Settling In

It's been a long month.
Peter returned from Borneo in one piece and launched in to working on wrapping up his contracts. The house is still a wreck and most things have not yet found their permanent resting spot. Jasper started kindergarten as planned and with adequate fanfare, but Josie's first day at preschool was a total disaster and we ended up leaving with her. She has since enrolled at Gallaudet University (okay, it's the daycare at Gallaudet), and is doing fine. I started back to work on August 9th, and began teaching last Monday. I leave the house before the kids are awake and don't pick them up until 5:30 pm. It's not an ideal life, and feels unsustainable, but it's what we have to work with. So I suppose it's working.

On the bright side, our neighborhood seems right. It's small, quaint, close. A small town with big city trappings (including public transportation, culture, diversity, and crime). We've met all of our neighbors (a musician gay couple across the street, human rights lawyers to our right, central american families caddy corner). But as Jasper pointed out, "We don't know the people on the other side of our house." That's because it's abandoned. As are the one behind us and four more on our block. But oh well. The neighborhood is "up and coming" according to anyone you ask, and for now anyone you ask loves it here. We have already met dozens of open, interesting people, many with kids, at the cafe, the farmer's market, the Glut (food coop), Joe's Movement Emporium, the ice cream place, the list goes on. The is just something right about Mt. Rainier.

I would like to believe that life will settle down here eventually. That our routine will feel good, the house will be in order, the kids will not be scared of the dark. It's hard to see how that is all possible, but we must have faith. The setting is good, if we can make it work.