At Last At Home

The view from the balcony of our second story apartment in Sugar Run, New Albany, Ohio. The buildings in the distance on the right is another residential complex we looked at called The Farms at New Albany. While their apartments were gorgeous with hardwood floors and brand new stainless steel appliances, they were smaller than the one we ended up choosing, and more expensive. I sensed we were paying extra simply to be a part of their "Lifestyle Community", as they term it, which they marketed heavily. One would need, it seemed, to be willing to pay a premium simply for the privilege of living among the young, hip, and beautiful. This photo as well as the others was taken today, Sabbath, February 6, 2010. We had a big snowstorm yesterday. It was a nice day to stay at home!

In my paper and pen journal entries, I always include at the beginning of each new entry, an indication of where I am writing from. The vast majority of my entries have been labeled simply, "At Home." At varous times the location has varied for a considerable length of time--In college, the location was "dorm" or "apt". In 1994 and 1995, it read "Chuuk", and most recently for the past seven months or so I've been located variously at "the Leen's House", "J's House", or "CAA." Now at long last, I can once again report that I am simply, "At Home." Babs, the Feller, and I finally moved into our apartment, and we are very much enjoying being in our own home again.

We were blessed to find a beautiful apartment in the bedroom community of New Albany, Ohio. The two bedroom, two bath apartment in an apartment complex called Sugar Run features, an open "great room" floor plan for the kitchen/dining area/living room, 9 foot ceilings, and best of all an abundance of large windows in all the rooms letting in lots of natural light. After months of searching, on Barbara's part, we're very happy with the place we found. It has all that we need and so much of what we wanted--all at a remarkably reasonable price. I've been getting the sense from friends and colleagues that New Albany is a rather upscale community. Whenever I mention where we live, I usually get a raised eyebrow of surprise, and with some even the question--"Isn't that pretty expensive?" The fact is we found several very nice apartments in this area--most of which were considerably less than the properties in more "humble" zip codes. I like New Albany too--it feels a bit more removed from the city (even though it's only a ten minute drive from here to work or our son's daycare). They have a small shopping area about three minutes from our home, which is convenient.

We began the week at J and Evelyn Carlos' house in Blacklick, Ohio, about half an hour from the school Babs started work on Monday and also got the keys to our new place that day. However,we didn't move in until Thursday afternoon because we were waiting for the movers to bring up our bed and other furniture. J and Evelyn were kind and patient hosts this week and we deeply appreicated their hospitality--especially since Elijah kept tearing up their house. We told them they were getting a preview of what they'd experience with their young son later this year. I wish we'd thought to take pictures while we were there, but in the hectic scrum of a week of moving, I never even took the camera out of my bag.

So here we are, the final piece of our new life here in America finally put in place. Work has been difficult of late--at the end of days that can often be disheartening, it's good to come home to my family. And at the outset of what many times turns out to be a tough day, it's nice to start with breakfast with the Feller (Barbara goes to work at seven in the morning, so I'm responsible for waking our son up, feeding him, dressing him, and getting him to daycare by 8 A.M.). I can go to bed a little later now, and sleep a little longer too--the hours and miles on the freeway are finally finished. We're on our own once again, and at last, we are at home.

A lot of boxes still to unpack. Photo taken Friday afternoon, February 5, 2010


The living area as seen from the kitchen.

A shot of living, dining, and kitchen area. Our furniture right now is a mismatched hodgepodge of items from our first year of marriage in Michigan (the black bar chairs and small papa-san chair in above photo) and furntiure given to us by the Leens (the couch in the picture for example). All that we brought back from Saipan is in those dozens of the flat rate postal boxes piled in the middle of the dining area.

Music time with the Maycocks

This morning we opted to stay home from church. Babs was feeling a little under the weather, and I didn't feel like going out on the roads so quick on the heels of last night's snow storm. During the leisurely hours of Sabbath morning, we took some time to work on some music as a family. Well, mainly it was Babs on the piano, but the Feller and I joined in where we could, me working laboriously throuigh the chords for "Father, I Adore You" and Feller adding the beat on his hand drum. It was fun, and I look forward to the day when we all will truly be able to play together. Below, some photos:

A video tour of the our new apartment.