Split Lives and Finally Settling In

Early June found us in Sacramento with our horses boarding at Gibson Ranch, a temporary living space at an Apartment in the suburb of Arden Arcade, and a house in downtown. Our belongings from Oregon were delivered the day after the purchase of the house had closed, but we had much of it stored in the garage with the furnishings placed in the house with their protective wrappings still in place. The house needed the interior walls (and some ceilings) repainted and so we lived in the apartment while we painted the house. How long could the interior painting possibly take, right?

We fitted out the apartment with just enough to live, which included an inflatable mattress, minimal kitchen supplies, Internet, a television and some camp chairs. For us it was living in its most basic form, but we did not intend to spend much time at the apartment. Each morning Elayne would drop me off at the house and then drive over to care for the horses a half an hour away. I would work on the house through the morning and when Elayne returned we had lunch (something simple brought from the apartment) and we would work together until dinner time. We'd then drive back to the apartment and have dinner while watching TV. The apartment was fine and the complex nice enough (we took advantage of the workout room, but not the pool), but it was not particularly relaxing. And so at the end of each day we would watch a couple of episodes of M*A*S*H starting with season one (as of this entry we are mid way through season 5): call it a slow binge watch.

In previous blog entries I had spoken harshly about suburbs. I was far too kind.  It was a stark, ugly and depressing time where everyday we had to spend far too much time on stroads straddled, as they are, with unimaginable ugliness. We foolishly tried to walk to as many places as possible for the first week or so, but these areas are designed for cars and not people.

The only thing we could do was push forward on the house so we could move as soon as possible. Every now and then we would take a morning or evening off to walk the city, hike in the surrounding hills or ride the horses, but other than these isolated events we worked eight to twelve hours a day seven days a week on the house. Much of the painting was simple: cut the walls, roll the walls, cut the trim, paint the trim and repeat for the next room. But the living room and the front bedroom had metal windows that were rusting with badly flaking paint, and for these I had to scrape off the old paint (wearing a Tyvek suit with respirator and HEPA shop-vac running because of the old lead paint), then prime the metal frames with a rust blocker, and finally paint them. All of the interior door hardware had been painted over (a pet peeve of mine) and so I had to either use paint remover or scrape all of these down as well (for most of the hinges I simply replaced them with reproductions). This all proved to be tedious and slow work and we did not move into the house until mid July: a full month and a half after we began. And there were still more things that needed painting or repairing or updating and so it was only in early August that we felt the house was far enough along that we could begin to relax and do other things (in addition to the work that still needed to be done).

Life in our new neighborhood is much more pleasant than at the apartment. Restaurants, theaters, stores and all manner of amenities are just a walk away (often a short walk at that). The Wednesday midtown market is about a mile away. Multiple streets are closed to traffic to create a festive pedestrian friendly, fun and safe place to shop for all manner of goods. And the downtown Sunday farmer's market is closer still with an emphasis on locally produced produce and groceries. We can catch all manner of films at the Tower theater, which is three blocks away, and there are a wide variety of activities held almost weekly in the surrounding parks. Just walking for miles around the city is pleasant and entertaining, although to get in a real hike with elevation change requires a good bit of driving up into the Sierra Nevadas.

Things here are not perfect. We have more noise here than in any other place where we've lived. "The heat was hot" and there's a lot of it. DMV fees are incredibly high and it cost far more to import and register our out of state vehicles than I thought (something I missed in my research). And with Elayne going out to care for the horses at least once each day our fuel costs are higher than expected. Most other expenses are close to what I predicated from researching the cost of living here. 

We are finally starting to settle into our life in Sacramento and already have favorite restaurants and shops that we frequent. And we have a handful of local and regional trips coming up in the next month, but they will be the focus of the next update.