Cleansing the palate

Okay, I need a little break as much as you all do. (Although I am watching the replay of "Meet the Press," which I missed this morning. John McCain just called Tom Brokaw "my friend." snicker)

Ken just got home, and we're looking forward to a couple of days off together. (We have things to do, including casting our early votes! Yay!) I've got a chuck roast in the crockpot (with tomatoes...sounds weird, but it makes a sort of tomato gravy), and I'll make some mashed potatoes.

Good grief, we've had some crazy winds here this afternoon! It seems to have calmed down now, but things were really whipping around for a while. (Note to self: take down the wind chimes for the winter.) There are still a lot of leaves on our trees, although there are some that have dropped them all. I took a few pictures of our place yesterday.

This is one of the paths that lead from the house to the driveway, and up to the road. Fall and winter aren't my favorite seasons, because I love warm weather. In the summer, this path has a nice cushy carpet of moss. I have to admit, though, that it's really pretty to see a different carpet (a throw rug?) on the paths in the fall. There are several small sassafras trees along here, and I notice their leaves the most. They're mostly bright yellow, and I like to think of the tri-lobed ones as Vulcan leaves. (My fellow Trekkies will get it!)

This is our driveway. It curves around to the right, which is where the new garage and the house are. No, it's not paved, and we're reluctant to do so. It reminds me of a country lane, and I like the lack of concrete or asphalt.

That's caused a problem or two, because rocks can get up into the snow blower and cause the shear bolts to break. Ken's learned to adjust, and not run the snow blower so close to the ground. And he makes sure to have a supply of shear bolts on hand, just in case! If there's a couple of inches of snow left on the driveway, that's okay--it's just the 8 inches and more that cause a big problem!

This is our driveway from out by the road. You can just barely see one of the sheds that Ken built, over on the left. That's where he stores the big lawnmower (the smaller one is in the new garage).

It looks very harmless now, doesn't it? Pretty little tree-covered driveway...believe me, there were a couple of times when I was trying to get to work (after Ken had left already) that I got stuck in this driveway, and it wasn't much fun! I got dug in so deep a few times that Ken had to pull me out with the truck. There were times when I wasn't able to make it into work, but most of the time, Ken was able to take me in the truck. Our country road isn't at the top of the list when it comes to getting plowed, so it isn't until 10 AM or later that we get dug out. Snow days still exist at Nutwood!

We're very fortunate in a lot of ways to live where we do. We aren't annexed as part of South Bend city limits, so we have our own well. We don't live in the city, but as part of the county, we have curbside recycling, even out here! This is a rural area, with plenty of wildlife, but in 5-10 minutes, I can be at a shopping area. I hope the city never annexes us, but I suppose we'll deal with that if we need to. At least we know that no one can build right next to us, or behind us, because it's our property. (Although as I like to say, we're only temporary caretakers of this land.)

I've lived in apartments and subdivisions, as has Ken, and after finding this place, we both know that we could never stand to do so again. I shouldn't say that...everyone does what they need to do, and I believe we'd be happy wherever we were. But here is where we thrive. We researched a few houses when we started looking, and did several drive-bys. We actually walked through only four. There was a century-old home on 2 acres, and that was such a neat place in so many ways. Gorgeous high ceilings, big huge rooms, a spooky old basement...but it needed a lot of work, including on the bathrooms, and we knew it would have been a money pit. (That's for you Indigo! wink) There was a smallish home a couple of miles away, on 2+ acres, and that was pretty cute, but there was a lot of moisture in the basement, and it was fairly close to the highway. We looked at a house down the road from here, also on 2+ acres, and it was kind of neat, too (Cousin Shane looked at it independent of us, and we both loved the 50's-era oven built into the wall!), but it didn't have a basement, just a small cellar that was filled with water when we looked at it. (In tornado-prone Indiana, I'm big on basements!)

The fourth and final place we looked at was right here. We parked close to the road, and as we walked down the driveway, it was one of those "This is it" moments. The house itself had mauve walls in the living and dining rooms; dark wallpaper in the kitchen; Barbie pink walls in one of the bedrooms (the one that became our bedroom); and stained carpets. But we saw the potential. Sometimes you have to look beyond the surface and see what can be. We had to do a lot of work here, but we are very grateful that we looked at this place and found our home. There's no place I'd rather be.