Tuesday, July 13, 2010

On fireworks and our house

On the fourth of July, we watched fireworks in our backyard with some friends. For the past several years we've lived here we've been able to see the official town fireworks perfectly from our yard--the sliding glass door, if we don't feel like going out. It's lucky. I am scared of setting off fireworks myself. I mean, it is fire. My cousin nearly put his eye out once because he started to set off the next firework before the one before it was really done.

I don't know if we'll ever move from here. It's not a big house, for sure, but I think most of the time what people have is not a house that's too small, but just too much stuff. The best (and cheapest) home improvement is getting rid of unnecessary items and organizing and respecting what's left. (I was making some serious headway on that around the first of the month, but then my motivation fizzled.) Before moving here we rented a big old house, with probably almost twice the floor space of this one, and it was ten times messier. You have to clean all those excess rooms, you know. We learned that an old, big house can be a lot of trouble and decided we wanted a new one. We had this one built while I was pregnant with Suzi and there are a bunch of pictures of me walking through the unfinished house, all excited with my big belly, knowing we'd be bringing our baby girl home soon.

And then a couple of years later I had a baby in the bathtub. It would make me sad to leave that tub behind. We are hoping, one day, to add on a garage with lots of shelves and an extra bedroom over it. Maybe someday a screened-in porch. Right now we have three bedrooms and one is our craft room with a futon for anyone who wants to stay bad enough to sleep on it. After thinking about it and reading about the experiences of others, we might just save up for any improvements we make. We do want a larger family, but for right now the house we have is actually perfect. It's like chicken pot pie, and an old favorite blanket, and cuddling on the couch watching a movie, and seeing fireworks out the sliding glass door. I love it.

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