Yahtzee as life

I know I’m learning something right now, I’m just not sure what it is yet. We’ve picked up all of the pieces of our lives, shaken them up, and flung them back down like dice to see what might happen. With all of this chaos and confusion there are bound to be lessons, but I think we’re a little too much in the mix to see what they are right now. I do have one lead, though – something to do with control-freakism – and it isn’t pretty.

Fortunately there are lots of fun distractions from personal growth. Last week we spent a day at the beach and we just got back from a trip to Washington DC. The weather has been my favorite (lots of rain and cloud cover) and I’m getting ready to enjoy a memorable lunch. Like the ever-cheery clothing brand says, life is good.

Here's a picture of one of our favorite sites in DC, the Jefferson Memorial on the Potomac River.

Update - Good prevails again

I’m amazed! All of the library books that were stolen from our car a few months ago were returned! Apparently our criminal was a conscientious citizen after all. I wonder if I should be expecting a check in the mail to cover the cost of the window repair…

Update - Over the weekend

On Saturday we enjoyed some of the most amazing food I’ve ever tasted at the “Feast of Assumption” Italian festival. From what I can remember (I think I was experiencing a grease haze), we had huge meatballs, sausage, fried eggplant, tiramisu, cannoli, and a funnel-cake-ish thing called an elephant ear. The festival took place in Little Italy, one of the most beautiful suburbs of Cleveland. It’s pretty huge with as many as 100,000 people attending over four days.
And yesterday we tried out a church near the house for the first time. I loved the music and the sermon was pretty good. It’s a much smaller church than we went to in Colorado Springs, but I feel like we’re all about change right now, so I think we’ll give it a go for a while. I hope you all had wonderful weekends!

Update - Sister

My sister Lauren was home from Chicago for a long weekend and we got to celebrate her birthday. I had an amazing time hanging out with the whole family. My favorite part was lying on the bed with Lauren just talking about life. Here’s a picture we took right before Laur had to leave.

Update - Busy days

You know you’re on vacation mode when taking a shower can be checked off your to-do list as though it was a major accomplishment of the day. In addition to looking for work and keeping clean, we’re also in hot pursuit of a used chest of drawers. We’ve already checked out a few consignment stores and we hit up a bunch of Thursday morning garage sales. We didn’t see much, but I definitely recommend garage sale hopping if you move and need to acquaint yourself with a new area. Brilliant!

Update - Finding Work

I’m getting a little résuméd out. I’ve applied for a lot of positions, but I haven’t exactly been qualified for most of them. I was figuring it couldn’t hurt to just apply for everything, but I’m starting to get application fatigue. Maybe I’ll just stick to library positions that are a little more in line with what I actually know how to do. Then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Fortunately I’m not in any huge hurry.

On a brighter note, Sam already has two interviews lined up! Sam’s not in much of a rush either, so he’s going to try to find a firm that shares more of his architectural philosophy. He’s quite an outside-of-the-box thinker, so I’ll let you know how that goes : )

Update - A New Home

We made it to Ohio! It was a long, but totally successful trip. We ended up going with the 5’x8’ trailer and pulled it with our ’98 Chevy Lumina. This was the much cheaper, less certain option compared to renting a truck and pulling our car. So here are the trip stats...

Left Colorado Springs: Thursday, July 31, 5:00 AM
Arrived in Chicago and stayed with my sister: Friday, August 1, 3:00 PM
Arrived in Cleveland: Saturday, August 2 at 7:30 PM

Traveled: 1,500 miles
Spent: $1,120 on U-Haul rentals, gas, and one hotel stay
Ate: Thousands of calories worth of road-trip food
Maximum speed: 65 mph (downhill)
Hauled: 220 cubic feet of goods
Broke down: Never
Used air conditioning: Almost never
Sweated: Gallons

Like I said, very successful.

Here's a picture of the rig...

I'll keep you posted as we begin to settle in.