Tomorrow Is Another Day...

Life Updates

So, how do you like my every five months posting schedule?  I'm thinking about writing a tutorial on the worst possible ways to operate a personal weblog.  I've finally found my calling!  Anyway, insert empty promises about updating more often, blah blah blah... moving on.

Actually, life has been rather exciting over the past few months.  I mean, exciting in a way that only a suburban, married mother of two would find to be a thrill, but busy nonetheless.  Since October...

We had a spooktacular Halloween with two of the cutest rag dolls I've ever seen.

I met up with these beauties in Paris for a girls' weekend that included a boat ride down the Seine, the best steak and frites I've ever tasted, a mentally unbalanced young man sketching us in a bar, shopping on the Champs Elysees, and did not include children.  I insisted that there be candles and sharp knives on every table we dined at!

We celebrated the 3rd birthday of those aforementioned rag dolls, also known as Charlotte and Annabelle,  Three has been a bit of an awakening in terms of how difficult parenting can be (and I don't kid myself that it gets any easier), but they really are the sweetest girls, and so freaking smart and hilarious it blows my mind on the daily.  We're pretty convinced we should keep them.

 

We hit a few Christmas markets for our last holiday season in Germany and time marched inexorably on as I turned yet another year older.

   

We visited Louisiana for Christmas and New Year's enjoying a flurry of family time, and finally getting to experience the magical Christmas Tea at the Roosevelt in New Orleans.  We left the kids with my inlaws for a weekend to spend a few days in the Big Easy with our dear friends, Tim and Nicole.  And Annabelle also survived the trauma of her first haircut, finally ridding herself of the dreaded mullet she'd been rocking for far too long.  Now when I go get my hair done, the girls ask me if I get to sit in a pink car and watch Frozen--I wish!

I stayed in Louisiana for a full five weeks, while Colby had to return to work, but he joined me for a week in the Northern Virginia area so we could find a house at our new assignment.  We landed on this diamond in the rough that we got for a great price and will spend the rest of our born days renovating. 

 

My mom accompanied me and the girls on our flight back to Germany, and as well as being a huge help to me while we prepped for the move, we snuck in another pottery shopping trip, this time to Nove in Italy with a side excursion to fair Verona.

 

Colby and I took a Valentine's Day kid-free weekend trip to bid farewell to our favorite city, Paris.  We stood in the rain for an hour so we could finally visit the catacombs, accidentally spend the equivalent of a new hot water heater at a fancy dinner, sipped on decadent hot chocolate, and visited the gorgeous palace of Fontainebleu.  It was a delightful way to end our time in Europe.

We had all of our belongings packed up, then spent the next month living at a friend's house and two different temporary apartments, had going away lunches, coffees and dinners, and finally made it to a couple of Easter markets where my obsession with hand painted Easter eggs was fully ignited.

 

We made the flight back across the pond, and have spent the last week closing on our house and working furiously to make it at least habitable, if not beautiful before we move in tomorrow.  More on this later, hopefully with at least a couple of afters to show for all of our work!

A whole host of family including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins big and small celebrated Colby's birthday with a chocolate cake from The Swiss Bakery, because we found ourselves in need of a little taste of... home???

 

And oh yeah, found out we're having another one of these little things!  Coming August 2016.  Eek!

Please Send Internet

So much to tell you about and I have no idea where to begin...  Let's see.

We're still without internet at our house.  We have determined that it's not a T-Mobile issue, and some of our friends who successfully set up their phone and internet through T-Mobile came over to try and set ours up and failed, so at this point, it seems like it's a house issue.  But our property managers are insisting that it's NOT a house issue.  They're coming over tomorrow to do the house inspection with us, so I plan on presenting them with our computer, telephones and modem, and not letting them leave until they've either got our system online or agreed that the landlords will pay the EIGHTY EURO service fee that T-Mobile will charge to come out and do it for us.

In the meantime, I'm still doing most of my internetting from the phone--pain in the ass--or at the Business Center when I come on base to run errands.  It is... less than ideal, but it keeps me from feeling entirely disconnected from the world.

We made the Incredible Journey to Ikea last weekend to get a crap ton of furniture and organizy type solutions, but it's still taking forever to unpack.  We've got all of the boxes, aside from our wall art unpacked, but it's reached the stage of unpacking where I feel like I'm just moving piles of stuff from one place to another place.  I try to remind myself of how horrifying it looked last Monday after the movers left, and reassure myself that we're getting there, but oh, how tired I am of piles of stuff and bare walls.  Once our loaner furniture is gone on the 9th, I think we'll feel a lot better about our space, but that seems sooooo far away.

Our 18 week OB appointment was awesome and came with the lovely surprise of finding out that our little Frankensteins have little lady parts.  Colby dealt with some initial disappointment which I fully understood, because I would have felt the same had we found out it was two boys, but I think he's really come around, and he talks about "his girls" all the time now.  I melt.  It also means that I can plunge full steam ahead in my nursery plans.  I had a theme in mind that was pretty gender neutral, but I now I can girly it up just a little and finally update our registry with items that aren't all yellow, green or white.  I have tons of pictures and updates to share with you from the appointment, but they'll have to wait until we get internet at home so I can get the photos from my computer to the World Wide Web.

I also still want to tell you all about Switzerland, but that involves photos.  And we went to a Medieval Festival at a local castle (we have a local castle!!), but again.  Photos.

I went to my first spouse social last week, and met some nice girls, but oh, it made me miss my friends.  Again, I just remind myself that it took time to bond with the other wives in Washington and Charleston, and I know I'll get to that place here as well, but it was definitely a different vibe than my amazing Charleston spouse group, and it made me feel a bit homesick for the first time.

So, I suppose the bottom line is that we're doing well, still loving Germany, still hating the moving process.  We're going to look back on this time fondly some day... right??

Yep, Still Moving

This has been the longest, most ridiculous move I've ever experienced.  It's hard to believe it all started a month and a half ago with the sorting, then the packing, then the physical relocation, then the waiting, and the more waiting.

The past two weeks have been simultaneously wonderful and insane.  I can truly say I love living here--even with all of the crap we've had to deal with on-base and from time to time on the economy.  It's an amazingly beautiful country, I know once we're settled into our house it will be perfect for us, and I'm nearly drunk on all of the travel opportunities we've already had, not to mention the ones that are yet to come.

We're still internetless and phoneless at our house--TMobile did their part in turning on the service, but there's a disconnect between that and what we're getting at the house.  When I call our phone number, it rings on my cell phone, but it doesn't ring in the house, and there's no internet signal.  I tried calling customer service, but shockingly, everything is in German--there is no "Press 1 for English"!  So, we'll probably be making our weekly stop by the TMobile shop some time soon so we can ask our questions and hopefully get everything worked out.

We're really enjoying living out in our village and being away from the Little America feel of the Air Force base.  Last Sunday, we did like the Germans and took the puppies out for a long walk through fields and up and down hills.  One of the things I love about the Germans--and most European countries I've experienced so far--is how active they are.  If it's a nice day, you're going to see scores of people out walking, biking, and running, and bicycling is HUGE here.  There are bike lanes almost everywhere, and bikers are treated like equal vehicles on the road, unlike in the States where in most places you're still taking your life into your hands trying to bike on the streets.

Our neighborhood is wonderful.  I think I mentioned before that there are a couple of Germans on our street, but it's predominantly American military families.  Both of our next door neighbors have come over to introduce themselves, and last week the other wives invited me out to a little street party to celebrate the kids' last day of school.  It's been such a new experience to feel welcomed by our neighbors, and they're all so excited that we've got two babies on the way.  I'm really looking forward to getting to know them over the years.

I also got to experience some interesting local cuisine.  Evidently, there is a huge Turkish population who has settled in Germany, and they brought with them their food to spice up the typical schnitzels and wurst options.  I finally got to try out a doner kebab, and though people make fun of them, I actually really liked it.  It's basically just a gyro, so like any time you're eating meat off a stick, you want to make sure you're getting a quality product, but I don't know why they have such a bad reputation.  I ate the heck out of mine and am looking forward to another!

This past weekend, we ventured down to Switzerland and explored Luzern and Bern.  Switzerland is an INCREDIBLY expensive country, but luckily the exchange rate between dollars and the Swiss Franc was almost 1:1, so it wasn't as financially painful as it could have been.  And we LOVED it.  I still have to go through our photos, but I can't wait to share our adventures with you--it was an absolutely amazing few days

And yesterday, we had the great excitement of welcoming all of our stuff into our home!  We got an email on Friday that our household goods were available for delivery on Monday, and we actually managed to respond in time to lock it in.  Unfortunately, when we called to schedule the pickup of our loaner furniture, the soonest the Air Force can come is July 9th.  JULY NINTH.  Uggggghhhh.  Have I mentioned recently that this base is ridiculous?

So, anyway, we've got all of our furniture and boxes PLUS the hideous Air Force furniture crammed into our house, and I'm going more than just a little crazy from the chaos.  We worked from about 5 until 11 last night unpacking boxes, and I worked from 9 to 12 this morning and that is still an accurate representation of what our main living space looks like.

But hey, it also means that I was finally reunited with my Tempurpedic last night after many, many weeks of sleeping on the shittiest beds imaginable.  I'll take all of the unpacking if it means I get to sleep on a cloud of comfort every night!!!

Getting Settled, Going Crazy

After a very long 2 1/2 weeks of feeling almost constantly frustrated, I think we're finally past the worst of this move to Germany.  We still haven't moved into our house or had our furniture delivered, but I honestly think that unpacking boxes is going to be a breeze after the ups and downs of these past weeks.

Moving to Germany is amazing, make no mistake about it.  The scenery here is gorgeous.  Over the course of two weekends, we've visited three countries.  The people are friendly and for the most part speak beautiful English (even though they seem to think it's only "okay").  I haven't once had a moment of doubt that this is exactly where I want to be right now, but I have had an awful lot of moments of wanting to rip all of my hair out.  It's just hard, because we feel as though we're starting over completely from scratch on "Life".  It's like we just graduated from high school or college and entered the world.  To give you an idea of what I mean, here are some of the things we've had to do since waking up as residents of Germany on May 17th:

• Open up a German bank account
• Find a house
• Have the Air Force base approve our housing contract
• Set up temporary furniture delivery at our house for use until our own things eventually show up
• Search for an affordable, reliable used car
• Research rates and get approved for a car loan which involved opening another bank account
• Set up internet and landlines at the house
• Sign cell phone contracts
• Sign up for the tax avoidance program because we aren't liable for the 19% utility tax here
• Learn German rules of the road and pass a driver's license test
• Go to Customs and/or the gas station on base to get our fuel ration cards so that we don't have to pay the staggeringly high German gas prices
• Have our new car registered
• Apply for a new credit card that doesn't charge international transaction fees

And of course, we have to do most of this while dealing with a language we don't understand, while thinking in Euros and Dollars, and most of these events took hours and hours plus several different trips to accomplish.  For example, while the process of setting up our German bank account was fairly simple, it took three trips to the bank, and we've been back twice since to transfer money since they charge for online banking.  We decided on the first house we looked at, but not until after ruling out three others, and spending about four or five hours in the base housing office trying to get the contract and our furniture delivery approved.  Then there were the various newcomers briefings that we've each gone to, the fact that we have to go to the post office to check our mail now, and scads of other errands that just take SO MUCH LONGER than you would ever think possible.  In comparison, for previous moves, we've just found a house, had our utilities turned on and moved in.  The end.

So, it's been a fairly complicated move in comparison to our previous experiences, but as of last Friday, things started to feel a little more secure as we finally got the keys to our house, the keys to our new car and the Air Force decided to start reimbursing and compensating us for the terrifying amounts of money that we've had to spend to get to this point.
I am madly in love with our car.  We took a day trip to Luxembourg this past Saturday, and as we were cruising down the autobahn, I told Colby that it felt like we were riding in a hug.  First, he laughed at me, then after a moment he said, very seriously, "Yeah, actually, it does."  She's a 2006 Mercedes, so it's like we were super fancy six years ago, but she rides like a dream on the autobahn and is so quiet and smooth that it's easy to see how these Germans easily get up to and over 150/160 kilometers per hour on the autobahn.  Colby went 160 (99 mph) yesterday on one of the unrestricted sections of road, just so we could see how it felt and it seriously seemed like we were going slower than when we would struggle to go 120 in our rattletrap rental.

Since I sold my Mazda Tribute before we moved here, I was supposed to be the primary driver of Colby's Honda Pilot while he drove something more fuel efficient back and forth to work.  But I am absolutely terrified about driving and parking that massive car in tiny villages and the fuel economy of the two vehicles actually isn't that vastly different (the Pilot gets pretty great mileage), so I've been lobbying hard for Colby to let me drive the Mercedes, or as she's become known to us, Heidi, instead.  We'll see how that goes.  For now, we've still got a few weeks before the Pilot even arrives in country, so there's lots of time for me to wear him down.

In the meantime, Colby has started going into work, and I'm stuck in our TLF all day, every day with crappy internet, about eight English tv channels, and some equally stir crazy dogs.  But by Friday, we'll be in our house, we'll have some furniture, and I think we'll start to feel a lot better about life.  Now I just have to get through four more days...

Das Haus

It's finally official!  After two hours of sitting in the housing office on base while the German equivalent to Milton from Office Space worried and fretted over aspects of our contract that were a HUGE DEAL TO HIM and no one else... the contract was approved!  We will be officially under contract on June 1st, but we'll stay in the temporary housing until June 8th when the Air Force can get us our loaner furniture.

As much as we complain about how painfully difficult the bureacracy of the Air Force has made it to lock in this contract, I will say they try to make the living process as easy as possible while we're waiting for our household goods to arrive.  We did have a shipment of goods that we're hoping can be delivered as close to our move in date as possible, but the Air Force will lend us a bed, night stands, living room set with sofa, chairs, end tables and a coffee table, and a six chair dining set.  On a more "permanent" basis (we'll return them when we leave Germany), we'll get three large wardrobes to hang clothes in (due to the lack of closets), a chest of drawers, American style washer and dryer, refrigerator, microwave and two transformers for our electronics.  Plus we can check out smaller items like dish packs, lamps and such from the Airman & Family Readiness Center.

So, we'll get the keys on June 1st, and maybe be able to do some painting before we move in since we'll have a week between those dates.  We're so excited about our little German village, though pretty apprehensive about how long it can take to get utilities established.  We're going to try to get the ball rolling on internet next week since that seems to be the longest wait of all.  Maybe we'll be online before the end of the year...

But let's get to the fun part.  Pictures!!
Somehow, we managed to visit the house twice without getting a picture of the front--to be honest, it's not all that impressive from the street.  But the interior and backyard is what sold us.  On the top left is our view directly across the street--those white specks in the grass are our bovine neighbors--and top right is the view down the street toward the bigger village about 2 kilometers away where we'll do our shopping, go to restaurants, catch the train, etc.  Also right by our house is a bus stop should we decide to make full use of German public transportation.  The bottom patio has the two doors which each lead to a separate room--one of which we'll make a bedroom and the other a sun room/storage area if necessary.  The balcony leads into a large open floor plan main floor, and there are three bedrooms and a master bath on the third floor.  Plus it's a fenced back yard, which was pretty high on our priority list due to the pups.
 
On the left is the open floor plan living area with the two doors leading out onto the balcony.  The third set of doors open onto stairs that lead down to the back yard, but we'll have to find some way to fence them in so that we can just let the dogs out that way rather than having to go up and down stairs eighteen million times each day to the downstairs exit.  Where the gentleman is standing in the left picture is the entry to the kitchen which you can see in the photo on the right.  Believe it or not, that is actually a pretty decent amount of counterspace and kitchen storage in Germany--plus there's a small pantry off to the left that I am thrilled about.  I'm peeking into a tiny built in refrigerator the size of a cabinet, and we'll probably put our Air Force issue refrigerator on that wall to the right.

The photo on the left doesn't show much, but it's the layout of the third floor bedrooms as taken from the upstairs full bathroom.  We'll do the master bedroom and nursery in one of the two doors in the far corner, and the nearest bedroom will be devoted to clothing and storage--sort of a giant closet since there are absolutely none in the house aside from the pantry.  The master bath is pretty fantastic.  There's a separate bathtub and standup shower, a toilet separated by a half-wall and of course, the coveted double sinks with storage underneath.  Plus it's bright and clean and spacious.  The bathroom trifecta.  There are additional 3/4 baths on each of the other floors with toilet, sink and stand up shower, so it'll be great for guests.  And there's a large utility room on the bottom floor where we'll put our washer and dryer and--everyone together this time--more storage!

All in all, we're really thrilled, and we feel like it'll be the perfect fit for us as our family expands.  We're still very much in the thick of the moving process, and it's extremely stressful and frustrating at times, but give us a month and I think we'll be very happy with our new life.  We're headed down to the Black Forest on Friday and we'll be staying there for the long weekend, so we're already getting cracking on that travel list that I'm determined to make a dent in by the end of August!  Schönes Wochenende!  (I hope I just said "Have a good weekend" and not "Your mother is a monkey".)

Germany is Not America

Hard though it may be to believe, we've been in Germany for almost a week now.  The days have blown by, and we are still in the whirlwind of attempting to settle in to our new life.  The good news is that we're making good progress and for the most part we've had a lot of fun doing so.

The househunting part was stressful.  We have a 30 day limit in the temporary living facilities, and the number of available housing that fit our criteria was daunting.  With the pups, it needed to be a pet friendly house and we really felt strongly about a fenced yard.  We wanted at least four bedrooms since we've got two babies coming as well as an onslaught of family for visits, and we wanted to be within 10 miles of the base.  After scouring my various house hunting sites for a few months now, I knew that was going to be a tough bill to fill.  I had hoped that by the time we arrived, more houses would be opening up, unfortunately that just didn't seem to be the case.

Saturday morning, I got up and started calling landlords and property managers to schedule viewings.  I was shocked that in many cases, the first showing I could get was four or five days away.  With our buying, selling and renting experiences in the States, we had always found that if you called a realtor they were getting you into houses that same day or the next.  On the flip side, if someone wanted to look at our house we might get a days notice if we were lucky, more likely a few hours to vacate for an hour or two and have the house in tip top condition.  This just isn't the case in Germany.

Similarly, we've been looking to buy a second car, used but with fairly low mileage and built within the last 5-10 years.  This is almost as difficult as finding a house.  If you swing a cat, you'll hit a used BMW for sale, but chances are good that it's closer to 15 or 20 years old than 5 and has more miles on it than the space shuttle.  There are tons of used car lots, but the prices are pretty inflated and certainly more than we're looking to spend on a second hand car.  But then those that meet our criteria on the base for-sale-by-owner lot are few and far between.  We test drove a Mercedes sedan on Sunday, and it rode like a dream, but is still a little more than we're looking to spend, so we've been trying, with very little success, to arrange appointments to look at the other two cars that we're eyeing.  When we went out to the used car lots, we wandered through all of the cars and were never once approached by a sales person and oftentimes, the prices aren't even listed on the vehicles.  It's hard to really complain about not being swarmed by slick dealers, but if you have a question it is awfully hard to get an answer.

Perhaps it's just because Germany isn't such a capitalistic society as what we're used to dealing with.  Of course, they want to make a sale, but they'd just as soon do it tomorrow as today from what we could tell.  Or even next week, for that matter!  I had really hoped that we would have a vehicle by the end of this week, but it looks like we'll be renting for a while yet.

Happily, we did find a wonderful house in a picturesque German village, right across the street from a cow pasture.  It meets all of our criteria and is a perfect layout and size for our needs.  It even has a pantry in the kitchen, and I can't tell you how much that made my day!  We were the first ones in for the open house on Saturday, and the realtor was kind enough to give us a little time to think about what we wanted to do since it was our very first viewing.  On Sunday, I managed to strong arm a different realtor into giving us a showing of the only other house we were considering, and though it was also a wonderful option, we decided our country house was a better fit.

We've been trying to sign the contract all week.  We met with the realtor yesterday, but it was just for him to give us a copy of the contract signed by the landlords, and we made a follow-up appointment to meet at the housing office today as they'll be giving the final approval on the deal.  Unfortunately, when we showed up, the housing office was randomly closed for the day.  So, we're trying again tomorrow, and hopefully things will be official.  I don't want to get too excited or share too much before we know the deal is sealed, but here's a little teaser of what our view would be from our back balcony.

Another New Home

After an INSANE week of packing, working, running last minute errands, spending time with friends, cleaning out our house, driving to Baltimore, dropping our car off at the port, spending 12 hours in an airport, and 7 hours in an airplane over the Atlantic... WE HAVE MADE IT!  No more countdowns, no more preparation... we live in Germany.

I still can't quite believe it.
Last week went pretty well.  At one point we had all three moving companies in our house, and it was hectic trying to direct them all toward the right piles and making sure the right things were leaving with the proper trucks.  The pups started to get a bit overwhelmed when the house started to empty out, but they found consolation when we ended up sleeping downstairs on an air mattress for our last few nights in the house.  They got the special treat of climbing on the bed and curling up with us--usually a huge no no in our house since I can't stand dog hair in my sheets!

Some of our good friends were kind enough to rescue us from our air mattress hell (I was waking up at least once an hour and completely stiff with pain every morning--I'm getting too old for this shit) and we stayed at their house on Saturday and Sunday night.  Saturday, a few of my amazingly wonderful friends hosted a beautiful going away/shower for us.  The theme was our "Journey to Parenthood", and they had peeked at my Pinterest to get an idea for decorations!  The house was decked out with banners and hearts made out of maps, the food was all based around the places that we have lived together over the years--apple pie for Washington, jambalaya for Louisiana, benne wafers for Charleston, Kaisespatzle for Germany, etc--and all of the colors were my front runners for the nursery, aqua, green and yellow.  It was so, so fantastic and we had a wonderful evening with our closest Charleston friends.
Monday, we woke up early, loaded up the car and took care of all our last minute to-do's, then hit the road toward Baltimore around 9:30 am.  We hit some DC traffic that delayed us about an hour, but we made it to our hotel around 7, then went out for a quick dinner.  We went to a really yummy sushi place, Sushi Q for all you Baltimore folk, and I got called out for being pregnant by a stranger for the first time ever.  Guess these babies are starting to make their presence known!
Tuesday was a very long day as we had to complete the intricate dance of dropping our car off at the port, picking up a rental car and reloading everything in the hotel back into the car, then getting to the airport, heading to a wonderful lunch with my very good blog (and real life now!) friend, Lynn and her adorable kids, dropping Colby and all of our stuff at the curb while I went back to drop the rental car off, shuttled back to the airport where we checked in... and then sat for 12 hours.  We checked in at 3:45 and were supposed to take off a bit before 10 pm, but there were mechanical issues and the plane didn't even arrive until 9:45, so we finally took off at midnight.
Although we couldn't talk our way into the first class seats--even playing the pregnant card!--the check-in agent got us some good seats on the top level of the 747, and I had more legroom than I've ever had in a non-bulkhead seat.  There was also a little shelf between my seat and the window where I could put drinks, books and other airplane paraphernalia and not feel squished against the wall.  We both slept for most of the flight and landed around 1:30 pm on Wednesday Germany time.  It took us a while to get our bags, and while Ellie seemed to endure the flight without too much trauma, Jack spent the flight trying to chew his way out of his airline crate.  He even managed to bend some of the metal on the door with the force of his chewing.  He must have been absolutely crazy with fear, poor little guy.  He chipped one of his canines, so we'll need to get him into a vet soon to make sure his teeth are okay.

Our friends picked us up at the terminal and brought us over to our temporary living facilities.  We're set up very nicely for the next few weeks until we can find a permanent housing solution.  We've got two bedrooms, a nice bathroom, a washer and dryer, a very big (for Germany!) kitchen with a dining area and a living room.  Colby spent today inprocessing and I slept in then got unpacked and did a little organizing.  When Colby got home from work we went for a long walk with the pups to enjoy the beautiful weather.

We've still got a long road ahead of us--we have to find a car to buy, a house to rent, set up cell phone service and all of our utilities, figure out a local banking plan, have our household goods delivered, unpack... it's overwhelming, but I'm so excited to be here, and I'm just hoping things start to fall into place soon.  Here we go!

One Week

One week from today, we leave Charleston in our rear view mirror as we set off for our next big adventure.  We both have very mixed feelings about this move.  Of course, I'm incredibly excited to have the opportunity to live in Germany.  We're so lucky to keep going from one amazing assignment to the next, and I think Colby will have a much better work environment with a lot more time at home in Europe.  But, we've really come to feel at home in Charleston.

I never really fell in love with Seattle.  It was a lovely city, and I made some absolutely wonderful friends there, but it never felt like home.  I would recommend it as a vacation destination in a heartbeat, but when we drove south from Washington to South Carolina, I was elated.  I had no qualms about leaving Washington as a memory, and I was unreservedly excited to move.  Now I want to cry when I think that I won't smell the pluff mud anymore, or be able to drive downtown to my favorite restaurants, or feel the salty breeze when we sit out on our back porch.  Charleston has my heart, and as amazing as I know it will be to live in Europe, I'll miss this place desperately.

Two weekends ago, we put off packing for a little while and headed downtown for a stroll and a picnic on the Battery.  We got our delicious sandwiches, chips and a brownie at Caviar & Bananas, then sat on the steps of the gazebo in White Point Gardens.  It was a perfect day--warm, with a slight breeze, the sky was perfectly blue and the water a gorgeous sea green.  This past weekend, we took a short break from packing to meet some friends for brunch at my favorite breakfast place, The Fat Hen, and this coming Friday we'll have our one last date night in Charleston at Hall's Chophouse.  I feel like this is the perfect farewell tour, and the only way leaving won't break my heart is if I keep telling myself, we'll be back again someday.

Attempted storage vs. Germany shipment organization based on neon stickers and piles.  We'll see how it goes.

So, today is our final, frenzied packing day.  Our house looks like a tornado came through--a relatively organized tornado, but still.  We've done our best to sort out what will be going into storage, what will arrive in Germany in a couple of months, and what will be delivered as soon as we find a place to live.  I have goodbye dinners and lunches lined up most days of the week, I'll work my last day as a nanny on Thursday, and by the end of the day Thursday all of our stuff will be gone.

This is my fourth military move, and by far the most difficult on every level.  I long for the days when the movers just showed up and did all the work for us!  But by tonight, we'll be done with our portion and we'll let the professionals take over in the morning (though with heavy supervision so that, with any luck, everything ends up going to the right place).  And in a week, we'll be Germany bound.

I'll miss Charleston, but I am looking forward to our next step.  This year carries with it so much potential for awesomeness and as sad as I am about saying goodbye to this chapter of my life, I'm ready to grab on to the future with both hands and take full advantage of all of the opportunities and adventures that await!

Counting Down the Days

Two days until my first hair appointment in WAY TOO LONG.  These roots are seriously out of control.

Four days until I drive to Baton Rouge, then onto Houston with my parents to visit my sister and her family, and my aunt and cousin.  It'll be the last time I get to spend with them in the States for who knows how long, and I'm already sad about leaving them.

Eleven days until Colby finally gets home from his training in Seattle.  He'll have been gone for 7 weeks--hardly our longest separation ever, but almost as long as he was gone for his last deployment since he got to come home early!

Twenty one days until the first day that the movers show up.  They're scheduled to pack and load over the course of three days, and I can't wait to have it behind us.  We have to separate all of our possessions into three categories: Storage, Household Goods (which will arrive in Germany 2 or 3 months later), and Unaccompanied Baggage (900 pounds that will be shipped by air and should arrive within a couple of days--so everything we'd need immediately).  Of course, since the house always has to be "show ready", I haven't been able to start separating things out, and I have a feeling it's going to be an incredibly chaotic few days making sure all of the right stuff goes with the right people.

Twenty seven days until we load up our car and leave Charleston behind.  It's incredibly bittersweet, and the reality that we're actually leaving has started to really sink in.  Yesterday, it was in the upper 70s in Charleston and there was snow falling in Germany.  Yikes, never ending winter!

Twenty nine days until we will be residents of Deutschland!  And then the adventures will really begin!

Radio Silence

Y'all.  I am wiped out.

Between work, social obligations, trying to keep the house "show ready", and the early stages of true stress about this Germany move, I am seriously lacking the energy to read any blogs, let alone write a post.

Last week, I worked every day during the week, and also had tons of fun outings with pals.  On Wednesday, I went to see Titanic in 3D with one of my besties, and it was EVERYTHING I hoped it would be.  It's actually the first movie I've seen that I really thought benefited from 3D technology.  The movie really is gorgeous, and the glamour of the Belle Epoque is truly enhanced by the multiple dimensions.  Then the awful sinking scenes are so much more dramatic and literally in your face.  The only part I hate about 3D movies is how I'm constantly shoving my glasses up my nose and I get a slight headache.  But I have no doubt that someday soon we will all have computer chips implanted in our heads rendering 3D glasses redundant.

Thursday, I was very excited to meet Erin for the first time!  I discovered her blog and immediately was hooked when I learned about our common love for Ireland.  She moved to Charleston shortly after I started reading her blog, and we've been talking about getting together ever since, so I'm so happy we finally made it happen.  I enjoyed a delicious duck confit fried rice at Two Boroughs Larder in Charleston and really hope I get the chance for a return visit before we move.

Friday, I met a pal at my favorite local Greek restaurant, Papa ZuZu's , and it was nice to catch up and decompress a bit after a long week.  Saturday, I actually had a day of freedom, then Sunday I met Erin again and another friend for a delicious Easter Brunch at Charleston's Cafe and went over to a different friend's house for her family Easter dinner.  It was a fantastically tasty day, and my thighs are still trying to recover!

This week, I'll probably rack up something in the neighborhood of 50 hours of work--maybe something to scoff at for many people, but for this part time gal, I'm already worn out!  Yesterday and Monday I had 4 am wakeups so I could be dressed and over to my client's house by 5:40.  The little girl is mainly sweet, but she is 4 going on 16, and by the end of our 13 hours together yesterday, she was tired and I was about at the end of my rope with her attitude.  We have one more really long day to get through together on Friday, but I know things will be fine up until nap time, then once she gets up I'll have to deal with the grouchies until mom gets home around 9.

Next week should be a little quieter, but I don't have another "day off from life" until I get home from visiting family in Houston on the 27th.  Then I'll have a couple of days to relax before life gets utterly crazy again and the movers show up on May 8th.  Exactly 5 weeks until our first full day living in Germany.  Ack!!

Major Steps Forward

It's been all Air Force all the time around here, as our move draws closer.

We're down to 46 days before we drive to Baltimore, then catch our flight to Germany the next day.  Now, if we were footloose and fancyfree non-pet owners, we'd just fly up to Baltimore and after a layover, hop on the overseas flight.  However, the planes that fly from Charleston to Baltimore are too small to send dogs in the cargo hold.  So.  Enter complications.

After a great deal of head scratching, price comparisons, and not a little whining (on my part), we've come up with the following plan.

Early May 14th: Load the car and make the 10 hour drive up to Baltimore, check into a hotel around 7 pm.

Early May 15th: Split up after breakfast.  I'll take the shuttle to the airport and pick up a rental car that will fit all of our crap, including aforementioned animules.  Colby will take his car to the port to have it shipped to Germany where it won't arrive for another 6 weeks or so.  I'll take the rental back to the hotel, do another round of loading, then head to the port to pick Colby up, and back to the airport where I'll drop him at the curb with all of our stuff, bring the rental back, then God willing and the creek don't rise, check in to the AMC terminal with plenty of time to spare before our last possible check-in time.

First order of business when we arrive in Germany will be to buy something fuel-efficient that Colby will use to drive to work and we can share until his car arrives by boat.

The joy of this all, is that the Air Force would have covered our flight from Charleston to Baltimore, but the best we're going to get out of them in this scenario is if they MAYBE cover our rental car.  Seriously, after having dogs I don't see how kids won't be an absolute breeze.

So, it'll be a hassle, but at least the plan has been made and solidified and it's not hanging over our heads anymore.  Next order of business is getting the dogs vaccinated and micro-chipped, and I have an appointment to get that ball rolling in a couple of weeks.

The other big excitement lately is that the Air Force major promotion list came out yesterday, and Colby made the grade!  We weren't really too worried about whether he'd be selected or not, but major is the first rank where a promotion board meets to review the candidates and more than just a pulse is required from the eligible ladies and gentlemen.  Colby and all of the other captains who commissioned in 2003 submitted their Promotion Recommendation Forms at the end of 2011, and we've just been waiting around these past few months to hear the results.

I'm so proud of him that he was one of the 90% selected from the pool of applicants, and eventually there is a nice pay raise that will come with this promotion.  Unfortunately, due to the way Congress budgets for military salaries, we won't reap the benefits until mid-2013.  Each officer who is selected for promotion is given a line number based on their date of commissioning, and that line number dictates the order in which they are allowed to "pin on" their new rank and begin receiving their pay increase.

It's all very confusing and much more labrynthine than it probably needs to be, but alas, tis the way of the military.  Now it will probably be another 6 years or so before we have to run another promotion gauntlet, so Colby will be able to just sit back and relax with his oak leaves for a little while!

The crazy thing is, I can remember sitting in my ROTC classroom in college, watching while our Commandant of Cadets taped cardboard bronze oak leaves onto the shoulders of our instructors who had just found out they made Major, and I just thought they were SO OLD.  So.  I guess that makes us old now.  Rank and forehead wrinkles don't lie.

Ups and Downs

Down: I'm running on energy fumes after babysitting for six out of the last seven days.  I was substitute nannying for a friend, working for one of my regular families, and picked up some hours for a sitting service resulting in 40 hours of work--full time for one week!  The amount of time wasn't so bad, but the hours were pretty brutal.  I had to wake up at 4 am for three of those days, and 5 am on another leaving me pretty much wiped out all week.
Up: I made some good money, and really did have fun with the little ones.  At the sitting service job, I worked in the baby room and spent hours and hours just cuddling and cooing over teensy tiny little humans.  Oh, how I want one!!

Down: We've been spending so much money lately, I'm starting to feel like our savings account is hemorrhaging.  Between our fertility meds, the IVF cycle, a new mattress and finally replacing my 4 1/2 year old Macbook that had been on its last leg for about a year, our credit card can't catch a break.
Up: We are insanely lucky that my parents were kind enough to offer us a loan for our fertility treatments so we were able to pay off our credit cards and avoid going through a creditor that would charge us outrageous interest on a loan.  Plus it's amazing to have a working computer (oh my goodness, I can't believe how lightning fast and spectacular a Macbook Pro is!), our Tempurpedic is making sleeping my favorite new hobby, and hopefully some of those thousands will help bring about a precious bundle of joy in about 8 months!

Down: We never heard anything back on the original offer on the house, so we're assuming the financing just didn't work out for the buyer.
Up: We have another showing today, and my house is under specific orders to sparkle and shine in an effort to seduce the prospective buyers.  The original offer was a totally crap lowball anyway, so hopefully everything will work out for the best.

Down: Colby left on Sunday for six weeks of training in a simulator for the aircraft that he'll be flying in Germany.  I already miss him dreadfully and it was even harder saying goodbye this time than it was for the deployment.  It's been a very emotionally and physically draining couple of months, and I was really relying on him to help get me through the days.  I'm not looking forward to the weeks ahead on my own.
Up: We'll earn a nice chunk of cash in per diem which will really help us toward fattening up that savings account again.  And fortunately, this go round he'll still be in the States which means good cell phone reception and a strong internet signal for Skyping.  And, with his next assignment being a non-deployment gig, it will hopefully be our last long separation for a long time. 

What about you?  Hopefully your ups have been outweighing your downs lately!

The Other Stuff

So, despite the evidence shown by my blog posts lately, I have had a lot going on in my life outside of Operation Frankenbaby.

Our house went on the market just over a week ago and we've already had a showing, an offer, and the financing fall through on the offer.  It was all terribly exciting, and then the weather turned to crap.  I'm hoping that March brings a lot more warm, beautiful, sunny spring days and that all of these people allegedly flocking to the Charleston 'burbs decide to take a twirl through our house.  And then decide to pay us lots of money for it.

I've also been working quite a bit, which is helpful being that we just paid off the credit card that included the payment for Operation Frankenbaby.  Still mainly my regulars, but this week I'm "substitute nannying" for a friend who is on a mission trip.  So, I've got a super precocious four-year-old this week for 3 days starting between 5:45 and 6:45 depending on the morning.  Yesterday, I had her from 6:45 to 4:30 and we managed to squeeze in a trip to Barnes & Noble, the county park to play at the playground, and Chick Fil A for lunch followed by ridiculous amounts of time in the Playplace.  By the time we got home at 2:00, I was utterly wiped and she agreed to some quiet time in her room with a DVD.  I'm pretty sure she was asleep the minute her head hit the pillow.  Anyway, the days are long, but she's fun and I'm looking forward to having her for another couple of weeks in April.

Also yesterday, a representative from the moving company came out and took a look at our house so they'd know how much time to allow for packing and loading.  Despite the fact that Army Wives last weekend made it look like military wives are solely responsible for packing their entire house, I completely embrace the moving company approach.  We've got a few things packed away and labeled in case they end up in storage, but I fully intend to spend a couple of days chilling on the sofa while people around me pack my shit.

Colby is leaving this Sunday for six weeks of training for his new aircraft, and if we're lucky and things go according to plan, that will be our last long separation until we leave Germany.  Of course, the Air Force is always trying to pull a fast one on us, so we'll see how that goes.  But during that time, I'm just planning to soak up every last bit of Charleston that I can and spend lots of time with friends and family.  When he gets home, the movers come pack up our lives and a few days later we'll be flying from Baltimore to Germany!

Only 68 days left stateside.  Wow.

 

 

Family Fun, Track Marks and A Giveaway Winner!

Well, hello, blogland!  I've been trapped in a swirling vortex of travel, vacation, and drugs, but I return to you now on my first day alone since February 5th.  OH LORD DO I NEED SOME ALONE TIME.

I had a fantastic time in New York City with my mom and sister.  I was already completely exhausted before arrival, and as always, the city managed to wear me down to a tiny nub of myself before I made my escape back to the suburbs of the South.  I'll do a more detailed NYC post later, with a focus on the incredible theater experience I had.

I was thrilled to have my mom return home to Charleston and stay with me for a few days, then Colby's grandma arrived, followed by his parents.  So, for a few lovely days, we had a completely full house and finally managed to have all of our bedrooms filled at once.  We squeezed in some time for touristy things, but a big focus for the week was getting all of the big projects done so that the house will be ready for MLS photos and hitting the market this weekend.  Colby and his dad made some fantastic improvements, and all we have left is swiping some stain on the front steps, planting some flowers to up the curb appeal, and of course, my favorite part--cleaning the entire house.  Ugh.

And perhaps most excitingly, I started my Lupron injections on the 7th and after a stellar baseline ultrasound and estrogen check on the 20th, added two other drugs (low dose HCG and Follistim to stimulate the follicles to produce awesome eggs) to my rotation.  I inject the Lupron and HCG in the same syringe, so that's part of my morning routine, right between brushing my teeth and drinking my tea.  The Follistim is in this crazy pen contraption, and I inject that every afternoon as a prelude to happy hour.  

The Lupron injections weren't bad, but now that I'm adding in more stabs per day and injecting a larger amount of liquid, everything is starting to get a little more painful and a little bruisier.  I've been doing the injections on my thighs thinking that the skin is a little tougher and maybe less sensitive, but I'm starting to run out of spots without little pinhole bruises, so I may have to transfer to my abdomen or upper arms at some point.  Fortunately, my mom and Colby have made wonderful nurses, and so far no tears on my part, so things are okay.

FINALLY, drumroll please!  The winner of the Alice Bliss giveaway is Molly from A Foreign Land!!!!!  I'm so excited for you, Molly, and thanks for being patient with me.  I had big plans for getting back to blogging after my NYC trip and that obviously didn't really work out.  I'll email you about the shipping details.  And thank you so much to everyone else that entered!  I learned from this giveaway that jewelry is a much hotter commodity than books, but I hope you'll check out this book even if you didn't win.  It really is a great story!

Good Things

Last week was a whirlwind of events, and this week looks to be even crazier... followed by another busy week visiting my sister in NYC, then another busy week with multiple family members in town.  Fortunately, I had an incredibly low key weekend to recuperate and prepare myself for the onslaught.

But I'm really not complaining, because things have been going so much better than I thought possible.  We made our payments for our IVF cycle and my fertility medications, and much to our great shock, the total came to just a little over half of what we had budgeted.  Partially this is because we were initially planning on the multiple IVF cycle payment plan, so deciding to just go with the one cycle dropped our payments by about $5000.  Then there was the fantastic news that Tricare will cover part of the medication, dropping that payment about $2000 from our estimate.  Then, when we went to the clinic last week to sign some consents and get our finances in order, we were told that they had had a meeting with Tricare just the day before and the company had agreed to cover the $900 room fee.

It's funny how when you're preparing yourself for a bill in the five digits, a total in the four digits seems like pocket change in comparison.  I mean, a LOT of pockets full of change, but you know.  It softens the blow.

Still, we haven't quite cleared the financial obstacles ahead of us, so we aren't blowing our ravaged, but still intact nest egg on a round the world cruise or anything.  We hope against hope that we'll be one cycle wonders, but just in case we aren't, it's good to know that we've got a small buffer to help us through another cycle.

Then there's our beautiful, beloved Charleston home which we're planning to put on the market in mid-February.  We met with our realtors last week, and while they helped us feel a bit more optimistic that our house will sell fairly quickly, there's always the chance that we'll be responsible for two stateside mortgages as well as a steep deposit (usually one or two months rent) and rent payments in Germany.  But they seemed reasonably confident that we'll be able to at least get our money back on the house, and if we're lucky maybe a little more.

We've been spending each weekend for most of January going through each room of our house and making brutally difficult decisions about what will come to Germany, what will stay in storage in the US and what can go to consignment shops or Goodwill.  It's absolutely astounding the massive amount of stuff that accumulates with time.  We have only been here for two years and don't have an attic or a basement, so I honestly have no idea how all of this extra stuff has been floating around our house all this time.  But we are making progress, and I only have a few closets left to purge and plenty of time before the movers arrive.

I've also been working quite a bit, and still enjoying every minute of it.  I'm nannying four days a week, and with additional as-needed babysitting jobs, I'm typically working five or six days each week.  I'm very proud to say that with just a couple more weeks of work, I will have earned enough just from my jobs to cover our fertility meds.  The only regret I have is that I didn't get into this business a long time ago!

This week is full of more work, more home improvements, and lots of fun times with friends.  We've only got a little time left before our life changes dramatically in multiple ways, so I'm trying very hard to live each day to the fullest and not wish away the now in exchange for the unknown future.  Times they are a'changin'!

Stressballs

Eleven days after it first began, I am STILL plague-ridden.  I really thought that yesterday would be the last day of my horrid cough and froggy voice, but come bedtime, I was kept awake for hours with the gagging TB cough and woken up this morning by the same affliction.  I would feel guilty about not working out, except for the fact that my abs are actually sore from all of the coughing muscle contractions.

So, I don't necessarily feel guilty about the fact that I haven't run in 10 days, but I do feel exceptionally stressed about that fact given that I'm meant to be running a half marathon in five days.  I honestly don't know what to do.  I've always operated under the rule of symptoms above the neck, okay to run, symptoms below the neck, keep the running shoes in the closet.  But I HAVE to run this week.  I'm worried about the fact that I'm still coughing and my lungs are all mucousy (yum!) but I really need to gauge my running ability at this point.

I'm hoping to get in four or five miles today and Wednesday, then a short run on Thursday before taking Friday off in preparation for the half.  I'm comforting myself with the fact that a lot of people surely run half marathons with far less training than I've done, and if I can't run it, well by golly I sure can walk for 13 miles.  I've been working up to this for so many months now, I can't just throw in the towel and not even try.

But oh, I'm so, so disappointed.

On top of that, I'm starting to feel incredibly anxious about our house in Washington.  We had wonderful renters in it who were planning to be there long-term, but sadly they had some personal issues arise that forced them to move to a new city.  So our house has been waiting for a new occupant since December, and so far, no bites.  Our tenants were kind enough to pay their rent through the end of January, so as long as someone moves in by February 1st we aren't missing a payment, but January surely is speeding by awfully rapidly and so far no bites.

This is why I've never been remotely interested in becoming some kind of super-landlord with rental houses across the map.  It's too stressful and unpredictable, and the idea of having to pay the mortgage with no help from rental income for months on end makes me want to throw up.  In addition, we're going to have to drop thousands on our IVF procedure in February, so the extra padding in our savings account is a lot less fluffy than we would like.  And we're having to drop some money on home improvements in our Charleston house to make it ready to hit the real estate market in the next couple of months.

Ugh.  I really do have high hopes for 2012, and I'm still hopeful that things will start turning around soon, but oh my god, we are not getting off to a good start at all.

My Heart Is Going Pitter Patter

Oh, what a spectacular two weeks it has been.  My world has been completely turned upside down, but so far in only the best ways.

I would be lying my butt off if I said I wasn't the least bit nervous or anxious about moving to Germany, but so far any negative feelings have been completely trumped by my excitement.  I can hear the happiness in Colby's voice when he talks about it too, and it's so good for us to finally have something amazing to look forward to and help pull us out of the slump that we've fallen into this year.  I've already been hitting the German phrase books and (probably annoyingly) been dropping random German words and phrases into conversation.  I've been pestering friends with multitudes of questions and have justified the purchase of a few new items based on the fact that I will TOTALLY need new winter clothes for Germany!

On top of that, we found out that Colby will be coming home soon.  I can't say exactly when, but when I tell you soon, I mean SOON.  As in I just placed a call to our IVF coordinator so that we can start figuring out when we'll fit in our procedure between January and March!  SOON!!

I've been wandering through the house all morning thinking about how we'll stage it to sell, what items will come with us and what will go into storage, and all of the organizational projects I have in front of me to make this move as painless as possible.

And then, even in the midst of all the craziness, I made myself relax and enjoy a lovely Christmas at home with my family.  In past years it has become an all too rare incident for all of us to be sitting around the tree on Christmas morning, so I try not to take any of it for granted, and as fantastic as all of my gifts were, I spent most of my effort on imprinting memories into my brain and enjoying our time together.

Of course, I'm also another year older since the last time we met here in blogland.  On December 20th, my life calendar rolled over from 28 to 29 and I am now staring boldly down the barrel of 30.  And you know?  I'm not the least bit worried about it.

2011 has been a rocky year, at best.  There have been countless good moments for which I am truly grateful, but overall, I'm not sorry to be saying goodbye to this year.  2012 will bring with it so many adventures and dreams come true, that I can't help but look forward to it with hope and great expectations.  A new country, a new home, new friends, a new decade of life.  Bring it on 2012.  I'm ready for you!

Deutschland, Deutschland

It's hard to believe that just a little over two years ago I was excitedly announcing our assignment to Charleston, South Carolina.  A week and a half ago, I was still laboring under the delusion that we would be living here happily for at least another year--probably a bit longer.

Then Friday we got the news that we will be moving to Germany.  In May.

It's been three days since that shocking, sweeps week reveal, and things are finally starting to sink in.  We knew there was a chance that it would happen--we did put our name in the hat, so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but I don't think either one of us expected to actually get picked for the assignment.

There is so much to think about.  Colby will be coming home early from the deployment so that he can go to training for the new aircraft from March through April, then we'll be on our way to Europe a couple of weeks later.  We have to find out if we can squeeze in a round of IVF.  We have to sell our house, we might sell a car.  We have to decide what will go into storage while we're overseas, what will come on the quick shipment to live with us while we're in temporary housing.  We have to learn some German.  We have to get the dogs microchipped and injected full of various substances so that they can become international travelers.

And so, so much more.

But I am so, so excited.  Both of us have been dreaming of moving to Germany since we joined the Air Force.  We had really accepted that it probably wasn't in the cards for us since there are such limited opportunities there for someone on Colby's career path.  Then with our baby plans, it's not the best timing in the world, but one thing I've learned is that there is no such thing as perfect timing and you have to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.  Because they may never come around again.

So.  Anyone want to come visit me in Germany?

Broadcasting Live From South Carolina

We're here!

Actually, we've been here for almost a week now, but things have been just the teensiest bit hectic.  Starting with the 13 hour drive from Louisiana to South Carolina, to the arrival in a home without electricity or gas resulting in yet another night in a La Quinta, to the depositing of over one hundred boxes that needed unpacking, the past six days have been exhausting.

But even with those setbacks, we truly love our house, and despite the endless loads of laundry and epic dish washing marathons the house is really starting the come together and look like a home.  Most of our furniture is in its final resting place, all of the rooms are fully functional if not beautifully decorated, internet and television will be turned on tomorrow, the downstairs will be painted within the next weekish, and the dogs seem to have realized that this is home for now.

Colby left this morning for a month-long school about 8 hours away, so it's just me around these parts finishing the unpacking and potentially hanging some pictures once the walls are painted.  When I first moved to Washington, I spent a lot of time sitting around the house by myself watching tv and feeling lonely.  I'm going to try very hard not to let that happen here.  Even if it's just to get out and drive around or go see a matinee, I want to make an effort to get out of the house at least a few times a week.  Actually put on clothes and makeup and enter into society.

My New Year's resolution is to force myself to be less of a homebody when I'm not working and Colby isn't around.  I have a small collection of friends here and I hope that eventually I'll find a support system that keeps me as busy and entertained as the friends I left behind in Washington.

But that starts tomorrow.  Today I am reading a book, watching movies, and laying around in my pajamas all day, feeling just the tiniest bit sorry for myself.  Tomorrow the plumbers, the painters, and the cable guy.  The day after that, the world!

Endings & Beginnings

I feel like the events of the last post I wrote took place in another lifetime.  Since that day, we have packed up all of our belongings, moved out of our house so that tenants could move in, lived with a friend for a week, and are now about halfway through our trip from Washington to Louisiana.

Surprisingly, everything has gone off so far without a hitch (I say that now, and tomorrow we'll probably go 500 miles in the wrong direction or something equally ridiculous).  Our movers were friendly types who seemed to take pretty good care of our stuff as they spent two days packing and then loading up all of our worldly goods.  It's amazing what a pizza and some cranberry juice can do for the movers' morale.  Our tenants moved in just hours after we finished our cleaning, and we headed about 20 miles south to stay at a friend's house until it was time to start our drive.

It was sad to say goodbye to our house, but we didn't really have time to get too emotional.  I feel good about the people who have moved in, and as much as I'll miss my friends, I can't say that I'll miss Washington too much.  It was really nice to have that last week free to take care of last minute errands and scratch items off of our to-do list.  We closed on our South Carolina house on the 11th, so it's officially ours now--empty and just waiting for us to arrive.  We enjoyed quality time with our Washington friends, though it was sad not getting the chance to say goodbye to all of our friends in person.

The road trip started on the 12th, kicked off with a final goodbye drink at Starbucks, a stop-off in Salem, OR to visit a friend and an overnighter in charming Ashland, OR.  We made it down to San Francisco on the second day where we camped out for two nights, visiting friends in the city and playing tourists for the day.  The next night was spent in San Bernardino after a nightmarish two hours of Los Angeles traffic, and tonight we're in balmy Tucson, AZ where we've enjoyed a delicious dinner with my cousin and his wife and a hotel viewing of Speed.

We still have two more La Quinta nights ahead of us before we make it to Louisiana where we'll spend the week of Christmas with our families and then it's off to South Carolina to kick off our next Air Force assignment.  I'm going to make an effort to check in again more often between now and the actual move, but in case I'm not back in time, Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate and Happy Holidays to the rest!

November

This month has certainly been... eventful.  First, we buy a house.  Second, I actually start hearing something that *may* just be the ticking of a biological clock.  Third, we celebrate another anniversary.  Fourth, I experience my very first Black Friday at the stores.  We've already discussed point one and point two, so let's discuss anniversaries and shopping a little more in depth.

Indeed, just three days ago I celebrated our second anniversary with a full day of work, a glass of wine and So You Think You Can Dance while Colby flitted about the Middle East.  Our first anniversary I spent throwing up and sleeping off a rotavirus.  I'm honestly not sure which anniversary was more disappointing.  There is no lack of mushy gushy writing on this website about how darn great I think that guy is, and suffice it to say, he started to look even cuter when he was holding babies.  Just saying.  So, I'm pinning all of my hopes on our third anniversary.  Flowers are nice, but actually getting to spend time with your spouse is even better.

Thanksgiving was a quiet but highly enjoyable day.  I whipped up Paula Deen's recipe for loaded mashed potatoes (oh my God, amazing) and bought my little can of Ocean Spray cranberry jelly and headed over to a friend's house where we watched the Thanksgiving Day parade, the Purina One dog show, the Raiders vs. Oakland game and the Peanuts Thanksgiving and Christmas specials with multiple eating and drinking breaks.  I felt so lucky to have such great friends that were willing to welcome me into their family for the day, but I still missed Colby who was spending Thanksgiving in Germany.

This morning, after a fitful night of sleep in which I dreamed about waking up at the crack of dawn for the Black Friday sales only to find that entire stores were sold out, I woke up at the crack of dawn and hauled my weary body to Best Buy where I found that not only was the store not sold out, but in fact very willing to sell me many things.  The key to skipping the Black Friday lines at the store?  Purchase major appliances.  I came away with a Samsung front loader washer and dryer to take with us and a refrigerator to leave at the house for the renters all for just a little over $2000.  It was... not as much fun as I'd imagine spending that amount on clothes and shoes would be.

BUT, I'm incredibly excited about our washer and dryer (oh my God, how lame have I become??).  Our current washer seems to mostly just get clothes wet and put tiny little holes in all of my favorite shirts, so I'm really looking forward to a washing machine that allegedly washes and hopefully will not destroy all of our clothing in the process.  Plus they're pretty.  I just got the white ones because shelling out another few hundred for a "designer" color seemed silly, but they're such a shiny, lovely white!

Tomorrow I'm going to a friend's house to watch the Tigers dominate the Arkansas Razorbacks (please, God, please?) and the rest of the weekend will be spent preparing the house for the movers to come on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Then on Thursday, we will officially become the homeless owners of two homes.  Time sure does fly when you're stressed to the max!

Tormented by Timing

Timing is everything these days.  Two weeks left in our house.  Less than a month left in Washington.  One month until we visit our families for the holidays.  A month and a half until we close on our new house.  And that's just the moving related timing.

Lately I've been starting to think very hard about the future.  As my life is currently scheduled out, I will take the next term off of school to deal with the move.  I was hoping to return to class in January, but because I get a reduced military tuition, I have to take off the entire term, meaning I won't return until March.  That will put me finishing classes at the end of August, and *hopefully* beginning my 16-week student teaching period from September through December of next year.

At which point I will begin looking for an actual teaching job.  In a county that just laid off all of its first-year teachers and is now hiring back RIF-ed teachers and those laid off first year teachers before even looking at any outside applicants.  In a county that is not even currently in need of substitute teachers.

If I am *lucky* I'll be able to find a teaching job for the 2011/2012 school year.  At which point I will be just months away from turning twenty-nine.

And let me let you in on a little secret.  I've been thinking a lot about babies lately.  And I don't think I'm the only one in my household whose mind has edged a little closer to that track.  Am I ready to start popping out infants the moment we get to Charleston?  No.  But am I thinking it's a little unlikely that I'll actually want to hold out another 4 years or so until we're settled into our next assignment?  Yes.

Another factoid that is less than a secret is that I have no desire to be a working mother.  I place absolutely no judgment on those who ARE working mothers, and in fact I appreciate their decision at least in part for the fact that it's currently keeping me in a job.  But I've worked in daycares off and on for my whole life.  They can be really wonderful environments for a child, but that's just not how I want my child raised.  We're lucky enough that Colby's job could support a family independently, so it is my hope that I can be home with our children.

But are we seeing how the time lines are starting to get a little mangled at this point?  If I finish school and start teaching in the fall of 2011, that's right around the time that I'm starting to think I may want to get pregnant.  And so I sit here wondering, have I just thrown away all of this money on my education?  Is it the right thing to continue spending thousands of dollars on a Masters degree that, it is beginning to look highly likely at this point, I'll never get to use?

I honestly don't know what to do.  There's a big part of me that feels completely disappointed in myself.  Why did I wait so long to pursue my teaching dreams?  Why can't I be a more modern gal and be okay with the idea of working and raising a family?  If I don't stay in school, what the hell am I going to do with myself for the next few years until I actually manufacture a child?  Am I just being a giant quitter?  I have no idea.

I've got just over three months to figure this out, and if the speed at which the past three months have flown by is any indication, that is no time at all.  Maybe it's time to pull out that Magic 8 Ball?

Home Sweet Home Times Three

It's starting to become very confusing when, in conversation, Colby or I allude to the place of "home".  Responses generally go something like "Which home?", "Louisiana?", "You mean in Washington or South Carolina?" etcetera, etcetera, and so forth.  As we are learning, home is where the heart is and also where the majority of your stuff resides.

After three days spent touring approximately thirty homes just outside of Charleston, we were able to find a great house that will pretty perfectly fit our needs and has just enough room for improvement that we may be able to actually recoup our money and then some when it comes time to sell.  I'm loathe to place too much hope upon that thought, but let's just say that the prospects for the South Carolina house are much better than the Washington house.

I wanted to use the idea suggested by a couple of you and sort of "live blog" the house hunting experience, but we had very spotty internet at the friend's house where we were staying, and honestly, by the end of the days we were so worn down from crunching numbers and imagining furniture placement and thinking about mortgage payments that I just couldn't bring myself to write about the process.

I could go on and on about how stressful the experience was, but honestly anyone who has been through it will know the toll that house hunting takes on your entire being, so instead, let's just get to the good part:  the house!  The new place has about 300 more square feet than our current house, the yard is substantially larger, we have a great pond view, and the neighborhood is my favorite of the entire town.  It's an interesting twist on a neighborhood in that it's more of a living community--restaurants, shops, a grocery store, a gas station, pre-K through middle school, a pool, a gym, doctors offices and more are all located within the neighborhood, mere minutes from our house.  Coming from a neighborhood where it takes at least fifteen minutes to get pretty much anywhere, this is absolutely miraculous to me.

On top of that, we're about 15 minutes from the gorgeous Isle of Palms beach and 20 minutes from downtown Charleston--that's driveway to parking lot.  And oh, how I LOVE Charleston!  It feels so much like New Orleans, but with a slightly less gritty and substantially less abandoned feel.  The architecture is beautiful, the live oaks are plentiful, the sweetgrass sways in the breeze, and you can't swing a cat without hitting a charming little shop.  I cannot wait to call it home for a few years!

And now, for optimum stalking ability, here are some photos of our soon-to-be home (as always, just click to enbiggen!):

 

I love the brick in the entry of the house and would love to find a way to face the steps in brick as well.  There's also a great screen porch in the back and we're thinking of switching the steps to the other side and adding a patio where the dead hydrangeas are now.

Two story foyer with the formal living and dining rooms to the right when you're walking in and the powder room, garage, and laundry room off of a hallway to the left.  I LOVE this entryway and can't wait to see it with some color on the walls.

The living room is currently set up as a bar and right next to it is the formal dining room.  We're talking about keeping the living room as a more informal sitting area with a hutch, maybe a tall bistro table and of course, some paint on the walls.  We love the burgundy in the living room as well as the wainscoting, so probably won't change too much except for the 80's-ish brass chandelier.

As you continue through the foyer, you end up with the kitchen on your right and the open great room on the left.  I've got big ideas for the kitchen, including a warm goldenrod yellow on the walls, Silestone counter tops and a tiled back splash.

Upstairs there are four bedrooms and two baths.  This is a photo of the master taken from a sort of sitting-alcove.  We'll have the other bedrooms set up as a dedicated guestroom, an office, and then a sort of miscellaneous craftroom/excercise/bonus room that can be used as a second guestroom.

And finally, the screened-in porch with pond view.  We spent some time sitting on the porch the evening of the house inspection, and watched as a grey heron swooped his way around the pond.  It really started to feel like home in that moment.

We still have a long road ahead of us before we're there, but I can't wait to make another part of the country "home".

So Cultured I Should Be in a Petrie Dish

Current count of Washington days remaining?  Forty-three.  And nine of those will be spent house hunting in South Carolina.  So, I've been a bit busy to say the least.  I've been working regularly.  We've been working to keep the house presentable on a regular basis should any prospective renters want to check it out.  And of course we've been doing all of those fun Washington things that we won't be able to do in a month and a half. 

Over the course of two weeks I went with friends to see Pink Martini in Tacoma, with my opera pal to see La Traviata at the Seattle Opera, and then on a double date to see A Streetcar Named Desire at the Theatre on the Square in Tacoma.  Pink Martini put on an incredible show and reminded me of a band that would have played at The Tropicana with Ricky Ricardo.  La Traviata was absolutely gorgeous and deliciously tragic, and Streetcar was thoroughly depressing but surprisingly well performed for a community theater presentation.

Aside from that we've just been continuously freaking out about the move.  We leave on Monday to spend a little over a week getting to know the Charleston area.  We're going armed with an army of worksheets, an extensive spreadsheet of houses we've been tracking, a preapproval letter, and the knowledge that the government is completely unsympathetic to our flight. 

When we bemoan the state of our mortgage situation, helpful folks tend to remind us of the house-buying program for mlitary members who are being made to move during the current housing crisis.  Bummer for us, we bought our house two months too early to qualify for that program.  Then when the internet made me aware of the fact that the home-buyers tax credit has been extended through 2010 and is now available to current home owners, I actually got my hopes up for a moment before finding the fine print specifiying that eligibility is restricted to people who have owned their homes for more than five years.  We're hovering right around three.  You know, it's not that I expect the government to bail me out, and I fully appreciate the fact that there are people who are in far worse situations than I, but it's still a little disheartening every time you realize that some people are eligible for handouts and you aren't.  But still, I'm a firm believer is smaller government anyway, so whatever, I DON'T WANT YOUR NONEXISTANT MONOPOLY MONEY ANYWAY, AMERICA!!

So, that's pretty much that.  I'm excited about Halloween this weekend and the chance to spend a whole day thinking about something OTHER than the jumble of debt to income ratio, neighborhood crime statistics, and the vast difference a 5.0% interest rate can make on your mortgage payment as opposed to 5.25%...  Sigh.  In the words of Alice, it would be so nice if something made sense for a change.

Oh, Charleston? So Glad You Asked!

Somehow, the only possible explanation being some kind of rift in the space-time continuum, it is now October.  This is exciting for a few reasons but a little terrifying as well due to the fact that this means we now have just a few days over two months left in Washington.  Based on the alarming speed at which the past two months have flown by, I'm a bit overwhelmed by all there is that's left to do.

What this means is that if you're alone with me for any reason, or unwise enough to strike up a conversation with me in a fit of boredom, you will likely be subjected to an hours long litany of the ways that I am simultaneously excited, nervous, sad, thrilled and horrified by the prospect of moving to South Carolina.  I'm not even exaggerating.  I'm pretty sure I talked my parents' ears off about this subject for a minimum of two hours on Friday and then spent an entire baby shower on Saturday trying to staunch the inevitable flow of verbal diarrhea whenever anyone so much as glanced in my direction.

All that's left to do is document my current emotional state here.  Let us imagine that you've wandered over with one of my delicious lavender-lemon sugar cookies to pay me a compliment on the delicate balance of flavors, and then politely commented that I must be getting awfully excited about moving.

Well, I say to you with a smile, I certainly am excited.  Of course, I'm sad to leave my friends behind, but I'm very much looking forward to moving back to the South, and we're lucky enough to already have a few friends living there, so hopefully I won't have to spend as many months feeling like a social pariah as I did when I moved to Washington.  And of course, we'll be closer to family and I'm very much looking forward to being back in SEC country.

You nod, with a still slightly interested smile, and ask whether we're planning on buying?

I tilt my head ever so charmingly and give a self-deprecating smile.  We are indeed, but it's turning out to be a much more stressful situation than I had imagined.  You see, when we bought our house here, we were wide-eyed and full of hope, certain of our wise financial decision and proud of our ability to purchase our dream house.  Then, of course, months later the market came crashing down around our ears and we've spent the past two and a half years wincing at each property value assessment that arrives, biting our nails nervously as houses in our neighborhood sit on the market for months and then sell at a fraction of their purchase price, and more and more frequently "For Rent" signs are in yards instead of "For Sale".  Don't even talk to me about Zillow.

We've made the difficult, but at this point only feasible, decision to keep our house in Washington and rent it out, which makes getting a second mortgage quite challenging.  We're much more realistic now about the pitfalls of home-ownership, so while we're happy to be moving to an area with a slightly lower cost of living, the romantic associations we once had with house-hunting are more than a little tarnished after our acquaintance with the harsh realities of the real estate market.

At this point your eyes have glazed over, your cookie is digested and you're searching for a way to extricate yourself from the conversation, correctly judging the fact that I've really only just gotten started on my monologue.

Fortunately, I say, smiling through the tears, we have a friend whose father is a property manager, so he'll take care of finding our renters and doing the "landlord" business, and we are fairly certain with a rental contract and the probably use of a VA loan, we more than likely won't be homeless in Charleston.  We could rent there of course, but we prefer owning--even after our experience owning in Washington, believe it or not.  We know a lot more now about how to pick a house that we love, but that also has better potential for resale value, and have educated ourselves a bit more about the risks that we are taking.

We're hoping to have a rental agreement and preapproval letter in hand by the end of this month and will be visiting Charleston the first week in November to house hunt, armed with spreadsheets, checklists, lists of questions, and inexplicably, a St. Joseph medallion despite the fact that one of us is a lapsed Methodist and the other a lapsed Catholic.  I figure, in these trying times, one simply cannot be too superstitious... or religious... whatever.

Your head suddenly jerks upright and your face is suffused with a joyful glow as you suddenly realize that this conversation isn't real, you're simply reading a blog, and you know exactly where the exit button is.

The Palmetto State

So much has happened in the past few weeks, I hardly know where to begin. I know when a blogger that I read doesn’t update for a while, I sort of lose track of them and when they “come back to life” it’s always a little surprising that they were off living their life without my knowledge. And yet, life does go on away from the blogosphere, and mine has been a whirlwind of late.

It all started about two weeks ago when Colby came home and delivered the news that we had finally gotten our next assignment, and in less than six months we’ll be calling another part of the country home. In the words of Rhett Butler, “I’m going back to dignity and grace. I’m going back to Charleston, where I belong.”

We’re hoping to leave Washington in mid-December, head down south through Oregon and California, hit I-10 East, be home for Christmas and then continue on to our new home. It’s still a little surreal, and I’m unsure as to how this will go over with my company since I’m supposed to be starting back to work in September and now will need to be terminating employment in just a few more months…. but overall, I’m beyond thrilled to be moving to Charleston. It was our first choice, and I think I’ll feel much more comfortable and happy back in the land of crawfish, SEC football, and Spanish moss.

The next week was filled with touring as Colby’s parents came in town and we nearly killed ourselves driving to the far reaches of the region from the Oregon coast, to the Fremont/Ballard areas of Seattle, and Friday Harbor in the San Juan islands. We packed all of that and more into their five-day visit, and I also scrambled to finish three weeks worth of school in one so that I could go on vacation without making time for homework every night. My in-laws left on August 5th and we had that one day to run all of our errands, finish last minute chores, and throw some swimsuits into our suitcases before our 8:15 am flight out of Seattle on August 6th for HAWAII!!!

And that’s where I’m reporting to you from now. I’ve got tons of material to write about from our time in Kauai, but I think I will save that for a later post. Always leave ‘em wanting more, right?  We’re sitting at the airport and boarding for our flight to Oahu in about 10 minutes, so right now I need to put away my computer and start praying for the remnants of Tropical Depression Felicia to give us a break so that our beautiful 20 minute flight doesn’t turn into an Oceanic Flight 815 kind of experience…

Washington Bucket List

There's so much I want to talk about right now, and the past three days have been jam-packed with fun and productivity, but I have a paper due tomorrow that I've only just begun, so I'm going to insert a cop out post today.  This may be a bit premature as apparently the email that Colby got a few weeks ago about receiving his assignment in June with a report no later than (moving) date between October and January apparently gets sent out every quarter and only applies to a select few of the recipients.  But still.  My mindset is still that we won't be here through the winter, because honestly, that's the only way I'll be able to make it through another winter here.

So, Colby and I have begun compiling a list of all the things we want to do before we leave Washington.  From the length of the list, you'd think we did nothing but sit around the house twiddling our thumbs, but it's just that the longer we've lived here, the more things we keep hearing about that we must do before moving.  Plus there's a bit of Oregon and Canada thrown in just for good measure.  And, to our credit, we've done almost all of the major tourist attractions in the area, so our bucket list is sort of a graduate level Washington course.  I'm definitely taking suggestions as well, so if I'm missing something it's either just because we've already done it or we haven't heard about it yet!

◊    Woodland Park Zoo

◊    Asian Art Museum

◊    Whale Watching—San Juan Islands?

◊    Seattle Opera

◊    Weekend in Port Angeles

• Start at Port Angeles, and drive west on highway 101. You will see one of the most spectacular alpine lakes in the region. Crescent Lake is nestled amongst deep green firs, which rise in dramatic slopes from the waters edge. Nearby, Marymere Falls and Sol Duc Hot springs are great diversions in you’re staying in the area.
• Forks

◊    Sounders Game

◊    Mt. St. Helens

◊    Bainbridge Island Ferry

◊    Victoria, B.C.

• Tea at the Empress
• Butchart Gardens
• Craigdarroch Castle

◊    Winery Tour

◊    Discovery Park

◊    Lakeview Cemetery

◊    Steilacoom Beach

◊    Alki Beach

◊    Dash Point State Park

◊    Rhododendron and Bonsai Garden in Federal Way

◊    Saltwater State Park

◊    Southern Oregon

• Ashland, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
• Crater Lake

Hm, maybe we will need a few extra months in town to get this all scratched off the list!

And So It Begins...

I keep thinking it's Friday.  It is not, Friday, but Thursday in fact.  This is repeatedly disappointing to me.  I have no idea what I'm going to write about today, this is one of those new fangled "stream of consciousness" blogs where I just write what comes to mind in an effort to get myself back into the blogging habit.  You should be excited, because I am pretty sure there is going to be some stellar writing up in here.

A crazy thing happened a couple of days ago.  Colby got an email from his squadron saying that we could expect to get our next assignment some time in June and then have a report no later than date between October and January.

!!!

On the one hand, YAY!!!  On the other hand, SHIT!!!

Let us deal with the YAY!!! first.  Even if we don't move until January, that means that I will never again have to endure the most soul crushing months of the year in Washington--February and March.  In January, it is still expected that when you go outside you will need a heavy coat, galoshes, and an umbrella made of reinforced steel.  By April, there are generally enough gorgeous, sunny days sprinkled throughout the month to keep you from throwing yourself off of the nearest overpass.  But February and March are just an endless progression of cold, rainy, grey days with no light at the end of the tunnel.  I hate them.  I will not miss them.

Hm, now that I'm spending some time really thinking about this, that's really the only YAY!!! I can come up with...

Now for the SHIT!!!  There's a lot more here, surprisingly enough. First, the practical.  According to Zillow, our house has depreciated in value approximately 21% since the day we bought it.  HAHAHAHA.  Fuuuuuuuck.  We are working on refinancing right now for somewhere between 4.75 and 5.185%, which is lovely and will bring out mortgage down to a level that we could feasibly charge renters, but that means we'll be renting it instead of selling.  There are a lot of ways that I would love to spend our nest egg.  Funding a short sale is not one of those ways.

Second, the neurotic.  There are a number of things I don't love about Washington.  Namely the weather, but also the obsession with outdoor winter sports, camping and sporting good supply stores, and the criminally insane politics, but what if our next location is worse?  I've heard from a fairly reputable source (i.e. some guy at dinner the other night) that Alaska is off the table for the next round of assignments.  HALLELUJAH!  But you know what is still on the table?  Middle of nowhere Oklahoma and middle of nowhere Nevada.  Do I actually think we will get one of those assignments?  No.  Do they still haunt my dreams and every waking moment?  Yes.

Third, the emotional.  I have made some seriously fantastic friends here, and I really don't want to leave them behind.  I know this is just part of military life, but much like going through a breakup, it's so awful to imagine having to start all over again with a new pool of potential friends.  Of course everyone says they'll stay in touch, and between the Facebook and email, generally people do, but we all know it's just not the same anymore when you move across the country.  There's a chance that some of us will end up in the same place, particularly since there aren't that many options given Colby's careerfield, but there's a greater chance that most of us won't.  So that's sad.

Plus, of course this just means that the hassle of loading up our belongings, finding a place to live, and hauling ourselves to the next house begins again, and honestly, we just did that.

Anyway, that has been the peakiest peak of excitement around here lately.  That and the endless cycle of work, eat, sleep, 30 Day Shred, television.  So, if you can spare a minute, I wouldn't be mad at you if you'd send a little bit of a Charleston or San Francisco vibe my way, and hopefully sometime in June I'll be getting the good news that one of those charming locales will be my residence for the next 3ish years of my life.  (This is me making an attempt at optimism.)

P.S. This turned out way less stream of conscious than I was expecting.  My apologies if you were waiting for something Joycian to evolve out of this.

Resigning From Life

BLEEEAAAAARRRRRGHHHHH!!!!!!

I quit.  Consider this my two week notice.  I am turning in my resignation letter to the Department of Living Amongst Society and moving to a hut on the beach in an as yet undiscovered island.  I'm not leaving a forwarding address.  I go alone.  Don't come looking for me, because I am DONE.

I don't want to clean up after a destructive dog who will pull items out of thin air if there are none within reach that he can rip to shreds in my absence and then prance about proudly when I return home.  I don't want to clean the bathroom, wash the dishes, do the laundry, vacuum the floor only to have to do it again in what seems like mere hours.

I don't want to be a law abiding citizen, vote in elections, throw my garbage in the trash can, give money to causes that need it more than I do, and be a generally good person, only to be given a $340 ticket for not registering my car in the state of Washington, when I had no clue that I was supposed to.  I'm not registered to vote here, I don't claim residency here, I'm a military nomad and I'm sorry you Office-Space-Boss-Looking-Asshole Cop, I have never been made aware of this rule.  I'm not claiming that ignorance of the law is the perfect excuse, but how easy would it have been to have given a friendly warning and gone about your day?  You can take your, "Have a nice day, ma'am," and shove it up your power-tripping, quota-filling rear end.

I'm tired of being tired.  I'm sick of exhausted kids who treat me and each other like crap and make me dread the day I see two lines on a pregnancy test.  I'm flummoxed by my suddenly shitty gas mileage that makes me suspect a gremlin is sneaking into my garage at night and siphoning the gasoline out of my car.  I wish the damn cd player in my car would stop overheating and spitting cds out at me with a snotty "Check CD" message on the display every time I try to listen to something other than our lame radio stations.

I'm so over feeling negative.  I want the fucking sun to shine.  I want to wake up and feel excited about another day.  I'm sick of being a single wife.  I'm worn down from the constant stream of "what ifs" running circles around my brain about where we're going to live this time next year, how we'll sell our house without losing our shirts, whether or not we'll be able to get another mortgage, and what furniture or precious family mementos will be destroyed in the move.

I'm just so ready to check out.

But I can't quit.  This is my life.

As shitty as it makes me feel sometimes.  I love my retarded dogs.  This job is the first one I've ever had where I feel like maybe I'm making a difference.  I know I need to just suck it up and have a little faith that God won't dish out more than we can take.  The military infuriates me on a daily basis, but it has also been very good to us over the years.  As for the cop and the ticket situation... well, I tried, but I can't find the silver lining there.

I just want to escape from it all.  But then I guess everyone does, and we just keep riding this completely absurd roller coaster of life.  In the meantime, thank you Jesus for wine, carefully cultivated savings accounts, Gossip Girl, and giant, liquid puppy dog eyes that just won't allow you to stay angry for too long.

But I'd still rather be in Capri.

You Take The Good, You Take The Bad...

It has been quite a week, hasn't it?  It seems like such a strange week--so many great things have happened, but there's so much sadness in the world right now.  Our house is finally starting to turn into a home, we've made lots of progress on our long list of house projects, Colby is home, the sun has been shining, I finally found my camera, Sanjaya finally got the boot on American Idol.  And yet every day there's nothing but bad news from the rest of the world.  I find myself changing the channel constantly because I just can't hear another story about one of the Virginian Tech victims, or another tale of a gun turning up in a kid's backpack, or one more break-in or DUI or hit and run.

I suppose it's a product of living near a big city.  There's a lot more opportunity for bad things to happen because there are just a lot more people.  I've always been afraid of having my home broken into--I don't know why for sure.  It's never happened to me, and I've never lived anywhere near a high crime neighborhood, but for some reason ever creak of the house settling sends me into spasms of terror.  Now I'm living in a neighborhood I don't know well, I have no campus police patrolling or gated community to give me that false sense of security, and I have dogs that go ballistic every time the neighbors leave their house.  I'm guessing with time I'll get used to things, but I tell ya, I really miss hearing any sort of good news on the television at night.

I am very much enjoying myself during the day, however, when I'm not afraid of homicidal maniacs.  Colby's 10 day deployment was cut short, and he was back home after only a week.  I had the great pleasure of going out to lunch with some friends that I'd known for years through the internet--and now I can finally consider them "real life" friends.  The books in the office have all been alphabetized, and I can see the light at the end of the filing tunnel.  Although there have been many glares of death from Colby when I admit to shredding his 10 year old bank statements, and growls of frustration from me when my attempts at organization are questioned, I'm really loving finally being with the boy.  And in a surreal moment of truth, I realized this morning that we are just days away from our one month anniversary of moving in together.  One month.  Gone, in the blink of an eye and a flurry of boxes and packing paper.

I'm trying very hard to hold on to each day and really enjoy it for what it is instead of longing for the day when we have grass in the backyard, all the rooms painted, and every box unpacked.  There's always going to be something that needs doing, and I'm learning that enjoying the process is just as important as the end result.  I think this is a lesson that I've been trying to learn for years now.  What can I say, I'm just a very goal oriented gal.

But anyway, as I said, the camera was at long last located--just yesterday mind you--under a pile of crap.  It was exactly where I thought it would be, but the trick was properly identifying the correct load of crap.  So, finally, for your viewing pleasure, some random photos from the past month.  Enjoy!

First a gratuitous adorable puppy photo.  Two dogs, brought together by fate, forced to like each other.


The most enjoyable part of wedding planning--CAKE TASTING!!  Oh my God, the cake is going to be fabulous.  We decided on the traditional white almond wedding cake with 3 layers--grand marnier and Bavarian cream, chocolate doberge, and Hummingbird (raspberry, cream cheese, and pecans)--with an ivory buttercream frosting.  My mouth, it is watering right now.

 

Show tune Karaoke:  Because a post with pictures would be incomplete without my big mouth behind a microphone.


Innocent Angela, sitting on campus with her fiance, never suspecting what was to come next  during the mysterious "Levee Walk: 2007"


BLING!  BLING!!  Okay, it was really windy, and neither one of us are terribly good photographers hence the bad hair and blurry picture.  But there's a slightly better shot to come.


At the engagement party held by Colby's side.  I felt like I was at a photo shoot toward the end with all of the obligatory family photos.  This is the parents' shot and one with my unfairly hot sister.  I think I'll make her wear a paper bag over her head on the day of the wedding...



Arriving at the Jack and Jill Shower held by close family friends on my side (oh my God, are those my hips or did the Great Wall of China sneak into my pants??) and hanging out with my maid of honor and two bridesmaids.  We go waaaaaaay back.  We're like sisters--except we all like each other.  (Well, and one of them actually IS my sister.)


The Magnificent Table of presents--I loved this party.  And on the right is the amazing collage handmade by one of the hostesses of the event.  It's amazing.


And finally it was moving day, and we had to fit the entire Magnificent Table of Presents into the car with us, along with all of the stuff I'd moved home with, and Colby's luggage.  For a minute there, I thought I might be riding in my rocking chair on the roof rack.


Here's how I spent most of the four driving days...


And here's my good natured chauffeur.  I don't know what it is, but put me in a car and I am completely useless--it's better than Ambien.


One of the amazing sunsets we witnessed... when there was still a sun to be setting.


And here is what I discovered when I was carried across the threshold--chocolate and a mess of absolutely indescribable proportions.  Note:  This is BEFORE my stuff was even delivered yet.  Sigh.


But we rolled up our sleeves, got to work, and got to painting... To Be Continued!

That's as up to date as I can get you for pictures right now, but since I've located the camera, as we get rooms finished I'll start working on a virtual tour for those of you who are as nosy as I am about other people's houses.  This weekend we're heading out to a pig roast (!?) and Sunday we're doing engagement photos and then going the see A Light In The Piazza in Seattle.  And I am so hungry right now that I just typed "pizza" instead of "piazza".  I think it's time for a little of the snack that smiles back.  Later dudes!