So, the new year seems as good a time as any to declare the start of my “Fall in Love with Memphis” campaign. This is my tentative to-do list. Locals, please make (inexpensive) suggestions!

Get my driver’s license, aka become a legit Tennessean.

Visit the National Civil Rights Museum, Sun Studios, the Stax Museum and the Rock & Soul Museum. Get some culture at the Dixon. Think about spending the big bucks on Graceland.

Eat Breakfast at Bro. Juniper’s. Have Gus’s Famous Fried Chicken. Find some good local family and cheap date restaurant options. Find a coffee shop, aka stop pouting. Go to Muddy’s when depressed as a reminder that Memphis wins that category.

Take the kids back to Shelby Farms to the super cool playground. Take them to Lichterman Nature Center and to do the labyrinth at Audubon Park. Discover other cool places to play. See something at the Orpheum.

Find some team spirit: Grizzlies, Red Birds, Tigers… not that choosy about which one.

We live upstairs, in a large brick duplex on a tree-lined street filled with children. The kids on our block often have impromptu evening kickball or wiffleball games, and Kate and Lexi are pretty delighted about that. Midtown Memphis is full of neat places to explore and we’ve only scratched the surface. I am hopeful that this street will be a place we can learn and grow as neighbors and this city is one we will come to fight for and treasure. Right now we are still strangers in a strange land.

So, green thumbs, any suggestions for varieties or things to try? Our girls don’t really remember our gardens of the past, so I am hoping for a memorable summer of working and reaping the harvest. I am also excited about the potential for building community with friends old and new as we garden together. The location is a few miles away (boo) but in a neighborhood that’s on our list for a potential place to settle in if we are able to stay here long term.

I do have friends in the neighborhood who don’t go to our church. And I hope to make more! But our “instant community” was really community that has be percolating for quite some time. From the time our church was planted, those three neighborhoods have formed the nucleus. We organize community groups by neighborhood and other social functions, and elders serve each neighborhood as well. It’s an intentional community.

I can’t recommend this situation to you more highly. Whether your community is through church or a tribe of people with common interests, living together, in the same geographic area, really enriches relationships. You are more likely to bump into people. When you drive by their homes you think of them. It makes it very hard to be isolated. If your community is spread out hither and yon, pick someplace central and move in near *one* friend. One is better than none. Hope and pray that others follow.

We approached the old post office, a squat and utilitarian structure that looks like many small post offices built in the 50s and 60s: mid-century modern, sans chic. Carefully walking up the narrow and rather steep wheelchair ramp, I tried to make it in the door. A kind woman saw me struggling and came to my aid. My new-used double jogger was one-half inch too wide. (Note to the government – wheelchair ramps should have roomy doors.) So I went down the ramp and in the front double doors and parked the stroller at the bottom of the stairs. Two kind old ladies watched over the girls in the lobby while I walked into post office proper to conduct my business. (The girls were no more than 15 feet from me, and in full view, we kept eye contact and regular waving the entire time.) It was approximately 4:30p and as is often the case, there was no one in line, and I was able to buy the necessary postage in a minute flat. Our post office displays a “5 minutes or less” sign, and I’ve never waited longer. I can’t say that for any other post office I’ve regularly patronized!

And so, only slightly thwarted by the narrow door, we bid adieu to our new small town friends and walked the few blocks home, passing three neighbors who stopped to say hello.

* Lexi is well, but Kate fell prey tonight. Please pray that she stops vomiting and Michael and I are spared.

A blur of children, a hint of the red dining room with the crazy linoleum.

My favorite thing about the playroom is the vertical storage of a HUGE Ikea bookcase and Rubbermaid bins.  It helps all the toys stay organized and helps the kids play better.

Still a work in progress.

That room has been so disagreeable this whole painting process. I was quite thankful tonight that Alabama is Blue Bell country and for the first time in months, we had some in the freezer. I needed some therapy.

ETA: At least Kate likes it. She’s exclaimed multiple times, “Oh mommy! The dining room is BEAUTIFUL!”

Polyurathaning our new porch furniture. Another photo.