Normally my life is shaped like a circle. Everything repeats on some cycle: daily, weekly, monthly, annually… family life consists of routine and then more routine.

But now I’ve thrown all the routines out the window. We’re renegotiating every single thing, large and small. (I started to list some examples but honestly it really was everything, and I don’t think listing every darn thing in my life is going to be very interesting.) I don’t think I’ve had so much uncertainty in my life since I went to college.

Even without routine, life goes on. Here’s a little bit of what I’ve had going since moving in with Mom and Dad:

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There’s nothing like some 800-page epic escapist literature to pass the time. Granted, it’s a racist and sexist portrayal of a romanticized version of the American West that never existed — but it’s still well written, with great characters, and a fun read.
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Benefits of living with parents: (narrowly) beating them at Scrabble.
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Benji discovered this delightful trick. Hooray.
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Despite vociferous protests, we’ve still been going for walks. Today we looked at birds at Juanita Bay, then played at the new Juanita Beach playground. Benji instantly made friends with a couple kids his age and spent a good hour running around playing with them.
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As per my usual, I spent way too much time looking at the clouds. I find them mesmerizing — the different shades, shapes, textures.

I’m not looking forward to trying to get back to work; in the last two weeks, I’ve worked two days. A lot of the time it’s hard to focus on… anything, honestly. But I have a ton of looming deadlines, and I need to get my head back in that game. That’s another area where routines look complicated, but we’ll figure it out one day at a time.

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