Hello World!

I turned 34 yesterday! We are moving into a new home, LLBean is starting kindergarten and I am finally, after a rough transition, becoming comfortable with myself as an urban-savvy-character. After two years of feeling entirely mortified by the city of Philadelphia, I dare say that I am starting to notice a bit of beauty. And though there are things that I dislike about this city, such as extreme poverty, filth and grumpy people who seem to live in a perpetual rush, there are also many things that I do like. I won't prattle on with a boring description of Philadelphia's rich history and really great food. I'm not there yet. Hopefully this blog will indulge my need to brag, analyze, refute, assert and establish new opinions on things that would otherwise leave me speechless.

In a nutshell, I need a place to come where I can talk about my life honestly. So much is changing. With both of my girls in school full-time, I have choices that I haven't had in years. It's as if when I was admitted into the maternity ward on April 11th 2004 someone said, "I'm going to need a security deposit, you see. You can go ahead and sign away every-minute-of-your-life for the next 6 1/2 years. If you do a pretty good job at keeping this person and any other people you grow alive, I'll return some of your free time when your youngest is able to tie her shoes, count to twenty, share her toys, choose fruit over fries and do a perfect cannonball into the deep end." Here I am. Within a few weeks, I will have 7 hours of free time all to myself for five days a week. I don't know if I should panic, cry, dare to dream or get a part-time-job.

But before I can do any of that, we have to move.

We've been living in a one bedroom + loft in Center City, Philadelphia for two years. When we moved here we decided to sign on for one year (knowing that we'd quickly outgrow the space). Our location is fantastic and would be a dream if we were single. Though we live in a beautiful building and within walking distance to absolutely everything great that Philadelphia has to offer... our location is terrible for children. So, we're making a move. I will be honest, I'm a little bit concerned about our new neighborhood. I've heard some bad things about it. Philly is very block to block as far as safety goes and this is an area of the city that is historically bad but is being gentrified. Oh, and the other problem is that I haven't actually seen our new house. My husband fell in love with it while I was visiting my parents in Florida and he took the leap so that we wouldn't miss the opportunity. Hopefully, I'll rest easy when I have the luxury of my own washer and dryer and my own tree in my very own backyard.

We make our own happiness.

Repeat.

I make my own happiness.

Here I go.