Living in an Empty House

We moved in to our new house on Thursday. Emptied the RV and winterized the water system; now there's no going back.

We brought the mattresses from the boys' bunks into the house for them, and bought a new twin sized air mattress for Bridget. We have our old queen air mattress (which needs reinflating every day or two, unless you like the feel of hard floor on your hip) in the master bedroom.

We met the new neighbors the first day we were there. One couple came over to tell us "welcome and we're leaving for a month." They offered to let us park our RV in their yard (they have a level spot which we don't--yet) and asked if we needed anything else. Not one to let an opportunity slip by, I quickly asked if they had a card table, which they did, complete with four padded folding chairs. I wasn't gutsy enough to ask if they had a TV, though!

Speaking of which, the kids are having withdrawals. After three months in the RV with FOUR of them (ok, two were "just" dvd players) we now have only our 7" dvd player in that big echoing house. We'd gotten used to all the cable channels at the RV parks, and now we don't even have broadcast! Oh, well, it's good for us to "rough it".

But an empty house gets LOUD when filled with pillow-fighting children and a dog who gets too excited to see squirrels and deer in the yard. Not to mention blue jays and our new cat. We had to come out to the library just so I could rest my ears! And check my email and blog.

Yes, we have a cat, kind of. The daughter of the former owners of our house left a note, a bowl, and a can of cat food, asking us to feed the "wild" cat that lives in their back yard. We put out the food,and sure enough a cat crept up onto the porch to eat. She was not thrilled to see Pippin looking out the window and growling at her.

Being too cheap to buy canned food for a stray (I don't buy it for Pippin, either) I got a bag of dry cat food. So far we're not sure if the cat is eating any of it, or just leaving it for the blue jays in hopes of a better meal soon. We have seen the birds helping themselves.

David is in New York today. He flew back to Virginia on the red-eye and picked up our minivan which we'd left with our neighbors there. Then, without even taking a nap, he drove 6 hours to visit his folks, with a stop in Syracuse to see his grandma. He called me about 4 miles out from Grandma and Grandpa's house, so I know he got that far. Should hear from him later tonight. He's staying there til Tuesday, when he begins the marathon across the US to home.