FINALLY Home Again...

Just over nine months ago, I posted a blog about the fire we had in our garage at our house, and now (just over nine months later), we are FINALLY back in our house!

Night of the fire...

In my wildest dreams, I NEVER would have guessed that we would be out of our house for the better part of 2012 while waiting for insurance to get settled and for the work to be done. There's still some work left to do, but it is mostly on the outside of the house and we were finally able to move back into our house at the end of October.



Front of the house after garage repaired.

It's taken until now to get unpacked and settled back in, and this weekend I am finally really enjoying being back home again! (I noticed I'm saying "finally" a lot in this post, but the word seems appropriate because it has been one heck of a long wait to FINALLY be back home!)




Inside of the garage after fire...

We love our neighborhood! We love our neighbors! We love our house! We love our backyard! So it is such a relief to be back! We moved to California 16 months ago, but we've only been in our house for less than 5 months of that time because of waiting to move in after first arriving in CA, and then because of waiting for repairs after the house fire. After everything we have been through, we are really going to appreciate every moment in our house and not take it for granted.


Inside of garage after repairs...

After living in a different neighborhood for the last nine months, we realize how much fate was on our side when we bought the house we did. The house that the insurance company rented for us while our house was being repaired was in a neighborhood with bigger houses, but smaller yards. In Califronia, the back yard is like an extension of the house and it's used year round, so I will give up space in the house in order to have a usable back yard any day!



Inside of garage after repairs
(with empty moving boxes stacked up for recycling)

The other neighborhood was also not nearly as friendly as this one. We've only lived in this neigborhood for five out of the last 16 months, but we have made GREAT friends, and all the neighbors say hi and wave when they see us. In the rental neighborhood, we rarely saw anyone, and we only spoke to one of our neighbors a couple times over the entire nine months. It felt like such a sterile neighborhood with no personality or warmth - only barking neighbor dogs and letters from the association because someone let their little dog poop on our front patch of grass while we were gone on vacation and we didn't pick it up fast enough!


Inside of house after smoke damage repaired...
 

Enough about the rental neighborhood - the only thing that matters now is that we are back home to a freshly painted house with brand new garage doors. We still have some work to do to make it completely home (pictures on the wall, etc), but I'm loving every moment here. 



I've turned into a Grandma Driver!

I've always been one of those drivers in the farthest lane to the left, cruising with the big boys. My number one concern was always "How fast can I get there?" As long as those slow people in their Priuses stayed in the right lanes and out of my way, all was good. Never in my life did I imagine I would be driving in the slow lane because my competitive nature just wouldn't allow it.

But my 80 mile daily commute and skyrocketing gas prices made me rethink my car choice. In Minnesota, where hills are minuscule compared to SoCal, tire tread and the ability to handle snow are bigger concerns when buying a car (SUV) than MPG and bumper to bumper traffic.

The commute, the hills, and the price of gas convinced me to get a Prius, and it turned me into one of those smug drivers, moving at old-lady pace, oblivious to all the people passing me. How did this happen, you might ask? Toyota took advantage of my competitive nature and put a display in my Prius that tells me when the car is driving in Electric Mode (best), in "Eco" Mode (good), or in Power Mode (gas guzzling). Then along the bottom of the display, it shows how many miles per gallon the car is averaging on this tank of gas. When in Power Mode, the indicator light turns red and the MPG falls. 

All of this brings out my competitive nature. It's like being in a video game where the goal is to keep the light from turning red, keep the MPG from falling below 50, and the enemies are quick-starts and going too fast on the long uphills. Now I understand why all those other Prius's are in the slow lane on the way over the foothills - they are all playing the MPG game! And winning at the MPG game takes away the sting of being passed by 70% of the people on the road. 

Did I mention that I fill up my tank once a week for less than $40 and drive 500 miles before I have to fill it up again? That helps to ease the sting, too.

Fall - Still My Favorite Season

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year in Minnesota. I love the colors, the smells, the feel of the air. I also love fall and early winter in California because that's when the rains come, there is change in color (more green), and the air, especially in the evening, cools down nicely. Lucky for me - this year I get to experience autumn in Minnesota and in SoCal!

The peak colors in late September and early October in Minnesota are amazing, and they pass in the blink of an eye! The golds, yellows, rusts, oranges, and reds build for several weeks, and just when you think the leaves can't possibly get any more vibrant...they fall of the trees. And it happens overnight. Trees with branches full of bright leaves one day are bare, brown skeletons the next. But that day before the leaves fall is the most spectacular day of the year! Especially from the vantage point of my parents' farm house on the hill, where the views are endless. We climbed to the catwalk on the top of the house, three stories and an attic above the ground, and for as far as the eye could see was trees, leaves, and water. After being in southern California for the last year with thousands of people in every direction I look, I felt truly free in the midst of that vast wilderness with no sign of a soul for miles.  

After four days in northern Minnesota, Mom and I left the Midwest autumn behind and returned to blazing sun and temps in the triple digits in southern California. Full autumn has not yet arrived in SoCal, but the nights are cooling down, promising gentler weather ahead. Though the last weeks have been "unseasonably warm" (seems the same as last year to me!), the fall rains should be on the way and I can't wait to be chilled for a while! The air will get crisp, and though there will be some trees that change color and lose their leaves, most things will turn greener and more colorful with the rain. 

Minnesota has a fall migration of local wildlife and it's not unusual to see hundreds of geese and ducks flying overhead as the move toward better weather. I didn't think about how it might affect the wildlife in southern California when the weather changes, because the change isn't so extreme, but as the deep ocean waters get colder, the whales start to move in closer to shore and pass by SoCal on their way down to Mexico. It's a great time for whale watching, so we took cruise off the coast of San Diego today, hoping to see blue whales.

We weren't so lucky as to see any whales (the "unseasonably warm weather" has kept them in deeper waters) but we did see hundreds of dolphins, which is an amazing sight in itself. They truly are playful creatures, and they travel in HUGE pods. All of them together reminded me of the schools of minnows that can be seen by the hundreds in Minnesota lakes, but the dolphins are far more playful and amazingly beautiful in such large groups. 

I miss fall in Minnesota when I'm not there, but fall in southern California is growing on me with all it has to offer--and my new mission is to be out on the ocean at the right time to see the fall migration of the blue whales. But as much as I love fall, the best part was spending it in both places with my parents - walking with my dad in the woods around the farm in Minnesota, and finding the pod of dolphins while out on the ocean in SoCal with my mom.