Three things I've realized about myself lately.

1. If there is anything slightly dangerous in an apartment, I will find it. I will not find it on purpose, but I will find it (examples: cutting my hand on a dryer door, grabbing a cutting board from a cupboard and jamming a screw under my fingernail, and stepping on five sharp objects in the first four days of moving in). how?

2. I have become a dog person. I have laughed myself to tears twice this week for dog-related incidents.

3. I need to get more sleep.

Throwing Stuff Into a Whirlwind and Watching it Spin Around

You know what's okay sometimes? Being busy. You know what's not okay sometimes? When the A T & T guy comes to hook up your internet and tells you that your cable is lost somewhere in the wall and that you need to talk to your maintenance guy. Then, you talk to your maintenance guy and they say they're working on the issue. Then, you get a bill from A T & T for service you can't even use yet because the cable is lost inside of the wall and the maintenance guy must have gotten lost in there too.

Moving and getting settled into a new place is always an adventure. It's exciting, sometimes. It's hectic, sometimes. Sometimes, you're not quite sure how you're going to do it all, but you do it all anyways. Things go wrong (inevitably), like getting a parking ticket in D.C. two days before you leave, having a mishap with the tow-dolly that scars your trusty old car (hey, at least it wasn't the new one), and having to run around a tourist-town at 9 PM (after driving 8 hours) to find a place where you can park your moving truck without it getting towed. (Note: don't text your husband to say, "I'm heading to the police station next." without an explanation...)

Then, when you finally arrive at your new "home," it takes awhile before it really feels like home at all. You deal with bills that make you go, seriously? Cancellation and set-up fees should totally be outlawed. So should the door-to-door college kids, asking you to buy a magazine subscription to help soldiers overseas. They don't take no for an answer, and they compliment you on how good the supper you are making smells, and they try to make you feel bad for them because they confused Ohio with Iowa and have ADHD. Oh, and don't forget the fact that you have to spend hours working on the paperwork to get reimbursed for the way-too-large amount of money that you spent getting to your new home and then spend too many days waiting to hear what you did wrong so that they have an excuse not to pay you.

Then, strangely, you realize that you kind of don't mind that everything is spinning around in a giant whirlwind. It's kind of fun to reach out and grab whatever you can and put the pieces where they belong. You look around you and realize that you're actually sort of making a nice little home for your little family and that you're blessed to have made it there safe and sound. And you know what? Not having internet at home means you have to get out and explore the area a little bit and spend a lot of time in a strangely rubbery library chair.

It's really not so bad. Challenging, yes. A test of patience, yes. Frustrating at times, yes. Time-consuming, definitely. But when you're sitting in your new home that has begun to feel like home, it feels okay. In fact, it feels more than okay. Before you know it, you don't even notice the whirlwind spinning in front of you and you can breathe easy again.

I feel like I can say, once again, we did it. No, we're doing it. 

Still in the midst of a little chaos.

The in between has never been a comfortable spot for me. Give me a project (or five), and I struggle to relax if it's only halfway done. Sometimes, this is a good thing, but often not. My focus locks in so tightly on the project to be completed that I can hardly focus on anything else- like writing this blog post, or calling my parents, for example. The dreaded in between is where I'm currently stuck. I really struggle taking things step by step and being patient as we settle in to our new home. It's like I can't see myself as having made progress until we're actually done.

And really, I shouldn't worry because we've made good progress. We've been here for four and a half days and: everything's unpacked and mostly put away, our used washer and dryer were purchased and hooked up, we painted, our internet service is arranged, our curtains and most of the decorations are hung, and I know how to get to the closet Walmart and Target. Yet,  I have to almost force myself to sit and stay in this chair instead of finish what I want to finish so bad. I'm driving my husband crazy. I'm driving myself crazy. I'm probably driving our dog and our neighbors crazy

I only made it a day and a half before buying paint. The long, white walls were making me sad, and I just had to make this place feel like less of a hallway and more of a home. We picked a soft gray and I feel so much more relaxed already. We also found a giant clock that goes perfectly over the fireplace- thanks, Lowe's, your half-price eye-catcher was too hard to pass up. The area rug? Yeah...that took some work. I probably looked at every rug that the internet and stores had to offer before deciding I just needed to pull one off the shelf, take it home, and only return it if I hated it.

As for Florida, I have yet to see the beach. That was on the agenda for today, but then it rained. It's really not that different in our neighborhood- but people care less about their cars than they did in Virginia. It's pretty warm, too. We've been in the 70s the last couple of days and the month of January is supposed to average around 60 every day. It think I can handle that!








Keagan checked in at his new command, but isn't doing much until he's ready to class up for Introductory Flight School (IFS). In the meantime, he has to report for formation Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and PT on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If he doesn't start IFS soon, we may be lucky enough to take leave for Christmas. YAY!

Well, it's back to try and finish up this decorating thing. Wish me luck as I try to come up with a wall arrangement that's "de-symmetricalized." (Yes, it is more fun to say de-symmetricalized than asymmetrical).