Decisions Made; Reclaiming My Haven

I've finally made my decision about the house dilemma, and I feel so much better. It's quite a relief, so I know I made the right choice. I've decided to stay here, in my own home, and not move to dad's house. Instead we'll sell it.

There were lots of reasons for the decision. First, and maybe most important, I don't really like the other house. It's definitely not something I'd choose if I were buying a house. One of my favorite things about my house is my large back porch; the deck at the other house is way smaller. One of my next favorite things here is my back yard, which while not huge is very shady and private. Because of the way my garage and the neighbor's garage are situated, it gives a lot of privacy at the sides of the yard, and behind my house is nothing but the back corner of an elementary school yard. The yard at the other house is larger, but it's also all open, with neighbors right there on three sides, and no privacy. Inside isn't much better - when I really thought about it, that house isn't that much bigger than mine - it only has one additional room mine doesn't have, a dining room; the rest of the rooms are all about the same size as mine (with the possible exception of the kitchen, but I love my kitchen since I had it remodeled some years ago). It does have a basement, but I don't like basements and had no intention of using it myself for anything but storage; otherwise it was going to be the kids' play area. I, on the other hand, have an upstairs.

So the size differences just weren't enough to make it worth moving to a house I otherwise don't really like. This wasn't my childhood home or anything like that - my parents bought this house after I'd moved out when I was 19 or 20. So yeah, they probably lived there longer than they lived in my childhood home, but it's never been my 'home' - so I have no particular attachment to it. (I wish the place I grew up was still in the family, I'd have leaped at the chance to move there - but unfortunately we only rented that place).

After making the decision, I felt much relief, and got all gung ho about fixing this place up again. When I first moved here, I used to try to take better care of the place, often working on fixing it up, both inside and out. Then at some point I just kind of abandoned it all, and in the past few years especially, when I've been so busy with other things, I've completely neglected it.

I had a little landscaped area in the corner of my back yard that used to be the highlight of the place for me. I'd quite let it go to hell in the past several years. Sunday I spent about 5 hours outside doing yardwork, and began cleaning that area up. It's not done, but here's the progress so far, with 'before' and 'after' pictures.

I'm looking forward to the ideas I have for the rest of the area, which should take shape over the next few weeks. Now that I have the time and even sometimes the energy, I'm trying to do a little bit every day, rather than saving it all for weekends - that spreads things out too much, and takes too long. Yesterday after work I stopped and got some topsoil to fill in and even out the area for planting, and I bought some impatiens. I still want to get a couple ferns, and then I'm not sure what after that. Baby steps.

My boyfriend and his kids helped enormously with the yard work Sunday, too, so a veritable ton of stuff got done. It is really shaping up out there.

Now that I've decided to stay, I'm really psyched about all this, fixing the place up again and having my haven back. Eventually I believe I'll get back to my other hobbies ... knitting, and the quilt. But, strike while the iron's hot and all that - the weather's been gorgeous, so it's a perfect time for working outside before the summer SCA event crunch closes in.

Speaking of which, the first event is only next weekend, and I am so totally unprepared. That's something else I have to work on in the next two weeks.

So things are percolating along, and I'm figuring out and settling into this major new routine in my life. Having all this spare time is very strange, but I'm adapting.