We’ve been in our new house for a month now. We love it.

We’re still without a driveway, sidewalk or yard, which is our only complaint. The dirt/ground around the house needs to settle and get compacted; otherwise the asphalt and concrete could sink or crack. So I understand why we have to wait, but it doesn’t make the waiting any easier! Four dogs means 16 paws, and that’s a lot of paws to wipe off after a rain.

So we’re anxious for the driveway/sidewalk, because those things mean that the landscaper can come out and do his thing. We signed off on our plan, and I’m so excited to have my very own flowering crab apple tree next spring. (It also means that my StepMIL can bring over peonies for us to plant. Our own peonies!)

This weekend Aaron went through about nine bins of college and graduate school books, binders and papers. (Don’t ask why he’d been carrying around decade-old schoolwork.) It was a huge decluttering, and there is now a corner of our basement free again.

The dogs have a pretty nice little set up down there, and they seem to be adjusting quite well. Sometimes at night we’ll look around and one of them will be missing, having gone downstairs to put herself to bed.

It is SO much easier keeping this house clean, even though it is almost three times the size of our old place. Part of that is because we’re keeping the dogs downstairs during the day and overnight. Also, because the house is new construction, and not 60 years old, it’s airtight. Which means less dust and NO cobwebs. In our old place, I could vacuum down spiderwebs and they’d be back the very next day. It got to the point where I just quit, because in the summer the spiders at least ate the gnats and mosquitoes. And since there are no poisonous spiders in Minnesota, they weren’t hurting anyone. When Sarah was here last summer, she was a little shocked at that. (In hindsight, I guess I am too.)

So yes, I have to Swiffer the hardwoods every other day at least, but we’ve been here a month already and I’ve barely had to dust. And because everything is brand new that also means I haven’t had to clean the shower either. Brand new clean tile + daily shower spray = no cleaning tile. It is awesome.

The other day I said to Aaron, “Can you believe we live in such a grown-up house?!” He laughed and said, “Yes. Why wouldn’t we?” But it feels like a novelty to me; a dream. We’re not even minding walking the dogs every time they need to go out. (Though my saint of a husband does the morning shift, so I really have no reason to mind!)

We’re slowly meeting our neighbors (mostly while out walking the dogs), and I look forward to getting to know them better and maybe making some friends.

We started out looking at old Victorian homes in a river town on the far east side, and somehow ended up in a new construction two story in the north suburbs. We couldn’t be happier.