Getting Settled

Yes, I moved again.

As you may already now from my hints in other posts I moved yet again. Unlike my recent cross country trek from Arizona to Ohio, this time I just moved across town.

My first place in Ohio was a very old Victorian house and I was very excited to do some green remodeling. Well I admit now that I bit off more then I could chew and with 3 kids to watch after every day I just could not see living in a fixer upper anymore. The street the house was on was also a major part of downtown traffic and I was getting increasingly worried about one of my kids getting hit and of course the fact that the semi truck traffic was so bad that it sounded like I had a truck driving through my bedroom all night long didn’t help. I also decided that the lead paint issue was more of a concern to me than I originally thought. I had plans to have the house scraped and re-painted and when I started imagining lead dust in the vegetable garden and in my kids sand box I knew it was time to move.

As it turns out is was a wonderful thing for us. We ended up buying a larger home just outside of town with acreage and TONS of mature trees. It has a lot of space for gardening and even has two well established compost bins. We did not get in to the house in time for planting season but that just gave me the incentive I needed to start a community garden with several other local families.

I just love all the trees that are on the property. It has become a favorite past time to relax in my hammock under the canopy of trees and read a good book or a natural parenting magazine. The kids also love the new house too. My son can spend hours at a stretch in his new hiding place, a large set of bushes pushed up against the one fence that borders the north side of the property. He also loves to play Badminton with me something we did not used to have room for.

Other perks include being 2 minutes from the grocery store, mall, post office, movie theatre, and farmer’s market. We just went to the market today to shop for locally made maple syrup. And when we moved from Arizona I left my baby brother and movie date behind so now that I am so close to the theatre I have been sneaking out to see late shows with my son. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean twice!

The house is actually pretty green too with energy star appliances, a wonderful water filtration system, and a summer kitchen. I am very happy with the move…even if the local grocery clerks think I am a nutcase for asking them to put my groceries in canvas bags. This is definitely the place I can see myself living forever more.

The top picture is my son enjoying a nice summer day, the middle one is one I snapped while sitting in the hammock and the third picture is a little treaure I found hiding behind some bushes next to the house.