The house we are renting is a little 3 bedroom/1.5 bath ranch. It’s cozy and recently updated, and though it is a downsize from our house in Gillette, it’s really starting to grow on me. The location is going to be perfect for returning to a walking and biking lifestyle (just as soon as it reaches nonnegative temperatures again); it is in a quiet little neighborhood and has a fenced yard we’ll enjoy. I especially love the original 1961 kitchen,
which provides perfect inspiration for some retro microfashion.
At this point, we’ve hung all the pictures and (aside from the disaster zone that is going to remain in our garage until the reappearance of warmer temperatures) our maison est finis.
The biggest initial challenge for us with this rental was the fact that we lost our separate office space. We talked briefly about not putting up Zara’s crib and having her sleep with us until she was ready to transition into Nora’s room which would have allowed us to have an office, but two nights of having her in our bed nursing as much as once an hour was all it took for me to call it quits on that plan. The girls each have their own room now (and Zara is back to her blessed once per night wake up), so that left us with putting Chris’ computer in the living room. At first I wasn’t thrilled with how that setup would work, but then we found an awesome computer armoire on craigslist and the beauty of this setup was realized.
For the first time since college, we have the ability to sit on our couch and watch a movie, TV show, or the Super Bowl (as seen above) or whatever. We still don’t own a television, but we are officially one of those families with an “entertainment center” in our living room.
The girls are enthralled.
Now, we have always watched some things together as a family and Nora certainly watched more than her fair share of movies while I was exhausted and pregnant with Zara, but there is a world of difference between watching a show on my laptop and watching it on Chris’ high definition monitor with quality speakers. I think we’re all finding a little bit of guilty pleasure in this new arrangement.
Lest you think we have devolved into the typical TV watching family, we sat down as a family and agreed to continue the girls and my “Friday night movie night” tradition, but to limit watching at any other time. Once a week, we have fun sitting together munching popcorn and zoning out at a screen, but the rest of the week we are entertaining ourselves with family game nights, toys and books. My favorite thing about our computer armoire are the doors; they are always closed while Chris is at work, which help put the screen “out of sight, out of mind.”
I’ve been feeling so content the last few days. For the first time since we left Nantucket, I actually feel like I am in a place I want to and can call home. Unlike Gillette, this doesn’t feel like a stopping point before we move on to something better; it feel like a place where I could be happy to live for years to come. And this rental house will suit us long after we finalize the sale of our Wyoming house, which means maybe, just maybe we won’t be moving again in a year’s time…
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