Since we last spoke...2nd edition

In case you haven't noticed the pattern, I'm trying to blog three times a week, opposed to the four times a week I was blogging a year ago.
Since I couldn't get my act together on Monday or Tuesday, this week is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
I know I shouldn't be so fixated on routine and having things on certain days at certain times, but I'm coming off of 10 years where I had everything planned out in roughly 30 minute blocks, all day long. I'm very used to my days being set up that way and now that my job is to take care of a baby and set up my own schedule, I tend to get really hung up on routine, still.

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Maybe this will just be a monthly thing where I don't just recap, but I update.

As of the first week in February, our Colorado house went under contract. They offered, we countered, they accepted.

Scott flew back to Colorado on Presidents' Day weekend. They did the home inspection that weekend and he wanted to fix whatever he could because that'd be his last chance to go back there since he had a 4-day weekend. My parents came to visit us.

Scott went to California for work during the last week in February. My mother-in-law came to stay with us that week because #1 I'm getting to be weak and #2 She could spend time with Wells.

We were housebound for way too many days because of the cold.

We closed on our house on Friday, March 8th.

We bought a new SUV.

I did a 23 and Me Ancestry DNA test.
The neat thing is that this profile matches what my family has told me, based on when my ancestors arrived in the U.S. and where they came from.

I want to say we've settled into Pittsburgh but we've had not a full weekend together since we've been here (mid-January). Scott had to leave Sunday, for example, for a work trip and got back very late last night. This coming weekend, I'll be going home for my sister-in-law's baby shower. Next weekend, I don't know yet, and the weekend after that is Easter.
We haven't actually DONE anything here yet. Mostly it's just Scott going to work and me keeping everyone alive and chipping away at little things during the week, and the weekends have been cold and miserable so far. Truly, we can't seem to get two warm weekend days in a row!

Experiencing... our first Pennsylvania spring since 2009. It's cold and rainy. So yeah, that's about right.

Appreciating... that I'm giving myself a lot more grace on our living situation. This is literally *just* a rental. And it's hard to live in a rental after you've owned your last two houses. Scott has LITERALLY already started looking at houses for our next location, which won't be for well over a year from now. This is all so temporary and is just for right now and it is what it is. We'll obviously always remember our time in Pittsburgh, but it's just like our time in Alaska and our time in Missouri and our time in Colorado and our time in Wyoming: temporary. So I'm trying to not stress out over all of the little things I wish were different.
It is absolutely striking to me how our houses in Alaska and our house in Missouri felt so much more like home than this place does. They were just rentals too, after all.

Wishlisting... I feel like I'm trying to buyallthethings in anticipation of spring and summer? Last spring, I was quite pregnant and didn't want anything new or fun. Same with summer. I like this.

Posting... Not nearly as much as I should. I have things to say, believe me, but something always stops me from writing and publishing. I wish I could go private for a bit? Or forever, and just funnel in the people I'd like to read it.
But you can see all the links at the beginning of this post to see what I've been up to lately.

Considering... Wells' first birthday. While I really miss the newborn dinosaur-and-kitten-noise-making constant yawning stage, I do love seeing him learn and do new things. He is all over the place now, and even made a weak attempt at holding his own bottle on Monday.

First pair of jeans and his little crossed feet.

Linking up with Anne for Currently and Kristen for What's New with You!

Since we last spoke.

You'll notice (maybe) that I've been blogging but there's been very little current/updated/this-is-what's-happening type of blogging. You see, it's been a season. A hard one. And I couldn't blog through it. So I just had to stop blogging. Then, when I assumed I'd be able to safely reside in this space again around the beginning of January, I was still in the middle of through.  I've done through before, but every through looks different. I couldn't do real-time-currently type blogging because I can't blog through things. I needed things to settle before I could start talking again. I won't say everything is settled at this point but, as my Jesus Calling devotional told me so aptly and appropriately last week, I need to give up the illusion that I deserve a problem-free life. I don't actually deserve anything, really, and everything I have is a gift I'm trusted with.
 I've just been trying to approach the challenges as gracefully as I can (which isn't that gracefully, when I'm getting up two to three times a night to feed a baby...in fact, I may be all out of grace at this point.)

However, since I've last written, like really written...

We put our Wyoming house up for rent in December.

Scott actually re-did the cabinets and the countertops in January, so it doesn't quite look this way anymore. 

We packed up everything Wells and I would need for a month or so and put everything else into storage.

I drove back to Pennsylvania with Wells (in two days, in case you're wondering). Wells and I moved in with my parents for two weeks.

I left Scott and the dogs in Colorado. He encouraged me to go and, while I felt like I was running away from what we were dealing with there, I knew it'd be for the best because then I could find us a place to live in Pittsburgh.

Somewhere in Kansas.

I "celebrated" New Year's with a teething baby and a marathon of Dr. Pimple Popper.

Our Colorado house went on the market.

Wells met my brother and sister-in-law and aunts and cousins.

I spent an entire day driving around Pittsburgh looking at rentals.

I took Wells to meet Scott's family, including the rest of his grandparents. (This sounds dumb, like I should've done it already or something as soon as I got to PA, but Scott's town is 2-3 hours from my town, so it was another trip I had to plan and pack for after unpacking at my parents' house.)

He'd been sleeping so his face was all smushed up.

I did massive amounts of paperwork, made phone calls, and attempted to set up everything for a move to a rental house in Pittsburgh.

Scott trekked across the country with the dogs and half of our stuff to be unpacked in our new rental. My family helped us unpack and clean and sort.

Scott left the dogs with me, trekking back to get the rest of our furniture, and finalize all the CO/WY stuff before starting his new job in PA.

I barely kept my head above water, in Pittsburgh, for two weeks alone. I packed up the dogs and went to my parents' house for a bit. I always think this will be easier and make me feel better, but it leaves me just as unsettled. Living out of a suitcase for a month wasn't in my ideal game plan but it was what it was.

Scott sold a bunch of stuff in Colorado...one of our three trailers, the four-wheeler, etc...just trying to get rid of what we wouldn't need for a few years.

Around January 27th, I put together Christmas presents for our families. J-A-N-U-A-R-Y 27th. They'll get them...at some point. At least I don't have to mail them.

We found renters for our Laramie house and our Colorado house is still on the market. It's been on for a month and we've had so many showings that it was actually really inconvenient to Scott while he was trying to pack/clean/load furniture. But that's a good thing. We're hopeful for buyers to come our way sooner rather than later, but your crossed fingers and/or prayers would be more than appreciated. While I don't think Scott is at all ready to let the place go (and the dogs are NOT ready to let that kind of freedom go), and I wish we could just pick up the house and move it, we won't be going back to Colorado. Prayers for a speedy sale are helpful!

To emphasize just how out of sorts things have really been over the last 8 months, Scott and I have spent 4-5 weekends together since the end of July. He was in Colorado, trying to finish the house and get it up to code, as the woman who sold us the house had done work that wasn't up to code and needed to be redone (this was the worst surprise ever, as we were ready to put it on the market with me 9 months pregnant and then...we weren't). I was in Wyoming with an infant. The weekends we did spend together were spent in Colorado, working on the house, so there was nothing relaxing about that, and I don't really count it. This last weekend was the first weekend we've had together in a very long time, with nothing on the to-do list but to unpack this rental house and sleep in and walk the dogs.

I found myself wanting to complain often over the last several months, so I just stopped talking about it. My complaints seem trivial, but they were so valid to me and especially in the post-partum months; I just wanted to be normal again and nothing was easy or normal. And it was little things I'd get upset about; things that I know everyone reading this takes for granted: I wanted all of my furniture in the same state, for example. I missed my couches. I wanted my own trashcan. It was in Colorado. I didn't pay $50 for a trashcan not to use it. I have to think that it's not just me, and everyone and anyone would have struggled in this position. I mean, I would hope it's not just me.

I was ridiculously happy when I unpacked the trashcan in Pittsburgh last week.

I honestly have no idea what the next few months will look like. We still have a lot to do, mentally, concerning Colorado, as well as figuring out the logistics of our new life here. With every move, everything changes anyway. With every new job, every new town, every new routine...it's a lot to take in at once. I'm hopeful that this will be a good fit for us and we can spend equal time relaxing, enjoying Pittsburgh, and seeing our families much more often.

Linking up with Kristen!

Stuff and such

I've seriously been feeling sorry for myself lately.

Like, I'm going to sit in bed and watch The Bachelorette on Hulu at 3:30pm on a Tuesday because I can think of nothing better to do kinda sorry. I have a half-painted bathroom (uh, it's not going anywhere), two unhappy dogs (it's too hot to go outside during the day), and an empty DVD player because I'm out of True Blood DVDs and Amazon hasn't come through with season 6. I could watch on Amazon Prime but there's something really cathartic about putting discs in the DVD player.

That's something I never thought I'd say: It's cathartic to go old-school and use DVDs to watch reruns.
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I started watching Gossip Girl again because my True Blood DVDs didn't show up on time and I needed something to play for background noise. I listened to two audiobooks and several podcasts and then turned to Netflix.

I was trying to figure out why I like Gossip Girl, aside from the obvious (Blair and Chuck). Like, why is it comforting to me? Well, it reminds me college because it was on when I was in college, though I didn't watch it then. But the clothes, the hair, the music, the cell phones...it all comes rushing back. Kind of like how I felt when I drank a Miller Lite the other day. Miller Lite really tastes like 21 years old. My brother left several cans in the fridge a few weeks ago and it isn't going to drink itself, right?

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Speaking of being old...Fallout Boy is still around and my students this past year were big fans. Someone had a Fallout Boy shirt on just about every day. They would write song titles on post-it notes and stick them on their nametags. Weird, right?

And when we learned about measuring units of time, I introduced them to that super-complicated word "century" and they were all Oh, like the Fallout Boy song?

I was like Yeah, sure. Like the song. Anyway...

I tried to tell them that I was listening to Fallout Boy 11 years ago when I was 19 years old, and that Fallout Boy is not exactly a new thing.  But then they tried to do the math to figure out how old I was and we got off track. (I don't think they actually did figure out my age).

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We get a storm most afternoons. Since our modem was fried by a lightning strike last summer, when we have lightning and thunder nearby, I unplug the modem.. It's wildly inconvenient, not just because I have to find something to do other than Netflix, but because I have to move the end table and crawl underneath it to unplug the DSL line and the power strip.

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Along the same lines, we have a cell phone signal repeater. Since we live in the middle of nowhere, we get little to no cell phone service without it. Unfortunately, it's also been fried during storms. Not the booster itself, but the adapter plugs. We've been through 5-6 in the last year. If I call the company (Wilson Electronics), they'll send me new ones for free but it takes like a week and a half. And I can never find the phone number; they're not an easy company to work with simply for that reason...you also can't order their products online. They have a website but you can't actually order from it. It's ridiculous. The last two times I've called, I've been directed to Utah and then to Georgia. I'm not sure where the actual call center is.

So, anyway, we had a stock of adapters that Scott ordered on Amazon and I couldn't find them when the current plug died on Tuesday-ish (all the days run together now). In all of my purging/storing/cleaning of the last few months, I'd put them...somewhere. So I drove all over Colorado Springs and no one had an adapter (the more I think about it, the more I don't like this town, by the way) and then when I finally told Scott about it, he ordered me a new one on Amazon and then I ordered one on Amazon too, of a different brand, because it never hurts to have two if history tells us anything. He also mentioned there were a few in the basement somewhere because he'd stocked up, "remember?". In the haze of pre-deployment, it started to come through that, yes, there was an adapter or two in the basement...in a white box...somewhere. I started digging and found it. I got very excited because I'd solved my own problem...and then I plugged it in and it died within an hour because it was cheap or something.

So, when Amazon Prime came through on Saturday, I was elated. Cell phone service again! And, after two years of this nonsense, I've discovered it would be beneficial to plug it into a power strip.

Updates and Such

Sometimes I feel like I keep a lot to myself. I didn't used to, but I just kind of do now. I'm not sure where this has come from. I share a lot on this blog, but not as much as I used to, say, four years ago.

Here are some things I thought of sharing, didn't, and then wanted to share before I forgot.

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Scott lost his wedding ring. He told me via Skype one day I was going to kill him and I thought it meant his stock crashed in the market (he likes to play the market). He said he lost his ring at the gym. Which is sad and depressing and it wasn't an expensive ring but obviously has a lot of sentimental value. 7 years, 4 deployments, etc. He said he was going to order some of the rubber rings (more than one because he does tend to lose things) and we'd just get him a new one when he got home.

Then he said he found his ring, almost two weeks later. I asked where and he said he asked the attendant at the gym one more time and the guy said Yeah! I just found this! and pulled it out of his pocket. I asked Scott if he was sure it was his and he was like Yeah, it is because it is so scratched and nicked and bent that, seriously now, it couldn't be anyone else's.

I think he might be getting a new ring for Christmas anyway.

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The township we own a house in in Pennsylvania...sorry, that sentence sounds weird. Scott owns a house in Pennsylvania and the township sent me a letter saying that ordinance something-or-other was being violated because there were weeds over 8 inches high. They sent me a picture of the violation.

I gave this major side-eye because, if you knew the neighborhood, weeds 8 inches high are the least of the problems. However, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt (as my mom told me to do) and assume they're trying to clean up the area. My parents graciously went over to the house and cut down all the weeds and then I took the new pictures and watermarked them with the address and date and passive-aggressively sent them to the township.

After all of this was dealt with, I told Scott about it. Because that's how deployment works: you keep a lot of things to yourself so as not to stress out the soldier and you attempt to deal with everything you possibly can without having a discussion about it. He doesn't need my questions because I'm an adult (sort of) and my power of attorney proves it.

Anyway, I was not very nice to the township about it. I have 18 million things to worry about right now and they're not one of them. They had addressed the notice to him and I responded back with He is currently deployed to Afghanistan and will not be receiving your letters. Address your notices to me. I don't think my bitterness snuck in too much, right?

When I eventually told Scott about it, he said I've got 99 problems and Decatur Township ain't one. I agree.

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I was looking around the house the other day, wondering what I could do with my time and I decided I didn't like the yellow bathroom anymore. I painted this bathroom yellow less than two years ago. I really wanted a yellow bathroom. I still like the idea of a yellow bathroom but not in this house. In fact, at this moment, I want this bathroom to be not-yellow. And I like gray. Most of our rooms are painted gray, and I particularly like the shade Valspar Rocky Bluffs that's in the kitchen. So I found the leftover paint and went to work.

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I adore this new chair from Homegoods and just wish, so badly, that I had new carpeting in this guest bedroom. Every time Scott asks me what I want for a birthday or anniversary or something, I say new carpeting in the guest room. He offers up anything else (even tiling the bathrooms) because he doesn't want to do the carpeting because it's an annoying task.

The other day Scott asked me what I would do with a windfall, should we come into one (again, he plays the market).

I told him I would hire someone to put in a carpet.