Our life in Cute Little Town, a year later

We’ve been settled into Cute Little Town now for fifteen months. All three of us are very happy here. We’re happy with the town, happy with our neighborhood, and happy with our house. The only downside so far has been a bush of scrub brush on the property line (50-50) right near our house that makes me so sick. It needs to come out, but the neighbors like it. We’ve talked with them, but I really don’t think they realize how bad it is for me. We had to keep the house closed up for three weeks solid this spring and I STILL had to use my rescue inhaler a couple of times a day IN THE HOUSE. That’s how bad it is. It is positively nauseating in the master bathroom even with the windows closed 24/7. Contrast that with a trip to the Meijer Gardens on a high pollen count day where they were mowing the grass (my number one allergy) and all I did was get a little sniffle. So the bush has to come out and hopefully there will be no hard feelings.

So the bush. Oh, and then the need to replace the five year old furnace and older air conditioner last month. I won’t bore you with the story about the apparently incompetent home inspector or the seller who apparently lied on the disclosure.  I finally told the Lord that if this is how He wants us to waste spend His money… Okay. We prayed and prayed and prayed for literally years over the purchase of this house. If God didn’t show us this problem, then there has to be another reason for it. So we have a brand spanking new super high efficiency furnace and central air. On the bright side, we also now have a humidifier on the system which was something we had in the previous house and appreciated so much.  We really missed it this past winter. So there’s a little bit of a silver lining. And with the heat the past month… We’re so glad we have the new system.

Oh, and a new water heater because ours started leaking six months after the warranty expired.

But, all that aside, we still love it here and feel incredibly blessed. When I wake up in the morning and look outside one of my bedroom windows, I see the sun coming up in a big blue expanse of sky. We never saw a sunrise in the Big City. And out of the back of the house I see huge trees and lawn. Outside of my office window I see our neighbor’s yard that they have been steadily transforming since they moved in last summer as well. She’s planted so many beautiful flowers and I am blessed to be able to enjoy them. We have birds galore including two pairs of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks that I am thoroughly enjoying as they come to the feeders each day.

When we take the one minute drive down the hill into Cute Little Town we see the river and lovely dam. Cute Little Town is truly cute. We have a darling library, an old-fashioned post office, and lots of little shops and eateries. We have festivals and events that go on all the time. It is a community that takes a great deal of pride in itself. People are friendly and helpful. I know all the greeters at Meijer, and the ladies who work at the Hallmark shop love Caroline. The Starbucks employees know my order and the librarians all recognize us. I spend time chatting with the ladies at the credit union. People are just very nice here. We’re thankful for all Cute Little Town has to offer.

We want to attend a church in Cute Little Town rather than driving back into the Big City each week.  We want to make friends here. We’ve gone through the lists of all the churches around here and, despite the fact that there are quite a few churches, there aren’t many options where we would fit in. But we want to be open to how God might lead so we are visiting some this summer. We tried two and both were definitely not for us. The sanctuary of the first one was like a cell. I cannot imagine what they were thinking when they built it. Only one person spoke to us. The worship was shallow. And the junior church time did not impress me at all. We knew that this church would be a stretch theologically, but we want to be open to God bowling us over with a situation that makes us change our mind. It didn’t happen. The second church I had a bit more hope because of the denomination, but it was also a no. I spent the entire first third to half of the service in the narthex with Caroline because the band was so loud that she was desperate to get out. (And I have to concur with her assessment.) David took her to junior church that day and I stayed to listen to the sermon on being a biblical wife.  So, church is a bit of a thing for us now. Reading Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices and So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore didn’t help with the process.  Well, they both helped but in different ways. There’s a lot more to the story, but that’s for another day.

We’re totally loving the re-purposing of the living room into the learning room. I still plan on posting pictures, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. The past six weeks have been a total blur. David has had deadlines and also spent ten days rescuing a project for a client when another designer dropped the ball. So he’s had very little free time which translates into me having much less discretionary time around here. I think every day I’m going to sit down here and write a post and it doesn’t happen. I’ve also been doing my Hundred Days of Failure and updating when able. I’ve also started doing a little posting on my theology blog. I added a button in the sidebar of AQSL and will try to post the title of the latest post to make it easy to see if there is something new over there.

Yes, the past month has been that full.  And, believe me, I’m not one of these people who enjoys telling others that I’m so busy because it makes me feel important. It doesn’t. It just makes me feel tired.

I’m ready for some more quiet home days.

Photo credit one and two