Fabulous News

Out on the porch are two boxes of apple seconds that I bought for only $2 at the market on Saturday. I see a lot of applesauce in my future. I am the Queen of Market Scavenging: apple seconds, cheese ends, ham and bacon ends, day-old bread and rolls, bones, wilted greens.

March is more than halfway gone, and I am so far behind in my blogging. I have half a dozen unfinished posts in the pipeline. I'm gonna catch up with a series of quickie posts about things I don't want to forget.

First, Fabulous News today: DH was selected to be a National Urban Fellow in the 40th Anniversary year of that program. It's an intensive graduate program with two semesters of coursework and a 9-month mentorship that will result in a Master of Public Administration and admission to an incredible network of Fellows. The program runs a total of 14 months, pays a stipend and other expenses, and even includes health insurance. It's a wonderful , exciting opportunity and I am so proud of him for being selected.

But (isn't there always a "but"?), it means he will leave us for most of that time. We've had other times in our long relationship when we did not live together, so we will be okay, but I am not looking forward to his absence, even with all the digital means of staying close.

A huge clock just started ticking. He leaves the last weekend of May, and will be in NYC until August, then I get him back for 3 weeks before he goes to an as-yet-uknown major city for the mentorship. I hope he gets assigned to the Eastern seaboard, so I can visit him. We have a lot of work to do to be ready, and he will barely finish his EMT certification in May. Tick tock!

The Great Clean-up is Under Way. DH and I rented a garage for storage, and today my mother and I had our first clean-up session at her house. I took away two bags of trash and a 'donut' tire to Freecycle. I took photos of an old school desk and a child's bench to sell on Craigslist. That made just a small dent in the front porch junk, but it was a good warm-up. I hope to establish a schedule of working from 8AM-Noon four days per week, with some afternoons reserved for taking her to appointments and such. Now that we know DH is going to grad school, the pressure is really on.

Planning to Move. The current plan is to move to Mom's house in June. I have discovered that makes me really disinterested in doing things in our current house. "Is is worth doing when we will only be here another 3 months?" So far, "no" to new bathroom curtain, rearranging the living room furniture, and planting potatoes.

I've stopped buying for the freezer and pantry, and we will try to eat down our stores to avoid moving heavy canned goods. But I am keeping a list, so we can restock after the move. I'm also working on packing up things I can stash in the rented garage to reduce the size of the move - extra books, the fabric collection, and assorted boxed memorabilia.

I'm not going to plant anything at our house this year. Not even the early peas and lettuce. The clock is ticking too loudly, and I need to stay closely focused. I might try to get stuff in at Mom's if I can get rid of that groundhog, and score some compost to put in large containers.

We are planning an Easter weekend trip to DC. Tentatively, we'll visit DH's family there, visit the Smithsonian on Saturday, and attend at All Souls Unitarian Church on Sunday. We haven't been anywhere as a family since August, so a little road trip will be nice, and we seldom see DH's aunts.

Look for more posts shortly. I have things to tell you about the worm farm, a birthday trip to the Historical Society, and an Independence Challenge Update.