Mietzke's POST Holden Adventure

We are starting to settle down a little in Santa Barbara. We road tripped across the western United States for the month of June. We saw the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, spent four days with my grandmother in Arizona, went to Colorado and spent a week in the mountains with my extended family and then went to see my grandmother and Aunties in Denver. It was a whirlwind with a wide expanse of sky and space and many different types of beauty. We then drove back to Washington and spent a little time in Tacoma before heading down to Santa Barbara.

I flew down to start my new job ten days before my family and stayed at my folks place which overlooks the water. It felt like a combination of a vacation and like I was living someone else’s life. I started my new job the day after I arrived and was able to meet several of the children who will be in my class and spend time with some of the other teachers. The two weeks of camp were a lot of fun and I was reminded at how much I love being with little ones on a daily basis, and how much I love the Waldorf curriculum. My mom and I also were able to spend some good time together and as a welcome to your first week in Santa Barbara, my sister in law, Christie bought tickets to the Indigo Girls concert.

I got the keys to our new place the day I flew in and visited it, in all of its empty glory, several times that week watering the plants and trying to remember what in the world we put in storage before we went to Holden. I couldn’t even remember what our dishes looked like.

My parents went out of town on business then my friend Karen and my new God child Jonah came to visit and we spent a few days together which was really nice. We went out to dinner and went grocery shopping and practical shopping and talked about everything under the sun. It felt so nice and familiar. She left on Sunday and on Monday I had dinner with the early childhood faculty who are an amazing group of women. Then on Tuesday I spent some time with Christie at the beach and got a call about 2:00 saying that my family was only two hours away!

Dave and his parents had caravanned down from Washington with three girls, a cat, a dog, a moving van a truck pulling a trailer and our minivan packed to the gills. When they arrived we ate burritos from Cuca’s and then began to move boxes and beds and furniture. Some neighbors offered to help and Jason made a trek down the hill to help and by 10:00 that evening all of the boxes were in the house. We all went to sleep at my folks place that night and had good showers! The next morning we began the setting up process and Dave’s folks were a great help! By the next evening we had places in our house for everyone to sleep which was a blessing! I was still teaching at the Waldorf camps so I was gone in the morning and came home to packing. It was overwhelming.

Dave’s daughter Rachel drove down with everybody and stayed with us for a few days so we got some good time at the beach and while I was teaching they all went to Downtown Santa Barbara which is a fun place to walk and shop. It was really nice to have Rachel, Mary, and Dave with us for the first part of our journey.

So it is a week later and we are a little more settled. We have even planted new flowers and have figured out most of the spacing for furniture. I love our back yard and Mr. Kitty is getting a taste of the outdoors with a fully fenced (twelve feet tall) back yard. It feels like an extension of the house and the door is always open. We have blocked all of the holes and he is loving being able to be out of doors and we are glad that he has a safe place to enjoy it.

I am so happy to be sleeping in my own bed. A good bed makes all of the difference in how you see things in the morning!

Dave has started his search for jobs, which having just done it myself, takes awhile, but he put together a beautiful portfolio and seems ready to go forth. He has a made a few connections already so it is a game of weight and see.

Generally we are doing really well. We are missing Holden and Tacoma a lot, but we will all find our niches here, we will make friends and hopefully have visitors from time to time. Transition is difficult and often lonely but there you go…