Adjustments...

Well the girls have been in school for 2 1/2 weeks now and I'm still adjusting! They seem to like their teachers and classmates and seem to have moved right into the class seamlessly. I say seem because I just can't be sure. Everything is so different in a public school and I'm having a hard time being objective. I have very strong feelings about the public school system and they aren't very rosy. I realize it is a hot debatable topic and everyone has their opinions but these are my daughters, the lights of my life so I take the task of their education very seriously and very much to heart. I am very aware I've been spoiled the last year and a half having the girls in an amazing private school environment and maybe that makes the public school environment deficiencies all that more glaring. I don't know. I am trying very hard to be positive, think positive and be proactive. I have gotten the girls into a yoga and creative dance class, a math club at the school, we do story time at the library on fridays and I will be starting up some clubs at the school myself such as a lego club for 1st and 2nd graders as well as a craft club for kindergartners. I'm also thinking of doing a writing club for the first graders. I see a problem I try to fix it.

All of this is tentative though because we are still in limbo about a house to purchase. In comes adjustment #2. I was very surprised to see the selection of houses on the market, the condition of most of the affordable houses and the crazy asking prices of all of the houses. I grew up in New England and had a healthy understanding of it's vastly more expensive cost of living but having been in MO for the last 4 years has greatly skewed my thinking on what a house is worth and what you can and should be able to get for your money! Wow, what a big disappointment searching for a house has been! It probably wouldn't be so bad if we weren't in a time crunch, as well as looking in winter when there is snow covering all the property! In NH it can be dangerous to buy a house when the property is covered in snow…you never know what'll be there come spring! =) We are both sick of looking at houses but haven't really found that perfect house, so we keep looking…at least until the end of the month and then we really have to make a decision because our rental lease is up at the end of March.

I realize this all sounds like one big complaint, and I guess I am in that kind of melancholic, everything sucks right now, frame of mind. But there have been some great things too. My aunt Maureen has been up to visit many times and even spent the night, the girls love that. We've gotten to see my mother and the rest of my family more in the last month than we did all last year! We've had a snow day, made a snowman, slid down some hills on new sleds and have generally had a nice time being together. Not to mention that Beanie and I have been walking so much more and there are some great hills in town that kick our butts, literally! So even though things aren't all sunshine and roses like I naively thought it would be, it hasn't been absolutely horrible either. I miss my friends and my work in MO and the girls miss their friends there too but they have made friends here and we hope once we are settled into a house permanently we will really be able to dive right in to life in New Hampshire again!

Here is a picture of the house we are renting!

The girls enjoying their new sleds on our snow day!

Beanie enjoying the weather!