Although our new condo has exactly the same floor plan as our old condo, Steve and I keep marveling at how different and better this place feels to us. Where we were living before always felt temporary and a little precarious – perhaps that explains the reason or at least I can use it as an excuse – for why we never really made it a home. We hung a few pictures on the walls but we never unpacked our photo albums and mementos – they stayed taped up in moving boxes for the 18 months that we lived there.

However, in the short time that we’ve been in our new place, I’ve already undertaken some very small projects that I wasn’t motivated to do in the old place. Small details though they are, they make me happy every time I come across them.

For instance, in our old place, whenever I opened the cabinet door, the cat poop scooper and dustpan fell out. I’d get annoyed but did I do anything about it? Nope. But after just a new days in our new home, I finally bought some Command hooks so I could hang them on the inside of the cabinet door. Happiness.

I have a lovely Italian Majolica ceramic platter that Steve bought me at Haus Fortuna back when times were more flush for us. Yet I had never had it on display. On my way home last Friday, I stopped at Pier 1 and for $7, I got a stand for it. I get pleasure from it every time I glance across the living room.

Another benefit of moving is having a fresh start. You know that top drawer in the kitchen that everybody has – the one that has pens and paper clips and coupons and batteries and all the other bits and pieces of life shoved into it? I know it probably won’t stay this way but for now, all the little containers are free of pencil shavings and crumbs and there’s clean, white Contact paper lining the drawer and it’s all organized like a Tetris game. It makes me happy every time I open it to reach for the scissors.

The only negative that we’ve encountered so far in our new place is that one of our cats sticks to the carpet. Our little gray kitty, Blossom – she was adopted when the Powerpuff Girls was at its peak of popularity – somehow never learned to retract her claws when she walks. Our new home has loopy Berber carpeting so with every step she takes, we hear pluck, pluck….pluck, pluck, pluck. Always kind of a skittish cat, at least now we can hear her coming.