Adapting

My home in Lark Circle offered a lot of privacy.  Maybe, in hind sight, too much privacy and things I could take for granted there, I have to be careful of here.

I'm not used to living so close to my neighbors.  We had quite the buffer zones between us and our yards and homes were situated so that if we were in the back yard, we really didn't pay that much attention to each other.  Here is a little different though.  The cats don't have the space they once had.  Jerry had a bit of an ordeal which I wrote about the other night.  He was used to wide open spaces.  He doesn't have that here.

My old house was built backwards, too, so most of the time, I was in rooms that didn't face the street.  Not so much here...with the blinds open,, everything pretty well is on display.  They're little things that I have to learn to adjust to.

Trash is another adjustment.  They gave me this wee-dinky little trash can.  A private company picks up the trash.  They'll pick up bagged trash for an extra fee.  I just moved in here, so there's gonna be bagged trash.  They actually keep count by your address and bill you for it at the end of the month.  Maybe in a couple of weeks, the wee-dinky can will be OK.

Recycling bottles and cans is a thing.  There's a ten cent charge for each one.  That adds up quick.  One day this week, I'm off to try my hand at turning in cans and bottles.  I probably have like $5 already from the kids being here last week.  

I went to Home Depot today and to Harbor Freight.  My old garage was nowhere near as nice as my new one but it has no storage shelves or cupboards like my old garage did.  It was almost 200 miles round trip.  The nearest Home Depot/Lowes is in Roseburg.  Pretty drive.  Long day, though.  So that's a trip for when the list of stuff is longer than it's worth to pay shipping.  Paying the freight is something else I need to learn how to do.

The Ace Hardware store here has a better selection of hardware than I have seen in most larger stores.  They have just about everything.  They didn't have what I wanted today, but they did have something I needed that was better than what I wanted.  So that worked out.  They also sold me a BBQ earlier in the week.  It was just what I wanted and they had one.  They guy told me that lawnmowers and grills were getting hard to come by this summer.

I have to go to the lumber store this week.  I haven't bought lumber at a lumber store since I lived by Sutherland's.  They had a yard.  You got a yard ticket for what you bought and you paid for it in the store, then you loaded it.  This lumber store also has a yard.  I have to learn that it's not one-stop shopping anymore.

Wal-mart is here, but they're frequently about half out of stuff.  A lot of people must come to Coos Bay to shop there.  Finding things has been kinda difficult, but not impossible.  There's a Fred Meyer here (think Smith's; same company...different name) so I can find things I like there.  But it's a drive; it's not just down the road like it was in Ogden.  

Those are adapting things.  It's kind of an adventure and I'm not lamenting the old by any means.  New everything requires adapting and changing. It's all part of leaving what was and growing into what is.  With God's help, I hope it's a smooth transition.