Ignore the pile of laundry behind him.   Let’s have a milkshake in San Antonio!  This is a small religious-affiliated university that we both like the look of.   SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS   Campus Look – 5 Campus Feel – 8 Town – 10 School Size – 2750 Student:Faculty Ratio – 10:1 Faculty – 240 4BR 3BA – $275,000 Comments:   San Antonio is awesome, ya’ll.  And it ain’t that far from Austin, which is extra awesome.  The slight problem is that both of these towns are in Texas, which is the opposite of awesome (to me – back away, Texans, and put down those tomatoes.)  Oases in a sea…

So, here is how these are going to go.   I’ll list the town and state, but not the name of the school Patrick is looking at (just to protect from possible online searches during the recruiting process.)   Then I’ll state a series of fast facts, with ratings on a scale of 1(bad) to 10 (good) for (1) Campus Look – literally how it looks – new or well-maintained?  Aesthetically pleasing?  Well designed, with nice gathering places, good spots to take our kids to play ball or picnic, nice walks?  (2) Campus Feel – what kind of school is it?  Liberal, or with draconian rules?  Lots of arts and community gatherings? …

Because it’s Friday and my brain-juice is on E . . .   And because it is a phrase that makes my husband laugh . . .   I’ve decided that all of the explorations of where we could possibly be moving are going to fall under the category of "I Drink Your Milkshake."  Which has nothing whatever to do with moving.  Or anything, really, except a funny Saturday Night Live sketch.  Whatevs.   Stay tuned.  First up on "I Drink Your Milkshake" . . .    . . . Merced, CA.

For your reading pleasure, you will soon be finding out AAAAALL about the plenty-thousand locales that Patrick and I are looking at for next year’s move.   In brief: The husband has been disserting away in between all-too-frequent feedings and diaper explosions.  He is going "on the market" this fall, as they say.  The market is wide open, with jobs ranging from Southern California to Maine to British Columbia to Ireland, even.  Since applying is free, he is pretty much going to apply to every job for which he is even remotely qualified.  Out of these baker’s dozen or so, he’ll probably get 3-4 interviews, and from there, perhaps only…