This post has been a long time in the works, and I can’t even tell you how happy I am to share the news that I am going home.  No, not to Old Dominion.  To a new home!  After months of searching, countless houses visited, four rejected offers, and umpteen sleepless nights, we’ve finally bought a house.  We closed on Wednesday, we’re having some work done this week and next, and we plan to move in by the end of the month.

The house is outside the city, which makes us very happy.  Our experiment in urban living over the past year has taught us that we are not city people.  True, I loved living in Foggy Bottom for my first two years of law school, and we lived in some fairly urban parts of Arlington (although, as a hilarious rule, Arlington thinks it’s more urban than it actually is) but for where we are in our lives now, the city just doesn’t work.  We hoped that our walkable urban Buffalo neighborhood would be kid-friendly, but it hasn’t been – even with the playground just a few blocks away, the constant noise and the confined spaces have been tough on little Peanut.  As they have on all of us.  I’ve been getting progressively more down on our house, our neighborhood, and our urban environment in general, and I’m ready for wide-open spaces and friendly neighbors.

So we’re moving to the country.  I won’t say exactly where, but I will say that we lucked into finding a house in a lovely rural area that somehow also manages a decent commute.  We won’t have to spend much more time in the car than we do now, fighting city traffic.  And we’ll have several acres for Peanut to explore, a pool where she can learn to swim, a fabulous kitchen where I can enjoy baking again, and a big, rambling house with great bones that’s just waiting for our updates and personal touches.

I can’t wait.  I can’t wait to wake up to birdsong instead of sirens.  To run down country roads and stargaze in our backyard under velvety skies unmarred by city lights.  To float in the pool in our private backyard all summer, and snowshoe around the nearby town park all winter.  To plant an herb garden and grow tomatoes in the abundant light.  To drink my tea in the mornings on the cozy back porch (maybe we’ll get a swing!).  To experience “years of painterly skies at dawn,” a line from The Cloister Walk – a book I recently finished – that perfectly sums up the gifts I hope country life will give our family.

I’ve never lived in a rural area before.  I grew up a suburban kid and have bounced back and forth from suburb to city to suburb to city.  This is a new departure for us and we think it’s going to be great.

I can’t wait to go home!