Squeaky clean

Today I came home and the house was sparkly clean. There was no dust anywhere. The carpets had been vacuumed, the mirrors polished, the tub scrubbed. It was the best ninety dollars I've spent in a long time. I finally caved in to the arguments of my husband and in-laws, who kept telling me that it wasn't worth what little free time I have to be cleaning. And frankly, I could not have done as good a job as these gals did. It's funny what a difference it made to my mood. I haven't been well lately: still have the shingles, and a cough I can't shake, a difficult week at work, difficulties in my personal life. I've been really down, in fact. But the clean house put a smile on my face. The first one all week.

Home Sweet Home

I've been away for awhile, visiting friends, exploring new cities. It's been fun, particularly catching up with all the people we've been missing. Sometimes it's a nice surprise, getting together with an old friend after a long separation - you realize all over again all the reasons why you're friends with this person in the first place. I've been blessed to know some good people, good friends.

Still, I have to say that there's nothing like being home. Particularly now that we have a real home to come home to.

Eden

The surf was unrideable again this weekend, but we went to the beach anyway. And it was actually kind of nice to be there, sans board - it's been a while since we walked along the shore and paid attention to the ocean's many other attractions besides its waves. The stretch of beach that we were on was deserted, possibly because it was cold and misty on the coast (although sunny back home). I should clarify: the beach was deserted by people, but more than amply populated by avian and marine life. We encountered numerous starfish along the shore, washed up by the tides, which we threw back into the water. Crab shells littered the beach, but we saw only one live crab. My husband put a stick near it, which the crab clung to for dear life, and we threw it, too, back into the ocean and away from the marauding birds.

I've said before, and I say again, I hate birds. Nature red in tooth and claw was definitely present on our walk: we found a dead bird, with a bloody hole in its chest. "Could it have been cannibalized by the other birds?" I no sooner asked the question than a crow flew over and began tearing flesh from the carcass with its beak. No different, perhaps, than humans and their consumption of the flesh of animals, but it disgusted us nevertheless.

On a happier note, we spent the remainder of the weekend gardening. We purchased and planted: yellow pear tomatoes, two different kinds of pumpkin, two different kinds of basil, and a peach tree. We also moved some of the plants around, digging up two wildly overgrown oregano shrubs and re-planting them away from the more delicate cilantro and basil plants. Unfortunately, some asparagus was damaged in the melee.

Empty Spaces

We are finally returning the hospitality of all the people who had us over repeatedly during our apartment-dwelling years, and so have been having little dinners every couple of weeks with various folk. Unfortunately, we still have no dining room furniture. We do have a comfortable-enough table and chairs in the eating area next to the kitchen, which is where we've been doing our entertaining, although this sort of dining lacks a certain ambiance.

It doesn't look like we're going to be getting dining furniture any time soon, either. I think we've more or less made up our minds that we're going to use the space to hold a baby grand piano, once we can afford one. (This will probably be many years into the future.) It was my idea, but now I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I started playing the piano when I was three or four years old. In junior high and high school I used to compete. And I hated it. The competitions, that is, not the actual playing of music, which I enjoyed. One day, one competition, I completely forgot the entire final movement of the sonata I was playing. So I played the first movement over again and retreated from the stage in great embarrassment. After that I quit, and I haven't really played (except for messing around when I go to my parents' house) or even owned a piano since then. Over the last few years, I started to miss it a lot. Thus was born my great desire for a piano of my own. But I guess I'm not sure how it's going to feel once I have one again. I don't think it's like riding a bike; you lose a lot of the skills when you haven't touched a keyboard in years and years and years. I'm sort of afraid of it, having to start over, re-learning stuff before I can get to the part that I actually enjoy. Maybe it's better to just get a dining room set after all?

Drifting

Last night's menu: goat cheese souffle with spinach and feta sausage and asparagus spears.

We've had strawberries from our own berry patch every morning.

Sometimes life feels idyllic. This house has definitely been a blessing.

Counting Blessings

One of the unexpected benefits to not working - at least, not working a regular job, or maybe just a law firm job - is a renewed appreciation of what a beautiful place this is. Seasons had always escaped me before: no matter what month it was, what the weather outside, my office always looked the same, and my office was all I saw. Now I actually get to go outside during daylight hours, and it's pretty amazing. I'd forgotten how blue the sky is here. It's full-on spring now, and the trees are budding, plants are flowering everywhere. Even just driving down the street to the grocery store is a pleasure.

On an unrelated note (although this could still fall under the category of blessings), I am so happy that we didn't get rid of our stove. It's one of those electric, ceramic ones. When we first bought the house, I was adamant that it had to go (as I've mentioned before, I'm something of a Luddite in the kitchen). I wanted to replace it with one of those hulking gas Viking stoves with the roaring flames. In the final event, though, there was too much else to do, we didn't have a gas line running to the stove and would have had to have someone out to put one in (and I have no success with contractors), so we just left it. I'm glad we did. It is SO easy to clean, it heats up much more quickly, and, I think for that reason, cooks just as well as a gas stove.

Becoming Handy

Rule number one of home ownership: things will break. Corresponding rules: plumbers charge > $150/hour (clearly I entered the wrong profession); contractors charge a gazillion dollars an hour, and, moreover, will not return your phone calls or keep appointments;
and, finally, your average, run-of-the-mill, non-bankruptcy-causing handyman has gone extinct.

Corollary to the above rules: you must learn to do many things yourself. Unless, of course, you have a lot of money and don't mind spending it all on routine house maintenance.

So, here are the things I have learned to do since purchasing the house:

• diagnose common plumbing issues;
  
• replace toilet fill valves and other toilet anatomy miscellanea;
• install drapery rods and other window treatments;
• engage in minor sprinkler repairs;
• dig holes and plant stuff;
• caulk many, many things (it's amazing how many problems can be solved by a tube of caulk);
  
• find studs;
• drill holes and attach stuff.

I've gotten to know my local Home Depot very well.

And I've gotten to spend much quality time with my sewing machine, making drapes, matching pillows, etc.

In addition, I now have a yard (both front and back) full of living things whose lives depend largely on my vigilance. Many, many hours a day are spent watering, weeding, digging, spraying, etc., etc. Someone suggested using a gardening service, but, being descended from my father, a master gardener, I feel like that would be a blow to the pride and honor of my family, not to mention cheating.

With all of this, who has time to work?

Learning New Things

I have only been a homeowner for a few weeks now, and I have already learned so much. All about retaining walls and sump pumps and grout - phrases whose meanings were unknown to me until very recently. I have also developed new attitudes, about rain, for example. We were hit by an unexpected shower this morning (although it is now sunny and cloudless outside). And, upon waking to find rain outside my window, I didn't feel nostalgic or depressed. Instead, I thought, Great! Now my plants will get watered and I can put off figuring out the sprinkler system for another day!

Foodwise

We've become highly domesticated. Since purchasing the house, we spend almost all of our free time doing things to it. (LOVE the house, but I have to admit that I'm aching to surf.) First was the moving, then the furnishing and fixing up (still ongoing processes). Stores which I have gotten to know very, very, very well: Home Depot, Costco, Target, and Ikea (a great place to buy mirrors). Especially Home Depot, which I visit every day. During yesterday's visit, we bought a lawnmower and the husband mowed our lawn for the first time! We've spent time planing doors, installing shelves and towel rods, tending to the garden, etc., but the lawnmowing was what made the house really feel like ours.

Moreover, today we had our first dinner guests. I made pork chops with a soy-honey glaze, accompanied by baby carrots sauteed in the same, and mashed golden potatoes with pan-roasted garlic. And a banana-nut concoction for dessert. Simple but satisfying.

Home sweet home.

Signs

Yesterday, while standing in the backyard of our new house, we saw a hummingbird alight on a branch of a small tree. It came to rest on the tree, and then sat completely still. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it. The hummingbird stayed for maybe five minutes, and then it flew to a nearby tree, where it started dipping its head down to this tiny, cup-shaped thing. We didn't realize what it was at first. I thought maybe it was some odd sort of flower. And then the tiniest little bird's head popped up! Two little baby hummingbirds, in a hummingbird nest. In our backyard!