Also, I'm moving ahead with the big yellow house!   Not sure what I'll do with four bedrooms, but it was too nice an offer to turn down.    Moving at the end of the month (if you can call carrying everything next door "moving"...)

It will be sad to lose the firehouse, of course.   But outdoor parties will now be possible!  Of course, I forgot to check the water pressure before saying yes, but it can't be worse than the firehouse.

Carrots Grow from Carrot Seeds

I've been seeing a therapist for a little bit now-- mostly to have a support structure/second opinion in place when I do start having kids in my home, but also to talk through my motivations and expectations around rearranging my life to include kids.  (She also does a substantial part of her practice with kids and families dealing with attachment issues, both in the foster case system, and out of it, and I think she's really going to be a great resource to have in my network.)  The first couple weeks, we were mostly talking through my life as part of the getting to know you process, then did a little digging around my decision to move toward parenting without a partner in the picture.

Beets from the garden last weekend.

Today, though, we ended up mostly talking about the "imagining" part of preparing for kids.  And about balancing controlling expectations (life does like curve balls...) and imagination of what is to come being part of the necessary work to build the architecture in your mind and heart for bringing a child into your life.

It made me think of a sweet conversation with my mom this past weekend, while we were out surveying their amazing garden.   She was saying that she had imagined, before she had kids, gardening while the kids played and ran between the rows of veggies.  But once kids were actually in the picture, they didn't have the time/energy to do that much garden wise.   "But," she said, "I guess it was a vision that was just further in the future than I realized at the time!"   Maybe next summer there will be some kiddos to come to the garden, run around, and marvel at how fast the squash vines grow.