My move is continuing to be exciting and stressful. We’ve mostly moved into our new home, although it still needs a lot of work. Somehow we’ve survived this far, even though we were moving boxes one day and realized the temperature was 106! Our new town seems to be five to ten degrees warmer than our last home. Fortunately, we are trading up to central air conditioning and a pool!

You can bet that the first thing I did was buy a unicorn pool floatie. It’s been a lifelong dream (seriously, I nagged my parents for years) to have a house with its own swimming pool. Not a pool in the apartment complex, or a creek, or even the one summer when we tried an above-ground pool, but an honest-to-goodness, decent sized swimming pool in my very own backyard.

Now I wish I had more time and energy to use it because I’ve only been in it a few times so far. But I know I’ll be spending a lot of time here. When the weather starts to cool down in the fall, I want to get a deck chair so I can sit right next to the pool while I write.

I also cooked the first meal in the new place. I have a gas stove! We also went to the farmers’ market and bought tons of fresh vegetables. That led to some pretty epic stir fry.

We’re all pretty tired and sore from pushing hard to get here, but the one who is the most stressed out is probably my cat, Yuri. We’re confining her to my bedroom for now so she doesn’t get overwhelmed by the new space. The first night, she climbed inside the couch to hide and we didn’t find her until the next morning. After a few days, she’s starting to adjust more.

But today we had to move her out of the bedroom because there are people working in our attic (and under the house) to clean out the rodent infestation. So I brought her with me into the office, a room she hasn’t seen yet. She cried until she wore herself out and now she’s curled up in the little house on the top of her tower, struggling to stay awake.

I hope after a few more days, all of us will start to feel more comfortable and recover from the worst parts of the move. There’s still a lot more to do, both unpacking and cleaning the new home while gathering the last few things and cleaning up the old one, but I think the worst is over now.

And that means I can finally get back to writing!