Back from St. Louis
We flew to St. Louis last week to visit Nanita and Markie, and had a great time doing all the tourist stuff: eating toasted ravioli, going to the Arch, visiting Grant’s Farm, touring the zoo… The weather was great for our trip, too. It’s been unbearably hot, but the heat broke just as we touched down, and we enjoyed balmy 80-degree days during our stay. It was just hot enough to cool down with a sno-cone:
Robin rode the carousel, and Davy was intimidated by goats:
“Pick me up, Mommy! Goats will eat me!”
We left impressed again with St. Louis’ livability and affordability: we saw charming four-bedroom homes, in walkable neighborhoods with shops and parks, selling for $200K. We love our own bungalow, but it’s likely that we’ll be outgrowing our sweet little two-bedroom home soon—and the shops near us are mostly boarded up, and the crime is a constant low-level worry, and…what with one thing and another, the whole “maybe we should move to St. Louis” conversation has been resurrected. It’s a question we’ll probably reconsider seriously at the end of this year.
August 23rd, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Man, you made some CUTE KIDS! Look at them!
We have relatives in St. Louis as well, and I know they’ve talked both about how family-friendly and livable it is (and how bleeding hot it is).
It would probably be bad of me to tout the family-friendly livability of somewhere, oh, say, a little closer to the East Coast. (Lots of four bedrooms for ~$200K in my neck of the woods, I can attest.) It would be wrong of me to want you to find a wonderful sprawling rural homestead for you and all the chickens you can keep near an arty college town and near enough to me and M. to meet regularly for tea! Yes! Wrong, wrong, wrong.
And holy cats, I can’t believe you’re actually thinking about moving after hearing me obsess on the painfulness of all that for the past twelve years, or however long it’s been since we put our house on the market in April. You are a brave brave woman.
August 23rd, 2012 at 1:06 pm
I made a little noise of pain as I read “sprawling rural homestead near an arty college town.” It does sound wonderful.
St. Louis would put us very close to one set of grandparents, and reasonably close to another (it’s only a six-hour drive from St. Louis to Fayetteville, which makes three-day weekend trips feasible) — but we’d be moving much farther away from Sam’s family in Reno. So there’s a lot of tradeoffs.
On the other other hand, I have a sneaking suspicion that I could maybe get Nonna and Pappy to move to St. Louis if I showed them all around The Hill, which is St. Louis’ very charming Italian neighborhood.
August 23rd, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Also, the actual moving part, I just have to sort of gloss over in my head. I know it would be awful, but it would be a one-time pain and then it would be over.
August 24th, 2012 at 9:29 am
I am very familiar with this ‘glossing over’ strategy of which you speak. I’ve been somewhat able to exist in some strange space of “this isn’t really happening!” denial even while it’s all still occurring, and I’m sure that once we’re on the other side, the pain will be just a fuzzy memory. I’ll look forward to following along on your adventures, as you see where the winds blow you…
August 24th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Gah. I thought I must’ve misread the dates and you meant September, so I completely missed you guys.
To make amends, I tout not only the livability of St. Louis, but its growing hepness. Vegan restaurants! Hipster groceries! A thriving music scene! Bloggers who make a living at it! All (okay, most. some?) the coastness of the coasts but easier to afford!
August 24th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch! It turned out that doing family stuff took up most of our time.
St. Louis has a ton of cool stuff going on, it really does. And I have to admit that the presence of a Whole Foods does indeed strike us as reassuring.
August 25th, 2012 at 11:26 pm
No worries!
My old neighborhood’s gone from hoosier* to hipster. It’s a little disconcerting to see a 7-11 next door to an upscale locally sourced fair trade grocery…
August 25th, 2012 at 11:26 pm
* STL definition of ‘hoosier’, of course.
August 27th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Am I reading it wrong? You are out growing the two-bedroom house? More babies? More pets ? Or simply boys getting bigger? In any case, moving from one city to another is a huge decision. I love the oakland surrandings, but the affordability and close to family are attractive too. Ehhh…No matter what you decide, wish you the very best!
August 27th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
You are reading it right 🙂 We’re having another baby — I’ll have more to post about that tomorrow after I go in for a check-up.
August 28th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Wow! I hope you have a girl this time! But if not, we will be happy for all of you too! 🙂 I bet Robbin is getting excited?
August 29th, 2012 at 10:01 am
Thank you! Robin’s definitely more aware of things this time around–that there’s a baby inside me (and that it’s making me sick sometimes: we had to explain morning sickness to him). He suggested that we should open me up and take the baby out! (We told him, of course, that the baby is too little still and needs to get bigger, but it was a pretty funny moment.)
August 30th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Please tell Robin that a “serious scientific research” said that the baby needs to stay inside for a while to be ready to get out. 🙂
August 30th, 2012 at 10:13 pm
That’s a good one!