Oh where, oh where has my little home gone?

A week ago today, we left our home in Nevada. We didn't own the place, just merely rented it, but we had made it 'home'. Since last Saturday. We have lived in 3 different places; tonight will be #4. While I am super grateful that we have a place to put our stuff & lay down our heads, it is hard to not 'be home'. What is 'home'? I realize that possessions (stuff) don't make a home, but having some familiar things around the dwelling definitely improve the ambience. Think about it: why do we keep certain stuff around? Hopefully, it's because those particular items have meaning and/or purpose to us.(If not, clear out your clutter & have a garage sale.) A dwelling does not a home make, much like the building doesn't define the Church. And yet, the familiarity breeds a sense of security. And while I am thrilled that our family is able to experience this adventure together, yet I desire to give them a sense of stability, a place to call 'home'. I suppose 'home' might be a conglomeration of all of these components, the most important ones being contentedness & family. If my heart is content in all circumstances, and I am with ones whom I love, then the dwelling place and things fall into the lesser categories of importance. There's a saying "Home is where the heart is'. While that is true, and I choose to be content wherever we abide (even in a hotel room for the night), my heart longs to alight somewhere, take rest and create a home.

Adjusting to Big City Life, part 1

A few things we've learned so far in regards to Big City Life:
(1) There is no "I'll just zip over to ..." Nope, it takes forever to get anywhere, in a car at least. The traffic is pretty bad, lots of stop-and-go. But the trains seem to run on time. Haven't ridden a bus yet, so I can't comment on them.

(2) Rent is astronomically high. In Northern Nevada, we could afford to rent a nice 3 bdr/2 bath townhouse, about a 15-minute drive from Lennon's work. In Seattle, we can barely afford a small 2 bdr/1 bath apt. in Edmonds, which is a 30-minute train ride PLUS a 15-minute bus ride to Lennon's work. Wow.

Our move to Seattle

What to write about ... so much to say, and yet we're still processing.

We just moved from Northern Nevada to Seattle about 3 days ago.  From the day my Love was offered the position (while we were on vacation) to the day we left our friends in Nevada ... 18 days.

What a whirlwind of packing, telling friends about our upcoming move, downsizing, saying good-byes, having a huge garage sale, more packing and more good-byes. Plus we have 2 small kids - Ladybug (age 7) and Doodlebug (age 4). We had to help them to say good-bye to their friends; that was neither fun nor easy.

But we did it. This wasn't our first crazy move. We did a cross-country move almost 4 years previous, for a new job position with Starbucks; we just did THAT move in 9 weeks, not 18 days. (Oh my goodness, we are crazy!)

Except for a 2-day business trip that my Love had done a few weeks prior, none of us had visited to Seattle. So basically sight unseen, we moved here. 2 adults and 2 kids + 1 compact car with rooftop carrier + 750 miles + 2 days on the road = just how crazy we are. Oh, did I mention that we booked a hotel while we were on Day 2 of our road trip. Oh, and also we don't have a place to live yet. Yup, that's us ... the crazy Coffee Travelers ... welcome to our blog.