Home At Last

I am happy to say that we are in our new house! It's HUGE, and gorgeous, and empty. Going from such a small house to such a large one means that we have very little to put in it! We ordered an enormous sofa and ottoman for our great room, and are looking at tables, chairs, media cabinets, and other pieces for our main living space.

On to my impressions of ABQ- it is beautiful here, in a rugged way. It is definitely the desert, with all of the land surrounding the city covered by sagebrush and wild grasses. The city itself is sprawling (which is what happens when you have so much land to spread out on!) and full of interesting variation, from craftsman style neighborhoods to a back-east feeling downtown to Spanish hacienda areas. Spread amongst all of those is the usual assortment of generic American architecture.

The sky here is huge, and goes on for ever it seems. In the morning it is cloudless and bright blue, and often dotted with a dozen or so hot air balloons to the north. By afternoon, the clouds have started to sail in like giant puffy ships in a sea of deep blue sky. A few afternoons we have had storms (like the day we arrived, which was a storm to write home about!), but mostly it is just clouds, clearing up by nightfall. There are mountains across the valley and glyphs behind us, and not much else.

The kids are settling in well, enjoying their rooms and the space in the house. Much as I suspected, we still spend most of our time lumped together. G has come down with a bug of some sort and has not been sleeping well. Add in the fact that I am working hard all day and I am a bit worn out! But I am loving painting and organizing and using my kitchen with all of the new appliances. However, the dishwasher is not as exciting as I suspected it would be. I am glad that I am no longer washing four batches of dishes each day, but I am less than pleased with the broken glass, bent forks, and not quite perfect job that it does. Hubby says that we'll figure it out, so for now I have washed my hands of dish duty and let the kids and Nate load the dishwasher. If I have to do it, I will end up washing the dishes by hand. Who would have thought!