Current mood:

busy

Jennifer's latest news...

Hello lj readers! It has been a while since I posted, but I have a good excuse. Lots of them, really. Let me tell you what has been going on, recently.




The first thing you should know is that we have moved from our farm in the country into a house in town. Don't worry: the animals are all fine. We have a care-taker who is living in the house and taking care of everyone down at the barn. He is a nice guy and has no fear of animals or hard work. In a few years, my sister will have finished her stint with the military, and she would like to take over the farm at that point.

So why did we move? Well, there are lots of little reasons, but the main reason is that my grandmother is eighty-nine and our new house is just two doors down from hers. My grandmother is not having any problems living alone at this time, but we want to be prepared for the day if and when it comes. For her part, she is as pleased as can be. She has wanted Mom to live closer to her ever since Mom got married. Also, it's nice to be able to visit her every day.

The other nice thing about the new location is that it puts us closer to my step-daughters, who live with their mom. They are very busy girls with lives of their own, but I am hoping that closer proximity will mean that we get to see them a bit more. Even if the frequency of visits don't change, at least it will be easier for us to get together.

So my mailing address has changed, and we don't have a land-line phone number anymore. We are now a cell-phone-only accessible family, as far as telephones are concerned.

The dogs kind of like the new place. Living in town means that they only have a teeny little backyard to play in, but they get to go on walks with us every other day, which is fun. They have having some trouble, however, with the concept that they do not need to bark at every tiny noise that they hear. Hopefully they will figure this out before the neighbors complain.

The cats, by contrast, are really upset about moving to a new place and have been expressing their dissatisfaction in some distressing ways. However, they are starting to acclimatize to the new environment, and they are no longer trying to tear off their new collars, complete with name-tags. We humans see this as improvement.

Much of our worldly goods are still in boxes, many of which are sitting in the garage, glaring balefully at us. We are slowly unpacking and finding places for all our crud. I thought it was traumatic to pack stuff up and to throw it away when we were moving out, but it seems to be just as bad to unpack it and then throw it away ANYHOW as we're moving in. (We have a LOT of crud that we don't need.)

In other news, I have sent in my application to a few nursing schools and will hear back from them in May. In the meantime, I am working at the same nursing home I have been at for a while, but I am looking for something better (hey, aren't we all?).

My family and I, having totally disparate schedules and hectic lives, have recently been trying to do stuff together by, well, planning for it. Recently we saw a play at our local theater called "Stones in his pockets," which was very good, and next week we will see "Man from La Mancha." I'm looking forward to that. There are other activities outside of theater that we have been enjoying--trips up to Salem, visiting local artisan markets, attending musical events--which are starting to happen often enough that we might actually qualify for Having A Life. It's a little strange.

So, in other words, things have been busy, but everyone is doing well. Hope that this is true for all of you, too.