If I ran the world of real estate, and I don't, I would put some new rules in place. Before you purchase a car you get to test drive it and a car isn't nearly the investment that a house is. I think you should be allowed to live in the house you are proposing to buy for a couple of days at least to find out all the quirks the house has. And yes, I understand there may be some logistical problems with this, I'm just stating my fantasy world of real estate.
For instance, we have found out that our master shower is about the size of one you would find in an RV. If you want to shave your legs in this shower you have to have your bum up against one wall, then get your foot up to the height of your waist where there is a small shelf to rest your foot on. The other option is to try to bend to the floor, however there is no where to point the water so it just rinses all your shaving cream off before you ever get the blade to your leg. I've told Ed that we either need to raise the shower head by 2 feet, or lower the floor by 2 feet. However, what they didn't skimp on was the bath tub. It's deep and huge and in just a few years I'm sure neither Ed or I will be able to lift our legs high enough to get in or out of it and we'll be calling Terry Bradshaw to replace it with a walk in tub.
The other thing that I'm having a hard time getting used to are the locks. They all turn to the left instead of the right, which is wrong. You know how the toilets in Australia swirl in the opposite direction than the US, I wonder if the locks came from Australia. Either that or the house was built by a left handed person. Or maybe it was a left handed Australian? Whoever it was, I think my lefty mom is going to feel right at home here.
Last week we had a gardener come out to the house to trim up our palm tree. I have never maintained a palm tree before and watched as the guy put a rope around his waist and around the tree, then scaled up to trim off the dead branches. So, um, yeah.... I'm not doing that. However, on his way out from our backyard he bumped our gas meter. Here's a California lesson for you. All of the gas meters have an earthquake emergency shut off valve on them. If you shake or bump your gas fixture it will shut your gas off to your house. Makes sense doesn't it? But then you have me and Ed out there trying to figure out how to switch the gas back on. For those of you that don't know, Ed and I are two of the least handy people you have ever met. So after a post to the nextdoor app, we found out the problem was the earthquake valve. Awesome! How do you fix that? Enter YouTube video. I found a 2 minute video on how to reset your earthquake valve which was super easy. Of course before we found that video Ed was out there flip levers and pushing buttons without knowing what they go to or what they will do... you know, as men do. I can't speak for other women, but this woman has a healthy respect for gas and all things combustible. So we got the gas back on, cooked dinner and figured all was well. That is until we sent the kiddo's off to take their showers.
I was getting ready to enjoy the 15 minutes of silence that I get when I send the children to take their showers, (these are golden times). The next thing I see is my naked son with his two hands covering his boy parts and telling me that the water won't heat up. They were off the hook for the night for showers and the next day Ed fiddled with the water heater to no avail. He ever downloaded the manual for our water heater, which really impressed me! We have a tankless water heater so there is no pilot light to relight. After a few failed attempts we resolved ourselves to calling a plumber and discovered that we are probably too stupid to own a house. After the best plumber in CA came out here we found the source of the problem was that Ed had flipped a lever that piped gas to our water heater. So we moved the lever back to the open position, got some hot water going and the plumber left without accepting any kind of payment from us. And yes, he has our business for good now.
We are not the only ones getting used to different things in the new house. The dogs are having their first experience with a sliding glass door. At the old house there was a back door that they couldn't see through. This sliding glass door thing is a constant source of entertainment for me. The first couple of days I watched as first the big dog came running at full speed only to crash into the glass. Then just because she's dumb as a brick, the little dog did the exact same thing. The next time I witnessed this I was outside with both dogs and Lucy our cat had found a sunny spot just inside the door and was lounging there. The dogs caught sight of her and again come running full speed and smacked their heads on the glass door. The dogs took a step back and shook their heads, the cat didn't budge but continued her glare at them. Last night I watched as Tucker saw his reflection in the glass window and started barking at that dog outside. Both of these dogs might have concussions now, I hope they don't turn into doggie serial killers due to head trama.
The last couple of things I'm having a hard time getting used to are the size of the hawks around here. I swear they are the size of Tucker!
I also sometimes forget I'm in California, since we are in a farm area, the landscape sort of looks the same. That is until you see a corn field surrounded by palm trees. My brain tells my eyes, "That can't be right, are you sure that's what we're seeing?"
Lastly I'll post a few pictures of the family football toss. Ed took the kids into the backyard to toss the football around last night, which just thrilled me to the bone that the entire family was doing something non-video related.
