Home Is Where The Heart Is: A Year In Atlanta

Our street in springtime

A deer in our front yard

September 14th was our one year house-iversary.  That means that we have officially lived in Atlanta for a whole year.  This has not been the easiest year for me.  There were a lot of changes.  We moved from a tiny house where our dogs got along, into a much bigger house where our two little dogs decided they hated each other's existence.  I missed my friends.  I missed going into an office and feeling that sense of camaraderie with my co-workers.  I missed the mountains and the bay.  I missed the Golden Gate Bridge and the cool evenings in the middle of of July.  I had some hard weeks.  I didn't feel like I belonged here.  I even thought about turning around and going back.

I really missed living in California, but as time went on, things started to change.  We started working on the house, little projects at a time.  We changed paint colors, scraped popcorn of the ceilings, and added new light fixtures. We began exploring the area.  We hosted our first holiday in our new home.  Family flew out to visit us.  I drove to Costco without using my navigation system.  I made new friends.  Suddenly, my trips back to California started to feel more like visits than coming home.

It took some time, but now Georgia is where my heart is.  The Bay Area will always hold a special place for me, but this is my home.  Here are a few highlights from the past year.

Getting rid of the boring neutrals

Taking Harriet for a stroll around the block

Our first daffodil of spring

Meatball blending into the snow in our backyard

Scraping the popcorn off the ceilings

Our first deck garden

This little guy was crossing the road in front of my house

Meatball enjoying the warm evening

My hollyhocks after a storm

Meatball keeping watch over the front yard

Butterfly season

The Results Are In...

Waiting for the vet to call us back with Petunia's biopsy results was agony.  The final report took over a week, but I am happy to say that the tumor was benign!  To celebrate, here are some pug shots.  

Making sure I don't get too far away, but too lazy to follow me downs the stairs.

She literally makes me shoo her down the stairs so she can do her after-dinner business.  Then she doesn't want to come back inside.

Hanging out with her best buddy.

Being this cute is exhausting.

Recent Reads: Things Have Gotten A Little Bit Dirty

Radio silence, then two blog posts in a row?  I am on fire this week!

I have been reading/listening to a lot of books in 2016.  Partially, because I need something to pass the time on those 5 hour cross-country flights for work, and partially because I joined a book club.  I have to admit, I am not much of a joiner.  I generally don't like having commitments to places that I need to be (outside of work).  I like the freedom to plan my weekends as they approach.  However, my friend has been a member of this book club for eight years and was persistent that I come.  I was a little afraid that reading a book because someone said I had to would feel a little too much like school.  So far this has been a good experience, and I have met some interesting people.  We'll see if I still feel this way in a few months.

As you can tell from my reading list, I have recently discovered the author Penelope Ward, and have devoured everything she has written.  Her books fall under the "new adult" category, which comes after "young adult."  These books have all been juicy, fun reads, but definitely not for kids under the age of 18.

I finally read Will Grayson, Will Grayson (it was the last John Green book on my list), and I have to say, I really didn't care for it much.  The same can be said of Burnt Mountain, which had me all the way up until the final chapters, where is just fizzled out and died.

One of my favorite books listed here was The Basic Eight.  It was really well written, and the characters were well developed.  It had the kind of twist ending that you don't really see coming until right before it does.  I recommend reading the summary, if you want to get an idea for how amazing this read really was.  I also really enjoyed Pretty Girls (and the accompanying novella Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes).  They are the kind of books that scare you because you know that this kind of thing really happens.  Definitely not reading you should do right before you go to sleep.

Have you read any of the books on this list?  What's that last good book you have read?