Luckily, though, I’m not talking about a literal locomotive. Those days of rumbling, blaring trains barreling through our front yard are far behind us. We’ve moved! We’re in a real house with a real neighborhood and we have a real kitchen and bedroom and everything! And there is a train… but it’s a good ten miles away. Far enough to still be sentimental, but out of earshot.
For six months we’ve been wanderers, graciously accepted into different houses. The last few were with my parents. Every night we came home from work and school and there was a good, hot meal on the table. Living with your parents definitely has its perks, I don’t care what people say.
So now that we have our own place and food isn’t magically generating anymore, it seems like we’re playing house—like it felt when we first got married. Me cleaning our own bathroom, Roy fixing our own furniture. The hubby is still on his break from school, so I came home from work one evening and he’d made macaroni and cheese from scratch! It was scrumptious. We did the dishes together; just two plates, just two cups. Just the two of us.
It’s quiet. At first I wasn’t sure if I liked that. At Mom and Dad’s there was always something going on. Even in our old apartment we could hear the couple below us screaming at each other, the dude to the right of us bumpin’ his tunes, babies crying, chairs scraping, doors slamming.
We’re not sharing any walls now. It’s quiet.
Hey—now we can be as crazy as we want! We won’t need the subtitles on our movies anymore, we can turn up the volume, we can laugh loud, we can have a dance party, and no one is going to slam their broom handle {thump thump thump} under our feet. I’m liking this quite a lot, now.
The Buckmaster and Collett clans joined forces to help us move in. I love the help, love it. I can’t, and don’t want to imagine how much time it would take to move all our junk on our own {how have we accumulated so much junk already?}. But honestly, I also find it a little awkward. Um, don’t mind all of our personal things strewn out everywhere. Yes, I still want to keep that Spiderman bobble head, Dad. I know I have a lot of shoes, Zac. Thanks for your slave labor, Kirsten.
Hopefully these people know that we have their backs forever. We will be there for moves and hospital visits and whatever else comes in life. We love you guys.
Roy’s family stayed at our new place, sleeping on air mattresses and couch cushions, using whatever blankets have been gathering dust in the storage unit for the last half-year. What troopers. I tried to get them to go out and do something fun in Tucson, but they were set on helping us get settled. Without them I’d still be organizing the kitchen right now, I’m sure. They’re awesome.
Even with all that help, we’re still putting things away. There are a few boxes in a pile, waiting for me to go through them. And yes, it takes me hours because every little thing I pull out has to be properly admired and I have to tell whatever story connects with it: Awww, this is that card Lynn made me when my cat got eaten by coyotes!
Don’t you feel kind of bad for Roy? Me too.
What else is on our checklist? Painting the hideous purple ceiling in the kitchen, getting shelves for the garage {we have a garage!}, and putting blinds up on the windows. Our landlord is pretty awesome, and doesn’t mind whatever alterations we make. ;-)
OH! And we have a backyard! Some people would consider it a box of dirt, but it’s our first back yard! Between noon and one o’clock there is a little sunlight that peeks between the close rooftops and hits the dirt. What is this perfect for? My first garden.
Seriously, there’s an especially shady corner of the yard where several weeds are just thriving. We even have a few weedy flowers that have sprung up just in the few days we’ve been here. Maybe I’m ignorant {and in denial about living in a desert again}, but I’m determined to have a garden we can eat out of. Squash, watermelon, carrots, the works! Whatever hardy fruit or vegetable can survive in Arizona soil is going to be planted back there soon.
Or maybe the real issue will be whether they can survive Buckmaster caretaking. When Roy and I were dating he got me a “love plant,” which was a potted cactus. We killed it in three weeks flat. But Weasley has stayed alive so… maybe we’re getting better?
Our neighbors have an orange tree which billows up over our wall and drops occasional gifts. I like that. Maybe we could get an orange tree too. I’ll start saving seeds J. We’ll have a whole jungle back there!
1 comment:
I want to a garden too! We can learn together because I am an infamous plant killer.
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