I have a bit of a revelation for you. Are you ready? The world is full of irritating people. It is even possible that some of the irritating people live with me. What’s that? I refuse to believe that I could possibly be equally irritating. Irritated or irritating; it is clear I have needed a bit of a break from reality lately. My ideal break from reality would involve a trip to London with lots of book shopping, tea-drinking, and cake-eating. That isn’t going to happen anytime soon (which might have something to do with the irritating-irritated issue) so I have had to figure out a new way to escape…

This is my view in the mornings as I drink my tea. We have a nature preserve right behind our apartment so it is peaceful and quiet. I am planning a whole separate post about all the wildlife we have seen in the preserve but today’s post is a random collection of my impressions of living in Ohio for a grand total of 12 days. People are so friendly. I am a New Englander at heart and I am very used to the standoffish attitude typical of the area. Here everyone wants to talk to me and I don’t quite know what to think of it. So much friendliness, so…

If you could zoom out on the photo above you would see a trash bag of clothes, an empty bookshelf, more boxes than you could count, and the fact that the couch is actually in the middle of the living room and has two lawn chairs next to it. Despite the absolute chaos, I am calling this a win. We are in Ohio and so are all our possessions. It has been a fraught couple of weeks with a lot of stress and a bit of bickering. Our furniture was delayed in Pennsylvania for two days which left us in a hotel over the weekend. I am pretty sure I…

I don’t care. I don’t care that the apartment we are moving to is supposed to be temporary. I don’t care that it is on the small side for our family. I don’t care that there isn’t enough room for my books. Wait a minute. I might be moving again. Most of my books are going to have to live in boxes for the foreseeable future. Boxes that will be stacked in the walk-in closet in our bedroom. Yes, many women would fill a walk-in closet with clothes. I am planning on filling mine with books. That is not a permanent solution so I am afraid I am going to…

You know how chickens frantically run around kicking up dust, getting in each other’s way, and seemingly not accomplishing very much? That is what my life feels like right now. It is a lot of endless research, (moving companies) endless sorting and packing, (two truck loads to the dump, two car loads to the thrift store. Progress is being made.) and endless cleaning (house showings.) I know it is actually progress but it feels like I am just repeating the same actions every day. And every time I cross something off a list I add another item at the bottom. Today we had to be out of our house all…