Happiness...

I love the new place. Love it.

If you are ever in an unhappy living environment, don’t worry about the cost or the time or whatever else, just get out. The new neighbors seem pretty cool, stay up late like me, have a social life, take turns dragging the trash bin to the curb, and best of all, we can barely hear each other.

The new place is an old, brick, two-story duplex built in the 30’s, and I have the top floor which is all hardwoods. There are two bedrooms on one side that are connected by a hallway with a bathroom in the middle. Both bedrooms have complete privacy and are separated off from the community areas, so when someone’s in my living room, they don’t also have a perfect view of my bedroom. (It’s the first apartment I’ve had in Houston like this.) Plus, the smaller bedroom is the size of my old master, and the new master is…just unbelievably huge and full of light. Also, the living and dining room are combined, so it makes for one big, long room that’s twenty-three feet in length and feels very open and airy.

The best part? There are TWENTY FOUR WINDOWS here. Y’all it’s like a natural light bonanza in this place. Bonus - my bedroom doesn’t open out onto the street, so the streetlight doesn’t light up my room at night when I’m trying to sleep. Also, it has EIGHT LARGE CLOSETS and tons of built-in storage spaces (including an attic which contains an interesting collection of remnants of prior tenants including a child’s school diorama of Houston and a motorcycle seat). What else rocks? The windows actually OPEN, so I can let a breeze waft through and feel like I’m outside when the weather is nice. I also have CEILING FANS which were absent from the last place.

The kitchen is a kitschy little wonderment of knotty pine with deep drawers that hold ALL of my utensils. No longer do my utensils sit on the counter in a large flower pot. Oh, and again, this is the first time I’ve had a pantry. Hello gorgeous! The refrigerator? It has an icemaker! The gas grill and oven, though they look like they are about fifty years old, work better than any kitchen appliance that I can remember.

But wait there’s more! We’ve got a private outdoor sitting area! What does that mean? It means that the two hours a day I spend sitting on the porch now also include a little doggie sitting by my side. At the carriage house, I had a patio, but it wasn’t gated off and Martha could run away. At the old place, I shared the back yard with all of my neighbors and it was in my lease that I couldn’t let the dog off leash, so she had to stay inside. We are both LOVING IT. Really, we are sitting on the porch right now and she’s like, “Toss me a cold one, Mama.”

Martha is doing great, by the way. After four years, I stopped crating her when we moved to the new place, and she’s unbelievably chill now when I get home at night. Even Wine-Time-Girl was like, “What happened to your dog?” There have been no accidents and no destruction. I’m so flippin’ proud of her. And since I feel comfortable having people over at the new place, Martha’s getting a lot more socialization and attention. Also, the sidewalks here are fantastic, and Martha and I have started back on our long walks since the weather warmed up.

There’s also some strange kind of musical vibe to the house. I noticed it when I was unpacking and found myself singing a made-up song. It became more apparent when I decided to order instrument stands for my guitar and violin (no, I can’t play either of them!) because I wanted them out in the open where either visitors could pick them up and play them or I could have them at easy disposal to practice. (I have picked them up a few times…) Sitting on the porch, I’ve noticed that one of the neighbors on the other side of the street plays the cello, and I’ve also seen people carrying guitars into other houses. I’ve been to four live shows since moving in even though I’ve lived here less than a month, and the other day I remembered that the landlord had said that the prior tenants were musicians. Weird, huh? My first in apartment always made me want to write. The last apartment had zero creative vibe. This one makes me always have the stereo on, and I find suddenly writing down little rhyming blurbs as they pop into my head.

Today I was home sick and messed around with the violin for an hour or so. I'm pretty sure the sound created killed the neighbor's cat.

Did some thinking in regards to my last post, and I agreed with WTG that it had to do with the limited free-time that I had in my life. So I’ve made a few changes. One is to stop stressing about stuff at work so much and just leave when I’ve been there long enough. I’ve been afraid to take time off because there’s so much to do, but I’m working on planning some three-day camping weekends and short trips to Austin.

Second, I decided to discontinue my French classes. (Yes, this one was hard.) The timing of the class was in the middle of the evening two nights a week. I found myself leaving work earlier than I wanted, rushing home to walk the dog, jetting off to class to spend ninety minutes in intense mental engagement, and finally getting home around 9:30 pm at night without having had any down time that day. The class was on Mondays and Wednesdays, and by Thursday I was just about to drop. Nothing around the house had been done during the week, I had no desire to socialize or run errands, and by midday Sunday, after sitting around doing nothing for days, I’d wish that I’d met up with friends or done SOMETHING that week. And when work or anything else flared up, it was that much worse. So I didn’t sign up for the fourth series of classes. Maybe I’ll do so again at some point, but right now I just want to relax and enjoy life, and even though the classes just ended last week, I’ve already found myself making a lot more plans and getting out of the house. We were having a life balance issue it appears.

Anyhoo, Martha and I are both happy, relaxed, relieved, and looking forward to a chill spring. (And we're having such a nice time that we're also trying to think of ways we could retire instantly.) Hope everything is going well with you, Reader!