We know it has been ages since we did a real update so here goes:
To recap… our last week in MN was june 20-something… it was taken up by oodles of wedding activities for e’s pal Mychal... the event was very distinctive as it was a chilean-minnesotan-christian-mennonite-salsa-dancing and tropical-champaign-punch-ice cream and cake reception-little old lady’s from the church- “seventh heaven”- bilingual –extravaganza
all of e’s pals who had not seen each other in 2 years (and others whom she hadn’t seen in more like 10 years) were in the same place at the same time so there was more catching up than there was time.
to add to things, the night before the wedding, potter came out and we had to wait in line for 21/2 hours for the book…then have a snack and we didn’t get to sleep until 4! Speaking of potter…we liked the book a lot, but the ending was quite disappointing. it felt as if throughout the entire book we were given so many details and by the end she just kind of whizzed through and didn’t give enough details. so little so that it was almost difficult at times to know what was going on, not to mention that it was very hard to picture.
After returning from MN we began moving the very next day… pheffew!!!
Today, a month later:
As you can see by the last post, the weekend of the 4th we went to a sleepover (called a camp-in) at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We spent the night under the “outer bay” tank… it was a phenomenal experience.
Mom O is totally remodeling the house where f grew up. She is picking some beautiful things (that yes mom do go together) and doing a good job planning but it is hard when you change everything at once and don’t know just how it will all fit together. This is a bit emotional, too, since this will be the first big change since her dad passed away. We are very proud of her for taking this step, but the process is physically and mentally taxing for all of us.
So, given all this going on, things have been tough over the last few weeks, mostly surrounding the fact that we are running around crazy and that our life is overwhelmingly “unknown” and therefore very scary. It often feels like we are sitting around waiting for something to happen… but what? And it is a good thing or a bad thing? school, money, job, and even each other… we are just strained not knowing what is going to happen in these various aspects of life and what it is going to be like after. Finding a grocery, hardware store or target, getting dishes and beginning to cook only to find out in the middle of a meal that we don’t have a necessary tool… it just takes so long to work through all this newness that we are exhausted by just doing life. And this exhaustion both gets us down and makes us wonder if we are strong enough to do the rest of things that are required of us. What does it mean when you doubt yourself, your choices, your feelings, your heart and soul, your future, your abilities… and then send your self into a tempest of guilt at doubting everything in the first place!?—hopefully it means things will be looking up soon and that once a routine is established, doubts will be erased.
The thing that has made all the difference (and I guess making other troubles more intense as we wouldn’t need stuff if we weren’t here) is our new house. From day one, we have been sleeping wonderfully here and it has felt more like home than we ever expected. Our neighborhood is safe, clean, and very nice. We are slowly working on trying every restaurant within about 4 blocks. We’ve actually done fairly well! We had one pretty good Italian dinner with mom o. then tried a burrito joint that is apparently very popular in the neighborhood and while it wasn’t taqueria santa cruz, it was pretty good and had a lot of options (it was actually probably much healthier than the sc ones). And finally, last night we went to the local Japanese restaurant for a little take out which was a little more pricy than we had hoped, but was very good quality. Now, only about 50 more places to try. Maybe we can cut that number down a little if we take off places like noah’s and the more chain like options.
We would be excited about the prospect of any visitors, but cannot offer a real bed as of yet, although if you are quite short, the couch is very comfortable. ask willis junior if you don’t believe us…she’d tell you the same. other than that we have the fuzzy rug and a bunch of blankets to make a very nice and comfy nest. Just let us know prior to your arrival so that we can at least make sure to have some food.
F has decided that we are going to see hamlet at Shakespeare santa cruz in a few weeks. This is slightly unfortunate for e though as she has never been good at reading and understanding anything written by Shakespeare. She tries hard though, but just isn’t good. So, in preparation we have gone to the Berkeley public library and checked out both the teenage version of the book (which has the translated version of some phrases on one side of the page and the actual text on the other), and the BBC production of the play on DVD(it’s only 222 minutes!). We are hoping that by the time we actually go, E has gotten through the entire thing without having any unexpected illnesses or suddenly collapsing thus causing her to relinquish her ticket to the next most interested individual. Anybody want to get to the front of the line?
That’s about it for right now…we’ll update you later.
