First night in Tucson

We have spent our first 24 hours at our new house in Tucson! Our first night here happened to be Halloween night, lol! I didn’t see or hear anything that sounded haunted.

Here’s the view from our back patio last night, where I intend to spend most of my time for the next several months.

Note there are trees rather than houses looking down on us from back there! Even though we’re right in town, it’s a much more private backyard than we have in Albuquerque. Nothing out there but trees!

So far we love the house, although all the work that goes into moving is a bit overwhelming. And we don’t even have our furniture yet! We have to go back later this week, load a U-haul, and drive it out this coming weekend.

We’re doing the move in two trips. First trip out, I drove the van and John drove our pick-up truck with a load of stuff. The main purpose of this first trip was to do reconnaissance, and also to get the pick-up truck out there without having to tow it.

Then this coming weekend we’re going to drive back to Albuquerque in the van together, and then back out again with the van and the U-haul. I’ll have to drive the van the entire way back to Tucson by myself again, while John drives the U-haul. We’d fly back and drive the U-haul together if it weren’t for covid. But we’re not flying. So, that means lots of driving.

I’m not really strong enough yet to do a 7-hour straight drive by myself. On the way out we stayed overnight at a state park halfway here, and we’re going to do the same thing on the way out again next weekend. The park is a little bit out of our way, but worth it to break up the trip.

It’s a bizarre place; a group of crazy big rocks out in the middle of the desert.

We’re super excited to be in Tucson, and this house has a lot of potential. Although right now it’s rundown and too blue. Blue paint everywhere! At least 5 different shades of blue in the interior plus on the wall behind the pool. As soon as we get unpacked, we’re going to start painting. If not sooner!

John thinks we can do it ourselves, slowly, but I’m saying no. No, no, no, nope, not happening. We aren’t retired! He’s still working full time, I’m working part-time and not yet recovered from cancer. We came to Tucson to take walks, ride our bikes on the bike path, and swim in the pool. I came here to get my health back. Plus, we still have all of our regular work to do! We’re not adding bunches of big do-it-ourselves house remodel projects to our already-full schedule.

As soon as we’ve picked our new beige paint colors (which I admit, might require a tad bit of exploratory painting from those mini sample cans, which yes, ok, I’m willing to do a little bit of test painting), but then, once we’re sure exactly which shades of beige – not too yellow, not too pink, not too white, not too dark – then we’re hiring a painting company!

The bathrooms and kitchen need remodeled too – especially the kitchen. It’ll be a total gut job. That is also going to be done by a professional, but not immediately. I’m going to wait until covid is over before wandering around in tile and cabinet stores trying to decide on materials. Plus, we should save up some money for it first. A project for next year!

We did enjoy doing a little bit of gardening today. I trimmed some dead palm fronds and took out some volunteer mesquite suckers. John did some watering and general clean-up.

It’s a nice front yard with a variety of healthy desert plants. The back yard though – let’s just call that a “blank slate”. Potential! LOL. There’s nothing growing back there at the moment, but soon there will be bright red bougainvillea and citrus trees and (knowing John) probably more palms. I enjoy a little bit of yard work, if it’s not too tedious or strenuous. And the weather is amazing!!! No snow here. Just a bit windy today, but quite warm.

When I was working in the front yard I met our mailman, Roger, which was fortuitous because I didn’t know how to use our mailbox! I know that sounds idiotic, but it’s a locking mailbox to prevent theft, and I couldn’t figure out how to put outgoing mail into it. He kindly showed me where to clip the outgoing mail – I would not have figured it out myself!

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