Staycation

I've been hearing that the "staycation" is the new hip way to take a vacation, but have discounted the idea of staying at home on vacation as bogus. However, if you have just moved across the country, are in a new house, have only yourself, a cat & a loving spouse to deal with, and hours of sleep to catch up on, staycations rock.

The last two weeks in our new home has been one of the most relaxing vacations ever. I have slept more hours, watched more movies, taken more long walks, shared more bottles of wine (and bars of dark chocolate), drank more leisurely cups of coffee, and generally felt less stressed out over the last 10 days than during any other 10 day period in recent memory. This staycation has been relaxing to the point that I've hardly noticed my apprehension about money, starting school, and making a life here-not to mention the annoyance of hours spent on the phone with Verizon (tech support, billing, etc), organizing, cleaning, and driving/walking around new areas and/or stores feeling slightly lost(eg: I thought all Walmarts were organized the same. Not true! The Walmarts here match one another, but are totally different than any I've seen out West...). All in all, my first staycation has made settling in really quite enjoyable.

Despite the wonders of relaxing and starting to feel like this new house is home, I'm getting ready to move on. Last Saturday Noah and I both attended a six hour intro to massage workshop at the Center for Massage and Natural Health (my new school). It was a wonderfully reaffirming experience for me; the day went quickly, I enjoyed myself, absorbed the information and-according to Noah-gave a natural and yummy massage.Whew!

After the course, we drove up to historic Jonesborough TN to visit our friend Darlene who was my roommate at Yogaville (small world!). It was wonderful to see her again and fun to "get out" at least once during our staycation. We had dinner at this lovely little Cuban restaurant and walked around the quaint downtown area of Jonesborough, making a mental note to experience the annual storytelling festival next fall. Despite the trip being short and nearby, we were happy to return to our little house in Mars Hill Sunday afternoon and take a nap.

Thanksgiving felt just like the day before did for us, except the rest of the working world seemed to be relaxing with us. We had Minestrone soup, bread and pumpkin pie-about the best Thanksgiving meal I've ever had. Plus, we still managed to eat T-day leftovers for the next two days (the pot of soup was huge).

I continue to be thrilled with the weather, patterns here and, when we were supposed to get an inch of snow on Friday, I was almost excited for it. (It didn't snow though). I was a little unprepared for the barrage of Christmas music, lights and trees for sell that hit the day after Thanksgiving, but really shouldn't have been surprised.

Alas, as all good things come to an end at sometime, our staycation will be ending tomorrow morning as I head off to my first full day of classes. The studio Noah is teaching yoga at is kicking of classes tomorrow, with his first class starting Tuesday. We are both excited, nervous, happy, and ready to get moving on with life here in North Carolina.

It is crazy for me to think that only one year ago I was in New Zealand, heading to meet Kristin and her wonderful family in Australia. What a year! It is impossible to know where life is going to take us sometimes. I hope can manage to keep enjoying the ride!

The North Carolina Arrival

Noah, myself and our cat buddy set off last Sunday morning after a final coffee at Pendl's and a farewell to my family. We shipped most of our belonging out the Tuesday before with a company called ABF U-Pack, which meant the car was nearly empty. Needless to say, the drive across the states was both interesting and boring at the same time. We stayed in Cheyenne, WY our first evening and ended up having an Australian who had fallen in love and married an American (and who had just received his green card a few weeks ago) wait on us at....the Outback Stakehouse (the only dinning option near our hotel). After he came by our table the first time Noah asked, “Do you think the accent is real or is he faking it?” How coincidental! We spent most of our second day in Nebraska which was empty and flat and flat and flat. We stayed our second night in St. Joseph, Missouri, woke up super early the next morning and made it all the way through Missouri, part of Illinois & Kentucky down past Nashville to a place called Cookesville, TN. We were in Mars Hill by the next day at noon! Whew!

We were extremely lucky with the weather and only hit rain the last 20 minutes of day two and a tiny bit of day four. Buddy was an incredible traveler and pretty much slept on my lap the entire way. Overall he has been adjusting surprisingly well for both a cat and himself (he is a super fraidy-cat sometimes). In fact, he's already ventured outside for a couple of hours at the new house. I kept telling him the mice were bigger in North Carolina...

We absolutely LOVE the little house we rented in Mars Hill—we were both afraid that something would be terribly wrong with it, but, other than a few issues with the heating system (that we are getting worked out) and some dust, cobwebs, a pretty poor paint job, dead bugs and uncleaned corners, we really couldn't be happier. There are so many trees around us that we can barely see the houses nearby—and most of the leaves are gone now! In the summer I imagine we will feel a little like we are living in our own private forest.

However, the best news ever is that Noah got a job teaching yoga today! He will be working for a studio called Pilates Fusion that is expanding to include yoga classes. He had the interview today although he had talked to the owner on the phone from Driggs. The scheduled date for opening the new yoga part of the studio is November 30. The details of the schedule etc are yet to be worked out, but we both have a good feeling about this opportunity.

For now, we are dealing with the mundane little joys and trials of unpacking, figuring out a new place and settling in to a new existence. I am so grateful that we chose to arrive a couple of weeks before my school starts (November 30 is the first day of classes, we are both doing an intro course on the 25^th), it has made the whole experience a little less stressful. Every day we have taken a little drive and explored part of Asheville or other surrounding towns (a.k.a getting lost :)). We have already discovered a little cafe/bakery in nearby Weaverville that we are a fan of (and where I am using the internet from right now). In general, the countryside here is absolutely beautiful and, although it has rained a bit, I am loving the fact that I have on sandals and a skirt today.

I could go on forever about a million other little things, but will save some of the details for later posts. Hope everyone is well and happy and thank you to everyone in our life that has helped us get to this point!