Curtin Call

We had Verizon FiOS brought into the new house and I must say that we are very happy with it! I finally got my new iMac hooked up over the weekend and you’d think I’d accessed the internet for the first time! I just had dial up at the old house, as I don’t use the computer at home very often, but high speed came with the bundle and it really is awesome!

The bundle also includes unlimited local and long distance calling and close to 300 channels on the TVs. I know, who needs close to 300 channels? We’ve really been enjoying it, though, because we’re not ones to sit in front of a television for any length of time so don’t tend to rent/watch a lot of movies but I’ll tell ya, when you wake up on a Saturday/Sunday morning and want to lounge for a bit, it’s nice to have them right there waiting for you! And, did I mention watching the Red Sox on the high def big screen? All I can say is – WOW!

I’m still on cloud nine when it comes to the new house. We spend our time after work tinkering around in the yard (well, I tinker – Brian’s pulling up and straightening out patio blocks, cutting down trees, digging out old tree trunks and what have you). Then we relax on the deck listening to crickets and the neighbors waterfall and it really is like being in heaven!

I can also happily report that my commute continues to be tolerable. I can handle the extra 15 minutes or so that it has added. It’s amazing to me, though, how we can all be driving in the same direction on the highway and be doing 50 mph one minute and then everything slows down to a crawl then you’re back up to 50 mph and there was nothing going on that would justify the slow down?!?!?!

So, to rap it up, life is good over here! Hope that’s true for all of you, too!

It moves so fast yet doesn’t always heal.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time passes. I completely missed this summer with the house hunting and all. Then, I completely missed Labor Day, as it was at the end of the vacation that I spent moving into our wonderful new home.

Now, 9/11 has come and gone and, although it’s been 6 years since that horrific day, the pain is still there as though it was only yesterday. I am fortunate in that I did not have any personal ties to anyone injured/killed on that day yet I feel the pain so strongly in my heart that I feel as though I knew each and every one of them. I can not even imagine how those directly affected get through these anniversaries. I do hope that they know that I, and I’m sure all of my fellow Americans, are thinking of them today… and every day.

It doesn’t seem possible that we’ve been in our new house for two weeks already! It’s so very exciting! A funny thing happened this weekend. (I feel like I should start this out with “You know you live in the country when…”) I had done a load of laundry and I hung it out on the patio to dry. I brought the rack in the house before we went out to do a couple errands. When we got home, I was hearing this really, really loud cricket noise. Went downstairs and, sure enough, one had planted itself in the clothes! We put them back out and the little guy found his way back into the woods with his buddies!

Yesterday was a great day! Our friends from our first house, Jack (he works at MIT, too!) and Marie came over for a cookout. They are just the sweetest people! They brought a beautiful plant for our front stairs. It’s a funny thing – they actually have a daughter that is one year older than I am but we get along like we we’re all the same age. I tease that Brian’s the son they never had! They’ll actually be married for 43 years on Wednesday! Amazing!

It’s a gloomy, dark morning here today. It’s tough to get motivated but I guess I don’t have much of a choice!

Ahhhhh….

I can’t believe it’s almost two weeks that we’ve been in the new house now! I truly believe I’ve found a little piece of heaven right here on earth! We are absolutely loving our new home! Brian couldn’t have said it better than he did on Sunday. As we were sitting out on the deck, waiting to go to Fenway Park and sit in our Field Box seats (five rows behind the Red Sox dugout – they were a thank you from our realtor) he said, “I feel like I should be packing my bag to go home.” I said, “What?” He said, “It feels like we rented this place for the week and now I should be packing my bag to go home!”

The cats are priceless. This house is a very long house and it’s basically all hardwood floors upstairs. They’ll start out at one end of the hallway, run through the living room, around the corner into the dining room then into the great room and their paws will be going 100 miles an hour but they can not stop themselves! Even Shadow is being more sociable than he ever was. I’m guessing maybe he figures he’s not the only “new guy” in this house! LOL!

My commute so far has been 10 – 15 minutes longer and I am definitely not complaining about that. I kept telling myself it wouldn’t be more than 15 minutes but I honestly believed I was being very optimistic but so far, so good!

I also had my knee surgery done last Tuesday and that went very well also. I joke that after having a hip replacement, arthroscopic surgery is a piece of cake! I see the doc for a follow up next Wednesday so we’ll see how that goes.

I managed to glance at all my emails yesterday but there are now way too many in my inbox awaiting my attention. Therefore, I must leave you now! Hope everyone is well!