Simple Mind, Simple Pleasures

Despite all of our house-hunting and dreaming in the last few weeks, we've decided that our old house on Armstrong is as close to our dream house as we're going to get for now.

Here's our patient and slightly annoyed/bored realtor with Isaac at the last house we looked at on Shipshaw River Drive.

Here's me after realizing that this house that we thought was "the one" needs a lot of work and isn't quite as spacious as we thought. "You sound resigned," my mom said.

The truth is that we love so many things about our house and can't let go of it just yet. And it's home! Frankly, when you've lived out of a suitcase for two months, any place you can call your own for the next long time feels pretty good. We slept there last night on air mattresses and plan to move in completely today. On Saturday Rich started working on fixing a leaky bathtub faucet and I pulled burr-weeds out of the garden. Nice for the moment to start work on our own house!

Our front door (white now and a mis-matched lock, but we can fix that!)

Here's our living room. See, isn't it pretty?

Before these things become commonplace, let me list a few things that give me such a thrill these days:

* Electricity! I made one phone call on Friday to get the electricity turned on , and on Monday I went to the house, flipped the switch on the air conditioner, and immediately heard the thing purr into action. I don't know why, but that was pure joy for me. So easy! Especially compared to the ordeals we had getting our air conditioners up and running in India. Funny how once the house became air-conditioned it felt much more reasonable to live there!

* Fresh fruits and vegetables and cooking on my own. Produce was plentiful and cheap in India, but we soaked everything in chlorine to avoid stomach bugs, which made it lose a lot of its freshness. We are loving baby carrots, crisp celery, vine-ripened tomatoes, avocado, and berries. I'm re-discovering my love for cooking--remembering old recipes and trying out some new ones. Today we tried with smashing success Jessica Seinfeld's Mac & Cheese with cauliflower hidden inside (Thanks for the Deceptively Delicious recipe book, Katie--just getting into it now and loving it!).

* Pulling weeds in my garden. I know this is such a mundane task for most, and always has been for me, but I was in heaven today pulling weeds and re-discovering the plants I planted so many years ago in what seems like another life. In the middle of my weed-pulling, we went down to the creek to throw rocks, watch bugs and spiders, and test what floats and doesn't in the water. I can't believe that creek was always there, yet we so rarely ventured down there. I'm glad we have another chance to enjoy it.

Here's the fig tree that was just tiny when we moved into our house eight years ago. Now it's a hardy fig-producing tree just right for little people to climb

* Meeting my neighbors. Some of them are crazy, but most of them are just plain friendly and nice. Some of them have been there for years, but we didn't ever bother to go introduce ourselves to them. I guess we were too busy with church and babies. It's nice to be in this limbo state of life for now so we can see the gaps that too much busyness creates in our lives. It turns out there are lots of kids at the end of the street in the cul-de-sac, so we need to get over there and make some friends!

* Finding Teji's Indian Market & Restaurant in Round Rock. For date night, Rich and I went there and met the nice Punjabi proprietor and browsed the aisles with all the tastes and smells from our other home. We got some sooji, chiles, and garam masala, then chowed down on some fabulous palak paneer, yellow daal, egg curry, sabjee, naan, and rice. My mouth was so happy. They also rent Bollywood movies and do take-out, and we got to see so many Indian folk come in and chat with the owner--a really small-town feeling there. So nice to know that there is a place we can go to remember and experience anew some of the things we like best about India.

* Rich's great work schedule. Being the amazing, disciplined guy that he is, he has left for work every day by 6:30 am so that he can come home by 3:30 or 4 pm. It's so wonderful to have him home for dinner and for the stores to be open late enough that we can get the stuff done we need to as a family.

The kids watching plasma-screen TVs at Sears while Rich and I shop for appliances.

* Old friends. Everyone we know from our past life is spread out among three wards now, but we've been able to see a lot of them and re-connect. They have been so kind and inclusive with us--inviting us to the pool and for playdates, bringing over cake and ice cream on my birthday, and some just did a welcome-back party for us last night. On Sunday, much to our surprise, they read our records into the ward during sacrament meeting. It felt good to know that we belong there and finally have a home for the next little or long while.

Graham making friends with Rowan at the pool, a child of Curtis & Aislinn, whom Rich knew in college and who adopted our duck Martha while we were away

* A neighborhood school! Our elementary school is nearly one mile away and completely safe to walk or bike. The assistant principal is an old friend in our ward, and we already know so many good friends at school that we are re-connecting with. We went to Kindercamp last week and Russell has been SO excited every since to go to school!


Stay tuned for more blogs. We fully intend to rewind and tell some amazing stories from our trips to Kashmir and maybe some more of our last days in Delhi and other travel. . .