Leaving the house

  Well, we went outside in to the smoke to get some stuff from town for the first time in days. It seems strange basically staying indoors continuously for days at a time given I used to go outside to go to work 5 days a week and at least one of the 2 weekend days to get something done. Now though we went from Saturday morning to Wednesday without having or really wanting to go out.

  I know my wife would be inside the house for days at a time, me being the only driver in the house and going to work with the car. For me though it is still slightly strange in being different. To be honest I'm enjoying it, I don't have to deal with other people directly much at all. Being away from the world is so much more relaxing than having to go out in to it all the time.

  Next up, let us see how long we can go without going out. Sure we have a long shopping trip planned for this weekend but at some point we should see how long we can stay in the house :| .

Cough cough

  Well it seems that parts of Oregon around here are on fire. The sky above us is filled with smoke and as soon as you go outside you can smell it. The sun is bright orange and the sky is a light gray colour from all the smoke being blown our way. Fortunately the fires are quite a way away from us and not a threat but seeing all this smoke is not a nice thing to see. A disadvantage of living in a hilly mountainous area I suppose, large fire smoke can obscure the sky. I'm just looking forward to it being gone so we can get back to summer proper and actually go outside and also sit on our balcony.

  In other news I seem to still be healthy after my doctor visit as long as my blood tests come back ok. Weird to think that I've managed to stay reasonably healthy this long, I've no idea how I managed it. It is not as if I've tried that hard to be that way, it just happened.

  Life in this new house is so much easier it seems. No stress of other people, things in general are so much quieter and work is being easy at the moment. Even the cats seem happier here, they are more lively, play more and enjoy watching the wildlife outside. I just wish we could have been able to do this sooner.

Time goes on

  Want to know how to feel that you have grown up and are sort of middle aged and/or old? Have a younger sibling turn 40. In my case my younger brother is 40 tomorrow (which may actually be today soon since he is now in Australia). He has always been my younger brother, coming up through school after me, doing things like getting a drivers license after me, everything was done after I did it first. Then you realise he has hit the point where he has been around for 4 decades. Blerg.

  Still, had yet another person at work ask why I no longer come in to the office anymore. When I mentioned that it would involve a 450 mile commute he agreed it would be tricky to do so. Still funny having people only just notice I'm not physically there, just shows how much it isn't necessary for my job.

  Had a physical check up with the doctor yesterday, the first in a few years. Apparently I'm all healthy (assuming my blood tests next week come back clean) which is nice. One less thing to worry about so I can look after my family here and enjoy life with them.

  So, as I finish typing this, watching a deer walk through my land eating stuff, doing a little bit more work and wondering what to do this afternoon before my wife and I go out for a bite to eat, let's think how different things could be if I hadn't tried so hard to make things the way I want them. I get there in the end sometimes and sure I'm not a billionaire but I'm with the woman I love living a good life. Not bad for having a scarily old younger brother.

Lots of stuff

  Did a lot of work stuff today, I think I thought and talked to people about 15 different subjects today. Not to mention the 5 different functional areas of my own code I'm writing I did bit in. One of those days where you don't get to think about one thing for too long before an interruption comes along and causes you to change track. Those kind of days leave my brain very tired at the end of it. Right now I'm sitting here at the desk in a semi zombie state glad the work day is over. I can tell my brain is tired since I'm yawning and I'm not physically tired. I didn't do anything physically strenuous just used my mind a lot. Oh well, the joys of earning money.

  Still tomorrow should be easier, I get to be poked by a doctor and made sure I'm healthy. Then I get to take my wife to make sure her eye is ok after being injected last week (eeek for that, seeing the needle coming). Just driving and sitting around in doctors offices. Knowing my luck though I'll get asked lots of questions over email or something at awkward times while trying to do non work related stuff during the day. Ah the joy of working remotely where you can run errands during the work day, it makes things so much easier overall, especially when there isn't a 50 mile commute between the office and home.

  Speaking of which, my 20 feet commute is calling to me. Time to give this office chair a rest.

Making it ours

  Our new house is slowly becoming our house with our mark on it right now. We finished painting the pink bedroom to a more suitable colour and got everything situated in it. The initial rush of getting stuff in this house was easy, set up furniture, put up things on the walls and work out the best place to store everything. Now though we are making this house completely ours. We've got things how we want, another bedroom has started being painted. My wife the trooper she is got going on it and by the looks of it more than one coat of paint is needed this time, the colour we are using doesn't cover the current colour. Oh well, we will get it done.

  Still all these changes inside, the plants we put outside, heck even changing the house numbers on the outside are all part of us making this house our home rather than just as place we are living in. It always takes a little while to feel like that but I think we are at that point now. I've only done it a few times in my life, never really moved around a lot except for the brief period we rented places after we got married. I like to settle in to something and then keep it that way, change is not something I adapt to easily but once I get something how I want it to be then I make sure it stays that way.

  Anyway, we are making a home now. Somewhere for us to live for a while and be happy in.

Quiet life

  My wife and I sat out on our balcony earlier, relaxing after finishing painting the pink bedroom to some other colour that is more appropriate for us. There were lots of birds flitting around between the trees and the bird feeder at the edge of the balcony. A squirrel was running around on the ground, rustling the leaves. The outside temperature was pleasant at midday in July. All around it was quiet, nice and relaxing.

  This is why we moved here. We are away from the bustle and noise that goes on with people around. We have our own little piece of land to live in and be left alone to our own devices. Other than the occasional hum of the air conditioner as it kept the house cool there was very little to disturb us. Even right now it is just us and the cats being lazy after lunch, nothing too stressful to do for the rest of the day now that painting is done with.

  This is the life we wanted and now we have it. Yay us for getting what we want.

Irony

So, my wife found out what she is allergic to the other week and as part of that we have been getting various parts of the house allergen free etc. The bed has now got allergenic pillows and covers and we washed the bed sheets in allergen reducing washing powder.

  Now switch to the day after we washed the sheets. I woke up the next morning and my left arm looked like it had been nibbled on by an insect during the night. No big deal I think, annoying but they didn't itch or anything and died down during the day. The next day however I felt fine. It wasn't until my wife got up and looked at me she noticed my face was all puffed up from an allergic reaction to something. Again I felt perfectly fine and really didn't feel the puffiness. Really strange we thought and made sure it went down during the day, which it did. Then again this morning I woke up with a puffed up face and this time one of my ears, the ear which was resting on my pillow most of the night.

  So yeah, it seems I get an allergic reaction to the sheets washed in stuff specifically designed to remove allergens from them. Go me, we find something I am allergic to in the process of trying to get rid of things my wife is allergic to. I'm allergic to anti allergen stuff. Sigh.

  Oh and a final eff you to the idiot dentist from yesterday for being completely unprofessional with my wife.

All mine

  Today is rubbish day so the bin needs to be wheeled down to the end of the driveway and to the edge of the road. In our old house this was pretty simple and took 15 seconds. Here though it takes a couple of minutes since even getting the bin to the road takes quite a bit longer. Walking there and back it feels strange to know all this land is mine (well, mine and my wife's :) ).

  All this physical space belongs to us and it seems so bizarre that so much is ours now. True we have a mortgage but the ownership of this, especially when I think how little we had when we started out a couple of decades ago is scary sometimes. I can do whatever I want within reason with this land although it's main purpose is to put some space between us and other people.

  I dunno, it just still seems strange to me to have so much. Heck, even the fact that we practically have two houses on this land is even more bizarre. I never expected to be in a place like this. Right now I wonder how far we can go.

Wild Things

  Living in this new place it is great how much wild life there is around here. Just this morning I watch a large jack rabbit sitting out the back eating various bits of grass and stuff. True I would not have seen it if it were not for Daisy suddenly standing bolt upright on the chair by the window and then going to see what she was looking at but still.

  Consider when I was out mowing the lawn this weekend. I saw two different types of frog jumping around, several of the newt/lizard type things running around and heard several dear walking through the trees. I managed to get close enough to one of the deer (about 30 feet) to take this quick bit of video of it as it wandered around eating various things at the edge of the property.

  It is too cool that so much living stuff is around here. I sit at the desk while I'm working watching humming birds flit about and various other small things flying around. Quite a few small butterflies around here as well. Not to mention the vast numbers of birds that are around here, some of them quite large.

  Still it is cool to see so much life that isn't human just out there doing their own thing. Even Andy got in on the exploring today when I went in to the bedroom and had a slight panic seeing her scurry around the bedroom floor, 3 feet down from where her habitat is that she had gotten open from having a bit not latched correctly. Thankfully she didn't get out to where the cats were and I picked her up no problem. She seemed not skittish at all when I bent down to get her, she could have run like crazy and been really hard to catch. I think she is really getting used to us, she will let us get very near when we put a hand in to her habitat now.

  So, yay for animals huh?

So Soft

  Cuddling my wife a moment ago it really brought to mind how soft she is. As in her skin is incredibly soft and smooth. I've got all sorts of hairy bits, in some places incredibly hairy, and various rough patches (quite often in the hairy places like my legs) and general nicks and bumps. She however has so much smooth soft skin it is amazing. Consider we are both now past our 40th birthday she is in incredible shape. I've seen people 10 or 15 years younger who have worse off skin and overall condition than she does.

  This moment brought to you by my random cuddling of my naked wife before a shower. I just couldn't resist as is any husbands prerogative when presented with the visage of their naked wife before them.

Happy Birthday Old Man

  Boots our oldest cat is 14 today. I'm amazed we've had him for that long. I've never had a pet live that long before, nothing longer that 5 years. So to get so many years with our big boy is so special. Here's to many more.

PJ day

  Yesterday was a PJ day. Got up and did stuff around the house and relaxed all day. For all of that I spent the whole day in my PJs. Days like that where you stay indoors and the whole world can be ignored are great. It was a good day, not to mention the kick arse chips my wife made.

  And checking twitter I now feel crappy. It seems one of the main guys behind giantbomb.com died a few days ago. He was only 34 and had literally just gotten married. Even stranger he shares the same birthday as my wife and my mother. Shit that sucks. The even stranger thing, I was listening to the last podcast he recorded before going off to get married. He was talking about moving around a large arcade cabinet and managing to not get killed doing it.

  So with that I think I'll stop. Bad news always has a habit of making me wordless and this is one of those times.

20 miles

  20 miles isn't much when you think about it, the next town over maybe, or even in the case of really big places like where we used to live when we first got to this country the other side of the city. Where we live though go 20 miles and you can be in the middle of nowhere like this picture we took yesterday 20 miles from home.

  The road we drove down to get here is the back coastal road. They shut it completely for more than half of the year since it can't be maintained enough. There are gravel parts, huge great dips, cracks 10 feet long with one side of the road at a different height by several inches. The good thing though is that it goes through the middle of nowhere. Nothing around, no buildings, no other roads, just this long single lane winding road through country with views like this.

  I'm glad we live somewhere that it doesn't take much to totally get away from people. That was a large part of our goal in moving. Now if only we could get a house built out there.....

Mind on the matter

  Can't quite seem to get my mind on to what I need to at the moment. I'm trying to work but can't concentrate on it, probably since it is a bit of drudgery work, writing a design document on a boring bit of development. What needs doing is pretty simple but writing it down rather than actually doing it is always harder for me. Heck even writing this and my mind is wandering to something else, the chores that need doing over the long weekend, the stuff we need to set up to deal with my wife's new found allergies, what to actually do to relax over the next few days, stuff like that.

  Still it seems I can write this down, no idea how though. Just really can't think of much at the moment, kind of a brain dead day for me. At least the new allergy pillows we got yesterday were comfy to sleep on and my wife got an decent amount of sleep last night rather than wake up at 4am. And with me typing that sentence I let out a big yawn, my brain really is tired it seems. Bah, wake up you stupid thing.

Long suffering wife

  Well after another doctor visit we finally found out what my wife is allergic to. Lots of dust and pollen and plants. Unfortunately also cats but that won't mean anything to us, we are keeping them whatever. The good side is that other than soy beans and peanuts she is not allergic to food and considering she can eat peanut butter and actual peanuts with no problems they can't be that bad.

  Still it is another health thing she has to deal with, luckily this time it is relatively easy. Clean covers on the bed and pillows, hepa filter for the bedroom and house and she gets away with not doing the dusting, leaving that part up to me. Lucky me :) .

  Anyway, nothing life threatening it seems, more just a complete annoyance that needs to be dealt with. Also probably something she has had for a large portion of her life but never had diagnosed properly for a long time. Now the tests have actually been done we can sort it out.

Heat wave

  It seems the west coast of the US is currently having an excessive heat wave. Luckily for us our new house doesn't seem to be overly hot especially with its very good AC. Even outside, although hot, is not as hot as our old place used to be and this is considered too high. I think we can deal with this amount of heat especially since when the normal days of summer kick in we will be in temperatures we can live in easily. Also it is nice to have a super hot day and have the bedroom cool enough to sleep in with a cover on if need be. Even the ceiling fan I put in over the weekend doesn't need to be set on high speed to give enough air movement.

  Another point for this being the right kind of place to move to me thinks. So glad we are not living where we used to, it is stupidly hot there right now and our AC would have been straining by this time of day.