As you can see, we've not had much need for blogging these past 8 months. Summer was lovely: we attended a couple weddings with family & friends, and visited friends we'd not seen for many years.... and also a few new friends we met in our earlier honeymoon travels.

In September, we moved into our new house and began unpacking. Our new address, by the way, is

1826 SE 34th Ave.
Portland, OR 97214

Fall was a little busier than we expected. Brita's new job called for several bouts of travel, and captured much of her attention. We both spent a lot of time unpacking, organizing, nesting... and making overdue repairs to our old house, which is now a rental, and our rental, which also needed some help. Our new house is an ongoing project, as you can imagine, but happily nothing serious has gone wrong. My professional work took an unfamiliar turn: a long-time client asked me to give them all my available consulting time, but then much of that time was consumed by deciphering some things that went awry while I was on sabbatical and by disagreements with the consultant responsible. It was unusually unfun, and unproductive, and in the end all I can say is that I learned a lot. At this point, my client and I have resolved many of the issues, and identified most of the rest, and we're back to something that feels like moving forward again.

What we're up to

We've both really enjoyed our new neighborhood, our new neighbors, and the process of settling in here. We're unpacking slowly but methodically, organizing as we go. We've also resumed work on the major renovations, and today the city Bureau of Design Services approved our plans for new basement walls that will define the bedroom, bathroom, laundry room, shop, and hallways down there. I started wiring lights & outlets a couple weeks ago, and I can't wait to get started framing!

We're already getting hints of spring, and we're excited to start planting our new yard, which is still pretty much a moonscape after the excavation in 2007. Some good friends will live with us for 3-4 months, starting soon, while they do a major remodel on their house, so it's really starting to feel like home: busy, crowded, with friends close by.