I'm Back . . . I Think?

It's been a minute. Actually, it's been about 125 days since I last posted. The first 40 of those consisted of our last days in Chicago, which I thought were hard - until we got here. At least upon leaving we got to have lots of farewell dinners at nice restaurants. We also listed our house, which was stressful (especially for the messy inclined me), but then it sold in two days! Moving was, ugh, just as awful as everyone remembers it to be. After the movers finished loading our truck, we had one more day to clean up the house - which turned into Boris spending something like 14 hours at the house packing up all the odds and ends, driving to Goodwill and cleaning. So maybe that was the hardest day for him. (Also, I'm not going to address Jo's last day of school. She was a little sad, but overall okay, but we were a wreck.)

We made a pit stop in Michigan for a few days before we made it to Vermont. We arrived here on May 20th. Since we've been here, we've stayed in four different places, finally moving into our house on July 9th. Honestly, only about two weeks ago did it feel like we were actually trying to make this place our home - the first 50 days or so just felt like a very budget and poorly planned vacation. So, as I've explained, we bought a house that needed a lot of work and we had done a little before we arrived in May. But this is about what the kitchen looked like around May 20th:

Dreamy, I know. Of course, we hoped that it would take about a month to renovate the kitchen. Hahahaha. As of July 31st, and this is where we stood:

I don't have a picture as of August 8th because it's late, and the kitchen wouldn't photograph well (but really I'm lazy and just want to post this before I go to sleep ;)). We've also refinished the floors in the library, the downstairs hallway and two downstairs bedrooms, as well as painted those rooms. Boris has also moved onto the mudroom. Here's where it was in April.

I'll get an updated picture of the progress next time I post, which hopefully will be in a less than 125 days.

Neither of us have been "working" since May, but we are both beat (and yes, we totally chose this, so I'm not complaining, just reporting!). Boris is doing almost all of the renovation work, which means I'm taking the lion's share of the childcare. Jo has had a few camps this summer, but mostly she's been with Otto and me, exploring our new home state. She is missing her Chicago friends, as am I, though we are so lucky to have my sister, her husband and their three kids as buffers to a totally new environment. I have a lot to say about all of this but again, it's late. To end on a high note, though, a few unexpected joys of country living - a riding lawnmower(!), so many blackberry and raspberry patches on our property, watching the kids get distressed when a field of grass has been cut but not baled within a week, "But why haven't they baled that hay yet?", the town pond (in which you swim). Until next time . . .