May 19, 2011 by Sarah
Yesterday Travis woke me up with the sweet sweet words, “I got an email this morning from Moscow. We got our housing.” Blink, blink. That’s worth waking up to! I stumbled out of the bed and printed and scanned over the housing as quickly as I could. 4 bedrooms. 3 bathrooms. a patio? wow.
Hey, we have space for a homeschooling room! I am pumped, people. Pumped! Our books and colored pencils and papers are currently residing in the linen closet in the hallway here. Along with the library books strewn on the floor of it and a tiny little spot for washcloths and towels. Funny how that makes it sounds like a big closet, but trust me, it is way smaller than it should be for all that’s in it.
But now– now, we get a homeschool room! In all my years of educating the children, I’ve never had just one space to keep all the supplies and hang maps on the walls and have a craft table out. The books were in 3 rooms, wall hanging stuff (bulletin boards and artwork displays and maps) have been in every room and craft supplies were in the kids’ closet while the sewing machine was in the dining room. Wow- that sounds crazy! No wonder my mom was inclined towards shaking her head at the way things were. But those of you who homeschool know how hard it is to deal with the stuff as well as make it easy to use during the day and try to have a presentable house when company comes over.
My head is spinning trying to imagine how to arrange the furniture, what colors I want to decorate with, where to keep the baby toys and I haven’t even begun to make out the massive list of supplies I will need to purchase for the 2 years we are in Moscow. I LOVE decorating and I LOVE re-arranging furniture and the idea of getting to do all that again is making it hard for me to sleep at night, I’m so excited.
In other news, the kids and I have earnestly begun our Russian language studies. We are using Rosetta Stone primarily, but I also got some totally cute Russian alphabet blocks, and today we listened to a CD of folk songs, which inspired some high-stepping marching around here. (sorry to the people below us!) I am also using a text book, and though I love the layout of the book, the fact is that I haven’t studied a new language since college and it is tough, people! (But, I got a totally cute notebook, and that helps!)
Even though we’ve known we’re going to Moscow for a month and a half, it is only now that I can actually imagine it. And get excited in a tangible way. And figure out what to bring. YEA!!!!