Ahhhhh...home.

So I'm here. I slacked on taking pictures through the whole move, but I did take a few halfway through unpacking. We have so.much.stuff. I don't know where I'm going to put it all, but I have the whole (jobless) summer to organize everything to my liking.

The drive was a tad bit horrendous. Less than halfway through Iowa, it started raining. Ok, so rain isn't so bad. Howabout torrenital downpour, 50mph winds, and nasty semi's? Yes, much worse. My mother is the worst passenger ever in normal conditions, so the last thing she wanted to do was be a passenger in that. So what did she do? She drove the whole eleven hours on Saturday. The woman is crazed. So I drove the last (incredibly easy) five hours yesterday.



My parents love our house, but say it's too nice for Todd and not nice enough for me. =) They have been absolutely fantastic the last few days, which has helped me since Todd isn't back from NTC yet. They are here until Wednesday morning, then it's back to Chicago for them. I'm sure my mom will cry, since she welled up three separate times yesterday alone. Three other women that live in our neighborhood stopped by to say, "Finally!", and it made me really glad that I already know a good amount of people. I'm hoping to keep the loneliness and boredom to a minimum.



I'm sure I'll have more stories as the summer unfolds, but for now, here are some pictures:






I told you I slacked. Note little Todd enjoying some Miller Lite in the kitchen.

Oh.my.god.

I can't believe that I leave tomorrow. It will be such an *exciting* drive. See?






That's I-80 in Nebraska. Fantastic scenery.


I have so much stuff to do today, but I'm pretty sure I'll get it all done:

-return Comcast equipment
-go to Borders (to get a book because I won't have tv or internet)
-go to my apartment rental office
-get a cake from somewhere
-BBQ 5p-9p, which is why I need a cake
-go to the post office
-dishes/ wipe down kitchen
-laundry
-clean the bathroom

This will be my last post until I'm in Colorado. See ya'll out west! =)

I love my mom

This is my mom:

This is what happened when she came over to help me pack yesterday:

This is what I looked like when I had to get up at 6am to drive her to her car:

This is why it's ok:

Yay for my mom, and yay for her making sure I have food for the next five days. Wow...five days.

Happy Anniversary, and single digits!

Happy 1 year anniversary to Todd and me!


Note the hot pink nails, Todd's casual apparel, and the bucket of beer in the background. High class court house ceremony.





And 9 days til moving day! Yay!

So I got a little lazy with my ABC's...

With two weeks to go til moving day, I'm just a wee tad busy. Packing, cleaning, and cramming a semester's worth of client intakes, progress notes and practicum papers does not a happy Sheri make. This is what I get for being a procrastinator. However, I wrote a 20 page paper in less than three days this past week, and it was pretty good if I do say so myself. I work well under pressure. If I didn't, I'd have died by now.

I've been packing and watching an ANTM marathon allllll day. One good thing about being a geo-bachelor(ette) these last almost two years is that I don't have to compromise my TV, and I can gorge on gyros and fries (my lunch today) without Todd's accusing eyes on me. Don't get me wrong, he loves me at any weight. He better--I've gained and lost the same 25 lbs in the last 4.5 years. But he is a health nut. I may have to alter my routine a little when he's around, aka not have Chipolte, Potbelly's, and T-Bell on a weekly basis. My body will probably like me more for it. I might have to lighten up on the buttered noodles for dinner too.

In dog news, I put in our very first, and hopefully last, rescue application this past week. It is through a rescue in Golden, CO called Wiseguys Italian Greyhound Rescue. I emailed back and forth with the Melissa, who I think runs the rescue, and she seemed super nice and was very understanding of my current commuter wife status. I emailed her the application on Thursday afternoon, and I'm already antsy. It's not like we could do a home visit until I get there anyway, so I don't know why I'm obsessively checking my email every five minutes. We are hoping to adopt Puzzle, an almost year old female IG mix. From her description on Petfinder and on their site, plus the extra info Melissa from the rescue gave me, she sounds absolutely perfect for our little family. Here are some pictures of Puzzle's adorableness:

They're a little pixel-y, but I can't make them any smaller. She is about 15 lbs, so even though she's an IG mix, she's still at the upper end of normal IG size. Her brothers are bigger at about 20ish lbs, and her sisters are her size or a little smaller. I'm told she is the most mellow of the girls, but is still a goofy, inquisitive puppy. I can't wait to hear back!

iPod

Today is the letter I, and I'm feeling lazy.

Of course I will be listening to my iPod while my mom and I trek it to Colorado. My sister told me that my iPod was full of lullabies, not driving music. Please give me suggestions for songs to download that are "driving songs". Any genre, decade, etc, and I'll give them a listen.

Home

Today is the letter H.

I took this H picture from another blogspot blog. She makes cool letters. Her name is at the bottom of the letter if you want to check out her blog.

So what is home exactly? Is it where someone is from? Where they currently live? Where their geo-bachelor husband lives and where they're moving in 19 days? I currently have three "homes" and it gets confusing, especially when talking about predeployment leave travel from Colorado Springs to Chicago. I would really like to just have one home, and that most likely will not happen until active duty is over. At least I'll only have two in 19 days, and I think I will consider our house on post our "home". I can't think of it as just a house we happen to live in during this period in our lives. Even the thought makes me feel lonely.

My friend gave us a big panoramic of the Chicago skyline for our wedding. We have a sky view of Comiskey (yes, not The Cell) hanging in our living room, and a cool funky drawing of all of the Chicago neighborhoods in our office. This is all so we can have a "little piece of home" in Colorado. Just because I call Colorado home doesn't mean that I've forgotten where I came from. I'll always love Chicago, but for the time being at least, Colorado will be my home.

Friends

Yes, I slacked this weekend since I was out of town.

Saturday was the letter F. On the same note as Erin's post, I will talk about my friends.

It's funny--when you move or are moving to a cool place, everyone and their brother gets so excited and says they'll visit you. I'm wondering how many people will visit us in the 2 years (at least) that we're in Colorado Springs. I'm betting it won't be very many.

I understand that people have lives, but it would be very nice to have people come out to visit, especially when he is deployed. Of course I practice favortism, and I do hope that some people visit more than others, but I think that's normal. I want the people closer to me to visit the most, obviously. I just realized that I am one of these "oh I'll totally visit you!" people. My friend moved to Norfolk, VA for the Navy. He's been there for over three years, and someone I consider a very good friend. Have I visited? No. What a hypocrite I am.

Erin

Rather than blogging about something directly related to moving or the Army today, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my friend Erin.



Erin and I met in our masters program, and quickly fell in hetero-love. People think we've been friends for much longer than we have been, and I can see why. We have numerous lame inside jokes, love to make fun of people, and are both extremely sarcastic and straightforward. I will be pretty much lost without her in Colorado...I say that in the least pathetic and creepy way possible.



I was so afraid that I wasn't going to make any lasting friendships in grad school. I came in knowing no one, so I just put myself out there. Erin thought I was a massive weirdo at first, and probably sort of a snob, but whatever. I converted her to nerd-dom, and she really helped me stop taking myself, and everyone else, so seriously all the time.



We are having our final "let's drink wine, eat greasy Chinese food, and watch bad TV" night this coming Monday. It makes me a little sad, and I'll probably cry, and then she will make fun of me. Whatev, it's how we do.

This blog makes me feel like an emo kid.

Driving

I am driving to Fort Carson in my little red Escape. My mom is driving in the car with me, and my dad is driving the little 10' moving truck. He doesn't trust either one of us wimmens to drive it, so my mom and I are road trippin'.

Fort Carson is a 16 hour drive from my parent's neighborhood in Chicago (1093 miles) and a 14 hour and 45 minute drive from my little town (1025 miles). It should be an interesting trip for my mom and I. We tend to annoy each other with our driving habits.

According to her, I drive too fast, take turns too fast...basically everything is too fast. My complaints about her are, of course, that she does everything too slow. I'm curious to see how she'll react to the 75mph speed limits through most of Nebraska. I absolutely love it. I'm going to make sure I have some Motown for her on my ipod so she will be too busy rocking out to notice if I'm speeding. I may not speed a lot though--last time I got pulled over 50 miles into my trip for going 81 in a 65. Yay for my Army Wife licence plate holder and a young cop--I got a written warning that said 74 in a 65. I'm willing to bet my dad will get pulled over though. He is a speed demon, and has gotten pulled over in almost every state he's driven through, at least in the midwest.

Carson, and a little bit about California

Fort Carson that is. Today is the letter C. I will be moving to Fort Carson, Colorado, and it is bordered some seriously beautiful Mountains. However, Fort Carson is also like it's own little city. So not only do I have to learn my way around Colorado Springs, with it's twisty streets with five names apiece, but I have to learn my way around Carson, which also has twisty streets that mysteriously dead end, and different entrances on different roads. I am not the best with directions, so this poses as a challenge. I also have extreme anxiety about getting lost in unfamiliar places. I have a recurring nightmare about being lost, and I always wake up sweating.

Thank god I love maps. The husband got me a great map of all of Colorado Springs, and one of my Cav wife friends scored me a very easy to read map of Carson, complete with where important buildings are. I also thank god that he got new orders to Carson at the last minute--we were supposed to go to Fort Hood, Texas. That place is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, or so I've heard.

http://www.carson.army.mil/

Now a little tidbit about Fort Irwin, California, aka, "The Box". Todd got there yesterday for NTC. He is not too excited about it, but I am. Why am I happy about my husband training for his upcoming deployment in the California desert, you ask? Because when he comes home to Colorado, I'll be there.

Babies and Bookshelves

Although babies won in my poll, I cannot ignore my poor empty bookshelves. Today is the letter B.

The teddy bear seemed fitting since we're talking about babies. What do babies have to do with moving, you ask? A lot when you're moving onto an Army post in 3.5 weeks. We don't have any kids, and sometimes I feel like quite the outcast around my Cav wife friends. Everyone has kids or is pregnant...or both. My uterus is a barren cave right now, and we plan on keeping it that way for a few more years. While I might feel my ovaries go all a-flutter when I see a cute kid, it definitely goes away when they start screaming, pooping, eating, etc. No way man.

Thankfully, I've recently met two pretty cool fellow Cav wives that have no plans for kids for awhile either. One lives in my neighborhood, and the other's husband is deploying with mine. I'm hoping for childfree girls nights in our future.

Now onto bookshelves. I started packing last weekend, and even though I only packed up my books and decluttered, my apartment feels so empty. Behold, my empty bookshelves, and all my glorious books in boxes:

Very sad, but we have two empty bookshelves in Colorado waiting to be filled. This also means that I can buy more books.

Any recommendations would be lovely.

A game.

So I was reading another knottie blog, and she was playing the alphabet game--a new post for each letter of the alphabet. Since I move in 26 days, I thought, "Hey, there are 26 letters in the alphabet!" Smart, right? So for the next 26 days, I will blog about my thoughts and various other things about moving in alphabetical order. Today, of course, is A.


A is for anxiety.

As much as I am looking forward to moving, I'm pretty nervous about it. I have a ton of stuff to do for school, not to mention packing up my whole life, in the next four weeks. Plus, as much as I love it out there now, what if I hate it? What if I can't find an internship or a job? What if 15 months in a new place without my husband turns me into a crazy person? What if I can't make any friends? So yeah, I'm just a little anxious about this massive change that's about to take place in my life. I think it's normal though, especially since he will be deployed for 15 months not too long after I get there. For the most part, I'm staying positive.

Having faith and taking adventures are all part of being a Cav wife right? Hooah, and all that jazz.

I leave for Colorado one month from today!