Greetings one and all. Rather than pick up on the road trip (which will be done eventually) i thought i'd bring you all up to speed on more current events. Namely, life in Eugene and all that comes with it.


Let's begin with the house.

Driving north out of the center of the city (a mini-tropolis roughly the size of Muncie ) is River Rd., a major road in Eugene that is used as a reference point for an entire area the lies just to the west of the city proper. If you drive about a mile out of the city on River Rd. and make just two left turns in the right places you will arrive at Tatum Ln., a quaint little dead-end road full of nice but small houses filled with families, artists, teachers, musicians and other like-minded persons. Two houses from the end (which, it has now occurred to me, is two houses from the beginning as well) sits our house, 144 Tatum Ln.

As you can see, the walls are lined with windows, allowing for maximum natural light exposure. For those of us seasonal affective types, this is a plus. All around the house are gardens of Babylonian proportion: crawling wisteria trees over the porch, a grafted pear and apple tree in the front yard which grow 2 and 3 varieties of the fruit each. As if this were not enough, the back yard holds a creeping, trellised kiwi tree. That's right, i said KI-WI. I had never seen a kiwi tree before i walked into what is now my back yard. We will eat fresh kiwi fruits in December.

The inside of the house is no less appealing. For starters, we have a bright yellow kitchen.

Pictured here is the breakfast nook which includes a shot of the back hallway. We live in a box of crayons, as you can see. Our kitchen is spacious and full of windows, consistent with the rest of the place. A contractor i know once told me that the kitchen is the heart of the home. Considering this, our household is in exceptional cardiovascular health. With three ladies (one pregnant) and myself, the house is commonly filled with the smells of garlic and onions frying or fresh bread baking. In the area there is lots of access to fresh, local produce at affordable costs. Consequently, we eat pretty well.

Here we have the wood burning stove in the living room.

The walls are full of little nooks and cutouts like these. Since these pictures were taken, the living room has welcomed the arrival of furniture but in the meantime we were happy to fill the space under the stairs with pillows and use it as a sort of couch. Up the stairs is a very cool attic bedroom and loft space. In case you missed the nuances, i kind of like the place.

Things with Gaibi and baby continue to go wonderfully. She is growing steadily along and celebrating her 23rd week today (1 week til 6 months!) You can see that she is radiant as ever. I have also had the privilege of welcoming my family-to-be into my life.

This is Gaibi's sister, Vangie (short for Evangeline), with our niece and nephew, Miriel and Akira. We lived in her yard in a tent while looking for this house. She has furnished us with at least half of what we have in the house. She and her partner, Mo, live two and a half blocks away with their exceedingly bright and charming children. Vangie also found this house for us. We owe her lots of flowers.

This is the short story on our living situation with a few little extras thrown in. Amazingly, we have been able to get here with remarkably little money. Its amazing how many blessings and generous gifts we have received in coming into this space. Each day continues to surprise us with abundance and good fortune. Check back shortly for a more detailed explanation.