California Sabbatical: This Old House

About nine months ago, my husband and I decided to start looking for a place to live during our sabbatical in Berkeley, California. Sitting at home in Vermont, we assumed it would be no problem to find a furnished rental home for a family with four young children and a dog, within walking distance of UC Berkeley, on an assistant professor’s salary.

The first thing to go was the dog. It quickly became clear that four children were four strikes against us; our dog would be a deal-breaker, and would have to stay in Vermont.

The next thing to go was our budget, which turned out to be unrealistically low for most two-bedroom houses within the Berkeley city limits. Our upper limit edged higher, then higher still.

Several times, we thought we’d found “the one.” But multiple rentals slipped through our fingers, usually with landlords making excuses after we mentioned the children.

By late July, we were losing hope. Then my husband found an online listing for a two-bedroom house, walking distance to campus, at the uppermost limit of our budget. Without much optimism, he sent off an inquiry.

Click here to continue reading the latest installment of “Faith in Vermont, California Sabbatical” in this week’s Addison Independent.

California Sabbatical: The Honeymoon Ends

Our first two days in Northern California were filled with palm trees, rainbows, and loving grandparents. On the morning of the third day – the day we would leave the comfort of the grandparents’ house and move into our rental house in Berkeley – I fell down the stairs.

As Mick Jagger said (or was it Richard Nixon?): “The honeymoon don’t last forever, kid.”

It was a stupid misstep that I’ve replayed in my head a dozen times: I was walking down the stairs of my in-laws’ house early in the morning, carrying our two-year-old daughter. It was dark. Assuming I was on the ground, I missed the final step and came crashing down onto a tile floor. My daughter was fine, but because I’d focused on holding onto her instead of cushioning my fall, I was not.

Click here to continue reading my second California edition of the “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

California Sabbatical, Day 1: Palm Trees!

“Wait, people are just allowed to have palm trees in their yards?” my eldest daughter marveled on our first day in California’s Bay Area.

The palm trees have been the undisputed highlight of California thus far, the first thing on my daughters’ list when we ask what they like most about our five-month sabbatical from Vermont. They’ve observed that palm trees come in different heights, with various-shaped fronds, and with trunks both shaggy and smooth.

When I start home schooling my two oldest daughters this week, our science studies will commence with a unit on palm trees.

Our journey from Vermont to California began with a drive to Burlington, where we spent the night at the airport Doubletree in order to sleep in until 3:15 AM so that we could catch our 5:30 AM flight to Detroit. By “we,” I mean the six members of our family, and our 15 bags; yes, that’s our version of traveling lightly.

Click here to continue reading about the start of our California adventure in a special edition “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Saying Goodbye: It’s Deja vu All Over Again

Last week, the woman behind me in the Hannaford supermarket check-out line asked if I knew where Salon Déjà vu was located. She wanted to get a gift certificate for somebody, she told me, but the address that she’d been given led her to the wrong place, and nobody answered the phone at the number she’d found online.

I was absolutely certain that I knew where Salon Déjà vu was, and gave the woman directions based on my knowledge. But when I drove past this location several days later, it turned out to be a different salon all together.

So, I have no idea where Salon Déjà vu is. (Note to Salon Déjà vu proprietors, if you’re out there: Update your online information!)

Only later did it strike me that Salon Déjà vu was a perfect name, given these circumstances.

Click here to continue reading my final “Faith in Vermont” column of 2015 — and the final “Faith in Vermont” column that I’ll actually write in Vermont for several months — over at The Addison Independent.

Current Events, Common Sense, and Craft Fairs

It is difficult for the human mind to commit itself to one thing, and to maintain focus upon that thing in order to see it through to completion.

This is particularly true for parents of young children, who may have only two uninterrupted hours each day (in our house, we call this “nap time”) during which it’s possible to focus upon anything other than fetching snacks, locating toys, and mediating sibling disputes.

And it’s even more particularly true during the holidays, which add another layer of complexity to our already full lives.

A partial list of things I should focus on today: packing my family for our 5-month sabbatical in California; cleaning out our current house in order to put it on the market while we’re away; choosing bathroom countertops for the new house that we’ll move into when we return; holiday baking; organizing Christmas gifts for family, friends, and teachers; watering the Christmas tree; reading my monthly book club selection; writing this column; answering that email about the Christmas pageant; being an engaged wife, mother, daughter, and friend.

What I do during nap time today: bake sugar cookies.

It occurs to me that the way I respond to my life is similar to the way in which I – and, I suspect, many of us – respond to the world at large.

A partial list of things we should focus on: Syrian refugees, climate change, human trafficking, domestic terrorism, mass shootings and gun control, the 2016 elections, buying local, ISIS, instability in the Middle East, Starbucks cups, racial inequality, the economy, police brutality.

What we do: critique Donald Trump on Facebook.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Five Misconceptions About Sabbatical

And just like that, Thanksgiving’s over. Before we had a chance to toss out the dried-out autumnal gourd decorations and boil the turkey bones for broth, there were wreaths around town, Christmas carols playing in the stores, and – could it be? – Christmas trees blinking in our neighbors’ windows. With a mere two days between Thanksgiving and the start of Advent, the holiday season seems to be upon us in an even more breathless rush than usual.

But that’s okay: I can keep breathing. It’s not like I’m also preparing to move our family across the country for five months, during which major renovations will be happening on the house we’ll move into after we return, while at the same time our current house goes on the market.

Oh, wait a minute! That’s exactly what’s happening!

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Trading Up

A few weeks ago, a friend invited me to go to the Trader Joe’s grocery store in South Burlington.

Although this Trader Joe’s – the only one in Vermont – opened in May 2014, I had never visited it. I had, in fact, resisted opportunities to visit it, just as I generally resist chances to go to Costco, or Home Depot, or WalMart.

For one thing, a visit to any of these chain stores requires me to drive to the Burlington area. Listen: If I’m loading multiple young children into our minivan and driving an hour or more, it’s certainly not going to be in order to buy things. I’d rather save my money and stay home.

For another thing: I’ve been to Trader Joe’s, and Costco, and Home Depot, and WalMart. I’ve even been to Target and Ikea, neither of which exists in the state of Vermont at present. I went to all these places and more when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. So I know that, although people like to shop at these stores because they’re full of “good deals,” what they’re really full of is stuff that you don’t know you needed until you were surrounded by thousands of square feet of “good deals” crooning your name. These stores are not your friends; these stores, like all others, just want your money.

I didn’t move to Vermont to shop at Trader Joe’s; if anything, a major selling point of Vermont was its dearth of chain stores. Shopping shouldn’t be that easy; I’d far rather navigate the miniscule aisles of the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op, with people judging me for allowing my toddler to stand up in the basket of our shopping cart, in order to pay four times what I’d pay at a big box grocery store.

I’m serious.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Oh! The Places We Didn’t Go!

It was early August, and our family’s minivan was midway across the Connecticut River bridge between New Hampshire and Vermont, headed home from a visit to Rhode Island, when it hit me: Road trips with our children no longer felt like extended torture sessions! In fact, road trips with our children had become…enjoyable!

I’d like to think that this is because our children are gaining maturity and patience as they grow up, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that all of our children are now big enough to see the portable DVD player.

After that trip, I made a list of day trips for our family to take on weekends throughout the fall. There are so many wonderful spots within a few hours’ drive of Addison County, and we’ve explored so few of them because, until now, the drawbacks of a car trip with four young children far outweighed any possible enjoyment.

Click here to read more about our [exciting fall travels?/failure to motivate?] in this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Cutting Corners at the CROP Walk

“I don’t think we’re going to come in last this year!” my daughter marveled as we turned onto Main Street after taking our “shortcut.”

We were participating the 38^th Annual Addison County CROP Hunger Walk. The CROP Walk, which is always held on the first Sunday in October, involves a 2.5 mile stroll around Middlebury: Walkers from various local congregations raise funds for their participation, of which 25% goes to support Addison County food shelves, and the remaining 75% goes to Church World Service to combat hunger and provide disaster assistance around the world. (The 2014 Addison County CROP Walk raised over $26,800, placing it near the top of all New England CROP Walks.)

It’s a good cause, and a nice community event. My husband and I were initially drawn to the CROP Walk – in which our own congregation participates – because it seemed accessible for young families. We want to involve our children in activities that support the less fortunate in our community and throughout the world, but many service opportunities seem impossible with multiple young children; we’d end up spending more time trying to control our offspring than doing anything helpful.

But a 2.5-mile walk through the glorious gold, orange and red of a Middlebury October? That we could do!

At least, that’s what we thought when we embarked upon our first CROP Walk, five years ago.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Take My Stuff, Please!

Stuff expands to fill the space available.

I’m not a physicist, but I’m pretty sure that’s a proven fact. It may even fall under Newton’s first law of motion: an object in motion will not change its velocity unless an external force acts upon it. Except in this case, the objects in motion are our family’s possessions, and the external force is me.

I am on a mission to get rid of our stuff.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.