This just in: Last Frontier Gardener finds home!

And perhaps just as important, a garden.  Some of you may recall that we recently sold our home (and my garden) of ten years.  For a refresher on my angst click here.  I have been gardenless (and homeless) for over a month.  Not homeless in the street person sense, but shoehorning four people into a one bedroom apartment doesn’t make me feel like calling this itty bitty place “home”.

On the upside, our little rental does have a few perks.  I have the city bus schedule for a stop by our window memorized.  And for those looking to rent or buy in the area, the police response time is fantastic.  Three sirens a day is typical, but all bets are off on Friday or Saturday nights.  My record is eight in a row, but that included the ambulance and fire trucks, too.  I won’t mention the incident of the inebriated pedestrian falling into the road and getting hit across the street, but you get the idea by now.

Another perk, for some: we’ve got built-in babysitters.  My sister lives next door.  My brother lives upstairs.  And my mother’s office is two doors down.  We’re like the Clampett version of the Kennedys and their family compound in Massachusetts.  I’m trying to convince my other sister to move in, but strangely, inexplicably, she has resisted the idea so far.  Maybe she doesn’t want to babysit my kids.

And finally, the best perk of all, my vehicle now has a remote auto-start function.  So on those cold days (like the miserable, single digit weather we had last week) I can press a button in my apartment and my car starts, warms up, and manages not to get stolen before I get in it.  This delightful feature would never have been installed without the on-street parking we now enjoy.  A few weeks of the cold temps and the LFG hubby broke down and took the cars in for the old fixeroo.  Thank you, bitterly cold weather, thank you!

So I’ll be really sad to leave all this, as you can see.  But we are to sign our lives away (otherwise known as closing on a house) this week.  Wish me luck, or at least, a well with no arsenic in the water.

Any good reasons for living next to family?  On a busy street?