Still a Military Spouse at Heart

I haven't talked about it here but the job I started last month didn't pan out.  It was a temp to hire position and I had hopes it would become a permanent position but things just didn't happen that way.  For the past 2 weeks I've been at another temp job until something else comes along.  At this temp job, all of the employees had to attend a Cultural Competency Training  titled “Debunking Aging Myths”.  Since I'm a temp I didn't have to attend but I browsed through the PowerPoint anyways.  One of the slides made me literally LOL.

 

In and of itself it isn't funny but when I realized you could change the title to "Events indicating a Military Spouse is PCS'ing" and read it again, it fits perfectly!  I have done everyone of those things in some capacity during a PCS move.

Funkalicious Birthday

I have been in some kind of funk lately.  Blogging funk, photography funk, job hunting funk, just an over all life funk.  I think this happens every time we move.  There is so much built up excitement and anxiety over leaving behind friends and the familiar life we have created and the unknown we're about to face.  Then the nervous/excited energy fades away and that leaves me in this funk.  I haven't made the awesome group of friends (that I'm sure we'll find eventually), I haven't found the best way to occupy my time (usually volunteering, this time it means finding a job which I haven't tried to do in over 8 years and y'all, this is harder than I remember but that's another post for another day), we haven't found our church home and we haven't found our routine yet.  Once this all happens, the funk will end and I'll continue living life with the passion and gusto I usually do, but for now, it's a funk phase.

This does not, by any means, mean that we are not enjoying San Diego, we are. We've reconnected with friends and family in the area and we're loving our new neighborhood, I just feel like the spark of life is glowing really dim at the moment.  To be living in this ill lit world during the week of my birthday (which, if you remember, I typically celebrate for more than just one day) was not ideal but I didn't let it completely ruin my birthday.  My cousin, husband and I attended the San Diego Restaurant Week kick off party at Broadway Pier.  We had a fabulous night tasting many dishes from local San Diego restaurants and beverages from local breweries & wineries.  It was the perfect way to get to try a sampling of what is offered at some local restaurants.

Of course we got all dolled up, that's how we like to celebrate in our house.  I posted this photo on Instagram (if you're not following me, you should be @bleudressjes) asking which outfit I should wear, thinking that everyone would vote for the black dress and I could not have been more wrong.  You guys voted 14-0 for the orange dress and I'm so happy you did.  I felt a little pumpkin/traffic cone-ish when I first tried it on but you guys gave me the confidence to rock it and that's exactly what I did.

With my husband before dinner.

 With my cousin, Tina,  before dinner.

We were hungry by the time we arrived so we wasted no time diving in to the food.  This was a piece of freshly baked bread stuffed with pesto pasta, one my my favorites of the night...and the restaurant is just 5 minutes from our house!

Torpasta

Sitting on the windy pier with my cousin.

This is my "it's my birthday so I'll eat more of those delicious baked beans if I want to" face.  Seriously, I went back 3 times.  BEST. BAKED. BEANS. EVER!

Cali Comfort

It was a spectacular evening to be on the water.

Tina and Jason enjoying...I don't remember what it was, but I know I didn't try it so it must have been steak or pork!

This is what I get when I hand the husband my camera and ask him to take a photo for me.

Tina and I trying some flavor crystals.  The combination of cream and mini flower crystals on the spoon started out awful then evolved into something...delicious.  It was quite possibly the strangest thing I've ever put in my mouth, and not in a bad way.  It would be really fun to incorporate these into dishes for a dinner party.

Fresh Origins

Tina tried her first ever oyster.

We even managed to find me some "birthday cake" and a "candle".

As you can see in this photo, we enjoyed ourselves (and the food) so much that I had to ditch the belt!  If that isn't the perfect way to end a birthday celebration, I don't know what is!

Next week our HHG arrives (HOORAY!  7 weeks to the day that it was picked up from our house in Japan, not too shabby!), the couch we ordered will be delivered and we're flying back to Cincinnati for my baby brother's wedding.  It's sure to be an exciting week!  Hopefully I'll have some good content to share with you all when it's all over.

Settling in

We've been here just over a week now and we're finally starting to feel settled.  Neither one of us are working/going to school/doing much of anything responsible at the moment so we don't have any sort of routine established so we're simply enjoying our time together.

We received our express shipment (unaccompanied baggage) which means we have a lot of clothes, a lot of kitchen stuff and not much else.  Our kitchen here is very different from the one we had in Japan.  It is missing my beloved pantry and has really odd shaped cabinets.  I still haven't figure out how to make the best use of them yet, as you can see (I've never had lazy susan's and as of right now I hate them!  I'm hoping they'll grow on me.).  I'm not trying to complain, I just need to figure out how to make it work for me.

Since we have all these kitchen supplies, we've been making trips all the grocery options in town. We have about 5-6 to choose from with in 10 minutes of our house.  The first time I went to buy chicken and had more than one option I was so overwhelmed it took me 10 minutes to pick something.  There is so much more variety and selection here than we've had in the past 3 4 5 years!  They also have produce here like I've never seen anywhere else.

We thought to pack chairs in our UB but not a table so we've been eating dinner on trash cans (that are brand new and I still cleaned extra thoroughly).

We're slowly finding the perfect place for all of our belongings.  This place is smaller than any we've ever lived for an extended period of time so it's going to be interesting once our HHG arrive.

We did send our bikes with our UB so we've been putting them to good use exploring our neighborhood.

We live close enough to the beach that we can ride our bikes there.  We haven't yet but it'll be happening this week, I'm sure.  We did stop by Ocean Beach one day for a few minutes while we were out running errands.

We checked out a new church.  It was my first time at a "mega church" and it was interesting but it felt kind of like corralling cattle to me and that's not really what we're looking for in a church.  I loved all the outreach opportunities they have though so we'll see.

Everyday here I think "man, what a perfect day today is" then I realize that this is going to be EVERYDAY for the next 3-4 years. I really think we're going to like it here, more than we had hoped.  We live in the perfect neighborhood for us.  Almost everything we could possibly need is a bike ride away, the weather is my idea of perfection, and so far the people have been great to us.  We're looking forward to the next 3-4 years here!

Sayonara Japan

At the time of this posting, we're on a plane en route to America.  We've said all of our "see you later"s and checked everything off our Japan to do list.  All that's left to do is cherish the memories we made and embrace the adventure ahead of us.  We had a great last few days in Japan, just enjoying time with friend and visiting some of our favorite restaurants/bars one last time.

I have fallen in love with the sushi here and I know I'm going to miss it.  Some of it I can make at home myself but it just won't be the same, I'm certain.

We were exhausted from cleaning for 3 days straight but happy to be eating sushi!

 I received an award from Jason's battalion commander for my dedication to the unit.  It was the first time I've received an award like this so I was very appreciative.

We ate/drank at our favorite bar one last time.

When we told the owner (I never did learn his name) that we were leaving Japan in a couple days he ran off and came back with this bottle of sake for us.  I'm so badly going to miss that place!

We spent our last full day at the pool on post.  We've done everything we could possibly want to do here (and more) so we just wanted to relax and spend time with our friends.

For our last "non airport food meal", Jason chose ramen.  I was totally OK with that, although, it's so much better on cold winter days than it is on blazing hot summer days.

Jason is obsessed with their chahan (fried rice) and I must admit, it's pretty darn good.

They veggie gyoza and they're some of the best I've ever had!

I had to add another shirt because I cannot eat ramen without making a huge mess!

We are going to miss Japan more than I can express in words.  The past 3 years have been some of the best of my life.  I'm so happy Jason convinced me to accept this assignment.  The people I have met and the things I have experienced have made me a better person and will stay with me forever.

Just like I say with friends, it's not goodbye but see you later.  Japan, I will return.  One day, I will be back!

PCS Progress {2}

We're down to less than two weeks before we leave Japan.  I feel like the stress is mostly under control now that we have a place to live but our best friends are leaving Japan in a few days and we follow them just 9 days later, I'm certain once they're gone everything's going to sink in and I'll start to go crazy.  Tomorrow the last of our stuff gets packed up and put on a boat to slowly make its way back to America.  I think we're mostly prepared thanks to the numerous lists I've made and double and triple checked.

Poor Buster on the other hand is feeling the stress.  He's been so incredibly sad the past few weeks it breaks my heart!  I cannot believe this guy is going to be 16 in a few weeks!

Last week we got rid of everything we're not taking with us.  We had my bed & couch from college that we brought here knowing they wouldn't return with us so those went out to the curb.  We sold or gave away a few things, including my husbands beloved 52" television that was his redeployment gift to himself after his first tour.  We loved that TV and would have kept it except it didn't fit into the entertainment center we purchased for ourselves last year.  You see the entertainment center has these fancy doors that ares supposed to fold in while you're watching TV but our TV had the speakers and a glass trim that went all the way around it and prevented the doors from functioning as they should.

See?

This could not be good for the entertainment center so we decided to sell the TV and just buy a new one on the other end.  Since we're not buying it here and shipping it, we don't have to wait for our HHG to arrive, we can just buy one when we're ready for it.  So for the past few days I've had no excuse to sit around the house.  I've actually enjoyed not having a television.  I was able to get out and do some things that I had been putting off for no good reason.

I went in search of a fabric shop hoping to pick up some bright, crazy, Japanese inspired fabric to cover the seats cushions on the dining room table we're buying from our friends but found this gorgeous fabric instead.  I plan to pain the top of the table this same green color.  I can't wait to see it all together!

I went out to the sunflower fields to take some photos, something I've been wanting to do for 3 years and just never got around to.

I even sat down and designed my own change of address cards to mail out.  I've never tried to design anything like this before so I was really happy with how it turned out.  Too bad VistaPrint won't ship to an APO (they used to!) so they're en route to my mom's house and I'll send them out once we've actually moved!

My God is an Awesome God!

Finding a home from 5000+ miles away is hard y'all.  Really hard!  We started our search about 6 months ago when we first decided that San Diego was where we wanted to settle for a while.  Our search began with property for sale but then we decided just to rent so we had to start the search all over again.    Our biggest obstacle was finding a a place near the college my husband will be attending that didn't look like your typical college dwelling.  Jason will be riding his bicycle to school so we had a pretty narrow radius that we wanted to stay within but every thing with in that radius was crap!  We weren't looking for a forever home but we also wanted to be comfortable.  The few times I did find a decent place online it was rented before we even had a shot due to the 16 hour time difference.  Luckily, I have a cousin, Tina, who lives in the area who has been more than willing to help us out in any way she can.  She went to see a few places that were just OK but nothing we really wanted to commit to so we decided to tell her that we were just going to wait until we arrived to find a place.  That wasn't ideal because Jason starts classes the day after we arrive in SD and there is no way of arriving any sooner, it's already a crazy tight schedule as it is but it was becoming too stressful for me to do it from here and I felt like I was wasting her time.

Here is how our chat went while she was up late at night working the midnight shift:

Me: I think we decided that we're just going to wait until we get there. There are tons of ok places that we can grab at the last minute if we have to but all the really good places seem to be snatched up before we even get a stab at them with this silly time difference. 

Tina: are you sure you don't want to send me to a few craig's list places? 

Me: if we find any on there I will let you know!

I decide to click open a new tab just to see if anything new was on Craigslist

Me: this might be worth checking out. I love that Buster would have his own little area, no grass but still a fenced in area for him. The kitchen is PHENOMENAL!  Jason is on his way home and I'll let ya know in a few...

Here's the photo of the kitchen that had me sold

That night I decided to stay up late so I could be the first person to call that morning in SD.  My cousin went to look at it that evening, we filled out the application, the owner got back to me on Tuesday and we signed the lease on Wednesday.

I have one page bookmarked in my Bible.  I don't know why I ever marked it but it is a verse that I find myself coming back to over and over and over.

Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)

In their hearts humans plan their course,
    but the Lord establishes their steps.

I had just decided that all the work I was putting into house hunting and all the stress it was causing me wasn't worth it.  Literally the instant I threw in the towel and let God take over, the perfect place landed in our lap!  One of these days I'll stop trying to be a control freak.

PCS/ETS Road Trip

We officially got word that the Army will not be shipping our car to California for us.  After much deliberation we decided that our least expensive best option is to drive our car from Ohio to California.  For a couple of weeks now I've been bouncing back and forth between excitement and loathing disdain indifference.  I used to love road trips but it's been so long since we've spent more than a few hours in a car that I'm just not sure anymore.  That all changed when I sat down to plan out our route.

We're going to be on the road for only 4 very long days with two day long stops and a few overnight visits with friends/family.  

We're going to spend our first night at Fort Leavenworth visiting with Jason's best friend from college, his wife and their adorable son they recently adopted from Ethiopia.   We are so excited to meet Ephraim and see our friends.  Day 2 we'll have lunch with my friend Melissa and her family at Fort Riley then, and this was the surprise visit that threw me over the edge into complete excitement, we'll spend a night with our friend Ashley and her adorable children in Colorado (we only wish her husband could be there too).  You see, as part of my 30 while 30 I wanted to send 12 just because gifts and I know Ashley's son likes ninjas so I sent him a ninja t-shirt.  If I hadn't sent that box to Trevor, I wouldn't have learned that they'd recently moved right along our route.  It's amazing the way God takes our plans and rips them to shreds and presents us with even better plans that we could have imagined.  Day 3 we'll drive to Jason's mom's house in Utah and stay there for a day before driving to California.

It's going to be a lot of time on the road but the stops along the way will totally make up for the long hours in the car.  Have you ever driven any part of this route?  Know of any great places to stop along the way?  We're looking for restaurants, scenic views, tourist attractions, anything to break up the drive!

PCS Progress

Orders? Check!

Plane tickets? Check!

Buster's plane reservation? Check!
Hotel reservations? Check!

Housing pre-inspection? Check!

Housing inspection? Scheduled!

HHG pre-inspection? Check!

HHG pick-up? Scheduled!

UB pick-up? Scheduled!

Find someone to buy our car? Check!

Have car inspected (so we can sell it)? Check!

Make repairs to that the car passes inspection? Scheduled!
Etc., etc., etc...

I've talked about this before, I'm a list maker.  Over the years I've learned the importance of making lists.   They help me stay focused and on track and prevent my lack of a memory from destroying my well laid out plans.  For this PCS/ETS, I currently have about 9 or 10 lists that I'm tracking.  Some of them include: pcs check list (part of which is seen above), expenses (things we're going to have to buy once we arrive in San Diego), things to sell, unaccompanied baggage, household goods  and things to pack in our suitcases/not let the packers pack.  Keeping these lists allow me to monitor our progress.  They are constantly being amended and grow as each day passes.

My best friend here is leaving at the same time we are (9 days before us) and we were discussing the lack of guidance we've found when it comes to PCS'ing.  We kept searching for a "suggested list" of items to pack in each of our shipments and on our person when we travel.  We were unable to come up with any so I decided to share with you what we came up with. (Jessica from Jessica Lynn Writes shared her list earlier this week.  Her's includes lots of suggestions if you're traveling with children.)

For our fast shipment, or unaccompanied baggage (UB) as the Army calls it:

*air mattress (if not carrying in your suitcase)
*1 set of sheets/blanket/pillows

*1 set of bath towels/bath mats (we take the ones from our guest bathroom)

*shower curtain

*professional gear (for family members)

*camping chairs/something to sit on until your furniture arrives & a folding table

*kitchen supplies to include cookie sheets, crock pot, pots/pans, knives, spices, Tupperware, and dishes/utensils.

*weather appropriate clothing for your destination
*hangers
*laundry basket

*shoes that you won't be traveling with

*games/DVD's/books (not all of them, just a small selection)
*EMPTY trash can
*computer
*first aid kit
*apron
*hammer/screw driver
*can opener

My personal list includes:

*tent/camping gear

*rice cooker

*our bicycles

*design magazines (I cannot wait to decorate our new home)

*a box fan (our place in SD may or may not have AC)

*grocery bags

Anything you would add to this list?  I'd love to hear your suggestions!  I hope some of you find this information useful.  It's not all encompassing but I think it's a good starting base.

I can't leave you guys without a photo so here's one of the husband and I at a ceremony this week...I have no idea why I'm looking at him that way but it made me chuckle...what do you think is going through my head in this moment?

Hardest goodbye of my life

Last week the awesome women I teach English on Wednesdays took me out for a wonderful meal.

This week I taught them my final lesson

Class A

Class B

As a military spouse, I've said hundreds of goodbyes but none have been as difficult as this one.  I managed to keep myself composed through both classes, then at the end of the second class, the ladies sang to me and I lost it!  I will never be able to hear "You Are My Sunshine" again without thinking of these beautiful women.  I cannot even begin to put into words how much I'm going to miss them.  They came into my life with such love and enthusiasm and have brought so much joy to my time here in Japan.

I know some of you read this so I want to say thank you.  Thank you for allowing me into your hearts and sharing your lives with me.  Please come see me in California!  I miss all of you already.

PCS update

First of all, thanks to all of you for the feedback on my last post.  A couple of you suggested a change to BlueDress Jes which I honestly had not even thought of.  It makes complete sense, at least as far at Twitter/Instagram go.  I felt like I has asked where my sunglasses were when they were on my head or where my cell phone was while I was talking on it.  It was one of those DUH moments.  Thanks ladies!  I'm still undecided about where to go with the blog but I'm working on it.

We spent the last week trying to get plane tickets, schedule our HHG/UB pick up (HHG is the bulk of our stuff that will be shipped to America and can take 60-90 days to get from door to door, UB is the small, fast shipment that will HOPEFULLY arrive in 30 days), book lodging, schedule vet appointments and make arrangements with the airline so Buster can fly with us.  Oh, and by we, I mean I.  Jason accompanied me to a few of the stops but mostly I was on my own.  After this week, I'm ready to say good riddance to the Army.  I swear they cannot make anything easy.  I had to make at least 7 trips to Transportation in order to get our plane tickets.  They gave us the run around the first two days then I had to get on the phone to United and basically make the arrangements myself, then go back to transportation and tell them how to do their job.  The day I tried to call the vet they just happened to be on a "stand down" for SHARP (the Army's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program) and weren't answering their phones so I eventually just went up to their office.  Wouldn't you know, they're closed the entire week before we PCS so the health certificate that we have to obtain within 10 days of our departure is going to be exactly 10 days out.  I'm praying nothing goes wrong while we're traveling or it could become a huge ordeal.  It hasn't been easy, but so far everything is falling being deliberately placed where I want/need it.

In between all the errands/phone calls my neighbor and good friend, Kristin, and I have been preparing to have a "yard" sale.  We've had to reschedule multiple times due to rain so we finally decided to book one of the community rooms available so we didn't have to rely on good weather.  This meant that I could no longer put off digging through all of our junk and getting it ready to sell. We know with almost certainty that our house/condo/apt. in San Diego will be significantly smaller than our house here so we need to downsize.  Drastically.

Look at all this stuff

At least a 3rd of it is ours.  I'm hoping I don't have to bring anything back into our house.  Jason's goal is to make enough money to buy a Roomba.  We borrowed our friends a few weeks ago and he hasn't stopped talking about it.  He NEVER wants to buy ANYTHING so I'm having a hard time telling him no.  Hopefully after tomorrow I won't have to any longer.

This week was very busy and very productive.  The next 7 weeks are going to fly by!