I realized today that I’ve been doing something extraordinary for the past ten days: settling in. I think my time in Houston never felt permanent enough to feel like I had settled into any kind of pattern. I remember a stretch of four days where I felt a calm sense that I knew what to expect, and I didn’t have any looming, unknown, massive tasks. Four days out of seven months is not a fantastic record. But we plan to be here in the great plains of central Illinois for at least a couple of years (where the sunsets have, I must admit, been far more spectacular than I remembered… I think it’s a ploy to lull me into a sense of welcome. It’s working.). [read more...]