Greg Adkins, you'll always have my vote!

It's election time around the country and the political campaigns are in full swing.  I think we get 3 or 4 pre-recorded campaign phone calls a day (lovely).  I promise this "house blog" isn't going to turn into a political discussion, but in light of the current elections, I wanted to give a "shout out" to our City Councilman, Greg Adkins.  Greg Adkins, you'll always have my vote (well, that is, until our house sells, and we resettle in another town.)  Here's why, as long as we're residents of 330 Lynn Drive, we'll always want Greg Adkins representing our great neighborhood.

When we moved to 330 Lynn Drive in January 2006, we had lots of friends and family visiting us in our new home (which we LOVED!).  However, we had quite the dilemma!  It was always hard to explain which street was "Lynn Drive."  When you turn off of Harding Place onto Danby, you come to the intersection of Danby and Lynn.  Normally, there's a nice little green street sign atop the stop sign that would be visible for our friends and family to see.  However, there wasn't one.  Well, actually there WAS a street sign atop the stop sign.  See, the stop sign is right here in this picture.  You see it, right?  Behind that tree.  It's there, I promise.  I know you can't see it, but it's there.

 

Maybe this arrow helps.  See it??  It's behind the tree there on the left.

Okay, so it's really not that visible, so I'll zoom in a little here.  Now, you can see it.  Right there by the arrow.

This stop sign is situated behind this 20 foot tall tree, so the "Lynn Drive" sign was there telling my friends and family that they had arrived at our street.  Sadly, however, they just couldn't see it.

So, I decided that I should contact my City Councilman to see if it was possible to get an official "Lynn Drive" sign atop the stop sign on the east side of the Danby Avenue/Lynn Drive intersection.  Our neighborhood has a fabulous little newsletter about happenings in the neighborhood, and in the newsletter, I found contact information for Greg Adkins.  I emailed Greg and explained the "hidden street sign" dilemma.  I had a response from Greg within 24 hours.  He assured me that he had forwarded my email on to the city and that they would take care of this.  Being the skeptic that I am, I thought, "Yeah, right!  They'll NEVER do anything about this."

Thankfully, I was wrong!  Within 2 days of receiving Greg's email, the city had a crew on our street.  They moved the "Lynn Drive" sign from the stop sign on the west side of the intersection to the east side of the intersection.  See the results here?

It was so nice to have this done!  It was so much easier to direct people to our home after that, and we've been enjoying it ever since!  So, when you turn onto Lynn Drive to come "home" to your new home or when you're able to direct friends and family to your home with ease, just remember to thank your Councilman, Greg Adkins.

Old house = old trees

We're selling our sweet, little house and moving because of my husband's new job.  We have looked briefly at homes for sale in the town where we're moving.  The town is actually relatively "young."  As HUGE fans of old houses, it's been interesting to find out that there aren't many of those in this town.  Most of the homes have been built in the last 25 years.  As we peruse the internet looking at various houses, there's one thing that we've noticed.  Most homes do not have mature trees growing on their lots.  Of course, this makes total sense since the homes are newer.  Since we've only lived in older homes, we've always enjoyed mature trees with shady yards.  So, when we move, one of my first tasks will be to plant trees around our house.  Hopefully, we'll live there for years and years and years and get to watch them grow and eventually enjoy their shade.  I've gotten spoiled here at 330 Lynn Drive because we have shade trees growing all around our home.  It's been DELIGHTFUL for when our kiddos play outside, and it's also been easy on the wallet!  The shade from the trees help us use less energy to cool our house in the spring and summer.

The TALL trees in our backyard!  I couldn't get  tops of the trees in the picture because they're SO HUGE!

These pictures were taken at 2:00 pm on one of the hottest days (low 90s) that we've had in about 6 weeks.  Yes, it IS the end of September, and it's almost Fall!  No, I don't know why we're having 90 degree weather!  :)  I digress.  You will enjoy the beauty and shade from these fabulous trees at 330 Lynn Drive!

Enjoy a fun afternoon in the shady backyard!

12 minutes

I drove from 330 Lynn Drive to Costco (our family's favorite!!) in Cool Springs.  It took 12 minutes.  Ahhhhhhhh, I LOVE our location!!!

Are those monkeys that I hear?

Yes, those are monkeys that you're hearing especially if it's 9:00 a.m. or noon at 330 Lynn Drive!  Our neighborhood backs up to the southern perimeter of the Nashville Zoo.  There is a back entrance to the Zoo that is in walking distance from our house!  (Too bad it's an Employees Only entrance!).  We have THOROUGHLY enjoyed living 2 minutes from the Nashville Zoo.  We've gotten a Zoo membership every year (thank you, Grandparents!), and it's been WELL worth it!  We love to go in the late afternoon about an hour before closing and let our kids have free reign of their MASSIVE playground or go right when they open in the mornings as the animals are first waking up.  We love going at odd times to beat the crowds.  It's a great zoo, and it's improved by leaps and bounds in the 4 1/2 years since we moved here!  My kids love the farm animals, meerkats, flamingos (which just arrived this month!!), and the monkeys!!

Speaking of MONKEYS (Gibbons to be exact!)...the Nashville Zoo has a very cool habitat for Gibbons.  The Gibbon Island is one of the first animal exhibits that you'll see when you visit the Zoo.  If you've been to the Nashville Zoo, you'll know that these Gibbons yell, hoop, and scream at different times during the day.  They do this as a form of communication with each other.  It's hilarious (and quite loud) when they get their windpipes going!  My kiddos always love it!

The funny thing about these Gibbons is that you can hear their yells at our house!  We don't hear them every day and it is a faint noise, but you CAN hear them!  My kids love it!  They start yelling (almost as loud as the monkeys themselves!), "Monkeys, Mommy! It's the monkeys!"  So, not only do we have lots of wildlife in our yard--squirrels, chipmunks, and the occasional duck visiting our creek--we have the occasional monkey communicating to us!  :)  I'm sure that I could ask one of the Zookeepers to find out the reason for this, but we only hear the monkeys at 9:00 am and at Noon.  Maybe they're singing for their breakfast and lunch!

I still remember our first week in our house.  I went outside one morning to get the newspaper, and I heard this faint yell.  I immediately panicked!  I thought someone was in danger, and I immediately began brainstorming how I could find out where they were in order to help them!  Once I stopped and listened more closely, I realized that it wasn't a woman yelling for help, it was one of the Gibbons from the Nashville Zoo!  ha!  So, when you move in and get settled at 330 Lynn Drive, don't panic when you hear a scream, it's probably Bahari or Muppet singing for their breakfast!

I love my SINK!!

Do you remember this post when I told you about the overabundance of peach inside 330 Lynn Drive when we bought her?  Yes, we parted ways with the peach all over the house.  The kitchen was one of the last rooms where we bid the peach paint farewell.  As we were remodeling the kitchen, the guy who put in our countertops asked us if we wanted to change out the sink when he installed them.  YES, YES, YES, YES!  This was our immediate reply! 

The sink that was in the house when we bought it reminded me of the sink in my first apartment.  The wells of each side of the sink only went down about 4 inches, and they were shaped in a perfect square.  So, if I put a couple of SMALL things in my sink, it looked like the dishes were falling out of the sink onto the counter!  I LOVE to cook, so anytime I used my 9x13 dish or any of my pots and pans, they were almost impossible to get clean.  The square shape made it hard to corral the dishes, and it was tricky getting them under the faucet just "so-so" in order to clean.

Viola!  Our new sink has been my BFF these past 4 1/2 years.  With an 8-10 inch depth in both wells, I'm able to easily, handily scrub my pots and pans sparkly clean.  If you'll notice in the picture above, the 2 wells in the sink are 2 different sizes.  LOVE IT!  My 9x13 pan easily fits on the left side; I always have to leave it in to soak for a while (thanks to my Baked Oatmeal dish that we have each morning for breakfast).

Who knew what JOY would be found at 330 Lynn Drive when we replaced our sink!  I think I'll have to replace the countertops at our next house JUST to have an excuse to put in this same sink!

Fresh Green Beans+Moon Pies=Good Neighbors

We love our neighborhood for millions of reasons, and one of the reasons is our great neighbors!  The picture here captures the generosity of our neighbors, who we are so thankful for! 

One of our neighbors has a vending machine business.  Can you guess which item came from him?  Last week, our kiddos ran inside our house with eyes the size of half dollars when our neighbor gave them this box of Moon Pies.  He gives them treats like these all the time, and they adore him for it!  With both sets of our children's grandparents living outside of Nashville, they're thankful to have been adopted by Mr. Wes next door!  We're also thankful that Mr. Wes has tons of tools and equipment that he lets us borrow.  Thanks to him, we've never had to buy a ladder since we moved in!

The fresh green beans appeared on our front door last week from our other neighbor.  I've had some good laughs with her, too.  She also has 3 kids of the same gender like me.  Both of our kids are spaced apart exactly the same, and our last 2 children both had the same birth weight (a whopping 9 lbs. 2 oz.!).  Her kiddos are all in their 20s and have left home.  She tells me that I'm living her life 20 years later.  We've traded out toys for her grandchild, and she was so gracious to let me borrow clothes her grandchild had outgrown when we had our latest little one last year.

I think it was Robert Frost who wrote, "Good fences make good neighbors."  I would add that Moon Pies, ladders, fresh green beans, and children's clothes do too!

Reason #1,048 why we love our creek...

This is how we spend our Saturday mornings at 330 Lynn Drive!  Our kiddos LOVE exploring in the creek, looking for water bugs & tadpoles, and getting into some good ol' dirt!