It’s been a very busy 5 weeks since we moved into our new home in Virginia on September 7.

Sometime about a week after we had moved in I had this thought as I was waking up one morning.  Moving is a bit like a puzzle.  The puzzle is your life and you take all the pieces and mix them up and put them in a container. Then when you get to the new home, you take them out and begin to put them back together. It’s still your life but they all go together a bit differently than they did before. 

In the past five weeks we have unpacked scores of boxes, painted a few rooms, painted the front doors, moved the silver ware drawer 3 times (I think it’s in the right spot now), organized closets, given away piles of boxes and packing paper, rearranged furniture multiple times, learned how to navigate the area without GPS, figured out which hardware store is the best, visited the local paint store at least once a week, tried at least one restaurant per week, attended a beekeepers meeting (Michael), joined the art school in town (Gail), obtained VA driver licenses and registrations, and much more.  It’s tiring at times but energizing as well.

This week, my goal was to finish my office/studio.  In it’s first 22 years, this space was a hair  salon but it’s taken quite readily to it’s new role as photography studio.  I’ve had the computers and printers in full working order for about 2 weeks now thanks to our generous and technologically savvy son, Adam.  There were, however, still piles of boxes and nothing other than the computers was really set up as I wanted it.  So it’s almost done.  All that is left to do is unpack the books, which I will do as soon as I find the pegs that hold up the shelves on my bookshelves.  🙂  Where the boxes of books currently are in the corner is where I am planning to have a studio lighting set up.  I have a head full of ideas that have been waiting for this new space to be able to create.

Here’s a few photos to give you an idea of the process and what my wonderful new space looks like. I added the first 3 photos of my space in NY to refresh your memory.

In the next few days, I hope to finish setting up the encaustic workspace (it’s at the other end of the house, in the basement) and actually do a bit of work there.  It has been calling to me! I will share photos when that is complete.