Living in Paradise

One of my versions of paradise, that is.

Jay and I have moved to another small town, but oddly nowhere near "town".  Our address says we live in said small town, but in actuality, we're probably eight miles from "town".

I absolutely *despise* moving and God willing, this will be our last move until we move into our forever home (God willing, we'll be able to buy/find a forever home sometime before we die).

We moved onto the same property where Skeeter (and her future brother) lives.  She's now 10 yards or so from my bedroom window, so I can wake up, look out the door and see her.  It's quite blissful.

L.E.'s hen house, made out of an old silo.

Farm road

The "back side" of our little house and Skeeter's pen.

Our friend (and landlord) lives on the property as well, in a beautiful big old farmhouse just west of our house.  We downsized a lot to move into our apartment two years ago, but this little house is even smaller than our apartment, so we had to downsize yet again.  It's not too bad. Once you learn to let go and take that first load to Goodwill, the subsequent loads are much easier.

We still have a ton of unpacking to do, though I'm not sure where we're going to put everything yet, and we're going to "build" some cabinets for the kitchen.  Right now, we've got a big, open kitchen with next to no storage or counter space.  We're going to take a page out of Mom and Bill's book and just bolt a couple of base cabinets together and cover them with a counter top and call it good.  It's not super permanent, but it will increase our storage and give us a food prep area.

The big wooden table that is currently the "counter" in the kitchen will come out and be re-finished so that we can turn it into a picnic table.  I can already see it underneath that wonderful shade tree, can't you?

I expect it will be a bit before we're completely settled, but I'm already in love with this place.

Small Town, CO

Maybe I should say, "Small Town east of I-25, Colorado", since my parents live in a town smaller than the one RCC and I just moved into.

Our apartment is part of the upper floor of an old brick building (in case you couldn't tell from the pictures).  The lower part of the building that faces the main street houses a cafe, a flower shop, and a brand-new haircutting place.  There are apparently other apartments in the building, but ours is the only one with its own private entrance.  I haven't seen the other apartments, though I know by the cars in the parking lot that there are other residents.

On Monday, our first day here, I fell in love a lotta bit with our location.  We'd dropped the U-Haul truck off at the parts store/U-Haul place Sunday night, but they didn't have a dropbox for the key, so we took the key home with us for me to return Monday morning.

I got up, did some unpacking, and then headed over to the parts store.  On foot.  Because it was that close.  Down the stairs, around the building, across the street, three businesses east.  On the way home, I ducked into the grocery store right next door to the parts store to pick up a lighter.

Later that day, I went to the post office.  On foot.  Down the stairs, across the parking lot, along the neighbor's front yard, and across the post office's parking lot.  I've walked farther between buildings at work.

Pretty much everything we need, or might need - including two bars and a liquor store - is within walking distance.  It would actually be more effort to go down to Ripley, start her up, drive to my destination and park.  Truly.

I now understand the desire of some people to live right in the heart of downtown cities.  Everything is so damn convenient.  Except the cities themselves.  I couldn't do that.

On Wednesday, I fell a little bit outta love with our location.  We live in a small, farming community.  Did you know that rush hour for *all* heavy equipment is between 6 - 7 am?  I didn't, but I do now.

On Friday, I found that if one can pretend to ignore rush hour between 6 - 7 am, that one can go back to sleep from 7 - 8 am.  And with that little bit of knowledge fell right back in love with our place a whole lotta bit.

The New Apartment and the Move

The move was not completely without drama. All American, who had been staying with us for the past almost year, took off for work four weeks before we had to move. I gave both All American and Digger six weeks' notice that we were moving and that they were not going with us. They needed to get jobs, get a place and get out.

All American got a job before Digger did and dumped his almost-two year old on Digger for babysitting, which meant that while All American was at work, Digger was at home being All American's bitch and taking care of his son. Shortly after All American got his job, he went to Montana to work for a week. A week turned into four, and no one could reach him. Multiple times I tried, Digger tried, Baby Momma tried. He had disappeared.

Digger was super stressed out knowing that he didn't have a job or a place to live AND he had to get packed, so he told Baby Momma that he couldn't watch Baby All American and spent the last ten days before the move cleaning and packing.

All American finally showed up three days after we told he we needed to be out of the house. I wasn't very nice to him and asked if he'd finally come to get his shit out of the house. He said yes. RCC offered to shuttle All American and Digger around to their new "homes" the following day.

The following day came and Digger showed up, but not All American. He pulled another disappearing act. RCC got Digger settled into his new place and All American never showed. We had some run around to do, but stopped back by the old place about 8:00 pm that night. All American's stuff was still there.

I put a call out on Facebook for him to get his stuff out of the house or it was going to go to the dump. I went into work for a few hours on Friday, then went back to the old place. All American's stuff was still there, so I loaded it into Ripley. I was too cheap to take it to the dump, so it all went to Goodwill. There was some nice stuff in there, too, but I gave him ample warning. For all I know, all he has is the shirt on his back right now.

We thought we were all finished with the old place and that we'd never have to go back, but the people we contacted about picking up our old appliances backed out, so Mom, Digger and I have one last (God, I hope it's the last) trip to the dump on Thursday.

The move into the new place is finally complete.  Now we're at the dangerous stage of unpacking - we've done just enough that we have what we need for our daily lives.  It would be really easy just to pretend there's no more unpacking left to do.  Until, of course, we need something that is still packed up.

So, what's a good blogger to do?  Unpack or blog about needing to unpack?

Being a good blogger, here are some pictures of the new place :)

So the outside is nothing to look at...
BUT it is zombie-proof.
The zombies come, we knock down the stairs,
voila!  No zombies knocking at our door.

From the living room into the kitchen area

The kitchen's one of two rooms that is completely put together,
the other being the bathroom.

There's not a lot of counter space,
but there is a TON of cabinet space

Yes, our kitchen sink is green.
It is also only useful for bathing babies*,
as it's shaped like a baby bathtub.

The bathroom is the other room that is completely unpacked.
But I think it's too blue.
I might have to change that.

Can you believe I actually gave away 300 books?
It doesn't look like it, does it?
There are still a couple of boxes of books
I found that need unpacking.

More storage cabinets.
That little skinny thing on the left is our coat closet.
I think we only get one coat each this winter.

Our spare room/
appliance closet/
shooting supplies/
we don't know what to do with this stuff

Overhead storage - love this in the spare room

Shooting supplies/stuff we don't know what to do with yet.

Our room.  Not even close to being unpacked.

"Our" work clothes closet.
I kind of feel guilty for overrunning the closet with scrubs.

*There will be no babies of ours to bathe in the sink, so just get that thought out of y'all head.  It was simply to explain the bizarre-ness of the sink shape.

Lost

That's how I feel right now. 

No internet, no connection to the blog world.

The move went well, though we still haven't received our modem-thingy for our internet and have no idea when it will arrive, therefore have no clue when I can plug back in.

I miss y'all like crazy and know that I'm missing lots and lots of stuff.

God willing, I should be back sometime this century.