As many of you know, a few months ago I was faced with a difficult decision--to move to a new town in another state (you can read about it in my blog post, "When God's Plans and Your Plans Don't Mesh") or to stay put. Over the summer, I've shared our moving journey and how we've remodeled much of the first floor of our new house. Today, I'm sharing a few of the perks I've enjoyed from the move.
1. Close proximity to schools, grocery stores, library, and my husband's job.
I never realized how much time I actually spent in my car until we moved here. Where before, stores and schools--even baseball practice--were a minimum of fifteen minutes away, now we're within five minutes of schools, a large grocery store, baseball diamonds, and the library. An added bonus? I used to drive 50 minutes to have coffee with writer friends. Now the commute is fifteen. I love it!
2. An established neighborhood with sidewalks and friendly neighbors.
Our previous home was in a subdivision, but it was new and underdeveloped. I really enjoy walking my little dog around our new neighborhood, which is full of mature trees, pretty landscaping, and people who wave and say "hi." Maybe not everyone would think this is a perk, but I certainly do!
3. Gorgeous parks only minutes from our house.
I'm a nature gal; always have been, always will be. So when I drove a short ten minutes to one of the most beautiful metro-parks I've seen, my soul sang. We've been too busy and the weather has been unusually hot this summer to explore the trails, but in a few weeks we'll be hiking, and I can't wait.
4. Fantastic shopping and a movie theater nearby.
Confession time: I'm a snob when it comes to malls. Before we moved, we had a shopping mall, but it had lost all of its anchor stores except for Target, and it lacked variety. Since our old town was within 45 minutes of three big cities, we usually drove to one of their malls for major shopping trips. Imagine my delight when we found a new, incredible outdoor shopping mall, with a movie theater, minutes away.
Maybe you're noticing a theme? The biggest perk of our move is we have gained time, precious minutes and hours that used to be spent driving in a car. With that time, we are saving money. We were spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on gas for our vehicles each month. I am estimating our gas budget will be cut in half.
What is your favorite thing about where you live? Least favorite? I'm curious what perks you get from where you live!
Have a fabulous weekend!
This house has been such a place of healing for us. We are five minutes away from library and park (we were before, too, but a different library and park, and on a much busier stretch of highway), we can cross our street and walk five minutes to get on a walking/biking trail, we have a YARD where the kids can play and a driveway for them to ride their tricycles ... aside from the horse of mosquitoes that descends every spring and summer, we are so thankful for this home!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you are feeling settled and content with your new surroundings!
ReplyDeleteI love our neighbors. We went through something, but so many of these folks are downright awesome. Forgot to roll the trash out yesterday--neighbor did it for me and even rolled it back!
~ Wendy
Happy to hear your update. Our move will be the opposite--sort of. Moving out to the country town but they have all the basics--no more tolls,huge traffic or long commutes. Will save lots and will be around people we know:)
ReplyDeleteI live in the same neighborhood as my mom and only about five minutes from my work. I love being close to everything. I would hate to commute.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Ohio! I think this is a nice place to live. Not terribly exciting and a bit provincial, but that fits me to a T!
ReplyDeleteWould be better without winter, though.
I live in a rural area. Everything except the bank and post office involves a commute. It's mostly quiet which is my preferred way to work.
ReplyDeleteThe very biggest perk of where I live is that it's like two blocks from my office. (The only downside to that is I can never really use snow days as an excuse not to show up! Haha!)
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome that you've found so many great things about your new locale. :)
ReplyDeleteI like where I live because it's a bit north of everything so it doesn't feel in the middle of the city or even in the middle of the bustle...but in reality, it's only a mile from the freeway! Location, location, location.
Jill - I am so glad this move is working out for you. Where I live, we have close friendly neighbors, I'm very close to one of my children, the one I babysit for, I am close to places I need. Best of all, I have a small house that just serves two people perfectly and I don't have to deal with a lot of junk. I guess that's freedom.
ReplyDeleteWhen we moved her in 1975, (that's right) our house was located between the elementary school-four blocks east and the middle school our son would attend-roughhly three block northeast.A local grocery store is still a half mile to the north. Ten years after we moved here, I started going to a church a half mile away(to the south. Due west-about a mile- is one of the hospitals. Our house is on the bus line.
ReplyDeleteThe neightborhood has changed. We are the second longest-living residents along our street. Several of the houses are now rental properties. I only know two of the neighbors along the street.
We live in an economically depressed town. But it's still our home.
I can understand your joy about walking the dog in a nice neighborhood. Colorado is a very dog-friendly state. In my townhome development, we have sidewalks and an adjoining park where I can take Noodle every day. People are friendly here, too.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about Colorado Springs is the community of creative types. Artists, writers, and musicians all have events going on in the city throughout the year. I am never far from having coffee with my writers group or finding inspiration for another story on one of my hikes. Great place to live!
So happy for you, Jill! Glad this is all working out so well! :)
ReplyDeleteI live in a country sub-division, and I love that it's quiet with big yards. I also love that I'm not too far from town. We live close to our church and our business, but far enough away that I drive past fields of corn and pastures of cows to get home.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad your move has been a success. :)