real life

i don't know how i feel about it yet, but i start school on monday. not real school, the kids don't start back until after labor day, but we have teacher prep through the end of august. i'm thankful i have a little bit of time before jumping in. i sort of relished in the flexibility i had in my job at umn. prenatal doctors appointments were nothing to bat an eyelash at, i could take leave whenever i needed to. with a classroom and lesson plans to worry about, i've got a little bit more to deal with throughout the increasingly hectic weeks leading up to our due date - more doctor's appointments, getting the nursery ready, planning my classroom for the weeks i'll have off. we'll get through it, i'm just a little worried.... i don't like change. my life is the definition of change right now, so my skin is always on the verge of crawling.

joey and i spend our days now lazily wandering around. we wander our house, anxious for our new furniture to arrive, not knowing where to sit for now. we wander the streets of alexandria comparing its busy intersections and highways to the ones in saint paul, then to those in sioux falls. we don't know how we feel about the way the pavement meanders about, almost without purpose. no straight lines, no curb and gutters. why is that? we find ourselves passing judgement, desperate to find reason in this new place, our new home, that seems almost foreign to us. we need rhythm, we need consistency. we lack both right now without jobs to keep us tied to schedules that make sense. yesterday and today we found ourselves setting the alarm clock just to get out of bed for the cable guy, the plumber, the electric company. but that's not enough to fill a day, so then we wander some more. the number of times we've convinced ourselves a trip to target or the grocery store was in order might sound alarming to you, so i won't share. i wouldn't honestly know anyways, but i do know how to successfully navigate my way to at least two targets and three grocery stores within ten minutes of our house. we can't figure out why there are so many stores, identical stores, within such a short distance from one another. we can't figure out a lot of things here.

our house sprung a leak today, and we both stood in silence watching it drip, drip, drip from the dining room ceiling. what do you even do about that? we lived in our house in saint paul for two years and never once had to bother our landlord with home issues. our landlord here is as helpful as can be and doesn't seem to be rattled by the fact that in the week we've lived in his home we've emailed him at least three times with new work orders. the garbage disposal stopped working, the downstairs bathroom smells like death, and now - to our distress - the bathroom tile upstairs appears to have missing grout (the kind of grout that keeps water from seeping between the shower tiles, down through the floorboards, and settle contently in the drywall above our dining room table). the fix seems to be to tear up the dining room wall, air out the moisture, and seal up the tile. i'm no handy man but i know sheet rock ideally stays in place once installed. i also know enough about construction to assume my house will be covered in sheet rock dust pre and post installation. so we have that to look forward to.

on that light note, joey made a sort of nauseating video tour of our house today. he'll be offended if i leave it there; it's only nauseating for those who don't get into the camera shakes and fast spans common in most home videos (this one included). he can't get over his sultry voice narrating the film. you'll have to let him know who you think he sounds like, he's not sure but cory matthews from boy meets world is first runner up. if that's not enough to convince you to watch, i'm not sure what would do it ;)

tomorrow is our one year anniversary. we're going into dc for the first time since we moved here to celebrate and see the sites. we're both beyond excited to have an excuse to get out and do something... anything. i'm sure you're excited to hear all about it. don't worry, you will.