Our New Pad

It's been a crazy two months, but I see some sanity on the horizon. We bought a house, sold our townhouse, traveled to Tennessee and Philadelphia, hosted 45 people for my office holiday party, entertained 16 people for Christmas Eve dinner, and made sure Santa knew our new address on Christmas Day. We are exhausted, but happy. Steve and I were able to almost completely unpack the house in record time, mostly with the help of my mother who took G and Ian for the weekend after we closed on the house. In between our traveling and entertaining we've been learning our new commute, figuring out how to heat this place, discovering welcome and unwelcome quirks and filling every nook and cranny with all of our treasured belongings. Now that we are settled I hope to get back into the blogging groove. Nothing particularly funny or creative is in my sleepy brain right now, so I'll close with the things I love about the new house.

1. The flow...the kids can run in circles through the rooms and I can see them play from my "station" (i.e., the kitchen).
2. The woodwork....it really is striking beautiful.
3. The fireplace....we had to put over a grand into getting it in working order, but it was well worth it and now we have toasty fires almost every night (except for tonight b/c it's about a million degrees outside).
4. Reclaiming my living room....with the exception of the last few days the toys have been exclusively contained in the "toy room" or the kids' rooms....it's lovely.
5. I think I'm supposed to love the 7-head shower/steam room in the basement, but I haven't had time to use it yet...seems like one needs a good chunk of time of uninterrupted time for such an experience, so I probably won't be using it for a few years.
6. The lights in the yard...makes the trees look really pretty.
7. The heated floors in the bathroom and kitchen...especially now that we've figured out how they work.
8. The quaint radiators.
9. A refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom.
And the best is....not making a mortgage payment during the month of December.

I wouldn't be truthful if I didn't offer some complaints...

1. The alarm system that was supposed to be deactivated going off at 6AM.
2. The dust...this house grows dust.
3. The lack of closet space in the master bedroom.
4. The crazy deep tub with a ledge....I break my back bathing the kids and my neck taking a shower.
5. The commute...it's just not as convenient as Fairlington.

Fortunately, this list is shorter.

I hope to have a more entertaining post in the near future. In the meantime, it's good to be back.