My Year at the River. The beginning.

That's the river bank just outside my kitchen window.

It may take a while to explain how I got here. So I won't do that right now. The thing is, I'm here now and I'm going to see what a year here feels like.

"Here" is a much-added-on-to former fisherman's cabin along the Flatrock River in Shelby County.  I've been working on this place, with the help of friends and family and a plumber, for almost a year.  My original intention was to have it as a weekend place to swim and entertain.  Then, at the end of December, I sold my house in the city where I'd lived for almost 8 of the 14 years I spent in downtown Indianapolis, and last Wednesday I moved into the cabin full-time.

Now I'm trying to call it a "cottage" instead of a cabin. I guess that really more fully expresses what it seems like.  It's not particularly rustic. I have heat, a washer and dryer (thanks to my plumber) and a flush toilet. What I don't have yet is working tv or much access to the internet. Thanks for that alleged 4g network, Verizon, guess it doesn't reach into the river valley. But anyway, here I am at the river "cottage." Planning to spend a year and see what happens. If I can't deal with rural life after so fully embracing urbanness, I'll rent an apartment in the city again after 6 months. If I'm here 6 months then I consider it a good experiment. A year, even better. Maybe longer. Time will tell. And I'll tell you how it's going.

Thanks to my plumber, today I once again have water. This morning after giving the cats their usual bathtub faucet drink and before getting my teeth brushed, the water froze. Since plumber Dave and I have become quite friendly following the installation of washer lines and a new well pump, I called his cell and he showed up at lunch to melt me out.

Word. Basement crawl space walls need new insulation. I've been pretty impressed with the amount of insulation in this place but the stuff that's down there has become crispy. Crispy insulation doesn't insulate that well. But he got it going and put a utility light into the crawl space for heat.

Speaking of heat, the baseboard heaters in the kitchen started tripping the breaker yesterday. After pushing it back on several times I asked for some advice from my son, Zack, who said I shouldn't do that. So right now there isn't heat coming out of the baseboard heaters. I've done a bit of baking and thanks to big south-facing windows have gained a lot of solar warmth, so it's tolerable, but hardly toasty.  I was feeling pretty sorry for myself about the heat situation until the water situation seemed worse. Getting water back has made me a little more tolerant of a cool kitchen. Zack will hopefully sort out the breaker box on Sunday and I'll be back to only needing to worry about where all the stuff that's still in boxes is going to go.

Turns out the real estate figures that said this house was 1300 sq. ft. must have been counting the unheated walkout basement, cause I have not been able to figure out how to fit the stuff from my small 1065 sq. ft. former house into the livable space of the clearly not 1300 sq. feet of cottage yet. I did a lot of purging before I came. But then I'd purchased some furniture for the cabin before I realized I'd be calling it a cottage -- and Home. And I am minus two book shelves here.

Hm. It's hard to give up on a book or any of my good chairs. I'll make it fit.