Last week marked a year and three months since we’ve been in Scotland. It also marked the second birthday for our son Sam in Scotland, as well as living through a complete “cycle” of seasons in our new home now that we’re fully in autumn and summer is behind us. We’ve no longer just arrived. We’re here now.

Gradually, bit by bit, we are getting more comfortable and starting to see the benefits of the move as we get some distance from the initial throes of change. It still doesn’t feel like home yet, and that is to some extent the essential point of us moving. Disruption. Newness. Exploration by necessity. We’ve been challenged to find our groove, unsurprising considering the circumstances, but how different would it be without the pandemic? That’s certainly slowed things, but it’s still tough to make friends, find your spots, and adjust expectations and routines even in a country that is for all intensive purposes not that far removed from the way of life in the US. Some days are hard.

Regardless, we’re not giving up! No hedging here, we’re actually doing the opposite. We have a home now and are in the midst of planning some serious renovations. We’re awaiting the arrival of a new canine family member, another first for us in a series of them over the past year. We have planted multiple trees and planted a big shed planted in the backyard now for helping to cultivate more. Literally and figuratively we are putting down roots.

Gotta give it all time to grow.

Thank you for the music, thank you for my life
Thank you for the good, bad, wrong and the right
Thank you for my laughter, thank you for my name
Thank you for the love that grows in my days
Thank you for my sunshine, thank you for my clouds
Thank you for my yesterdays, thank you for right now

The Foreign Exchange, Connected