Hello!

Hello. I am here. I am alive. I am cooking. And things are calm. Settled. Finally.

Dinah is now 15 weeks old, 20.5 pounds and likes to pounce on her sister Cali!

Actually, scratch that. I should probably not post this blog as I am sure that things will be shot to shit now that I declared that all is well in the Reed household.
All was not calm for a few months. You might have noticed by the fact that the pancakes have remained on the front page for a very long time. (Mom and Regina, Sorry about that.) But instead of going into a plethora of details I will just say that for the first time in 10 months - certainly for the first time since moving to Seattle (and since losing Salem and Madison) - perhaps for the first time in 4 years - I am able to smile again. I feel normal, like myself. I'm rejunivated. It's like a new life has been breathed into my soul! And honestly, it's incredible to feel content and at peace.

It has been a little less than two months since Dinah Rose joined our abode. She is a delightful challenge and the fun we have with her makes up for any of her puppy crazies. But she is a redunkulous amount of work and most of my time is spent chasing her around to avoid any additional emergency vet visits - Like the time she ingested an entire non-edible nylabone.

It has been two months since I completed the bar exam and moved into the unsettling world involving no paid responsibilities and the mental battle that came with. It's amazing how much time submitting one single resume can take. It's amazing how much you can doubt your abilities when you have 6 consecutive weeks to think about it. So most of my non-Dinah time is spent talking about how detail-oriented I am and why someone should hire me. But despite the fact that my job-hunt has been difficult, I have since learned wonderful news: I passed the bar exam and I will soon be a licensed attorney in the state of Minnesota.

However, we have since learned that we are staying in Washington. There were several emotionally charged discussions but we decided to do what is best for us. We also opted to leave our current lease two months early due to the fact that our neighborhood became very unsafe, our townhouse shrunk in size and our neighbors enjoy to listen to their television on level 50. Last weekend, Ron and I moved into our new home in Kirkland, a small suburb on the eastside of Lake Washington. We still have a unique waterfront and a view of the skyline but without the Seattle city grime or traffic. We are within a short bike commute to the main Microsoft campus and the city of Redmond - the bicycle capitol of the Pacific Northwest. I took my road bike out the other night for the first time since August. The views were amazing, the air was crisp but most importantly, the pavement was incredible. I love Kirkland. Love it. And I love our new home. It feels like a home, not a hotel stay. We have twice as much space as the place in West Seattle. We have neighbors who greeted us with cookies and goods from their CSA. We have a quiet, comfortable and safe neighborhood.

For the record, I effing hate moving. I'm sick of it. And I don't want to do it ever again. I've lived in 14 different places since 2001. That is not okay. We also have too many things. The next time we move, I am leaving these things behind.

So, yes. Things have been busy. While this is not an excuse for leaving pancakes as the post for the past several weeks, it is my reason because I have simply not cooked. And I planned to leave the pancakes up for another day while I broke in the new kitchen today with something delightful to post tomorrow... but my mom just said to me on the phone "At least explain what you are doing!! People are wondering why all they see are pancakes!!" So, there you have it. Between chasing a puppy around, searching for a job, wasting my life away in Seattle traffic while searching for a house and transporting Dinah to puppy day camp, packing up the house, visiting with my sister and mom when they came to visit, moving again (thank you mom for all of your help!!) and trying to find some sort of calmness, Ron and I have dined on nothing but take-out soup for over a month. I figured taking a picture of the take-out container (with a side of crackers) was not really what you wanted to see.

But as stated early on in the post, life is now calm. I will bake today! I will post this weekend.

xoxo