Greetings from scenic Leesburg

Let's see. Last time I posted, it was Thursday and we were starting the house-hunt from scratch. So that's what we did Thursday and Friday, talking to a realtor, talking to friends, doing internet searches for all we were worth. It didn't look like anything could happen till Monday at the earliest.

On Saturday, a friend shot me an email and mentioned that some mutual friends were moving to California and urgently looking to rent their little condo in Leesburg. We called them up, it sounded good, and we accepted it sight unseen! I did later find photos online. The next day, Sunday, we drove down to look it over and sign a lease.

Sunday noon we stopped for lunch at Moe's and just happened to run into one of my old professors, having lunch with church people. We chatted and I asked her where she attended, and I filed it away mentally before dashing over to the place. It did look good and we took it then and there. There was much rejoicing. Also, I bought towels so we could make it till our stuff arrived.

We went back to New Jersey for the night and came back the next morning with our various supplies, and moved in for real. We camped out Monday night, and Tuesday the pod people delivered our stuff. We were, miraculously, able to scare up eight friends on short notice who not only unloaded the entire thing that night, but assembled the bed and crib and several bookshelves while they were at it, and then some of them came back Wednesday morning and helped unpack further. It was pretty amazing.

Meanwhile, Jonathan had started work on Tuesday, and his first day involved going to an old three-story court building in Alexandria. Does anyone remember what happened Tuesday, August 23rd? The EARTHQUAKE! So yes, Jonathan started work and the very earth shook. I love it.


We spent the rest of the week settling in and buying stuff for the house. Lights were a high priority, as the bedrooms didn't have any light fixtures at all and things got dark at night. Another major priority were rugs for the living and dining area. The house has beige carpet, and I detest scrubbing carpet stains, so big rugs were the obvious choice. We have also acquired four ottomans (Jonathan calls them the empire) and a microwave. Woo!

Hurricane Irene came that weekend. We had intended to run down to Richmond and straighten out the post office sending-us-mail situation on Saturday, but what with people fleeing the storm and all, we stuck around Northern Virginia and hit the Wegman's annual green chile roast instead. The hurricane was pretty much a non-event for us. It rained Saturday afternoon and night, and that was about it.

Sunday we tracked down the church we'd heard about. We met several old friends who now go there and their new babies we hadn't met. Then we went out to lunch with Joey and his family, who don't even attend that church but were visiting town for the hurricane. We went to Moe's again, which seemed appropriate.

Then on Monday Meg and I did go down to Richmond. About half the West End was still out of power, but happily the post office was able to process our change of address with hard-copy forms and we aren't going to have to make another trip. We also visited friends while we were down there, who were themselves fleeing an electricity-less and air-conditioning-less house at a friend's place. So we all hung out at the other friend's. They had really amazing toys there and a dog named Hercules.

The rest of the week we spent settling in. On Thursday we finally got INTERNET! ::cue four-part harmony::: Friday Meg and I had time to go to the pet store to watch the fish and the cats, and then to library storytime afterward. In between we keep having playdates, friends to dinner, movie nights with friends, First Fridays in old town with free ice cream samples, and today a church picnic. So we're pretty much living it up. God has been so good these last two weeks.