Why hello, and welcome to my home. (As Brenda Dickson would say.) We are here! We have moved in! Most things are put away and functional and settled. I love it. It took us a while to get things completely unpacked, partly because until recently I was finishing teaching my summer course and couldn’t do much to help around the house. This weekend, though, we finally had a few friends stop by and even hosted a couple of folks for dinner, so we had a little extra incentive to get things done. Oh, what’s that you say? Friends coming over? I guess I’d better move my underwear collection to a location other than the couch. 

I thought I’d share a few photos from around the house for those of you who get a thrill looking into other people’s homes (and really, who among us doesn’t?). Don’t worry, no one’s underwear collection is featured. Unless that’s what you came here looking for, in which case, sorry to disappoint you, ya weirdo.

As you might predict, get two English faculty types together and you’re going to have a lot of books. We’ve got them in every room. If that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right. How many books do we have? If this tells you anything, we even decided to make what’s supposed to be a dining room into a reading atrium. A room for books and the reading of books. Oh yeah. Our front room, with it’s high ceilings, tons of natural light, and pretty arches, is now one of my favorite spaces. A futon, a comfy chair, a shelf of my favorite books, and a beautiful collection of succulents. Who needs a formal dining room?

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In the living area, we’ve got books over here…

Books over there…

And, in what was kind of a serendipitous little joke that seems to have stuck, we even have a whole shelf for just John Irving.

The living room is big enough to fit our sofa/TV area plus a dining table, so we’ve just made it into a living/dining combination space. We tried several different arrangements, trying in particular to find a good spot for the couch, but in the end we wound up putting it back in almost the exact same spot it landed when we unloaded the truck. Oh well! When the weather gets cold (for approximately three weeks in January) and we want to use the fireplace, we may adjust it a bit.

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We have tons of space to be cozy and read or watch movies in here, and I feel like over all, it’s just this great wealth of space: do I want to read in the reading atrium, or the living room? Or my workspace in the guest room?

Oh, right, we have a guest room, too. (ATTENTION: GUESTS! It is a lovely guest room! Please come stay in it!) I tried snapping some photos in there, but the light was too dim by that time, so I’ll have to share that later. Also not pictured: the bedroom, CW’s office, and the kitchen. Those rooms all shaped up very nicely, too, so maybe I’ll do a second installment of this house tour soon, if you’d like to see more.

In the meanwhile, I am busy enjoying the new space and relaxing. This weekend was the first opportunity I’ve had since my summer class started to spend a weekend here in town, not traveling, not moving, and not packing or unpacking. It was downright delightful! School will be starting before we know it, and this week we are heading out of town on a short getaway to visit some of CW’s college BFFs/teammates for a few days. We leave in the morning, and I fully intend to spend every minute of the trip as relaxed as possible. When we get back, school prep mode officially begins. I’ll steel myself and see you then!