Our little family has been thoroughly welcomed by our New Church. We made our official first appearance this past Sunday, with Matt assisting with some prayers and communion, and Simon and I standing briefly to say "hi" to the entire congregation. Although the role of the pastor's spouse has thankfully changed a lot over the years (in the Methodist church anyway), it's still a role, I suppose - I don't know tons of other jobs where your spouse gets introduced to 300+ of your colleagues/clients all at once, and Matt's "clergy profile" on the Conference website lists me as his spouse, right after the name of the seminary he attended. That's weird, right? I can't imagine a professional profile of me, or of many other jobs, where not just your marital status but the name of your spouse is listed. I do feel "watched" a lot, right now because it's new I'm conscious of it but soon I guess my usual personality of "[forget] it" will take over ... :) It was a great day, with a cookout and celebration afterward - I would guess there are also not many professions where your official welcome comes with a big waterslide and a cornhole tournament on the front lawn. I'm excited about the new placement, and I hope it's as good for the New Church as I think it will be for us.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
It's Been Awhile Since I Rapped At Ya
(If you don't get the Jim Anchower reference I may have to boot you off this site)
It has been awhile - as you know we've been busy with the move, which I would consider to *nearly* be over. We have most stuff unpacked, and all the little things that were out of order with the new place are back in order (air conditioner, leaky tub, dishwasher not draining). The house is coming in to some sort of order, and we really like it. It's hard to tell how close-knit the neighborhood is, but people are out and about quite a bit (running, walking dogs, riding bikes) so I hope that's a good sign. We appear to have two different neighbors in law enforcement, one uniformed officer whose cruiser is usually parked just across the way, and a detective or something a ways down. That's nice. We've only met one person so far, but I'm sure we'll talk to others pretty soon.
The move itself, the day with the truck, was horrible, not so much the trip itself as the 18 or so hours preceding it, when we realized the truck was too small and then learned that U-Haul, due to a history of lawsuits, will not rent a trailer to pull behind an Explorer. I tried not to beat myself up about it too much because I know it's an inherently stressful process, but it was so frustrating because I'd been packing for three months, and how in the world was there still so much left? Oh, well, it's all here now, after a trip back the next day by Matt to pick up all the stuff we had to leave on the back porch.
Simon and David are settling in, and Simon is excited to meet new people. He's begun a week-long day camp through the new church, and David's started the half-day preschool there. Today Matt suggested we start David in full-day preschool somewhere, in August, and I agree. The little booger is as cute and adorable as ever (Matt has officially termed taking him out in public as, Winning Friends and Influencing People) but he is a lot of work these days - constant supervision. Constant. Especially in the new house, where some stacks of boxes remain, not everything is 100% childproofed yet, he can start the dishwasher in a heartbeat and the oven is a lot easier to open than the one in our old kitchen. Constant, I tell you. It is wearing me out, just the four hours between picking him up from the church and when Matt gets home after work.
My main task for David these days is setting up outpatient surgery for him to get fillings in his two front bottom teeth. Yep. Down syndrome makes him more prone to gum disease, not cavities, but his meds (especially the nebulizer ones) make him prone to cavities. Because he's so young they will sedate him (like with an IV, not just nitrous oxide or whatever), and our Blue Cross will cover the anesthesiologist but not the actual dentistry work, so we are in negotiations with the hospital to see if we can get some sort of discount from the $1500 - $2500 it might cost. He has not previously had dental insurance because it's so expensive and in my experience not worth it, between the premiums and the yearly maximum, and the BCBS lady basically told me not to waste my money until we had a better idea of what his dental situation might be. Well, I guess now we have a better idea .... I also have to get him set up with the New County's school system to begin speech therapy and other services - I made an initial contact with the Preschool Coordinator a couple of months ago, but she said there wasn't really anything she could do until we got here, so ...
This has been a whole lotta nothing, I suppose, but that's about the level my brain is functioning at these days. Here are some lovely photos to enjoy, and I'll try to make the next post a little more coherent:
This is at my sister's house; she has this giant (glass) jug full of wine corks, and on each visit the boys delight in taking them in and out. I figure hey, great fine motor skills practice for both of them:
My two boys in a delightful wig, and David helping to pack (none of the things he put in the box were designated to pack, but he was so cute and industrious, and so proud of himself for helping, that he can help me out any old day).
It has been awhile - as you know we've been busy with the move, which I would consider to *nearly* be over. We have most stuff unpacked, and all the little things that were out of order with the new place are back in order (air conditioner, leaky tub, dishwasher not draining). The house is coming in to some sort of order, and we really like it. It's hard to tell how close-knit the neighborhood is, but people are out and about quite a bit (running, walking dogs, riding bikes) so I hope that's a good sign. We appear to have two different neighbors in law enforcement, one uniformed officer whose cruiser is usually parked just across the way, and a detective or something a ways down. That's nice. We've only met one person so far, but I'm sure we'll talk to others pretty soon.
The move itself, the day with the truck, was horrible, not so much the trip itself as the 18 or so hours preceding it, when we realized the truck was too small and then learned that U-Haul, due to a history of lawsuits, will not rent a trailer to pull behind an Explorer. I tried not to beat myself up about it too much because I know it's an inherently stressful process, but it was so frustrating because I'd been packing for three months, and how in the world was there still so much left? Oh, well, it's all here now, after a trip back the next day by Matt to pick up all the stuff we had to leave on the back porch.
Simon and David are settling in, and Simon is excited to meet new people. He's begun a week-long day camp through the new church, and David's started the half-day preschool there. Today Matt suggested we start David in full-day preschool somewhere, in August, and I agree. The little booger is as cute and adorable as ever (Matt has officially termed taking him out in public as, Winning Friends and Influencing People) but he is a lot of work these days - constant supervision. Constant. Especially in the new house, where some stacks of boxes remain, not everything is 100% childproofed yet, he can start the dishwasher in a heartbeat and the oven is a lot easier to open than the one in our old kitchen. Constant, I tell you. It is wearing me out, just the four hours between picking him up from the church and when Matt gets home after work.
My main task for David these days is setting up outpatient surgery for him to get fillings in his two front bottom teeth. Yep. Down syndrome makes him more prone to gum disease, not cavities, but his meds (especially the nebulizer ones) make him prone to cavities. Because he's so young they will sedate him (like with an IV, not just nitrous oxide or whatever), and our Blue Cross will cover the anesthesiologist but not the actual dentistry work, so we are in negotiations with the hospital to see if we can get some sort of discount from the $1500 - $2500 it might cost. He has not previously had dental insurance because it's so expensive and in my experience not worth it, between the premiums and the yearly maximum, and the BCBS lady basically told me not to waste my money until we had a better idea of what his dental situation might be. Well, I guess now we have a better idea .... I also have to get him set up with the New County's school system to begin speech therapy and other services - I made an initial contact with the Preschool Coordinator a couple of months ago, but she said there wasn't really anything she could do until we got here, so ...
This has been a whole lotta nothing, I suppose, but that's about the level my brain is functioning at these days. Here are some lovely photos to enjoy, and I'll try to make the next post a little more coherent:
This is at my sister's house; she has this giant (glass) jug full of wine corks, and on each visit the boys delight in taking them in and out. I figure hey, great fine motor skills practice for both of them:
And here are three shots of my wedding dress - came across it packing. I did not have bridal portraits taken, which I regret because the dress is really beautiful, but here are a few.
A close-up of the hem, the back of the dress, and the neckline.
It's best from the front, the neckline and an empire waist, but it looked sort of droopy, not being on a dressmaker's dummy, so maybe I'll show some of those later.
(And yes, in fact, I did have to move a few stray Kix out of the way to
take the close-up of the hem. How did you guess?)
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