A year has zipped by and today marks our one year anniversary in the townhouse as Maryland residents. Our closing anniversary for Fairfield, March 22, and the one in Maryland, April 2 sort of slipped by our notice. Looking back, it’s the pace of our new lives that let these details almost escape us. As you know, teaching has become far more time consuming than I imagined while Deb has been working hard and traveling more.We stay in touch with only a handful of the Fairfielders. They’ve got their lives and we’re no longer a regular presence. But thanks to the occasional email and Facebook, I have a good sense of what people are up to. It’s certainly odd reading about things like the DTC’s Century Club brunch or the town’s budget debate and I feel more like a voyeur than involved citizen.Down here, now that the weather has warmed up, we’re reconnecting with the neighbors we met over the first summer. We wave at people, recognizing many by the dogs they walk, and seeing newly pregnant women and taller children running in the alley behind the townhouses. The construction has barely slowed despite the cold and the horizon I used to enjoy first and last thing each day is now cluttered with new single family homes, several of which have already become occupied. A children’s playground arrived two blocks away when we weren’t looking. The boom will continue throughout the year but it also means new streets to wander, and new people to meet.Dixie and Ginger continue to adore the frequent walks and extra attention from the neighborhood kids. Dixie’s aging and slowing down but doesn’t stop, adoring the petting from little ones. Ginger has rediscovered her love for sitting in sun puddles in the backyard so they’re content.Our home has continued to evolve, more than we expected after first arriving. The water pipe that broke in January did not do anywhere near as much damage as others around here experienced but things take their time. Our new floor was installed a few weeks back and there’s a bit of trim and paint to go before we can consider ourselves fully repaired. We did take advantage of the bathroom being emptied to voluntarily replace the pedestal sink with a proper vanity so there’s some place for storage. We swapped out wood flooring for tile and added a new mirror and it looks pretty spiffy. We’re hanging new lighting fixtures over the kitchen island in the Great Room which should harmonize better with what we inherited. During all of this the TV decided to slowly fail so that too is being replaced this weekend. By Easter things should be back where they belong and it’ll feel once more like home.Hard to think of Maryland as home. We still call ourselves New Yorkers although we last lived there in 1992 and I stopped commuting to The City in 2007 while Deb stopped before that. We continue to root for the Mets and pay marginal attention to the local teams from the Terps go the Nats. We’re only now finding acceptable local pizza and bagels so the process continues. What I can say is that once dinner is done and we’re relaxing on the couch, it feels comfortable. Wherever Deb and the dogs are, that will always be home.