Diary of a move, 9: Additional delights

Oooh wee, y'all. All the stress and mayhem and work of moving was SO worth our wonderful new home. The light, the space, the little treats I couldn't have foreseen.

For starters, the ninety-second walk to the fabulous playground/park I mentioned is more awesome than I ever imagined. We tumble out our front door, meander across this delightful roundabout,

walk past one of those charming Little Free Libraries that a neighbor erected in his front yard because his wife wanted one (collective "aw" and also a thank you), and into the park. 

We spent yesterday evening and also this afternoon there, and the boys' glee and laughter is priceless. Plus the burning of their energy is fab.

There is just so much warmth and community here, and we all feel and adore it. Plus, from the Little Free Library I gained a copy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which I have long wanted to read. It's a total page-turner so far.

I've met the three women who live on the other corners of our roundabout, and they are all utterly lovely. Nutmeg and I enjoy sitting on our front stoop looking out at the pretty circle and listening to the symphony of bird calls and the breeze that seems to blow constantly. 

And, do you know what sits just beside my driveway???? 

A real mailbox! People stop all the time to mail letters and bills, and I just delight in what feels like complete old-fashioned behavior. Real mail! I love the steady claim to space an official mailbox provides. I love the heavy metal clink of the door as it dumps post into its belly. And I love the regularity with which someone comes to fetch it all and take it away to be sent out across the world.

That mailbox is one of the elements of this new home that I most love I think. I've already written quite a few letters and know that will continue.

We've already hosted our first party, too, a casual Academy Awards celebration on Sunday night. My parents have hosted one every year since 1981, and it's always been a favorite tradition of mine. Dress code is black tie or blue jeans, and Mom and Dad have always merged the two into a smashing style. 

Aren't they adorable?

This was my take on things, plus high heels of course. We had a ball, I loved Alicia Vikander's gown, and this Green Goddess dip with crudités was awfully delicious.

Life is good AND February is over. Woot!

Of rain and pears and cardamom and bolognese

The morning after finding peace with all the infernal rain earlier this week, I received a call from the foreman of the crew refinishing our old house's floors. The torrential deluge and attendant wind had forced their way in, leaving standing water on some of the newly sanded and sealed oak planks. 

Fantastic. Just marvelous. File that one under #itsalwayssomething

But OK. We have a good team over there, and the other floors are fine and look great. It's just stressful and annoying but it's fixable. I managed to bury my angst in two new, inexpensive kitchen utensil holders from Crate & Barrel. The simple thrill of wooden spoons in one and ladles in whisks in the other was uplifting. And I needed the freed-up drawer space, so these pretties are a win all around. 

It's lovely to feel settled in to my new kitchen. Today I cleaned the windows until they sparkled, and it really does make all the difference. Jack's best buddy is spending the night tonight (Ol is staying over at one of his closest pal's homes), and I wanted to make a nice dinner for the four of us to enjoy. 

Pasta is always popular with kids but I wanted to push the limits a bit so chose a chickpea bolognese recipe by a foodie acquaintance of mine. It's been on my 'to try' list for a while now, was easy to pull together, and gives you a whole lot of veggies in each serving. 

The boys were definitely suspicious about it not being your standard bolognese, but they were troopers and ate enough to warrant ice cream.

They should have opted for a slice of this lovely cardamom and pear cake I made. Tom and I each had two slices. It's not too sweet and isn't flashy at all. Just solid and comforting and yummy. I love cakes made with sour cream.

cardamom pear cake

And now this guy.

Perfect way to end a week. 

Rain, rain, go away?

Oh, this blasted rain. It's been coming down for two days now, in fits and starts, dustings and drenchings. Everything is gray, wet and sloshy. People scurry with covered heads and umbrellas; you can see February fatigue in their hunched shoulders and set brow. I found tonight's lightning an infinitely welcome event because its searing light beat a path across the grim, monotonous skyscape. Finally; something to illumine that dense shroud.

I do not yet know this house in rain. It's funny really, how I still feel somewhat like a visitor. I forgot about that element of moving: the lack of familiarity one has in a new place. As if you've gone on vacation but with everything you own.

Since Friday, I've spent a great deal of time cleaning. In the scrubbing and polishing of space inhabited just two weeks ago by strangers, I've gleaned some sense of how they might have lived here. These cabinet fronts are the most worn; surely they were those used most frequently. This drawer still has the maker's stamp clearly etched inside; was it ever even used? Where is the dust most concentrated? Where has it started to adhere? What areas appear to have been most treasured?

These little clues of others' lives are inconsequential really, but as I work to make this house ours, I notice and find them interesting. 

In a way it makes me sad that we're covering our tracks, so to speak, at our old house right now. The kids and I went by on Tuesday to check the samples of floor stain options the refinishing crew had left for us. Already, the home looked less like ours than it had just six days prior. No more worn carpet leading upstairs to our cozy rooms, no more uneven hue showing where we walked and played and ran most often.

Next week the painters will head in, to spackle away the holes and dings we left behind, evidence of the countless pictures hung via tape and nail, of the wear and tear rambunctious little boys leave in their wake, of who knows what that would give others small hints at how we might have lived.

Nine years sanded and stained and painted over. How dearly and tightly we hold on to things, until one day, we don't, and the debris of lives lived ends up on greasy paper towels and bundles of ripped out old shoe molding waiting for the garbagemen to carry it all away.

I was so snappy tonight. Tired and peevish and achy and short. I didn't like my attitude, but the traffic and errands and boxes and questions, homework and whining and why the hell won't the water just boil already?! I cursed the rain as I listened to the unfamiliar song it played on our house, and just when I thought I'd burst, Tom got home and finished bedtime (kind of), and I cooked the clams and made a salad.

The rain slowed and sated from a good meal, I considered that even though I tire of mud and slosh, browngrayugliness and February, rain is cleansing and perhaps this storm is the final bit of our goodbye and hello limbo week.

Perhaps instead of erasing our happy years in our old home, we're wiping its slate clean for the family who lives there next, offering them a blank canvas on which to paint their own experience. I think that's what I'm doing here, too.