We're in!

So we disappeared from the blog for awhile, and I must apologize for that. We've been so busy moving in, getting settled and other things. But the most important news to share is that we're now living in our awesome Passive House! I don't have many photos yet, but I will take some soon and share them here.

Our first night here was May 23, and over Memorial Day weekend we moved over most of the rest of our stuff. So far, my main thoughts on living here are 1) It's not cold, and 2) It's quiet.

Since moving in, we only turned on the heat once briefly, and everything has remained a nice even temperature. Despite the cool, rainy weather of the past few days, we've remained comfortable. I love it! We've also found that we don't really need our comforter on our bed at night, because using it actually makes us too hot.

With our super thick and well-insulated walls, doors and windows, it's been pretty quiet. I can still hear the trains running a few blocks away, but it's not nearly as loud as at my old house. It's also nice because Pippen doesn't run outside to bark at every little noise he hears. He spends a lot more time relaxing in his favorite chair. He also had no problems figuring out how to use his air-tight doggie door.

We've been using an energy tracking device to watch how much energy we're using, so we should have some interesting data on that later. What's been interesting to me is that because I know this house is very energy efficient, and because we're even tracking our use, I've found myself feeling like I should use less energy. I'm even more vigilant about turning off lights than before!

I'll have more to talk about later, but for now, I'll share the one photo we do have. This is evidence of how Abby has taken to the new house: