Before I left Newfoundland, I had a distant relative who moved to the St.John's for the first time. I've never met her, but my uncle asked that I add her to Facebook so that she'd know someone in the city. I did, and she spent nearly every day complaining about how awful Newfoundland was and how much she hated it there.

It's weird to hear someone talk about your home, a place you love, like it's alien. You always want outsiders to see things the way you see them. Maybe slightly better.

Since we've moved here, I keep telling myself that this is someone's home. There are people who love this city more than any other location on Earth. There are people missing Ottawa, thinking about Ottawa, planning trips back to Ottawa for Christmas. I keep telling myself that maybe, someday, I'll be one of those people. Little Fella, our son, might be one of those people. He'll remember it here. His first little friend will probably be here.

So, I'm trying to give it a chance.

 I've moved a lot, and when I was a kid I developed the theory that it takes a full year in a strange place to really feel acclimatized. After a year you'll have some friends and you'll know your way around and when you think "oh, a year ago..." you'll be thinking about where you are.

So you have to expect to be a little lonely and feel a little out of place for at least a year. That's the rule.

It still makes sense to me.

Soooo, as for the boring stuff: I have a job, though it's not giving me nearly as many hours as would be helpful. I'll likely have to find a second job, and that's probably going to suck. Mr.Fella started his Ph.d program and he's enjoying it, I knew he would. Today he took me around his campus and showed me his office (he's so proud that he gets an office - despite the fact that it doesn't have any windows and he shares it with 6 other Graduate students).

He has to read an insane number of books for his coursework, but he's getting through it. Sometimes he talks to me about what he's reading and I find it reassuring that I can keep up. It's sort of silly, but I always worry that one day he's going to wake up and he's just going to be "too" smart; like he'll just start speaking another language or something.  Something beyond me that I won't be able to understand because I stopped going to university three years ago and they developed a new mode of communication since I've been away. Special "academic-top-secret" talk or something. I don't know. My mind goes weird places.

I bought a bike today. She's a beautiful "commuter" bike (which I didn't even know existed until I started googling about bikes yesterday). She's perfect and will, hopefully, cut my commute time in half. I've named her "Amelia". I'll have to take a picture of her.

Other than that, we're settled in. I'd like to make some friends, but I'm not even sure how you go about making new friends when you're in your mid-to-late 20s.

Okay, if you're reading this, and you're from Ottawa and are kind of cool, look me up. No stalkers/serial killers please. Decent sense of humour preferable.

Let's see if that works.