Home again, home again, jiggity-jig

As many of you know, I'm moving this weekend. Into a house with triple the square feet of our current home, and shaped like a square doughnut with an atrium (aka Baby Jail Yard) in the doughnut hole, on an acre, with lawn care included in the rent. With three and a half bathrooms, as opposed to the one we all share now, and five bedrooms. Not only is there an actual master bath, but there is a master closet triple the size of my current bathroom, with built in drawers and shelves and shoe racks, and yards of hanging rods. There's a big, open kitchen with a fancy gas range and double wall ovens and a giant Sub-Zero fridge that inexplicably lacks a freezer. That part is okay, because there's room in the laundry room right off the kitchen for my big free-standing freezer. There's also a toilet in there, but we won't worry about that right now.

I'm probably most excited about all the outdoor living space, because I am an outddorsy kind of girl. But also? The kitchen and the multiple bathrooms and the ginormous closet and all the space, space, space! And doors that close to keep kids out, and the big stone corner fireplace that is identical to the one I grew up with. Did I mention all the space? Oh, and, AND, it's within walking distance of both an excellent elementary school and Calvin's middle school of choice.

I could really only be more excited if we had already sold our current house. We are working on that, and having all our stuff out of the way will make it easier to do some of the small repairs and touch-ups that need to be done. Ideally we'd love to sell it to someone who plans to fix it up/flip it, who doesn't want us to fix anything. A girl can dream, right?

In case you're wondering, we haven't won the lottery. The house is a very 1970s ranch in a good but older nighborhood in not-so-hip East Memphis. It's awesome but a little dated. (The kitchen was redone in 1995, so it's awesome in a 90s way, which is fine with me. Let's be real--I'm kind of 90s myself.) There's a whole lotta grasscloth. So the rent is not as huge as you might expect for a house that size. We are also combining households with my very good friend SAM and her two kidlets. That's right, baby makes nine. I've always wanted to live on a commune. I just never expected it to involve an East Memphis to downtown commute and complicated carpooling arrangements. Oh well, you can't have everything, right? There is plenty of room for all of us, and based on several factors and habits established over the last year, it just makes sense. I predict that changes in the economy and the general socio-political climate will engender more unconventional and creative living situations in the immediate future. Who knows, maybe we will be trail blazers!