One month in -- and Mama's doing fine.

Here we are, one month into the "new life," with a white house and a green house. If I could find my camera cord, I would post some pictures of the new apartment - but it appears to be a casualty of the move.

We are working to settle into the new routine, although the custody arrangement still needs to be worked out -- we are seeing some behavior issues with the boys, and the transitions are a challenge. The back-and-forth on a daily basis is a lot for me to handle -- and I only live half of it, so I can't imagine how confusing and unsettling it must be for the boys to be sleeping in a different house every night.

We had a wonderful Forth of July -- Mimi and Peeps came to visit, and we spent two and a half days hanging out, playing in the sprinkler, and hanging out with our new neighbor friends. Living in a neighborhood is wonderful -- having grown up on a farm, I was always envious of my friends who lived in neighborhoods, and I am so excited to share the experience with the boys. Both Sam and Ben seem thrilled to have other kids so readily available, and were even invited to a neighbor's house for lunch yesterday afternoon. It is so wonderful to be building a support network within my neighborhood -- and yesterday, when Mimi and Peepaw left to go to Virginia to visit Bill, Zara, Aidan, and baby Declan (born a little over a month ago!), and I started to cry, it was nice to have a group of women there who didn't make me feel like a total freak for being 30 years old, and still crying when my parents leave.

I feel like I am personally in a good place. I am settling into our new life, I absolutely love the apartment and living in this location, I love having my family and friends come to visit and having them stay at the apartment (rather than in a hotel), I love the time I spend with the boys (although custody still needs to be straightened out), and I love the time that I do have to myself when the boys are with their dad. Getting my hair cut, going to physical therapy for my torn LCL, even going to the grocery store is so refreshing for me right now -- although I miss the boys dearly.