Normal, whatever that means

It's time to play catch-up, since the total chaos of the last few weeks has made blogging just about impossible. We finished unpacking the last of the boxes last night (those pesky few that are full of weird things that you don't have a place for yet), so we are now officially completely moved in. We still have some pictures to hang and some various things to arrange, but that will come. I don't have a computer or all the necessary furniture in my school office yet, but I am hopeful that those things will arrive any day now, and I will then be moved in there as well.

Although we've basically been in survival mode for a while now, we are making an effort to explore our surroundings. On Monday night we drove to the Hawkins Family Farm, a CSA that is about a mile from our house. They have a farm store, and we figured we'd buy some local food to stock our fridge there. Well, we drove down the long lane and parked by the barn and went inside, but were a little surprised at what we found. This "store" was really just a part of the barn that had a few freezers and fridges, a sign with pricing, and a tin can full of money. My first instinct was to turn around and run back out (what do we do here, what is this place???), but in the spirit of adventure and exploration, we instead decided that since we were here, we might as well buy something. We decided to buy an organic chicken and a dozen brown eggs. I filled out the receipt, used the calculator on the table to tally up our purchases, pulled a $20 out of my wallet, and stuck it in the can. As we loaded Everett back into the car, the farmer came out of the house to say hello. The experience was not what I expected, but was in a way, pretty interesting (in a good way). We're going to go back on Friday night for brick-oven pizza and a picnic at the farm.

This morning I am sitting at the table on our screened patio, which Kyle and I have decided is our favorite part of the entire house. We start and end every day here. I dropped Everett off at daycare this morning, and when I came home our conversation centered around our hopes that today would be "normal." After the crayon incident on Monday, the daycare conference on Tuesday, and Everett's teacher quitting midday on Wednesday, all I can hope for is that today will be normal. Everett was smiling and playing with giant Legos when I left him this morning, and I'll get to meet his new teacher this afternoon, so let's hope we can settle into a routine pretty soon. Pretty soon, daycare will be normal for all of us. And the electrician who calls to ask if he can come over and drop off the bill (rather than mailing it) will also seem normal. And the fact that at this very moment there is a senior citizen riding by our house on a golf cart will also seem normal. Let's just have a "normal" day today, shall we (pretty please)?