Building Dreams

The past few months have been incredibly intense and I had no time to sit down and write a blog, which I always managed to make time for. I started a new full-time job in January while still working on my side project, and furthermore, we were in an escrow for the firs time. Needless to say, we finally had the guts to buy a house of our dream after long years of renting and complaining about the housing prices. Our journey to this house was full of challenges but I now understand how your first house means a lot to many people. It is an emotional process to buy a house but it's all worthwhile in the end.

I already touched a little bit on this subject on some of my blog posts but the second-trimester loss we experienced in 2017 really hit us hard and this experience has changed our perspectives on our lives in many levels. It has already been two years and it feels like a distant past but at the same time the grieve is always in us, although it has gotten easier as time goes by.

I was happy, bloated, and pregnant in the spring of 2017. Our baby boy was kicking my stomach frequently in the 19-20 weeks. From the first heart-beat to the first time seeing a little human face through the scans, and experiencing the first kick, all felt like a miracle to me. When I lost him, everyone around us was in shock, we didn't know ourselves how to deal with the overwhelming sadness and the feeling of loss. I struggled with the trauma, short-term memory loss, and just getting back to a life was a big challenge. What was helpful to me was we lived through our dark time with humors, tried not to dwell on the loss too much although we have learned to live with the grieve, and kept our lives very busy and focused on the future rather than looking back.

We lost one dream but we promised each other to focus on building new dreams. One of them was to buy a house; a modern house on a hilltop that has both nature and city-living. When you learned that one little life could be so short, you also learn you don't have a lot of time left waiting for things to happen. So, we went ahead with the house, a place to build our dreams and hopefully to expand our family along the way.

Maybe a house of our dream is not exactly right since there are still a lot to fix but slowly it's getting there. The house was built in 1950s and has the modern mid-century feel, the simplicity, the honest architectural style that we really like. And the view was what really sold us.

The house is a humble size with 2 beds and 2 baths with spacious interior. We are hoping to extend the house to have a third bedroom in the future. For right now, it's a good size for our little family of three.

The house came with the big outdoor space with a plant area. There is our palm tree from our previous home. This is our evening cocktail spot while Uni explores around and our fine moment often gets interrupted when she starts digging a hole in the gravel.

Uni seems to find her self at home. The front deck is where she gets her daily sun-soaking moment. It's still very mysterious to me that she can stay grilled in the sun when it's 90 degrees outside. She comes in and goes under the couch to cool down once in a while, and goes out in the sun again. She does this routine several times a day. At least we know she seems to be happy with the new environment.

We have a lot of projects in mind for the house. We have a full list of renovation ideas but for now, we are enjoying the house as it is with some minor improvements here and there. Nicolai is busy making the house entirely 'a smart home', replacing all the bulbs, a door lock, climate control, turning everything automated. So far the house is great. A place full of happiness and peacefulness. I hope to update more on the house projects along the way.

Greetings in Japanese

お久しぶりです。カリフォルニアにもやっと夏がやってきたという感じですね。ご覧のとおり、家を買いました！アパートから今年こそは脱出しようと心に決めた１月から早６ヶ月。エスクローを経て、引っ越しも終えて、今でも信じられないのですが、ニューハウスオウナーとなりました。悲しい出来事のあった２０１７年から、また夢を立て直そうと二人で歩んだ２年間。自分たちによく頑張ったねと本当にご褒美のようなマイホームです。

１９５０年代に建てられたミッドセンチュリースタイルの家で、我々が時間をかけて集めたモダンな家具たちが映えるミニマムな内装になっています。すでにリノベートはされているのですが、まだまだ直したい部分はたくさんあるので、その様子を少しずつブログにアップできたらなと思います。