A few notes on our new home...

We've been in the new house a week now, and are greatly enjoying just being in such a different place. The scenery and climate are so different, and oddly enough, the people are just much nicer than folks are in SoCal. I can't quite figure out why it is, but I notice it everywhere in little ways.

The house is bigger than our Murrieta house, with more light and more openness, and that's very pleasing. It needs a lot of work, and that's daunting. We had to call out an appliance repair guy yesterday when I discovered that the oven wouldn't work after I'd already made dough for a loaf of bread. I suppose we should have waited and bought a new stove, as the repair cost $184 and it wasn't a pretty stove to begin with, but with any luck our sellers will reimburse us for the cost of the repair, and if not, well, it was a very tasty $184 loaf of bread. (Actually, the reason I didn't just buy a new stove is that I want a gas stove to cook on eventually, and that requires replumbing, which we can't do until we actually own the house. Which will hopefully be at the end of this week, though I haven't heard from our loan officer since we moved. I need to unpack her number and call her!)

Steve went out yesterday afternoon and painted a scene along the irrigation canal. I'll try to remember to ask him to post it here. Yesterday was as warm as it's been since the snowfall Tuessday night; I'd guess it got into the low 40s. It's supposed to hit the low 50s today before returning to 30s/40s for the rest of the week, so we'll dig out some Christmas decorations and get them up. It's actually quite pleasant as long as the temperature is above freezing. I sat on the back deck with a book and a cup of tea yesterday, and I plan to do it again today!

Our solar blower does a nice job of heating the house, though it can't get it above 66 on the colder days and of course, after about 3:30 pm it goes off because the temperature in the collector gets too cool. I think we could heat the house entirely with the blower and a good wood stove, just waiting for close of escrow for that as well.

The kids have been plagued with horrible coughs, Harry even more so than Maddie; if it doesn't improve significantly by tomorrow, we'll take them in to a doctor. They have energy enough during the day, but are racked all evening and night by terrible, unproductive coughing. And Maddie got hit with an epic nosebleed on our way to town to run some errands last Wednesday, and has been worried about a repeat ever since.

I find it ironic that our fish made it through the move just fine and even spent a week in tiny tanks before we finally got them set up in the right size for them, but our kids have been hammered by the change.

Maggie, our 15-year-old dog, has taken to this move much better than I though she would. The back porch steps are a bit of a challenge for her, but she's making it up and down them and she dances at the front door for a walk every morning. Sunny seems to get very charged up by the snow (too much so, sometimes -- when we were exploring the fabulous play structure at the elementary school outside our back fence yesterday morning, she was tearing around in circles and decided to bite Harry on the calf for no particular reason!) She isn't really up for the long walks I want to do, as the snow get clotted in her paws. Maybe I need to get her booties.

We have a (red fox?) squirrel that lives in one of our cottonwood trees out front, a male, as Maddie pointed out. The kids have named him Cherry after watching him scamper to our (chokecherry?) tree and breakfast on its fruits. (I need to acquaint myself with the local flora and fauna better. We had a fabulous view of a gorgeous Northern flicker on the cottonwood yesterday morning and after looking it up in the bird book decided it was a red-shafted Northern flicker.)

The upper half of the house is pretty well unpacked and I've set up a little meditation/yoga corner in our great room. Maddie's asked to do yoga in it each of the last few mornings. I'd love to make that a habit (in fact, I'm going to suggest a yoga session as soon as I'm done with this post.)

The lower level is a jumble of boxes and I'm reluctant to do much unpacking there because I want to replace the carpeting ASAP and can't find the enthusiasm to set up, move and reset up the kids toys and craft areas. Have to wait to get carpeting in as well, though, and Steve's willing to just live with the old carpet for a while.

Now that I've got an urge to do some yoga, I'd better go off and get to it before it wanes. Steve should be back soon from church; he headed out to the 9 am service of Foothills UU Church, a huge, exciting Unitarian church here (the kids are too cough-y to go today.)