My problems begin and end with my feet right now.

Sometimes I think I'm in a season where I'm so apt to rush and panic and try to do All The Things that there is no way for me to slow down. I physically cannot because then tasks won't get completed. Lately, I've had to let a lot (a LOT) go. 

About two months ago, I noticed I had a small toenail fungus on my nail (gross but stay with me). This has happened once before and, that time, I went through multiple topicals and homeopathic remedies and nothing worked. Finally, I went to the doctor via telehealth in 2020 and she prescribed me an oral pill that went into your bloodstream and destroyed the fungus from within. 90 days of taking a pill every morning, they make you take a pregnancy test before you start it, and you have to get bloodwork halfway through to make sure your liver is still functioning properly. Extreme right? Well that was 5 years ago and I went to the doctor two months ago for annual bloodwork, I mentioned the fungus and she gave me the same medication again. Obviously, different doctor, different state but same idea. I started taking it and within a week, I noticed my feet were aching constantly. Like, unexplained muscle pain. I assumed it was from some not-so-supportive shoes I'd been wearing but nothing actually made it better. I was miserable. I would soak them, elevate them, whatever. They weren't swollen or anything. Scott assumed I had some really tight muscles so he massaged my calves and that really hurt and did kind of loosen things up but it never actually got better. Sandals hurt, sneakers hurt, bare feet on the floor hurt the most. 

At some point, two weeks ago, I realized it could be the medication I'd been taking. I stopped taking it. My feet stopped hurting within the day. 

I think I do have a really tight muscle in my heel but my feet don't ache anymore. My doctor asked me last week to go back in (today) to get the liver function test done and I was like "oh I stopped taking it" and I wrote a brief sentence about the foot pain as a side effect and she as just like "okay you don't need the test then". No "HMMM that's really weird". Scott had told me weeks ago that I should legitimately go to the doctor if my feet hurt that bad. I was like "What would they even do? Nothing. They would do absolutely nothing." Which is exactly what happened anyway. 

So as I'm getting over the Foot Pain Incident, and as the fungus is pretty much gone anyway because I did take 5-6 weeks of pills (I will just continue on with tea tree oil), I've also been dealing with a plantar's wart. It's honestly been there for awhile and last spring the dermatologist gave me a medication to put on it that "kills it from within" instead of an invasive procedure. I used it for a bit, it got a lot better, so I stopped but it definitely came back. The medication I have is now expired so I renewed the prescription and started using it again. My advice: go to a doctor and don't use those wart remover patches from the store. They make it a much more painful process. 

So, as I'm soaking my feet in magnesium epsom salt last week, I got one of those rasps to take care of dead skin. I didn't feel like I should go get a pedicure with the fungus situation, you know? (100% that's how I got it in the first place back in 2018.) Well, the rasp slipped and I grated my foot. Literally, a bleeding cut on the side of my foot. It rubbed on everything. Every shoe, every sandal, it burned like crazy when wet. I ended up buying some New Skin spray to cover it and that was an experience. I had a gauzy bandage over it Thursday and Friday just so I could walk in shoes. By midday Friday it felt so much better and that's good because I had to wear heels to the regimental ball on Friday night. By the absolute grace of God alone, the shoes I had didn't rub in that spot. 

Anyway, that's been the last few weeks and I can't help but think in the normal season of PCS panic (we don't know when/where we'll be living yet in two months), this has forced me to physcially slow down and I think that's by design. 

...the bad...

 "Bad" is relative. It's subjective. I'm just sharing that, lately, things have been hard. I don't know if you remember Arlene from True Blood, circa 2008ish. But when she says I have a list as long as my leg!, that's how I feel all of the time while we're in a place of transition. 

First, we're in our new place with maybe 1/3 of our furniture. More than I expected us to have right now, but the rest of the furniture won't be here for a few weeks. 

Moving is expensive. All budgetary thoughts disappear when you're moving. You need to eat. You need necessities. You can think that you packed the necessities (you didn't), but there's always *something* that you will be in need of (not in *want* of...forget the wants..it's bare bones). It's not even a question of "can I afford this?"; it's "is there a way I can get out of this situation without buying this?" It's just so repetitive. We went through a whole weekend trying to cook without olive oil simply because I forgot to bring the extra bottle I bought with me across state lines and then forgot again when we were actually at the store and I wasn't going make a trip to the store for that. We still don't have coffee filters for exactly the same reason.

You never know where anything is and when you do locate new places for things (the Tylenol, the washcloths, the dog dishes, and so on), you forget those new locations immediately and it's just cyclical from there on out. Good luck. 

I can't actually remember addresses at this point. I mentioned yesterday that I think my brain is broken. It started with the Kansas move...I remember hesitating when filling out my employment paperwork for school last fall. And the zip codes. Oh my gosh. I have actually messed a couple of forms up lately. Why must every address have 5 digits in the house number AND 5 digits in the zip code? We won't even get into passwords and how that's been going lately. I used to have everything neatly written down and being out of my day-to-day routine, I've given up. 

There's a slight ant situation happening in the kitchen. We also have black countertops so I'm gonna let you guess how much longer this situation took me to figure out than it would've on white or light countertops. Today, I will be making homemade ant-killer.  

I've been posting a lot of DIY things on Instagram in the last month because we had some projects we wanted to knock out before we moved into this house, fully. If we learned anything in Colorado, it was that it's a pain to constantly shift furniture around when you're replacing floors or fixtures. Which means things get worse before they get better as a rule. This is happening right now in the garage:

Will it be lovely? Hope so. It was stressful work, getting this far. (For Scott, mostly)

I don't even want to make it seem like things are bad, because things are just "a lot" right now. I don't want to be negative. But, did Wells wake up with a bit of a fever today? Yes, yes he did. He, apparently, wants me to hold him all day long in a kitchen chair, as we have no couch. 

I have no idea "what's happening here?" II

Well, I didn't mean to disappear all week. It's been a week. 

All I've done is go to work each day, try to plan out last days of school (which is very stressful because you can't forget anything), go home in the afternoon and pack boxes all evening (which is also very stressful because you can't accidentally pack something you may need). I don't *mind* the packing. It's the loading and the unloading that I can't handle (which is why I don't do it). 

Then, Monday and Thursday I ended up at the doctor. By the sheer grace of God, I got a dermatology referral and an appointment within four days of each other this week. That is quite abnormal. Basically, I begged. It's usually a 6-8 week turnaround. I had what I thought was a sebaceous cyst and I needed it taken care of, like, now. It started a few weeks ago as what I thought was just a pimple and then exploded over the weekend. The dermatologist said it was likely an obstructed hair follicle that got caught under a mole. Nice, right? He couldn't drain it because it was too hard and puss-filled, so he had to shave it all off.  If you've followed me for years, you knew I struggled with this back in Alaska. I feel like I was constantly seeking out referrals to dermatologists. 

(Hope you didn't read that while eating breakfast.)

1. I don't care what people say. The worst part of moving isn't the phone calls to utility companies, the physical labor, the good-byes, the traveling, etc. It's being without steady, predictable use of a washer and dryer. We've done this shiz too many times now. The sheer inconvenience of not being able to throw something in the washer is enough to set you off balance. The planning that it takes is mental gymnastics. 

2. I finally ordered a set of packing cubes. I used my mom's for awhile back in Pittsburgh, couldn't be bothered to buy myself $20 worth of convenience on Amazon, and now that I'm back to packing up a bag for me and Wells every weekend, I decided this needed to happen. Looking for random clothing items in a large duffel is not a timesaver. It's a top-5-most-frustrating-moment.

3. Wednesday was our anniversary. We celebrated with Thai food takeout at 4:30pm, loading up a tractor, and packing more boxes. Bed by 9pm. If I'd known that the end of May was PCS season, I'd have gone into a military marriage with a different frame of mind concerning anniversary expectations. If Scott hasn't been deployed for our anniversary, we've been in the middle of a move for almost every anniversary. 12 years!

4. Wells really wanted a "cake" when we were at the store the other night. He wanted a "box of cake", actually. I had told him we'd get popsicles but he wanted that cake mix instead. I tried to explain that we had to make it. So, I found myself making homemade frosting on Wednesday at 6:30am, so we could bake the cake after school. (I cannot abide by canned frosting. One last hurrah for the mixer before I packed it in a box, I suppose.)

He was so excited. 

Note the avalanche of stuff in the background. We had to decorate it on the (cool) stove because it was the only clear space. 

5. I am literally out of clothes. Like, I have been wearing the same 7 or so dresses on a rotation for the last several weeks. I don't want to buy more right now because it's summer soon and I don't want to, for the love of God, have to pack up more clothes. I hate most of my clothes anyway. It's a whole big thing. And a huge stressor when I'm planning out clothes for the week (see: no washer/dryer). I also pick out Wells' clothes for the entire week in advance and lay them out, underwear and socks included. I spend more time on his clothes than on mine and he also has more to work with so...

I stopped at Target yesterday since I was at the dermatologist anyway. The Shawnee, Kansas SuperTarget is the nicest Target I've ever seen, if you're ever in the area. 

I grabbed a dress, a clearance top, and a pair of shorts. I now own two of these dresses. They are fabulous. 

However, I'm off to the worst day of all: it's the last day of school so it's pajama day. 

Weekend Photos in Mid-May

 

Anxiously awaiting the ice cream I bribed him with. It was down-pouring outside. Culver's doesn't do "kid's" milkshakes? He only drank about 1/3 of a small vanilla. 

Dogs. Wondering what the heck we're up to now. 

We went to Cracker Barrel. 

Wells, as I knew he would, loved the toys. The rule is: he can look at whatever he wants but he has to keep his hands in his pockets. This has solved 99% of potential problems, I swear. 

He had a comment for everything. 

It was a two hour trip because they don't have enough staff/help. To all of the people who are refusing to work because they believe the government will take care of them: I'm sorry you believe the things you do. 

Unless you are a stay-at-home parent or retired, you have no reason to expect the government to pay you for existing. 

Even as a SAHM, I didn't want the government's money (meaning, our own taxes...money isn't free).

Proclaiming that the fried apples are "so good!". 

Something I don't post a lot of is the little things that go into moving. I found this birdhouse in a basement box and intentionally moved it to Missouri the other day. A student made it for me in 2018. Wells really liked it so we hung it in a tree there. 

I will post a full bathroom re-do explanation when we're finished (still need paint and to hook everything up) but this is the progress we (Scott) made. 

Pup cups at Starbucks. I was trampled. 

One of four Lowe's trips in about 30 hours.

We are moving (back) to...

 ...Missouri!

It's interesting to hear what people think of the places the military chooses to move you. 

For example, I don't know if I ever mentioned it on here, but when I told people in Pittsburgh that we were moving to Kansas, most would go: 

When I tell people in Kansas that we came from Pittsburgh, they all go:

Perception is everything, I guess. 

I bring this up because when I tell people we are moving to Ft. Leonard-Wood, Missouri, many go:

I can't even make that up: When I tell people in LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS that we are moving to Ft. Leonard-Wood, Missouri, that (that!) is the face they make ^^^ 

It's insane.

And then I say, No, we picked it! and then they go:

But we really did pick Missouri. Scott is an engineer. That's where the engineers are based. We've been there before. It puts us 3-4 hours closer to home (Pennsylvania) but keeps us west of the Mississippi River (this is practically my prerequisite for duty stations). We knew land/housing was affordable. It's not in a big city with crazy traffic and a high cost-of-living. It has all of Scott's favorite hunting spots nearby (this goes into our decision-making because our dogs are west/midwest dogs, truly). The big bonus is that it's only a few hours from our current location, so we can move slowly over the first half of the summer. 

I like the school district there. It was, to date, my best professional experience. I would be thrilled to work there again.

The people are generally nice. Being in the midwest is a good fit for us, overall. There's also a Culver's, a Sonic, a BWW, and a Panera all within 20 minutes of where we'd be living. (priorities)

That's kind of the long and the short of it. When given a list of locales, that was just kind of where we wanted to be. We didn't want to be far south. We didn't want to be along the east coast. We didn't want to go to the northwest. Scott always looks for a way to get back to Alaska. I never say no. The opportunity just isn't there. 

If you're keeping track, this is move #8 in less than 11 1/2 years. You know how some people have a baby every two-ish years? We, apparently, just move every two-ish years.

More Difficult Than Necessary

Much like shower curtains, this is a list of things most people never need to think about twice. 

1. Medical records

I was actually optimistic that this issue would be solved by the time I got around to this post. It's not. That I know of. 

Wells has parts of his Pittsburgh medical records that have not transferred to the DoD system. Just a few basics: a lead test that I know he had done and an anemia test that I'm assuming he had done. Who knows?!

All I can say is that the records department at the hospital here said they would check and "follow up". That was a week and a half ago. 

That was my third visit there, I think, since December. I can't even remember. All I know is that it's a good thing we don't have much in our medical history because the amount of effort it takes to transfer records from civilian care to DoD is just as much work as DoD to civilian. (The reason why this must be done is because Wells was born in civilian care and only ever saw civilian pediatricians..the DoD had no record of him.)

It's also worth noting that the records they DO have...: I brought with me. It was a paper copy of his vaccines that they inputted into the database during his appointment. So...

2. Vet meds

Our dogs are out of heartworm and flea/tick meds. One would normally just call the vet and pick up a refill. Since their vet is in Pittsburgh, I figured out pretty quickly that they will not physically refill the prescriptions because they won't send medicine through the mail. I tried to fill through Chewy and have the vet fax the prescriptions to them; the vet called me and said they "don't do that". (You may say I brought this on myself. I may think that too. But I would encourage any of you to think about if you'd want to spent the $$$ on year's supply of these preventative meds for two dogs vs. a 6 month supply.)

So I called the vet and arranged to have them MAIL me the prescriptions so I could MAIL them to Chewy. It's like 1989, I guess. 

The vet, first, got my address wrong. The vet, second, only sent me Scout's prescriptions and not Jett's.

They are truly Pittsburgh's finest. 

So I had to call back and ask them to send Jett's. They seemed to think this was the most confusing circumstances that were ever to be encountered.

Another reason why I had such trouble living there; non-military-affiliated towns are hard when it comes to adversity. 

Currently, I'm awaiting Jett's paper prescriptions and Scout's prescriptions are en route to Chewy headquarters in Kentucky. 

I think there's a 50/50 chance I'll end up taking them to a vet here for this problem before the month is over. 

You might ask why I don't just find another vet...I'm not taking them to the vet right now for an "office visit" just to get med refills. They always do a blood test before they prescribe heartworm meds and their current prescriptions are good until June. So, I won't do it. That's one hundred extra dollars, at least, that I refuse to spend right now. Plus they will have to go in June ANYWAY to get their yearly shots (I'm hoping against all hope that we will be en route to our next location and I can get out of KS without a $$$ vet visit.)

3. Orders

Yes. We are moving in May/June and, no, we don't know where we're going. I mean, we know where we're going but we can't look for houses, apply for jobs, or plan anything farther out than like April 2021 because, until it's set in stone, it means literally nothing. 

Literally. Nothing. 

If orders can change, presumed orders and job offers can disappear like that. 

4.  Prescriptions. 

Much like #1 up there ^, this just makes my head swim. Any time you get a prescription from a military doctor, they put it into the military hospital pharmacy. I've never been to the one here but, if it's anything like anywhere else in the world, military hospital pharmacies are like cattle chutes and they only serve you in terms of payoff if you're already in the building for something; it's a lot of sitting and waiting and things are "free" but..it's a you-get-what-you-pay-for situation. 

When given the choice, like over the past 3 years, I usually just opt for the nearest Walmart (in Laramie, in Pittsburgh, and now in Leavenworth) because Walmart refills/scripts are good anywhere in the country. It's one database. And you can usually just pay a few dollars if you have Tricare and be on your way. It's just so much easier. 

Here, I was given a referral to dermatology and a referral to OB/GYN and neither of those are housed in the hospital on base. Therefore, it was a whole other month-long debacle trying to just get appointments set up. 

And those doctors have their own pharmacies that they use, so I have spent the last few weeks navigating the greater KCK area, in search of the places they've sent my prescriptions (a face cream and metformin, if you're wondering, so not even anything that out of the box.) I still only paid $12 for both, total, but the super fun part was when I asked the dermatologist about a concern and she said "Oh your PCP has to take care of that. I can't do that."

So it's back to the army hospital for another appointment and the circle of confusion is complete. 

I'll stop at medical records while I'm there. 

6 Months later...a Pittsburgh House Tour

Last week was a huge sigh of relief because we finally got our security deposit back on our Pittsburgh rental. It was a relief because the agency made us jump through dozens of hoops just to rent the place...$35 application fee each, $30 to register our dogs on a database each year we were there + provide vet records, have every utility switched in our names with account numbers written down for the agency's records before we could move in...I could go on and on. The biggest issue was that, not only did we have to put down a full month's rent as a security deposit, but we had to put down a duplicate amount as a pet deposit...and still pay per month, per pet. 

My head aches just thinking about it and remembering the stress of it all, frankly. We always felt like we were being taken advantage of during that process. 

In the end, we did everything they asked because we needed a place to live and had no other options. 

Two weeks ago, they told us they were giving us the entire deposit plus the entire pet deposit back because we'd done such a good job taking care of the place and cleaning it before we left. They were originally supposed to charge us for carpet-cleaning and they didn't. Woo-hoo. 

We didn't ask questions. We just deposited the check and now we are done with Pittsburgh. 

Everyone has a pre-shutdown story where they just couldn't believe that it had been real life, considering the entire country started shutting down two weeks later. For me, it was when our friends from Denver came to visit us for Presidents' Day weekend and we spent a few days seeing/eating/doing everything in Pittsburgh. (The next week all three of us were sick with chills, fever, body aches, etc...just saying...)

Life was good, right?

I took these pictures with the intent of sharing them once we were long gone from Pittsburgh. I took them right before our friends arrived from the airport because I was thinking This might be the last time this place looks fully put-together because I'm going to start packing next month because we're moving in May. bahahaha, right? We ended up ending our lease July 15th, due to Covid pushing our moving date and start date in Kansas.

But I do try to take pictures of our houses once they're "done". 

The bane of my existence: the front door just opening into the living room. The fixation I have on entryways now is unreal. 

Not our curtains. 

They were pretty high quality, up on a track. I made them work. I had the fireplace baby-proofed for a bit. Then he kept pulling the foam off so I gave up. 

The dining room. 

This was my only real baby-proofing after Wells could really walk. It was the only thing I was afraid of him getting into. He almost never did, though.

The kitchen, if I had to pick, would be my favorite room. There was a decent amount of workspace. I mean, the water hookup/icemaker on the fridge didn't work, the garbage disposal was always jamming, the dishwasher was inserted crookedly, and the oven died more than once...but the gas stove was a delight. 

That countertop is not granite. It's a bumpy epoxy paint, most commonly used for garage floors. Which the neighbor helpfully told me she would never eat off of because you'd probably get sick from it.

This kitchen did have a ton of storage but since it was built 50-60 years ago, there weren't many outlets, which gets to you after some time. 

The bathroom was the only professionally remodeled room in the house and it shows. The subway tile was lovely, decent amount of storage, etc. I just wish there had been two bathrooms like this. 

Wells' room. I did a separate post on this. But that purple carpet was interesting. The neighbor told me it was originally installed in the house when there was a little girl living there and now this little girl is 48 years old...so it's an old carpet. 

The guest room/office. There was nothing that could be done to make this room look good. The walls were dingy white, the blinds were too small for the windows, etc. I tried curtains and that barely worked. The great rug from Wells' first nursery looked terrible on these floors. The point of contention was mainly the floor: they had pulled up carpet and never refinished the wood so it was a mess. 

(Also, that's our dresser mirror up against the wall. It didn't fit in our room.)

And the half bath was in the guest room? Whatever. 

And our room. Same issue with the floor. It had random scratches and paint marks and nail holes everywhere. It was original hardwood but no one had ever refinished it. You could still see the carpet staples, with the occasional carpet fiber along the wall. It reminded me of this experience in Colorado and I was surprised we didn't come across a tack strip. 

Do you remember on Father of the Bride where George describes their house as "warm in the winter and cool in the summer". This house was the opposite: even with central air, it was warm in the summer and cool in the winter. In fact, it was downright drafty. I had to put blankets in the windows of our bedrooms. Our room stayed the coldest, so I had a space heater I'd fire up on really cold nights. Scott swore that sleeping in there gave him a sore throat and he blamed more than one cold on that room. So he slept on the couch a lot. 

In the summer, the bedroom was so hot that Scott couldn't stand it either. 

The windows were either poorly installed, the insulation was non-existent, or (most likely) both. 

My dad also mentioned the A/C return vents were in the wrong spot; if you look at the picture up there of the guest room, you can see that the return is on the wall, under the window. They're not supposed to be on exterior walls. The actual heat/air vents were on the interior walls (they were wall vents, not floor registers). 

So, essentially, the air and the heat were circulating backward, meaning....no wonder if was always warm when it was supposed to be cold and cold when it was supposed to be warm. 

Clearly, I've spent A LOT of time fixated on this. 

Anyway. House #6 is done and gone. Finally. House #7 seems to be much more promising. 

(Our a/c return vents are properly positioned. I checked as soon as we moved in.)

If you never unpack...

...you'll never unpack. 

We had this same rug in Colorado and in Laramie. It's still at Walmart for $9.95 years later if you're high-end like I am. Scout loved it there, so here we are. 

Years ago, another army wife told me that you should always unpack and settle in as quickly as possible because if you never do, you never will. 

Sometimes you only live in a house for a year, sometimes for 3 or 4 years. But, unlike having the luxury of a major portion of the population who gets to settle down for decades at a time, I don't hem and haw over furniture placement or window coverings. I buy things I like and things that will serve us well and I don't get caught up in maximizing every item.

An example is that I generally buy all of our window curtains and shower curtains at Walmart, Target, or TJ Maxx. Unless you are getting custom drapes for a near-forever house, buy neutrals or classic patterns that aren't trendy and you're done. I bought our first few sets of curtains in Alaska at Lowe's. We happened to be there picking out a washer and dryer. We'd just moved into a house with no window coverings at all. We needed curtains. I picked a bunch of neutrals out. We used them for 5 or 6 years. It was great. 

When we sold our Colorado house, the curtains went with it. They weren't anything special (probably from Homegoods) but that left me with nothing when I got to Pittsburgh. I got a few at Walmart and I really liked the pattern. I'll use them here again because I do still like them. 

Luckily, this house has blinds on almost every window but there's a LOT of windows, so that means a lot of curtains. I grabbed a few neutral gray (with a hint of a pattern) at Walmart and they'll be fine. You literally wouldn't know they were from Walmart aside from the fact that I just told you. 

Same with our shower curtains. I had to leave my shower curtains in Colorado. Our house in Pittsburgh had one that I liked. When I got here, there were two showers and no shower curtains. 

I bought shower curtains, went to put them up, and...no shower curtain rings. 

Our first house in Alaska had no shower rod, no rings, and no curtain. This is something I promise you will literally Never Ever Think About unless you move around a lot. Always have a plan for a shower curtain and/or a plan to secure yourself a shower curtain before you spend the night in your new house. 

Seriously. That's more important than you think it is ^

And I bought a cheap $9 shower curtain because I thought it'd be fine and then realized I look at that shower curtain every time I walk up the steps and nope, don't like it. So I ended up spending $20 on a nicer shower curtain. 

But other than having to procure some new curtains and a washer and dryer, this house is twice the size of our last house. Hall.e.lu.jah. All of our furniture fits with room to spare, which I love. 

Some things are different though...

We got Wells a table. 

We can't put anything on the TV stand, not because Wells will destroy it, but because he'll just play with things or move them around. This is really the only baby-proofing I've done. The gate is just to block the wires. Again, he doesn't seem to care about the modem or the power strip; he just runs into them and that seems unnecessary. 

The couch isn't the center of the house anymore, which is the best thing about this place. It just sits there, sometimes there's a dog on it. Sometimes I sit on it to read. Otherwise, it's generally left alone. Wells doesn't even care about it. Sometimes he puts his toys on it. It took quite a beating in Pittsburgh. 

The washer and dryer aren't in the deep recesses of the basement. 

Wells has enough space to play downstairs AND upstairs. He loves the steps. Since they're split and carpeted, they don't make me that nervous.

The kitchen isn't great. My least favorite so far, actually. But the layout of the house is perfect so I'll take 30+ year old countertops and cabinets.

Tile floors + carpet > hardwood. We've had hardwood for the last 6 or 7 years. I was over it. It's so hard to clean! The ceramic tile and a sturdy carpet is great here. The carpet isn't new, but it's definitely held up well, I think. 

All in all, as soon as I get pictures on the walls, I think it'll feel more like home. My neighbor in Pittsburgh had lived in her house for 48 years. When we moved in and I told her we'd before there for "a year or two", she said she wouldn't even unpack. That stuck with me because all I could think of was the military life and how if you never unpack, you literally never unpack. 

A PCS Story --2020-- Part 2

Leaving off from Part 1, in which we packed up the furniture and drove across part of the country...

These are scenes minus furniture in our new house...Wells and I spent 3(?) days here without anything, really. It was a very long 3 days. Thankfully, this kid is a champion napper at this point in time, even in the pack-and-play, which is insane. I'm talking 3 hour naps. Whatever. I'll take it. He's usually in bed by 8pm and up at 6am but, with a 3 hour nap, that schedule works just fine for me. 

This is a smattering of randomness, just so I can share what last week was actually like for me. The pictures aren't great, but this is what I was doing last week while I definitely wasn't blogging...Enjoy. 

Unloading the car. 

Enjoying his new surroundings. Tile + carpet > wood floors. 110%

Watching the landlord cut the grass. "Tra-TOR!!!!"

The true half-bath I've been pining for these last 18 months. 

My orchids have a new home. 

Confession: I love big empty spaces in houses. I adore them. I used to do this all the time: sit on the floor of our big empty extra living room in Alaska and read books. I read two books this way last week. It was delightful. After 18 months of being cramped in Pittsburgh, I can breathe again. 

Going for a walk and insisting I carry him. It was too hot for this. 

Most of last week was just spent sorting through boxes, looking for things I couldn't find. 

How Wells ate all of his meals last week. 

I went to a drive-thru coffee shop 3 days in a row, which is new for me; I rarely go out for coffee. But I had no coffeepot and I hold some very strong opinions about coffee (i.e. decaf is not coffee). So, I was more than thrilled when Scott brought the Keurig so I could go back to my 2+ cups a day. 

We ordered Mexican from a local place on Friday (Saturday? I don't remember). So good. This was poblano and chicken in a cream sauce? I put rice on top.

Scout loves moving blankets/furniture pads.

Why is it so hard to find a spot for the Tupperware? I never can quite get this right. 

Unpacking the new lawnmower. 

...and Jett was right there, when Scott was putting the table together, too.