home.

Here I am. Sitting in an open space- warehouse-ish coffee shop called "the beanery" in downtown corvallis. The sun is shining. It is the first day it has truly shined since we have been here. And my skin and soul are welcoming it. Things have been going quite well since we have been here. The town is lovely. Everything is in walking distance from our new house. and the people are truly the nicest i have ever met. Everyone smiles here. It makes you realize the strange truth to the east coast 'superiority' complex. People are just people here and happy to be so. We have been able to purchase all of our furniture -besides a bed- at the numerous thrift stores around town. So we now have furniture to welcome any visitors that happen to stop upon our doorstep :) The coffee is good as is the beer from the local brewries. And life feels right.
The first day we were here Chris was saying how nice it would be to have a "welcome wagon"- just someone to atleast fill us in on a good place to eat... good place to get groceries etc. [Although Corvallis is by no means big there is definately a sense of overwhemlingness... being in a completely new place with not a soul to ask simple questions too]. Yesterday I was sitting out on the front stoop... taking the sunday as what it is meant to be... a day to read the paper all day :) - and our welcome wagon came.
Our neighbor across the street- Joanna came over to "welcome us to the neighborhood", and had a bag of home-made chocolate chip cookies in hand to boot. She stood talking to us for awhile: getting us up to date on the neighborhood's ins and outs: where to get cheap groceries, where to get a good meal, a good pint, and how glad she was to see people in our house. It was delightful. Good to have a familiar face... and quite nice to have -in reality- a very unexpected welcome wagon come right to our door.
So life truly does feel good. It feels as though we finally have a home. Which feels so good after being on the road for two weeks. We've built a nice set of shelves in the living room: thanks to Reid's Orchard crates, and Chris's pick-up of two huge sony speakers from one of our thrift store shops for only 15 bucks. We have a nice sunny kitchen table to sit at in the morning and drink coffee ... and a compfy cozy armchair to cuddle up and read in at night. The only problem now... is figuring out what we are doing here. What comes in between all those little luxuries. So we shall see. As i keep saying to chris, and quoting to myself and to everyone else who has been asking.... is the wisdom of my sister Kate. Who, is as all those who know her know- a firm believer in all things happening for a reason. According to her logic- which over the years i have developed a great faith in- because everything thus far has worked...without much trouble at all - and against all odds... where we are... where i am is right. And therefore... SOMETHING shall happen. We shall see :) But i feel like after a weekend of some-what rest... i finally feel like I have the energy and excitement again to explore into what that something may be.

So enough about all this... I know most of you are just waiting to see more pictures. I forgot to bring my camera to the coffee shop so all pictures of the house and the end of our trip shall have to wait. But for now i can atleast finish up New Mexico. Travels back in time: