I love, love, love my old farmhouse.
I hate, hate, hate, the gigantic mortgage, intense fuel bills, and continually seeing things that need fixing while not being able to afford to fix them nor having the know-how to fix them myself.
I love the view out every window of my house.
I love that I once saw a moose here, and many wild turkeys.
I love that I have an in-stream pond, in which I can swim long laps in cold cold water back and forth three or four months of the year.
I hate not knowing if I have been wise or foolish in making this gigantic and heartfelt purchase.
I love being alone on 35 acres.
I hate being alone on 35 acres.
I love having a house big enough for company.
I love not hearing traffic noise (or almost never).
I love being able to hear the snow fall, the sound of the brook that fills my pond and then goes on down the hill.
I love the smell of the piney woods especially when its slightly chilly.
I loathe having to get into a car if I want to buy groceries or go to yoga class or the gym or to eat out.
I love having seen the Northern Lights a few times, and seen the Milky Way often. I love no light pollution in the skies.
I love having learned to snow-shoe.
I hate being soooo lousy (so far) at x-country skiing and often staying indoors in general and not taking advantage of the beautiful area in which I am privileged to live.
I love there being like-minded people in my town, county, and state. I love that that state is blue.
I love having people over to eat.
I love having wooden floors with wide, wide boards.
I hate the spaces between the boards, which are almost magnetized grooves for dirt.
I hate feeling overwhelmed, and like I am not do8ing my home and land justice in one way or another.
In short, like so much, it is not a clear or yes or no but extremes of both.
I am not sure how much of all this is colored by the circumstances under which I left my former residence, where I had lived for 33 years. I feel very welcomed here, yet the one thing you can’t make in a new place is old friends.
I will just have to see how it comes out.
