Dress Up, Dine In

The in-between is the worst.  Living in a home that's losing us. Losing the things that make it ours: the community cats, the white and green kitchen walls, the traces of our family tucked into drawers in the name of de-cluttering.  If I don't start distancing myself now I will bleed out onto the wood floor. The one the two of us pulled countless nails from at night after we'd gotten off work. The one that's marked by puffs clattering down hallways. What I walked over (and over and over) to get the kids to sleep when they were small. I'm hemorrhaging memories.  Eventually this will be an adventure. That Arizona house that's getting a new roof will be our new home (complete with a basement to cry in, of all things!) and I'll put on a brave face for the kids. Eventually I may even love it. But right now there's just this limbo. It's crushing me. :: listening to "june on the west coast" by bright eyes::

Utah~ We were babies when we met you. Newly married, freezing in 50 degrees, adventurous babies.  Now we're parents, well acclimated, sad to be possibly saying goodbye grown people.  There's no way to measure my adoration for your hikes or what we discovered along them. I'll never be able to relate the perfection that is picnic-ing and playing in any one of your parks. Small town parades and big fireworks will never be done better. I love the people who made us family and friends here. And Fall, well, Fall is just bliss. So I thank you for bringing me these people and places so I would stop crying in bungalow basements out of homesickness. You showed me how beautiful it could be to begin again. I'm channeling the 10th Doctor over here with an "I don't want to go!" I can't imagine Arizona ever being for me what you have been. But maybe when I'm crying in some non-basement Arizona will speak to me as you did and I will let it bec

I was afraid to leave 2015 behind and enter a new year that would never know two of our puff friends. Snowball, When you first came into my classroom with your funky flat top 'do I had no idea what a companion you would be. You greeted countless 1st graders, kept me company on late nights and planning days, and could always be counted on to stand in as a groundhog on its special day. I will miss you popcorning around your cage and playing hide-and-seek. I will hear your weeking noise in hopes of carrots every time I open the fridge. I still have to stop myself from cutting sweet peppers for you. Thank you for your company as I was navigating a new place. I hope you have learned to love your new one though it is so very far from us. We can't wait to see you again. Maximus, It wasn't lost on me that when you put your head in my lap it was exactly a year and a day after we met you. I didn't know that was your coherent goodbye at the time.  I wasn'