Long time no see!

Well it's been over a month since my last post, and A TON has happened. I'll try to keep it brief but still give you an idea of what we've been up to.

We left Spain April 21st. We woke up late (slept through the alarm, oops) and it unfortunately set the tone for the entire day. We ending up running to every flight, and being the last ones on every plane. We were told our cat couldn't be on the plane from Houston to Corpus Christi, the last leg of the flight, and so we planned on taking a rental car from Houston and driving the last bit. As it turned out they went ahead and sent the cat (indeed, all our checked luggage) to corpus. We were so tired of the planes and airline food that we opted to get the car anyhow. Man was that a terrible idea! The three hour drive turned into five as we stopped every thirty minutes or so because whoever was driving was getting dangerously sleepy.

We got in late monday night (tuesday morning) and by friday we had looked at three houses, applied for one, and signed the lease. Monday the movers came and we got everything in the house. We had water but no power, so we opted to stay there for one night rather than stay at another hotel.

The following day we drove up to Austin (a lovely three hour drive) and visited with Anthony's family. And some of mine. Lots of fun and eating out. We bought a new car, a 2005 Nissan Sentra with only 19k miles on it. It's a fantastical little car, and I think it'll serve us well for a long time to come. (Indeed, we still love our '97 Sentra!)

Tuesday, May 6th, Anthony started his drive out to San Diego. The next day Ray and I hopped on a plane to SC and we've been here with my parents ever since. It's been a nice, relaxing time, Ray loves them to pieces. And vice versa!

On Thursday we head back to Corpus to finish setting up the house. I'm really looking forward to it...and not. I'm looking forward to being in my own space again, and I really enjoy the Portland/Corpus area. I can't wait to get the house all put together. I'm also dreading it a little, there's SO much to be done and it will be tough getting alot of work done when Ray is still so small. He's nearing the ten month mark, and really gearing up for walking. My little brother showed him how to walk by pushing a wooden chair around, and he's been doing a lot of that. He was even using the kitchen trash can earlier (freshly cleaned, fear not).

He's been handling all the moving and changing better than I could have hoped, but it's still rough. Many nights are a struggle and test my patience, which is wearing ragged. I'm very, very drained emotionally from being in limbo since mid-may and it's taking its toll. Most times when he just refuses to sleep, and cries, I cry too. I'm beyond normal, rational coping mechanisms, and crying is the easiest of the others available to me.

We had a bit of a pregnancy scare. Anthony and I had a major OOPS right before he left, and I was ovulating. I had alot of early symptoms, and my period was late, late, late. Five days. But every test was negative. And then I finally started on saturday, just minutes before I left the house to buy one final pregnancy test that I promised myself I would believe, no matter the results. Saved me $15 I guess!

I was a little disappointed, naturally, but there are still quite a few positives to not having number 2 just yet.

1. I want to breastfeed Ray a solid 18 months, but I also want a little time between babies without any babies on my boobs. MY BOOBS. KTHX.

2. I would like the babies close, but not THIS close. It would be nice to have Ray old enough to understand the baby deal a little better.

3. I want a tattoo. No respectable tattoo artist will do one on a pregnant woman. I wouldn't get it anyway while pregnant. But hey, IT'S A PLUS BECAUSE I'M NOT PATIENT K.

4. Anthony is going to be gone a ton in the next year. He needs more time with Ray, and with the next baby when that happens.

5. I want to get back in shape before the next pregnancy happens, and STAY in shape. Up my chance of VBAC and all that!

6. It would be super nice to have this scar a tad less tender before I stretch it all to hell. Ouch. I cringe thinking about a spawnling kicking me there. *shudder*

There's more, and of course there would be upsides to having one now. But sadly, my sperm donor is not readily available.

So that's the past month in a nutshell. New house is cozy, has a nice little yard. Three bedrooms, two hideous bathrooms, tiny kitchen, fairly new carpet, and new paint. Smells like a freaking pet shop, but not like feces so it's not all bad. Serious carpet cleaning shall commence forthwith. Word on the street is we'll only be there about a year if they shut down the base (and it sounds like they're doing it for realios this time) and we'd end up moving to san diego, I think. Which isn't all bad, but means we'll be in an apartment most likely. Oh, and moving while Anthony is out to sea. I like Corpus. :S We'll see how it goes!

There will likely be another break in my posting coming up, until I get internet in the new place. Obviously that is HIGH on my priority list, so it shouldn't be long. I love everyone, and miss you all! I'm lurking here and there, but I don't have as much time for commenting as I'd like. Soon!

HURGHBLARGHAGHAGHAGH

Well tomorrow we officially hit the two week point.

Time to FREAK THE HELL OUT.

We're scrambling to try and see if we can find a way to bring Claudia. Of course all this shit has to hit the fan on the weekend when our hands are tied. I looked up the airlines we'll be on regarding pets, and hopefully PSD can get things fixed to allow for her. I was really counting on being able to find her a spanish home, and it's not working out at all. I found a boarding house that looks pretty good in TX for about $400 before military/long-term discount. That includes feeding costs. Not too bad but of course it complicates all the traveling 300x.

Still trying to get the car fixed, and we just dropped another bucket of money into that shitty ass rental we've been driving for two months. Ugh.

My computer has randomly decided that it doesn't like the internet. Can't even reset the settings without it locking up, or update the drivers for the motherboard. The same mobo which is only two or three months old. GUH.

Housing inspection needs to be scheduled, and if we can take the cat then I need to buy her a kennel and get various forms that say she's healthy.

Ray has a dr's appt next week because I think he has an adhesion on his penis from the circumcision. I've been faithfully pulling it back daily to keep it clean but he apparently has his mommies healing powers. I wish we'd never done it.

Thursday the movers are back to take the rest of our stuff. On top of figuring out what goes and what stays we'll be mailing a few boxes of stuff either to TX or SC. So rather than sorting things into two piles, we have four. Yay.

I need to call like four different people. We can't get in touch with our sponsor and the ombudsman has not returned my email, and didn't answer her phone just now. Yay.

Someone kill me now. Even better, drug me and wake me up in a month when we arrive in SC. Don't even get me thinking about the flight. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH