Forward Motion

Ciao, bella!

(This reminds me of a guy I used to work with here.  As we’d drive through town into work every morning, he’d call out the window “Ciao, bella!” to all the girls.  Sometimes they’d wave back, but when they ignored him he’d moan, “Ooooh, DC - denied Ciao!”)

How are all of you doing?  I feel like it has been years since I left the USA, but apparently it has only been 4 days.  4 verrrry long days.  The journey was fine, things went as well as could be expected.  The dog was crammed in her carry-on container for about 14 hours and but did perfectly.  For all the hassle of getting her over here, the flight was really the easier part for her. 

There’s so much to tell you.  Rather than try and form a coherent post, let me just hit you with some random highlights.  Pardon the wacked out formatting, it's complicated.

-          We arrived just as nearly all of the post has gone on block leave.  Combined with the holiday weekend, it means that very few people are working and we aren’t getting much done. 

-          We are staying in temporary lodging, but whoaaa….it’s comfy.  We’ve got a 3 bdrm, 1.5 bath apartment, with a full kitchen and living room.  I have no complaints with where we are staying!  Okay, it would be nice if they had internet and I didn’t have to walk half a mile to do laundry, but otherwise….

-          We have our housing appointment on Wednesday.  We have heard various horror stories about the housing situation here.  Most of the stories center around the theme that the housing office will try and get you to take crappy houses and then threaten to take away your temporary lodging allowance that pays for you to stay in the hotel if you decline them.  Many people have gone outside the government system and used a private Italian realtor to find them decent places to live.  We shall see how it goes.

-          Within 24 hours of landing, my husband had already found 6 people than he knew from various places.  Supposedly, I knew all of them too, but there’s only one guy I vaguely remember.

-          It stays light really late here, till around 10 p.m.  We are having a terrible time adjusting.  No one can drag themselves out of bed before 9 or 10 in the morning and we can’t fall asleep at night.

-          With no vehicle and most everyone gone, we are walking walking walking walking.  I don’t mind it and the kids are getting used to it, but it does make it hard to buy things that are heavy or bulky and would be difficult to carry back.  If only it wasn’t so HOT.

-          In 15 years, so much has changed on post.  The Burger King, the chapel, and the movie theater are among the only things that are in the same place.  The PX is 5 times the size it was and there’s a new commissary.  I think I might have been a bit disheartened at the limited selection if I didn’t remember how much worse it used to be.  My barracks have been remodeled (they have air conditioning now!  Wusses.)  and there’s a new and bigger library.  This is still a very very very tiny post.  Maybe 2 square miles?  Certainly no more.  And although it is the same size as it was 15 years ago, there are easily twice as many people here now.

-          We’ve only been off post once.  We are usually so tired from walking to the PX and the library and the launderette and the bowling alley that going anywhere further just seems too wearying.  We did go out to dinner last night at the restaurant where we had our first Italian meal when we first lived here last night.  The same waiter was still working there and the food was still delicious.  It was a lot more expensive than back in the days of the lira and the strong dollar.  Today we’ve all been warned not to go off post because there are anti-American protesters who are unhappy with the planned expansion of the

US

post here.

 

-          Cell phones are THE most confusing thing ever here.  Your brain will absolutely explode trying to figure out how the plans work and forget understanding how much you are paying for when it’s all said & done.  The tiny, overheated store is always crowded and while the salespeople speak English, they speak it very quickly with an accent.  Things are prepaid, but not in minutes and by the month, but only in set amounts.  I still haven’t figured out exactly what I prepaid for. 

 

-          Nonetheless, I am getting an iPhone!  I’m so excited.  They have a waitlist for them, but told me I should have it by Monday.  I have no doubt that I will be paying gobs and gobs of money for the phone and its use, but this is DH’s “I made you move to

Italy

and if this makes you happy, then here you go.” gift.  I’m hoping things like the GPS and currency converter applications will make it more useful than the average phone.

-     I’m having a very

hard time getting used to not being able to get on the internet whenever I want.  There is no such thing as free wi-fi here.  The library and the community center have computers to use, but many sites – such as Facebook…wahhhhh – are restricted.  I can go to the bowling alley and pay to use unrestricted internet there at about $5 for 35 minutes.  I did buy the Italian version of a wireless USB air card.  But again, the plans are so strange, I finally just told the guy to give me the biggest plan there was, so I think I have 4.5 GB to use this month.  It’s kind of hard to have a job working online when the internet is so hard to get to.

-          It doesn’t feel like the 4^th of July today.  On July 2^nd, the post had a Freedom Fest celebration.  Free hot dogs, burgers, chips, sodas, and ice cream.  There were rides and games for the kids and the evening ended not with fireworks but a laser light show.  It was exactly 16 years ago on that day on this post at a very similar celebration that my then boyfriend turned to me during the fireworks and asked me to marry him.  Now there is a hospital under construction on that spot, but it was still good to be back there for that anniversary.

-          The Diet Coke here is Coca Cola Light and it does not taste right.  I can get the normal Diet Coke in a can from the commissary, but there is no Diet Cherry Coke to be found.

That’s all I can come up with for now.  I’ve hardly knit.  I worked on my sock on the airplane but I don’t think I’m going to use up the stash I brought with me.

Hopefully we’ll get out and about more soon.  DH is going to buy a vehicle, but the good ones get snapped up quite quickly so it may be a while.  My van won’t be here until the end of August.  I wish I had some photos for you, but like I said, we haven’t really left post yet.  Got any questions?  Let me know and I might be able to answer them.

Oh, Florida....

Well.  That's it.  Our last weekend in the United States.  Tomorrow we leave this great hotel and drive to Atlanta.  On Tuesday, we turn in my van for shipment and that evening, board a plane to Italy.  I am holding it together, but just barely.  By this time next week, I'll be on another continent.

It's been such a wonderful vacation.  Almost too wonderful, because it's made it even harder for me to leave.  I keep reminding myself that the kids and I are coming back to Florida next summer.  If I focus on getting through until next summer, instead of the next 3 years, I can maybe stave off the crazy panic that's right under my skin.  Sigh...I wish I wasn't such a mental case about this.

But anyway.  I'll be fine.  It's just the getting over there that is rough.  We decided that we couldn't risk the heat restrictions trying to fly the dog as checked baggage.  In order to ensure that she doesn't get left behind, we are going to carry her on with us.  She jusssst barely fits into the carrier that meets the size restrictions and I'm sure she's not going to be pleased at being crammed in there for so many hours.  But at least she'll be with us.

I'm not good at goodbyes, but goodbye, Florida.  I'll miss you.  Thanks for the shopping and the beaches and the friends and the pedicures.  My toes look awesome.  See you next year.

I could get used to this

I moved to Florida in the middle of 7th grade.  We moved a lot when I was young and when I enrolled in middle school here, it was the 8th school I had attended.  I lived in Largo until I graduated from high school, the longest I've ever lived in one town.  After my freshman year of college, I came back and lived there for one more year before I joined the army. So overall, I've lived in Florida for about 7 years.

For some of you that have lived in the same town or the same state or even the same region your whole life, 7 years probably doesn't seem very long.  But they were the years that I learned to drive, that I got my first kiss, that I became an adult, so they seem like more important years to me.

All I know is that whenever I drive over the Howard Franklin bridge from Tampa into Pinellas County, I look out at the bay and feel like I am coming home.  The traffic is maddening, the humidity is ridiculous, and oh, I had forgotten about the existence of mosquitos in the last year! But this trip really feels like coming home for me.

On Wednesday evening, we met my dad at my brother's house.  My brother has had a boat of some kind since he was probably 14 years old.  After high school, he lived on a 40 ft. wooden boat for years and years.  Now he has a house that backs up to the Intracoastal Waterway and we all climbed aboard a boat (actually my dad's boat, but that's a long story involving a broken motor and somethingsomething inboard lift) and went to dinner.

 

I love being out on the water.  I don't really care about fishing, but I am always up for a boat ride.

Also, when I find that winning lottery ticket, I'd like this house please:

 

And a staff to clean it, of course.

We had a wonderful dinner out, the four of our family, my dad, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend (who I adore and he better not ever break up with).  No surprise, but El Paso had terrible seafood and I missed having good seafood.  I had the mangrove snapper and it was SO. DELICIOUS.  I kind of want to go back and eat seafood at this place every day.

Just as we were finishing our meals, we noticed the wind kicking up and the sky outside darkening.  That is one problems with going to dinner by boat, sometimes the weather won't let you stay for dessert.

 

Here we are leaving the restaurant and you can see how ominous the sky is.  We saw some very impressive lightning bolts that seemed to stretch across the entire heavens, but we didn't get a bit of rain.  That may have had something to do with the speed at which my brother had the boat going:

 

I'm so glad DH talked me into coming to Florida for vacation before we leave for Italy.  I've seen friends from high school and had our own little mini-reunion that was the most fun I've had in I don't know how long.  We've been to the Salvador Dali museum and seen his weird paintings.  DH took the kids to a water slide park and I got a pedicure.  (Totally fair distribution of fun for both of us.)  And we still have more than a week left!!

Many many miles behind us

Ahhhhh.....it feels SO GOOD not to be driving right now.  I'm blogging to you from a very nice hotel suite in Clearwater, FL and let me tell you, this whole family has earned this vacation.  A brief recap:

We left El Paso a little later than we'd hoped on Tuesday.  I had wanted to make it to Ft. Worth, but by 9:30 pm we were still over an hour away.  We stopped in Eastlake, TX and decided we'd get up really early the next morning to make up time.  I have no idea how I got up every morning at 5 am all those years when I was in the Army.  It was physically painful for me to be awake so early, but we pushed on and made it to just west of Nashville on Wednesday.

Thursday was crazy.  We drove to my mom's property north of Knoxville, where my dad met us.  My dad & DH loaded up a tractor and a bunch of other equipment that we needed to get off of mom's property.  I left Alex with those guys and Grace and I turned around and drove back to Nashville.  The guys then took all the stuff down to my dad's property about 6 hours away.  Grace and I had a day to kill while they dealt with all that, so we hung around Nashville and shopped and relaxed.

While there, we went to the Haus of Yarn.  If you are in Nashville, don't miss this yarn shop.  It was packed with so much delightful yarn and tons and tons of knitted up samples!  I loved seeing and touching all the projects.  I knew I couldn't buy toooo much, but I couldn't resist some Zauerball sock yarn because hey, it's already in a ball rather a skein, so that is very practical for traveling.  I also picked up some Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace yarn.  I had just looked at the new Knitty that morning and that's the yarn used for this shawl, Cold Mountain.

I loved Nashville.  DH and I are considering someday maybe retiring in that area.  Right now that seems so far off, but I was glad to drive around the city and enjoy it.  Saturday morning was another early one as Grace and I drove down to Florida.  We stopped and picked up the guys in Gainesville, then kept going down to Clearwater.

After 4 long, long days of driving, the last thing I wanted to hear when we checked into the hotel was that it was overbooked.  They didn't have a room with double beds for us, so they gave us a king bed room with a sofa bed.  The king bed had such a sag in the middle that it was shaped like a contact lens.  When we pulled out the sofa bed, the sheets were filthy.  AND the wifi did not reach to our room on the end of the corridor.  It was immediately clear we would not be spending our FL vacation at that place.

So yesterday, we checked out and drove around looking for another hotel room.  Remember, one of the reasons we'd decided to stay the extra weeks in FL was because the room was so cheap.  Finally, we ended up at a TownPlace Suites Marriot place in a 2 bedroom suite.  It costs more, but it has a full kitchen, thereby eliminating the need to eat out all the time.  We also decided to trim our expenses by rescheduling a side trip that would have involved a rental car and extra hotel rooms.  So overall, we feel like this was the best choice and we can relax.

Let the vacation begin.

Here we go

Well (well well), I'm sitting here (here here) in this very empty house (house house).  Okay, I won't do that the whole post.  But it's very echoey.  All the furniture has been packed up, lots of our stuff has gone into long term storage, and all that's left is a few hundred pounds of some clothes, kitchen stuff, and odds and ends for unaccompanied baggage.  Tonight we sleep in a hotel, thank heaven, because that air mattress is not nearly as comfortable as it looks.  It's like sleeping on a cold pancake.  Tomorrow, hopefully no later than noonish, we head east out of El Paso.

It's been a crazy week as you can imagine.  The packers and movers have all been great.  I'm withholding my final judgement till we see how the stuff arrives in Italy, but so far, these have been the best packers we've ever had.  Fast, kind, and helpful.  I did find 2 drawers that they completely skipped packing, but overall they did a great job.

Here's a little list I made a few days ago.

Things we have sold -

DH's truck

our big screen TV and our regular TV

One GPS with other likely to follow (since they don't have European maps and Garmin wants a small fortune to upload them.)

our dining room table set

Many large tools that I cannot exactly identify

the washer and dryer (sob!)

the porch swing

the garage refrigerator

the grill (the dude bought it even with the gunk from our last BBQ still stuck on there, he didn't care, he said.  Ewww.)

Things I will miss -

Chick Fil A

Borders bookstore

SuperTarget

Hundreds of cable channels and my DVR

Closets

central air conditioning

Tamales

Good riddance -

Walmart

This $*%&# wind in El Paso

driving the speed limit

Time Warner Cable company

killer speed bumps

Hello -

gelato

pasta

wine

bread

fresh gorgeous produce

those metal roller shades that make the room so dark you can take a nap at noon

driving really really fast

I'll be checking in again when we get settled in our hotel room.  The hotel room I'll be confined to trapped with enjoying with my family for 3 weeks in Florida.  We have changed our plans about 14 more times, but for right now, we are back on the direct Delta flight from Atlanta on June 30th.  It turns out United/Lufthansa had heat restrictions for pets too, so no point in stopping in Frankfurt if we don't have to.  We just have to hope that the heat is not going to be an issue.

It seems like more than a year since we got to El Paso and I have really enjoyed it here.  I'm ready to go, but it's been fun.

They're coming....

Y'all.

The packers are coming.  TOMORROW.

(Insert primal scream here.)

I'm here to tell you, the day before the packers come is the worst of all.  Everywhere I look I see 5 things that need to be done.  And I just marched out to the garage and informed my husband that the next time we move, the kids and I are leaving 2 weeks early and he is doing it ALL himeself.  He has gotten all wrapped in a a trailer he bought at the last minute, then he's helping a neighbor with trailer and he is not here in the house to do the 5 million things I need done.  This is what happened last time, only he was stuck at work.  So that's it.  I'm tired of doing the moving myself.  And yes, I am kind of kidding here.  But only kind of.

Our travel plans have changed yet again, but I am not even going to get into that.  We're making a stop before we head to Florida and we bumped the flight back one more day.

But oh!  I am so distracted I can't even keep a thought in my head.  I meant to say right off - our visas are here!!!  Yay!  That is a huge relief.  I was envisioning them not being here when we left and having to keep postposing everything and it's just all good that they are here.  Whew.

Oh!  I finished the Klaralund Noro Sweater!  I had the best of intentions to take a photo for you, but that did not happen.  It's totally too hot to put on a sweater anyway, even just for a quick photo.  So picture this:

Only about one inch longer and all the tails woven in and that rogue dropped stitch fixed and looking gorgeous on me.  When I unpack and reblock it in about 3 months, I'll do a bunch of pictures for you.

Okay, I have to get back to freaking out and worrying that something important is going to get packed or not get packed.  But let me leave you with this video that provided me with a much needed stress relieving barrel of laughs today.  I know a lot of you don't click on videos from blogs, but really, I think you'll like this one.  I am too frazzled to figure out how to embed a video here, so just click the linky.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=88259687842&h=Tg2Bn&u=y7l6Q&ref=nf 

Time for me to fly....

I've been around for you, been up and down for you, but I just can't get any relief.

Sometimes, the biggest stresses are the ones you can't do anything about.  With planning this move, it's been trying to make our flight reservations.  We were told that we would have to wait until our visas came in before we could get a paper that said that the government flights were full (which they are) and we could fly commercial.  I did the visa paperwork on the 14th of May and they said it would be 5-10 days to get them back.

I make you laugh and you make me cry.  I believe it's time for me to fly.

We called on Friday.  No visas yet.  We called yesterday.  Still no visas.  But!  Now they tell us we don't NEED the visas to make flight arrangements!  How governmentally typical.  So this morning, DH and I and the kids first went to the visa/passport/Port Call (v/pp/PC, let's call it) office to see if maybe our visas had showed up.  Not there still, so we all tromped over to Travel.  And they promptly send us back to the v/pp/PC office.  The Port Call guy has to give us this paper to fly commercial.  So we want this paper, even though we don't have our visas, which they said we could do.

You said we'd work it out, you said that you had no doubt...

The Port Call guy is not at his desk.  They think he's somewhere in the building.  They advise us to sit down and wait.  Also waiting for the exact same thing is DH's classmate, SGM Monty, going also to Vicenza.  So we wait and chat and wait.  I try to explain to him how small the base in Vicenza is.  He is doubtful, but he'll find out soon enough.  After 30 minutes, we ask about the Port Call guy again.  Can anyone else get us that paper?  Can anyone FIND him?  More waiting.  15 minutes later, the FedEx guy walks in the door.  Does he have our visas?  No!  But he has SGM Monty's visas.  SGM Monty turned his in two days after I did!

Oh, but I'm tired of holding on, to a feeling I know is gone, I do believe that I've had enough.

It's been an hour we've been waiting now.  We've chatted enough.  Where is the Port Call guy??  Finally the guy in charge asks another lady working there and she says, "Oh, Port Call Guy is at a doctor appointment.  He might not be back till this afternoon."  That was when I started feeling very stabby.  I was working on a sock and those size 0s would have made a neat hole in someone's trachea.  Fortunately, the guy in charge noticed my seething and got on the phone and called someone at Travel.  He told them to let us make our travel arrangements even without the paper.  We can't actually pick up our tickets, but we can make reservations, which is FINE.  I'll take that.

I've had enough of the falseness of a worn out relation.  Enough of the jealousy in the entire duration.

Back we go to Travel and the nicest lady on all of Ft. Bliss clicks away at her computer and asks us when would we like to fly to Italy?  DH and I look at the calendar and I count 3 days of driving from El Paso, 4 days of vacation in Florida, 1 day of driving to Atlanta....so fly the 17th....and DH says, "Wait."  Wait, he says.  Say huh??

Time for me to fly, I've got to set myself free.  Time for me to fly, that's just how it's got to be.

There at the travel counter, just as we are ready to make reservations, DH says "I think we should stay in Florida longer.  The hotel is only $39 a night.  Let's stay a few more days!  We can relax and not try and do everything in just a few days."  I remind him that we will be living in hotel rooms for many, many days on end.  He promises me that we should do this, it will be fun, let's go for it.  The super nice Travel lady is waiting, grinning.  Fine, I say, and tell her we'll fly the 22nd.  Whoops, no flights on the 22nd.  Hey, what's one more day.  We'll go the 23rd.

I know it hurts to say goodbye, but it's time for me to fly.

So wow.  That was quite a morning, but we have flight reservations!!!  This is so exciting because now we have A Plan.  It's not the plan we had at first, but whatever.  I have confidence knowing that DH can't get too stressed out on me because this was HIS idea to stay in FL longer.  Mmmhmmm.  Not my idea.  But it's going to be fun with a capital B.  Beaches, Boats, Busch Gardens, Best friend, Beall's Outlets, and Becca hanging out with the family.

Now I've run out of good song verses, so here's the rest of the flight deal.  We're still dropping the car off and flying out of Atlanta, but it's not a direct flight anymore.  We've got a 6 hour layover in Frankfurt before going on to Venice.  That's because it's Delta who has the direct flight out of Atlanta and they have a rule that pets cannot fly on the plane if the temperature is 85 degrees or above at the time of check-in.  Atlanta in June?  When is it NOT over 85 degrees?

I wasn't willing to take the risk that there we would be, passports in hand, luggage at our feet, vehicle shipped, and if it's 86 degrees, we would not be able to fly.  Because we can't leave Josie behind, she has to come with us.  So by taking the United/Lufthansa flight, we do have a longer day, but it's a climate controlled cargo area for the dog.  She's going to be in her box for more than 18 hours!  I feel awful, but what else can we do?  Poor doggie.

The movers will be here for the first wave of packing in one week.  And soon enough, it will be time for me to fly. 

This post brought to you by REO Speedwagon.  Just say no to curly mullets.

Organize is a dirty word.

I am celebrating Memorial Day by shredding a metric crapton of paperwork.  I can't believe how much has built up in just a year, because I know I did this before we left Georgia.  My office looks like a snowstorm has hit from all the little shreddies that escape when I empty the shredder bin.

Someone asked if I was ready for the packers to come next week.  Is anyone ever really ready?  I have no idea.  I've done a lot of sorting and organizing and deciding.  I have gone through every skein of yarn that I can find, trying to put it all in some sort of order.  One of my yarn dressers is going into storage, so I have found other places for those yarns.  Many of you will not be shocked by this, but holy crap - I have a LOT of yarn.

This drawer contains yarn that I have enough of to make sweaters out of.  There's Cascade Heathers, Karabella something, Berrocco DK wool, and some Valley Yarns cotton blend that I was going to make the Tomato sweater with.  This is an absolutely horrible photo, but I want to point something out.

All these yarns are some shade of purple.  The ones that look reddish are really more burgundy/wine colored.  And I found 2 more sweater quantities of yarn in another box and can you guess what color they are?  Purple.  Why do I have enough yarn to make 6 purple sweaters?  I would like one or even two purple sweaters, but 6?  It's enough to make me want to order some green and blue yarn right this minute.  Except I'd just have to find a place for it and that's hard enough with what I already own.

On that note, I have sadly reached the end of the time that I can order stuff.  Unless I pay for expedited shipping, I'm afraid it won't get here on time.  That doesn't mean I can't have it sent to my father's house, but no more ordering to El Paso.  I hope my shoes I ordered last week show up soon.  Do you know about www.6pm.com?  Oh my.  They have a different brand of shoes dirt cheap nearly everyday.  They had Clarks last week for $20!  I love the way Clarks fit my big feet, but they are usually closer to $80.  There may be 2 or 3 pairs on the way here.

Okay, back to the organizing.  The part I hate is figuring out which things and documents are so important that they should travel with us and which things we can risk getting packed and not seeing for months.  And finding that important stuff means digging in the file cabinet, which will mean finding more to shred.  Let's hope I don't accidentally shred anything important like I did last year with the umm....credit card.  Oops.

Counting down

I suppose with the movers coming in less than 3 weeks, I ought to be sorting or packing or something.  I have gone through the linen closet and I've started a good pile of things for storage.  I'm digging in my closet, vowing not to take any clothing that I don't actually wear more than once a season.  I've got a marathon paper shredding session scheduled for this weekend.  I'm not in complete denial, just partial.  I'm really more focused on going to Florida at the moment, can you blame me?

I have decided I am not moving ANY food this time.  Usually the movers will pack non-perishable, non-liquid items.  However, that stuff is going to sit in a box in a crate on a ship for up to 3 months.  I don't want to eat it after that.  I also like the idea of starting out fresh in a new kitchen.  When I find a can that came from a store we haven't lived near in 6 years, I think maybe it has been moved too often.

I'm using up as much as I can, but one of the things I really hate about moving is throwing away perfectly good food.  Sometimes we can give stuff away to neighbors, but in this case, all of our neighbors are moving, too.  DH says there are people on Craigslist that advertise they'll take your kitchen items.  I'd rather have somebody take the mostly full thing of oatmeal and the can of artichokes than throw it away.

I have been knitting a bit, but grudgingly.  Only because I really need to finish up the projects that are on the needles because I am positive that 3-4 months from now I'll have no idea what I was doing with them.  But I really haven't been in the mood for it.  So my Big Stripey socks sit by my desk and I add a few rows each day.  The Night Moth socks are there too.  I realized I can't remember exactly how I did the heel on the 1st one, but I also don't care enough.  I just want to get them done.  The only other thing that must get finished is the redo of the Noro Klaralund sweater.  Yes, that thing is still not done.  However, I've done the ripping and redoing part and really only need to add about 10 rows of garter stitch and weave in some ends.

I am also realizing I have yarn EVERYWHERE.  There are skeins all over this house, on shelves, in drawers, in bins.  The idea of beginning a new project right now baffles me and I'm looking at all this yarn wondering what on earth it is for.  I sure hope my knitting mojo follows me to Italy.  I'm definitely bringing several projects worth of yarn and all my needles with me, so maybe I'll figure out what to do with them at some point.

The last thing that was finished was a project that I cast on in a crazy moment a few weeks ago.  Facebook told me Lisa's birthday was on May 1st, and so on the 30th of April, I decided to knit her something.  Brilliant!  She had mentioned that she really like the hemp string bag I made a few months ago.  The one that I swore I'd never knit again.

But Lisa has really been my ONLY friend here in El Paso this year.  It's been very lonely and I would have far more of a basket case without her.  How I could not knit her a Monteagle Bag of her own?

 

(Not a great pic, duh.  I was in a hurry to wrap it and give it to her because do you think I was able to knit this in less than 2 days?  She got it a week late.)

And of course, the pattern wasn't so bad the second time around.  Also, I used KnitPicks CotLin instead of hemp and wow...was that SO much better to work with.  If you're wondering - no, you cannot make a bag out of one skein of Cotlin.  Almost though.  I had to use the second skein just for part of the strap.

I will admit it's a fun pattern now.  Now that I have figured it out.  I still think I'm going to try a different pattern for my next string bag, though.  3 times with this bag might be pushing it.

We are all feeling MUCH better now.  The occasional coughing fit still seizes us, but no more fevers.  The only fever around lately is the one that everyone else seems to have, the "Get me out of El Paso!" fever.  I understand being ready to go, but this place has not been so bad.  I can see how other people might not love it, but I kind of want a few of my neighbors to shut up with the whole "2 more days till we ditch this hellhole" attitude.

Our visas still haven't arrived yet, which is hindering our planning.  We can't make flight reservations without them.  We hope to fly on the 18th, but if there are no seats with a doggie spot on the same flight, we'll have to change that.  I hesitate to make hotel reservations without knowing for sure the right days.  Tonight at a BBQ, I talked to another couple going to Vicenza and they've already been given a housing assignment!  You can bet what DH's first task is tomorrow morning.  Call Housing over there. 

Karma is unsympathetic, too.

A few days ago, I posted on Facebook that while not wishing to appear unsympathetic, DH's cough was driving me insane.  Clearly, I'm not cut out for the medical field, because listening that dry, hacking cough made me nuts.  I was practically throwing cough drops at him and I slept on the sofa one night in the hopes that I could avoid whatever plague he had.  On Tuesday, he went to bed and stayed there the whole day.  Wednesday, he woke up feeling fine.  Quick little virus, right?  I can probably avoid that. 

No such luck.  Yeah, that's what I get for being unsympathetic.  Yesterday afternoon, I went and put on sweatpants and a flannel shirt because I was SO COLD.  Nevermind that it was 97 degrees outside.  I swear, not five minutes later I got that tickle in my chest and started coughing.  As usual, DH was much nicer about it.  Last night I shifted between the bed and the sofa and ALL I wished for in life was clear Gatorade.  Apparently either it's not made anymore or it's not for sale here in a 5 mile radius of our home.

I ended up sipping water and taking my temperature every hour, admiring the way the numbers kept going up and up and up.  I also watched Smokey and the Bandit.  "Boy, there ain't no way, no way you come from my loins.  When I get home first thing I'm gonna do is punch your momma in the mouth."  Jackie Gleason was so awesome and it was good to see Burt Reynolds before he became so plastic looking.

Today I did not get out of bed till 2:30 p.m.  People, I was too sick to be online.  Scary.  But when I did arise, I suddely felt okay.  Fever was pretty much gone. Still a little cough, but I didn't feel like walking to the bathroom was a marathon.  Now the kids are working their way through it and everyone has been camped out on the sofa.  If the pattern holds, they should be much better tomorrow.

Oh!  Remember I mentioned our travel plans have changed?  I'm so excited.  Sunday night during dinner, one of us sort of suggested the idea of going somewhere on leave before we left for Italy.  I think both of us were feeling like it was going to be so stressful to sign out of Ft. Bliss, then jump in the van and haul butt to Dallas, turn in the van for shipment, then get on a morning flight to Atlanta, then wait for the evening connection to Venice.  Once we arrive in Italy, we'll have no vehicle, no furniture, no house, only the stuff in our suitcases.  It just seemed like there was going to be no down time for a long time.

So we're going to Florida!!  Yes, it's a 3 day drive.  El Paso is not really close to anywhere I want to go.  That's what had prevented me from planning it all along.  I just figured we were looking at so much time in transit and in hotel rooms, did we really want to add to it.  Yes.  We do.  We're planning 4 days there to just chill out, see my best friend Valerie and her kids, and my brother.  We might be able to wheedle my brother into taking us out on the boat.  I haven't seen him or Valerie in 2 or 3 years and I hated to think of another 3 years going by.

Then we'll drive up to Atlanta and drop off the vehicle for shipment and catch that evening flight to Venice.  One big plus to this is that the dog will only have to be put on the plane once and taken off the plane once.  I don't know when I became someone that babies her doggie so much, but I am and I do.  She's such a basket case even under normal circumstances and I know she's going to hate the flight.  This hopefully will make it a little easier on her.

The whole neighborhood is clearing out right now.  There are moving vans up and down every street.  I'm so glad that we planned to wait until after graduation to move.  There are people who I believe are going to have the car running and will walk across the stage, accept their graduation certificate, walk off, and drive away.  Even though we are happy we planned not to have the packers until the first week of June, watching everyone else makes me feel like I'm behind!  I have to keep reminding myself we have 3 more weeks.  Crap, that still doesn't seem like very long.