A Sudden Jump!

What a very strange thing it is to open up my own blog and see that it is almost exactly two months since my last post and so much has happened in our life without any notation.

We are no longer New Englanders! We've taken a leap, pulled everything together madly and flown to the other coast. We are now official residents of Northern California. It's so strange to say that we no longer live in that big house in Connecticut and that it also feels completely natural.

Moving like this (we still don't have any of our things beyond suitcases with clothes) and we haven't sold our house yet and we still don't have a new homeschool group) is a little jarring to consider but ultimately very freeing. It's light and open and full of nothing binding. I cried and agonized and kissed the house and friends goodbye and then just leapt. I am astonished at how perfectly at home I feel in our new home (a little one bath, one story cottage) and how "Friends To Get To Know" keep piling up warmly in my Contacts list (everyone seems to know someone that I need to meet).

This is not to imply that everything is ideal; we are camping out in the house with no beds or chairs or other fancy goods. The cottage comes with no dishwasher and although we've been here for three weeks without a washer and dryer (on order!) and there's not much in the back garden besides dry California dust around a giant concrete pad and some fruit trees. The window screens are torn, there's ivy climbing up inside the walls of the garage and the time difference is a lot tougher to negotiate via phone calls than I anticipated.

But still....still things are lovely. We are happy and warm and lucky and safe and having all kinds of adventures. This afternoon, for example, on our afternoon walk around the neighborhood my boys dragged home a giant banana leaf to play with! A banana-frickin-leaf!!! It's amazing.

That's our new place!

There are pink and yellow and red and orange rose bushes in the front yard that bloom more every day. When I had a sore throat the first week we were here I made myself lemon honey tea with fresh lemons off the tree by the kitchen door. A pair of doves just raised three babies and launched them from the back patio. One bathroom is unspeakably easy to clean. It's real and zany and fabulous! I recommend adventures, every time. Viva California!