15 posts tagged “family”
Boy, what a weekend. The horse I hoped would win the Triple Crown came in dead last and the air conditioning crapped out last night, probably as a delayed result of the power outage earlier in the week. Today's projected high temperature: 99° Fahrenheit. That's 37.222° for those of you who speak Celsius, or 310.37 Kelvin for the scientists. Since the A/C guy is off enjoying the wonderful world of general aviation (bah, I know too many pilots) until late this afternoon, my mother, brother, and I are heading over to chill--quite literally--at my grandparents' place.
Hope the rest of you are staying cool and hydrated and all that good, non-heat-stroke-inducing stuff.
Are you planning on doing any spring cleaning this year? If so, please share a cleaning tip you swear by.
Cleaning up is for sissies, so we're just going to move. I mean, we've lived here for almost three months, and that is just way too long to be rooted to one spot. Finally having the area figured out and the house semi-organized is such a drag.
If you are especially perceptive, you may have sensed the barest tinge of sarcasm above. As much of a PITA as a PCS move is, though, we are looking forward to heading back East sometime in the next month or so. Could be as soon as a few weeks, but the Navy will take its sweet time in telling us, as ever. I just got back home from a lovely and productive trip out to where we'll be stationed to start getting the lay of the land and do some house-hunting. I couldn't have done it without my mom, who offered her experience and input throughout what is, to me, the highly mysterious process of looking at houses and neighborhoods. She also served as moral support when we thought we were going to die of the real estate agent's terrifying driving practices. Oh, and she was witness to the car that pulled up next to us with a dead deer head, antlers and all, in the passenger seat. Redneck Godfather for the win.
Anyway, I'm back home now, with all my luggage. That wasn't a sure thing right at first, since my suitcase was apparently put on a different flight than the one I was on. M and I stuck (grumpily) around the the airport until the flight with my suitcase arrived, but that was way better than filing a claim and hoping it would get delivered as promised. If I'd known we'd end up waiting around for the later flight anyway, I would have just taken that one to begin with and not run myself ragged trying to make the tighter connection in Houston. IAH may be the most obnoxious airport I've ever had the displeasure to try to navigate. Oh well.
How far from your last home do you live? Why did you move and are you glad you did?
Submitted by Matthew 25.
The answer to this one is going to change when the Navy moves us in a few days, so I'll get it in now while the number is more impressive. Right after getting married, I moved 1,419 miles (as the crow flies) from my folks' home to the South Texas town where M was doing one of the phases of flight school. As of early next week, we'll be living in another South Texas town--about fifty miles from where we are now--while M does another phase of flight school. Like I said in response to a similar QotD a while back, we do (and will) live where we live because that's where the Navy told us to live.
As for whether I am glad I moved, of course I am. I can't imagine choosing to be separated when we know we're going to have to deal with that quite often enough over the years; after a good half-decade of long-distance dating, the notion of doing the geobachelor thing as newlyweds was singularly unappealing. This particular part of Texas may not have much to recommend it, but it has situated us such that we've been able to spend time with my mom's side of the family, an opportunity I've cherished.
Our Chanukah definitely ended on a high note last week. Not only had I just heard the day before that M had qualified at the carrier, but he would be getting home in time to light candles for the eighth night! I hadn't expected him home until after the holiday was over, so getting to spend a third night with him was a fantastic surprise. By then, we even each had our own chanukiyah to light--M's parents sent us a beautiful glass one, along with gelt and a couple of dreidels. With excitement over M's boat qual running high, we were feeling a lot of "school spirit," as it were, so we made sure we lit the blue and gold candles.
Aww, our first Chanukah as a married couple. This was from a few days ago; tonight we light six candles (plus the shamash, or helper candle).
I have no pictures of the sweet potato latkes we made on the first night, since those disappeared too quickly for me to grab my camera. Things I learned this year: using a food processor makes the grating go much faster, and soft goat cheese is a delicious alternative to applesauce or sour cream. We're liking the variations on a traditional theme we have going here, and I look forward to seeing how our own traditions play out over the years.
Having been preoccupied with everything else going on since I got back from visiting my family in Virginia (never mind that it's been nearly a month), I'm only now getting around to sharing a few pictures from the Old Dominion. Well, that's not quite true--you've seen part of one shot of some orange leaves in my fall banner picture. Getting back to the East Coast did not yield quite the crisp, cool autumn days I had been hoping for after enduring a South Texas summer (even today, approaching the end of November, it got up to at least 87º F), but I did manage to capture a little color and enjoy a few seasonable days.
Great Falls has been a special place for me ever since I was a child, so I was happy to be able to go with my mom last month. Seeing how low the Potomac was really brought home how little rain the area had received all summer, in marked contrast to the torrents we got in Texas. As usual, I took some pictures of the famous falls, this time marveling at how much rock was exposed. Compare the picture on the left, taken in March of 2003, with the one on the right, which I took just last month. Hardly any of the rocks were visible that day in 2003, with the Potomac as swollen on snow melt as it was.
Our view of the falls yielded one capture I'm rather pleased with just for the juxtaposition of helicopter and hawk. Don't worry, they're not as close as they appear in the picture; being married to a pilot, I'm properly leery of anything involving the proximity of birds and aircraft.
In addition to getting to visit with lots of family members I hadn't seen since the wedding and hanging out with some dear friends from high school and college (including getting to meet my college friend's five-week-old twins!), I was honored to meet a most exalted personage. The lithe and affectionate Miss Kitty-Patches, as my parents have dubbed the cat who visits them in exchange for a little tuna or--wonder of wonders--a small serving of chicken, came out and introduced herself to me one afternoon. Getting to spend time with a cat again further reinforced my desire to adopt one of my own once we're at the next duty station. Eeekitties.
While my husband is away for three weeks for a particular phase of flight training, I am taking the opportunity to visit my family on the East Coast for the first time since getting married and moving to Texas. It's great to see everyone, and it's also interesting to see what's changed and what's stayed the same. Musing on that subject could end up rather lengthier than I've time for right now, so I'll just share a minor addition to my parents' wall decor.
I'm making chicken soup, so our whole apartment smells like the culinary embodiment of love. Back in Virginia, my family would almost only make soup in the fall or winter, when there was a nip in the air and we wanted something to warm us to the core. Here in South Texas, we could wait all year and never feel a proper chill, so M and I would never eat soup at all if we waited for the "right" season. As it happens, we make soup frequently; it's a great way to use up leftover roast chicken, and I'll even admit a certain amount of satisfaction in the sometimes tedious chore of chopping veggies. I don't know if I'll ever quite shake the feeling that a hearty chicken soup in summer is somehow cheating on what should be a cold-weather pleasure.
Darned if I won't crank down the A/C and pretend the air smells like the first frost anyway.
Show us a smooch.
Aww. I love my "little" brother (and I'll always be his "big" sister, no matter how tall he gets). He just finished up his first year of college, and I couldn't be more proud of him.
Do you know any war veterans?
Submitted by Fightin' 6th Marines.
I'm a day late, but this one's worth answering. Not only do I know veterans, there are people in my family who have served our country in wartime. My father-in-law, for one, was in Vietnam. My maternal grandfather was in Korea, but he died long before I was born. My cousins' grandfather fought in World War II at the Battle of the Bulge, and his stories (when he chooses to talk about it) bring to life a time whose witnesses are rapidly disappearing. My paternal great-grandfather never went overseas, but he joined up late in life after Pearl Harbor and helped open up bases all over the country.
I hope every American took time yesterday to remember those who have given their lives in service to us. It's one thing to conceptualize their sacrifices as being to abstract ideas like "the country" or "freedom," but we are the ones who live in this country and enjoy that freedom--it is personal. Even if you couldn't answer the QotD in the affirmative right off the top of your head, I guarantee that the freedom that you enjoy in your life is connected to our friends and family and neighbors who answer the call to serve.
