House Hunting

is only fun on HGTV where people have a choice between three houses and voila, they have a new home!

In reality it's stressful -and it involves a lot of money! The market in San Diego is not good for buyers right now. There is little inventory and houses are sold in a few days, meaning that buyers have to offer the price listed or over. Before we flew to California last week we had on our list 5-6 houses we liked and were only able to visit one because the other ones were already sold. Our real estate agent told us that it was not easy to buy a house from Seattle but she'll visit houses for us now that she knows what we want. Still... We look at new houses daily but there is not much there in the neighborhoods we like.

Also, yeah, we're going to live in suburbia. I don't quite know what I think about that yet!

We might have to rent at first and wait for ZE house to come along. I told my friends at work that I don't know whether I'm in denial or totally at peace but I'm not stressed at all. Everything will be fine. We'll be fine. We'll have a place to live and we'll manage. We're so lucky to have this opportunity, to move to a place close to family, and to be able to rent or buy.

Now we need to start going through the apartment to figure out what we're giving / throwing away. Fun, fun!

Consequences

I had to go to the dentist's office today. I have to go 2 more times in the next 3 weeks. All because I don't floss enough. That shows me that sometimes being good / healthy is not fun, but the consequences of not being good / healthy are really really annoying.
Examples in my life:
No flossing (+ pregnancy) => 2 crowns + 4 cavities.
No dog training => dogs who can't walk without pulling (and pee on our carpet all the time!)
Eating like crap => 20 pounds I'm not losing any time soon.
(#firstworldproblems. I know)

It's so easy to be lazy -but dealing with the consequences is even more annoying and costly in time and money.

We talk a lot about consequences in the toddler world I live in, and I should learn to apply that to my adult life. Maybe I need a time out!

Processing, Léo style

Léo is really talking a lot now. And he needs to process what he sees and experiences. All the time. When he hurts himself he "tells" us all about it by pointing to where it hurts ("that"), then pointing at the place he hurt himself ("that").

Tonight while I was rocking him he talked about something he saw this weekend. The conversation went like this:
"- Eelo, dada, mama, mmm.
- Léo, dada, and mama were eating?
- Yea. Boo choochoo beep-beep.
- You heard the blue train honk from far away?
- Yea. Ning-ning-ning-ning.
- And then the crossing signal went on.
- Yea. Down, down, down.
- And the barriers went down, you're right.
- Oh, boo choochoo!
- And the blue train arrived.
- Bye-bye boo choochoo.
- And after that we said goodbye to the blue train?
- Yea."
x 20!!

I love this -even though it means that he takes 30 minutes to fall asleep!

Tough stuff

Today I read 5-6 proposals for new projects. One of them, in Uganda, deals with child sacrifice. I couldn't finish reading the issue part -it was too difficult. And then a documentary on feminicide was shown during lunchtime. In the first couple minutes of the film, one mom in India says that she has killed 8 of her children -all daughters- and goes on describing how she killed them.

Everyday I am so thankful to work in the sector of child protection. Today I am grateful -and wary. It feels like caring for children in adversity is both a huge blessing and a bit of a curse. Reading and seeing all those issues was just... so difficult. I debriefed a bit with friends but it still weighs heavily on my mind.

It is such a privilege to be working in this field and to see the impact that the projects we are funding have on children. We're not changing all harmful practices, but we're changing some. Children are advocating for themselves and impacting their communities. And the tide is changing. Slowly but surely it is changing.

We're moving!

Finally I can talk about it officially! We're moving to San Diego at the end of May. There, it's said. Pfiew, it feels good not to keep this hidden anymore. We have been talking about moving to Southern California for years -and then finally about a year ago I felt at home here in Seattle, after 5 years (I'm slow like that!). And that's when Joe's work decided they would open a branch in San Diego -and because Joe had pushed so much for that idea, they started talking to him about opening the office there. He interviewed last week and he got the final and official letter yesterday. On my end, I started talking to my boss in November about the possibility of working from home. He immediately agreed. Last Monday, HR officially agreed to let me have a home office. So voila, we're moving in a few months!

This is so exciting for so many reasons. We'll be closer to Joe's family and our friends from there. We'll be in the sunshine all. the. time. And did I mention we'll be closer to family? And the sun?

It's bittersweet for me because I'm losing a few things I really enjoy here: a church I love (though yeah, ok, I never go), girlfriends I love like they're my sisters, and an urban life that is so very convenient. Oh and an intellectual and liberal city. I'm going to miss all those Obama stickers on cars!

Now we have to go through the apartment, decide what we're going to keep, throw away, and donate. And we need to pack. Oh packing, how I loathe thee. And we have to find a new daycare for Léo. Stress-stress-stress-stress.

This weekend we're going to Orange County and San Diego to visit houses. That should be fun.

So YAY! We're moving soon. We're ready for this new adventure! Expect both thrilled posts and a bit of wah-wah in the next few weeks.

Books Cravings

I am craving books about Parisian / French life with children (from a French or American point of view) and social justice (how to live it out, that is, not just theology of social justice). That's what's in my heart right now.

That's all.