It's been a while...

...and so much has happened. I feel like I'm living a slightly different version of my own life compared to the one I had a few weeks ago. Not inherently bad or good- just different.

We have moved into the house which belongs to my family- my grandfather has recently moved out into an apartment in a retirement community, and Arash and I are living in the house now. It is wonderful to have so much space now, especially considering the first apartment we had when we moved to San Diego about a year and a half ago (seriously, it was so small that, well, I don't know exactly how to characterize it except to say that it was incredibly cramped in there...there weren't even any drawers in the kitchen). Anyway, we now are residents (for an indeterminate amount of time) in this 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house, and the memories here are abundant and sneak up on me daily.

Standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and looking out the huge kitchen windows into the front yard (yes, there are multiple yards and outdoor spaces here--I get mighty excited about that every day), I can call up specific conversations I have had in that very spot with my grandma, who passed away a little more than a year ago. When I go up in the back garden, I remember plucking tiny carrots from the ground with my grandfather, and even being scolded mildly for picking the ones that weren't ready yet. Many Thanksgiving dinners around the dining table, lazing about with my grandma (obviously a rather rare occurrence, for those who knew her) and watching together TLC's "What Not to Wear"- I always thought it was really funny that my grandma watched (and liked!) that show, seeing as how I never knew her to shop for clothes for herself- ever. There are so many more, and many other memories brought up by finding little items scattered around in drawers and closets...we have also found photos of the family that I had never seen before. Photos of my grandma when she was MY age and younger- it's amazing how as her granddaughter, I never knew her as anyone buy my grandma, but she, like anybody, had a past, a youth, a childhood- and I can only look at the photo of her in her high school cap & gown on graduation day, and think that this young woman would someday become my grandma...my imagination has a hard time filling in that gap; spanning that time until she would become rescuer of spiders in the bathroom, champion backyard-fort-builder, and singer of strange lullabies.

But now this is where I live. The first house that my husband and I have ever lived in together. And one day, maybe someone will find photos of us in all our "youthful glory" and wonder what went on in the years in which they did not know us.

Also, we've been here just a few weeks now, but I don't think it's too early to celebrate the fact that I haven't yet killed my grandpa's roses.