Fantastic Discovery

I had a wonderful morning.

I had heard about the Durham Farmers' Market and decided to visit it. Hubs and I (ok, just I - yesterday while home alone) invited three couples over for dinner Sunday night. I thought it would be fun to include farmers' market ingredients in the crock pot coq au vin I'm trying.

Now, I'm not pretending to be either a gourmet chef or a stickler for organic food. But it does feel amazing when you go to something like that and know that this food was created locally and is totally fresh. Plus, I always like supporting local businesses if possible. I found some amazing cheeses, the vegetables and fresh herbs I needed for the recipe, plus a pound of organic ground bison to make some burgers for Hubs and me this week. Stay tuned - who knows, I may become a fantastic cook!

Carter is FINALLY off tomorrow, so we can actually go out tonight! I am looking forward to getting to know Durham nightlife. I also have several items on my social and work calendar this week - there's a light at the end of the boredom tunnel! And the more I think about it, the more I realize that come August 11, I will be WISHING I had time to be as bored as I am now.

The grass is always greener.

Just a thought

I've been an avid Man Men fan since the show started. After 2 weeks in the house alone, in which my days are filled with cleaning, grocery shopping, and writing wedding present thank you notes, I can see EXACTLY why Betty Draper is as crazy as she is.

Seriously... how did the nonworking housewives of the past DO it?

On the upside, I went over yesterday to hang out with three of Hubs' fellow residents' wives. They are really such fun and lovely people and I'm hoping we'll hang out a lot. What I really needed to hear is that they are all as bored and lonely as I am! I'm naturally a pretty happy, social person, so I'm glad to know that it's normal to be a little moody and "down" being by myself all day every day.

I read a quote one time that says, "You are only what you are when no one is looking." If that's true... I'm a little nuts.

Oh Mickey, You're So Fine...

... and by Mickey, I mean the mouse in our kitchen last night, and by so fine, I mean disgusting.

We are renting a beautiful old house in an area of Durham called Tuscaloosa-Lakewood. We have a GIANT backyard, a screen porch, and a beautiful, spacious interior. The owners moved to Brooklyn and obviously left in a hurry, as the house was filthy when we arrived. They even left us lots of surprises - like a drawer full of lipstick in the bathroom and several reams of paper in the office. Thanks, guys! In addition, when they showed us the house, we asked specifically about pest control. They assured us it was not a problem - they've had a few roaches and only one mouse in the ten years they've lived here!

Um, yeah. BS. We have been here two weeks and each already killed several roaches. We also found evidence that there might be some little rodent friends, so we had the Orkin man come and inspect everything. Not a week later, I am getting ready to make dinner - AFTER I spent 90 minutes cleaning the kitchen top to bottom earlier that day - when I see a rodent friend. Alive - better than dead - but scurrying across my kitchen counter. Now, I have had to learn to control my fear of crawly things being a teacher, because you can't freak out a room full of kids if a bug (or mouse - my old school was an OLD building) gets into your classroom. But a mouse ON MY COUNTER?? No way.

Of course, this was 7:45 p.m., so the Orkin people were closed. Hubs wasn't home from the hospital yet - which I can only assume will become a routine phrase for me to repeat - so I called my dad for advice / comfort. Then I stomped around like a fool to make enough noise so the little friend wouldn't show its face again. And promptly informed Hubs when he got home that I was not making dinner in a rodent-filled kitchen. The closest I got to the kitchen was grabbing a bottle of wine and a glass from our bar cart. I was into my second glass when Hubs got home and we immediately went out to dinner. He's such a gem. (Or more accurately, he didn't want to eat dinner from a rodent-filled kitchen any more than I wanted to cook it. Still though, he's just a gem in general.)

Here's the upside: having a house full of holes through which little friends can enter may be the only thing that will force me to keep up with the cleaning. Congratulations, family - I may just have learned to put my dishes in the sink right away! The downside: I have to completely re-clean the kitchen so that I am, in fact, able to stand being in there and preparing food. I did some reading on the internet - NOT a good idea, by the way - and learned that good sanitation cannot always prevent rodent friends, but bad sanitation will definitely attract them. So here I sit, a reformed leave-the-dishes-til-tomorrow sinner.

Trying to see the positive in this rather than the mouse droppings.

And here we are.

Here goes.

The craziness of the wedding, honeymoon, and move have settled, and I find myself two weeks into living in Durham. The jury is still out on how I feel about this move. Durham is so far a great place, with lots of restaurants and activities to keep one busy, and I've met extremely nice people (mostly residents and their spouses). However, since Hubs started work last Friday night - 7:30 p.m. to 9 a.m. for the past 4 days - I've realized that I'm going to be spending a lot of time alone. A lot.

I am not, nor have I ever been, particularly domestic. My list of things to do today includes cleaning, laundry, organizing my new closet room (a highlight!), and filling out paperwork for my new job. So what am I doing? Creating a blog. Smooth, kvh.

At this point - 1 1/2 weeks into housewifery - I just want to get back to work. I will be teaching third grade at a new arts-based magnet elementary school in Durham. Last week, we had a fantastic training at Duke's art museum. Coming from my school in New Orleans, I'm very familiar with arts integration and am so excited to be continuing that trajectory. I left the three-hour training having met many of my future colleagues, and I could not be more impressed. I definitely got a teacher high being surrounded by people I can tell are smart and passionate. I feel so fortunate to have such great prospects in my working life.

For now, though, I will just have to bide my time, suck it up, and do the housewife thing.