Catching Up

We've moved (at last!) into the new house.    I LOVE it!  It feels like I'm living in a vacation home.  I am particularly in love with my deck.

One of the benefits of the main deck (we have 2!!) is that it's right off the great room/kitchen area. We have the grill right there

so it's so much more convenient to grill dinner.  At the old house, the grill was out behind the garage -- or in the back 40 as we called it.  I can keep an eye on the grill and what's going on in the kitchen.

We also have a dedicated office instead of a corner in the kitchen, and that is going to make a world of difference in keeping clutter out of the public living spaces.

I love the ease of one-floor living.  It feels like we walk more . . . .but that is a good thing!  I also love the fact that I've cut 10 minutes a day from my commute, which adds up to almost an hour extra at home per week!

There ARE a few things I'm not happy about.  At the moment, the TV setup is not ideal --- cords hanging out all over the wall which I hope to have solved as soon as I can get an electrician in.  And we are not satisfied with the lighting in the kitchen area yet.  Also, our new refrigerator seems to have a constant leak that the repairman is baffled by.  That leak is causing the floor around the refrigerator to buckle  However, the appliance company (a small independently-owned local company) is on it, and has promised to fix both the refrigerator AND the floor.

We also have a lot more visible wildlife:

A fox --

Lots of turkeys, deer, and an abundance of birds. As I've been sitting on the deck, I've seen scarlet tanagers, Eastern kingbirds, hummingbirds, several hawks, lots of the usual chickadees, titmice, robins, blue jays, swallows, etc. and a few birds I'm still trying to identify.  We're actually using a pair of binoculars that my husband got a few years ago to identify the unknowns.

In my work life, I came very close to making the decision to retire this spring.  I actually arrived at the human resources office one hour before the deadline with my signed contract in one hand and my signed retirement letter in the other.  I ended up deciding that ONE MORE year would make the most financial sense.  I was a bit annoyed with my husband who wouldn't give me his opinion as to what I should do. "Whatever you want is fine with me," is all I'd get out of him.  When I got home from work and told him I'd signed on for one more year, his comment was a somewhat disappointed "Oh, I thought you were going to retire. How come you didn't?"  I hope that I have that one more year in me!

Finally, we had a big wedding in the family!  Our younger son was married in California on May 31st!  I took only 4 days off from school (wish I'd taken longer!).  It was an absolutely gorgeous wedding, and we are more than happy with his choice of life companion. They've been together for about 7 years, so it was a long time coming.