1 Month

It is so hard to believe that it has been a month already since I arrived in Harvey. At the same time, it feels like I have always been here.  Very hard to explain.  Our belongings FINALLY arrived on August 21st after missing their contracted arrival date of August 8. Needless to say, I am now busy trying to get the house organized. I cannot stand having boxes everywhere!  Even having bunches of empty boxes in my garage is driving me crazy. It does provide extra motivation to get things unpacked, put away and get those boxes to our local recycling center!  The cats are thrilled to have their cat trees and we are thrilled that they have things to scratch at other than our new carpet! It is so nice to be surrounded by your own things again... the house really feels like home. In so many ways, it does remind me of our Elk Grove home.... but, this one is almost more cozy. I like it. I really, really like it : ) Of course, it is amazing how everything had a 'place' in one house but then there is never room in a new house! I'm having to find new, creative ways of storing our valuable belongings and I have to keep reminding myself that we have a basement!! A big, usable basement!
Work has been busy!! Goodness, the time usually goes by pretty quick but it can sure wear me out!  I'm learning to use the land and residential appraisal computer programs, how to look up FSA and Soil maps, keeping our real estate ad in the local paper up to date, writing up new real estate properties and so much more. It actually has been a lot of fun learning an industry that I knew very little about. Phillip is pushing me to get my real estate license sooner vs later. He has actually already ordered my book!!  I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed with the house so I'd prefer to start in October or so. The program can be completed online and I'll have up to 3 months to complete it.  We have been getting about one new listing a week so there is definitely the business in the area! We will see.  Work has been good. I love walking to/from work and love being able to come home for lunch. No more frozen lunches for me!!  Very exciting. We have one other gal that works in the office 1 day a week and I really like her!  She and her husband are a little younger than us, have been married for about a year and do not smoke! Yay! We have yet together outside of work (except when I volunteered at the cinema) but I'll invite them over soon (once I get my kitchen/dining room organized!). The cinema.... it is ran by volunteers!! All of the local businesses volunteer like one evening (like 30 minutes) to man the cash registers and sell popcorn.  The volunteers can either watch the movie for free or get a movie pass : )  It was fun!  It was also nice to see people from the community.
Phillip's grandma Van recently showed her stallion in Brandon, Manitoba (Canada) and was able to stay with us for a few days. It was such a nice visit! Phillip was able to take the weekend off and while we actually did very little, it was so nice having her here. It was wonderful to share our new home with family : )
The weather has been amazing... just lovely.  We've had very little rain the past two weeks, which is making all of the farmers very happy!! I think we might get a good storm tonight, which will make my lawn very happy!  By mid-September things should start to cool down. We are looking forward to the fall!! Fall has always been my favorite season and I am looking forward to a North Dakota fall!!  We keep hearing horror stories about the amounts of snow from the past few winters, but I am still looking forward to it! Of course, ask me again in January.  We have met several of our neighbors and the lady that we bought the house from (Lena) is now living across the street. She was thrilled to meet me and had bunches of questions about how I liked the house, the town, what are things like in California, etc : ) She will be 92 in October and she sure looks amazing.  She was thrilled that I found a job since that means we might stick around for awhile : )
Phillip is almost done with his training.  Soon he will be 'marked' up and will be riding as the only conductor with the engineer on the train. He will mostly be working on the road this first year.. taking the train up to Portal (right across the Canadian border) and back. It does mean that he will be spending some regular time away from home but luckily, the housing facilities are not too bad in Portal. He is still adjusting to his new scheduling (being on call), working long days (sometimes 12-15 hours), and being away from home (probably the hardest part), but it seems to be going pretty well. He keeps telling me that he does not plan to do this for the next 30 years... I smile and suggest that he makes it through the first year first : )
It has been an adjustment moving to north dakota, but one month into it and I'd say it was a good move for us : )