taking the long way home.

if i told you how many unpublished drafts i had saved or how many times i sat down to write and the words just didn't come or how many times i tried to figure out another platform to start a new blog with a new vision, you'd understand my silence.

but i just have to pull the trigger.  i just have to write. and it doesn't matter where.  it doesn't matter if the background reflects a clean slate (it doesn't), or if i catch you up on all that has happened in between (there's no way, but you certainly know i will try), or if it flows in a poetic prose that takes reality and extracts the beauty to make it more visible to the naked eye (not in this post).

so, i will spend this post as a clarifying catch all (as if anyone has been following my 16 month absence and is on the edge of their seat dying to know whats going on as if i don't have a Facebook) (but thats just how my brain does story telling. it can not bypass important elements; it feels wrong to leave so much unsaid!)

in the past year three months:

ryan matched in Denver for residency

we flew to Denver (my first trip!) to check it out and look for housing

we got engaged!

we bought a house! online! that we had never seen!

we moved across the country

i officially accepted my contract for a new teaching position the last day of school/day we moved

we moved in to said house

and painted and painted and painted and decorated

and it feels like home. 

ryan has since started residency, and i've had a few things here or there to do that are school related, but mostly trips to home depot, lowes, and ikea for house related projects.  we still need a couch and a dresser, but aside from that, i love our little home.  i love our neighborhood, although not laden with trees like much of the other denver boroughs, its quiet, quaint, and still close to just about everything we would ever need (5 minutes to a Super Target!?! yes please!)  I have yet to visit a grocery that isn't TJ's, even though its a little further (farther?) of a drive.  we know our neighbors.  there's Ann on the right, and Neil and Jessica next to her.  There's the Hernandez family to the left, with their TACO TRUCK!!!! and Bill and a bunch of kiddos live in the duplexes across the street.  my mailman's name is James, the neighbor's dogs are Cody and Bella, and I know more in the 3 weeks we've been here than I did about most of my neighbors I have ever lived next to.  with the exception of Jessica and Neil, we are the only white folks on the block, and I love that. 

i'm slowly getting acquainted.  i've met my principal, and one of the other new Kinder teachers and I had lunch together yesterday. I sat on the committee to hire the third new K teacher, and she will be a first year K teacher, so I will have another "Sollman" to groom! :)

We've done three hikes, and two longer bike rides (meaning more than 5 miles, don't get crazy though, I'm not one of those 30+ kinda gals). but we've done a lot to the house and spent the first week with all the new interns, getting acquainted to the city and dinner parties.

now, we are in the throes of wedding planning and digging out venues!

slowly, this blog will make its transition to "the denver diaries".  but again, slowly.

rome wasn't built in a day.

neither will the blog.
or this house.
or this wedding.
or our new lives here, in denver.

xo