Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! It’s a bit of an off week here – I’m on PTO all week in order to be able to wrap up my summer class before also being on PTO all of next week for Song School. But before I get into any of that, some happy news:

Mouse got adopted on Saturday! We were down to the wire for finding her a new home, but Friday afternoon the adoption coordinator called to let us know she’d gotten an application from someone who was very excited to meet Mouse. We went in on Saturday and it was really a perfect fit – Mouse’s new mom lives out in the suburbs in a house with a good-sized yard and a 15 year old beagle. She’s been sending us occasional updates and Mouse looks so much more relaxed already. So while it’s a little sad and weird to not have her here anymore, overall it’s a good thing and the fact that she landed in such a perfect spot has made this a lot easier emotionally than we expected.

This week has been busy, but good. Monday we got to connect with our kid, a young trans chosen family member who calls us their trans dads – they were up on the north shore of Minnesota with their parter and their partner’s family. We had a lovely time hanging out and catching up – I hadn’t gotten to see them in person in four years, so it was extra wonderful to be able to hug them and hear how they were doing face-to-face.

Tuesday was mostly a rest and recovery day. Yesterday I wrote all seven pages of the first draft of my final paper for my summer class before running all over town doing pre-trip errands. This morning I had therapy, we had virtual breakfast with a dear friend, and now Nova and I are hanging out at home while my husband heads over to their parents’ house to help their family out today. I’m hoping to finish my paper today.

Tomorrow we’re taking Nova to the boarding facility early in the morning before coming home to pack – we figured we’d wait to start the packing until she was out of the house, since this week has been stressful enough for her already. And then we leave on Saturday and Song School starts on Sunday! I can’t wait to be back in that place with those people.

There will be no blog next week because I’ll be at Song School trying to stay off-grid as much as possible. In the meantime, please enjoy these Nova photos!