Still Around!

It's been forever since I've posted anything! Tons of changes are happening, most good, some that will take awhile to get used to. For now, we focus on the good changes, and hope that the others will fall into place.

We bought a house! It's a-dor-a-ble. And in Piqua (see above about changes to get used to). The house was a flip, so everything in it has been freshly upgraded and smells like paint and varnish. It has a full basement, though because the home was built in the 20's, the jury is still out on whether or not it can be finished and used as living space. I'll be happy to get the litter box down there and use it for storage, but we'll even see about that. I can't see Duke (the most prissy boy cat ever) going down into the dark and smelly basement to use the potty. He'd be pretty upset. Koko seems to be taking to her new house quite well, though she seems puzzled by the lack of carpet to wallow on. Both of them are already learning how to retrieve toys and run around in general without sliding into the doors for lack of stopping ability, though the first couple of weeks it was fun watching them figure that out.

Scottie's new job seems to be going well. There are good and bad days, just like with any school, but he's making the best of it. He's also putting most of what he learned in Tennessee to good use with the current program in Piqua, and time will tell as to how well it all takes.

I'm still adjusting to being back "home". We spent two years (the first two years of our marriage!) learning to live with the South (Knoxville in particular), and now I miss it so much! The beautiful trees, the friendly friendly people, the proximity to so many cool places, the whole Southern Football culture (SEC!)...the list goes on. I think in my whole experience learning how to deal with being away, I actually grew to love that little city. On one of our last nights there, Scottie and I were driving downtown and passed the skyline. I started to tear up a little, and asked him if he would miss it at all. He said probably the sweetest thing I've heard in a long time:

"Of course I'll miss it. It's where we became us."

Figuring out each other and being away from everything really gave us a chance to learn to depend on each other, and find things in ourselves to rely on when one of us wasn't around. We made some fantastic friends and even better memories.

I'll have a slideshow posted shortly of pictures that we took on our last day- tons of downtown pics, and some I plan on having printed in b&w and framed, just because they're so cool.

More later-I have a dog to entertain :)