Setting Up House

This will be a quickie post since Ed and I put in a long day and we're anxious to spend our first night in our new home. Yes! The power company came through for us and hooked us up yesterday. We are officially back on the grid.

I couldn't decide yesterday morning if we should move in today, Tuesday, or not. We are planning a day trip to an ag fair in GA tomorrow and I thought perhaps we should wait until we return from that. But my diplomatic husband left the decision up to me and, in retrospect, I'm glad we moved in today. That meant cleaning out the motor home that has been our digs for the past 10 weeks and toting stuff and cats across the lake to our trailer. It was a busy day, but somehow setting up house is not that stressful. I like hanging curtains, putting new towels in the bathrooms, deciding where to hang pictures. There's something about making a nest that does a woman's soul good. I'm an orderly person and the process of achieving order is a pleasant one for me. Deep sigh. We are finally home.

As I mentioned, tomorrow we're heading to Moutrie, GA for a huge ag fair, something my father goes to every year. Besides the new and improved soybeans and the sheepherding exhibition, I've been told there is a great big hanger full of crafts, homemade furniture and food. I figure I can spend my time in there, maybe find a few odds and ends for our new home. We'll leave here early tomorrow and be back in the evening. My grandmother has been fretting about us leaving our dog Brody behind, but really, he's a good dog and won't be a bother. Of course, he'll miss us and get an extra treat when we get home. Speaking of pets, our two housecats are getting acquainted with their new abode as we speak. Dinah, the fat (scratch that -- furry) one with all the purrsonality has been sprawled out on the bed all afternoon. Angel has been prowling through boxes and peeking out windows. Like us, they're sooo happy to have a place to spread out.

We have moved into a 1998 Skyline mobile home, 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths. It's not the Taj Mahal, but it's nice, thanks to all the hard work my husband put in fixing it up. We have new paint in the living room, dining room and master bedroom and new carpet in the front part of the house. My father gave me his old digital camera, so when I get a chance to figure out how it works, I'll post some pics. My husband will soon start work building a storage shed. Then he'll put the skirting on the trailer and enclose the porch. And I thought at one time I wanted to marry a dentist!

We'll continue to use the little red Dodge "farm truck" to go back and forth around the lake. I like riding on the tailgate, bumping over the dirt roads, with Brody for company. Ed always takes the bumpiest road. "You taking this dam road again?" I'll ask. "Yep. We're going on this dam road!" From our trailer, it's a short drive through the woods, over the dam, and past the camp to my father/grandfather's place. My grandfather has a golf cart and eventually we may buy a used one to go back and forth in. For now it's the "farm truck" and the dam road.

Fall is upon us here in NW Florida. Hard to believe after such a hot, hot summer. But, the last three nights I've gotten really cold in the motor home, rolled up like a shivering burrito in my Aunt Bill's quilt. It was so cold, in the 40s, yesterday that Brody and I couldn't walk until the sun had gotten out of bed and warmed things up, sometime after 7 a.m. Of course, we still have highs in the afternoon in the 80s, but the humidity isn't bad and we get a nice breeze off the lake. My grandfather's confederate rose bushes have been blooming and they are lovely -- big, blowsy blooms like a peony. He says the blooms only last three days and they are white the first day, pink the second, and red the third. My grandfather will root some for me when we get ready to start planting. That's a whole nother project.

Well, time to sign off. Keep your fingers crossed that Wilma will stall out in the Gulf and leave us all alone.