Dear __________,

Dear Blog,

Before June slips away entirely I wanted to let you know that I do love and care for you, that I even have three finished projects to show you, and that you need not be jealous of the baby, thinking perhaps that he is consuming all of my attention. No, let's not blame Conrad (although my five month old sunshine is about to start crawling and needs constant supervision). Why else I've been neglecting you? Well, first there was my BFF visiting from London; she brought her husband and her baby bump along, and together we did a lot of walking in cold, rainy Boston. The day they left the sun came out, the weather turned hot and humid, and I realized that I didn't have three but two weeks to pack the whole apartment into 170+ moving boxes. The first 100 were easy to pack: books are a packer's friend (and the mover's foe). The others? Oh my. Packing up a kitchen must be one of the evilest jobs evah, topped only by packing those last twenty percent of one's possessions that takes eighty percent of packing time. You know what I mean: you think everything's packed, and then you look at the windows and think, whoa, what to do with curtain rods and curtains? Throw them in a box with the bathroom trashcan, the desk lamp, the hallway rug, the coffeemaker, the book you were reading a minute ago, and that roll of toilet paper that's still left out.

I'm getting agitated just remembering those last two weeks in the apartment. Let's fast forward to the week of moving. (Yes, it took one week.) The minute the last item made it onto the truck (a broom, it was a broom), the moving help had left (two lovely Brazilians who must have possessed super powers, otherwise there is no explanation for how fast they worked), and my recently retired FIL who had volunteered (!) to drive a 26' truck across the country by himself (!!) was in the driver's seat, the sky darkened and released one of the nastiest thunderstorms in Mass history (you probably saw in on TV). Which didn't impress my FIL much, who was ready to go--and then discovered that the truck had some sort of electrical malfunction. Which is why he couldn't go anywhere but instead waited for the U-Haul repair people to fix it. Which took a while. The next day--DH, Conrad, and I had boarded the train to NYC in the meantime, to spend a few days with family--the electronics continued to fail, and FIL had to stop again and wait for another U-Haul repair team. By the end of day two the truck was finally in good shape--and my FIL still in Massachusetts. But now things went smoothly, you ask? Not so. While FIL was racing across the country to make up for lost time, my boys and I were enjoying ourselves in the City, looking forward to our cross-country train ride to Salt Lake City via Chicago. We had booked a luxurious (we hoped) sleeper compartment, but already on the way to Penn Station, pushing the stroller with the Bean, pulling a large suitcase, carrying a giant box with dry ice (nursing moms will know the contents) I got an automated phone message from Amtrak informing me that our train had been cancelled due to flooding in the Midwest and that "no alternative connection" was available. WTF! sums up our immediate response as well as the general mood that followed. It was lovely to spend two more days with our family, but man, it was not lovely to dish out moula for a crappy last-minute flight (I hate flying, full stop).

At last we all made it: DH, Conrad, FIL, moi--we all were tired and cranky, and crankier even we grew when the previous tenant (the owner's son) had not moved out by the time we parked our truck in front of the house and the moving help arrived. For me not to lose my mind I took the baby and strolled away... I don't know anymore how far or where I walked, but by the time I returned, FIL, DH, and three college kids had performed a miracle, and we had officially moved into our house (which, BTW, is gorgeous).

Now, dearest blog, that was nearly two weeks ago. Have we completely moved in? Of course not. First we binge-shopped at IKEA to fill all that empty space (a dining room! Holy cow, we have a dining room! And a family room! Conrad has his own room! Get this--there's even a laundry room!), then spent one week building furniture, and only now are we slowly unpacking boxes. DH has missed plenty of work and currently works 26 hours a day to catch up, while I unpack for about ten minutes and then play with the Bean for an hour in our own backyard (my botanical knowledge is almost nil, but I successfully identified roses, sunflowers, lilies, poppies, lavender, and irises. Oh--and a peach tree).

So, now you know why I have neglected (but not forgotten) you. Whenever something exciting happens (plumbing problems! Salty drinking water! How do I take care of this gorgeous garden and backyard? There are snow-topped mountains in every direction I look! I've witnessed some serious yarn-bombing! There are three parks within walking distance! The LYS is OMG-awesome! The Bean started eating solid foods! And he received a letter from the White House [no kidding]!) I would like to write you about it. Alas, we didn't even have internet until yesterday. And my camera cable is only-God-knows-where. I can't show you pictures even of my FOs. (I also don't know where two of those three FOs are.) Really, all I gotta say is, we'll be here for a while, and I'll collect plenty of SLC impressions I can blog about. Gosh, we are so excited to live here!