Adjusting to Life

So I've been in my new place for a little over 3 months now, and I love it.  It's a nice, quiet neighborhood, have met some of the neighbors and they are all very friendly.  I have been going to church on Sundays, and it is a very small congregation, maybe 20 people on a given Sunday, compared to at least 100 at my old church.  Quite a difference, but these folks are so friendly.  I'm still in the process of learning their names, and at my forgetfulness, it's not easy to remember, but I'm working on it.

The best part about being here is getting to see the kids, as they are less than a mile away.  I see them a couple times a week, and Aria spends the night at least once, sometimes twice, a week.  I love my time with them, and they usually come over for Sunday dinner.  Nettie has brought most of her succulents and planting stuff over to my back yard, which is quite roomy, and has taken up her potting at my house.  They have such a small fenced in back yard, too small for much of anything.  Charles keeps up the yard, cuts and weed eats the lawns (or weeds, I should say), but is trying to reseed the front.  The back has no lawn.  The outside of the house was sooooo dirty, cobwebs everywhere, yard not maintained, rose bushes overgrowing.  He's done a pretty good job of cleaning everything up.  I just got a power sprayer, so I can clean the house of dirt and webs.  So outside is his job, and it gets him up off his duff and gives him something to do and care about.  However, I did order and receive a new picnic table and 2 benches.  It's a very nice table, handmade by J.J. in Redwood Valley.  Then with the chair, bench and rocking chair (metal ones I ordered from Ginny's) the backyard is set.  The back patio is nice to sit under when it's warm outside.  It is approximately 25-30' long by 15' deep, so it covers quite a bit of the back yard, lots of shade for those hot summers.  We'll get the bar-b-que set up and it will be a nice little back yard.

I've taken a few drives around, checking the area, and it's beautiful, of course.  We drove to the coast one day, to Pt. Arena then up Hwy 1 to Mendocino and Ft. Bragg.  I have not driven up to Garberville yet.  Hwy 101 has been closed a bit because of landslides.  My sister-in-law, Tresa, is coming for a visit this weekend, arriving tonight.  We will play it by ear and decide when we wake up tomorrow morning what we are going to do.  Weatherman says it should be clear and 70 degrees.  I bought a twin mattress at Curry's Furniture for Tresa to sleep on in the spare bedroom.  I brought in the trundle part of the day bed, because I don't yet have nuts and bolts to put the frame together.  When I get paid next week, I want to order and have them deliver another mattress, since they are on sale for $95 and will be discontinued.  So it will be nice to have two of the same mattresses.  Then I went to WalMart and got a mattress pad (waterproof for when the kids come over), sheets, blanket and pillow for the bed.  Hopefully it will be a nice, comfortable bed for guests.

I still have not yet gotten into a regular routine, other than getting up by about 7:50, drinking a cup of coffee while watching the news, taking my shower and getting on with whatever I'm going to do for the day.  I have not yet visited the library, or the Sr. Citizen's Center.  There will be movies in the park coming up, and music in another park, swimming, oh and we signed Aria up for gymnastics class on Tuesdays.  She had her first class this past Tuesday and had a ball.  It's only an hour, but they run, stretch, bend, and I think she's really going to take to it wholeheartedly.  She'll have swimming classes at some point this summer also, so we'll be keeping busy with her, I think.

I'm posting a picture of the Pt. Arena light house that Charles and I visited a couple weeks ago.  It's so beautiful at the coast, you can't find a bad place to visit.  Be back soon...