Back in the old neighborhood

Well, we're back and it seems in many ways like we never left. Same neighbors, same running routes, same annoying traffic though I have noticed that there's a lot more of it. We once seemed to live in a pretty quiet and calm traffic area. Since they pushed through the main road in front of our house to connect with another main road, traffic and traffic accidents seem to be way up.

Not much turnover in the retail establishments, which is surprising considering the incredible shakeout caused by the economy. My theory that people will shop closer to home must be accurate. Even the bad restaurants are still around. Or maybe it's that my tastes have changed since returning from 2.5 years living abroad.

We've had to remove the big trees (flowering pears) in front of our house because they have a disease and are pushing up the sidewalks. They had a good 20-year run and probably shouldn't have been picked by the city in the first place. They're being replaced by much smaller and slower growing trees that hopefully have fewer and more easily managed leaves. We'll see.

Progress on the unpacking moves apace, but we're now down to the hard part -- things you haven't seen or needed for years, but you still have around. That means you have to go through all the boxes and sort out what to keep and what to get rid of. We are getting rid of lots. That's our default position on everything. Pare, pare, pare. Less is more. Simplify your life. Unclutter. Purge. We still have a few big pieces of furniture and a small storage unit to deal with as well. But, it's the boxes that are still all consuming. What could be in them?

Yesterday MFW opened a wrapped package and found a suitcase that contained my long missing cuff link collection. Good until all the double cuff shirts I bought in England wear out. The charger for the camera that I'd given up on finding and bought a replacement for turned up as well. Now I have a spare.

Now that we can actually move around in most of the rooms, time for the finer details, like picking out the art we want to hang so we can make decisions about what we don't want and what doesn't fit. We have too much, but parceling that out will be easy. One can never have too much art. It just lets you pick what you really like the best and rotate more often.

Our weekends have been crazy since we moved back in. Though we're not doing anything this weekend, it's not time to rest. We have a long list of projects. If we get to 80% of them, we'll be doing well. And one of the most important is to take some time to go see a movie (free AC and it's supposed to be hot, hot this weekend). Hmmm, what to see. I want to see Bruno, but have heard mixed reviews on it. Saw that the Royal Family in England is getting a private viewing. Must not be that bad if the Queen is planning to see it.