Tag: new house

New House Love

We bought a house! I’m not sure if I ever thought we’d buy one, to be honest. We have a ton of student loan debt which makes a purchase like this more intimidating, but renting a decent place wasn’t actually that much cheaper. On top of that, Shane was always fairly anti-being-a-house-owner for a really long time, but it all came together and now we own a house.

We’ve been in it for about 2 months and we’re still settling in – though I’d say we’re more settled than not. We have space for everything we need/want, we just have to figure out the best way to organize it.

Our kitchen is *so* much bigger than any kitchen we’ve ever had, and it’s honestly one of the reasons we bought this house. There still isn’t enough cabinet room for all the gadgets and gizmos we own, so a few things have migrated to an upstairs storage closet. I definitely want to find a space for all of it downstairs.

It’s been really fun to watch Shane turn into a homeowner. That’s a man who loves his new lawn – he has sprinklers, hoses, fertilizer (and a fertilizer spreader), a new lawnmower & trimmer, and so forth. He’s always doing something in the yard. I really enjoy going out there too, but definitely not as much as he does.

I’ve been trying to figure out how you’re supposed to take care of a house. Shane’s not a huge planner. I know if I don’t write down all the things we’re supposed to do when we’re supposed to do them, neither of us will remember and then our air filters won’t get changed for a year. But how do you know what to do, when, and how often? I’m still working on figuring all that out.

Every so often, we’ll look at each other and just go “we *own* this house”. It’s truly mind-blowing that we own a whole entire house. We’re actual adults now. I guess we were before, but there’s something different about owning a house. It’s kind of old fashioned, but I guess owning a house signals ‘adulthood’ to me.

Sarah

2020 so far…

I’m not sure there has been a year crazier than 2020 in a very very long time. This year really has had it all – death in my family (expected and unexpected), a pandemic & a quarantine, murder hornets, a new house, new hobbies, Australia was on fire, WWIII almost happened, there’s a general uprising going on, and on and on.

I debated whether I wanted to go over the world happenings here, but oh my God I really don’t. Maybe if I do a 2020 recap in December I’ll cover all of that – maybe in a timeline format. I’m going to assume that everyone knows what a trash fire the first 5 months of 2020 were.

Against the backdrop of the entire world falling apart, Shane and I bought a new house. We actually moved on March 30th and the announcement that SC was going to start shutting down was made on March 31st. I’ve been incredibly privileged during the pandemic in that I was able to transition to working from home and Shane is working normally, but it’s still been a really weird time. Before moving I just kept saying “if we have to quarantine, I want to quarantine in my own house, not an apartment”. We actually moved the date forward from April 6th so that we had a better chance of beating the quarantine. We were already social distancing, so there weren’t any handshakes, and everything got wiped down and disinfected after the movers left. Over the past 2 months, we’ve been making the house into our home. Which sounds cheesy, but it’s true. We’ve unpacked pretty much everything, hung art, bought a guest bed, and Tau has barfed on the carpet. It’s a new build, so we’re waiting to paint until our 11th month warranty fixes are made next year.

We planted a little, tiny, garden in some pots and I’m in love with them. We planted 2 cherry tomatoes, a squash, a zucchini, a regular tomato, and a habanero plant. I also got a ton of herb plants (6?) from my mother in law. An herb garden is something I’ve always wanted, so it was really special to make cuttings and plant them with her. Tomato plants are something my mom always had while I was growing up and are one of the things that mean ‘homeownership’ to me.

In January, my aunt passed away. I got to know that part of my family a little bit better, and I really can’t wait to get together with them and spend some time just hanging out with them. Hopefully sometime this summer the pandemic will chill out and we can meet up. Then in March my love Laurie died. It’s hit me so hard – I know he was “just a cat” but he was something special and I will always miss him. I think about him & my mom multiple times a day.

Since moving into the house, and being in quarantine, we’ve started cooking so often! Way more often than we ever have before, for sure. It’s honestly brought happiness to me for a lot different reasons, but mostly I love eating something I (or Shane) made. I think I’m more into it than Shane, which is a reversal. He used to be all about trying new recipes and now I’m the one pushing for cooking things. I think it’s because my interest is skyrocketing because it’s so much easier to cook now so I want to do it all the time and he sees it as a special activity to not do all the time. Huge fan.

I have so much to talk about that there’s no way for me to fit it all into this post. I really hope 2020 calms down over the next few months, but every time I think we’ve turned a corner something else bananas happens so I’ll just take whatever comes.

Sarah