And After

I go back and forth between feeling that the fire is a small part of the normal flow of our days--homeschool, three small children, trips to the playground, church--and somehow feeling defined by it. I know that I am not, and that my identity is secure elsewhere. Even 2.5 months later, though, it can seem that the fire is referential for every bit of life. There is "before" and "after," of course. But there are a million "because of" and "in spite of"s, too. I'm sharing two pictures here, but they are just place markers. I may process more here, and I may not. Tonight I'm a little overwhelmed by it all and am going to move ahead to other images, to share a bit of our last few months.

The fire cresting the hill as we drove toward the fire on our way to the gym

The South wall of our garage at 3 a.m.

Most of the following images are old ones that I'm just now getting to enjoy. Likewise, we'll see whether I get around to sharing Christmas in Quincy, New Year's in L.A. or Mom and Dad's trip out here in early January. :)

While at our first refugee stop (a couple from church, we stayed at their house for the first 2 1/2 weeks after the fire), Wombles learned how to play "Push." This involves accosting anyone sitting on his level and pushing them down. He loves it. I especially love the outfit he is in. We spent a little while scrambling, as it was 85 degrees when we grabbed clothes from the house (before they took away practically every stitch of textiles to be cleaned) but the weather got cold about 10 days later. Yeah, glad we have all of these tank tops! :p

The Sunday after the fire, we all went to Santa Barbara Outfitters and got "Life is Good" hats. We wear them cleaning up and working at the house and around, but especially as reminders to each other and our neighbors when we're in a tough spot. Bud's LIG shirt was one of the few articles of clothing he had for the first few days, and the feedback was so great that we all joined in. (This photo is from after Thanksgiving)


Thanksgiving Day with D.B.B. (see 11/12 post). That was our first week back at homeschool (ironic, I know) and we were on "I" week...see headdress. Yes, we ate our meal outside. Our non-homecooked meal. With friends.

Also on Thanksgiving. Pixie's friend Lucia from the neighborhood was also a refugee at this point (with her family!) . Lucia's family and ours have a supper swap and eat together every week. My friend Helen (Lucia's mom) covered the table with paper and brought crayons and the kids all drew pictures of things they are thankful for. I love the idea and hope to do it every year.

Pixie and I went to see the Santa Barbara Theatre Company's Peter Pan. It was the musical, and they really flew! Things had been so chaotic that we didn't even know that two young people from our neighborhood were in the show until we were there! Pixie was excited to see (her friend) Leia's brother as "John" and our next-door neighbor as Wendy's daughter.

Wombles-the-architect stacking canned goods on the trash bin. Mmmm. This is in the rental. The sunset below is from the rental, too!



Many blessings to you. Thanks for checking in.