January 2012

I'm back! And I'm finally posting pictures from our big move across the country.

Before leaving, we had lunch with these guys.

Our apartment looked like this. Yikes!

I was packed and ready to go!

The movers arrived and made everything look like this.

Then they came to my MIL's garage to pick up all the tools and spare parts.

We had sushi with some more friends the night before leaving. 

 

Then this happened to my car before leaving town. It's ok, I got a nice new rental to drive 1900 miles instead of my 1991 miata. :D

Then we drove 8 hours to Mobile to see my family.

We had a fabulous shrimp boil for dinner at my grandmother's house (notice she still had her Christmas tablecloth on). 

The next morning, we were on the road again. Goodbye Alabama!

But not without one of these from  Stuckey's first. 

I liked Mississippi. I found cracked pecans, satsumas (if you've never tried one, you need to make that a life goal), and boiled peanuts on the side of the road.

And then we found the most amazing restaurant ever for lunch. Can you see all the animals on the walls? They really like to hunt down there.

What you see here is a fried green tomato, fried okra, a roasted chicken leg, green beans, mashed potatoes, corn pudding, fried quail, and mac n' cheese with a roll and a salad with everything on it. I would go back here anytime. Gladly.

Hallelujah we made it to Texas!

Um, yeah. Texas.

And more Texas.

That second night we got to stay with my husband's Uncle Russell. Yep, his name's Russell Crow.

The next day we got some TexMex in the middle of nowhere on our way to Amarillo. And when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean the middle of nowhere. 

The next day we made it to Albuquerque!

We looked at some houses.

And we picked this one!

 And then the movers brought our stuff back in late January. Oh my, I still don't think we're completely unpacked.

And I think that was January. In the meantime, we lived in temporary lodging on base for about two weeks (long enough for me!) and learned how to deal with the cold wind. We got all our inprocessing done, and hubby prepared to go TDY (temporary duty assignment) to Ohio for training in February. We both attended orientations, and made some new friends right away (perks of military life). 

Continue to February . . .

Studying Awesomeness

I haven't been nerdy enough lately. 

Let me explain. 

Growing up, I was always the good kid, the smart kid, the nerd. And I didn't mind a single bit. I actually loved it. I knew that by being good and learning things I would come out on top, plus I loved learning. I hated homework just as much as the next kid, but I loved learning. Not just one subject, pretty much anything. It all fascinated me how things worked together and subjects often collided (not until probably high school they didn't, but then that just made everything I learned more interesting). I even stayed after school to learn more through three different academic teams. MAJOR NERD. But it did get me on a LOT of field trips. I think I was averaging two or three a week by senior year. But anyway.

When I got to college, I decided I'd nerd it up just a tiny bit less. Actually, that wasn't the original plan. I went into Auburn as an aerospace engineering major (ha, yeah, you see how that turned out--I guess eventually I figured out that it would just be better to marry one instead), but after one semester I changed to Entrepreneurship and Family Business. Entrepreneurship kind of runs in the family. My mom's two brothers have always worked for themselves and done quite well, and my dad has owned his own business as long as I can remember. I can't help it, I want to work for myself. It's in my blood. But this new major was still pretty nerdy. I got to learn accounting stuff--and loved it--and economics and a slew of other subjects that I can't remember now. *The homework thing was a bigger problem in college than it was in high school, though.

I joined the Sailing Club sophomore year. I only went sailing once, but I really truly did want to learn to sail. Because it was awesome. 

I wanted to learn to fly a plane. Auburn has a program for that, and I knew I could never afford it, but still. It was awesome. 

I wanted to learn to kayak. I'd been once in Seattle, and it was awesome. 

I wanted (and still do) to learn to ride a motorcycle. That would be so awesome. 

I wanted to be awesome. 

If I crawled down a rabbit hole, I'm sure the Mad Hatter would tell me that I've lost my muchness. That sophomore year I met my rocket scientist and moved away from Auburn in May to be with him. Oh believe me, it was more than a fair trade-off, but it has been kind of hard. There's something I forgot to take with me:

My desire to be awesome. 

I'd come home from my job at the fancy-schmancy dry cleaner, or the daycare, or the mall, and he would be doing homework for some math class, and he would work a problem to a point where it was down to a calculus level. I could actually recognize it as something I used-to-could do. Or his little brother would be having problems with his math homework (ok, ok, I admit, I liked math. A lot.) and I could tutor him through it. Or hubby would explain to me some concept from orbital mechanics, and I would recognize enough of the components to understand. 

Little glimpses of my muchness. 

I used to love learning. I used to love knowing. It seems like the last two and a half years that I've been here, not in school, I've lost that. And that's a really big part of me.

It may sound silly, but blogging has brought a little of that back. There were things I had to learn to get started, and there are things I still have yet to learn to be more awesome. I mean, I had to learn some coding! 

I think that's a big part of why I'm so excited about this next big chapter in our lives. I have a plan to be awesome again. Maybe not in the same ways that I always wanted to be awesome, but in a different way. I mean, awesome is awesome, no matter what it looks like. And out there, with hubby working a "real" job, I have the opportunity to have no distractions from becoming awesome. As long as I'm working my Thirty-One business, I won't have to go out and get a job (you know, the kind where you work for somebody else? They're not my favorite). I'll be able to make my own schedule and push myself to do whatever I want to achieve. If I choose to go back to school, I can. I'll have a proper home (don't even get me started on our little apartment--I can't love a place if I never painted the walls. One day hubby will understand this), and a little cash to hostess a little more. I adore having friends over. The planning, the decorating, the oh-make-yourself-at-home-ing. But to be honest, I didn't put enough energy into making friends here. I have a very few here that are still a part of my life. That will be different in New Mexico. Because I will choose to be more awesome. 

Because awesome is awesome.

Waiting . . .

I really really really really really hope we get our PCS orders this week. And by "we", I mean my husband. But I get to go, too, so it's "we". How long have we been waiting, you ask? 

Well . . . 

Hubby took five years to get his bachelor's degree (which, believe me, was completely necessary) in aerospace engineering with a load of ROTC on the side (why yes, I did indeed marry a rocket scientist, hehe). He basically graduated with a year's worth more hours than he needed for his degree, but they were all required for ROTC, which was required for his dream of being an Air Force officer. I was along for the last three years (his junior year, his senior year, and his victory lap as we not so lovingly call it), and it was really cool to see how dedicated (and sometimes not so dedicated) he was, even if it meant retaking a class during the summer or barely scraping by sometimes. 

Sometime in early fall 2010 (during that victory lap I told you about) we filled out a dream sheet. They gave us 8 bases and told us to choose our top 6 in order of where we would most like to go. Of course, our first choice was Coco Beach, Florida (You mean we could live at the BEACH??????). We got our third pick. Or maybe it was our fourth. Either way, they told us we would be moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Umm, ok. We can do that. Honestly, I'm just (still) excited about the whole not-living-like-college-kids-anymore thing. It has its charm while you're actually IN college, but that ship has long sailed by now for both of us. 

We wait. And wait. And wait some more. When April rolled around and we hadn't heard anything, we were pretty sure we wouldn't be leaving in June or July like we had hoped. Bummer.

Finally, May 2011 came! We'd already gotten married and had a cat and gotten credit cards and combined finances and all kinds of grown up stuff in preparation for grown up life. Graduation and Commissioning ceremonies commenced! My parents and his dad and grandma came into town for the festivities. A little fun and a little stress (aren't family gatherings the worst best?) was had all around. Although I had to admit, I got a little teary when he and 3 of his fellow new Lieutenants were brought on stage for a salute at the College of Engineering Graduation. I was so proud! And then I got to pin his bars on his service coat at commissioning. <3 However, still no word from the Air Force. 

Summer ended, and still we got nothing. The Air Force is supposed to wait no longer than six months after commissioning to have him enter into active duty (EAD--this usually refers to the date). Yeah, that was November 13. And we're still here. In Knoxville. And it's supposed to snow this week. Grrrrr. I hate snow and love the beach, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with the fact that I was raised on the Gulf Coast of Alabama where 40 degrees was freezing.  At some point in September, hubby emailed one of his cadre from ROTC to see if he could find any information on his EAD. He sent us a clip of a spreadsheet that said 5 January. DON'T THEY KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE SNOWING THEN??? Ok, we can do this, too. 

Now it's almost December 5, which is 30 days before his EAD. We are supposed to have at least 30 days notice, so we can flash those orders around and cancel all our contracts with everybody (apartment, gym, jobs, whoever we need to) without repercussions (fees). *sigh* Oh, I just can't wait.

Maybe it will be this week.