I haven't posted in a few months, because I've been extremely busy. In addition to my normal hyperloaded writing schedule, I moved to Minnesota, got married, and went on a honeymoon. That's two months or so of solid activity, from which I'm only just now recovering.
I'll leave the marriage bit for a future post, and focus for now on the moving part of the equation. First off, know that I've lived in the same city for all of my 50 years; this was a move out of state, which made it a big deal. While I did a fair share of moving from apartment to apartment when I was younger, I've lived for the past 16 years in the same house -- which means I simply didn't have much current experience with the moving thing.
I made it easy on myself by hiring movers to do the whole thing -- packing, loading, driving, etc. That was a good thing; what might have taken me weeks took them a few days. Luckily for me, the only damage I've noted (so far) was in three halogen floor lamps, which arrived somewhat bent out of shape. No big deal; the big stuff made it through relatively unscathed.
I moved from a 1700 sq. ft. one-story house to a 4000 sq. ft. two-story with a full basement. The extra space is nice (in spite of the stairs), especially with all the other people in the house. For the first time since high school, I'm sharing my abode with others; it's not that bad, really. My new wife and I have no problem sharing space, of course, and the house is big enough that the two kids and one grandkid sharing the house with us have their own private spaces. I don't even mind that the grandkid picked my office and my music room as his two favorite spaces; it's easy enough to close the doors when I don't want him in there.
While sharing the (bigger) space has worked out well, sharing stuff has proven more problematic. Quite frankly, I'm not used to sharing. It's not that I'm selfish (although I probably am), it's just that everything in my old house was my stuff -- I knew exactly what it was and where it was and no one else touched it. Not so anymore; it seems that everybody touches everything. I have to get used to that.
An example. In my old place, my kitchen refrigerator was filled almost exclusively with liquids. (I don't cook, so why buy food?) In the new place, the kitchen refrigerator is filled with food -- everybody's food. So we have a spare refrigerator in the garage for liquids, and I get half of one very short shelf in the main refrigerator for my personal stuff (still mostly liquids). Is that too much to ask, half of one shelf? But still, half the time someone has put something on my half a shelf, typically some sort of baby food or yogurt container. Can I not have my space?
But that's a minor thing. We've spent a lot of time and money fixing up the place to be our place. It's a massive house with a great big great room, complete with 20 foot ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling custom fireplace. We ended up buying almost all new furniture for the place, and splitting my old home theater system in two to service two different floors. I like my new music room, which is enough bigger than my old one to finally let me be comfortable. We got rid of the previous owner's basement bar setup and replaced it with built-in bookshelves for a nice little library, and we're in the process of setting up a 125 gallon saltwater aquarium. Lots of money for all this, but I like to get everything out of the way at once -- if I want it done, I want it done now, not a year or two from now.
All this (plus the wedding and honeymoon) has occupied a lot of my time, hence the lack of posting. In addition, I've had to get used to living in Minnesota, the land where winter never stops. (They're talking about snow flurries tomorrow -- on April 26th!) It was nice, however, when the main snowpack melted and we finally got a chance to see the yard we purchased. It's a big half-acre, which means lots of mowing and such this summer. Fortunately, we got a riding lawnmower as part of the deal, and it has a cupholder, so that should work out okay.
In any case, I'm trying to hone my Minnesota accent and learning to drive under the speed limit (something no one in Indiana ever does). The populace is stereotypically nice up here, and they've made the move easier. So has my wife, of course -- she being the reason I moved up here in the first place. I think I like it.
But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.
