Hiatus from hiatus

So, I promised I would check in on ye olde blog if there was news, and there is:

We're moving back to Brussels!

The Mister got a job at his old stomping grounds, the European Parliament, but doing something that's even more suited to him and his multi-hatted credentials. It was a long time in coming (the recruitment process took over a year) and at several points it didn't look like it would happen, but it did.

We are excited about this, because it's a great job, and we'll be happy to be back in Europe. We're not 100% super enthusiastic about returning to the land of gray skies, nor did we jump for joy at the thought of living in smeary dreary Brussels city again either, especially with a baby toddler. So we're not going to. We've rented a home in Leuven, which is just a 20-minute train ride away, a place we've loved visiting, and is home to one of Europe's most important universities.

The idea is that I'll try to get a job/visiting position/make connections at the university there. As my foray on the job market resulted in zero interviews or job offers, we are relieved of the burden of making hard decisions between his job or my job, and I can focus my energies on finding work when we land.

I'm in the full steam end-stages of dissertation writing, and plan to have the thing written and done before we leave. Revisions and the defense itself may have to wait until late summer or fall, but at least it will look and act like a book with regular chapters and everything before we pack up and move out.

The Mister will fly to Brussels a couple of weeks before we do in May, and my mom will come to help me out with the packing up and moving out and driving to Boston to return their generously loaned car to its home. May is not too long from now, I am realizing, with a panicky feeling in my stomach...

I am writing this from a hotel room near JFK, because we got stuck here after a long delay out of Barcelona (13 hours on the plane yesterday, which was as unfun as it sounds) and missed our connection to Indiana. We spent the last couple of weeks in Barcelona for spring break, dragging with us every bit of luggage we could, knowing that we need to get as much of our clothes and books and baby gear to Europe as possible. Also, if spring break in Barcelona sounds like a lot of fun, I should tell you that it POURED most of the days we were there, plus, all I did was hole up in my in-laws' bedroom and write write write that aforementioned dissertation, while other people watched the kiddo. Well, I did eat a lot of yummy fish and we did sneak out for a date night sans aforementioned kiddo.

Speaking of whom...I just re-read that last old post and was shocked to think of him as a little eight-month old, because he started walking a couple of days after turning one last month, and he hasn't looked back. He is quite the little person with OPINIONS and likes shouting "HOLA" and "OOH" at everyone and has very particular food preferences (help) and an adorable cloud of curls at the back of his head and has just progressed, when he hears music, from bobbing his head to wagging his behind to shuffling his feet. He's obsessed with phones and now holds them up to his neck/ear quite charmingly, even though I don't think he ever sees us talk on the phone, since all we ever do is skype. What I'm saying is: he's growin' up, and it's a bit too fast but it's really really awesome.

I plan to resume this blog when the dissertation is done and we are back in Europe, and I also plan to join facebook and in general rejoin the internet from my self-imposed hibernation. Looking forward to it!