Settling In, kind of

The last few weeks have been a confusing mix of amazing Bellingham sunsets; peaceful evening walks; good times with family and friends in town; and stress related to the Seattle house; hodge-podged childcare; and work. The Seattle house is soooo close to being listed, and our lives will really feel 100% less crazy when this happens. The hope is that it won't stay on the market long, and given the Seattle real estate scene, we are hopeful it will get bought quickly. We've had to (and by "we" I largely mean Jeff) finish a lot of projects on the house to ready it for the market and this feels extra draining given that we have already physically moved and would like to mentally move on as well. Jeff's been sleeping 3-4 nights a week in Seattle on an air bed to manage all the house work (not to mention his jobby job - the one that actually pays money) and I've been single parenting without full time childcare but WITH a full time job. It's not ideal. But Bellingham is lovely and our house is so filled with amazing light. And the sunsets. Have I mentioned the sunsets? Our Seattle house never saw the sunset because of a giant 1990's box house built 24 inches from the west side of our house. The sun set at approximately 1:30pm every day behind their behemoth of a home. Watching the sun set every night is very life affirming.

Tomorrow is the first day of Kindergarten for Edie. We had our "assessment" today with her teacher, Ms. Linville, who I'm told is awesome by other parents at Lowell. There are only 2 kindergarten classes at Lowell (compared to 4 classes at our Seattle school) and Ms. Linville said most of the kids don't know each other from preschool - so this will be nice for Edie to not be the only "new" kid. Edie scored 127 out of 130 on her Kindergarten "readiness" assessment today. Luckily, her teacher taught 1st grade for many years before moving to Kindergarten 4 years ago, and she said there were 2 other kids that scored high as well, so she'll have a little cohort in the class of kids who she can pull out as needed to challenge and keep her from getting bored. There's also another little girl we are told who has a birthday this week and will be 6 all year, so Edie won't be the oldest in class.

Edie seems excited, but is playing it down when quizzed. She's picked out her outfit for tomorrow and I can hardly wait to walk her to school and see her with all the kids. Tomorrow and Friday are half days for the kindergarteners and then the regular, full-day schedule begins on Monday. Her birthday falls between and we are having a cat-themed party for her on Sunday in our half-unpacked house.

A few pictures until I can upload more below. I didn't take any of me doing some mediocre parenting while trying to work at the same time, so this slide show is a little skewed toward the "lovely" part of moving…

Just a glass of white wine sangria at a bar we walked to from our house. No big deal. The view is only so-so here.

Edie and I went to the outdoor cinema in Fairhaven last Saturday with my friend Kristin and her brother Eric. They showed "Up" and the whole experience was super fun and charming. We brought blankets and chairs and snuggled in the back with a giant zip lock bag of home made snicker doodles.