Week 4
Monday, April 24th
I realize with a start over the weekend that we have all our belongings in the house and no way to know if it is all okay while we are at our temporary housing. This eats at me. We pray about it, and I get even more motivated to make the place livable.
I am beginning to get bored already, even though there is a mountain of things to do. I feel like my world has shrunk to the size of the house, the movers and store clerks and that is it. The neighborhood we live in is very white, while the schools the kids go to are 40% Latino. Where do they live? I suspect the majority must live outside of our development, which has an Association and fees and so on. I wish for more variety in the neighborhood and begin to think of ways to stir things up. I am curious about this Association. How nit-picky are they? What have we gotten ourselves into? What about the piles of junk outside of nearly everyone's home? Seriously, it's as if no one ever heard of renting a dumpster for their construction debris.
I get an email from work on Tuesday and this makes me REALLY homesick so I cry off and on all day. I knew this would happen eventually, but why does this email make me sad? I think it's because of what I wrote above: the world feels small, I feel insignificant and I want to be working again, but there is no way until the house is in order and I've found suitable childcare for the summer months.
The good news is, Susie Jedlicka is coming on Wednesday. This will break up the monotony and allow me to have an actual conversation. Cool. Also, I've gotten the house into enough order that we feel like we can stay there. This will cut down on driving time, and highway frustration. (The other day, someone randomly stopped in the middle of T.V. Highway. The guy in front of me nearly slammed into him and I barely stopped as well. I almost went around him, then I realized that the person had stopped for a pedestrian crossing in the crosswalk. There was no way to know that there was anyone in the crosswalk until I actually saw him get to the median. It is the law that you must stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, even on this "highway". Crimony! That was scary.)
Susie gets here and we have a great time. She comes with me to Target, the grocery store, Lowes, walks the kids to school with me, helps me pack up the rest of the stuff at the apartment, swims with the kids there while I work - everything. We also did fun stuff like walk at the Arboretum (clear day - we could see three mountains!) and ate Filipino food (Authentic! Tripe, fish paste, the works!). We also went to Multnomah Falls on Sunday and hiked to the top of the falls with the family. This was really cool, except once we got to the top, we could hardly see the falls any more because we were right over the drop-off. In my infinite wisdom, I would have designed it differently. :) Stephen got scared about 1/3 of the way up and we almost had to bring him back down but he bucked up and took the hike one hairpin turn at a time and made it! On the way back down, he was so proud of himself and encouraged everyone else on their way up, "You're almost there! You're doing great!"
Also this week, Thomas won the spelling bee at his school and got to compete at the district level. He was so proud of himself and excited for the competition. He kept saying, "I will be competing against 7th and 8th graders, which will be hard. But that's okay, I like a challenge!" He placed 5th out of about 25 kids.
I realize with a start over the weekend that we have all our belongings in the house and no way to know if it is all okay while we are at our temporary housing. This eats at me. We pray about it, and I get even more motivated to make the place livable.
I am beginning to get bored already, even though there is a mountain of things to do. I feel like my world has shrunk to the size of the house, the movers and store clerks and that is it. The neighborhood we live in is very white, while the schools the kids go to are 40% Latino. Where do they live? I suspect the majority must live outside of our development, which has an Association and fees and so on. I wish for more variety in the neighborhood and begin to think of ways to stir things up. I am curious about this Association. How nit-picky are they? What have we gotten ourselves into? What about the piles of junk outside of nearly everyone's home? Seriously, it's as if no one ever heard of renting a dumpster for their construction debris.
I get an email from work on Tuesday and this makes me REALLY homesick so I cry off and on all day. I knew this would happen eventually, but why does this email make me sad? I think it's because of what I wrote above: the world feels small, I feel insignificant and I want to be working again, but there is no way until the house is in order and I've found suitable childcare for the summer months.
The good news is, Susie Jedlicka is coming on Wednesday. This will break up the monotony and allow me to have an actual conversation. Cool. Also, I've gotten the house into enough order that we feel like we can stay there. This will cut down on driving time, and highway frustration. (The other day, someone randomly stopped in the middle of T.V. Highway. The guy in front of me nearly slammed into him and I barely stopped as well. I almost went around him, then I realized that the person had stopped for a pedestrian crossing in the crosswalk. There was no way to know that there was anyone in the crosswalk until I actually saw him get to the median. It is the law that you must stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, even on this "highway". Crimony! That was scary.)
Susie gets here and we have a great time. She comes with me to Target, the grocery store, Lowes, walks the kids to school with me, helps me pack up the rest of the stuff at the apartment, swims with the kids there while I work - everything. We also did fun stuff like walk at the Arboretum (clear day - we could see three mountains!) and ate Filipino food (Authentic! Tripe, fish paste, the works!). We also went to Multnomah Falls on Sunday and hiked to the top of the falls with the family. This was really cool, except once we got to the top, we could hardly see the falls any more because we were right over the drop-off. In my infinite wisdom, I would have designed it differently. :) Stephen got scared about 1/3 of the way up and we almost had to bring him back down but he bucked up and took the hike one hairpin turn at a time and made it! On the way back down, he was so proud of himself and encouraged everyone else on their way up, "You're almost there! You're doing great!"
Also this week, Thomas won the spelling bee at his school and got to compete at the district level. He was so proud of himself and excited for the competition. He kept saying, "I will be competing against 7th and 8th graders, which will be hard. But that's okay, I like a challenge!" He placed 5th out of about 25 kids.
posted by Lydia | 8:34 AM
1 Comments:
whoo hoo! go thomas!
i'm just reading through everything from the beginning as i am able, so even though this happened a long time ago, i am still saying congrats!
~bethany
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