Tuesday, October 9, 2007

If you aren't happy with less, ...

If you aren't happy with less, you won't be happy with more. That's what the little church sign said when I was riding past the other day. Or wait...maybe it said "If you aren't happy now..." I don't remember. I was loading my dishwasher in the new house & it came to me; Now I have more. Not that I was unhappy with the old place- let's face it, who will I have to talk about now that Old Tom & Taterbug are out of the picture? Oh, yeah...
The new neighbor sent over some cake to welcome us to the neighborhood. It was some sort of pineapple angel food cake, homemade I'm sure. She sent over cake & admired our chickens. That's right, we have chickens. Steven's brother sent over his worst two roosters, because they kept nesting & leaving excrement on his ladders, along with two hens, each with a baby in tow.
I promptly named the roosters, one Clint Eastwood & the other Bubba. I must have had a psychic inclination for not naming the hens. The day after we let the last hen out, they jumped into our neighbors dog pen, and it just goes downhill from there. Bubba & one hen flew back over. Clint Eastwood flew over the two story garage next door and perched on their roof to excercise his lungs for the night.
And here we are back at 'the neighbor brings us some cake.' Admires our chickens, several of which are lost to us...then mentions that she has some people coming to visit and could they park their RV in our driveway. It's hard to say no when you have a mouth full of 'welcome to the neighborhood' cake. Of course you can park your RV there!
Today I come home and this semi-truck sized RV is parked along the road directly in front of our house. Hmm.
God is good. (my new mantra...whenever I think about the real crap going on, I'm trying to train my mind to say, "God is good." I'll let you know how it works out.)
The house itself is more. It's a 70's split level, complete & original with blue toilets and orange shag carpet. Pink wallpaper in the kitchen (though my realtor corrected me, it's actually mauve. Mauve just means old raggedy pink in my mind. ) Soon the mauve will come down, along with the navy paper covered in quails in the dining room & living room, the dark paneled den, all of it will make way to something different & exciting. My mind is thrilled with the project of finding my creativity and making comfort out of something not so obvious to repair.
I'll miss the little greasy handprint on the wall near the window, one I could never bring myself to clean or paint over. The growth chart I carved into the door trim of the girls every little half inch at a time. I'll even miss seeing the game lights and hearing the high school band of my alma mater playing on football nights from the backyard. I already miss my washer & dryer- (in between at the moment.) yikes!
Even so, I'm really happy with the house. It is technically 'more...' Does that mean the saying isn't true? No. Who says I wasn't happy at the old place? Me? I wonder, Do I really need to convince myself that I was unhappy in one place to justify being happy in another? I think people have the right to say things irritate them from time to time but that doesn't mean they are unhappy. Ten minutes of growing horns on your head and growling like a badass bear doesn't make someone unhappy. I guess it makes them normal? (I hope so.)
I started cooking a pot of beans at noon today, cooked em all day, thinking I'd surprise Steven. Along he comes with a bag from the El Rayos, surprising me instead. Love is surprise guacamole :)
I've really missed you all! I'm going to resume my blog in between wallpaper removal & looking for all the lost stuff from the move. I wish you all every happiness!
It's so cool to have a friend like you. yt, kat