Supposedly, making a big break in routine is good for creativity because it forces the brain to make new connections and pathways. The example I’ve seen most often is that brushing your teeth with the opposite hand from the one you usually use will make you a bit more creative all day because you’ll have set yourself up for thinking differently, or taking a different route to and from work will make you more creative. If that’s the case then a big move like the one I made should make my creativity explode because I’m having to rethink everything.

A lot of that comes from fitting a two-bedroom house (one bedroom used as an office) with two living areas into a small one-bedroom apartment. Along the way, I got rid of several bookcases, a large desk, and a lot of plastic storage baskets and bins. That means I can’t put things away in the same places where they were in the old house. I started to automatically shelve books on the same bookcase where they were in the old house, then stopped to consider when I use those books. For instance, I started to put my writing books on the same bookcase where they used to go, but it’s now serving as my entryway. It used to sit beside my desk, so I could swivel in my desk chair and get to those books for reference. Now there’s a different bookcase in my office area. I moved the writing books over there so I could get to them when I was writing and put other books on that shelf.

Setting up the kitchen also forced me to rethink things. There aren’t a lot of cabinets in the tiny kitchen here, though there is a large pantry. I automatically put the dishes in the cabinet near the sink, over the dish drainer. That would be an obvious and convenient place for them, but that cabinet is small and up high. The rack I have for inside a cabinet that allows you to stack dishes and still be able to access them didn’t fit in that cabinet, so I would have had to stack dishes a different way. I couldn’t make them all fit, and it was up high enough that I’d have needed a step stool to reach some of the dishes. Then I got the bright idea to put that dish rack in the pantry, where it fits. I have the dishes I don’t use often on the top shelf of the cabinet, and I moved some of the things from the pantry to the cabinet. It’s maybe a bit of a pain to go to the hall where the pantry is to get out the dishes, but I wash dishes daily, so I’m mostly just getting them out of the dish drainer, anyway. I do still automatically reach for that cabinet, but I’m starting to develop some different habits.

I was having trouble finding a good place to do yoga. In my old house, I had a big open space between the sofa and TV. I could put on a YouTube yoga video and roll out the mat in front of the TV. Here, the only space in the living room is in the path from the front door toward the kitchen area, and it was pretty cramped. Then I realized that I have a nice, big open area in my bedroom. I can bring my laptop in there for the videos. It was a big mindset shift to exercise in the bedroom, but I had room to move, and it was a rather peaceful setting.

Then there are all the other changes to get used to, like going to different grocery stores. They have a Kroger here, but it’s vastly different from the one in my old neighborhood, and they have stores we didn’t have back there. I’m figuring out which one I like best. I tried a new one yesterday, and I’m not sure what I think. It was probably closest to being like the Kroger in my old neighborhood, but it had just enough differences to throw me off. It seems like different things are less expensive in each of the stores I’ve tried, so I may have to go to multiple stores to get everything I need.

I’m still reworking and rewiring habits to figure out what works best for the way I’m living now, and I’ll have to do it all over again when I get a new house. I think the year of living in a really small space will help me learn what’s essential, and I’ll certainly appreciate having a real office again.

Now we’ll see if my creativity explodes because of all this.

I enjoyed my small-town July 4 celebrations. There were some downsides from living close to the festivities (I got to hear the all-day concert, whether or not I wanted to), but it was nice to be able to do the things I wanted to do without worrying about traffic or parking. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to enjoy a July 4 fireworks show and then have a 5-minute (or less) walk home.

First, there was a parade in the morning. They used the road that runs through the park, so the only road that had to be blocked off was the one they used for lining up the parade units, and there were a lot of nice, shady spots along the route. It wasn’t unpleasant to sit outside in the shade. I think this may have been my first July 4 parade at which I didn’t end up with a bad sunburn. Most of the parade units seemed to be either people showing off their classic or fancy cars or businesses and organizations promoting themselves. Some just drove their business vehicles in the parade, like the HVAC company with a truck full of air conditioning units or the cement truck. Some got a bit creative, like the company that installs rock and stone countertops that played “We Will Rock You” on a loop as they drove their truck with stone countertops in the back. Most of these groups passed out candy or promotional gizmos.

So, when I saw the Little Debbie delivery truck coming down the road, I joked to the people sitting by me that this was the unit I hoped passed out samples — and then they came around handing out packets of brownies.

No marching bands, probably because school’s out for the summer and it would be hard to round everyone up, but there was a bagpipe band. I don’t think I’ve ever heard “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America” played on bagpipes. They must have been pretty good because I could identify the songs, and that’s not always the case with bagpipes. They also played “Shenandoah,” which seems to be mandatory around here. It’s a major earworm for me because we sang it for one of the patriotic concerts in choir, but I only remember a couple of lines that repeat themselves in my head, and every time I hear the word “Shenandoah” it triggers the song. Living in the Shenandoah Valley, it’s pretty much running non-stop because I think every local ad during the news talks about being in the Shenandoah Valley. I need to find exactly where the river runs and pay a visit.

I took a turn through the carnival grounds after the parade, but there were threatening clouds, so I headed home, and it started raining soon afterward. I ended up spending the afternoon indoors, watching 1776 and reading. I watched the Capitol Fourth concert on PBS, then it was time for our local fireworks, which were pretty good for a small town. I didn’t have the best vantage point because there were some trees and a streetlamp in the way, but now I know the general area of where to go, and it beats sitting in traffic.

I also got a sense of what it’s like living on this end of the park, which may factor into my decision of where I want to buy a house. The neighborhood I’m mostly targeting is on the other side of the park, so it will be convenient for the weekly band concerts and general park activities, but the big concerts at the baseball stadium shouldn’t be as loud. It wasn’t too bad as long as I kept the TV or the stereo going. It was like a neighbor was playing music too loud inside their house if I didn’t have my own noise going. The main issue was that the neighborhood dogs were going nuts from the noise. The barking was more annoying than the music.

Now I’m trying to get in a normal day’s work, and I keep forgetting it’s Friday rather than Monday. It feels like a Monday. In fact, it took me a few minutes after I woke up to realize what day it was, and then I had to hurry to take my trash out because Friday is garbage day (I actually got it out an hour before the garbage truck came by, but the panic came from realizing I could have missed it).

One fun thing about this move is that I haven’t needed to do my annual “I hate summer” post. Summer here is quite different from back in Texas. It’s still somewhat hot, but it’s more like May or September (or even October) weather in Texas — and this is apparently a bad heat wave.

I will admit, on the days when it’s really muggy, it does feel kind of nasty. I wouldn’t want to be outside in it for long. But I’m still having breakfast and lunch outside on the porch most days. I just come inside for the afternoon when there’s more direct sun on my porch. Most mornings, I at least start with a sweater on. Up until about a week and a half ago, I was still wearing sweatshirts most days. I did have to turn my air conditioning on last weekend, but more for the humidity than the heat. Even without the AC, it’s never gotten as warm inside as I used to set my thermostat in Texas.

And that means I’m actually getting a real summer. When I lived in Texas, it felt like we missed out on summer because it was too hot to go outside and do summer things. I thought of the typical summer activities as fall activities. Here, you could actually go camping (since it gets cool at night even when the day is hot), have picnics, go to outdoor concerts and festivals. Every Monday night, I go to a community band concert in the park, and they’ll start doing weekly jazz and bluegrass concerts in the park next month. I generally need to put on a sweater toward the end of the band concerts as the sun starts going down. It’s quite pleasant sitting outside in the park, watching the fireflies come out and listening to music. In Texas, it would still be in the upper 90s and you wouldn’t want to sit outside.

I’ll be able to go to the July 4th festival without worrying about having to be outside in 100-degree temperatures. I may not stay there all day, but I live a block or so from the park, so I can come and go throughout the day, and I may as well go to the fireworks, even if they are later at night than I usually stay up, since they’ll be close enough to keep me awake, anyway.

I probably won’t be hitting the swimming pool, as I’m a weenie and used to only go swimming when it was over 100 because I don’t like being in cold water and I don’t like being in the city pool with all the kids screaming and splashing (one good thing about my old place was that we had a community pool that almost no one used, so I usually had it to myself, especially since I liked to go swimming when it was really hot). But I can hang out in the park, especially in the shade, which is abundant, as the park is full of huge old trees.

Fall is still my favorite season, and I’m looking forward to that, but I imagine it will feel like an extended fall to me, since summer here is so much like early fall in Texas, and then I’ll be going to Texas for Thanksgiving, so I’ll be there just in time for real fall to finally show up there. For now, though, I’m making lists of “summer” things I haven’t had a chance to do in a very long time. What do you think of as summer activities?

I’ve been living in my new home a little over a month, so I have some basis for comparison in how things are different here than they were back in Texas.

A big one is temperature. We’re having a “heat wave” here this week, which means it might get close to 90 degrees. It is pretty humid, probably more moist than it would be at these temperatures in Texas, but I still find it fairly comfortable. At this time of year in Texas, I’d barely be able to go outdoors. Here, I spend most of the day outside. I work on my back porch until mid-afternoon, and then I only really need to come inside because the angle of the sun hits a point where it puts a glare on my computer screen. If I’m not working on the computer, I can stay out until later in the afternoon, when the sun begins to hit the porch directly and it gets a bit uncomfortable for a few hours. The community band has concerts in the park every Monday night, and this week’s concert was the first time I didn’t have to put on a sweater during the concert. Last week, I was wearing a sweatshirt and still had to put on a sweater.

The nice thing is that even if it’s hot during the day, it cools off a lot at night. During this week’s “heat wave,” they were talking about how the overnight lows being high is the real problem, but it’s still getting into the 60s overnight. Back in Texas in the summer, it often doesn’t get below 80 at night. I finally turned on my air conditioner last night, but only for humidity purposes, as it was only about 74 degrees inside. I had to put on a sweater while the AC dried things out a bit. Until the current “heat wave” began, I was still using the electric blanket on the couch for watching TV in the evenings.

This is one of the main reasons I moved. I wanted out of my living situation but I couldn’t afford a house in that area. I figured if I was going to have to move outside the area, I might as well go to a place that would be more comfortable, since I couldn’t bear the thought of another Texas summer. We’ll see how I feel this winter, but it didn’t look like the winters were that bad here, and I don’t mind huddling under an electric blanket. You can bundle up to stay warm, but it’s harder to stay cool when it’s hot. Summer here is basically September and October in Texas.

I’m also adjusting to smaller-town life. I was living in a major metro area, and this is a town of about 25,000. Since I come from a town that had a population just about 2,000 when I lived there, I don’t really think of this as a small town. It has multiple grocery stores, a lot of bookstores (more than in the city I just left), and plenty of things to do. The difference is that I don’t have to get on the freeway to do most things. Oddly, although this is a smaller town, in a lot of ways it feels more urban than where I used to live. When I was researching places to live, YouTube started recommending channels on urbanism, and this smallish town actually ticks a lot of boxes for what these people talk about for good urban fabric. It’s dense enough that things are close together. You can walk to a lot of things. There are more streets than “stroads” (the unholy mix of street and road, so everything’s built around cars, which makes everything be more spread out). Aside from the major commercial roads between the freeway and the city center, most of the streets here are two lanes, and the houses and businesses are right on the streets rather than set back by driveways and parking lots. It feels a lot more like a real city than the suburbs did.

It’s funny how my perception of traffic has already changed. I used to live next to a six-lane boulevard that was constantly full of traffic. A week or so ago I was walking around, looking at houses and neighborhoods and found myself rejecting one house that I otherwise liked because it was on a “major” street. It is one of the main thoroughfares, but it’s a two-lane road with a 25 miles per hour speed limit, and there’s maybe one car going down it every minute. They do need more sidewalks around here, though. My street has sidewalks, but a lot of neighborhood streets don’t.

That lower traffic means it’s so much quieter. I can hear the leaves rustling in the trees and birds singing. I could hear birds in my old house, but even when I sat on the patio with trees nearby, I never heard the leaves rustling in the wind. That’s one of my favorite sounds. Sometimes I just sit on the porch here and listen to the wind in the leaves. I think the air is also a lot cleaner without all the traffic and traffic jams.

Things are also a lot older here. I had one of the “old” houses in my old neighborhood, and it was built in 1984. Here, one of the old houses was designed by Thomas Jefferson. Most of the houses in the central part of town are pre-World War II. A lot are Victorian. There are some newer (1950s-60s) mixed in, possibly filling in on formerly large lots or rebuilt after a teardown, but most are the kinds of houses with front porches and deep eaves. I’ve always wanted to live in that kind of neighborhood, and it really didn’t exist in the Dallas area, other than in the historic districts near downtown that were extremely expensive. I can afford to buy one of these houses, and the same house in the same kind of neighborhood in Dallas would be close to a million dollars. I love all the history. I’m looking forward to exploring the various historic sites.

I’m at a higher latitude, so the daylight difference is fairly striking. Sunset isn’t too much later than it was in Texas, with it staying fairly light until after 9, but sunrise is a lot earlier. It’s light around 5 a.m., just about broad daylight by 5:30 (official sunrise is a bit later, but it’s light long before then). Even though my bedroom window faces west, and even with blinds and lined curtains, the sun was waking me up before 5:30 every morning. I ended up buying a sleep mask, and that works pretty well. I’ve even been oversleeping a bit, or maybe catching up on sleep from all those early mornings. I’ve pretty much stopped my movie night habit because by the time it gets dark enough to watch a movie with the proper theater ambience, it’s getting close to bedtime. I’ve just been watching episodes of TV series instead. In the winter, it’ll be the reverse, so it’ll stay dark a lot later and the sun will go down earlier. I guess that’s when I’ll catch up on the three-hour epics.

Another big switch is the local media. I was used to reading a major daily newspaper and watching major-market TV news. Here, the local paper is essentially a USA Today with a few local stories (but the local reporting is good enough that the cheap digital subscription is worth it). I ended up getting a digital subscription to the Washington Post to get substantial reporting with content that’s still somewhat local. The local TV news isn’t too bad, even though the staff are mere children. I still sometimes stream the news from the station I used to watch back in Dallas, just to see the familiar faces and laugh at the weather.

My day-to-day routine is more or less the same, other than me spending more of the day outdoors. I eat both breakfast and lunch on the porch and I work outside as much as I can. I have to drive farther to run errands, but there’s not as much traffic and the stores aren’t as busy. I spend Monday nights at the band concerts in the park, and next month there will also be jazz concerts. That means I’m getting out a bit more than I used to, which was one of the reasons for the move. There was a lot of stuff to do in Dallas, but most of it required driving on the freeway for at least half an hour. Here, I can walk ten minutes and go to a concert, walk 20 minutes and be downtown at the farmers market on Saturdays.

Now that I have my routine somewhat settled, I’m getting back to a better working routine, so I hope to get more writing done. In Texas, I seemed to do most of my writing in the summer because I was huddled indoors during the hot weather, and there wasn’t much else to do. Here, there are more summer temptations. Winter may become my major writing time.

I had a post for today drafted, but I got excited about preparing for my grand excursion today and totally forgot to upload it. So, I’ll save it for next week.

This is where I was instead of posting a blog:

One of the reasons I wanted to move here was to be close to the mountains. I can see them in the distance when I run errands. Since I hit my writing goals for the week and the weather was nice, I decided it was time to hit the mountains. The beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway is about 15 miles from where I live, so I went out there, and then the guy at the visitors center suggested a short hiking route for me. I walked about a mile on the Appalachian Trail then took a short side trail to get to the overlook site where I had that fabulous view. I had a picnic lunch there, then walked back.

So I can now say I’ve hiked the Appalachian Trail, though just a teeny portion of it. It was all so beautiful, but I need to get in better shape. I slacked off from my regular exercise while I was going through the move, then didn’t get back in the habit once I stopped having the intense physical labor of packing/unpacking and carrying things around. I’ve done some walking around town, but if I’m going to do real hiking, I need to build up to it. Today was just enough to get a taste of it and see some scenery, and I suspect I’ll feel it tomorrow.

Now I’m going to get a tall glass of cold water and put my feet up for a while.