HOME

We move into our home tomorrow. Without the stuff that makes it feel like home. Without bowls or coffee mugs (well, I borrowed 4 from Terry's mom). But we will be home, we will be together, and except for a few short trips to PA for doctor appointments and cabin weekends, we will be permanent. I mean, for 2 years.

Alex and I got on a plane May 6. In the intervening almost 3 months, we have spent one consecutive week in the same place - the recent trip to the cabin where we were without Terry for the first 5 days. She and I, especially, are looking forward to being in one place every day.

More local finds

Last weekend Terry wanted to check out the archery range at a nearby section of Rock Creek Park, so I went along for the ride.

In addition to the range, we found a playground, lots of hiking and biking trails, clean, "proper" bathrooms, and lots more! We also got to watch a myriad of Monarch butterflies fluttering around - they seem to like it around here, I've never noticed so many.

Then after the grocery run we checked out a local Asian food market. Wow! The produce is amazing and cheap cheap cheap. Plus every possible sauce, seasoning, and snack. They already have mooncake out! Best of all, once we get a crate on the back of my bike, I can get the groceries powered by "me".

Wordless Wednesday

We survived the 7 year itch!

Well, not like there was an actual incident reminiscent of the "7 year itch", but as of today we have been married 8 years. For a super special anniversary, we are currently located in different states. I came to PA yesterday to transfer kids from Camp Grandparents to Slightly Less Like Camp Because Mommy's Here being held at Other Grandparents.

I'm too tired from parenting solo for 24 hours to say anything witty, pithy or adorable and loving, but hey, isn't that what marriage is really about?

Love you, dear!

Mosquitoes

I have been overseas for the last 6 years. I was also pregnant when we left the USA 6 years ago. Lots of things happen to a woman's body during pregnancy, some are enduring changes such as my friend's mom who went up a shoe size with each pregnancy (my friend is one of three. By the way, why the $&^%&^%$ couldn't that have happened to me? I need a southeast Asia tour just to get some shoes that fit!).

For the last six years, I have been almost entirely untouched by mosquitoes. I ignorantly figured that my body chemistry changed enough with those babies that my sweet, sweet blood was no longer so attractive to mosquitoes.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It turns out that my blood is unpalatable to EUROPEAN mosquitoes. American ones, Maryland varieties especially, are still driven to me like little vampires.

I may not enjoy the last month or so of summer as much as I'd wish.

Homesick

As I discussed in painful detail, we received our HHE from storage last week. Some things we haven't seen in 4 years, others in 7 years. It's 95% of our furniture. It's a few special items we didn't want getting thrown off a ship (think gifts from deceased grandparents).

And it's nothing at all that makes a house a home. Receiving the stuff made me homesick for our home in Russia.

:-(

F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre

One of the things I do love about our house is the walkability. Just a few blocks away is the Glenview Mansion, F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, and a playground, huge field, tennis courts, and Croyden Nature Center (all in one big site).

I say it is the Piter influence, but Terry and I decided to take advantage of our child-free status to go ... see a show. A Gershwin musical, to be exact. Turns out the theater troupe is fully volunteer, from the actors, to musicians, set designers, etc. We were incredibly impressed with the quality of the performance in every aspect, and it was lovely to just walk home at the end.

The space also hosts plays, concerts and ballets, with all tickets I've seen so far being less than $25. We're already planning who's taking which child to which performance.

we are idiots. IDIOTS

Wednesday should have taken up 3 days, at least, for all that has happened.

It started just fine... movers said they would arrive between 8-10am and I was at the house promptly at 8:10am.  Terry sort of forgot one step of the directions when he took Garmin from me, so I had to pull out the map and figure how to get to the house from the hotel, or I would have been more timely. I kept busy until the movers arrived. They were bringing the stuff from ELSO storage, so it was a teeny weeny 850lb.

Unpacking and putting things away took til lunch. Then we did some yardwork and Terry started getting the sandbox together that my mom bought as a housewarming present for the kids. It had a roof/cover that cranks up and down, pretty cool, hopefully Terry will deign to edit the photos of it soon so I can post it.

When he ran off to Home Depot for various necessities, the crew from Home Depot arrived to install our new washer and dryer. I do love them (w/d, not Home Depot or the crew although both impressed me today), but note that they were delivered only TODAY. It figures into the story later.

Then the waiting began. The movers with the big load - almost 4000lb from 7 years ago storage, weren't to arrive until between 3-5pm. At 4:30pm I called the person at the shipping company assigned to us. She didn't answer the phone so I left a message. Then she replied by calling Terry instead of me. Can you tell she's my new best friend? The movers arrived just barely shy of 5pm so I was pretty freaked out about how late we'd be working on unpacking. Shouldn't have bothered to worry, these guys were fast.

First off the bad news: Our dining room table is broken as well as the table Terry's dad built for our table saw. I guess it could have been worse, but having to buy a new dining room table will suck. It looks like it may be fix-able so keep your fingers crossed! Oh, and 3-4 items were missing and between the warehouse and the moving company everyone is playing a game of "not it" so I don't think they will ever be recovered
:-(

But on to the story. The moving crew was like lightening. Of course, there were few boxes of stuff, and the stuff was 90% tools, gardening supplies, and home renovation supplies (we were almost done with our 2 year renovation project of our Philly home when Terry got The Call). What did make up 3000lb and more was the furniture....

and ...

the washer and dryer that we put into storage. That we were sure we had left in the house when we sold it. That had we been just a tiny bit less stupid, we would have checked our inventory in preparation for the delivery and noted that we already owned a washer and dryer.  Here's the thing: not only did we already own a set, but we didn't have Home Depot carry away the set that was here because we planned to bring them to the cabin some day soon, as I am getting tired of the laundromat and hoarding quarters as laundry tokens when we go up there.

So now we have THREE washing machines, and THREE dryers, in our very too small home.

On a similar and much less dramatic vein, we had pretty much the same experience with a vacuum cleaner. We remembered bringing our vacuum to the cabin when we left. In fact, at the cabin we frequently use the old vacuum. Apparently, though, we brought the vacuum to the cabin some time before we left, and it was enough of a gap in time that we decided to buy a new vacuum cleaner. So now we have 2 perfectly new cleaners in our very small house.

But no coffee mugs or drinking glasses. We rock.

Wordless Wednesday

Receiving HHE from storage

A big, big day today week - receiving our stuff from storage!  What an experience, to look for the first time in 7 years at the stuff we thought was important enough to save even though we didn't know when we'd ever see it again :-)

Here's an interesting tidbit:  storage in Hagerstown and storage from ELSO are both, physically, in Hagerstown. BUT they have different delivery schedules and different companies delivering!!!  This means that we get our 850lb from Malta between 8-10am, and our 3500lb from storage between ... wait for it ... 3-5pm.  Yeah.  With Home Depot delivering our new washer & dryer between 12:45-4:45.

I think there may be some downtime today. The good news? I can use that down time to take a bike ride, courtesy of the bikes we brought to Malta and never used. Assuming the bike pump is in there too.