moving chronicles: day 1

yesterday was our first day of moving. dan and i made several journeys up to the new house in our respective cars, packed with boxes. we managed to put a good dent in the transfer of boxes. but today, as it pours down rain, we are renting the uhaul and taking the big stuff. don't worry, i haven't been lifting.

when we pulled into our new driveway, we were greeted by a camellia bush in full bloom. so pretty.



here is dan in the entry foyer. dig the chandelier. not really our style, but we'll take it!



here are a couple of features i like:

the little balcony off our bedroom. can't wait to sit out there reading a book while sipping my morning coffee. decaf that is.



the woodstove of course. i'm so relieved it has little windows, so you can actually see the flames within:



this cabinet is in the entry foyer. a great bonus is that the house has huge closets, crawl spaces, cabinets and shelves everywhere. storage space has been such an issue in the blue house. see dan in the kitchen setting stuff on the long counter? and by his legs, a long row of cabinets. bliss.



this is one part of the living room. i love the wood floors, the large windows, the built in bookshelves. looks like one needs to be adjusted, there on the right. . .



tashi really liked this little nook, between the living room and a strange room off of the garage. i guess it's a mud room, but i intend on turning it into our sewing/craft room.



tashi is thrilled with her bedroom. especially with the presence of snoopy in it:



the jacuzzi amuses me. i sure hope it works!



one of the reasons we wanted to move was because our rent in town was being raised, and we just didn't think the blue house was worth the amount, what with its shifting foundation, variety of electrical issues, broken sump pump and absentee landlord.

the house we are moving to is the same exact rent our landlord wanted to raise the blue house to. a spacious abode, on two and a half acres of trees and flowering shrubs. i think it's a pretty good score.

snoozing & dreaming & craving

last night i had a most unusual dream. i was wandering around a huge hippie artisan festival, something like the oregon country fair. i came to a booth where pickles, olives and sliced beets were being sold, all marinated in thc rich hemp oil. i really wanted to buy some, but couldn't bring myself to spend $20 on a tiny container. the olives were selling at $3 each. i thought about buying one each for dan and i, but still couldn't bring myself to spend $6 on two olives. so i considered buying myself one, just to see what would happen when i ate a thc marinated olive.

i guess i was pregnant in the dream. maybe i thought it might help with morning sickness? i woke before i'd made a decision.

i have had more aversions than cravings with this pregnancy. unfortunately i've had some difficulty eating the really good stuff: leafy greens. if anything, i've craved comfort food. potatoes. avgolemono soup. toasty bagles. the only really weird * i must have this now * craving i've had was for apple turn overs. dan ran out at 11pm one night to buy pepperidge farm frozen apple turn overs, because i woke up from a nap and needed an apple turn over right away. in a pinch, the pepperidge farm variety satisfied. dan is my hero.

waking from a nap at 11pm, you ask? for a while a couldn't help myself but fall asleep by 8pm. this usually meant that i would wake up by 3 or 4 in the morning, which just isn't ok in my world. so i got into a pattern of sleeping from 8 to 11pm -- waking up to watch david letterman during the best of his mccain jokes -- and then going back to sleep until a more sane 6am.

i'm managing to stay up until about 10 now. sometimes even 10:30.

ok. back to packing. tomorrow the move begins!

the beat goes on

this morning we heard baby's heartbeat for the first time through the doppler. the wonderful song of a train barreling along!



because i felt so fragile and nervous through the first trimester, i didn't exercise much. that has got to change. i've been taking some good walks recently. but i have to incorporate yoga and swimming. as soon as we get through the move! really!



tashi has been so wonderful about this pregnancy. she has wanted a sibling more than anything. and even though the age difference is huge, i think she is going to totally love being a big sister. she has been so patient with my nauseous nights and my in-bed-before-her exhaustion! and despite all the busyness of the move, she still finds moments to dream.

cat post

luna and loki might not be thrilled about the fact that we are moving, but they sure do like to perch on the boxes.



luna seems to be taking it all in stride, but loki has been a bit tweaked. he has given me some very dubious glances when i talk to him about the new home that he surely is going to love. never the less, don't you just want to nuzzle up to the wee beastie?



tashi sure does.

twisted amusements

just taking a break from box-packing, received this link via email. click your way around the oval office and get a glimpse of sarah palin's world. it could be our world, but i'm trying to keep the faith that it won't be!

a new day

i am procrastinating on the packing that will be my day. my weekend.

packing is a time of reflection. it is meditative. you can incorporate yoga into packing. you can blast music, listen to radio talk shows or the low mumble of dumb tv. you can gaze out the windows at changing leaves, cardinals on branches, rainfall.

but still, i find it hard to look forward to packing.



our house seems to be saying goodbye to us. lights keep burning out. cobwebs and dust bunnies gather at an amazing clip. the tub drains more and more slowly with each day. cracks continue to form in walls and ceilings. leaves accumulate on the deck, the stoops.

perhaps we will take our last step out of this house, and it will split in half.



similar to my first pregnancy with tashi, i can feel the sudden transformation of the second trimester underway. suddenly i'm not passing out by 8pm. i feel uplifted. the gag reflex is still pretty high. but i will spare you that detail.



this is our very messy altar. it is not usually cluttered with quite so much, but with the packing, things shift from place to place. i have a small separate altar for baby, that all may continue to go well.

i've had my first dreams recently, featuring the new life. i had a few nightmares soon after i found out i was pregnant. so much fear about loss. but these recent dreams were so sunny and positive. in one i was holding my new baby in my arms in our new home. a girl! i was snuggling her close and treasuring each moment of new baby bliss. she had a sweet blond downy fuzz on her head. and she was huge, healthy, rosy. tashi was 9.5 pounds, after all. oh my!

in another dream i had two girls, a big one and a little one. we were happily traveling somewhere. a team.

it's funny to be dreaming about about a girl, when my inclination has been that it's a boy. so much mystery!



i will miss this stairwell in a funny way. i fell down it once. i'm glad i will not have to traipse it when in my third trimester. it is narrow and difficult to navigate in the middle of the night. i'm glad we will have a bathroom right next to our bedroom.

and so i will move forth as i anticipate the positive changes that lie ahead. with each box, i will remember how full my world is right now. how it continues to open, unfold and flourish. how i am endowed with the gifts of life.

high five for top five

War Torn Landscape: The Green Line in Nicosia, Cyprus

i entered a photo contest that the local branch of peace frogs put on. contestants were allowed one photo for each of three categories: landscape, people and landmark. i'd never entered a photo contest before, but thought, why not? i didn't win or anything, but i did receive notice that my landscape photo (above) placed in the top five. isn't that kinda groovy? i've been told it will be displayed in the shop, and possibly in an upcoming newsletter. yay!

there is a blurb about the green line here. my photo was taken in an area that was once the most bustling of marketplaces. tashi was a little freaked out when i took the photo, as you are not supposed to bring out cameras along the green line. but my little tiny fuji was easy to stick between some sand bags for a quick shot.

pssssst. . . guess what!

i read this morning that in just a few days the baby inside me will be the size of a lime!



yes!

as some of you are a aware, i've been trying to bring a baby #2 into this world for about six years now. having suffered several early miscarriages, the last couple months have been a mixture of fear, hope, nausea, exhaustion and mantra. as each week passed the optimism grew brighter and brighter that we've got a keeper. only now am i allowing the feelings of excitement to bubble up and carry me forward.

in just a few days i will be into my second trimester. i am fully aware that things could still go wrong, but no longer want to keep this journey to myself. please join me in anticipation and hope that we will meet this mysterious little being in the spring!

lost & found

one of the many benefits of moving is finding things you thought forever lost. for instance, dan and i each have a cell phone and we each have a charger for our individual cell phones. after a visit to new york city a year and a half ago, we lost track of the second charger. we were certain we'd left it behind. today dan found the charger in his desk drawer. for a year and a half we've been sharing a single charger, which at times is rather inconvenient, like when your cell phones die at the same time or when one of you is going out of town. and all along it was in his desk drawer.

a couple of years ago some friends of our were considering taking a honeymoon in yelapa, mexico. dan and i spent a night of our honeymoon there, though, if we were to do it all over again, we would have spent the entire time there. so i could show my friends the beauty that is yelapa, i searched all over for our honeymoon photo album. i looked everywhere i thought i had stashed photos. i was pulling my hair out, convinced that somehow when we'd moved from michigan, i'd left the photo album behind. apparently i missed the bag of photos in my office closet, because there i found our honeymoon album today.

these small discoveries are the joy of my saturday, spent stuffing boxes with things hidden deep within closets and drawers.

telephoto fun

would you believe it's taken me more than a month to try out my telephoto lens for the first time? let's just say i've been a little slow lately. so yesterday i went out into my yard and snapped a few shots. these are my favorites.


more calendula!


signs of autumn


our days are numbered at the blue house


loki the super cat

friday is my day

that is not macaroni & cheese, it is farfalle and butternut squash. i learned about the recipe through tracey's lovely blog. it was tasty indeed! tashi and her pal rachel had several servings. like tracey, I added some sauted onion to the mix.



rachel spent the night last night (no school today for "fall break") and this morning when i peeked into the bedroom the two of them were quietly knitting and listening to irish music. so sweet.



this is what our life looks like right now. mostly books are being packed first, and goodness, we have a lot of books. knick knacks are beginning to be tucked away, as well as summer garments and linens. halloween is going to have to take to the back burner this year. tashi's costume will either be purchased or thrown together with the bare minimum effort. she hasn't made up her mind yet. first it was a robot. now it is a pirate. arrrrrrrr.

testing 1. 2. 3.

i've felt like things have been a little off with my magnificent new sony camera. i haven't been sure if it's been me, or if perhaps the camera is defective. in many of the photos i've taken with it, details have been a bit washed out. but i've also played with the white balance a bit, really the only manual function i dare to sometimes tweak.

the other day i took the lens off and put it back on. and then i did a little photo shoot in my front yard. suddenly the photos seem crisp and clear. might i have installed the lens incorrectly at first? is that even possible?

i will carry on, and hopefully i will discover it was me all along, not the camera. i hope to take a class someday, so that i can learn how to use the camera with manual settings. but for now, automatic should work just like it did yesterday. don't you think?




















and this, is a cat on the run!

calendulove

summary

pixies for obama

the leading edge

a little trivia. yesterday when we drove out to our soon-to-be home in the countryside, we counted obama & mccain yard signs. we saw 15 for obama and 11 for mccain. hopefully that indicates the way the scales will tip in our battleground state. it was also reassuring to see that we're not going to be surrounded by pistol waving mccain voting bible thumping hockey moms that never learned to pronounce "ing". there are no hockey moms in virginia, are there? it was ironic to see that most of the mccain signs were in front of the most ostentatious, grandiose homes, while the obama signs sat on the most humble of properties.

house in the hills

we visited our new home today. tashi hadn't seen it yet. unfortunately we can't show her the inside until our lease begins, but we had fun wandering around the yard and peeking into the windows. it's so lovely up there. we're very excited. there are so many trees in the yard. many of them are dogwoods, and there were acorns all over the deck from the tall oaks. it's going to be a thrill to move in as the autumn leaves reach their peak. maybe we'll actually see some snow up there. and then we can anticipate the flowering of spring.

just off the driveway there is a wooded area with logs marking off a bit of a trail. it was obviously once well landscaped, but since has been reclaimed by the forest. we will have fun tidying things up, while maintaining its wild charm.



here are some woodland views. we discovered a creek bed just a few yards away in the woods. it was bone dry, so i'm not sure what the story is with that. but it will be fun to follow the creek bed and see where we end up.





tashi and dan take in the peaceful surround from the back deck.



hello fungus!



sunlight filters through green.



and when you pull out onto the main road, all this is before you.

are five friends watching this?

moving into a woodland retreat

we did it. we found a home, albeit, a home to rent. so we're giving up the ghost on buying for a while. but we are happy with the home we found, and think it will be a great test in living out of town, in the woods, with a wood stove.

it's our little brown woodland retreat.



actually, let me take back the little. it is quite spacious. the rooms are divided up differently than our current home, but all are fairly large with high ceilings and lots of sunny windows.



and the kitchen, it is bigger than a walk in closet, with tons of cabinets and counter space. it has a dish washer! can you believe, we've never rented a house with a dishwasher? my dish washing hubby is stoked. i'm not thrilled with the fluorescent light in the kitchen, but it's nothing several strands of christmas lights (and a couple of retro lamps?) can't remedy.



there are three bedrooms. the third will probably be a family room/guest room/dan's music room. it has a walk in closet that could practically be an office.



the master bedroom, upstairs, has a little balcony. woot! and tashi's room has a big closet with a huge crawl space off of it that she will love (if she doesn't become convinced that monsters inhabit it).

the bathroom (actually, there are two, but i'm talking about the master bathroom) is cavernous compared to our current. and it has a linen closet in it. i cannot explain to you how much trouble the storage of linens has been in our current house. oh, and there is a jacuzzi. it's very 70's and we are not sure how well it works. i might have to really play up the 70's features. not too much though. . .

there is a small room with a closet which holds a washer, drier and sink. i'm guessing this will be my sewing/craft room.

oh, and there are built in bookshelves! a large entry foyer! a two car garage! a huge deck! and a wood burning stove! ceiling fans! a/c! a compost bin! several bird feeders! and did i say woods? it's in the woods! and a wood burning stove! i am just a little bit excited about finally having a wood burning stove. can you tell?

but packing? i'm not so excited about that. . . oh boy oh boy, onward!

all the photos were borrowed from the management company website

tale of two cats

i am feeling blue this morning and am procrastinating. when feeling blue, what more cheerful subject to focus on but one's cats.

this is luna. she is stepping into a basket of light. she was the runt of her litter. she is small, fast, neurotic and very sweet. she likes to chirp. sometimes she will pour on the affection and other times she will do nothing but evade you. she never likes to be picked up and will only sit on your lap if there is a big soft blanket there. luna will eat anything: popcorn, nachos, hummus. she waits patiently beside us if we are eating ice cream or yogurt because we allow her to lick the bowls clean. luna has big green eyes that often seem unreal. she flirts with dogs, likes to stay out all night and never gets into trouble.



this is loki using me as a bench. he's been doing that a lot lately (and i've been laying on the couch a lot lately). loki is luna's brother. he is a bit of a brute. he is rather territorial and often gets into fights with other cats. he is not very nice to luna, and likes to swipe at her when ever she walks by. loki is fat and goes completely mad if he doesn't get his food when he wants it. he is super affectionate though. he loves to curl up on me or beside me and purr like a jet engine. sometimes i think he'll make us both levitate, if he weren't so heavy. loki is terrified of dogs. dan has had to rescue him from many a tree. loki also likes to sit on the coffee table. and if there are things on the coffee table -- books, magazines, mail, artwork, scissors -- he'll sit on the whole pile. sometimes he takes a flying leap onto the coffee table and everything that was sitting on it scatters to the wind. loki goes wild over cat nip, but he's a mean drunk. after a roll in the cat nip he likes to bare his teeth and claws. and then he passes out in a big orange puddle of cat bliss.




both cats sit in really funny places sometimes. the other day luna was sitting in the planter that runs along the house. her whole body lounging in damp dirt and her paws hanging over the bricks. loki often likes to sit at the edge of the deck with half his body hanging over the edge. sometimes they are in the linen closet or in tashi's stuffed animal drawer. when a thunder storm is coming they sometimes huddle up on the stairwell or under the kitchen table.

they are our good friends and we've had them for nearly six years. our anniversary falls around halloween.

ok, i am ready to move along with my day now!

what do you think she reads?