When we made the decision to move away from where we have made our home for about seventeen years, there were a lot of factors considered. Not the least of which was simply how we felt where we were living. We lived in a small town and an even smaller, closely knit neighborhood within it. One of my friends used to joke to us that where we lived was “the 1950s” and I can understand why the joke worked. The houses were all sweet with white trim and actual picket fences abounded. There were flowers and porches and very one knew everyone else. Kids rode bikes and toasted marshmallows at fire pits on patios all summer long. To anyone driving through, like it was to us when we looked at the house the first time, it was pretty idyllic. For many of the people who still live there, it is. There are lots of great things about the town and the neighborhood but for my family they couldn’t outweigh what we found to be lurking just below the surface. 

The town where we lived has a lot of historic significance and because of that everything needed to look a certain way. I honestly think that is the main reason that so many of the people who I came in contact with there were concerned with the appearance of everything, all the time. We’re laid back people by nature, and frankly we are sort of slobs. That’s not a good thing when you live in a place that has (and enforces) a strict covenant about weeds, paint, curtains,