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.

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!

A NEW favorite spot...

As I mentioned in the previous post, we love the Ellington Agricultural Center for its creek, trails, horses and peaceful serenity in the heart of Nashville. We REALLY love that it's 5 minutes from our house! One of our newest discoveries is the Seven Mile Creek Greenway, which is also 5 minutes from our house!

It has a great paved road that is perfect for our boys to ride their bikes, scooters, and tricyles on! It's flat and an easy distance for our little guys (about 3/4 mile one way). They love riding on it and observing bugs, bamboo, butterflies, and other aspects of nature. We enjoy this activity that we can all do together as a family. The boys love ending their ride on the "trail" (as they call it) by playing on the playground or baseball fields of Whitfield Park, which is where you park your car and enter the greenway.

The GREATEST discovery about the Seven Mile Creek Greenway is that it intersects with the Ellington Agricultural Center, so we can ride our bikes from the greenway down to the creek! Our boys love riding on the "trail" and stopping by to cool off their toes in the creek.

A favorite spot...

Since moving to 330 Lynn Drive, one of our favorite spots has been the Ellington Agricultural Center. I've taken many, many pictures of our boys at the gazeebo and fish pond beside the Iris Garden. We've also enjoyed hiking around many of the trails on its grounds, and my husband enjoys running on one of the trails, too. We've gone to some of the Summer Fun days that they have each July. Our boys always enjoy seeing the horses, which live on the grounds. These are the same horses that are the mounted patrol for Metro Nashville Police. (How cool is that?!?!) Here they are...

In January, while taking the boys for a hike, my husband and oldest sons stumbled upon this beautiful, secluded creek at Ellington.


They love to wade in the creek and look for critters, minnows, and any other critters there eyes can see. I love that we can enjoy peaceful serenity while being in the heart of the bustling city of Nashville.

Also, just a note about the picture above. If you haven't heard, Nashville had one of the worst floods in the history of our state. Ellington experienced flooding as well. In the center of this photo, you'll see a large pile of boulders leaning against the large pipe. These appeared post-flood. The rocks are enormous and were literally washed away from who knows where, and they landed here on the pipe. Unbelievable!

Going Green @ 330 Lynn Drive

When we moved to Nashville 5 years ago, we spent our first 6 months in an apartment in Bellevue. We enjoyed our time there, but we were VERY thankful to find a great house to buy here @ good ol' 330 Lynn Drive. We didn't realize it at the time, but by moving to Crieve Hall, we landed in a great location that's convenient to EVERYTHING!

One thing that I enjoyed about Bellevue was that they had this great recycling drop-off facility. So, in our little bitty apartment, I would collect our recycling, keep it sorted, and ever-so-frequently drive with my newborn down to the recycling facility. Whew! Lots of work, but I was excited to have the opportunity to recycle. The community where we lived prior to Nashville had no such recycling facility.

However, when getting settled at 330 Lynn Drive, I quickly noticed two trashcans behind our house, one brown and one green. After inquiring about these with our neighbor, I learned that the brown one was for trash, and the green one was for CURBSIDE RECYCLING. WOW! This was exciting news to me! I was amazed at how simple it was to recycle now. Just throw it in the green can, no sorting required, and they picked it up at the front of our house! So, I quickly bought 2 large garbage cans for our kitchen: black can--trash and gray can--recycling

After only a couple of months, we realized that we were recycling WAY more than we were throwing away. The recycling pick up comes once a month, and we quickly outgrew our 1 container from the city. We were excited to learn that you can request a SECOND recycling container FREE, so we did just that! Our second container arrived 3 days later, and we've been maxing out both of them for the past 4 1/2 years! Ironically, we have so little trash in the brown container that we could roll it around once a month (instead of weekly) and be okay! So, if you visit our house, THIS is why we have these 3 guys (instead of 2 like most households) around back.

We've never really considered ourselves "green" people, but when we saw the impact from recycling, we got adventurous! As things around the house needed updating or replacing, we tried to be more energy efficient if it was feasible. The boys' rooms needed new light fixtures, so we found some that were certified energy efficient. When the ol' shower head died, we opted for a Waterpik Low Flow Shower Head. I was skeptical of the 'low flow' before I used it, but I'm definitely SOLD on it now! It has great pressure, and it's saving us money at the same time!

Being intentional with our choices around the house has allowed us to keep our electric and water bills pretty consistent over the past 4 1/2 years despite the fact that we've grown from a family of 3 to 5 during that time! I was excited that our electric bill was only $92 this month...amidst the heat that descended on Nashville these last weeks of May and first weeks of June! You're going to LOVE living here!

A favorite spot...

We spent the morning at the Nashville Zoo. This is one of our favorite places in Nashville! I love that it's a 5 minute commute from our house to the zoo. You're going to love living here!

"The best commute in Nashville"

The title of this post is a direct quote from my husband. 330 Lynn Drive is located less than 5 minutes from the Harding Place exit on Interstate 65. My husband works near Maryland Farms, which is one exit south (Brentwood/Old Hickory Blvd.) on I-65. So, he enjoys a 15 minute commute each day because he's going and coming from work opposite of the bulk of commuters. When I-65 is blocked or crowded, he can just head to and from work on Franklin Road. Oh the beauty of living at 330 Lynn Drive!

One of the things that we've grown to love about 330 Lynn Drive is that we're 15 minutes from most EVERYTHING in Nashville. Being new to town, we didn't realize this when we bought the house. So, as we ventured out around town, we realized how CONVENIENT everything is to where we live! What a pleasant surprise!

From our house...
*It's less than 5 minutes to Interstate 65
*It's less than 5 minutes to the NASHVILLE ZOO! (wahoo!)
*It's less than 5 minutes to Baja Burrito (can I get another Wahoo??)
*It's less than 5 minutes to Kroger & Aldi. (We're going to miss sweet Mrs. Linda @ Kroger, who gives our boys a handful of suckers and stickers every time we're there!)
*It's less than 10 minutes to Brentwood (and for those of you who, like me, love TARGET, it's about 7 minutes to the Target on Old Hickory Boulevard! There's a short cut to getting there; I'll tell you about it @ the closing, deal?)
*It's less than 10 minutes to Nipper's Corner (Edmonson Pike Library, Wal-Mart Market and yummy Jet's Pizza & Las Palmas!)
*It's less than 15 minutes to Green Hills (an abundance of MORE great shopping & eating venues. Can you say Cheesecake Factory?!?!)
*It's less than 15 minutes to Downtown (Including Belmont, Lipscomb, & Vanderbilt Universities. We're frequent visitors to Storytime & Puppet Shows @ the Downtown Library!!)
*It's less than 15 minutes to Cool Springs (all the shopping you can HANDLE...PLUS, Costco--our favorite!)

330 Lynn Drive affords you a wonderful 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home (w/a CREEK and SCREEN PORCH!!!), but one of it's other gleaming assets is that she's close to EVERYTHING! You'll love calling her home.