The hubby and I are now officially full- time Michigan residents. It took a bit of doing, but our belongings are now under one roof. Two actually. As much of our stuff is still in the garage waiting for me to find a place for it to fit. No easy chore, since we have a lot of duplicate items. The cost of maintaining two homes I guess. Mostly we have kitchen stuff as I am a sucker for the latest kitchen gadget. This kitchen is smaller than our two previous kitchens, so finding space for all my gadgets is difficult at best. Never fear, what does not fit will be purged.
It is good to be back “home.” While the hubby and I both grew up in Kentucky, we have spent more of our married life in Michigan than any other place, returning to Michigan feels like home. Ours is a small town. It takes maybe five minutes to drive from one end to the other. We have three stoplights. If you hit them all during a red cycle, it may take a bit longer to drive through our town. If you live here, you can’t go to the store most days without running into at least one person you know. A simple trip to get bread can take ages when you stop to visit in the grocery isle.
When we purchased our home in Pennsylvania, we had thought it would be our forever home. It was brand new, so new, so new I got to customize many of the elements. I had my basement and my much dreamed of mountain view. It was a lovely craftsman, on a large lot, in a safe neighborhood. The perfect home, really. With the exception of the large lot, it was everything this new (old) home isn’t. The Michigan house is an older brick ranch. At the time of purchase just over a year ago it was in need of a major update. Still, it had good bones and a spacious basement, albeit unfinished. It has a large room for an office, someday. Unfortunately, that room is currently being used as a mud room/cat playground. The cats love all the boxes and adore “helping” me unpack. To a cat wrapping paper appears to be the equivalent of catnip. If there is an empty box or packing paper, they are sure to be close by.
Except for the large dining room, where we have already been fortunate to have hosted many a family dinner, the rooms are smaller here. Our master bath is a third of the size of ours in PA. Strange, but with all the things this house is not, I must admit I am more comfortable here than I ever was in Pennsylvania. I’m sure a great deal of that is because we have family here. Our three children and six of the seven grandchildren are here. The seventh grandchild visits often for extended stays. But, even more than that, it just feels as if we have finally found our forever home. Ages ago, when the hubby and I used to ride our bikes around town, we would often pass by this house and marvel at its beauty. I’ve always been partial to brick ranches. The house sits on a great lot, surrounded by mature trees. It was a dream home to us those many years ago. We both often imagined ourselves living here. The parents of three small children it was all the house we needed at a price that was beyond our reach at the time. Then, the Navy took us elsewhere, multiple times, and in PA we thought we had found our dream house, and we could have been happy there if we’d been given more time. But fate had other plans. Circumstances in our life made us want to be closer to our children and grandchildren. And, here we are, in our new, old, dream home. It’s funny how things work out and how, given time, dreams do sometimes come true.
#dreamsdocometrue. #family #catsloveboxes #nevertakeasingledayforgranted! #movingsucks! #puremichigan
It is good to be back “home.” While the hubby and I both grew up in Kentucky, we have spent more of our married life in Michigan than any other place, returning to Michigan feels like home. Ours is a small town. It takes maybe five minutes to drive from one end to the other. We have three stoplights. If you hit them all during a red cycle, it may take a bit longer to drive through our town. If you live here, you can’t go to the store most days without running into at least one person you know. A simple trip to get bread can take ages when you stop to visit in the grocery isle.
When we purchased our home in Pennsylvania, we had thought it would be our forever home. It was brand new, so new, so new I got to customize many of the elements. I had my basement and my much dreamed of mountain view. It was a lovely craftsman, on a large lot, in a safe neighborhood. The perfect home, really. With the exception of the large lot, it was everything this new (old) home isn’t. The Michigan house is an older brick ranch. At the time of purchase just over a year ago it was in need of a major update. Still, it had good bones and a spacious basement, albeit unfinished. It has a large room for an office, someday. Unfortunately, that room is currently being used as a mud room/cat playground. The cats love all the boxes and adore “helping” me unpack. To a cat wrapping paper appears to be the equivalent of catnip. If there is an empty box or packing paper, they are sure to be close by.
Except for the large dining room, where we have already been fortunate to have hosted many a family dinner, the rooms are smaller here. Our master bath is a third of the size of ours in PA. Strange, but with all the things this house is not, I must admit I am more comfortable here than I ever was in Pennsylvania. I’m sure a great deal of that is because we have family here. Our three children and six of the seven grandchildren are here. The seventh grandchild visits often for extended stays. But, even more than that, it just feels as if we have finally found our forever home. Ages ago, when the hubby and I used to ride our bikes around town, we would often pass by this house and marvel at its beauty. I’ve always been partial to brick ranches. The house sits on a great lot, surrounded by mature trees. It was a dream home to us those many years ago. We both often imagined ourselves living here. The parents of three small children it was all the house we needed at a price that was beyond our reach at the time. Then, the Navy took us elsewhere, multiple times, and in PA we thought we had found our dream house, and we could have been happy there if we’d been given more time. But fate had other plans. Circumstances in our life made us want to be closer to our children and grandchildren. And, here we are, in our new, old, dream home. It’s funny how things work out and how, given time, dreams do sometimes come true.
#dreamsdocometrue. #family #catsloveboxes #nevertakeasingledayforgranted! #movingsucks! #puremichigan
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