Been a while...

Sorry...I was out having a life...apparently.  AND...I was so busy I missed it!  UGH!  So, I have a bit of catching up to do, and I will. 

After we talk about papaya.  This isn't really about papaya...it's more about my strange and interesting family dynamics, but it started with papaya.(and it's on my mind, so it's what I'm writing about)

Last night my phone rang at exactly 12:01...I had literally just gotten my side of the bed warm.  It was my brother...and I ignored it.  As I got back in bed, Matt asked, "why not answer it?" and I said that if he hadn't just butt dialed me he would call me again...no sooner had I said this than the phone was ringing again.  Okay, must be important.  The conversation went something like this,
"Hey."
"Hey yourself, what's up?"
"Were you sleeping?"
"Yeah, it's midnight..."
"It's not midnight there, that means it's 1 o'clock here...oh, crap it's 1 o'clock here...I'm sorry."
"It's alright, what's going on?"
"So, I need to know how you feel about papayas"  
RIGHT...my little brother NEEDS to know how I FEEL about papayas at 1 am his time on a Monday night.  I briefly thought about saying, "not much, I haven't got to spend a lot of time with them..." but thought better of it. 

While I'm thinking about it, I don't like mangoes either.  

Following the Directions or Why I'm Not a Food Blogger

In order to save a little cash, I have gotten into the habit of buying boxed cookie mix instead of pre-made cookies from Keebler or Nabisco or whatever.  Usually it saves me about $4 a month...thats not really a whole lot, but its a corner and I cut it. 

SO...this evening, I decided to make a batch of cookies.  This is not rocket science, you do what the box tells you, let the cookies cool, eat a couple, pack some in the kids lunch box, eat a couple more and put them away. 

WOULD YOU LOOK AT THOSE COOKIES?!?!?! 

Isn't that awesome?  Yeah, completely ruined 2 dozen cookies.  How?...you might ask.  I followed the damn directions!  "Pre-heat oven to 375"  I think to myself...that's a little different...okay.  "Bake for 8-10 minutes"  Let's go with eight, I can always keep them in if they need it.  Ya'll they were SMOKING!  Then, to add insult to injury, I thought I'd be smart and cut off the bottoms...yeah...no... The whole flippin' cookie tasted like burnt...uh...cookie.  

I had enough dough for one more dozen...so I lowered the temperature to 350, and cooked for 8 minutes.  Those cookies were awesome. 

On Being a Military Family

What I love about being a military family:

• moving
• traveling 
• meeting new people
• exposing my kids to new and different cultures
• the welcome homes

What I hate about being a military family:

• moving
• traveling
• meeting new people
• exposing my kids to new and different cultures
• the goodbyes 

I grew up in a military family, it's not too much of a surprise to me that I married into it.  Maybe it's in my blood, but I get antsy after living in one place for more than 3 or 4 years.  Growing up, I loved going on road trips, going to visit our family, getting presents and sometimes money from the cool places Daddy went to. 

Little did I know the grown-up side of it though...

1. Moving SUCKS!  There's the going through ev-er-y thing and throwing crap away; the pre-packing (cause military packers are dumb); the packing days when you allow high school drop out probably former convicts into your home to touch your stuff; the cleaning; the address changing; the finding a new house on the internet and hoping it's not in the ghetto when you get there; the saying goodbye.  On our most recent move, one of the movers stole my debit card number and cleared my account. WHILE WE WERE ON THE ROAD!  Um...yeah...we kinda needed that money...thanks.
2. Family visits are expensive!  I don't actually know how my parents were able to swing sending us kids to see both sets of Grandparents every year (sometimes twice a year).  One thing is for sure, they taught us that family is important. Taxes are being used this year to fly me and the Big Man out to see my Grandparents... 
3. Getting presents and money from Daddys trips actually means that Daddy has to go away for a while.  This sucks for a couple of reasons...a) he's not here b)Murphys Law states that whatever can go wrong, won't until after he's gone AND THEN...it'll all go wrong at once c) as soon as Daddys gone, our son turns into a completely different child (I thought this was just me, or him reacting to my anxiety, it's not, his teachers have noticed a change too) d) as soon as we get into a routine, Daddy comes back and screws it all up
4. Meeting new people is a wonderful thing...but...it's also one of the most difficult things to do.  In the nine months that we've lived here, I have met three women my age that I would like to be friends with.  I say like cause I have yet to have the chance to even go have coffee or get my nails done with any of them.  
5. New and different cultures...OH BOY...well...I opened that can of worms.  At the risk of hurting someones feelings...Texas is about 20 years behind the Western half of the country.  I am trying to see past the bigotry and ignorance.  I'm actually in the process of looking for a teaching farm to expose the Big Man to animal husbandry...I think it'll be cool for him to learn about animals and how farms work.  While in Utah, the Big Man went to daycare/pre-school in a multi-cultural setting, there were black, Asian, Polynesian, Hispanic, and Anglo kids...now there's like 5 kids who aren't Anglo in his whole school.
6. The Goodbyes...this is the worst.  This isn't actually that much different from when I was a kid, except as a kid...I was a kid.  I hated leaving Illinois.  We had a home, all of our family, good jobs and friends.  I hated leaving Utah.  We had a home, the BEST jobs either of us had ever had and friends.  God, I miss my friends.  I miss my job, students, coworkers.  I miss having informal get-togethers in our front yard.  I will probably hate leaving Texas...I hope.  Then there's the other goodbyes...the ones where you have to say goodbye to your spouse.  It doesn't matter if they're going away for a week or a year...IT BLOWS.  We've been very blessed that Matt has never been deployed to a warzone, but quite frankly that doesn't matter...when they're gone...they're gone. Tomorrow, after only 3 weeks of having him back, we will be saying goodbye again.