Birthday

Yesterday I turned four-oh. A little hard to believe, but I'm trying not to dwell on the number. I have whole theories on the deceptive, seductive nature of numbers anyway. What is important is that it was my special day. Go me. And thank you to everyone who left happy birthday wishes on my Facebook wall.

Last year was lots of fun, with a bunch of people coming over for cake (mmmm, cake). But as they say, you can't step in the same river twice, especially when that river has relocated to a new city where you don't know anyone yet. I considered bringing cupcakes to the scripture study class that meets Tuesday mornings, but didn't get around to it. It wasn't that it's such a second-grade thing to do. Mostly, I didn't want to call that much attention to myself this early in the game, and besides, I was out of cupcake papers.

While one might think it would look bleak, thanks to a certain sweet husband, the birthday did not suffer. I was sitting in the aforementioned scripture study class (sans cupcakes) when my cell phone rang. It was a local spa telling me that my husband had arranged a massage for me and when would I like to make the appointment? Woohoo.

Then we went out for dinner. Since we're less than an hour from Tulsa, our dinner options have greatly expanded. Uchenna's parents are visiting for a little while, so the three of us picked up Uchenna early from work and headed into town. There's a quaint little shopping/dinning place right downtown (surrounded by huge bank and hospital buildings) called Utica Square. We'd heard it advertised, so we figured this was a chance to explore the city a little.

We ventured out and did eventually find it, though we ended up seeing more of Tulsa than we'd intended. Our GPS got a little mixed up. They're not infallible, it turns out (in fact, our GPS thinks we live in the middle of an open field. We put in our "current position" as "home" and it shows a little house surrounded by a lot of nothing. Once we reach the last acknowledged intersection, the voice instructs us to "navigate off-road"). So we had to be creative with our instructions to the GPS, ask a passing pedestrian, and go up and down Utica Ave a couple of times.

After all that adventure, we decided to mix in a little of the familiar and chose PF Chang's (mmm, lettuce wraps). That's always a lively place, and besides, with four of us, it was very festive. So it was a very lovely birthday all around.

Notes from a new house

You know how you can't really know someone until you live with them--whether you decide to room with a friend or marry the guy you're dating? It's the same with a house. Even if you look at it carefully multiple times (even if you sneak in to microwave your lunch while it's still a model home), you can't know how it feels to live in it until you actually live in it.

For instance. The front door has these plain glass panes. When we saw the house before, we didn't notice how see-through the door is because the builders hadn't yet put in blinds (Uchenna negotiated for those--very essential) so all the windows were blank and un-shuttered, anyway. But the first night here we felt completely on display, not to mention the fierce late afternoon sun that filled the front room. There's no convenient, separate entrance way to block view or light.

In fact, if you stand there at the door you can look straight into the master bedroom. I started to change once, looked up and saw out to the street, and went diving for the bedroom door. Once was enough to learn my lesson: if I'm in the bedroom at all, that door is CLOSED. Actually, I think there's a thing like wallpaper for windows, gives it a frosted look. We'll have to look into that.

(The view from inside the bedroom. The camera creates a handy veil of light to screen the door, but believe me, if you were standing here you would see the front yard, the street, and the house across the street.)

Another for instance. The tile in the kitchen and hardwood in the living room are very lovely, but it's called hard for a reason. The first night, my legs were aching from standing around on hard surfaces all day. But after that I was fine. I don't know if it just took me a day to toughen up or that I wear my sandals now most of the time as a precautionary measure. Anyway, I'll say I'm acclimatized. Although we still don't pray out in the living room. Too hard on the knees.

I can also tell I'm getting used to the house because I can finally get the car in the garage without backing up a couple of times or getting out of the car to see if it's all the way in.

(Can you see the many curved tire marks showing where I had to back up and try again? Of course Uchenna got it right the first time.)

I'm still feeling tempted to label all the light switches, but I remember this feeling from the last time we moved. And at our old house I did eventually learn which switch went to what (and which went to nothing), so I'll try to be patient. Although I wouldn't mind an excuse to get a label-maker.

Finally, along with the blinds we also asked for a wooden privacy fence, which the builder granted. We still think it's a good, practical idea, though we hadn't realized how enclosed it would make us feel, or how we would miss the great view out over the open field. We also didn't know the fencers would show up and start pounding away at 7:30 on a Saturday morning--and again at 7:00 on a Sunday morning. Way to antagonize our new neighbors before we even meet them.

(We still catch a small glimpse of the world beyond. Uchenna says we just have to make the view inside as good the one outside, with trees and flowers and things.)

One useful piece of information we learned from watching them work: this soil is ROCKY. If we want a garden (theoretically), we'll have to build up beds on top of the ground. Does it often take a jackhammer to dig postholes?