Hello! Anyone still out there?

After almost a month, we are finally connected to the Internet at our new house! And while I am generally opposed to posts without pictures, this brief note will have to suffice to say that we are alive and semi-well and thankfully back in touch with the world. This move has been so, so complicated and just might have cured me of my moving fever permanently. We are having our fourth attempt at getting satellite TV this Friday (we got an awesome 50" plasma to mount above our fireplace since DirecTV wouldn't connect our HD without one). The house is livable but there are still boxes and almost no decorations up. I don't know why, maybe it's because of work or maybe it's all too overwhelming, or maybe it's because some of my stuff is still at the old house so it's staged, but I just haven't gotten any major inspiration on my decorating of the new house. But it will come. I do love the house and the neighborhood is just the best. We couldn't believe how many people fixed up their houses and were out trick-or-treating or passing out candy Halloween night. Macauley loves his school and has 3 kids from his class who live just up the street. Every day we have to negotiate after school play schedules and there is constantly someone over at our house. We discovered this great trail in the woods behind our house that we've been walking on weekend mornings and sometimes after school. The trail follows a little creek and it's all so pretty and woodsy you forget you're in the middle of town. We can let Booker off his leash on the trail and he is one happy dog when we do. I don't know if you've ever seen a dog smile, but if you have, you know what I mean when I say he has that happy dog look the whole walk. Even our cat, Maya Angelou, walked the entire distance with us one morning. So we are mostly taking little baby steps here and there to getting the house in order. I have tried to do at least one "task" each day, sometimes small and others bigger (and this is all in addition to the 100 everyday, routine tasks that must be done), but I just try to check one thing off the seemingly endless to-do list each day. I have gone back to the old house to check on things a couple of times, and it makes me sad, even though I am totally where I want to be. It's such a cute house, all empty. We hired a new realtor a couple of weeks ago, and she thinks she has a buyer who plans to write a contract next week or so (when his divorce is final). So there is hope. We are ready to close that chapter and throw ourselves into this new one. I still walk through this house and think, "I live here? I live here!" I love pulling up to the house at the end of the day. I feel so lucky. And now we have Internet and can get our computers and offices set up again and I can get back to blogging. I've missed it. And there have been many bloggable moments over this last month that I'm afraid I have forgotten or will forget entirely. Oh well. You do what you can do, I suppose. Macauley and I are out of school this Friday, so he gets to go to Arkansas to spend the weekend with my parents. I will meet my mom tomorrow for her to take him. I am looking forward to a quiet weekend with Ryan. I may not even make him do a bunch of stuff around the house. Maybe.