Having fun & making progress

Hello loved ones! Sorry it's been almost a week already; I think I've talked to each of you on the phone since then at least once anyway.

So Andy & I found a place! As is common here, it's a finished basement with a separate entrance. It's really not a bad little set up. The young women that live upstairs seem really nice and easygoing (lab tech and RN in training!), we'll have some backyard space with access to the grill, washer/dryer, a study room, gas stove, garage space for bikes, and little windows in every room with an eye-level view of nice flowerbeds. Also, it's across the street from a nice park, 4 blocks from the "main drag" of the central nice neighborhood of Wallingford, and right on the street where a bus stops that can take me straight downtown (in the event I find a job down there.) It's also just a minute away from the arterial quasi-highway that will zip Andy up north every day to Bastyr, and opposite the flow of most commuter traffic. We're psyched that all utilities inc. internet came to 900 bucks/month, about $600 cheaper than the 2 bedroom house we were looking at a few streets away. A good year to save, pay off credit cards etc. Depending on what's going on with pack & ride, our moving company, we may get to move our stuff in tomorrow! Pictures to follow!

On the job search front, I've already gone to a few networking events, and am scrambling to finish a pdf version of my portfolio. AIGA is the professional organization for graphic design, and they periodically hold events etc. Their Seattle chapter president, Jeff Barlow, offered me the opportunity to to a little internship with him his fall, for 12 hrs/week, with pay to follow if the project we'd be working on proves lucrative. I am just getting back from his studio, Jelvetica, where we did an interview this afternoon. While it's not quite so fabulous as finding a full time something right away, if he chooses me for it (from among 3-4 candidates I think) it'll keep me actively engaged and meeting people while I'm looking for something full time. He teaches typography at a continuing ed school downtown, and though his work doesn't look particularly cutting edge, it looks quite sound: I'm sure it'd be a good learning experience. He seems to be a family man with good work/life balance, so maybe even just seeing what that looks like in practice (nearly all of the NYC designers I met were crazy workaholics) could be great. If I do it, I'll be working with a gregarious intern in industrial design who just graduated from the masters program at the University of Washington, and we'll be making a case for an iphone that would be more novelty, made of something fun and sort of anti-tech. More to follow on that I guess.

Meanwhile, the days are gorgeous. I think it's perhaps drizzled or been cloudy once since we arrived. We've had dinner with Homestead friends, gotten lost and found every day (Thank goodness we bought a detailed street map for the glove box! With all of the hills, Seattle streets end abruptly, take jogs and restart etc. There are also like 3 or 4 sets of numbered avenues- aka !st avenue N, NW, S etc. that are all completely different streets.), and explored the different neighborhoods. Each neighborhood here has its own farmers' market on a different day of the week, and apparently they're amazing all year-round. I've already been stupefied by them, having seen them matched only by the one in Union Square NYC. Hoping to take a day/weekend trip here before too long and see some of the beautiful sights just an hour or two outside the city while the good weather and light last.

Overall, I'd say that the transition has been smoother and more enjoyable than I could even have hoped. Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers: being meaningfully connected feels more important than ever.
Love to all,
-Kate

This is a map to show you what we're up to, and where. (I hope it loads properly!! Click to enlarge.) xo-k

The picture from the previous post (and above) are of Andy and our friend Colin in Colin & Brad's backyard show garden for their Seattle Urban Farm Company. There's so much well-kept produce back there that they don't know what to do with it all, and it's harvest time. Zuchinnis, squash, cucumbers, gorgeous collards, kale, sooo much basil, a huge blackberry patch, and tomatoes on the way. Lucky for them and for us, Andy has arrived with lots of culinary ideas and a bit of time on his hands. Even if we go broke before more money comes our way, we'll definitely be able to eat in style. They've been trying to freeze a bunch of stuff, so a turkey had to come out of the freezer on Saturday. We ended up putting it to brine and on Sunday, we had a bunch of friends over and smoked it. It's nice to be ready to pick up where we left off with about 5 or so friends from the homestead, and likely with a few more we haven't seen, and many of them have significant others we're meeting for the first time, or other couple friends that they're close with. One such couple is James and Karen. They both went to OSU, and Karen got her masters in teaching there, then they moved to NYC for 5 yrs. They just moved out here last year. We have lots in common with them and they're so nice. The whole group is happy to have us here, and it's such a tremendous releif to not feel alone in the venture. I'll try to start collecting pictures of the inevitable characters from stories to come, and post them with mini-bios.

Until we get a place, we are staying with Colin at his little 2 bedroom house: 3951 Evanston Ave. N.; Seattle WA 98103. Feel free to forward mail & send care packages etc. :oP More to follow in the next post about Seattle geography and our "find a place" challenge.

Love to all, -k


PS: Here's a picture of the view from Colin's back porch. We are in North Seattle looking south over Lake Union/portage bay toward the downtown area. Hope it's clear enough to see their garden overflow on the porch, and the skyline in the background.

We have arrived!

It occurred to me this morning that the easiest way for me to journal, keep you all up to date, and keep a record of this transitional time - all at the same time - might be just to start a blog that you, family, can subscribe to. I'm not going to take the time now to actually start updating, but I had a few minutes, so I thought I'd get this thing off the ground! Love to you all!!