Live like there’s no tomorrow 31 August 2010

And I am back online!  Finally!

Yesterday I had a hair appointment, and it was while I was sitting with the color on my hair that I got a text from Kurt telling me the internet had gone down.  Not only that, but we had no cable either.

Initially I wasn’t that concerned.  No internet or cable meant more time for reading.  How could this be a bad thing?!  However, ME also chose that day to scream her bloody head off instead of taking a nap.  I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with her, but she’s getting fussier and fussier as the days go by.  She is turning two in a couple of weeks, so I suppose we’re just heading into the Terrible Twos already.

The screaming was rather distracting, I must admit.  I tried several times to soothe her, but not much was working.  I just ended up having to let her scream it out.  I’d put her down for a nap because she’d been so cranky that everything was making her scream, so it wasn’t like I could just cancel the nap.  That just would have compounded the problem.  Ultimately she did fall asleep for a little bit, giving us a bit of respite.

But the internet was still out!  And the recipe that I’d planned on using for dinner was online!  Kurt took pity on me and decided we needed to go out instead, and since I’d had such a rough day with a screaming toddler, he took me to the brewery.  Mmm beer!  I only had the one, but I have to say, it totally hit the spot.

Once the kids were in bed, I decided it was really time for me to sit and read.  Except then I remembered I needed to call my mom to thank her for the package she’d sent.  Somehow that ended up into a 45-minute conversation, especially since I’d talked to my dad for a while at the outset.

My parents and I are weird.  We’re not terribly close, though there’s a lot of love between us.  They live their lives and I live mine, is what it boils down to.  They understand the military lifestyle, since they lived it themselves, and they know I can’t come home for every holiday.  We talk at least once a month, sometimes more often, but sometimes less often.  Occasionally when they call, the conversation dries up within about ten minutes, and other times we’re on the phone for an hour.  It all depends.

I rounded out my internet- and cable-less evening by attempting to kick Kurt’s ass at Wii bowling.  I’d earned PRO status last week and was so excited to have a star-studded bowling ball.  But then over the weekend, I didn’t bowl well enough and lost that PRO status!  I wanted to cry.  I don’t know what it is.  I have to stand in just a certain spot and move my arm in just a certain way to get strikes, while Kurt can simply power the ball down the lane as hard as he can and he ends up with a strike.  Then again that’s what he does in real life, anyhow.

Needless to say, I did not kick Kurt’s ass in Wii bowling.  But I did reinstate my PRO status.  Yay!

At 1:30am I noticed a weird flickering coming in my bedroom window, and realized that there was a cable utility truck on my street.  So I wasn’t surprised when the cable was back on when I got up.

Problem.  We still had no internet.  And of the two, I would much rather have internet.

*sigh*

Kurt called the cable company and was told someone would be out between 1 and 3pm.  My friend down the street who also had experienced an outage had had her cable, internet, and phone restored at 1:30am last night, so I had no idea why I didn’t have internet if I had cable.  Finally I got tired of waiting for the tech to show up, so I started doing my own troubleshooting.

Our cable and our internet came out of the same socket in the wall in the living room.  Kurt had installed a splitter so that we could have the cable box and the modem on the same plug.  So I switched the co-ax for the modem with the co-ax for the cable box on the splitter.  I could get cable, but I still had no internet.  I began to wonder if it was the modem.  It was pretty old, probably from our time in Washington, which would make it anywhere between three and seven years old.  I unplugged the splitter from the wall and plugged the co-ax for the modem straight into the wall.

Voila!  Internet.

Hmm.  Maybe the splitter was bad?  I unplugged the modem and the router, moved all that to the office where we have another cable connection, and set it all back up again.  Still had internet, and now had cable in the living room since it was plugged straight into the wall.  Since everything was now working, I figured we didn’t need a tech to come out and canceled the appointment.

Ten minutes later, a tech showed up at my door.  He was skeptical of my having “fixed” the issue since there were other techs in the neighborhood working on the lines.  See, the whole issue came about when the construction workers that are working in the neighborhood cut the cable lines.  The cable techs had been able to put a band-aid on the situation last night at 1:30am, but it was far from being fully fixed.  The tech that showed up at my door tested my signal strength and sure enough, it wasn’t that my splitter was bad — the problem was the signal strength was far too low to support the splitter in the first place.

Finally around 3pm this afternoon a tech came to the door and let me know it was fully fixed, and that I should have no more problems.  Until the groundskeepers come around tomorrow.  If they aren’t paying attention, they could end up mowing over the line that’s laying on top of the grass and cut service to all the houses that lost service yesterday.  Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen; I’d rather not be without the internet again any time soon.

But I have to say, I am proud of myself for doing all that I did to fix the problem on my own.  I think I like the new set-up better anyhow, with the modem and the router in the office.  The signal’s stronger, since it no longer has to go through a splitter, and my iPod keeps the WiFi connection so much better now.  So I guess it was a good thing that this all happened, even though it was a humongous headache.

Hopefully this doesn’t happen again any time soon.

The phone rings, it’s early 24 August 2010

After two and a half years of my daughter attending a local preschool twice a week, all year round, she is finished.  Tomorrow is the last day of the summer camp, but since Grace doesn’t attend on Wednesday, she was done today.  It was so strange to go in there , knowing it was my last morning to drop her off.

But things are changing in there.  I found out one teacher decided not to come back after the summer, so she won’t be around.  Another teacher needed a switch from the room she’d been in for years.  One of the baby room teachers always takes the summer off, which meant she wasn’t around to say goodbye to anyhow.  And the girl who’d been Grace’s assistant teacher, and was her main summer camp teacher, has decided to go back to school to get her teaching degree.  The turnover in a preschool is pretty high anyhow; Grace outlasted much of the staff in her two and a half years there.  But there were always those few stalwart ladies, the ones who were always there.  Yet even those are changing.  It’s… strange.

I suppose nothing stays the same, however.

Today felt like such a wasted day.  I managed to do more today than I did yesterday, however.  Yesterday was a total lost cause.  What with the chill and the rain, it was all I could do to snuggle down under a blanket and read till my eyes hurt.  ME decided she only wanted one nap, which works out better for me because then she’s napping all afternoon long, instead of waiting till 3pm to snooze.  I did put a good meal on the table for dinner, a delicious eggplant parmesan lasagna that was quite a bit of work but totally worth it.  But that was all I managed to do yesterday.

Today I caught up with some laundry and ironed my capris.  See, all of my capris (or short pants, or whatever you call them — the ones that go to just past one’s knees) have cuffs, and when I wash them, the cuffs get all messed up and wrinkly.  I can’t stand how that looks, so every time I wash my capris, I have to iron the cuffs so that they’re flat.  For some people, that is entirely too much work, but it really doesn’t bother me.  It takes all of a minute per cuff.  It’s almost not worth dragging the ironing board out, but I usually find something else that needs ironing.  Funnily enough, ironing doesn’t really bother me.  There’s something so satisfying about eradicating wrinkles.  You can see your results immediately, and then when you put on the ironed clothes, you look so sharp and fresh.

I probably don’t mind ironing because I do so little of it.  Kurt’s camouflage uniform doesn’t need ironing at all.  When he wore khakis, I’d iron his uniforms (two pairs) on one Sunday, and he’d wear one set per week.  That meant I only had to iron twice a month.  I didn’t really have to be the one ironing; I just felt it was my duty as a Navy wife.

I always felt badly for my mother.  After dinner on Sunday was her time to iron.  And she ironed probably one set of uniforms per day for my father — and another set of uniforms per day for herself.  Ten uniforms to iron, every Sunday night.  Ugh.  Fortunately, they mostly wore khakis, which are pretty much permanent press, but they still can get a bit wrinkled in the dryer.  Every so often, though, one of them would need a dress uniform.  That meant ironing and starching a white cotton shirt, never a fun job.  She did it well, though.  Lots of practice, I suppose.

Now the only things I iron are my few blouses that seem to require it, plus my capris in the summertime.  Not much.

Before you ask, yes, I have tried the wrinkle release stuff that comes in the bottle.  I don’t find it to work very well.  And I hate starting up the dryer just to get rid of a few wrinkles.  It’s the environmentalist in me, I guess.

So the iron it is for me!  Besides, I had to put a patch on a pair of Grace’s jeans.  That girl can rip through the knees of jeans like you wouldn’t believe.  Sometimes I wonder if she’s half boy.  She’s nearly destructive enough!

And in just a couple of weeks, she’ll be off to kindergarten.  I can’t believe how quickly the last six years have flown by.  It feels like I’ll blink, and she’ll be graduating high school.  All I can do is just hang on for dear life, and enjoy the short time we’ve got.

Only to find Gideon’s Bible 23 August 2010

Ahhh, can you feel that?  Folks, it is a balmy 66º right at this moment on my little island.  The wind is pretty steady, and the rain has been dripping down all morning.  Sure, it’s overcast and somewhat gloomy — but you can feel it.  There’s a hint, more than a hint, maybe, of fall in the air.  And I am in heaven.

I’m wearing jeans.  I’ve got socks on to keep my toes warm.  If I sit too long on my couch, I start longing for my Snuggie.

This is my favorite time of year.  I love fall so much.  The beauty of the changing leaves, the brilliant blue skies against those bright crimson leaves, the tang of woodsmoke floating on the breeze, the chill winds that require a snug jacket.  The time of year when it’s pleasant to be outside, when your body isn’t sweating and your skin isn’t crisping under the harsh summer sun, and when you can finally open the windows of your home to sweep out the stuffiness of the air conditioned atmosphere inside.

Call me crazy.  I know most of my friends long for the sunny days of summer, but I just can’t do it.  It’s probably my contrary nature that makes me love things that others don’t, but I’m okay with that.

This is, however, a bittersweet season.  Kurt leaves on deployment at the end of October, leaving me to take care of the house, the kids, and whatever else needs taking care of.  Plus it’s the year that Grace finally starts school.  It will be so strange having my daughter away from me for six hours a day, considering that she’s been with me almost constantly for the last nearly six years.  I’ll miss her, sure… but I’m also so excited for her to be in an environment that I know is going to stimulate her.  She’s such a social creature that I know that she’ll do well in school.  I don’t think I could ever homeschool her.  I know that homeschooled kids have lots of social activities lined up, but I think that Grace is one of those kids that needs to be around others as much as possible.  She shines so much in her preschool, and it really brings out the best in her.  ME, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as social, and probably would be content to stay at home with me for years to come.

So Grace starts kindergarten, Kurt leaves on deployment… so many changes in such a short time.  And once Kurt leaves, the countdown to our move will begin in earnest.  That in itself is bittersweet.  It may very well be our last move while Kurt’s in the military.  He’ll have to retire in six years, so we might have just one more move left.  And yet I feel like I haven’t really been anywhere.  Just southern Virginia, Washington state, Rhode Island, and back to Virginia in the last ten years.  It just doesn’t seem like enough.  My one friend is going to Germany next.  I only wish I could tag along.  I would so love to live in Europe, where any other part of Europe is just a short plane or train ride away.  To be able to say, “I think I’ll go to Paris this weekend,” and then make it happen.  To have it be as easy as getting to NYC from where I live now.  But it’s not to be; it’s not in the cards for us, based on Kurt’s job in the Navy.  It’s a lovely castle in the air to dream about, but that’s all it will remain.

It’s been hard not to focus so much on all the endings of things.  I realize that there are lots of good things about moving to Virginia, and that there will be many new beginnings.  Rhode Island’s been good to us, however, and I really like it here.  It’s not just a change of scenery, moving south.  It’s also the start of another four years of not having Kurt around.  It starts in just a couple of months; our three-year “honeymoon” of having him home every night for dinner, most afternoons for lunch, and every single weekend is just about finished.  Soon we’ll be back into the mode of having him gone for weeks and months at a time, long workdays when he is in port, standing duty every six days.  It’ll be quite an adjustment, considering I now have two kids to keep me busy.

I know I can do it.  It’s just not my favorite part about this whole military life.  I’ve been lucky, in that we’ve been able to stay in one place long enough to set down some roots, and that Kurt has been present for the birth of both of his kids.  And it’s strange to think that this is probably our last sea tour as well.  He may never go to another ship before he retires.

So while I have been eager for the start of my favorite season, I’ve also been dreading it.  It’s a weird mixture of feelings.  And time marches inexorably on.