First Impressions/Thoughts: A List

1. It's been quite warm and sunny here - there were days that were about 25 degrees! The coldest it's been was around 9 degrees, and that was on our first day when it was overcast and rainy. No humidity at all!
2. The bugs here are ridiculous. They attack you the second you step outside and make you miserable for even thinking of leaving your house. Bug spray has been ineffective, and the bites they leave are big and angry looking. They're also jerks - I've had two bite me on the forehead. There's nothing to bite there!!!
3. There is more traffic (ATVs, trucks, etc.) passing by our house here, than there was in Ontario. I was looking forward to peace and quiet and I hear a lot of gravel crunching, trucks backing up, and children playing at all hours of the night.
4. The sun sets around 10:30pm and then it's a light-dark until about 4:00, so you can still see outside. It really messes with your system; especially when you hear the kids playing!
5. There are a lot of dogs here; most of them are chained outside their houses all day and look really bored.
6. The water and sewer trucks drive by constantly, but don't necessarily stop by your house on a set "schedule." We have been without water since yesterday morning, but thankfully, more of our stuff arrived so we had bottled water to use.
7. Groceries are expensive, but you learn to get over that pretty quickly because you need to eat.
8. It makes me sad/angry that once people are finished with their ATV or other toys, they just park it somewhere and walk away. The landscape is littered with abandoned vehicles. In the winter, they park their snowmobiles on the ice to let it melt and sink to the bottom. Grr!!
9. It's amazing how a simple thing like having your own dish rack arrive, can make a house feel more like home. For the first week, it felt like we were vacationing at someone's cottage because nothing here was ours and we were scrimping like squatters. We still don't have all of our stuff, nor our furniture...but it's slowly been arriving.
10. Even though we've literally been here a week, we find ourselves missing the strangest things. Things we wouldn't have wanted at home, but just because we can't have them - makes us want them.

Here's a picture of our lake that we took on the first day, just so you can see how beautiful our view is.

-L