internet

So we're here. And we love our house. And some kind friends-of-friends brought us chocolate chip cookies yesterday. And the weather is hot. And we have DirectTV, and we've been watching Top Chef, and Mad Men started last night. And we're not totally unpacked, and we don't have quite enough furniture or things to hang on the walls. And our washing machine is being delivered tomorrow. And our internet will get set up on Thursday. And no farm animals are allowed within city limits. But I did set up a clothesline for drying our cloth diapers in the sun.

So Jack is kindly watching Rosie this morning while I'm at a Starbucks feeding my internet addiction, and now my time is up and I haven't even replied to any emails yet. I've been looking at things like this and this, and trying to wrap my mind around having my own house, planning my own meals, the closest grocery store being thirty minutes away, etc.

That is to say, if I owe you an email, (and I probably do,) you'll have to wait until next weekend.

how Rosie likes Upland

I'm not sure if this is really how much Rosie likes Upland, or if she was just over-tired, or if (and this is probably it) she was just so happy to see MaeMae and Papa. We were so blessed to have their help as we unpacked and tried to outfit our new house.

Here's MaeMae's video tour of our house before we unpacked. We love this house and really feel God's kindness in providing it for us.

the long journey

It's hard to believe that it's already been eleven days since we were in Seattle packing boxes and saying goodbye to some of our favorite people.



On the day we left Seattle, we drove eight or nine hours to Stevensville, Montana, where one of Dad's friends let us stay in a cabin for a three night vacation. Outside our window we could see horses in the field, and families of deer (six and eight at a time). Rosie liked the wildlife. We took a hike to Blodgett Canyon Overlook.



From there, we drove eleven hours or so to Dickinson, North Dakota, and stayed in a hotel. On the next day, Rosie woke up at four am and didn't seem to be going back to sleep. About 4:30, I said half-jokingly to Jack, "Want to just leave?" He looked at the clock on the nightstand and said, "Sure." What he didn't know was that the clock on his nightstand was wrong. He thought it was already seven! So we left a little early. But it worked out well, because we drove about nine hours to St. Paul Park and got to spend extra time playing with Aunt Patty and her sweet family.

(For some reason these pics aren't showing up. I"ll try to add them later.)

Our next night was in a little cabin in Kankakee River State Park in Illinois, and from there it was just a four hour drive to Upland, Indiana.

30 & 31 of 52

For our long drive across country, we treated ourselves and bought books, something we haven't really done in years, thanks to the Seattle Public Library. These books were two of the three that I bought, and they were both perfect for passing the time in the car. I'm saving them for Mom when she comes to visit in a couple of weeks.


This is the second "Flavia de Luce" mystery. Flavia is my new favorite in my favorite category: precocious, motherless (why are they always motherless?) girl sleuths.


A modern comedy of manners in the tradition of Jane Austen. Really delightful in every way.

29 of 52

This is a neat little book advising how to create your own cleaning products, health care solutions, and garden. Sometimes I like to think that when we are in our own place I will do these kinds of things, but reading this book made me doubt whether or not I'm really committed.

Before you can start making your own all-purpose cleaner, and face wash, and laundry soap, and toothpaste, and headache tinctures,(etc.) you do have to invest in a number of items (herbs, essential oils, borax...not to mention glass jars and cooking and mixing equipment solely devoted to these creations) that are not necessarily easy to find. Something makes me think that might be especially true in a small town.

So, I'm probably not going to make my own toothpaste. But here are the kind of things I am more likely to try...

five more sleeps

Here is some of what we've been enjoying as we soak up our last days here.
A cool, rainy 4th of July. Rosie loves to say, "big bubbles!"
A cool, rainy 5th of July at Deception Pass.

A HOT, sunny 6th of July at Golden Gardens

Wearing the Taiwanese outfit from Aunt Grace, and eating lots of rice.


A birthday party for Ezzie (2!) celebrated with paints and lots of our good friends.

Yeah, my kid could paint that.

28 of 52

This book had a lot in common with The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose (4 of 52). Both are accounts of experiences at conservative evangelical ("fundamentalist") Christian colleges written by outsiders. Roose's book is funnier, more personal, and more generous.

I picked up God's Harvard out of curiosity and read for a while, until I had read for too long to not finish it; although if it weren't for 52 in 52, I probably wouldn't have finished it.

I am unlike the students at Liberty and Patrick Henry College (the schools profiled in the two books) in so many ways. In fact, we'd have violent disagreements about many things, theological, political, you name it. Yet to much of the culture, I fall into the same category as those students ("evangelical Christian"). I guess that's why I like to read these kinds of things. I like to try to understand my brothers and sisters. And I like to know how others see "us," what people might think I am if they hear that I'm a Christian.

our route

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uncle sam wants chickens

I know a lot of people just won't be able to understand this, but

I would like to keep chickens.

When we finally have our own place, I would like to have a biggger garden and some chickens.

I can't find the city ordinances online for Upland, so I guess I'll just have to march on up to city hall and ask. In my googling, though, I found this, and couldn't resist sharing it. It supposedly dates from 1918.

new dress

This is the dress I made for Rosie a couple of weekends ago when our church "sewing circle" (for lack of a better name for fifteen ladies who met in the church basement to get help with sewing projects) got together.

It was based on this pattern. I decided to leave it longer than I had planned, so that it will fit for a couple of summers as a dress and then maybe as a shirt.

I didn't mean for it to be an Independence Day dress. But these things happen.

Playing in the yard before church:



Sadness. Wherefore art thou, Asher?
He's coming out to play too!

27 of 52

The second book in the trilogy, which started here. Now we just have to wait until August 24 for the final installment.

"bragging"

Dad called me yesterday. "So, are we bragging?" he asked.

I thought back. Did he think that twitpic of lunch gathered from my garden was bragging? Maybe it was. But Dad would be more likely to call a picture of cheesecake from the CF bragging.

"The house on Bragg St?" he asked again. Aha. And then he made a great dad-joke about how we should be bragging on God for his provision for us.

It's true, though, dad-jokes aside. While it's not like I want to leave Seattle, it does seem like this whole move is very well-planned (and not by me), and that gives me confidence.

Here are some things I'm thankful for:

1) A hardworking, intelligent, capable, caring husband who
2) had two job offers within one week, both of them above-average opportunities (and who, had he continued looking, was certain to receive more offers - he was turning down second interviews! and in today's economy!)
3) The timing. Because Jack had jury duty, we had to rush our second interview at Taylor, but if we hadn't, then we would have had to deal with the tempting offer of a fellowship in Laos without having seen Taylor in person yet. Yep, I'm thankful for jury duty.
4) The house on Bragg St. While Jack was interviewing, I called a woman whose name had been given to me by the department. She was willing to have lunch with me and answer my questions about life in Upland. It just so happened that when I called her, she was visiting with a friend at a house on Bragg St. So I met her there. And took a look inside the house, which was for sale. We didn't want to buy a house, but I looked anyway, and took a flyer. The current renter mentioned that he thought the owner might be open to continuing to rent, rather than sell. I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around, looking at houses. Nothing to rent.

So we tried to contact the owner of the Bragg St house, but heard nothing. Just as we were about to pre-qualify for a loan to begin the process of finding a house to buy, he called back, and now we have a move-in date and 1800 square feet to rent, the only house I actually saw the insides of while we were there.

5)And real estate is cheap in Upland, y'all.

And one more thing: there isn't a grocery store or an apartment complex or a movie theater, but there is at least a decent coffeeshop with a smattering of organic offerings. So there's that.

26 of 52 (Halfway!)

Brother-in-law Elliott recommended this book. It took me a long time to read, because it's not the kind of book that you can't put down. It is the kind of book you are happy to read for twenty minutes before falling asleep each night.

Buford, former fiction editor for The New Yorker, recounts his experiences as an apprentice in Mario Batali's restaurant Babbo, and then in Italy learning about pasta and butchering. It was interesting to read, and made me realize that although I enjoy cooking, I would never enjoy cooking in a three star restaurant (from his description, it's a job that is as stressful and demanding and overworked as that of a first year medical resident). The book also made laugh out loud a number of times, especially in his spot-on descriptions of real Tuscan culture.

"When I started, I hadn't wanted a restaurant. What I wanted was the know-how of people who ran restaurants. I didn't want to be a chef: just a cook. And my experiences in Italy had taught me why. For millenia, people have known how to make their food. They have understood animals and what to do with them, have cooked with the seasons and had a farmer's knowledge of the way the planet works. They have preserved traditions of preparing food, handed down through generations, and have come to know them as expressions of their families. People don't have this kind of knowledge today, even though it seems as fundamental as the earth, and, it's true, those who do have it tend to be professionals -- like chefs. But I didn't want this knowledge in order to be a professional; just to be more human."