Life @ the MITT

Paul and I have been successfully living at our new home at the busy corner of Taft and Moorman for about a month and a half. We've noticed that people we know LOOOOOVE to talk about home ownership, and the very first question we are asked of any acquaintance is not, "How are you," but "How's the house?!" I think this is quite the hilarious question - - what sort of answer are they looking for? I usually feel like giving a sarcastic answer, like "It's still standing!" so I thought I would give a nice, long answer to that question here on the old blog.
First, moving day was quite successful. It started at about 9:00 am when Scott D arrived early and championed that saggy leather couch down the skinny stairwell with Paul. It only got stuck twice - in the doorway from the apartment to the hallway and around the second bend. We were completely unloaded and into the Mitt by 11:30. It was record time. Poor AP and Paul took all day and well into the night moving us last time. We had lots of great friends who were eager to help for a little pizza. The first thing I need to talk about living at the Mitt is the traffic. Little did we know we were moving to the corner of the BUSIEST INTERSECTION IN ALL OF CINCINNATI. Its actually quite pleasant and quiet most hours of the day, but from 7:30 to 8:00 am and from 4:30 to 6:00 pm there are 15-25 cars waiting in line in front of our house to make a left hand turn onto Taft. It looks like people needing to get down to Columbia Pkwy via Taft find it faster to cut down from Madison on Moorman rather than waiting SAFELY at two left turn signals at Woodburn and and again at Taft. They would rather wait in a long line where they inch by inch make their way to the intersection, and when they finally get there they can barely peer around the corner building (see above) and watch for an opening in the traffic. Then you hear each car PEEL OUT as they make their death-defying turn avoiding being hit by cars speeding up the hill. We heard a wreck our first morning here. People are nuts.
#2: We are responsible. Its rather hard getting used to actually having to DO STUFF . We loved renting, and that's why we waited 5.5 years to by a house. When the toilet was not working, we just called Kevin, and bam! it was fixed. Now we have to do it all. And we don't know the first thing about 95% of what needs to be done! For instance, the mixer on the upstairs shower is broken, hot water only trickles out of the bathroom faucet, there is a strange smell (sewer gas?) coming from the downstairs "unfortunate" bathroom, there are flashing issues around the chimney on the roof, there is no power going to the guest bedroom light, etc. We even have to think about cleaning out the gutters!? Who knew? Above: Paul sweeping the gutter out on the roof over the porch. Nice view! #3. See pic above. Need I say more? We bought a lawnmower. It's electric. That is me mowing my first EVER lawn. Being able to plug it in is much less intimidating that starting a gas engine I must say... It gets really heavy when the bag is full of grass - which leads me to another enigma - what to do with those grass clippings and leaves. Living in Over the Rhine we never noticed anyone bagging up grass in paper sacks or labeling trash cans with large white letters saying "YARD WASTE." We had to ask around on that one. The house looks much classier now that the yard is getting mowed. Amazing.#4. This lovely house was built in 1880 - and apparently they didn't have stuff back then since none of the closets are big enough to hold any. So we (well, Paul) had to go around and build shelves in all the closets so we could actually stack stuff in them. It was a big task, but Paul persevered and now all our stuff is nicely stacked and stored. Check out his fancy home improvement attire: baggy Bengals shirt, pajama pants, giant house shoes, sunglasses. Priceless. He also re-built the cool box/window seat in the dining room, and we painted all the woodwork downstairs. #5. Gardening - this is one of my favorite parts of now owning a house. We dug up the beds out front and planted all kinds of pretty flowers in tidy rows. They are starting to grow a little bigger now, they just need some sunshine now after all that rain the last two weeks.
#6. IKEA. The new Ikea is one of the biggest blessings we have here in Cincy - and it opened just two days before we closed on the house - perfect timing. We've taken 4 trips out there since we've moved in, and even got to take my parents when they visited the Mitt a couple weeks ago. We are pumped to get our dining room table (thanks Mom and Dad!) - hopefully in just a couple weeks....
Paul chillin' at IKEA.
Dad wasn't as good at striking a sexy pose as Paul, but he still looks cute in red.
#7. Gifts. My friend Pat from work bought us a bottle of wine as a house-warming gift. Its a bottle of Barefoot Merlot - she had told me a story a few days earlier about how your new house doesn't feel like home until you get up in the middle of the night and walk to the bathroom barefoot. Its true - I have only recently been going without shoes in the Mitt, and it definitely is feeling more like home. Mom brought us a bag of kitchen towels (our grandma's traditional houswarming/hostess gift) and aunt Jackie brought us a cute "candle warmer" that burns a candle safely without a flame.
#8. The neighborhood. We love living in this new neighborhood. We are starting to meet neighbors, talk to the kids, sit on the step and watch the cars fly by, etc. Our very favorite part is spending mornings drinking coffee and chai at Moca, the local coffee shop. The employees already know us well (probably b/c they know Jenn and well, we look just alike) and they serve delicious breakfast sandwiches. We also live next to a knitting store - one day Jenn called me on her way home from work and told me the people from the knitting store were KNITTING SWEATERS ON THE TREES. She told me I had to check it out - photo above. Not sure if they trees were chilly or what, but now they are all wearing chic striped sweaters...

ADDENDUM: Jenn asked that this be a "proper" top ten list, so here are items 8 and 9:
#9. EBAY. When we bought the Mitt there was a HUGE hole in the floor where a HUGE floor grate used to be. So, we did what any other homeowner would do and searched ebay high and low for an iron grate, and sure enough, we found one. We painted it black and plopped it in, and what do you know, it fits perfectly! Its funny, large dogs that have visited our house (Henry Morrow and Henri Schlaudecker) have been very afraid of walking on the grate, although Cerby Beyer, the tiny yet mighty dog, was not scared at all. Small children such as Noah Schlaudecker (above) seem to be handling it just fine as well....#10. Flying Pig. We moved a couple miles from downtown, and we are still very close to the marathon route! This is (unfortunately) the only pic I got of Jenn & Justin as I was standing out in front of St. Ursula Academy watching the race. Jenn is absolutely flipping out to see me. This pic just shows how truly wonderful the marathon is.

So, there you have it. We like it so far, but there is SO MUCH TO DO. We're excited to make it ours. As I was typing this email, Paul is at home and just spoke with a neighbor who lives down the street named YVONNE. She lived in our house for 50 years! She lives in an apartment further down Moorman now. She was so excited to get to talk to Paul, and told him all kinds of stories about what it was like living and growing up there. She was very excited to see that we had planted flowers and told him where there were rose bushes, etc. She is excited to come back and meet me and bring over pictures of the house through the years!