New House

Well, you may have noticed that my posts have been slacking off a bit (as in, not happening at all) during the past few months. The first personal journal entry I made after my last post was expressing excitement over a phone interview my husband had with a company out in the Pacific northwest. That's right, we were thinking of moving--again. We weren't too sure how things were going to work out in Wisconsin, and at the time they were looking pretty dismal. We'd even put off buying a house here, and were squished into a little apartment that we'd rented when we first arrived in Eau Claire. The apartment was originally supposed to only be temporary, but we never felt good about buying a house here, and we just stayed in the apartment indefinitely until we found a house we felt good about--or until we found a job someplace else we felt better about.

We did all the things we were supposed to do--fast, pray, do our best, read our scriptures, fulfill our callings, walk our dog, scrub behind our ears, etc. etc., but still didn't feel led in a particular direction...till this house popped up on the market. After only briefly seeing it twice, we were in our agent's office making an offer. (Our poor agent had been so patient with us. We'd been looking at houses for over a year and hadn't bought anything.) We were elated to finally, finally, have a house to live in! It has a yard, it has a garage, it has space for us to work, it has space for us to walk around without tripping over each other.

I guess that means we're living in Wisconsin for a while longer.

Anyone who's moved knows that moving in and of itself is a challenge. And even though our house is really great, and we're delighted to be in it, there are still challenges that come with a new place.

• Far be it from me to complain about having a bigger living room, but I was a bit daunted the first time I approached it with a vacuum cleaner. How was I supposed to vacuum something this large? I finally went in strips, like you do with a lawnmower. (Maybe this will make up for the first time I mowed the lawn by myself, and I pushed the lawnmower back and forth like a vacuum cleaner.)
• Strangely, I kind of miss our laundry area in our apartment. The washer and dryer were in a closet in the living room. When we moved in there, I really did not like the idea of standing in the living room doing my laundry. But you know what? It was nice to be able to switch loads around and fold without leaving the family. In our new house we have a separate laundry area. It feels remote.
• Everything is further apart. In our apartment, everything we owned was crammed into a very small space. But that did make it easier to get to things we wanted; it was all just right there. All you had to do was turn around and walk a couple of steps. In the house, it feels like we're setting off on a long journey just to get something on the other side. Needless to say, we're getting a lot more exercise.
• Shoveling the driveway! We didn't have to do that at all when we were renting the apartment. There are bonuses to renting.
• Plus, one of our cars threw a rod the week we closed on our house and needs a new engine. At least we had a garage we could put it in now.