2014 was quite the eventful year, so I want to try to document everything that is happening and has happened. It's been a good year in spite of the busyness and the unexpected changes, and I think Tim and I both agree we have ended it in a really good place both individually and as a family as a whole.
The beginning of the year had us returning from
Utah and my
settling back into school. Atticus started preschool at Bernie's Place where Tallulah had been in the toddler room since September. After a rocky start (missing Teacher Laura school!), he ended up loving it there and made lots of friends. Tallulah did as well, and was crazy about her afternoon teacher Kate, who would carry her in the Ergo for the entire naptime until she adjusted to sleeping on the mat by herself. We survived the polar vortex, the few sporadic weeks of sub-zero weather during these months, with the windchill down around -40 at some points. We spent a lot of time with good friends and bundling up to head to FUS. Tim ran the FUS volunteers for the Road Home, was on the anti-gun violence committee, and headed the University Apartments Assembly in Eagle Heights.
Sometime around mid-January , as the weather grew colder and more bleak, we were talking about Tiny Texas Houses, and joked it'd be cool to move to Austin. Tim, who had been contemplating going to seminary for a few months by this point, looked up APTS and we read about their subsidized housing, liberal leanings, and tight-knit community and decided to consider applying.
Tim flew down in late February for Discovery Weekend, just to check it out, though at this point we were planning pretty seriously on doing a distance program based out of Berkeley.
In March,
Tallulah turned 2 with a
Pi Party, the days gradually became sunnier and warmer and I attended an amazing
women's retreat at FUS and left feeling rejuvenated and powerful.
The next few months we soaked in as much of the new spring as possible after that long, long, cold winter. We went to the library and the children's museum and the Wisconsin Science Festival and Whole Foods. Tim began applying for grad school and spent more time writing for Writers' Domain. We had a
glorious Easter at Bob and Kelly's house. During the next few months we went back and forth over whether we would go away for seminary or Tim would do a distance program. He really liked the community and the people at Austin, but we ended the spring on the side of staying in Madison for me to finish up, since I was so close to being ABD.
I finished school in May and
headed almost straight to Tunisia. I had been given a grant to do research on the women's movement in Tunis and was excited to be on the ground running with my pre-dissertation research. It was a lot more challenging than I thought before I went, and I spent a lot of time wandering aimlessly around Tunis. Tim and the kids missed me, obviously, but also had
a great time playing outside a ton and Tim played on a co-ed recreational softball team put on by my department.
While I was gone, we heard back from the seminary about grant money and the subsidized housing option, and
we decided to move to Austin after realizing that we would save like $40,000 a year in student loans. (!!)
Post Tunisia, I spent a week in Budapest,
Zagreb, and Plitvice Falls with my friend Dana Rose and her friend Sarah. I had my first experience hitch-hiking. It was really fun being an independent 20-something woman with no kids to cart around on my travels. I returned to
a glorious reunion and tornadoes. We had an awesome summer with
a week at our friends' farm, some in-between time staying in the Bradshaws' apartment, and then a few months house-sitting at the Allens'. We really enjoyed living in a real home with a garden, cats, and a TV to watch seemingly endless episodes of
Borgen and Orange is the New Black. We bought 20-class passes on Groupon to the nearby yoga studio and went several times a week until we left. I also did a pottery class at the parks and rec building and loved being artistic for a change.
We finally went to
Devil's Lake when our dear old friend Analiesa (the only person besides us to be at both of our children's births) had a wedding reception there. We had our own wedding reception of sorts when we
renewed our vows at FUS under the guidance of the wonderful Minister Kelly.
What felt like both a blink of an eye and an eternity, our lovely, calm Madison summer ended, we bought a car after being car-free for years, and we were on
our way to Texas. Texas! The last place on Earth I thought we would ever end up. The first few days were rough, we arrived to an empty apartment with ugly tile floors and ZERO appliances, with only our mini mini-van full of things. We spent the first week in bed sick with the flu, fortunately staying in the seminary's guest room while we recuperated. Once we got into our apartment, bought some super-sketchy appliances and a million rugs, things started to look up. It only took us four months to get a bed! Our first since living in DC many moons ago when we had an awesome Murphy bed that we would love to replicate one day. We also bought a
worm composter, which Cait is a little too crazy about and Tim is indifferent towards. The first few months here were HOT, hot and we did so much swimming and lounging. Atticus went to school, for a few months, before we decided to start home-schooling over Thanksgiving break. Another big change was my getting a job which I love at the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
In summary, where we are now: Tim thinks his program is the bomb, we have neighbors with three little boys who play with ours so well (and their parents are awesome, too), my job pays well and is meaningful to me, and our Austin friend group is ever-expanding. Atticus and Tallulah are finally in a place where they play independently together and have less and less need of our constant attentions, they sleep through the night, we don't have to change diapers, and we are beginning to branch out and pursue hobbies. Tim started playing guitar again, and we recently joined the YMCA and have been spending many mornings there while the kids go to music/dancing/gymnastics and I do yoga. We are in such a good place in our lives, and looking forward to what 2015 will bring us.
