House Happy

Claire is seven weeks old (how did that happen so fast....!!!).  

This means we've been in our new home and in our new town for six weeks.

We are mostly moved in to our new house.  There are still boxes that have to be unpacked, but they are tucked away in closets and their contents are mostly items that will go in said closets.  There aren't any pictures or art on the walls yet but the ideas are forming in our brains and we have a batch of things we are going to get framed next month.  We are sitting on folding chairs in the backyard but hope to get some nice outdoor furniture when the sales start.  

Our new house?  Awesome.  

Yes - if you told us our new dark wood floors would be a pain in the ass to keep clean, you were right.  But guess what - they are a hell of a lot easier to keep clean than our stone floors in the old house!  And yes, our neighbors can see into our bedrooms if our windows are open at the same time, but that's an easy fix.  

I do miss some of the things I knew I'd miss -  the "compost pile" in the back pasture and the dog poop-removal non-issue...but the trade off is immense (this morning, for example, we jumped in the car and drove less than ten minutes to a restaurant that serves Eggs Benedict - my favorite breakfast ever).  Charles can make a Starbucks run, we can bribe Jack to poop in the potty with a trip to the toy store down the road (it worked!) and we can load up and drive two minutes to one of the seven parks in our neighborhood.  

I feel so lucky to be here and so happy with our house.  I wonder when/if the newness will wear off.  I am guessing it will take awhile.  In our last house, Charles removed the toilet in our bathroom when we were tearing up the floors and he didn't replace it for, like, six months.  Well, when he finally did replace it I was so grateful to have a toilet in our bathroom I think I said a little prayer of gratitude every time I used it for the next two years.  Seriously.  So if I was that happy about a toilet (and I was pregnant and peeing a lot when we were sans toilet, so I reallllly did miss it after a few months of walking down the hallway every time I had to pee), I imagine I will be grateful for this home and happy to be here for a long time.  I hope so anyway,  I don't want to sell a house/move again for a long, long time.  

I should also note that no matter what, the grass is always greener...yesterday I made Charles drive down the road behind our community because I spotted some jumps in an arena down one of the roads and I wanted to check it out.  Sure enough, there are lots of pretty, well-maintained, smallish (2-3 acre) horse properties.  I said to Charles, "If we have horse property again, this is what we need!"  He could see that I was serious and said "I'm going to pretend you didn't even say that." I guess the conversation he had with his cousin yesterday about hay prices being the highest they have ever been due to the drought was still in his mind.  Or maybe he was thinking about taking fresh water out to three horses and two donkeys in 18 degree weather because their water was frozen.  Or maybe he was thinking about the unexpected vet bills.  Or the manure. 

I stand here again (yes, STAND, baby in Ergo!) and write this because I don't want to forget how happy I am with this house.  When I start bitching about this thing I would change with the house or that thing I would change about our area, I want to be able to read this and remember how hard it was to get here and how happy we were once we got here.  I want the "new car smell": to stick with us for a long time to come.

Perks to Country Living

Tonight Charles and I were discussing how this could (and should) be our last Saturday night in the country.  And we are really living it up, let me tell you - it's 9:00 PM and I am in bed, typing this, and halfway watching Charles and Jack struggle over taking off Jack's clothes for his (very late) bath. 

But really, as we realized this actually might be our last week in this house, we started talking about the things we would miss.  Not the obvious things, like pretty trees more than a century old surrounding our house or baby cows in the pasture next door.  No.  Those are not the things we are really going to miss, when it comes down to it.

We are going to miss the little perks to isolated country life - the little things we take for granted but enjoy on a daily basis.  For Charles, this means things like peeing in the back (and front!) yard and being able to walk around naked - even outside - without anyone seeing you.  For me, this means things like tossing the rotten fruit into the back pasture (and, umm, even tossing a turkey into the pond once that went bad when the power went out for several days - enjoy, fishies!) and not having to pick up dog poop.  The dog poop thing is huge...I am going to have to buy a pooper scooper and USE it (or at least Charles is)...it's been years since I last owned a pooper scooper or have had to bring little baggies with me when I take Janga out on walks. 

I don't think they'll let us light our Christmas tree on fire in the front yard in the big city (yes, we did that here, with several volunteers from the local fire department on hand - their idea - and OMG let me tell you, those things are SUPER DUPER EXTRA FLAMMABLE and burn up in no time!!).  I am pretty sure the neighbors won't let us set off fireworks at any hour of the day and night we choose and I am also pretty sure they won't be happy if we collect our weeds and other junk in a large "burn pile".  And yes, I realize that the entire last paragraph involved all of the things we won't be able to light on fire once we move.  Ha!

These things are small and the trade-off is huge (no fire ants, a Super Target and Starbucks!) but I know, even now, that I will miss pieces of our country existence every now and then.  Especially when there is rotten food in the fridge.

:::Oh...and in case you are wondering...STILL NO BABY!!!:::