Being at home

We spent the last 2 months in Canada before coming back to home in Silver Spring.  I love Salt Spring Island, and my father-in-law and I have become a smoothly functioning family unit.  It is an amazing thing to live with my husbands father for weeks/months at a time.  It is special, and it is really really fun.  We learn to get along as housemates, respect eachothers space, talk about family history, plan for our family future.  I am really lucky.

 Kids started school - and love it.  I have a recommendation for all parents:  if you want your kids to really love school, try home-schooling for a year.  With no contact with any other kids.  With Dad as the teacher.  That's motivation.  

Code is in Ottawa working, and I am continuing my consultant work from home.  I have to say, it is nice to have a real desk, a real monitor, and a real printer...not to mention just a dedicated work space instead of internet cafes and being locking in the aft berth of the boat.  It might sound surprizing, but there are actually more distractions here at home versus being abroad.  At home I find myself wanting to keep up with the news, hungry for something to buy, thinking of what to plant in the garden.  Overall, feeling less satisfied...or somehow I can feel my appetite for the stuff of urban living starting to rev up.  

On one hand, it saddens me to move away from the simple austere lifestyle of cruising.  We could focus on eachother, the kids, our 'itinerary', and life was about spending a day to go shopping for groceries, or the day to do laundry, or doing something totally crazy like experiencing a hammam or just doing nothing.  The more we do, the more we can handle, the more we seem to need.