When we returned from Wisconsin, we didn't go back to the condo we'd been living in since before Phoebe was born. It was twenty minutes from Bryan's school, and that was without any traffic. Our involvement level in MBASA and other MBA activities made that uncomfortably far. We made the choice to live close to school.
However, it's not so easy to find a place to live from fifteen hundred miles away. I looked at online classifieds and housing lists for students and talked to people about openings, but nothing felt right. The summer was stressful enough and I didn't want to spend any more brain power wondering where we were going to live.
So we made a decision. We would move back to a place we had lived before. Now, since I'm very careful to not name our specific location, I won't tell you where we live. But I will tell you we lived here before we had kids. We've upgraded from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom, but otherwise the layout is very similar.
And that's a little bit bizarre.
Why, you ask? Because I now have two pictures of this living room in my head, the past room and the present room. Even the smell of the carpet is the same. It almost feels like we've stepped into the past. Except that now there are five of us instead of just two. We fit fine then; it's a little bit cramped now. Not living-in-a-hotel cramped, but tight nonetheless. And about one third of our stuff is still in our storage unit.
The downside (other than the odd feeling of deja vu) is that we do not have a dishwasher or a washer and dryer. I now have to schedule trips to the laundromat and budget time to do dishes. And perhaps to some that's not a big deal, but I'm one of those that sits with my laundry, so that takes up quite a chunk of time. I did try paying Peter to do the dishes (one penny per item), but our boy has such an active imagination that he took an hour and a half to wash fifteen dishes, and that was not worth the money.
My point is not to complain, but rather to say that living here requires a lot more work from me. I thought I was stretched thin before, now free time is spent sleeping, or maybe (if I'm lucky) grabbing a quick shower. Hence the infrequent blog posts.
The benefits of living here? There is a lovely sense of community. We're not the only family with kids living in our cul-d-sac. Including Peter, there are five kids from his first grade class within a two-minute walk. He's never been able to run over to a friend's house (with mom trailing behind of course) to see if they can play. I also enjoy being able sit at the park and chat with the moms while the kids play. And a number of our neighbors are in Bryan's program, so it was like we had built-in friends. It's also beautiful here. The lawns are well maintained and there are so many trees.
We can live anywhere for a year, right?
