Every Day a Little More Settled In

We took advantage of an extra day off this Labor Day weekend to get caught up on our unpacking. I pushed hard in the first four or five days after we'd moved in to get as much unpacked as possible, and we made really good progress. We moved in on Monday and our first houseguest--Mom Bakker--arrived on Friday of that week shocked to see how "moved in" we were. She left the following Monday and then life got busy... Marisa got involved with volleyball practise, all three kids started school, Mary Nel was in the final stretch of preparing for her board exams, and I went back on the road a couple days. The unpacking lagged. The boxes that remained were mostly stragglers, filled with odds and ends and a mish-mash of the unknown. Well, today marked a milestone in that we pushed through unpacking a dozen or so of those "last remainings" (frankly most of the stuff in them was stuff we could have left unpacked and never would have known it! At least we got the boxes out of the way though). We also hung some more pictures and got things a little more organized. All in all we're making great progress!

Incidentally, today was also an another first in that it was the first time I cut the grass here at the new house. We bought a brand new lawnmower to do the deed (our old one was purchased for our house in Chicago, and had seen better days so before we moved we dropped it off at the Rustic Market. The self-propel mechanism wasn't working so well anymore and I thought the better of trying to use it on the slopes and inclines of an Asheville lawn). We stopped at Home Depot and bought a new one the other day. After today's first go at cutting the grass here I'm glad I did! Three things I discovered: 1) We actually have more grass to cut than it first appears. 2) The inclines along the side of the house are as steep or steeper than they first appear. 3) I am as out of shape as I appear.

We also had a nice outing on Sunday night to the North Carolina Apple Festival. Interesting little piece of trivia that I was totally unaware of until this weekend: North Carolina is the 7th largest apple-producing state in the nation and this area is the largest apple-producing county in North Carolina. The festival reminded me of the annual Cherry Festival in Traverse City, MI. We were invited there by a family we met through the kids' school. We had visited their church one weekend and they invited us to join their small group at the festival on Sunday night. It was great fun with good food, live music, a street fair, etc. Mary Nel even got a chance to practice a little medicine on a young lady who passed out (seems she was probably just dehydrated and maybe had a little heat stroke--hopefully she'll be alright). It was a nice opportunity to experience a little local culture and to hang out with new friends, and we appreciated the invitation.