First Impressions

We did it. We successfully packed and moved out of our city house by 5:00 pm on Friday. We then drove 15 miles north and unloaded, with the help of many of our friends, at the new house. All that prep work and the unloading of the truck was done in 4 hours. Always amazes me.

We spent yesterday organizing the kitchen and the shop/garage - both vital to our settling in. The kitchen so that we can eat and cook - I’m so tired of takeout that I can now happily go a month without it. The garage/shop so that we can find those essential tools that you need when you move in - screw driving, drill, nails, tape measure, etc. Plus in our case we needed the skill saw, hammer, nails, level and assorted screws for today’s project - but more on that tomorrow.

Jake, Sam and Sterling the cat went to the vet, which is also a kennel, Thursday morning and just came home tonight. They’re all is a state of unrelenting excitement over the new digs. Well the dogs are, the cat is just pissed in general at having to stay at the kennel, then riding 20 minutes in the truck and now being in a strange house. I give him a week before he calms down.

I thought beyond those essential facts I’d like to reflect on my first impressions of “the big move”. So here are my observations.

1. The quiet. There’s no freeway noise, no main road noise, no sirens, no screaming neighbors. It’s so quiet at night that you can walk outside and listen to the frogs sing. No really, outside right now are frogs singing and if I walk out there I can listen to them.
2. We have wonderful friends. Not only did many of them pitch in to help us pack and unload, we’ve also had a steady stream of visitors over the past few days. It’s been so amazing to realize how supportive and excited they are for us. We can’t wait to share our new space and adventures with them.
3. It seems like we were meant to live here. By that I mean that neither of us are finding it strange to be in a new home, it just fits somehow.
4. Having our own barn is the best thing ever. I already don’t know what I did before we had a barn.
5. We have too much stuff and not enough furniture. While we currently have two empty bedrooms and a vacant living room due to a dearth of furniture, we have an amazing amount of “stuff”. Some of it useful but not used often and some of it rarely used at all. We need to do some more purging.
6. Despite our occasional vocal disagreements over approach, Mike and I really do make a great team. We survived staging our home, listing it, selling it, packing it and moving it with nary a relationship issue. Now we’re just as skillfully navigating creating a new home here. It means a lot to me to realize that almost nine years in it not only all still works, it seems to be getting better.
7. Living on a “farm” makes it good to be handy. We tackled a pretty sizeable project today and accomplished more in 6 hours than I thought possible at the outset. Apparently the skills we developed working on the last house really are transferable.
8. I’m not going to miss the old house nearly as much as I thought I would. I think I’ll have twinges of missing the wood burning fireplace, or the pedestal sink, or the fully planted perennial gardens. But I don’t think I’ll miss the house as a whole.
9. The people in our new town are friendly in the way that only smaller towns are. Which is strange to say since we’re only 35 miles outside Seattle.
10. Moving is hard work. It feels like we’ve worked straight through for the last 4 days, and really we have, and we still have half the boxes and 3/4s of the organizing to do. Can’t wait for it to be over!