Ten things of thankful: Not moving edition

I learned on Wednesday morning that we will not be moving this summer as we had hoped.

We really wanted this move to come through. It truly seemed the best thing for us as a family and for my career. There were a lot of items in the Pro column, and we wanted those pros.

I devoted Wednesday afternoon to an intense internal temper tantrum and pity party. Thursday was spent wondering what this says about my relative value to my company. It was Friday before I could bring myself to tell extended family. And ever since, we've been trying to figure out What Comes Next.

But even on Wednesday afternoon, I was aware enough to know that this is not the end of the world. Many people I know and love are going through much, much, much worse. Seriously, this doesn't even make the list.

So, to help drive that point home, I challenged myself to come up with 10 things I am thankful for about not moving. I am writing this as I think. Let's see if I can get to 10.

1. My twins can graduate from high school with the kids they've gone to school with since preschool. I know! What kind of crazy parent moves her kids right before senior year? (The kind who thinks CA in-state tuition is a good thing.)


2. My youngest can finish elementary school with the kids he's gone to school with since kindergarten. They go on a sixth-grade trip in May and have a graduation ceremony in the evening with speeches and everything.

3. Another cross-country season. Here, as many kids as want to run can be on the cross-country team. The move would have put our kids at a much, much, much larger school. (Not hard to do.) The odds of them making the cut to be on a team were slim. I love our cross-country team, and I'm thrilled that Kid2 has another year. (Kid3 is considering not running this year.)

4. Another New England fall. Fall up here really is as amazing as the rumors say. I'm going to soak up every minute of it.

5. More time in my office. The office of this house is amazing. I know I will never have another office like it.

6. More wildlife. Although our creatures are nowhere near as tame as the deer on my parents' property (those guys are seriously blasé about humans), we've seen goshawks, turtles, bear, deer, beavers, porcupines, and owls. Not to mention all the frogs, salamanders, toads, squirrels, and chipmunks you could ever want.

7. More time to tick the last few boxes. Although it feels like we've done all the tourist things to death, due to the age spread of our kids, Kid4 either hasn't done some things or can't remember them.

8. Easier transition to driving for Kid2. We drive late on my side of the family, and so far, our kids are all taking after me. Kid2 has his permit, but not his license, and staying here for another year will give him time to develop his skills in a calm driving environment before tackling the big city.

9. Easier time zone for work. Even though the move would have put me in an office on a regular basis for the first time since 2003, I would have still spent a lot of time on the phone with people in other time zones. Eastern time works better for my natural rhythms. If I have quiet time, it's early in the morning, which is my best time for getting in the flow and working on key projects.

10. More breakfast dates with Michael. Typically, when we are both home, we go out to breakfast one morning a week. We're both morning people, and we both love breakfast food. Even though I hoped to work from home one or two days a week even after the move, breakfast dates would have been hard to schedule (see #9).

Hey! I made it. And I can think of a couple more good things about not moving this summer--like more time to declutter and finish home repair tasks before putting the house on the market, chatting with my husband in between meetings, and getting to wear comfy clothes every single day.

Again, not the Pros list I was hoping for, but I might as well try to enjoy the list Fate handed me.

Ten things of thankful: Summer arrived!

After a very long wait (see my previous post), we are basking in summer. In fact, I am writing this post on my deck.

After the office, the deck is my favorite part of this house. Now that the trees have fulled leafed, it is in shade all day long, so I don't need to worry about sunburns. There is a hammock for naps, a comfy chair for when I want to sit upright, and a great view of the bird feeder.

I also love the sounds from the deck: the brook across the road, the bamboo wind chimes, and the birds, including the neighbors' chickens and ducks.

Right now, our lilacs are having their best year ever, and the scent is heavy in the air, especially when the wind blows.

This has been a great year for flowers all around. In some cases we know why--Michael gave the lilac bushes an aggressive pruning two years ago--but others are a mystery. What made the apple trees so beautiful this spring? Why did more daffodils bloom this year? As we move from spring into summer, it appears that every blooming plant is having a great year.

I'm trying to enjoy it and not erode some of the joy by thinking, "I bet next year is going to be a real disappointment." (For those of you wondering about the move, we still don't have an official answer, but it's beginning to feel physically impossible to move cross-country before school starts. Can you even book movers on this short notice?)

For the second year, our bird feeder has attracted a wider variety of birds than we saw when we first got here. Among the more colorful and amusing: goldfinches, cardinals, nuthatches, and purple finches.The indigo sadly didn't stick around our yard, but I caught a flash of him on my walk the other day.

One of the things I don't like about where we live is how buggy it can get in the summer. Bugs love me. I taste great, and my wardrobe contains a lot of blue, which they are attracted to. I started the summer trying to tough it out, going without bug spray or using the natural stuff I got at the farmers' market last year. Which smells great, but doesn't seem to actually keep the bugs off. A few days ago, when I realized I was sitting inside because I didn't want anymore itchy bites, I went rummaging and found a container of Off Deep Woods. I haven't had a bite since. 

I love the play of light through the trees. Whether I'm on the deck or in the house, life has an underwater feel during the summer.

Of course, there's a downside to having your forty-year-old cedar-shingled house surrounded by tall trees. Some areas of the siding have been nagging at me, and this week we had contractors come fix the worst of the areas. They'll be fixing two more areas in the weeks ahead. I get a jolt of pleasure every time I see the new shingles.

I almost wrote an entire post of thankfuls about my dad, since this is Father's Day, but as I thought of the things I would include, I realized it sounded very familiar. So, go read this post from 2013.

And I'm thankful for Michael, who is such a great dad to our kids. The teen years can be hard, and they don't make as much use of some of his strengths as the earlier parenting years (he's a rock star at parenting babies and toddlers), but he is constantly thinking of them and their future and the world we are creating for them to live in. And more immediately, when it's my turn to cook and I ask the kids what they want to eat for dinner, inevitably the first four things each kid mentions are things in Michael's repertoire, not mine.

And now I'm going to try to link up to the blog hop, which I'm embarrassingly bad at.

Summer will come eventually, right?

I am not a fan of hot weather. One of the things I love about where I live is that it never gets hot. It has literally never reached 100 degrees here since they started recording temperatures.

However.

It's June.

A daily high above 69 doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? We had a high of 70 one day last week, and the forecast shows 70 as the high this coming Saturday, but our projected high tomorrow, the 5th of June, is 59. Fifty-nine.

And, although I have the webbed feet you would expect from someone born and raised in Oregon, even I get tired of this much rain in the summer.

If I weren't aware that the world does not revolve around me, it would be tempting to draw a parallel between summer's extreme tardiness in arriving and my company's extreme tardiness in deciding whether we will be moving this summer.

But humans can only live poised on the knife of uncertainty and the unknown for so long before they fall over to one side or the other.

So, despite the weather, and despite the uncertainty, we are starting to make plans for summer, in the hope that the sun will break out, and clarity will come.

The twins are each taking a college class this summer. We've tentatively blocked out a week for a family vacation, and a destination for a couple's weekend getaway. There's an outdoor concert I want to attend, and I'm 90% sure I want to train for a 5k.

But I have decided not to plant tomatoes, even though we're finally past our last frost date.

The way this summer is looking, it's doubtful I would even get one to ripen.

I'm pretty sure you need sun for that. And temps over 69.