be a huge bargain as well.

My very best find was this credenza. Incidentally, credenza is a word I do not believe I ever used before my MCM obsession started. Now I am all  'Oh, the martini glasses are in the credenza, Darling' this, and 'Isn't the credenza a fabulous place to display our mid-oughts flat screen?' that. I am very fancy like that. Anyway, back to the credenza. I spotted this about eleven minutes after it was posted on Craigslist for $90! So I jumped on it - not literally because 'one does not jump on a credenza.'  The woman selling it was the niece of the original owner. It was in near perfect condition. It just need a buff and shine and was ready to hold electronic equipment not even dreamed of when it was manufactured sixty years ago.

The only bad part of the credenza deal was that I was a little spoiled. I quickly found that pieces in ready to use condition at that price are few and far between, so I should not have been surprised at the poor condition of this $45 coffee table -

But the seller was so sweet, I couldn't not buy it. A lesson to all Craigslist sellers - get some very sweet old man to handle the deal. Buyers will be putty in his hands.  So that is how I ended up with a scruffy coffee table or in other words another project. Sigh.

Issue number one of this table was the overwhelming musty smell. I searched the interwebs for something that might get the smell out. I bought this mainly because it was dry since liquid and wood do not go together- and sprinkled it over the underside of the table and in the drawer then left it in the sun for the afternoon. I had to sprinkle, sun and repeat for three days, because it took a little while to get the stored-for-twenty-or-thirty-years-in-a-basement smell out, but it did eventually work.

Sprinkle, Sun, Repeat

        

When I first looked at the piece, I thought it had a Formica top, but upon further investigation was happy to see it was just a heavily lacquered veneer., so there was some sanding, then some more sanding.  Because it was veneer and even the thick veneer of fifties can only be sanded so much, I could not get the circle completely off the center of the table, but luckily my mom gave me this very cool pickle dish that smashingly covers the remnants of said circle.

This treasure was a wedding present of my mom and dad.

Voila!

A better look at the nice inlay on top

I like to paint the inside of drawers. It just makes me happy to see a splash of color when I open them.

So this project is done. Now for that $45 dollar Lane parson's table that I suspect was used as a craft work table. Ugh. Just the removal of the yellowed cellophane tape stuck all over it is a daunting task.

Final Four Baby!

My alma mater, The University of Southern Mississippi, had a very good basketball team my senior year. I loved it. Not because I was in any way interested in basketball - or any sport for that matter, but because my three roommates were.  When they went to the games to cheer on the Golden Eagles, I would have the apartment to myself for up to three glorious hours. It was my own little nirvana.

Time goes on. Some things change and some things stay the same.

This year, Daughter's school, The University of North Carolina, has a very good basketball team. I love it.  This time it is not for the peace and quiet of an empty home - frankly, I get a little too much of that these days - but because I am actually interested in the sport.

I cannot really say how that change occurred. Honestly, with my natural competitiveness, it is weird that it has taken me this long to get onto the team sports bandwagon. And of course, here in The Triangle, the team sport defaults to college basketball.

We got to go to rounds one and two of March Madness in Raleigh. They were the first basketball games I have ever been to, other than the time California Boy played rec ball in the fourth grade. It was great fun, made even better by the fact that Carolina won both of their games.

Thanks to excellent coaching and team work, Carolina has made it all the way to the Final Four. Thanks to a friend at work, I scored Final Four tickets, and Yankee and I are headed to Houston. Go Heels!!!

Extreme Closet Make Over

Our under-the-stairs closet is a little over three feet wide by ten feet long. Large enough to fit at least two - maybe even three - orphaned wizard children comfortably, or in our case, tons of stuff that had not found a permanent home in the new house yet.

The previous owners' closet organization system, consisting of one lone 38" wire shelf with a rack for hanging things, was pretty poor. Our organization system of cramming our coats onto that rack while stuffing the rest of the closet with unpacked boxes, unhung pictures and a plethora of other homeless items was no better. Last week, I finally had enough of tunneling my way through the junk just to get to my coat and decided it was time for a closet makeover.

I started by pulling everything out which was similar to taking an air mattress out of the box. The stuff that was tightly packed into a fairly small space was now taking up the entire dining room, and just like an air mattress, you know there is no way you are ever getting it all back into that box/closet.

I have no explanation for the number of lampshades.

I pulled the lone shelf down and painted the walls with some light blue paint bought, but not used, for a previous project. Then I put up a Closet Maid organizer I bought at Home Depot on the long wall across from the door. I have two 48" poles going from it to the wall, giving us more than double the room for all of our coats. During this process, I did have to wonder how have people who live in a fairly temperate climate collected so many coats?  For me it is probably a style thing, and I guess Hubby is preparing for his dream cabin in Vermont.

This is where the lonely wire rack hung. Now there is room for photo albums, storage boxes, mail supplies, files and vacuum cleaners.

The shelf with the hooks was another thrift store find that I painted white. It is a great place for the take-the-dog-out coat, my picnic blanket scarf and the all important Georgia Bulldog scarf (both survived the great scarf purge of 2016).

I put up two shelves were the wire shelf had been. In the corner I placed a nice two drawer file cabinet that holds legal size files - very necessary for real estate agents - that I bought at the Durham Rescue Mission Thrift Store. Next to it was room for my two downstairs vacuum cleaners.

You can see in the photo that there are still quite a few unhung pieces of artwork stacked against the wall. That is a project for another day.

Before putting everything back, I purged - again. I was stunned to see some of the useless junk that made it up here from Georgia.  How many winter scarves do two people living in North Carolina need? Certainly not 17! I was able to cull down to nine. The same held true for mittens, wrist braces, entire packages of school photos (I kept about three for each year) and so on.

There was a lot of work, and a good week and a half of stumbling over the out-placed closet dwelling junk, but it was oh so worth it. If you are a person like me who loves nicely organized closets, drawers, cabinets and pantries, you know the feeling of joy I get when I open the door to this closet now.

Goodbye and Hello

I had always planned to trade in the mini-van when College Girl graduated from high school. Now that she is a second semester junior, I finally did it.

Sally IV

I hung onto the Debate Mobile (her legal name was Sally IV, but more on that later) for so long for several reasons. One was that she was a great car. At 165,000 miles, I never had any engine trouble with her, she was very comfortable and had plenty of room for all of my stuff. I just hated spending money replacing her when she was perfectly serviceable. The only issue with her was she was getting a bit long in the tooth so to speak. She had lots of driver-induced digs and scratches on the outside. On the inside the dash was cracked and peeled.

Reliability is important, but as a REALTOR, I need a car that looks good as well , so with I traded her in for this beautiful Acura RDX.

Clearly I have a type: I like my men Italian and my cars red.

It was a day of mixed emotions. I was could not believe how sad I was about letting the van go, but really it should not have come as a surprise. I had driven her for 12 years. The kids were in elementary school and middle school when we got her and now one has graduated from college and the other is not far behind. A whole lot of living went on in that car, and it is sad to see that era come to an end. On the other hand the new car is uber nice, so it makes the change a little easier.

The van's name was Sally IV. My grandmother called all of her cars Sally. When she died, I continued the tradition. But this new car seems to want a different name - Baby. No she's not a '67 Chevy Impala taking me and my sibling across the country to fight Supernatural beings, but I still think she's cool like that in her way. She can take my around Wake County selling real estate. It is almost the same thing. Although with a name like Baby, Hubby pointed out I can never park her in the corner.

Moving On Up

The United Van Lines' National Movers Study shows the migration patterns of Americans and this year North Carolina is the fifth most popular state to move to. This is no surprise since North Carolina - particularly The Research Triangle - offers the things people are looking for when they relocate such as economic opportunity, good weather, and outdoor recreation.

North Carolina is really pretty much perfectly situated globally. We have four complete seasons, but none of them are brutal.  As far as outdoor recreation, we have it all. On one end of the state we have beautiful beaches and on the other side there are mountains, and in between we have the best place I have ever lived - The Research Triangle Region.

Unique to this particular area of the state - and the most of the country really, is that the three corners of The Triangle are each anchored with a major research university. In Raleigh we have North Carolina State University with over 33,000 students, strong engineering programs and the state's vet school. 

Twenty-five miles to the west is Duke University, one of the country's top universities with a hospital ranked number 14 in the entire country by U.S. News & World Reports. And they have a fairly decent men's basketball team.

Nine miles south of Duke, in one of the most beautiful college towns ever, is The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill  - ranked as the fifth best public university in the country.  It boasts a gorgeous, historical campus, its own hospital complex, and a great women's soccer team and men's basketball team. Plus there is one beautiful College Girl there who happens to be my daughter, so clearly this makes UNC the best of the three schools, but I digress.

I believe this triangle of top education is one of the reasons the Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill area is such a great place to live.  It attracts the kind of businesses that need well-educated workers and in turn provides high paying jobs. And because of the Duke and UNC hospitals, we have excellent health care.  The universities provide an abundance of activities ranging from the stunning Duke gardens, to music, theater and that wee college basketball rivalry we have going here.

The other side of the states-people-most-want-to-move-to coin, is the states-people-most-want-to-leave side. According to the Movers Study, that state is New Jersey* followed by New York, Illinois, Connecticut and Ohio.  The common thread seems to COLD.  So if you are looking to escape the cold or migrate for any other reason, I suggest the Research Triangle region of North Carolina.

*New Jersey is Hubby's home state. Number nine on the list of states-people-most-often-leave is my home state of Mississippi. We both hold a love in our hearts for our home states, but I think North Carolina is where we are meant to be.