exhale

It's funny.

You know how, at times, the weeks creep by, seem to last for months, years.

And then other weeks go so fast that it's hard to believe that you were, a mere five days ago, packing madly in New York. Has it been only five days? It feels like a lifetime ago. Or maybe it just feels like a different lifetime that we lived there, instead of here.

I feel a little bit like sleeping beauty (minus the beauty), waking up after a long year that was fun, but not really me. In between unpacking and figuring out pesky little things like the fact that there is almost no cell service inside our little chalet, I've baked hamburger buns from scratch and made my first batch of cheese (both recipes from this fantastic book), spent a day fishing with the kids and walked and walked in the woods. I look out at the fog rolling in over the green mountains and feel like I can really, truly breath.

There are moments when I look around in wonder at getting to live in a place this beautiful.  The kids, decked out in rain gear and sweaters, because it's more like early spring here than early summer, have been building fish traps and digging for worms and wading in creeks to their hearts content. Happy as clams to be filthy dirty and soaking wet.

 Admittedly, there are things that will take some getting used to. Even if we had come here directly from Charlottesville, which seemed small when we moved there, our new little village would feel impossibly tiny. It is as opposite as it could be from Manhattan. There is not a single Target in all of Vermont, for example. At the gas station, the fishing derby, the grocery store, everyone knows that we are new, because if we weren't, they would already know us, and our kids, and our car. And Warren, the little town next door, has one store. One. It's a pretty awesome little store.

But still.

One.

So yes, this is going to be...different. But good.

Really, really, good.