Has it really been over two years?

I don't know what to say, except that the twists and turns of life have kept me busy. Went through a lot of depression. Went through the death of my cat of fifteen years, and that was a hard blow, although her face cancer gave us forewarning and time to ready ourselves emotionally. In the end, I'm not sure if that was the better or worse way to have to say goodbye. Some months later I got a new cat, and I love her but she was a rescue as an adult and it's been a long road, with her. I also went through one job, which was okay, just a job, then stumbled into another which is like a dream still, over a year later. I've been the receptionist at a small veterinary clinic for over a year, now, and I feel like I'm finally home.
This fall we managed to escape our crappy apartment that's been falling down around our ears, and moved into sharing a rental house with another couple. We have a yard. We have three cats in the house. We have space, my girlfriend has also gotten a job she's reasonably happy in, and life is finally in a place where I feel like I'm standing in the light again. I'm not saying everything is easy. I'm currently going through some self-image issues that feel incredibly awkward, in part because I'm thirty-five and of course I can't quite shake that illusion that I should have things mostly sorted out by now. I'm okay, though.
I don't know how regularly I'll post here, and if/when I resume the 365 project it will probably be at a slow pace, but this morning I felt like it was time to reopen this book.

Along with the joy and rapture of having a yard, our new home has other wonders. Within easy walking distance of the house I found these.

Not one, but two miniature lending libraries! My first walk around the neighborhood I was unprepared, but this morning I'm up before anybody else, and I selected a couple of extra books from what I've moved to the new place that I could stand to give up.
For the first library, the black and white one, I took a copy of Siddhartha because somehow I wound up with two, albeit different translations. This library has a little notepad and pen in it, so I added my gratitude for finding these. I also found a novel called 'Deerskin' by Robin McKinley and I remember liking her work when I was in High School, so I thought I'd give it a try. I don't think I ever read this one.
The second library is next to a phone pole and seems slightly more neglected, but the bottom shelf is entirely children's books. The idea of people taking their young children out for a stroll and to visit the neighborhood library boxes is awesome even to somebody who never wants children. I took a teen/preteen novel called 'Ghost Boy' about an albino boy who joins the circus. It was an okay book, but not one I'm sure I'll ever read again. Next chance I have I'll look for some younger age level books to bring, because I don't have quite everything moved to the new house and I know there's some odds and ends.

Seeing these makes me want to run my own, but we're only renting here, and the future a few years up the road remains uncertain. I'm hoping someday we'll have a house of our own, and the opportunity to set up one of these for our neighbors, but in the meantime I'll try to keep posting here about my good finds from these!