WOW.  We have been so crazy and so devastated that it has taken nearly a week to write this last blog.  Suffice it to say we made it to America with 14 bags of various sizes and lots of help from very nice airplane personnel.  And we are home.  It is surreal to be back where the paper money is all the same size and we don't even have to think about the coinage; where we use a car there is air conditioning and tons of ice with every drink we get!  And here in Beacon, we can't go into a restaurant or walk down the street without bumping into someone we know who greets us with a huge hug and a welcome home.  It is lovely to be here and strange as well as if we never left and yet so many changes have happened both here and there and how do you sum up a year in the life in one
conversation?

There is both a relief and a stress about being back.  The "ahhh, here we know how everything works and we have community and can navigate life so much easier" and then the stress of "OMG now we have to start thinking about the next chapter and what we are doing with ourselves."  This of course is premature since Stacey still has to finish her program and work on her final project but the thin veil called "first we have to get ourselves back to America and then we'll start thinking about this" has lifted and the future yawns black before us.  Stacey of course is always teeming with ideas about art and projects and we have a rough
plan, but the challenge of making our daily lives how we want them to be still stands.  That was part of the purpose of this blog and food challenge to begin with.  Look at your life, decide how you want it to be, and work towards making it what you want.  If you are overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, start with one small piece, but make sure you start.  As SARK says, micro movements may be small but they eventually get you there.  Now if we could just remember that when we start to freak out....you would think after all of this that we would, but I guess that is why all the really juicy stuff is called "practice".

Thanks to all those listening and especially those who have responded and reached out and stay tuned for the next chapter, coming to you shortly.  Sat Nam and Namaste. 

Ps. Pictured are two of our favourite NY meals we had within the first twenty-four hours of our arrival:  Chicken Parmigiano Siciliana from Brother's Trattoria (which is chicken and egglpant parm) and a homemade juicy roast beef and swiss cheese hero on crusty sesame seed sub roll--delicious!  And the apple tart above was made by Stacey for the impromptu BBQ at a friends house to celebrate the 4th of July -- Our independence from England has never tasted so good!

So I am writing this at the airport hotel. The bags are packed, the house is cleaned, the final goodbyes said to apartment, friends, playground, neighborhood, city. And we continue the challenge of navigating all the stresses of such a big change as healthily as possible. However for blogging transparancy which is what we've attempted to keep here, the moment Stacey finished uploading last night's blog she walked down the stairs, missed the last step and fell. She hasn't had the best of luck with stairs these past few years, this marking the third time with this set in the past ten months alone. Luckily her thirty five years (and counting) of goalkeeping experience makes her an expert in falling well, so she only bruised her elbow and slightly twisted her ankle. The bigger hurt was emotional, having just typed that she's starting to see the light in us getting back to handling things better, it was a physical blow to the emotional ego. But we found an ace bandage we'd forgotten we even brought along and today despite the challenges of carrying most of our heavy bags down by myself, we are fairing pretty well. We are taking it easy with a movie for Gryffin and some tv for Stace while I putter and pack away the last bits and bobbles into every nook and cranny of our luggage space, which includes the now very bulging jacket pockets! Send us all the good vibes you can that Virgin Airways accepts Gryffin's backpack as “Sporting Equipment” or Stacey won't be the only one falling down in tears this trip. And tomorrow we are homeward bound!