So it's been nearly 2 years I see since my last blog. Wow, I've really been keeping up with that. This forces me to wonder what has either been keeping me so busy I haven't blogged, or has my life become so boring I haven't? Hm..good question. Maybe both intermitantly (still a bad speller).
What have I done in this time span? Well, let's see...2 Halloweens', 2 Christmas', 2 Thanksgivings, we purchased a townhouse in August of 2007, Chloe started kindergarten at her new school in September and finished it in June this year. Still have the same cars, I think. We have 2 dogs now, not sure if we had any back then. Lenore got married. Travis moved into a new house purchase, Ori turned 3, an office move. That's just logistics. Sometimes I feel like I do a whole lot in a short amount of time (moving, jobs changing, new schools/cars/pets/friends) , but I think even more has changed just in me being me. A completely different mindset, a completely different person perhaps. Chloe doesn't even remember 2 years ago. It was odd to see grow from a baby to a toddler to this little kid she is. It was like for every year she grew in her toddlerhood, she lost a year of memory before that. She was not even 2 when we moved to DC, she remembered for awhile where we first lived and things Stacy said before work, but then it drifted away the following year. When we moved from Park Place to Newport she talked about the old place all the time, she doesn't remember that at all now. She talks about our apartment fondly and misses it, it was a cute apartment. She may keep that memory, or maybe not since she turned 5 in the midst of the move it's hard to say.
Our new house is great. I love it. My boss helped me find it by suggesting the area, I saw it online and fell in love with it. It has a cute little half twist on the staircase and built in bookshelves in the living room. The lower level has a nice open circular plan which I loved about the apartment. I haven't really formally met too many of the neighbors, a lot are older couples still. One crazy crew owns a used book store I've come to learn. We noticed the same guy walking at a snails pace back and forth to the dumpster with a box. Later we found out he was throwing out books. To me that is a cardinal sin. If you don't want them, I'm sure someone else will. Library, schools, good will, pick one! I'm talking hardcovers, loads and loads of them. Old books printed on presses from the 1800's, new books like John Grisham novels, and everything inbetween. Childrens' books, cook books, history books, autobiographies, everything you can imagine. I tried talking to the guy that walks back and forth but turns out he doens't speak english or is impaired or something. Months later the other guy that lives there, an older indian fellow, talked to me and asked if I liked mysteries. The next day a box of books was by my door. Since then I have periodically moved items off my built in shelves to house my growing library -which i'm thrilled about because I LOVE books and everything about them from the smell, to the feel, to the weight, to the worlds within them. Maybe one day I'll even write one. Anyways, the guy still throws out tons of books. Sometimes I rescue them from their demise. I brought a bunch over to the school, boxes home to family, but there are tons that still go to the landfill which is sad. I'm sure he could partner with someone else who wants to sell that kind of book -he said he doesn' sell novels- and actually get money for them, but it seems he doesn't want to bother. He's one of the new-house adventures. He says he writes books too, childrens' books. He has grandkids. I would think someone who appreciates books like me would not want them thrown in the dumpster on a weekly basis (which it is) but I'm still working with a bit of that language barrier and haven't completely gotten it through to him that he should give them to me ALL the time and not just SOME of the time. Although, I'm sure at that point I'd probably be doing the same thing because of sheer volume. I'm already looking at my shelves like I'm gonig to need a dewy decimal system and a little set of drawers attached to the wall for my card organization. I have a loose organized shelf-category thing going but...one day i'm sure I'll get bored and overhaul it. I'm finding there is much truth to the fact you have to create a bigger mess to create order. I find that process very therapeutic. Sometimes I purposely wait to see how much of a mess I can stand before I clean it up. The contrast between before and after is always better and therefore more fulfilling. Maybe that's what I'm doing all the time.