Off to the wilds 1 July 2008

Ahhh.  The joys of air conditioning!  I got tired of the house smelling musty and yucky, so I got a rare hair up my butt and decided to steam-clean my carpets.  Boy, were they dirty!  They’re probably still not completely clean, but they are far less dirty than they were.  The only thing that was driving me nuts was having to refill the reservoir for the steam-cleaner over and over again.  They should make a steam-cleaner with a bigger reservoir!

Without air conditioning, I couldn’t have done it, though.  It would have been too damn hot in the house otherwise.  Plus the carpets would have taken days to dry with the humidity we have here.

But the floors are cleaner.  It makes me happy.  However, the house still smells kind of musty.  I am not sure what else I can do.  I’ve sprayed Febreze all over the couches multiple times, I’ve washed the dog’s bedding several times, I’ve spread baking soda in the carpet… I wonder if there’s something coming up out of the carpets from the previous tenants.

Speaking of which, we were at our friend’s house this weekend, and I noticed their carpeting was super cushy.  So I asked if they’d had new carpet put down with some sort of plush padding underneath.  Well, it wasn’t extra padding that was making their carpet so cushy.  Apparently the maintenance people simply laid new carpet over old till there was four layers of carpet there!  I cannot even imagine.  In a way, it’s good because our floors are really hard, what with old carpet and old padding there.  But then most people say that we have the best carpeting because ours is brown Berber.  Everyone else has brown industrial-grade carpeting.

It’s the small things, I guess.

There’s a big thing coming up on my horizon for this weekend!!  I am heading southward to Pennsylvania to see my family for the holiday.  I am so excited about this.  I was chatting online with my cousin tonight, and apparently everyone is going to be there.  All four of my grandparents’ children will be there, along with most of the grandkids.  I haven’t seen my one aunt and her husband and family since we all gathered for my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary way back in 1997, so this will be a nice reunion.  Unfortunately my sister won’t be able to make it, which is a shame.  And one of my cousins won’t be there either, so we’ll miss some folks.  But they’ll be there in spirit, I am sure!

My uncle has a pool, and Grace is just going to be so thrilled to be able to swim in his pool!  She so loves the water.  I swear, she’s part fish.  She probably gets that from both of us because Kurt and I both love the water.  We’ve been taking her to the pool since she was six months old, so she’s quite comfortable in the water.

What’s also exciting is that we are staying with my cousin and her fiancé.  Usually we stay with my grandparents, or sometimes we stay in this little guest house that’s part of their retirement community.  Either situation is good for us, but the little guest house scares me a bit.  The bed that’s for us to sleep on is an antique wooden bed, and when Kurt and I lay our combined nearly 500 pounds on it, it tends to creak and moan.  I keep thinking we’re going to break it, so I rarely sleep well when we are there.  I’d much rather stay with my grandparents.

But this time we’re staying with my cousin.  And this means staying with someone my age, who likes to do fun things, and who is just an overall cool person.  And the icing on the cake — she just adopted the cutest little puppy that we’ll get to play with and love on and cuddle!

However, this mini vacation of mine means that I probably will not be on the internet for the next five days or so.  Scary thought, huh??  But when I come back, I’ll have loads of photos to share with you all!

Have a fantastic Fourth of July!!

Hurricane in my living room 30 June 2008

Our weekend was quite lovely.  How was yours???

On Saturday we engaged in some excellent retail therapy at the premium outlets with my good friend Angela and her mother.  These two ladies are seriously some of the excellent-est women in the entire world, and I thoroughly enjoy their company.

Of course, I saw something I could not live without… but somehow I managed to restrain myself.  I’ve been wanting a new food processor for eons, and I saw a KitchenAid 11-cup food processor that was to die for.  Not only that, it was PINK!!  Pink!!!!  My heart went all a-flutter, but alas.  It was not the right time to drop $200 on a kitchen appliance.

Why can’t I just win the lottery already and have all kinds of money at my disposal??

What made me even more excited than an appliance I could not afford (pink or not!) was finding not one but two pairs of summer sandals in my size.  They are slightly too large, in that I really need the 7.5WW instead of the 8WW, but they didn’t have the 7.5WW.  I was just so thrilled to find shoes that fit me!  I have a really hard time finding open-toed sandals because I have such amazingly wide feet, so I usually go all the way up to a size 9 before I can fit my toes under the strap.  Of course, that does not make for a very comfortable shoe.  I had never before seen a double-wide shoe at a retail store before.  I’ve gotten them online, but then there is always the concern that they won’t fit once they arrive.

It goes without saying that I bought both pairs of sandals.  They were on sale, so I managed to pay $5 more to get them both than what one pair cost at full price.  Excellent!!  (For those of you who are curious about what they look like, the white pair is HERE and the brown pair, my personal favorite, is HERE.)

On Sunday, we decided to clean the house.  Kurt elected to work on the garage, while I tackled the house.  Bad day to clean, let me tell you.  I about killed myself because it was so darn hot in the house.  The humidity here is really amazing.  Yes, I’m from Virginia, but good golly, we always had air conditioning!!  The high yesterday was supposed to only be 79º, which is a very manageable temperature.  But the heat index made it feel like 89º.  Oh, it was horrible.  There was no breeze coming in through the window; the air was still and stagnant and moist.  Plus to be pregnant and cleaning…. Yuck.  Let’s just say I did not accomplish all I set out to do.  I managed to clean the kitchen, unload and reload the dishwasher, vacuum the house, and mop the kitchen floor.  By the time all that was done, I was done.  I had planned on cleaning the bathrooms too, but I just couldn’t get that far.

The bathrooms can wait, right??

But we indulged in a treat after spending the day getting nasty and sweaty and dirty.  It was off to our neighborhood pool!!  It’s just a couple of blocks away, and while it’s small, it more than does the job for cooling off on a hot day.  We ran into a slight snag when we were told we needed a pool pass, but the lifeguard let us in anyhow, and I’ve rectified that problem already.

However, as soon as we had jumped in and gotten comfortable in the pool, Kurt’s phone rang.  It was his friend, the couple we’d hung out with at the picnic, and they were inviting us over for a barbecue!  I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner, so this was definitely a serendipitous occurrence.  But the party was starting in just an hour, and it takes me that long to shower, get dressed, dry my hair, and put on my makeup.  The worst part is drying my hair.  It takes forever to dry with a hairdryer from sopping wet.  Usually what I do is shower, let my hair dry naturally for at least thirty minutes, and then it doesn’t take very long.  Plus it ends up looking better.  Go figure.

But once we finally made it there, a wonderful time was had by all.  The wife is a really awesomely sweet lady, so easy to talk to and have a good time with.  She makes me feel like a schlump, though.  They painted their entire house (they have the same house we do, except theirs is the mirror image of our unit), and she’s planted a gorgeous wildflower garden in her backyard.  I have nothing in my front garden, let alone creating a backyard garden, and my house is still the boring creamy beige color that all our units are.  I just don’t have that level of creativity.  Then again, she wasn’t working for a few months, and they don’t have children yet.  They do have the most adorable puggle named Daisy, though.  Grace chased that poor dog all over the backyard, but they both enjoyed themselves immensely.

One thing we noticed while at their house was they had air conditioning.  Wooo!  It was so beautifully cool in their home after spending all morning cleaning a hot and humid house.  They had one unit in the living room that cooled the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and they had another in the master bedroom.  The other two rooms (plus the laundry room) were kept closed so as not to overwork the units.  Seeing how well their system worked, we broke down and bought two air conditioning units of our own at the Navy Exchange.  No sales tax — woo hoo!!  We bought the same unit they had in their living room, but got a cheaper (yet more powerful) one for the bedroom.

See??  I knew there was a reason I didn’t buy the food processor on Saturday!

Putting the big a/c in was unbelievable.  In every unit, there is a hole cut out of the wall of the living room to allow for an a/c unit since we have no windows that will accept an a/c unit anywhere in the main living area.  We figured that it would be a simple matter of taking the unit out of the box and slotting it right into that hole.  Ha!  Wishful thinking on my part.

The a/c unit was a fraction of an inch too large to fit into the hole because there was a metal box installed into the hole to help support the a/c unit.  That box was just a nooch too small from the top to the bottom to allow for the a/c unit to fit into it.  So Kurt decided to remove the box.  That took him at least thirty minutes because the darn thing was glued in!

But finally, finally, the box was out, and it took Kurt all of five minutes to slot the unit into the hole and get it working.  He’s got plans to reinstall the box around the a/c tomorrow so that there is more support, but it’s fine for right now.  There is no way that he’s going to install the bedroom a/c tonight.  He’s wiped out from fighting with the living room one!  Hopefully the bedroom unit will go in quickly and easily, and we can start having the whole house air conditioned.  Today’s been breezy and cool, so we don’t even need it on, but it’s so nice to have a lot less humidity in the house!

Now I won’t mind the heat come August.  Woo hoo!!

Il bel far niente 27 June 2008

Lena was so kind as to tag me for the six-word memoir meme that’s been making the rounds.  Here are the rules:

Write a six-word memoir.
Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like.
Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogsphere.
Tag 5 more blogs with links.
Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I didn’t think I would be able to come up with just six words to describe my life.  But as I began this entry, on a completely different topic, it came to me.

A mother and wife, she waits.

Because you know, as a military wife, that’s what I do best.  I wait.  When Kurt’s out on deployment, I wait for his return.  Once he comes home, I wait for the next deployment.  Even now that he’s on shore duty and home for three straight years, I am waiting.  Waiting for his return to sea duty and deployments.  It’s never far from my mind, which is why sometimes we get somewhat frantic in our activities.  We try to stuff as much fun and time together into these three years as we possibly can.

And one year’s almost gone already.

I’m supposed to tag five more people, but I’m not sure who hasn’t been tagged yet.  If this sort of thing is up your alley, let me know you’ve done it by leaving a comment on this page so I can check out your creation.  I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

And back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I am, at the moment, reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, sent to me by my favorite inhabitant of Louisiana, Elle, who had packed up a box of random books and shipped it northward.  I don’t normally read non-fiction if it’s not a biography of some kind, but this one looked interesting.

I’ve come to dive into this book with both feet.  It’s really very good, a journey of self-discovery by a woman who travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia.  I’m assuming that’s where the title comes from; that she learns to eat in Italy, to pray in India, and to love in Indonesia.

I’ve gotten through Italy thus far, and there was quite a bit in there that really resonated with me.  Gilbert contrasts the Italians’ ability to relax and enjoy themselves with Americans’ inability to let go at all.  She uses the expression il bel far niente, and explains that it means “the beauty of doing nothing.”  This is what all Italians aspire to after a life of hard work, to be able to sit back and do nothing.  And the better and more beautifully you can do nothing, the better.

Contrast that with her description of Americans:

Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.  Our is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one.  Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment.  Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today.  But as Luca Spaghetti pointed out, we seem to like it.  Alarming statistics back this observation up, showing that many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes.  Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure).  Americans don’t really know how to do nothing.  This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype — the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.

When’s the last time you heard of a family going on vacation just to enjoy themselves?  There’s always a reason, a purpose, to wherever it is that they are going.  When the husband tells his friends at the water cooler that he’s taking the family to Hawaii or Chicago or wherever, the very first question after that is, “Oh yeah?  What are you going to do there?”  Imagine the response if the man simply said, “Just have fun.  Relax.  Do nothing.”

We are not encouraged to do nothing.  We are chastised for sitting in front of the TV because that’s time we’re not doing something else.  Our kids are overscheduled, going to school and karate and swim lessons and ballet.  Come summertime, they go to one camp after another to keep them occupied and busy.  Kids don’t go outside and play aimlessly till the street lights come on anymore.  We have to have structure.  We have to do something.  We have to accomplish something.

Gilbert goes on to write:

For me, though, a major obstacle in my pursuit of pleasure was my ingrained sense of Puritan guilt.  Do I really deserve this pleasure?  This is very American, too — the insecurity about whether we have earned our happiness.  Planet Advertising in America orbits completely around the need to convince the uncertain consumer that yes, you have actually warranted a special treat.  This Bud’s for You!  You Deserve a Break Today!  Because You’re Worth It!  You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!  And the insecure consumer thinks, Yeah!  Thanks!  I am gonna go buy a six-pack, damn it!  Maybe even two six-packs! And then comes the reactionary binge.  Followed by the remorse.  Such advertising campaigns would probably not be as effective in the Italian culture, where people already know that they are entitled to enjoyment in this life.  The reply in Italy to “You Deserve a Break Today” would probably be, Yeah, no duh.  That’s why I’m planning on taking a break at noon, to go over to your house and sleep with your wife.

Even I have this problem.  You know, I thoroughly enjoy being a stay-at-home wife and mother.  But I feel such guilt that I love my job, that I enjoy it so much, because we’re not supposed to enjoy it.  We’re supposed to be miserable in our jobs, waiting till we can finish this job and move on to the next miserable stage of our lives.  I’m constantly justifying it, not just to other people, but to myself!  “It’s best for the kids,” “I’m supporting my husband in the best way,” “It’s hard to have a career when you’re moving every three years,” “It’s okay because we can afford it.”  I feel like I can’t just say, “Well, I’m having the time of my life over here, and I’d rather not quit.”

We are a nation of sacrificers, and we want our sacrifices recognized.  “I work sixty hours a week so that we can live in this McMansion.”  “Your mother works so we can send you to the best colleges.”  “I hate my job, but the bills have to be paid somehow.”  But what is it all for???  Where does that get us?  We’re overtired and overworked and overstressed.  We can’t even enjoy our vacations because we’re supposed to be achieving something even during our downtime.  We can’t sleep, so we take meds.  We don’t have time to cook, so we eat artery-clogging fast food.  Families grow up not really knowing each other because the kids have practice and the parents have to stay late.  Parents feel guilty that they don’t spend enough time with the kids, so they max out their credit cards buying their children all the latest and coolest gadgets to make it up to them.

I am thinking we could learn something from the Italians.  Maybe we should strive to learn to do nothing beautifully, to sit in the sun at the park and soak up the sun without worrying whether the laundry’s been done or what we’re going to say at the business meeting tomorrow.  To enjoy a glass of good wine without fretting about the caloric consequences.  To join in the children’s game of hopscotch just because it looks fun.  To spend an entire day curled up with a good book without concern that we’ve just wasted an entire Saturday.

We would all be just a little bit happier, I think.