Happy home!

We celebrated our first anniversary of the Harwick Road house yesterday. Actually, we didn’t, because we forgot yesterday was the actual anniversary until this morning. But we are celebrating today, with a day at home just the four of us. Few days have passed in the past 366 when I haven’t taken a moment to pause and look at the richness in which we dwell. Roy and I lived in apartments for the first seven years of our marriage and it seems inconceivable that we could own property, with twice the living space we were accustomed to, and nobody but ourselves to worry about when practicing noisy instruments…

Our first place was on Orchard Street, across from Pearce Church. We called it our tree house, and our little second floor apartment was cozy and safe and perfect for just starting out. Our neighbors were our college friends, and we could walk to concerts and church. There were holes in the floor that led to us blessing our downstairs neighbors when they sneezed, which sounds horrifying, but was funny at the time. We left our first couch in that apartment. It took us two hours to move it in and after that amount of time passed trying to extricate it we left it behind.

Then we moved to North Carolina, where we lived in a much cleaner, more modern first floor apartment in a complex. We, for the only time in our lives, were the minority race. I’m not sure I ever saw another white person in the complex the two years we lived there. That apartment was our haven—we knew nobody in Greensboro, and it was the place where our marriage deepened and we leaned on each other for companionship as much as anything else. We chafed at being so far away from family and friends, but we look back on those two years and can hardly believe we had that much free time to do whatever we wished together.

Between May of 2010 and May of 2011 I graduated from UNCG, we moved in with Mom and Dad Smith for a few months as we looked for jobs in Rochester, we lived at St. Vivian’s on Springbrook Drive, and ultimately made our way to our duplex on Washington Street. It was a whirlwind!

The Albion months were a time of transition. We lived out of boxes that summer and slept on a futon upstairs in what’s now the nursery. I read a lot of books, we went for many long bike rides, and furiously searched for jobs. It was the opposite of Greensboro in every way. We were surrounded by family at all times, ate amazing food (I definitely gained weight that summer) that I didn’t prepare, and spent a lot of time snuggling baby Hayden. Martha and Lucas raided our DVDs. Dad Smith insisted that I never shower in the main bathroom downstairs, but to use theirs. I spent many early mornings driving into Roberts with Mom, listening to sermons on her iPod. Roy was ready to start thinking about a baby, but, happy as I was to be with his family, I couldn’t imagine starting my own under somebody else’s roof.

We moved into a rental house in North Chili in October of that year. St. Vivian’s (named for the patron saint/owner) was a beautifully maintained home within walking distance of Roberts. Our dear friend Janette shared the space, and rent, with us, and we were granted back a degree of our privacy. We hosted a Bible study, bought a Wii, enjoyed Friday night pizza, and began to know the joys of a glass of wine at the end of the day. I remember Janette’s parents visiting, and eating chocolate lava cake that was her mom’s special recipe. I remember the master bedroom, with two enormous closets and our own attached bathroom with a HEATER. (That room was a haven.) I remember rushing home on a lunch break from Roberts, taking a pregnancy test, and barely being able to get back to work that afternoon after seeing two little lines…

St. Vivian returned from Florida, and we migrated to Spencerport. Our duplex on Washington Street became our home for the next two and a half years. Our halvsies, Bob (we still usually forget and call him Dave) and Lori, were quiet and delightful and didn’t seem to mind the trumpet so much. Roy started his new routine of many part-time jobs. I received an awful phone call from Janette, who had just heard that her mom had been killed in a car accident. We bought a Clavinova, and I finally had a piano to practice on. We decorated a nursery and welcomed baby James home from the hospital. We delighted in all of his tiny, monumental accomplishments. We delighted in being a family. He took his first steps and conducted Firebird in the living room. We were entertained by an enormous spider that lived outside our front window for months and walked up to Springdale Farms numerous times to exercise and look at the animals. The steps were squeaky and there was almost no storage space. But there was a backyard, and an enormous kitchen that, to this day, is the biggest I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.

And THEN it was on to the east side. I remember finding our apartment off of Clover Street, driving to the Pittsford Wegmans for lunch, and feeling incredulous that we were going to be in walking distance of such riches. (I bought the September issue of Vogue there on a total whim and thoroughly enjoyed it.) James made friends with all the complex’s cats, and collected a lot of rocks and sticks. Lawn mowing day was the best day of the week, and we would sit outside and watch Angel and his crew do all the yardwork. The best part of that apartment were the closets. We had enormous closets, everywhere, with a huge pantry as well. It was that apartment when I finally started caring about wall décor and color schemes. I loved the decal and sconces over the Clavinova in the living room…

And now we’re here! In our first house, unshared. Roy bought new cologne yesterday and my comment to him upon smelling its complexity was, “You know—I don’t think you could have pulled that off ten years ago. That’s a fragrance that clearly says, ‘I have a mortgage.’” It all seems too good to be true—the space, the privacy, the possibilities. Even the trials (plumbingplumbingplumbingplumbing…) pale in comparison to the incredible-ness.

The boys love it here. James’ room is over the garage and he calls it his apartment. He can entertain himself up there for hours with his stuffed animals, books, and building toys. Sometimes I secretly wish that his room was ours, because I love the slanted ceiling and that you get to step down into the room. But our master bedroom is enormous—we’ve talked about portioning off part of it for a reading area, or perhaps an electric fireplace someday. (One can dream…)

Owen has ample room to crawl, and we have extra doors to remember to shut and block off, but that’s a welcome problem. Roy has a library of his own and I have a sweet kitchen. There’s our very own garage (another first) that blocks out the snow and ice of cold winter mornings, and a relatively quiet neighborhood with miles of safe roads to run in any direction. It’s an abundance I dare not grow too accustomed to.

I cherish each place we’ve lived, and, being a complete sucker for nostalgia, loved looking back over our homes and remembering the good in each one. But I am oh, so thankful for this house. I didn’t know if we would ever own a house, and it has provided us with a beautiful location and space to raise our sweet boys. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Today’s 1%: Well, I remembered that yesterday was the one year anniversary of moving into the house… On a different note though, we went running this morning and I never really got tired at any point. I think I’m getting better at my pacing, and hopefully getting stronger too to be able to run for longer distances. I still HATE getting out the door, but once I get going, especially if Roy and I can chat while we do it, it’s pretty enjoyable. And you can’t beat the endorphins.