jill's house from the road - january, 2005
the kids and i are beginning our 5th year here at our house in the country. december, 1999, found us moving from our house in town out to the old homestead of anna campbell, my father's aunt. we were so excited to get out of town, especially me, because it drives me nuts to have neighbors who make noise when i'm trying to sleep -- which is very common because i sleep at weird hours. so even though we had great neighbors when we lived in town, i'm very happy for the peace and solitude of the country that we have here.
we don't have any neighbors closer than a mile, but we have lots of wild life that comes right up in our yard -- including deer, turkey, badger mama and her 3 babies, rabbits, squirrels, a swan that stayed here about 3 months during house construction, skunks, snakes, coyotes, and even a bobcat sat in the yard while eating a rabbit. it's so refreshing to see wild life just roam wherever they feel inclined. except for the mice, of course, because they're just not quite so cute. because we're so isolated out here, both of the kids were kind of scared about being alone here at night because it is so dark and so quiet. fortunately, the house is rigged up with enough coach lights and flood lights that by flipping a few switches, we could easily be confused with an electric company in full operation. then young rambo keeps his guns out and ready, just in case he needs to save the day, so we feel well-protected.
the house construction was not necessarily a pleasant experience for me, overall. the house was supposed to be 3200 sq. ft. but ended up being 4000 sq. ft. no one is really sure how or why that happened, either. regardless, it made me run over budget significantly! anyway, the actual house plan was something that mickie saw as a "house of the week" in the paper. i loved the look of the outside, but didn't care for the floor plan because it wasn't arranged the way i wanted and the rooms were too small. so i drew out the floor plan that i wanted and then showed the carpenters the picture from the paper and said, "make the outside look like this." of course i see or know things now that i would do differently, but overall, i'm very pleased with the finished product.
the ironic thing is that i wanted a house big enough so my kids could some day come home and bring their families to visit as often as they wanted and we would have plenty of room for everyone. well, we have the room for everyone, but what i've found out since then is that my kids aren't going anywhere. not just "not going anywhere anytime soon," but just not going anywhere! in fact, at 18 and 21, both kids are still living at home (including little raven, who is 16 months) while they go to college. after college, summer intends to build a house at the other end of the field my house is in and scott intends to buy my grandmother's house, which is 6 miles away. so eventually, it'll be just the cat and me wandering around in this big house and no need for all this room!
No comments:
Post a Comment