I’m still pretty excited about my new job. I signed paperwork last week, and I have been receiving all the staff emails. I’m all set up with payroll. But since they do all scheduling two weeks in advance, my first actual day at my new job isn’t until next week. So I have been using this last bit of free time to get sick with a nasty respiratory virus. Cough cough cough.

No, really, I am already better, almost completely well. Well enough to have gone for a run this morning. (And thank you for asking, my running is going well. I’m improving a little bit at a time–just a little bit– all the time, and it adds up! I am now running for the entire time I’m out, and can even do a few sprint intervals towards the end. And the run lasts 35 to 40 minutes now, instead of just 30). The sickness came on me fast as lightening, lingered for 2 days or so, then left like lightening, too. I mean, after 2 days of horrible congestion, sore throat, ringing in my ears, and body aches, I went to bed congested and miserable, but woke up in the middle of the night feeling almost WELL. The Wellness woke me up!

During my illness, I fell a little more in love with our new house. My bedroom was a really nice place to be. I felt so comfortable. Then, when I tired of laying in the same spot hour after hour, I discovered that our living room is WONDERFUL. I NEVER slept or rested in our OLD living room, it was never clean enough looking for me to relax in. Anyhow, I brought 3 pillows out to the couch in the NEW living room, wheeled a little oval shaped double-decker table over, and planted upon it the important things. My laptop, a stack of New Yorkers, the book I am reading, my cell phone, my two Ipods, facial tissues, and my coffee mug, now being used for herbal tea. I laid back on my pillows. PURE COMFORT AND BLISS.

My husband put some sort of nice covering over the couch last week and it looks like it was upholstered that way. It stays on, too. It really is pleasing to the eye. It’s just a quiet beige-y color, but a richly textured fabric. I’m a sucker for tone-on-tone things. It looks nice and it is really comfy–even more than I realized.

Anyhow, when the kids were all awake, one or two would sit on the other end of “my” couch, and the rest would on the other couch, or over at the dining table, or on the floor, everyone reading or drawing, talking, or practicing somersaults. At one point they rehearsed a little song-and-dance number they’re working on.

Then my 8 yr old asked if she could take the 3 yr old to the park across the street. She’s been doing that a lot lately.

That’s another feature of this house. See, the street isn’t really a regular street with traffic. The way the development we live in is set up, people who don’t live here simply don’t drive through or drive past. It’s not a gated community or anything. It’s the ROAD that keeps people out. Its speed limit is 10 miles per hour, and this limit is strictly enforced by speed bumps every 50 ft or so, and by sharp curves. The children that live in this development walk, and ride their bikes, skateboards, and scooters freely down the street.

The houses are set up around two main “blocks” which are not at all block-shaped. All the houses look very much alike. They ARE very much alike. All are the same color, same exterior, and the same floor plan, with only a few minor variations. Two stories, first floor being half underground (INCREDIBLY practical here in the desert), the second floor with its vaulted ceiling, open kitchen/dining area/living room. Two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, two bedrooms and a bath downstairs. Garage in front, deck in the back. I used to be unable to tolerate such identical-ness. In the past I wouldn’t even consider living in a neighborhood like this. In fact, even now I wouldn’t have bothered looking at THIS place if I had realized it. I didn’t find out until we were driving to it. When we were looking at the house numbers, searching for the one we had the appointment to see, my husband and I agreed, “Well, we drove all this way, so we might as well look at it”.

It’s a great floor plan. Plenty of room, not much wasted space.

One thing about it that I thought I DON’T like, has turned into something I DO like. I have always hated split-level houses where you walk in the door and are greeted by: stairs! Very ungracious. A faceful of stairsteps is a poor welcome. You walk UP the stairs to get to the front hall closet (and living room/kitchen area). Or downstairs to the workshop area. It seems rude to me. But LIVING with it, I have to admit, I really LOVE it. I am SURE it helps keep my entire house cleaner. There is no place to leave stuff by the door. People no longer walk in the door and drop whatever they were carrying right on the little table we kept by the door at the old house, then kick their shoes off, etc. They climb the steps and take their things to their ROOMS. YAY!! They hang their jackets in the front hall closet. Double YAY! Also, there is a long sidewalk from our garage to the entrance. By the time they get in the door and up the stairs, their feet are not dirty. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I used to mop my old kitchen at LEAST every other day, often daily, and it still looked like crap except for the first hour after mopping. The living room floor was always FILTHY. It seemed like the children always had dirty feet. And I never went barefoot in the house for an instant. At my new house, when I mop the kitchen, it’s not dirty. There are just occasional random splotches of food-prep related mess.

Anyway. I was meaning to explain that behind one “block” of houses is the community pool and a large shady green belt. Then behind the next “block” is another large and shady greenbelt and a playground under a couple of truly magnificent trees. Oh and a picnic armada. HAH! Whoops!!! I mean RAMADA!! (Can you picture a “picnic armada”?) There is a path that wends through these areas and makes a shortcut through the development. Our house is right across from the path, and so we are basically right across the street from this lovely hidden park. So that when my daughter takes the 3 yr old there, I am not worried. They are crossing our traffic-less street and going on the footpath down into the play area.

My 11 yr old put on a few Mary Tyler Moore episodes and sat near me, and I alternated between watching, reading, and snoozing.

It was not FUN being congested or coughing up phlegm, and it especially wasn’t fun having a sore throat. But I was so comfortable. It was kind of nice to have an excuse to just lay back and do nothing.

After a while I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up, my husband had made a pot of chicken soup with home made noodles, and it was simmering on the stovetop. He’d got a ten lb bag of chicken thighs for three bucks and change! It was the perfect thing at the right time.