The Wonderfulness o' Bein' Normal

I'm having an on-going experience with this New Life that feels almost child-like, but not quite.  I use the term in that way very young children seem to approach everything they encounter that's new... which is to say with a sense of wonderment and unbridled joy.  Therein lies the difference, of course, because none of this is new to me and every bit of it is trivial and mundane.  It's just life as we used to know it but it IS different.  Some observations:

Sleeping in a bed is good.  I worried about that, mainly because I only slept in my last spiffy bedroom when I had company over; the rest of the time I was on the couch.  Not this time; the fact the current bed is more comfortable than the futon pictured at right MIGHT have sumthin' to do with that.  While we're on the subject: my jury's out on the cost/benefit aspect of the Tempurpedic mattress.  I have no complaints but I ain't ready to record a gushing testimonial, either.  That's a lot o' money to spend on ambivalence.

Black furniture and dark counter tops require one helluva lot more housecleaning than I like, or am used to.  It's the DUST, Gentle Reader.  Ditto with walking around on tiled floors in my bare feet: I feel EVERY gotdamned mote o' dust.  My new Swiffer mop/dustmop is getting a lot o' use.

I still marvel at (a) the frost-free appearance of my freezer and (b) the (relatively) cavernous space therein... every single time I open it.  And never running out o' ice.  Same thing with the fridge: I no longer buy 12-packs of Dr. Pepper... it's two-liter bottles now.

While we're in the kitchen:  I have cabinet space I'll prolly never use.

More kitchen:  I feel guilty running the dishwasher after I exhaust my supply of beer glasses and coffee cups.  The entire top rack is full, the bottom rack less so.  But I do it anyway.

I no longer fear laundry.  Hell, I'm doing it every week... sometimes more... just for the novelty that's in it.  The downside?  I find myself wearing my favorite tee shirts over and over again.  That will wear 'em out right quick.

Muscle memory has finally died.  I raised my foot to flush the toilet for the first two weeks I was here.  And felt stoopid every single time.

I might have spent too much money on my office.  I find myself using the laptop either at the kitchen counter  in the morning (close to the coffee pot) or on the couch later in the day.  The desktop?  Hardly used at all... but that may be premature since I only set it up yesterday.  But I did have a temporary desk made out of boxes and such.

Accessible music.  We've been goin' on about this for at least a week now, but what was once old is all new again.  I recorded a lot o' my vinyl on cassette (like 30 90-minute cassettes, two albums per) before I shipped it off to SN2 these ten or so years ago and I've been playin' that stuff for the past three days.  Wonderful!

The verandah at El Casa Inmóvil de Pennington gets a LOT more use than the verandah at ECMdP, mainly coz it's more verandah-like than a slab o' concrete.  Speaking of ECMdP... it's wonderful to not be so in touch with the weather, like wind-speed.  No more worries about awnings flying away to Texas and it's always shady on the verandah now.

I prolly have more thoughts like these, but this is all that comes to mind right now.  I really should write this shit down, yanno?