Take the accumulated stuff off every countertop, desktop, and dresser and burn it.
How to Stay in Your House Forever
Category: Keep Up With Kate
Juggling Houses
Both buying and selling are a process where you go from contract to close and then take possession over a number of weeks. If you can pull the six steps apart and see them as unique, you can move them around to see what best fits your comfort level and ability to finance.
Follow the Water: Prepare for Nashville’s Rainy Season
Nashville’s rainy season starts in October and ends in September. It’s always a good time to prepare.
5 Things I Wish People Knew About Keeping the House In A Divorce
If one party is keeping the house and it has a mortgage, refinance the debt. That way the person who owns the house has the mortgage. This is the biggest deal for the person not keeping the house. The lender doesn’t care about divorce decrees or quit claim deeds.
Celebrating Clean Slates 🍎
Every day I’m juggling priorities, lists, and needs with how much sleep is needed to get through it all again. And the mundane tasks can be so wearing. That said, I always wish I could be a better version of myself. I wish I could be a little earlier, a little more prepared, a little more on top of it all, a little more patient. Any marker of a fresh start gives me a little zip of a clean slate.
Recent Readings: The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family’s Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis
Goodman, Simon (2015). The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family’s Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis. New York, NY: Scribner. Simon Goodman’s account of his extended family’s life before, during, and after the Holocaust haunts me in all the tiny details of suffering and complicity. It is the story of the wealth his family…
“Is Charlie Coming with Us?” Preparing Young Children to Move to Your New Home
I remember a move when I was five where my dad gave my two cats away. My mom brought me to our new house (yay!) and the first thing I did was go looking for Saki and Vince. Simple tip: don’t give your kid’s pets away when you move. They won’t forget. Stephanie and I…
Build a Simple Raised Bed Garden
In case the gardening bug hasn’t bit you yet, I’m writing to give you a little inspiration and direction for starting small. Here are directions for one 4×4 planter box that will fit almost anywhere and give you plenty of planting options.
In Life and in Staging: It’s not what you get rid of but what you keep
My whole life I’ve had trouble letting things go. I would eventually remember how much I enjoyed them, or feel the pressure of whoever gave them to me, be it as a gift or hand-me-down.
Love the Ones You’re Snowed in With
To date I’ve updated my operating system and my phone, moved a ton of old pictures and videos to an external hard drive, roasted a chicken on a bed of root vegetables, made chicken and dumplings with Brooks and Stephanie rolling out the dumplings, a red curry, oven pancakes with a fruit compote, oatmeal porridge, and an eighth of a new scarf.