A Coqui in Winterfell

I think it would be putting it mildly to say that our lives have been a jumble since early August, when we accepted the call to come to Rochester. Our belongings were quickly packed up in boxes for the move, or laid out on the driveway for strangers to purchase or carted off to the dump. It wasn't till we moved in here 12 days ago that we have been able to start un-jumbling not only our belongings but our emotions.

In a lot of ways Chris had to jump feet first into the deep end of the pool in terms of Church work without the benefit of having a settled home life and space. That has been a real challenge, and I really thank God for all the people that have been there for Chris, to provide encouragement and support. It has been very hard for me to not to be able to be able to do that in the way I did in Brooks, but we have also been working on sorting out my new role here in Rochester.

This is a vastly bigger church so they way I used to relate to members is just not possible. I am much less informed or involved in the everyday Church decisions. [I need to make sure everyone is clear here that I don't mean anything of a confidential nature, Chris has always striven to keep the confidences of those who speak with him.] Chris and I no longer share a workspace and as result see each other much less than before, and we are still trying to get our social life sorted out. Date nights have been few and far in between and it is deeply ironic to both of us that having left our one-screen theater behind and are once again the land of the multiplex we have yet to watch a movie together. Yet last night thanks to the generosity of some church members we had a chance to go downtown and enjoy Handel's Messiah at The Eastman. We had lot of fun there, enjoyed each other's company as we people watched and walked together back and forth from the theater and our parking garage (we accidentally parked next to Geva Theater, so we had to trek about 3/4 of mile in the chilly temps, thank God!, that I have my scarves unpacked now.)

And last but not least the house continues to get sorted out. I bought three bookcases for my office space downstairs and have been able to unpack a lot of things, and I also started sorting thru my boxes of girly art supplies and have started organizing our new craft closet. These might seem like trivial things to other people, but for me they are very significant since it means that, we can enjoy our books and art supplies again as a family and it gave me so much joy to see Arwen, hands sticky with glue, working busily at a project, and not having to say, soon to the question, when can we paint again?

I still have much to sort out, boxes of financial papers and old bills, that are mostly destined for the fireplace  and I still have a couple for essays to finish for my grad school application, but I am getting there. At least I am starting to have the mental space to work on that again.

As things improve however, life isn't without challenges, as my mom just canceled her Christmas trip here as she had to travel to PR yesterday so she could help here siblings care for my Abuela Gisela who they believe suffered a heart-attack on Tuesday. It is likely that this means that they will finally make new arrangements for her care as result and she really need to be there. She still hopes to come up for a few days after New Year's. Please keep my maternal family in your prayers as they sort things out.

pictures soon.