Moving in ...

As mentioned, there was magic in the trip back to NY after dropping the birds off in NH. About half way down the journey I saw a big, bright, and beautiful shooting star. It was the second biggest and brightest I have ever seen. The biggest being the year before last as I stood standing at 7th & Bedford waiting for the bus to come along. That was during one of the annual meteor showers--I forget which one. Huge and bright it was, speeding across half the hemisphere before burning out. But the one on my return trip last week was simply beautiful and the final magic touch on those exhausting few days.

It's been a whirlwind! Oh dear! I am, just now, starting to catch up to myself. With most boxes unpacked and the downstairs areas painted I am moving out of limbo and into home. And it feels good! How can I describe the peacefulness here? The silence at night? The serenity of bird song during the day? Bliss? That's a pretty good word for it. No stomping feet upstairs, no rumbling from out the window, no groaning from the oil furnace in the cellar directly under my bedroom. No, no, no. Beautiful peace.

There have been a few adventures since arriving. I locked myself out of the house last Sunday morning! [chuckle, chuckle]! There were several boxes in the entry room next to the kitchen and I was desperately looking for my coffee maker. I unlatched the chain lock, and with a twist of the door handle went out to the entryway on my mission. The door handle I had also locked, the night before. You know the kind, they're often found on bathroom doors: Twist the little knob in the center of the handle and the door cannot be opened from the outside. Well this door is like that and I had secured it about 12 hours earlier.

Since it was a bit cool--the mornings here take longer to warm up--I closed the door behind me and continued my search. Alas, I couldn't find the coffee pot. Oh I do need my morning coffee! Had to give up, so turned around to open the door. It was locked. I'm used to these doors unlocking themselves when the handle is turned from the inside--which is what I did to get outside. It should have been unlocked. But it wasn't. What to do? My brother-in-law had the spare key because he'd been taking care of my birds while I tripped back to NY. But the car keys were in the house. I might have called him but the cell phone was in the house. Everything, except me, was in the house! And I had such good plans for the morning.

There seemed little else but to walk down to my neighbor who happens to be the woman I bought the house from. She's built a new house next door. Her son said he could probably climb in through one of the windows. It seemed like a really good idea the night before to go room-to-room to make sure the windows were all locked. Not so much now. He said the bathroom window was usually unlocked, and come to think of it I couldn't remember if I'd actually locked it seeing how it's on the other side of the tub. So he came up, placed the step ladder under the bathroom window, climbed on up and found it was locked. Of course. I'm usually pretty thorough.

My other neighbors by this time had come over to say hello. Where did they acquire their perfect timing? Lovely people they are though. One of the young ladies stepped up to the entry way and thought she could see that the music room window was not locked. I doubted it, but the ladder was relocated, scaled and ... the window was found to be unlocked! Yes! The morning was saved.

The good news is I found my French press shortly thereafter. Also, I finally did locate the coffee maker, but by then I'd become hooked on the French press so it was a mute discovery!

Pics to come.