The Flip Side

The flip side of moving, I mean. 

Which happened months ago. Three months ago, to be precise. 

I don't necessarily apologize to others for not blogging for a while... that would be silly. It's not as if I have folks sitting on the edge of their seat, waiting for my next post. 

But, I do apologize to myself, because I miss blogging when I don't blog. It helps me not just to record our life, but to appreciate the details... to stop and notice them, to treasure them. The details are pretty much about as noticeable as the stuff in a gutter right about now. My eyes might happen upon them in passing, but that's about as much airtime as they get. 

And, this time I (sort of) apologize to Daria, because I feel like I've really missed recording months 4-7 of her life. At least, I would apologize to her if it wasn't entirely HER FAULT that I haven't blogged for the past three months. The first few weeks, not entirely her fault. After that, ALL her fault.

That child is grumpy, yo.  

It's a good thing she's cute. 

SOoooo, in the interest of trying to get myself back into a semi-regular blogging schedule, (that could possibly be followed by a very loud, echoing "HA!") I thought I'd just start at the beginning of my camera's photos since my last post, and see where we go from there.

Please note that all these photos are from fall--we're now covered in a lovely blanket of white. I should prolly take some pics of that. 

Most of my day-to-day photos are on my phone still, because I have a very demanding 7 month old in my arms most of the time. I miss my camera.

The St. Croix River. That's Wisconsin over there.

Brie.

Fun with a cool bridge along the river walk.

Me and "Dawia Wiwwow!!"
She:
1. Loves to be slightly cold.  She gets that from her father. 2. Likes to be carried about. Sitting is not for her. 3. Likes to be directly entertained. 4. Gets bored very easy. 5. Does everything loudly!! She sleeps loud, eats loud, complains loud, is happy loud, is angry loud, is bored loud, is just plain loud, loud, loud. When she's happy, she's very very happy. For all ten minutes of happiness, one can count on her being loudly and exuberantly happy. 

 Moving this time has been crazy... Weird because it really is different here--and yet completely the same. I can walk into Target or Costco, or wherever, and I might as well be in Washington or Oregon.

The differences are more subtle. People are, as a general rule a bit different. Not in a bad way, to be clear. Just a bit different.

Way more friendly. I have full on conversations with strangers every time I leave the house.

Unless you're driving, then they're way more aggressive. Whatever you do, DO NOT hesitate at a four way stop. They will MOW YOU OVER. If you're from the Pacific NW, you probably know about Pemco's hilarious "We're a lot like you." ad campaign. It's hilarious, and a whole lot true. Profile #4, "Four way stop, you go, no you go, no you go guy." does NOT exist out here. It's pretty awesome.

The St. Croix River, the other way. I'm looking forward to exploring both sides of this river a bit more... we've already done a bit of it--to be seen in a future blog post.

A lovely yarn shop in Stillwater, MN. Darn. Knit.{Anyway}

A cool building.

And so then this happened, and I realized that we actually did move 1700 miles away from my beautiful Cascade Mountains. 

To be clear, I'm glad we've moved here. Glad for the experience of moving outside our comfort zone, for the growth that happens when we do that, and for the new places and things to see. Especially glad for new friends, and for being part of the huge family of Christ--wherever we move, we are shown love and kindness, and heartfelt welcome... and I'm so thankful for that. If I look at myself objectively, I can see that's something that my cynical self needs to see and learn from.

All that being said, we do indeed miss our mountains.

This photo is for my husband. He expects me to always take pictures up trees. So I did. Just for him. And because, well, look at it! It looks cool! 

So, now I'm going to go wrangle the children. And put some socks on. Where our desktop is is SUPER cold in this cavernous house.  More about those two subjects, next post.