No More Venting (This Week)

I thank you all for your sympathy about my mood yesterday. I apologize for the negativity, but sometimes, you just have to get things off your chest. All of our problems these days are little ones, really, but added up they cause stress. I cried my way to playgroup yesterday afternoon after writing that post. It felt good, and I got myself under control a bit before arriving there. Then, the second someone asked me how I was, I burst into tears again. How transparent am I? Good thing is, the companionship of all the other mommies perked me up, and I'm fine today with a whole new perspective.

So, instead of dwelling on all that today, I'm going to share a little bit of the hope we have despite the fact that we are still not living in the new house yet. All I have to do is go over and look out a window or two and all hope is renewed. I hadn't been over there in a while, actually, since I've been pretty busy lately (not to mention tired due to rough nights with Lambchop #2). Yesterday, though, I read a fun post by Liz over at Pocket Farm. She showed the many views from her kitchen windows. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, as you may have already assumed by the constant food chatter around here. Unfortunately, the views out of the windows aren't anything to brag about either in the new house or the current one. Her post did inspire me to share some shots from the upstairs windows of the new house.

The first picture of the bunch is taken from the upstairs window in the loft area over the livingroom. This will likely end up being our bedroom at some point, since there are only two small bedrooms on the other end of the house. The second phase of the house has plans for plenty of bedroom space, but given the rate at which we get homes built around here, I'm assuming we'll be taking over that loft pretty soon. Works for me. I can certainly stand waking up to a view like that. How about you?
What you're seeing here is the vineyard my husband takes care of like his own children. The metal tunnel is where the tractors live.

Next up is a second view from one of the other windows in that loft area. One thing this house has lots of is windows. The architect really loves to work with the beauty of the site, and entire walls of windows really showcase the views quite well. This window is a little funny, in that it's long and a bit low on the wall. It'll allow us to see the beauty of the property we live on even when sitting in a chair or lying in bed. Can't beat that!




This last shot I took inside the house is from a little hallway of sorts that adjoins what will be the kids' bedrooms. It overlooks the neighbors property. You can see some of his vines and a building of his off in the distance. I have no idea what those shadows are across the landscape. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky when I took this picture, and those hills really don't look large enough to me to cause such shadows.



So, now you can see a bit of the reason I am so anxious to get into the new house. It's roomy. It has wonderful, wide open spaces with high ceilings and a very open floor plan. AND, it has these windows. Another thing I noticed when I walked in the door over there was the huge difference in temperature between that house (even with it's huge windows) and the box we're currently living in. My husband likes to say that when it's hot, being in this house is like living in a cardboard box in full sun. I think he's onto something, but he may have forgotten to mention that it'd be a cardboard box spray painted black. The place has no insulation whatsoever, and it's oriented in such a way that very little wind can pass through the house.

If you'll notice the current temperature over there with our little weather girl on the sidebar, you'll see that it's HOT. It's only the end of May, and we're already hitting up close to the 90s. Actually, it's already 7pm with that temp, so surely we were in the low 90s earlier. And, since I can't leave well enough alone, I had a craving for coconut macaroons that I had to turn the oven on for. At its peak temperature, the kitchen was measuring a stifling 95F. The bad thing is that I knew it would happen even before I turned the thing on. I was helpless, though. My craving was stronger than any logic you could throw at me, and I did it anyway. But, look at how cute they are. Wouldn't you have done the same (I'm thinking of dipping some in chocolate tomorrow)? Oh, and since the oven was already on, I threw a little custard in to bake (can't stand to waste those egg yolks), so we'll have that for tomorrow, too. So, obviously, it was a good idea and fully justifiable, right? Well, it does confirm for me that we need to get an outdoor stove/oven fixed up for summer baking and canning.