Broadcasting live from Delaware
Yay! We made it! And we finally have internet in the house!
To briefly catch up, with more details and photos to follow:
Since I blogged last, I defended my dissertation. My talk was a big hit, and it was actually a lot of fun. It was especially lovely because my mom, dad, and brother flew out to see me do my thing, and my boss gave a cute little introduction where he showed some Post-Its I wrote on early in my research that he had saved (!). And boy, is it so wonderful for it to be OVER. Now I just need to hand in my thesis...
That was Wednesday morning. Wednesday evening, Michael, Dad, and Chris packed most of our house into a semi-trailer and shipped it away towards Delaware. We sent my family home Saturday morning, and then lived in our minimalist environment until Monday, when Michael packed the rest into a U-Haul trailer, including Isaac, Cat-Brother, and myself, and we headed for the airport to stay the night in a hotel and begin our lives as homeless people. Isaac and I left the hotel at 4 Tuesday morning and flew to Indianapolis to hang out with the Grandmas and Grandpas and wait for Michael to drive allllllll the way across the country with his home-slice, Matt, who we flew out to Seattle for the very purpose of trapping him in a car with Dada for ~3 days (thanks, Matt!!!!!). Michael and Matt showed up at 4-something in the morning on that Friday, just in time to catch Isaac's great-grandmas and -grandpas, who had made the trip up from Missouri to see us all.
Michael stayed with us until Sunday, when he and Matt reunited for the last leg of the drive, from Indianapolis to Delaware. Isaac and I stayed and continued our rampage of being shamelessly spoiled by the grandmas and grandpas until Wednesday, when we started the 2-day drive out to Delaware with Grandma and Grandpa O'Neal in their touring van, and we made it to the house Thursday afternoon. Grandma and Grandpa O'Neal just left yesterday, after willingly working their poor little fingers to the bone to make the house liveable for us.
And now here we are, the three-and-a-UB of us, making our way in our new little grown-up lives and careers. Dada is settling in to his professorial duties slowly, wading through the muck and mire that is learning how to use the university phone system and getting an ID and e-mail account and all the stupid and incredibly necessary things one must endure when getting started at a university. I am home with the Isaac, for the most part having a good time, but of course floundering a bit as I try to think of unboring things for us to do in this decidedly un-Seattle-like climate (read: sweltering, humid, why are we outside again?). If I would have started the stay-at-home mom thing in Seattle, it would have been so easy -- I know where the good parks are, the wading pools, even where to go when the weather sucks. So far I have found only lame-o parks that are devoid of other moms and babies, and managed to get a library card only on my second attempt. However, we are finding our feet -- there is another young professor with a stay-at-home-mom wife and young-uns in Michael's department, and his wife, Sara, invited Isaac and I to her playgroup tomorrow, and has invited us over to dinner in the near future. It's all a matter of becoming more familiar with our surroundings, which can only come with time. And lots of driving around. And lots of advice from Sara.
To briefly catch up, with more details and photos to follow:
Since I blogged last, I defended my dissertation. My talk was a big hit, and it was actually a lot of fun. It was especially lovely because my mom, dad, and brother flew out to see me do my thing, and my boss gave a cute little introduction where he showed some Post-Its I wrote on early in my research that he had saved (!). And boy, is it so wonderful for it to be OVER. Now I just need to hand in my thesis...
That was Wednesday morning. Wednesday evening, Michael, Dad, and Chris packed most of our house into a semi-trailer and shipped it away towards Delaware. We sent my family home Saturday morning, and then lived in our minimalist environment until Monday, when Michael packed the rest into a U-Haul trailer, including Isaac, Cat-Brother, and myself, and we headed for the airport to stay the night in a hotel and begin our lives as homeless people. Isaac and I left the hotel at 4 Tuesday morning and flew to Indianapolis to hang out with the Grandmas and Grandpas and wait for Michael to drive allllllll the way across the country with his home-slice, Matt, who we flew out to Seattle for the very purpose of trapping him in a car with Dada for ~3 days (thanks, Matt!!!!!). Michael and Matt showed up at 4-something in the morning on that Friday, just in time to catch Isaac's great-grandmas and -grandpas, who had made the trip up from Missouri to see us all.
Michael stayed with us until Sunday, when he and Matt reunited for the last leg of the drive, from Indianapolis to Delaware. Isaac and I stayed and continued our rampage of being shamelessly spoiled by the grandmas and grandpas until Wednesday, when we started the 2-day drive out to Delaware with Grandma and Grandpa O'Neal in their touring van, and we made it to the house Thursday afternoon. Grandma and Grandpa O'Neal just left yesterday, after willingly working their poor little fingers to the bone to make the house liveable for us.
And now here we are, the three-and-a-UB of us, making our way in our new little grown-up lives and careers. Dada is settling in to his professorial duties slowly, wading through the muck and mire that is learning how to use the university phone system and getting an ID and e-mail account and all the stupid and incredibly necessary things one must endure when getting started at a university. I am home with the Isaac, for the most part having a good time, but of course floundering a bit as I try to think of unboring things for us to do in this decidedly un-Seattle-like climate (read: sweltering, humid, why are we outside again?). If I would have started the stay-at-home mom thing in Seattle, it would have been so easy -- I know where the good parks are, the wading pools, even where to go when the weather sucks. So far I have found only lame-o parks that are devoid of other moms and babies, and managed to get a library card only on my second attempt. However, we are finding our feet -- there is another young professor with a stay-at-home-mom wife and young-uns in Michael's department, and his wife, Sara, invited Isaac and I to her playgroup tomorrow, and has invited us over to dinner in the near future. It's all a matter of becoming more familiar with our surroundings, which can only come with time. And lots of driving around. And lots of advice from Sara.
posted by Claire at 5:23 PM
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