Things I've Learned as a First-time Homeowner

Disclaimer: I wrote most of this post a month ago, but have been so busy I never actually posted it. However - it still applies :)

Things I've Learned as a First-time Homeowner

• Never tell the seller to leave whatever they don't want. You might end up with some great free stuff (i.e. a handsome plaid couch, leaf rake, push brooms, electric blower, miscellaneous yard tools, brand new frying pans, and a fantastically weird fist-shaped flagpole holder), but you will also inherit piles and piles and piles of junk. 
• Neighbors who offer to let you fill up their garbage can with all the junk you inherited and even help you load it, in their nice clothes, no less, are more valuable even than neighbors who bring you cookies. 
• Ivy is a beast. Why anyone would ever voluntarily plant a creeping, crawling, highly invasive leafy plant that is super hard to remove is beyond me. 
• Ivy is also WAAAAYYYY easier to pull out after it's rained. 
• Crawlspaces aren't as scary with lights turned on.
• Blogger should come up with some kind of sync-to-my-brain feature, so I can write blog posts while doing tedious things like pulling out ivy.
• It's really easy to make friends. I have hundreds of friends wanting to be my friend every day. Trouble is they all have six legs and like to crawl on my counters and eat my food. I don't want to be friends with those kind of friends. 
• Mice are really cute when they're in books and movies, wearing sweaters and talking about Copernicus. When they're dead on your driveway or smashed in a mousetrap they're a little less cute. 
• Brand new carpet is basically the best thing my toes have ever experienced. 
• Clothes left in dryers in a humid climate smell like damp socks the next day. 
• Turns out that refrigerator doors aren't actually supposed to swing shut on their own, like ours in Provo did. Who knew?
• When building a kitchen, always consider the following important questions: Where is the garbage can going to go? and Where is the microwave going to go? and If I install this giant island in my small kitchen, will the refrigerator door still be able to open?
• Fire pits go great with houses, but fires in August when there is NO BREEZE are actually a little uncomfortable.
• Bird feeders are just squirrel feeders in disguise.
• Always install the security system controls next to the most frequently used door - not next to the door all the way around the corner in a different room. 
• Grass is sort of a fluid concept. If it's green and soft and grows, it counts as grass, right?
• Good neighbors are just as important as a good house.
• House stuff is expensive - but hey, we anticipated that, so really, that's not something we just barely learned.
• Always be on the lookout for GIANT spiderwebs when walking between tall objects.

All in all we are loving our new place and are confident we made the right decision. We have lots and lots of work to do and have definitely had some ups and downs so far, especially when it comes to the ants that have been a semi-recurring problem over the last two months - but things are going well and we're enjoying being here. Our neighbors are so nice - we had three offers to borrow a lawnmower, one of which offered us their spare mower for the rest of the season. Ryan's bus stop is literally a hundred feet from our porch, but only one bus route comes through so it isn't too busy. There's a great creek behind our property that leads to a little bridge Jack loves to throw sticks off of. We have a great shed we can store things in - once we repair the door - and we're loving all the space we have to spread out in.