The Cottage

Until we come up with a better name our house will be referred to as The Cottage.  I'm reading Anne of Green Gables right now and I'm realizing we need to pick a much more imaginative and romantic name.

We have been in MA for three weeks and in our house for two and our belongings have still not arrived and most likely won't for another week.  IT'S KILLING ME!  We finally broke down and bought another bed, even though we have one coming, because sleeping on the air mattress was so uncomfortable and sooo cold.  The plan is to have a guest room and put the extra bed there.  I've had to get real imaginative with my cooking, finding things we can eat that don't require real utensils, baking dishes, or really any ingredients so we've eaten a lot of macaroni and cheese, canned beans, and cereal.  It's just so difficult to go buy things that you know you will have soon.  We've also broken down and bought furniture even though we're not sure how the new pieces will work with what we already have.  But we have to sit somewhere!  And for now it's just two rocking chairs in the living room.

For this house I told Joel he could have free reign on decorating and style because the house really is more his style than mine.  But I regret that now that everything he has bought is all wood.  Nothing but wood.  No color, no variety in materials, just brown, brown wood.  The next house I'm going to take lead on and it's going to be so obnoxiously colorful and bright and cozy.

Oskar and Ivy have taken to all these changes fairly well.  Oskar loves that he can go outside whenever he wants, as long as it's not too cold, and just play in the rocks and dirt to his heart's content.  It's really nice for me too.  I've still got Ivy barking up my tree 24/7 but it's okay.  Ivy is a complete dickens.  She goes to the bathroom at every opportunity, and oh is she stealthy, to turn on the water in the tub.  Before I got in the habit of closing the bathroom door it happened like 20 times a day.  She also jumps at every chance to throw anything down the stairs.  And she is always shutting herself in rooms and is unable to let herself out so I have to open all five of the doors upstairs to find out which one she is behind.  She is talking a lot more and when she says no she shakes her shoulders at the same time and does a little shimmy, it's real cute.

I feel like there have been so many things that have gone wrong, so many frustrating situations, and SO MUCH money we have spent that we really haven't been able to start enjoying life and this area yet.  When I think about doing this again I think we have learned a lot and would be much better at it, but I don't really want to do it ever again, except for the move to where we're going to live forever, that's the last move I want to make.  But we'll see, maybe I'll change my tune after we get settled here and things get less frustrating.

Generally, from what I know if it, I like the area we're living in.  It's technically Auburn but it's really close to Worcester.  The library is great, we've already got involved with story time and Lego club, we've been to a few parks, and we're going to try the gymnastics gym this week, they have an open gym for kids that I'm sure Oskar would really love.  The libraries here have passes that give you discounted tickets to all the children's places of interest like the zoo, museums, farms, etc.  We got our first one and are headed to the Ecotarium this week.  Since I'm reading Anne of Green Gables I want to go visit Prince Edward Island but that's 10 hours away so I don't know if we'll make it.

The day we moved in Joel took pictures of The Cottage from all angles because that's just the kind of guy he is.