My new home

I arrived in my new home in Oregon the evening of September 5th. Exhausted from the trip, and having no furniture at my new place, but loving the town as I have each time I've seen it. I took my friend out to dinner as it was his birthday. Since mine was less than a week away the restaurant gave us each free desert with a candle in it. It was nice :) I was glad to know a nice restaurant, thanks to being taken there during my interview. I also knew my way around fairly well since coming here to look for a house.

Speaking of my new (and FIRST!) house, I love it! My friend thought it was much better than the pictures suggested. My back porch is such a sanctuary - I feel so calm and peaceful out there. The whole neighborhood is pleasant - certainly the best I've ever lived in. The house itself has a lot of nice features that I didn't expect, like fully automated in-ground sprinkler systems and a heating system you can program to have the house at different temperatures throughout the day. The old owners left some fairly useful things like shelves in the garage and toilet paper in each bathroom (THANK YOU!) and some great potted plants in the yard. The appliances I got as part of the contract are also all new and nice. I feel completely spoiled!

One thing I thought a lot about this summer was how much stuff I really wanted to have in my life - I feel I have an excess of things and that just unnecessarily complicates life. It is better to have only a few things of value and not be tied down to useless stuff. I lived this summer with only what could fit in my car, and even from that there was little I missed and a lot I didn't end up needing. Being in Europe and South Africa confirmed that - there people tend to have less junk and less cheap items. More quality; less clutter.

I was actually rather frustrated with the moving truck arrived and boxes and boxes of stuff I didn't remember or miss started piling up in my nice new house. It felt like my life was suddenly becoming complicated and that I had a whole host of new projects/tasks to contend with. My new goals I made this summer had to wait; my old problems had arrived :( Fortunately I had scheduled cleaning people to come in and give the place a through clean and that wasn't really needed - as I was able to instead put them to task cleaning my furniture. It had been in storage all summer, apparently totally unwrapped, and had gotten filthy. Once they did that and I had things in place a little bit I started to feel better about my "stuff."

My living/dining area feels very comfortable; very much like home. My furniture fits well here, and I missed my piano and my grandmother's antiques. I intend to think carefully about my home projects so I do not get overwhelmed. I am thankful I have a move-in ready house by anyone's standards and nothing needs to be done. I will take as much stuff to charity as I can once I finally unpack my boxes. This place is already feeling like home and I am sure I will embrace it fully once I am settled in.