We’re like real suburbanites now. We’ve enrolled Emma in karate class for the duration of our stay (about six weeks). My, how things have changed since those carefree days on the road. If this trend toward settling keeps up, pretty soon we’ll be buying a recliner from the local Lazy-Boy outlet and calling Dominos for takeout pizza.

Ah, but don’t be fooled. This is just a front we are putting up to confuse people. Just when the neighbors think they have us figured out, we’ll suddenly pull up stakes (or in the RV world, “unchock the wheels”) and disappear again for six months or so. It won’t be long before we are heading east, and we already have a rough plan that goes through September.

While we are here, we might as well drink deeply of the local experience, and enjoy all the benefits of stationary life while we can. It’s the same philosophy that has served us well while on the road. Thus, karate lessons.

It looks like Emma will take very well to karate. She learned quickly in her first lesson and her only barrier seems to be that she wants to be perfect the first time out, and takes it hard if she’s not. This is a feature of her personality that has been evident since birth. Sometimes it works in her favor, other times it doesn’t. Her karate Master will probably be helpful in teaching her to manage it. And the class looked like fun. I’m tempted to sign on as well.

Of course I violated the cardinal rule of photography (always bring your camera), and so missed out on some truly priceless moments of Emma getting her initial one-on-one lesson with her instructor. All I have is the photo above, which is the standard classroom shot that the school takes. Don’t make my mistake — always take the camera!

Back at the ranch, everyone professes to be amazed at how much we’ve accomplished, but to us the pace feels rather slow lately. Not much will happen to the house in the next week, while we wait for kitchen cabinets to arrive and a replacement window. However, we are laying groundwork for the next flurry of activity, by getting some quotes and setting up schedules. The house will be done enough to inhabit fully by mid-February, although I suspect it will never be completely “done.” That’s the nature of houses.

We took another step toward finalization of the house yesterday by ordering a couch. This will be the only expensive piece of furniture we buy. We have decided to live minimally in the house this spring, meaning that we will buy a few dining room chairs, a couch, two mattress sets, and maybe a lamp. A couple of inexpensive organizers from IKEA could show up, too. Our bedroom suite, other than the bed we already own, will be Rubbermaid tubs. We’ll have plenty of time to furnish it more completely next fall or winter.

Speaking of IKEA, our plan was to take the Airstream to Tempe for a few nights (80 miles away) and browse the furniture stores there. But it turns out that the SuperBowl will be in Glendale (another Phoenix suburb) and all the campgrounds are completely booked. Even the Super 8 is rumored to be charging up to $450 per night.

So we’ll stay put in Tucson this week and perhaps take the Airstream up in two weeks instead. But isn’t it nice to have an Airstream to facilitate shopping trips like that? Yet another use for it. I have no idea how we managed to live before we had one.