Life in the South

I’m swinging slowly in a hammock right now, the sun on it’s way down behind me, a loyal mutt and the kitty whose her best animal buddy laying in the grass below me, Kate and Cadence napping in our room. I say this not to give the impression that my life has reached some sort of idyllic place where I soak in life and nature in all its glory, but perhaps more to show to myself that there are possibilities of finding some sort of peace. Things aren’t by any means perfect; a lot of the stresses and dark things that brought us to this new chapter in our lives are still there, but we now have some chances to take breaths and not get sucked in as deep.
I find myself (and I’ll take the liberty of saying our little family as well) in an odd sort of limbo. We have been in an extended period of transition that shows no signs of concluding anytime soon. We’re taking small steps, as best we can, but perhaps because Kentucky has been a place where we come to visit for a week or two at a time, it feels a little like we’re on vacation rather than moving in. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; we promised ourselves time when we got down here to take a rest, and get ourselves settled, and that’s what we’re doing. And we deserve it. But that still leaves us in this funny in-transition place. It’s not helped by the fact that the moving truck with most of our stuff has yet to arrive. Nor is it due to arrive anytime soon.

So it’s hard not to feel like we’re just visiting. Not having jobs sort of promotes the feeling too.  Again, this isn’t a bad thing – nor a good thing, I guess. It’s simply the state of being we’ve found ourselves in, and one we face day by day. Kate’s dad Scott, has been working on a screened in porch outside of our room. It’s awfully pretty, and when he got the screens in, we spent several nights sleeping “outside” while we painted the room. He’s still got work to do on it, but there’s a new door with a cat-door in it that we’re trying to train the cats to go through. Carmen has definitely figured it out, although she approaches each go-through with evident hesitance. Lily may have figured it out, I’m not sure, and Puy is having serious issues with having power over the opening of the door. The journey has done a great deal to bring the three of them together, and there have been numerous, wonderful instances of the three of them getting along together.

I, am unfortunately, currently getting bit by mosquitoes… an excellent example of the downsides to living a little closer to nature. Kate and I are both covered in bites and I may be driven to insanity if I get bit much more. I’ll take a break here and come back later – I’m out of range of the wireless network, anyway, so I’m writing this in Word with the intent of pasting it into the blog later… which is interesting, because writing directly into the blog feels distinct from what I’m doing right now. I feel like I’m writing for something different at the moment.

Anyway, not that you’d know, but I took a longer break than I meant to. It’s been another day, and Kate is putting Cadence down for bed. Puy has now figured out how to get through the cat door, and it’s just Lily who we’re not sure of.

So, Kate and I are doing okay. Sort of taking things day by day. We spent a few days painting our room. 

There were a few hiccups along the way… There are these divots along the wall, making these vertical stripes, which we were going to paint white.  For some reason, we decided to start taping the stripes.  Only after Kate's mom came in and said something, did we realize that we should've been painting the divots first and not bothering with tape.  In an effort to save some tape, Kate, Kelly and I put the tape in storage:

After painting the divots, we started out with this grayish color called ‘Galaxy’ with this granite finish that sparkled. The sales rep gave us the impression that the paint he’d given us would 

have the sparkly effect, but when we got down to painting it, it ended up being the consistency of mud and had no glitter whatsoever. Kelly and a few of her friends helped us paint the sludge onto the walls, which was great, but the gallon of paint was only enough to cover about 1 wall total. So, we went back to Loews, chose a new paint and just painted over the granite. Also, thanks to the divots in the walls, we had to use a hell of a lot of tape.

Other than that, we’ve been doing our best to make our room more lived in. We’re in an extended process of getting all the photos in the closet organized and moved, and clearing out the stuff in Kate’s old bedroom, since that’s going to be the new office. Kate’s been looking into auditions, but we had the bad luck of missing the auditions for the Equity theater around here by a few weeks. I’m only just starting to think about looking for a job, and I’m really hoping to find one close enough that I can bike. I have this (possibly foolish) fantasy of riding a bike around town and saving thousands in gas. Problem is Bowling Green isn’t very bike friendly, I haven’t ridden a bike in maybe a decade, and I don’t actually own a bike. For now, I’d probably borrow Scott or Kelly’s bike, but I’d feel more comfortable with my own.

Of course, I’ve saved the best for last. Cadence has been taking everything in stride and seems 

to be benefiting from the move even more than we could have hoped for. She is not a fan of the car seat, and would probably much prefer to take a walk and ride a subway than to be stuck in a car seat that’s been baking in the sun for a few hours, but that may be the only serious downside we’ve come across so far.

Cadie has really figured walking out and toddles from one room to another, and can even climb up and down stairs by herself when she puts her mind to it. There’s a lot more space than she’s used to and she’s making the most of it.

 She’s developed a new obsession with a kiddie pool that’s out in the backyard, and has taken to splashing in it several times a day. She’s also been making friends with all the critters around the house and will give a high-pitched squeal whenever she sees something cute.  Oh!  Our lady has also developed a love for chocolate:

So that’s us.