We're still alive

I know some have wondered, and it's true...we are all 4 alive. Some of us just barely, but alive nonetheless. We haven't been the most fabulous at the daily things of life - housekeeping, laundry, mowing the yard, and keeping in touch with friends. It's been a wild month, and we have determined that we will never, never move again...what a mess. For the first three weeks we were here, everything we touched broke off in our hands, the basement flooded every time it rained (which was about every other day for a while), and we wrestled with University City waste management to take away the mounds and mounds of boxes we have unpacked and cut down. We've also had a worker (carpenter, painter, contractor, electrician, carpet layer, younameit) here every day since we've moved, as well as various repairmen - especially plumbers. It has been a complete zoo.

Lucy went to swim camp for 3 weeks from 9-2 every day, which really helped, and Annie has had PEEPS twice a week, too...so two days a week for those 3 weeks I was sans kiddos and took on the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Missouri Dept of Motor Vehicles. You need a letter from the president to get your car registered, titled, and licensed in this state! That has nothing to do with getting a driver's license, registering to vote, getting parking stickers for our cars, various vehicle inspections, and the list goes on. Life in Missouri is lots more complicated than it was in Mississippi, to be sure.

This feels like such a stream-of-conciousness update...hope it makes some remote bit of sense....

Michael has been super-busy at work, which is a good sort of problem to have, I guess. He's really tired, and says he doesn't even have time to sit down and check his email during the day - just runs from hospital to clinic and back to hospital every day. They seem to be pleased with him, and he seems to be pleased with the sorts of cases he's gotten to do in the cath lab, so not much to complain about. I think when they are done dragging him around town to do marketing stuff with primary care docs, he'll be very happy to just practice cardiology.

Let's see, what else...we have been to a baseball game, have taken Lucy to see Peter Pan at the Muny, have been to the zoo, taken bike rides through Forest Park, have spent countless afternoons at the pool with Mary Catherine and her kids, and more. So it hasn't been all work and no play...although I'm sure Lucy and Annie would tell you that. I hope that one of these days we can resume being their parents instead of being preoccupied with whatever crisis our poor old house is in.

It's a good house, a great house, it's just old, and hasn't been very well cared for in a while. So, lots of little things, and not-so-little things, to be done. Good thing Michael is so handy. The plaster walls have about KILLED us, trying to hang pictures and whatnot has been miserable. Every exterior wall has two layers of brick behind the plaster, which promptly bends and spits out all of our picture nails. Michael came home last night with a hammer drill - the homeowner's equivalent of a jackhammer you hold in your hands - and we finally conquered the plaster. Little victories, slow in coming though they may be, and this house is starting to feel like our home.

We are lonely for old friends, miss the familiarity of life in Jackson, and the faces we were so accustomed to seeing every day. It's only been a month, I keep telling us...just a month. It will take time to make friends and feel settled...it just feels different.

School starts August 16th, and that will help - having a routine and being connected at Central and meeting kids and parents and getting involved. Did I tell you before that Michael is coaching the 5 year-old soccer team? Hysterical...I can't wait to see it. Lucy is very pleased as well.

I hope this has made sense...I am beyond tired. Sorry it's been a month since I last posted. I think about so often that I know there are those who wonder about us and would like an update, and at the end of the day I don't have the energy to even type. Love to you all, and thanks for checking on us as persistently as you have. You are dear friends. Mel