• Friday before Memorial Day, we drove to the boy’s mom’s house in Indiana, where we stayed for the night.
• Saturday, we woke up and drove to Ohio for the wedding of our token Air Force buddy.  We stayed there until Tuesday.
• Tuesday, we drove to Michigan to stay with the boy’s grandparents for the night.
• Wednesday, it was back to Indiana to the boy’s mom’s.
• Friday, we went home to Kansas.
• Sunday, we had an open house, and at 6pm that evening, we left for Virginia with the great dane and three cats.  We arrived in VA at 3pm the next afternoon.
• We stayed in VA until we flew back to Kansas on Wednesday.  While we were in VA, we got an offer and sold our house.
• Friday morning, we drove to Oklahoma to see the boy’s family before we moved back to the east coast.  We got home Sunday night.
• Monday and Tuesday, we hung out at our house in Kansas for a few days while we were getting ready for the movers.
• Packers came on Wednesday and Thursday, and the movers came on Friday.
• My wife also flew in from Belgium on Thursday.  In one of those weird twists of Army-fate, she moved to Kansas (albeit Leavenworth instead of Riley) five days before we moved to VA.  It was so wonderful to get to see her and her family over the weekend, though.
• Sunday, my mother and my brother flew in to help us drive to VA.  The four of us and our boxer left in a Penske truck and my car around noon on Monday (our house closed at 1:30, so only owned it for an hour and a half when we moved), and we got here at midnight on Tuesday.  We did stop overnight this time though.  We moved 7,240 pounds of stuff ourselves.
• Thursday, my littlest brother graduated high school, so we had family and friends in town for that.
• Today is father’s day and my mother’s partner’s birthday.
• And tomorrow, the boy goes back to work for the first time in two years or so.

So, that is where I have been and what I have been up to.  So far, we are here and getting settled into VA nicely, and I think we are eager to get settled into a routine soon.  I will post pictures of our cute little summer place above my mother’s garage as soon as we get everything moved in completely.

Thanks for letting me share.   It helps to write it down, so I don’t forget!

We have lots of big news going on, but this is one that most of you don’t already know about. In amongst the crazy last few months getting ready for a new place to live, we have also been getting ready to welcome a new family member.

I am about 11 weeks pregnant, and I am due on New Year’s Eve. We had a sonogram on Friday to let us know that everything is okay, and so far we look pretty good. The boy and I have been trying for quite a while, so please send some happy thoughts our way that all stays delightfully normal!

I will make sure to keep everyone up-to-date on the progress in a manner to be determined. I will probably add a page on my blog to give updates!

We officially will land in Virginia on Tuesday of next week, so at least until then, things will remain quiet.  But, I will be back sometime soon.  Lots of fun summer plans and news to share.

Three little words that seem to be describing a lot of what I have been doing lately.  Caught up with grades.  Caught up with school stuff that is way too late.  Those are all the have-to’s.  But, I am excited to also be working on the want-to’s as well.

This week, I got caught up on the quilting bee I am a part of (see a few above).  I was wicked late getting my blocks together, but I love how the ones I have done have turned out.  Now, I am looking forward to getting caught up with my friends and loved ones as we make our great transition east!

We are sad to leave those we love behind, but we are so excited about the move.

As I have been reading through the year’s recaps all over blogland, I have been considering the manner that I wanted to recap the last year.  I knew I wanted to recap all the crafty stuff I have accomplished the last year, but I wanted something more too.  And, I stumbled across a cool idea that I thought would work.

My friend, Devon, just posted an interesting meme to her blog about her last year.    The instructions were to make a list of the first sentence(s) of the first entry you wrote for each month.

1. January: Just had to share this with you all! I do warn you that this will completely get stuck in your head though.
2. February: Well, I am sitting in our union on campus because there was some miscommunication about a meeting that I thought that I needed to be at right now, and instead of walking back to my office in the frigid cold outside, I thought that I would just sit and write for a little instead.
3. March: I am continually amazed by the fact that it takes me so long to get into the swing of the semester.
4. April: I was reading on Dooce today about this photo exhibit, and I thought that I would share.
5. May: I am just sitting here thinking about how to attack all the grading that I have sitting around my office.
6. June: As we were walking through all the stalls of cool old marble mantles and cool old prints, there was one lone stall that looked like it was full of modern antique furniture.
7. July: This afternoon, I had the most lovely surprise waiting for me.
8. August: Today is going to be a busy day.
9. September: Around the country, this is the day that kids go back to school.
10. October: Just thought I would check in and let you know a little more about what I was up to…
11. November: This week has been a little crazy.
12. December: Over the last week, I played a little.

A couple of things struck me while looking through my old posts.  Sharing is becoming a larger part of what I am doing here.  I guess it would seen obvious to some that the purpose of a blog would be to share, but I am not sure that is why all this started for me.  I actually think I started a blog because I was asking my students to complete one at the time, and I thought it only fair that I complete one as well.  That was a long time ago, and I didn’t really embrace this space until much later.

I look forward to the next year and all the adventures it promises to bring forth.  I know that I will have this little space of the universe to share those adventures.

Either choice would be fine with me, but I am pulling for going home.  My grandmother, who has really been another parent to me, turned eighty-nine a few weeks ago.  And, I would like to be close to her again in the time she has left.

The boy and I are at the stage of this process where we are trying to figure out where we would want to live, and what types of houses would fit our aesthetic.  To do this, we have often thought about what we like about the house we are in.

1. We love our kitchen.  It is big and open and has tons of storage.  It is really where we do everything at home: play, entertain, create.
2. We like having a yard for the dogs.
3. I love our master bedroom’s walk-in closet.  It is big enough that both of our dressers fit nicely while still giving us enough room for other clothes.
4. We feel good about the fact that the house is big enough for the two of us without being too big, particularly as we start to care more about the environment.

But, as I look around our house, I realize that the reason we like it so much is that we are at home here.  And, I know that the home part follows us with our many moves around the country.

We have decided that if we move to Northern VA again that we are going to try to buy another house and keep it as a rental property.  And, as you might already know, this is no small feat in Virginia.  Our house in Kansas was extremely reasonable in price, although when we bought we didn’t really think so.  And, while housing prices in Virginia have fallen, it is not an older suburb like Kansas City is.  Most of the cool old houses are often situated in less desirable neighborhoods, as seems to be the trend in areas where bigger and newer is, for most people, synonymous with better.  As I mentioned above, the boy and I aren’t necessarily feeling this.  Older homes in nicer areas are pricier than we could swing.

We have also been talking about what we would like in a new house.

1. We would like a little more space in the way of a basement or an office.  Right now, outside the main living area of the house, all we have are the bedrooms.  And, it is hard for us to both have our own space while still having a place for family to visit, which is a requirement as a military family and with two families half-way across the country from each other.
2. We would like to have a yard of some variety for the “kids.”  Cooper is an active dog, and we need to be able to let him out often.  And, it would be wonderful if we weren’t quite a close to our neighbors as we are here.
3. We would like to have a bigger bathroom.  Two sinks would be ideal.  That way we can both get ready in the morning without having to take turns.
4. And, finally a kitchen like ours now would be ideal.  (Or a price tag that would let me make that happen.)

At this point, the planner in me would just like to know one way or another.

My little home in the universe.

A big part of me finding my home here though has been the tons of other women I have been reading over the last year.  They have helped me nestle in here in this space.  One of those women posted this video today.  Go check it out.

It is indeed a new day (for me, for our country, for our world), and I can’t wait to see what the next 100 posts reveal!

1.  I have been doing a little sewing.  I started one of my many holiday projects last weekend.  It is coming along nicely, but I had to return the new iron this morning (wouldn’t turn on), and that has slowed down progress a little.  I am pretty excited about it though, so I thought that I would share a little sneak peak.  I am pretty sure that its recipient doesn’t read.

2. Ever since we were joined by the other little happy mistake around here, the cuteness is overwhelming.  They are getting bigger and starting to look more and more alike.

3.  On Halloween, we didn’t really do much.  We were out, so we didn’t even get to hand out candy this year or anything.  I was able to help a few friends with their hair for their various costumes.  But, yesterday we went over to see friends and watch the Army v. Airforce game, so I made these little goodies to take with us.  Mine aren’t as cute as Ree’s, but with a little practice I am sure that I can get better. I love the little monster eyes.

I won’t say it was the fastest recipe to make, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it would.  It is a super fun recipe, and they are amazingly good and addictive.  I already have some ideas for Christmas and to modify the “sweaty ball” recipe.  More to follow!

I am going to try to be better about checking in this week.  We will see how it goes!

1. First and most important, the boy and I celebrated our eight year anniversary yesterday.  This week, I am a little stressed out because of number three four (I can’t count!) down there, and he knew just the right thing to do.  He also bought me a beautiful plant.  (He told me “Flowers just die.”)  It wasn’t a perfect day, but every moment of it made me remember how much I love him and how happy I am with him.
2. I am following Ali Edwards and her a week in the life of series.  It has been really fun to examine my life more carefully, and I want to try to take more pictures for the rest of the week.  I did get a great one of the HUGE spider I killed the other night. That was a fun adventure.  I have been doing a pretty good job of writing about my day throughout the week though.
3. We found the coolest new breakfast place in our town.  It is fabulous, and the stacked french toast is amazing.  So amazing that when I made the boy go there with me for breakfast on our anniversary and he tasted it, he actually moaned.  Incidentally that was my second visit for the week, but who’s counting.
4. As a roll-over from last week, I am still grading job packets for my tech writing students.  Besides the final report, this is the assignment that takes the longest to grade, at almost 20 minutes a piece.  With 76 students, I am ready to be done.  I wonder if all teachers feel like they are always saying the same thing over and over again when they are giving feedback.
5. I am going to start working on posting my mother-in-law’s cool fused glass work to her new Etsy site, hopefully today.
6. Yesterday, I submitted a proposal for a conference in Baton Rouge about the Second Life stuff I have been working as part of the grant I received last year.
7. I am going to get to see a friend that is coming back in town for the weekend.  A younger version of myself!  That promises to make this weekend really fun.
8. Friday is a diversity conference.  I was inspired at the conference last year, so I am hoping it will do the same again this year.
9. Finally, I am planning the all-day sewing extravaganza for Saturday.  I don’t plan to work on anything school related all day!  My new labels will be here, and I can hardly contain myself I am so excited about the prospect.  I hope to have lots to show at the end of the weekend.