Homeschooling/Roadschooling our way

I've decided that the time the have stared out the windows staring at the rain, puddles and not the birds playing in the puddles counts as nature study. Especially when it was when they were supposed to be doing math or writing.

Never mind getting them to write in a notebook about what they've seen. That would make us serious experts in Classical or Charlotte Mason or whatever. We are no experts here. On anything except *maybe* slowly loosing our minds. On that I can assure you I'm at expert level.

Largely because it's raining. AGAIN. I swear to you I have moved to Seattle. This home on wheels in only intended for living in dry southern CA where it does not rain.  And now with the new added feature of wind it not only leaks in the known places (which I swear is pretty much the entire roof perimeter) it blows in through the vent and air conditioning unit in the roof. Not that we have a whole lot of floor space to walk in, it's better without the buckets catching drips - on the floor or my bed.

BUT after pretty much exhausting the options on rentals, great ones (well from the online listing or road) being already rented, others being too small or just nasty dirty and smelly, others I thought were perfectly acceptable but none of which called Larry's name and seeing every known house, neighborhood within 30 minutes of base that was for sale or rent we bid on a short sale being told - sorry- assured- that it could close in 45 days but at day 15 it hadn't really moved anywhere and we were being told we needed to understand "these things take time" which I responded  that we only bid on it because we were assured that it would close in 45 days but if they couldn't even get the process rolling in 15 then we were going to cut bait and run. Because frankly closing by Christmas will drive me out of my mind much much faster than closing by Halloween. Especially if this stupid rain keeps up. I told our agent to pass on the other one that a little honesty upfront wouldn't have lost the chance of a sale or wasted 2 weeks of my life. In fact I'd like to lock him in a camper with the rain with my 4 kids and see how quickly he would have gone crazy.

So.. we looked at our other options and other houses and were in the process of bidding on a somewhat more sure bet one squirrel trail led to another and a late night change of plans led us to bidding on a house we'd previously excluded being out of our price range but dragged into it because.. well.. because it was going to be cheaper in a few days and the builder was ready to sell it asap and willing to make a deal. Ironically this neighborhood the first week we got here we ruled out as being a little too foo-foo. It later became a top pick- mostly because it was close, had dock, water, pool and exercise room. HOWEVER it also comes with an HOA. Of which I've only read 31 pages of the 65 or so of the restrictive covenants and other HOA related materials. Our house doesn't have a flower bed so I won't get fined for not having live flowers in it. I'm going to assume that parking on the road is a problem but they have a lot for us to park the camper at if we keep it. *IF* and that's once it gets back from it's prospective 6 month stay at the RV repair spa. We have an extended warranty and know how to use it.

Back to the house - We've never had a new house before. This is going to be a new experience. Assuming all goes as planned and no new hiccups occur. Probably need to double check about the mortgage having everything it needed.

And it's further from the water so much less likely to have a first floor filled with water should that first hurricane get here. Tho with the wind blowing like it is maybe I should check the weather...

So yesterday as the weather and I conspired to confine and torture the kids with schoolwork they took it upon them selves to fog up with windows with their breath and write "HELP" on them. So help me.... if ever I am blogging from a jail cell I can tell you I'm innocent and my kids are somehow the culprit.

Two of said culprits just got back from collecting sand and shells. There are 2 shark teeth. more signs. I should fill in the rest of back story to that- But later- I have a beach to walk on.

Life in the small house

Small houses are all the rage. I guess those don't realize that there is huge populations of people that have been doing this forever. They used to scornfully call those people trailer trash. Honestly the main difference between a tiny house and trailer trash is where your tiny house is parked. The right neighborhood makes all the difference.  We still wait for more permanent housing. And since we've been less than thrilled with our neighbors here we shopped around for other trailer parks. And I realize not all are the same and honestly if we just bought a plot of land with sewer and electric we could be all set. Although showering is still a hassle in the camper.

But since a picture says a million words here is our life

The front "cabin" now the makeshift library.

The classroom. Under those books is painter's tape. It's divided into 4, although 4 do not think they fit there at all.

shower. Also doubles as the laundry hamper, clothes dryer hanger thing and catcher of leaking roof drips

living room area. minus kids who are outside now. without rain and 100 degree heat outside is more appealing.

kitchen. this is across from the living room area above. Enough counter space for 2 coffee cups. coffee maker has to go into the closet to make room to cook.

microwave. also dish drainer storer and bread holder. this is not household size nothing sized larger than 1/3 actual size fits in either the microwave or toaster. that's a micro-dish drainer. I'm pretty sure it should have been sold in the doll size dish section of Ikea. But having no counterspace for anything else and this thing hangs off the wall.. it's what we have.

another view of the kitchen/stove.

the beds. Bunk bed and double bed in back. The dining room table and couch also turn into beds.

micro-closet. hanging all our coats, Larry uniform and storing most of the clothing. It might look big but I assure you it doesn't fit much.

storage. seriously at a premium here. this is cleaning suppliesa, extra whatever, kid stuff,etc.

the school work shelves. Not sure that TV works, as the rest of the entertainment system in the RV has not worked. It came with it and hogs that space. but it's deceptive. It's not deep enough to hold a regular size binder or book.  so it's about 8 inches deep instead of the 8.5 in you need for that sort of thing.

6 of us share this. There are 2 towel rods so that's pretty much the way the kids just stuff towels up. And unlike real houses you have to deal with the stuff that comes out in regular plumbing. For your household it's about every 3-4 d that I have to empty the tanks and do laundry.  I have over the door hooks over the side of the shower door that hang robes and towels if anyone bothered to try to hang towels there. in theory it was a good idea. in actuality it' turns into a huge face level mass of wet towel/robes that blocks the mirror.

So that's it. not glamorous. I could take pictures of all the storage cubbies but I doubt it's all that exciting to anyone else. Besides then I'd feel compelled to clean them first to make it look uber organized instead of the general shove-it-in-quick-and-close-the-door-before-it-falls-out way that things tend to revert to. if you have any doubt look at the bathroom picture or the storage shelve pictures. 

Finally the weather has broken

We were promised that it would get better. Yesterday was absolutely glorious. No too hot, not raining, humidity under 100%.

Got school work done and spent the afternoon at the beach. Larry and the boys spend the night hours fishing. We are having fresh caught shrimp tonight for dinner.  He's been spoiled living here at the beach - all the fishing, shrimping, crabbing and clamming is just a short walk away.

I'm re-thinking most of my earlier curriculum choices and now that I have a post office box I can actually get mail.

That was an unexpected frustration in this whole move- when you move without a forwarding address you can send it to "general delivery" at a main post office at your new town. Well.. I choice Camp Lejeune. But apparently I chose the wrong main zip code because when I got there they didn't have any mail and had to look up where it was actually sent- which is downtown Jacksonville.

And while using the term 'downtown' is really a stretch here. it's definitely out of the way and hard to find. My GPS is totally unable to find it and insists it's in Jacksonville, Florida. (sigh, technology)

And when we got there to get the mail, I ask, can I get a PO box? and the answer is " you need proof of physical address- registration, drivers license, lease, etc" to which I looked at him and said "if I had that I wouldn't need a PO box" And he tells me 'oh, that's ok, you can have it sent general delivery for up to a month" so which I reply "it's already been 3 weeks." he says, well, as far as concerned, it started today." gee, thanks.

So this goes on a few weeks when I go to the base post office (the one that didn't have our mail) to cash in a money order (long sorrid story of shipping a car going sideways) and ask them, can I get a PO box? I brought a copy of Larry's orders knowing that usually gets us far on base.  Sure, he replies and hands me the same form. I start filling it out and hit the same "physical address" part and instructions that I need 2 proofs of physical address.. and look at him and say "this part is a problem"  He says "what's your husband's unit, put that there"
Seriously, that's it?
That's it.
I have a copy of his orders..
That's fine. I don't need them.

Oh glory day.

On to update addresses for all things like bank statements and credit cards...

So I can get the mail actually delivered, hopefully.

The other rather unexpected part in this is that when you use your credit card at the pump and it tells you to put in your zip code... it's hard to remember it. In a military town I don't get too many crazy looks when I have to pull out my phone to look up my address and zip. Usually I just say "we're new, I'm having a hard time remembering it"

We bid on a short sale house. It's a lovely house and we have absolutely no furniture to put in it. Almost absolutely, practically speaking. It's more house than we need. But it has all hard wood floors and I really like that idea. PLUS it has washer/dryer hook ups. And a real size kitchen and fridge. Another huge bonus and it probably wouldn't be TOO hard to put a gas tank and line in for my dryer.  BUT you can see the water from it - as in the water that rises when a hurricane visits. So I am almost guarantee you that the first real hurricane of the season will be the month after we close on it if we get it. It's ok as long as I'm mentally geared up for that. It's not like we'll have had time to buy furniture for the thing.  I'm still not entirely sure what is on that moving truck since we sold and gave away so much stuff including furniture. It will be like Christmas when we actually do get to open that truck and boxes.

In all it's having a real shower I miss the most. The shower in the camper is good to rinse but not enough water comes out to actually de-soap or de-shampoo so we a trek down to the public bath house for showering. Besides if your use the camper one then you have to empty out your grey water tank that much faster and I'd have to find somewhere else to put my dirty clothes hamper. Some camp grounds have nice laundry and bath houses. This isn't one of them. But it's cheap, it's on the water for fishing and on the beach for swimming. Priorities, people, really. who needs clean clothes and bodies when there is salt water to be in?

 I thought it would be washer and dryer I missed most and those are a close second. I'm almost to the point where I think I don't need a dishwasher - it's kinda nice having the dishes washed, dried and put away without having to empty the dishwasher hours later and sort clean vs dirty dishes.  I do miss counter space and wish I had a full size dish drainer not the 'it looked good at Ikea' wall one that isn't intended for any of the dishes sizes we have. Not having a washer/dryer or storage space to store dirty clothes it's dramatically changed my view on clothing -  every day they need clean underwear. Aside from that, if it isn't visibly dirty or smelly it can be worn again. Some of the family are better at staying cleaner than others. Especially when there is salt water and sand to be digging in.

Blogging is a one way conversation

A personal soap box if you will.  Some people pick a topic and choose to educate their audience... this blog is really just my way of venting. One of the main reasons I stopped blogging was that those near and dear to me were feeling distressed by the blog and felt one of 4 things needed to happen:

1. I needed to stop telling the world my thoughts - people might get the wrong idea about me
2. They needed to get on the email and tell me I was wrong and why
3. They needed to get on the phone and call and voice their concerns to me or
4. Call others to try to fix what ever my blog was about

So from this point forward- and I'm pretty sure I wrote this before and look to the right at my disclaimer- This blog is just me venting. If reading it renders distress or an overwhelming need to fix me PLEASE read someone else's blog.  I can come up with a few suggestions if you need them. I can even tell you it's my blog.

That said we can now return to our regularly scheduled venting/therapy session...

Life still goes on and I think I am now qualified to write 'professional beach bum' on my resume.  We are going on 4 weeks at the beach now and honestly it's not as bad as the rest of the world seems to think it must be. Don't misunderstand- it's not a cushy life - but it has some advantages when it isn't raining.  The kids and Larry have fully embraced the lifestyle and love to catch fish, shrimp, crab... and this weekend they added clamming to their skill set.

Clams- I am not a fan.  The boys like them just fine, Sonia described them as " chewy salt water"  which I thought was  a pretty accurate description. Said chewy salt water will be chowder for tonight's dinner, tho....

Yesterday was Sunday -  and another fail for the search category.  I started looking at it like jury selection- Larry and I each get a certain number of 'rejection' cards. yesterday we were both willing to excuse that juror/church..

The other day I went for a walk on my own at the beach. Alone- to clear my head and pray and as I was walking I was praying and asking God for a sign - I looked down and saw a shark tooth. I was thinking a friend who has stories upon stories of signs from God.. and I  heard " you don't ask for signs" And then I  asked " what was that a sign of?"  I forgot to specify. I guess it was a sign that God is still present in my life, still hears, still cares. Even when I'm convinced my soul is going to shrivel and waste away if I don't find a good church and fellowship here, God is here. I have a tooth to remind me.

We have peeing ghosts again

If you know my peeing ghosts story we've been friends practically forever. But it goes back to our Mansfield house- we bought it and started rennovating the kitchen. And I'd often be the first one there and honestly it had a pretty eerie vibe..  But I started noticing that there were puddles in the middle of the floor. The floor around it was dry so I decided (in my hyper spiritual days) that the house was possessed and athe ghosts were peeing on the floor and started praying over it.

 God heard me and shortly afterward he sent aa hurricane that downgraded to a tropical storm just before it hit our location. And thus revealed I did not have peeing ghosts, I had a leaking roof which was running down the walls and a pooling up from the low area of the floor.

I am much smarter now and when there were large puddles on the counter of the bathroom I thought I had sloppy kids. Until another downpour came and I could see it running down the walls.  This camper is SOOOOO being sold if I have any say in it.

But the new thing we learned today is that thunder is loud and that not all lightening is as close as it would appear..  But when you are camping on a island surrounded by a storm it all seem rediculously close..

And I hae kids way oversenitive to loud sounds they didn't produce ( because if it's their noise they have no problem) pacing in the camper with their fingers in their ears.

We're at the library now. I told them it was a tornado shelter.

Sunday Sunday..

The absolute worst part of moving is not the actual moving of stuff, the leaving friends behind, the backbreaking actual moving, cleaning and the frustration of finding somewhere to live. No believe it or not the part I like least about moving is finding a church.

I have a feeling this will be a weekly blog theme for a bit.

You see we are not Catholic, Southern Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopal or anyother just find the nearest parish/church and go. We are not liturgical people, much to my father's dismay. Our last church was officially an "evangelical free" church but we'd go to community churches, interdenominational churches or pretty much any church that has reasonable music and bases their beliefs and teachings on the Bible..

I'd like to say we're not picky but apparently I might be. We've been to slain in the spirit churches where the congregation lined up like communion to be slain - people were falling everywhere and wondering why Larry looked so uncomfortable much less still standing, to all african american attendee churches, to a church where the pastor was preaching until the spirit told him to stop. Not sure at what point that was because at 2:00 we bailed... (it started at 10:30 or 11..)  to one where we were told to go to different stations and feel the spirit while music played - one was rocks, one was water - I dunno- to appreciate nature?? We've been to Baptist churches and didn't know to know give our real address on the new person card- because putting a real address or filling that card out means that they will be at your door Wednesday night. I have a whole collection of mugs from baptist churches because it seems that the first time you go you get a mug of candy.  We even attended a Southern Baptist church for 3 yrs because our options were that limited.. I mean really I don't think I'm THAT picky. But I guess we weren't real Baptists since I rarely went Wed night and we all know you need to go Sunday School, Sunday service, Sunday night and Wednesday to be a real Baptist. If you didn't know that I didn't either for the first 2.5 yrs we went there and then I just didn't care that much being a yankee and all...

Anyway, we've kissed ALOT of frogs. And we(I)  thought (I)we'd gotten a method down to find a new church  - and the advent of internet and websites helps alot- but sadly we are still in the frog kissing stage.

Let me take a moment to say once again, I loved our old church. I understand that no church will ever be like it. I'm ok with a few basic requirements. But if they wanted to open a venue I'd be first in line to go.

Church fail #1 - we went on recommendation of a friend we knew from our old church and BSF. I thought if someone was going to be particular about their church this would be it. We get there (late, it was an hour away!) and go the the 'I'm new here' booth to ask where the kids go. Up through 5th grade has the kids' program and were escorted there. 6th and up go so service with adults. There was a point in my life when I believed in the family integrated church... I'm past that now. And while my kids have learned alot listening to our 'adult' sermons from our beloved church it was nice they had an option for the kids that included small groups.  But back to this fail- the sermon had a summary of some TED(?) talk and was a book report about "The Scarlet Letter."  I felt like I was back in the Episcopal church except there were probably 800 people there.. and the liturgy was more than 5 minute. There was referenced to bible verses with out actual reading of those verses ("the bible says to love each other" sort of reference-) and there was 1-2 verses actually quoted.   While I'm sure there were people that need this sort of church.. I really felt like I was in a self improvement seminar with a casual wave to God.

Church fail #2- less a fail but don't see us going back was a recommendation from a realtor we started working with.  On paper and in the website it looked good - I mean they even had "growth groups" which was our beloved church's code for small groups - except they had only 1 for adults and it was monday nights (which we were told from our monday night group it was the hardest night to hold small group on..)  And it was a odd mix. I think it was modeled more on Bethel Church based on their music selection being only from their church. But we go to their "new person" desk - check in and again - only have stuff for kids k-5th grade.   They lost Larry when the  music said to move to the right and move to the left and jump and the congregation was doing it - kinda like the Charlie Brown or Tootsie Roll or whatever that dance is these days..  And the pastor subscribed to The Rock pastor's method of having people repeat words which well, in style points- that's just not us.

I find it ironic that when we moved to what we thought was going to be a drought of Christ followers there was many Bible preaching, very alive churches but here in the Bible belt this seems to be a rare fish.

Still fishing. Still find frogs. Although the fishing and catching snapping turtles is probably a better metaphor to use.

Speaking of fishing.. apparently Larry really loves this whole beach fishing thing. As do the kids. I tell him "my people don't do these sort of things" but they've all learned how to use cast nets and catch shrimp. (pictures at 11:00)  What almost amuses me is the sign that says to leave the alligator alone. THAT would be a better analogy- when you catch the alligator when you're fishing for fish.. apparently you just cut your line and move one. And that's what we're doing - cutting the line and moving on..

That's a cast net.

Joey and the 'kid sized net'

If you're wondering - Shrimping with a Cast net is a low tide, night time activity. This event is taking place about 11pm, good thing we homeschool... the kids would love to cast net all day long, however you can't see what you are catching and they've caught all sorts of things that they weren't trying for- Jelly fish, pencil fish, fish fish, crab and frankly I'm ill equipped to deal with the accidentally caught stuff. Like I say- often  these days- "my people aren't made for this" I'm not sure what of "my people" I'm referring to but my parents weren't sea/water/beach people and I really never acquired a taste for this sort of activity.

living head on shrimp. Their eyes glow orange.

brushing off the dust of this blog

Sorry I know it's hard to see through the haze of dust here. It's been a while since I've had THIS much life upheaval that I needed a regular outlet. I'd call that a good thing. Mostly.

And boy have I had material to write about but my computer died a painful death about day 4 of the adventure. While it's been touchy with the power cord for years it appears that all the moving it around was the kiss of death. So it hit low priority to hack into my account because I don't remember logins or passwords for anything...   And it's not first in line for technology failure in my life. My first link to the world my cell phone was first in line. IS first in line. Back in may it stopped backing up. It ran out of memory because I'm a spaz with pictures.. I needed to get pictures off to free enough memory to update and I needed to back up the pictures which it wouldn't do....

This is the point where my brother would point out this must be inherently because I use an apple product. And this is the point that I will point out that for 4 years my apple product worked very well..

Back to the current life. Actually let's back up about 6 weeks because that really sets the stage for where we are now.

6 weeks ago (cue music and blurry screen)

We were still in CA. Our moving truck arrived and we had just found tenants for our home. Our home was in the middle of getting new plumbing so that it wouldn't have another plumbing leak while we were renting it out AND it was finally getting the backsplash for the kitchen and new paint.

We hired help. This should have gone beautifully. I should only have needed to finish packing because we were also hiring cleaners.

HOWEVER

the painters. I don't even know where to go with them. I spend 2 days chasing them around wiping up paint they got on everything, including carpet, cabinets and even the rabbit. I kid you not. Supposedly they had a license to paint. I do not believe them at all.

the cleaner spent 3 hours was surprised when I said yes to her 'do you expect me to vacuum?" I could have and did spend 3 DAYS cleaning... and finally gave up.

the movers- I had a perfect system - I had triaged all the boxes - the must move, vs 'if there is room on the truck' move us boxes. The hired movers put everything on the truck, buried 10feet deep.  We got the first 1/2 the truck filled with about 1/4 of our household items. As we realized this we started taking everything else apart to the smallest component including all the particle board stuff that will never make it back together again. seriously not sure why we bothered moving it.. but it's on the truck.

The truck itself - ever seen those mini tractor trailers with "ABF" on the side - that's what all our stuff went into. The theory is great- we fill it, they move and store it for us until we have a home. The jury is still out. Right now I'm saying 'never again' and I'll just let the military move us. HOWEVER will will have to pare down our belongings.. we were several thousand pounds over our weight limit and that would have cost us if they were moving us. I have my suspecions about what put us over our limit and 90% sure that of our 6 person family 1 person and all his heavy toys put us well over that limit. I mean really - have you ever weight a gun safe? And he left a TON - technically probably 3 tons of crap in CA.

Now this all is the normal moving stuff. Where the crazy part ratchets up is that we bought a motor home. A 35 foot used motor home. For a great price - so low that we should have known it was a run for the hills sort of deal. Larry is never one to run from a challenge and took it on.
We bought the extended warranty for it - the kind you add on and hope they cover what breaks - thinking 'well, at least it will get fixed when it breaks'

However unlike homes or cars when they break no one is on any sort of urgency time table to fix said thing.

So we picked it up in Jan. took it camping one weekend and  found out that the hydraulic parts weren't' working. brought it to a rv fix it place who took custody of it for 2 months.  between the "repair" and the extra things Larry needed onto it to tow the car and stabilize it so we didn't kill ourselves driving it.. it was 2 months and not. cheap.

Then he spends 2 weeks doing more add on repairs to add an inverter/welding stuff on the frame, batteries, etc... this is the last month- last weeks- last day we were in CA.  When I say that that RV has become a sore spot with me I am not exaggerating.  He thinks I over react. I can tell you I don't over-react I just slowly simmer forever until I hit a boil over point. It's been at a hard boil for a while now. I was ready to drive it into straight off a dock into the water yesterday... (spoiler alert: hydraulic parts have been repaired twice now and still don't work)

Have to run. Will be back-  Wild offspring have hit their boiling point and I need to go run them for a while outside of this 35 foot cabin.. so off to 100% humidity, the smell of low tide and sweat that can't evaporate even if it tried.

So it takes a state exam on vaccines for my 3rd grader to bring out my blogging mania.

There really hasn't been all that much time for me to blog. Or I manage it poorly. Or both.

But as a personal discipline thing I 've found as soon as I turn on the computer - even for 'just one quick thing' that minutes suddenly evaporate.  And that's a big reason for me to just.leave.it.off. I have internet/email/facebook on my phone and it is there to quickly check when I really only have a few minutes -  like in the parent pick up line.. it's finite.

But today, my friends, I picked up kids from said parent pick up line (which itself could be several blog posts on terribly behaving parents) in reply to my question of "how was your day?" I got "TERRIBLE!"
Well, I've gotten that reply once before in response to pre-teen drama. Today was because of the standardized testing.

Of course this is my child that cannot guess if she doesn't know the answer. She NEEDS to know it's right before she'll click submit. I'm sure she'll need therapy and lots of it at some point.

But the question that tripped her up was "what 3 shots are required at 6 months?" and was based on a chart provided.

First of all.. it is 5 shots "required" at 6 months. 6 if you include the oral vaccine as a shot. 7 if you're going to have a 6 month old during flu vaccine season.

Second of all.. this is 3rd grade, not nursing school.

And this makes me wonder "what else are the testing them on?!?!!???"  I would like to see a copy of said test, frankly. 

In other news..

We survived the Firestorm of the Century. And while I'd like to never, ever go through that again I know full well that we may well enter into North Carolina just in time to experience the hurricane of the century.
If they are going to have another evacuate the school emergency I'd just as soon not be a part of it. Wednesday they evacuated several schools. Including our middle school and elementary school. What happened was the middle school was called first. I don't know what their procedure was but with flames at the driveway apparently they weren't checking IDs or anything. Those parents promptly drove down to the elementary school and started pickup up their younger kids.

However, the elementary has a brand new "you much have your ID checked against the master emergency contact card policy" which means.. it's not as simple as releasing the hounds. They have the parent stay in the tiny office while they page the kid.  On a normal day it takes my kids 20 minutes to be released if I have to take them out early for an apt or something.

So.. you can imagine as it's snowing ashes on the school grounds the level of panic was building as the line of parents was out the door and down the road. literally.

I was blissfully unaware at work that there was any sort of thing going on until the manager looked especially panicked and asked if "I was OK?" and while working there often I have not OK days it wasn't the worst. I said "am I supposed to not be ok?" when she told me the county was on fire and they were waiting for instructions on what to do.  About 10 minutes later my neighbor texted me the picture from her backyard of flames and told me she was getting her son, should she get mine, also?

I left. Right then. They couldn't find my last patient and I told them if they did find her, they had lost me, got in the car and hit Armageddon levels of traffic.

So.. what I had never planned for in all our "if it hits the fan" scenarios was what to do when all major roadways are gridlocked/closed due to fire. Most of the freeways were closed due to fires and it blocked the secondary roads.   I'm a country girl. I know pretty much every secondary/tertiary/unimproved road, paved or no. But it still took an hour to get to the school.

Once there...

A little background - we live in the "country" here. This means that this is horse country. LOTS of horses and when you evacuate you take said horses with you. So.. at the school parking lot it looked like Noah's ark- trucks, horse trailers left any which way, everyone with a pet was up there. Dogs on leashes galore. No one could leave anything in a car since it was over 100 degrees... so just picture a line of 300 panicking parents, 100 barking dogs and horses and horse trailers in smoke and ash.. it was.. awesome.

While in said line, which of course moved up at a snails pace they decide to send out the emergency call to evacuate. This means that now EVERYONE has to be called and show up with ID and pick up their kid. There is no waiting until 2:30 to get in the drive though lane (which it jammed with horses) Pure chaos.  We got home and later that evening we got a robo call from school 'thanking everyone for their patience as they followed their safety procedures' (well I was there there were alot of NOT patient people, I guess this is the new rule on changing parental behavior) and they were 'proud to announce all students were safely released to an emergency contact by 5 pm" Are you kidding?! it took them 5 hours?! What if this was an actual emergency???   Call 911???  I'd actually be surprised if there weren't parents calling 911 from the back of the line.

Yet another check in the "homeschool next year" column.   Because in the unlikely event of an actual emergency you just can't depend on them handling it they way you'd like them to.

And now I bet they will add a new drill to the school drills- fire, earthquake, lockdown and now fire-surrounding-the-school drills.

So.. since our earthy possessions were not reduced to ash I have started culling and packing things. The fire and packing the cars to evacuate gave real perspective on life, though - everything priceless and irreplaceable easily fit in the car. The rest is mostly for sale on Craiglist. 

Edited to Add: Bragging moment:

One of my kids tested highest in his class on all the standardized tests. Of both classes. His sister was close behind.

While I don't usually take this testing stuff seriously or brag about it- this time it means something because of THAT other parent. You know the one that on an open house night with EVERYOTHER parent there she has to make sure she asks if the teacher it up to teaching her more advanced children? Because they're so brilliant and all.. And she asks several times in a few different ways because they need to be taught more and challenged, etc... etc... YES. My twins beat your twins.!!  But I won't be making any announcement to the class. just here. Although I guess next year those top spots will be open again for her kids.. bah.

Am I just that cranky today?

We're only 2 days into Larry's week of night call so I really shouldn't be that cranky yet. But this afternoon I was considering joining one of those species that eats their young. Not that I really would, but...

A prime example of the day was at "parent pick up" time. Other schools have school buses. We all have to get into one of 2 assigned lines and wait for a teacher with a megaphone to call our kids to the curb.  TODAY 2 kids decide to do the 'no you go in first' dance while the rest of the dozens of parents/kids wait for them to GET.IN.THE.CAR Next time I leave their butts. Seriously. I threatened to do that when one of my dear cherubs decided to not hear her name called maybe 12 times, ignored her sibling who went to get her, so she could finish her game/conversation. 

So I bring that home to try to keep them from killing each other or inciting others to kill them. I know when they were little my goal was to raise them to be perfect little beings. Now I'm just happy that when they finally fall asleep that they're all still alive. Today they had to fight over a pencil (twice, actually) we easily have 100 pencils here. THIS pencil, was worth 1000 pencils, of course, and it wasn't like they were even doing homework with it! No, better, they were writing in each other's notebooks either scribbling nonsense or calling each other names in writing.  But wait! It gets better in the course of the pencil snatching, running away/holding it behind their back/you-can't-get-it game that was going on, someone gets stabbed in the face with the pencil.  FAILING parenting here. And I quit before someone looses an eye and I get to explain THAT to the emergency room.

So I finally get them in bed, confiscate the flashlights and all other forms of light that are allowing them to fight sleep and I see a "you must see" military tribute movie.. ok. I need SOMETHING to put me in a better more before I end up eating chocolate with wine and playing some stupid game on the computer.. Ah, it has world war II vets, that's touching. Yes, that war sucked and no the current generation doesn't get it. Oh, wait, there's saluting.. OK, yeah, I can see the Vets saluting the new guys, it's a respect thing.. no wait.. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? DIRECTOR!! Did you research military protocol? The civilian kids don't saulte! Civilians don't salute. Sure stand in respect.. but. ARGH.  We have been a military family too long. I can no longer watch all those stupid military feel good things without pointing out the incorrect stuff about it. Medical shows, also gone.   The leaves the shows on vampires, which is just so ... eh..  Maybe if we had cable I'd watch something with food. Or not. Then I'd be hungry.

Yep it's just a cranky nothing going to fix this sort of night. I'll go find the chocolate. Chocolate fixes everything but my clothing size.

Life marches on

And I have so little to say these days.

The kids are fine. School is ok.  One of the teachers has found an app that can tell me minute by minute my child's behavior. or so it seems. I get about 6 emails a day from it. And I'm going to start charting the mood of the teacher based on the calendar/moon/astrological signs. She makes me crazy.

Although crazy is the people I see at work. Literally. And then I realize it's much easier to work in a place you know you are leaving in a few months. And I started collecting boxes for this move. From work. It's kinda fitting.

We bought an RV to do this cross country nomad thing this time. One of my bigger complaints in the whole moving thing was that we were essentially homeless for 4 weeks. This time we will have a home, it has an engine. Although the whole forwarding address thing I still need to work out some details on.

The RV is used. And was (relatively, as far as motorhomes go) cheap. This means that Larry has been spending a fair amount of time trying to get it to run as it's supposed to. This was after 3 visits to pick up said RV without it being mechanically sound/repaired. It's been a learning experience.  Part of that learning experience involves learning just how upset an RV parked on the street makes some people. Apparently, some people wish they lived in a area with an HOA.  They leave anonymous notes in all caps sharpie marker handwriting. Give a very unstable serial killer vibe.  We of course are not the sort who like to live in an HOA so we did not chose a house in a neighborhood that had one. And quoting city laws as county laws does not cause us to bend to anonymous letter's wills.... 

We still do not have written orders which means we can't continue our moving plans or reservations. The whole lack of orders thing is SOP here these days because of the budget/money/govt.  While some are more than willing to mortgage our future and send aid to every country BUT the US.. they think the DOD is too big and too many expenses and so it's been a problem for some time now.   Don't get me started.

So without written orders in hand I have started collecting moving boxes and purging and estimating weights and amount of moving truck we'll need and realize... we still have alot of stuff.  Like a full 27 foot truck worth. But moving has it's good points - like the every 3-4 year looking at everything we own and deciding if it's something we really need afterall.. we keep the treasured, the memories...    Nostalgia need not apply. She confuses everything.

Did you get my Christmas card?

If you did it's a miracle since I didn't send any.

Again.

I will next year, since it's pretty likely that we'll have a new address. Although I say that and I think only 5 people bother sending us cards this year. Maybe I'll just send those people a card in October with the new address. Assuming we have one by then. If I send it before Halloween can it count as a seriously delinquent and rather early card?

But since so many others do a year in review letter with their cards, maybe I'll do that here.

So let's see....

2013

We did some memorable things. On the homestead front we went to a Rabbit raising and butchering class. Then we bought the cages to raise said rabbits.

And then I had a healthy smack to the head from reality and we never did get the rabbits. I sold half the cages, but I still have 1/2 of them left, for a really good price, if anyone would like them.

The healthy smack from reality came from the 2013 great quail massacre. I'll spare you the gory details, but they were very gory. And my dear sweet husband was away that month. So upon his arrival I informed him that there will be no further quail and no further talk of rabbit. I'm not sure he completely believed me because he moved and kept the quail cages, but they are unoccupied.

We still have a few chickens. I'm not sure if we are really terrible chicken owners or if they just aren't meant to live that long, but between selling 3 and nature we're down to 5 chickens. And a rabbit and a cat.

The cat was a recent addition this spring. We'd had 2 cats in the previous year disappear, so a free kitten to make child k stop crying about wanting a new kitten to replace the previously disappeared 2 seemed like a short lived solution to the problem. Previous attempts at feline domestication here lasted 2 months at most. This cat is going on a year. And I'm pretty sure the second I put down the chunk of change to get her fixed, she too will disappear, so I need to time this right that we're not going to be moving a cat across country with us.   But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

We had my parents visit and threw a joint JM/Kayla party at that time. I'm in the midst of trying to plan 2 parties 2 weeks apart and realizing that as much as they don't like the whole "share our birthday party" thing it was at least on my end, somewhat easier.  But as it is, we're aiming for 2 separate but slightly equal parties.

The kids survived school and I've never had such a breath of relief when Joey promoted out of his class last year. I'm still stunned that she's still employed but we all know nepotism is alive and well. At the risk of sounding like an overbearing whiny difficult parent I still think about writing a letter to the principal and superintendent about what I think they really should address. Although it's not my battle anymore. But heaven knows I do like writing to people to try to right wrongs. Or at least write about the writing I want to write is probably more accurate.
 
We went to Texas to become Texas residents and crash at my brother's home and pretend like we'd be able to move there in the next decade.

We went to Colorado to meet my family for a first in a long time family reunion. While I may not have appreciated the rustic bedding, cold and rainy temperatures and terrible food my kids reported that it was the absolute best vacation. ever. based on the horse back riding, zip lining, dodgeballing and craft hall. And the cousins. I think you could take the cousins to a landfill and they'd have fun. And the boys would probably try to out boy the others.   We've added 4 more national parks to our travels and pictures. THIS year I promise myself I'm going to actually make photobooks.

This starting school year, 2013-2014  in historical fashion, of all the teachers there was one "anyone but Ms X" that I don't even remember speaking aloud that we got as a teacher. But what doesn't kill us will make us stronger and will make a psychiatrist rich in the future... I might have filed myself as a private school with the state so that I could remove him from his public school and into my private school when I've totally had enough. Of course this won't be compatible with my attempt to work school hours. And this may well be our option next year. More on next year(this year) later.

Kayla's class had a play, an environmental play. (I am beginning to think this is the only kind of play an elementary school puts on, having now sat through 4 kids in 4 plays all of them having an environmental theme.) She was the "moderately good witch" and did a good job of it. I have video I haven't tried to get off the camera yet. We don't use the video camera. I don't know why, I don't. But I busted it out for this only to realize that the memory card that I use in my normal camera didn't fit. So assuming the video camera has internal memory (I assume this, since I do remember taping something once) taping shows my age. I mean RECORDING something and uploading it with some complicated online program.    Anyway, as the moderately good witch's mom, I got to costume said child and she totally rocked the old bridesmaid dress that had the bottom hemmed irregularly. Glad my mom had that hanging around.

2013 was our "disney" year where we purchased southern California annual passes and went on every non blocked out school holiday and one non school holiday we played hookey to hang out with my cousin visiting from Washington.  While I still think Disney is kinda magical, having raised our kids on less Disney than I think I was raised on, it seems less overall magical to the kids, I think. And maybe they just overdosed on it because the last time we went they were little complain-y about it and really wanted to go swimming instead. So much for magic.

We did a farewell tour of New England this October. My parents have been trying to sell their house so they can either live in a RV (not likely) or move in next to my brother in Texas (more likely) because winter, retirement, golf taxes, grandchildren, etc...   Although it appears that while many people want to move, few of them want to move into a large house on a pond in Connecticut. especially in winter. So they left CT in Nov and are doing the southern US grandchildren tour. We got them first and had company for Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is about a rare as unicorn sightings at the zoo. They have recently moved on to Texas and will follow that tour with a trip to Florida. Some of us learned that winter and New England is better to visit than live through yearly. Not that Larry and I have a whole lot of say in the matter as long as he's in the Navy.

And that elephant in the room is that in all likelihood we will be moving this summer.  It was definite that we'll be moving to Camp Lejeune, NC but there's still a very slim chance we'll be staying here. Unicorn slim.  And to that end I'm going through the stuff we've accumulated and doing the "will it survive another military move?" and starting to sell stuff and plan on selling it. Including cars, furniture, etc.   And this means the house is getting finished. Because it takes MOVING from it for it to every be 100% done. So the unfinished part particle board mantle was finally painted, tile for the fireplace surround was bought and a back splash is going to happen in the kitchen. Finally. Although it needs a new paint job and that's on the list for this week/month also. 

To accomplish this move we've decided we're going to get an RV. We've 90% of the way done buying it, we're waiting to hear the repairs are done and then we'll go pick it up later this month.  I'm sure it will be fodder for stories. And in addition to selling every vehicle we currently own, we're looking for one that seats all of us that weighs less than 5000 lbs and is towable.  I'm planning our trip in vague details we have a few national parks we haven't yet gotten to experience and there are 4 or 5 states I haven't been in as an adult, so I'm thinking we'll have to hit those, too. besides driving through the southern US desert in the summer is just so 2013. I think 2014 will have to include Mount Rushmore, Badlands, and perhaps Niagra falls and Quebec. We're probably going to spend the amount of some small country's GNP in gas to pull this off, but hey, this is why we're a Navy family - see the world and all that stuff. Of course we are very very grateful that the world we're seeing is the continental US/Canada. We weren't super exited at the prospects of Japan and Korea all all places hanging out on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Maybe next time.

2014 brings Joey's enrollment into First Tee.  My dad should be happy but it's a program that helps kids learn golf. He did orientation on Saturday and his first golf lesson is wednesday. Sadly there isn't one of these programs in Lajeune, but we'll enjoy it while he can, I guess. He's super excited he can earn enough points to "buy" new gold clubs through the program, and I'm excited that his parents' lack of any golf skills and knowledge won't inhibit his chances at the PGA.


So tomorrow brings the return to drudgery of work and school and getting up and packing lunches.  Some things change. Some things don't.