Handling this surprisingly well

I was talking with a friend the other day about my medical clearance to go to Italy.  You have to go before a review board, who looks over all your paperwork and deems you okay to live abroad, and then they send it to your receiving base (in our case Aviano) for their approval.  They ask you everything about your medical history, mental and physical, and you have to go in to see your primary doctor who fills the sheets out that you take to the review board.  So at that appointment I told my doctor that I saw a counselor when we lived in Florida.  It was right after we got married and I was having issues adjusting to military life and giving up so much control of my own life.  I went to see this social worker on base 4-5 times just to talk about things.  She never diagnosed me with anything and I was never on any meds.  (Not that that’s at all a bad thing, I know many people who are, and I see nothing wrong with it.  It’s just relevant to this story.)  So the doctor had to put on my sheet that I’ve seen someone in the mental health field within the past five years.

I’ve been freaked out about that being on my clearance papers because I’m afraid they’re going to deny my medical clearance for Italy.  I was talking to my friend about it and she was shocked that I ever had anxiety problems.  She was like “You’re so calm and you just seem to go with the flow for everything.  I can’t believe that you were having problems adjusting.”  HAHA!  For those of you that know me, you probably laughed reading that, just like I did hearing it, but it was still nice to hear.  Maybe I’m not such a loony bin after all.

Although, if I was a bit loony now, I’d have good reason.  We were told at that medical clearance review that Aviano had up to 2 weeks to get back to us with whether or not Abbie and I are cleared to go over there.  We cannot get orders to Aviano or set up any of the move without that clearance.  So if we don’t get that back for another week and a half yet, that’s going to put us at a week before we want to be packing up before the review is back.  Who knows how long it takes to get orders after the review is done…

And while I’m on the subject of things stressing me out, there’s still no guarantee that Abbie and my’s passports and visas will be back in time for us to leave when we want to.  If we go over without them, we a. run the risk of being deported and b. have to come back to the States to get them anyway and re-enter Italy.  This poses quite a few problems.

1. We already have reservations on the military rotator from BWI to Aviano for March 9.  March 9th was the ONLY time in the entire month of March that they had pet space available on the rotator.
2. We already have reservations for our flight from LA to BWI, with reservations for the dogs to be in cabin with us.
3. It’s too cold for the dogs to travel in cargo because it’s colder than 45 in Baltimore (BWI).
4. If Mark has to fly over ahead of us, he cannot fly with 2 dogs in cabin by himself.  They only allow one dog per passenger in cabin.
5. I REALLY don’t want to have to fly with Abbie by myself across the country and then over the Atlantic.  Plus I don’t know how I’d carry all of our junk and her and her car seat by myself.  Even if I did wear her it’d be really hard for me to haul 3 suitcases, 1-2 carry on’s, her car seat and her by myself.
6. And I REALLY, REALLY don’t want to have to travel with Abbie and one of the dogs by myself.  I’m not even sure we could get them a spot on a commercial flight this late in the game.  Those usually book up weeks in advance.

So in other words, if y’all could spare a prayer or two that our plan miraculously falls into place, that would be greatly appreciated.  =)

Sedona the 2nd time.

Mark’s mom and brother and Mark and Abbie and I took a quick trip to Sedona on Thursday.  Donna and Alex hadn’t ever been to Sedona and we thought we should show them the town since we only live an hour and a half way.  It was a beautiful day – perfect for hiking.

The first trail we tried to do was only open Fri-Mon so we were bummed that we didn’t get to go on that one.  We wanted to see the petroglyphs on that trail.  But we got some neat photos on our drive out there and back anyway.

Our next attempt ended up being quite the drive.  It was only like 12 or so miles from the town of Sedona, but 8 of those miles were on gravel roads, aka – VERY bumpy.  The Jeep tours in Sedona managed the trail we were aiming for, but our Passat held up pretty well.  Alex and I had to get out a few times and build little rock bridges in dips in the road that were too steep for the Passat to get across.  But we got all the way out there and back without hurting the car.

Here are a few pics of the drive.

 

(Maybe that was more than a few…)

Anyway, so we finally made it to the Hanonki Trail as the sun was setting.  It was beautiful.  The sun made the rocks look so red!

Here are a few pictures of the trail to the Indian ruins site.

(Abbie helping daddy take pictures.)  

The ruins were just fascinating.  It’s so neat to be this close to things that are so old.

And there actually were TONS of petroglyphs etched into the rock.  Here’s one of them that we saw.  It was really neat trying to find them on this HUGE rock.

Here are some of the views on the way back.  We ran across one random cow in the middle of no where and watched as he moseyed across the road in front of us.  He wasn’t in any hurry at all.

The sunset was beautiful.  I’m not sure I’d ever get tired of the views there.  But if we lived there, we’d definitely get an SUV for those crazy roads.

 

Taxes, wills and the idiots on base.

This probably could be 3 separate blogs, but I’ll just ramble on it one big long one today.

Mark got all of our taxes done for last year this week.  Let me just say it is a HUGE pain in the ass when you’re military and have lived in 2 different states and then are a “resident” of a third.  Mark can claim residency anywhere since he is military.  He claims IL residency bc military members don’t have to pay state tax in IL and it’s easier than switching everything every time we move.  So I’ve always claimed IL residency too, so we can file jointly.  Well I worked in OK this year, made a measly 3K, and that’s just a huge pain to figure out who we owe or who owes us.  Turns out OK owes me the $11 I paid in state taxes back (woohoo!) and we don’t owe IL anything for me because I didn’t earn enough.  And we’re FINALLY getting a BIG refund for federal.  Thank God.  Ever since we’ve been married we’ve ended up owing $300-$600+ in federal taxes.  Last year our taxes were all messed up and we were STILL getting letters from IL last month saying we still owed them more money.   The whole resident, part-year resident and nonresident stuff will get you every time, but luckily we won’t have to deal with it next year since I’m not working at all this year.  Yay.  (Actually under the SOFA agreement the military has with Italy, I’m not allowed to work anywhere off-base to earn money while we live there.  Not that I would anyway, but I thought that was interesting.)

Mark and I finally got our wills done.  We’ve been meaning to get one done before Abbie was born but he was so busy with training we didn’t have time.  We finally did it yesterday so that’s a relief to have that done.  It was Abbie’s naptime by the time we were done with the lawyer so when we were swearing all that stuff to that person, I could hardly hear her over Abbie’s screams.  They were laughing and the recorder lady said that she thought Abbie was adorable even though she was being a real pistol.  At least they were entertained, instead of annoyed…

So you’d seriously think that we were the first ones to move to Italy from this base.  These idiots make it damn near impossible to get orders, which we need in order to set up TMO (the movers).  Typically you get orders a HELL of a lot earlier than a month before you leave so you can set all that stuff up in advance, but the idiots on base don’t know what they’re doing.  You need like 14 different things signed by 14 different people, and all of these people have ONE day a week that they do stuff for people PCS’ing (moving – permanent change of station).  So we need a zillion medical clearances in order to get orders.  We turned Abbie’s paperwork in to her pediatrician over TWO WEEKS ago.  The dr was on leave for a week and then she only does paperwork on Wednesdays.  Nice.  So we got that back finally and then we have to turn all Abbie’s and my paperwork into this lady in a different office who then looks at it and then sets up an appointment for us all to come in and meet with her.  But naturally, they only do that on Wednesday’s also.  Mark got all his paperwork signed when he was going to Spang, so all the paperwork said Spang on it.  So he’s having to go around to all these people with new paperwork that says Aviano.  It’s just turning in to a huge headache.  Actually, it’s not turning into one, it’s been one for the past 2 weeks.  These people don’t make anything easy.  I tried to call and make Abbie’s 9 month appointment for Feb 18th and they wouldn’t let me because she won’t be 9 months until the 20th.  Really?  Two days is going to make that much of a difference?  Give me a freaking break!  The lady was like, we’ll you’ll just have to do her appointment when you get to Italy.  Oh come on!  Like I’m not going to have enough to worry about between learning the language, in-processing that base, finding a house, buying a car, etc let alone we probably won’t get around to her 9 month appointment until she was over 10 months old.  It would just be nice to have her 9 month appointment done before we leave Luke.  These people really need to learn to do their damn jobs…  You’d think they worked for the government or something….

For the first time…

My in-laws are coming to visit on Wednesday (Mark’s younger brother, Alex, and his parents) and for the first time ever I think, I’m 100% excited about this visit and 0% nervous.

Recently we’ve (mostly me) worked through some issues Mark and I have had with dealing with his family.  Which is silly really since it’s not like his family is hard to “deal” with anyway.  It’s just challenging to feel like a part of a family when you see them twice a year at the most, and have lived at least 12 hours (currently 26 hours)away from them since you’ve been married.  AND I’m the type of person that over-analyzes EVERYTHING, which is a bad combination.

Anyway, Mark brought to his parents attention this past week some of what we’ve been going through and how I’ve been feeling , and it truly does feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  They know the whole story now and we’ve talked about it and it’s all out in the open, and even though nothings really changed, everything’s changed.

I’ve seen just in this past week how both of Mark’s parents have made an effort to try to “fix” things, that weren’t really “broken” in the first place, just misunderstood, and I truly appreciate that.

Donna and Brent, I truly am excited about your visit this week and I can’t wait to spend some time with you all before we head off to Italy. (You too Alex!) I hear horror stories people tell about their in-laws, and I realize how lucky I am to have you both as my second parents.  You are two of the kindest people I know and I know you would do anything in your power to make Mark, Abbie and ME happy.  I’m sorry this past week upset you, I know that wasn’t Mark’s, nor my, intentions.  But I am excited to move forward with you both and build a stronger relationship, even if we will be living on different continents soon.

Have a safe trip here and we’ll be waiting for you at the airport.  I am so excited!

So close!

It feels like for the past few weeks I’ve been telling everyone Abbie is SO CLOSE to crawling, and she is, but she still hasn’t.  Now she’ll get into the crawling position and stretch ALL the way out as far as she can without falling on her belly, and then can get back into the sitting position.  Her reach radius has vastly improved in the past week. 

She also has been pulling herself up on her knees by herself.  If you help her into a kneeling position, she can balance on her knees by herself for a while.  Pretty cute!

Tonight Mark and I were folding clothes and she was sitting on the floor playing.  She fell over backwards (landed on her blanket – wasn’t hurt), and I went back to folding my clothes because she usually just rolls over on her belly and plays and then screams when she’s ready to sit up again.  However, the next time I looked at her, she was sitting up again!  I’m not exactly sure how she did it, but somehow she sat up by herself.  Next time I’m going to watch her.

So we went back to folding clothes and the next time I looked at her she was pulling herself up on the coffee table and she was on her feet!  Granted, she wasn’t standing all the way up on her feet, she was in the splits position (legs straight out to the sides), but her butt was at least 6 inches off the ground and she was hanging on for dear life!  It was really cute!  She pulled herself up to her knees a few times and I’m quickly learning to keep all things away from the edges of the coffee table, unless it’s okay for her to have it.

I’m sure she’ll learn to crawl just in time for us to get on our 9+ hour flight to Italy and she won’t want to sit still for the entire flight.  Yay.  =)

“Military Wife”

I saw this online today.  Parts of it are fitting, parts of it aren’t, but I thought I’d share it anyway.  Enjoy.

Military Wife
Lots of moving...
Moving...
Moving...
Moving far from home...
Moving two cars, three kids and one dog...all riding with HER of course.
Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house;
Moving curtains that won't fit;
Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.
Moving away from friends;
Moving toward new friends;
Moving her most important luggage: her trunk full of memories.
Often waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting for housing.
Waiting for orders.
Waiting for deployments.
Waiting for phone calls.
Waiting for reunions.
Waiting for the new curtains to arrive.
Waiting for him to come home,
For dinner...AGAIN!
They call her 'Military Dependent', but she knows better:
She is fiercely In-Dependent.
She can balance a check book;
Handle the yard work;
Fix a noisy toilet;
Bury the family pet...
She is intimately familiar with drywall anchors and toggle bolts.
She can file the taxes;
Sell a house;
Buy a car;
Or set up a move...
.....all with ONE Power of Attorney.
She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.
She reinvents her career with every PCS;
Locates a house in the desert, The Arctic, Or the deep south.
And learns to call them all 'home'.
She MAKES them all home.
Military Wives are somewhat hasty...
They leap into:
Decorating,
Leadership,
Volunteering,
Career alternatives,
Churches,
And friendships.
They don't have 15 years to get to know people.
Their roots are short but flexible.
They plant annuals for themselves and perennials for those who come after them.
Military Wives quickly learn to value each other:
They connect over coffee,
Rely on the spouse network,
Accept offers of friendship and favors.
Record addresses in pencil...
Military Wives have a common bond:
The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands; his commitment is unique.
He doesn't have a 'JOB'
He has a 'MISSION' that he can't just decide to quit...
He's on-call for his country 24/7.
But for her, he's the most unreliable guy in town!
His language is foreign
TDY
PCS
OPR
SOS
ACC
BDU
ACU
BAR
CIB
TAD
And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.
She is the long- distance link to keep them informed;
the glue that holds them together.
A Military Wife has her moments:
She wants to wring his neck;
Dye his uniform pink;
Refuse to move to Siberia;
But she pulls herself together.
Give her a few days,
A travel brochure,
A long hot bath,
A pledge to the flag,
A wedding picture,
And she goes.
She packs.
She moves.
She follows.
Why?
What for?
How come?
You may think it is because she has lost her mind.
But actually it is because she has lost her heart.
It was stolen from her by a man,
Who puts duty first,
Who longs to deploy,
Who salutes the flag,
And whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military Husband,
She will remain his military wife.
And would have it no other way.
--Author Unknown

Ho hum

Sometimes when I’m reading friends blogs on Blogger, I’ll hit the “next blog” button and eavesdrop on random people’s blog.  It’s a cheap thrill to read what other people write, little hints of who they are through one blog post.  Sometimes I feel so inadequate when I write my blogs.  There’s nothing special about them – just my ramblings.  I’m not a particularly good writer, and I don’t write philosophically.  Just whatever comes to my mind usually, which is usually nothing too deep.  I wish I could write like my cousin.  (See her blog here. )  But I just don’t think like that and I didn’t go to school for writing either, and she did.  It is definitely her calling.

A lot of blogs have AMAZING pictures in them.  Most of them have obviously been photoshopped.  I wish I knew how to use that program.  We have one of the harder versions of Photoshop and I would love to learn to use it, but I just don’t have time to sit down and spend hours messing around with it and figuring it out.  Maybe when Abbie gets a little bit older I’ll have more time to figure it out.  There’s a beginners course online that my friend Emily told me about and I’d like to take that once we get to Italy and I can take notes and stuff and not lose them in the move.  I have such a beautiful little subject to practice with, so I think that’d be fun.

While I’m learning Photoshop, I should probably learn to use my DSLR to it’s fullest potential.  I’m slowly figuring it out, but I wish I had taken a photography course to learn how to use it.  I probably should have thought of that before I had a baby, and I actually did, but never had the time.

Another thing on my list of things to learn to do is quilting.  I would LOVE to be able to quilt.  We went to the AZ State Fair this summer and I could have spent HOURS looking at all those amazing quilts.  But that would require me to get a sewing machine that works more than 25% of the time.  And I’m not even sure my sewing machine will work in Italy because of the wattage difference.  Hopefully it will.  (Along with my digital piano.  I’ll be REALLY bummed if that thing doesn’t work over there, even though I really don’t play it all that much here.)

Thanks to Facebook I’ve gotten in touch with a girl who was an exchange student from Poland during my senior year of HS.  She has a baby girl, Hana, who is 3 weeks younger than Abbie.  I am completely amazed by her ability to speak (and write) English.  She’s more fluent in English than most Americans I know, me included.  It just makes me feel so inept that there are people like her out there who speak 2+ languages easily.  I wish I had learned Spanish in college, and taken it more seriously in HS.  I really, really want to learn Italian while we live in Italy.  I’m taking a course online right now and also bought a travelers crash course through the online program, but it’s slow learning.  I probably should have started this last January.  Good thing we found out we were going to Italy a week ago…  LOTS of time to prepare.. Not.

Anyway, that’s my wish list for now.  I’m hoping to accomplish a lot of this stuff while we live in Europe.  While Mark’s deployed I should have lots of time, or maybe I won’t have any time since I’ll be chasing after Abbie.  We’ll see I guess.  Time will tell.

Close call!

Abbie hasn’t been sleeping well at all for the past 3 nights.  We’re not sure what her deal is.  I don’t see or feel teeth coming it, so I don’t think it’s that, but MAN!  The kid does not want to sleep at all.  And she’s been waking up in the middle of the night and crying a lot, so I’ve gotten up with her the past 2 nights to try to calm her down.  Not fun.

Anyway, so last night Mark and I were going in to check on her like we always do before we went to bed.  Mark had shut her door all the way when he put her to bed, so I spent a good 2 mins trying to QUIETLY open the door since the hinges and the door handle make noises.  I finally got the door open and was tiptoe-ing inside her room and Mark was right behind me.  Unfortunately, Mark had worked out that day so his “shoulders were bigger than normal” (according to him) and he bumped into a picture I had hanging on the wall just inside the door.  Nice.

Abbie IMMEDIATELY popped her head up and looked in the direction of the door.  Since we both knew if she saw us, it’d be all over and we’d spend an hour trying to get her back to sleep.  So I ducked down and hid behind her changing table and Mark jumped out of the room and around the corner out of site.  HAHA!  I felt like we were breaking and entering or something instead of checking on our baby.

Luckily she put her head back down so I was able to get out of the room and close the door, but it was a very close call!  Mark and I had a good laugh about it afterwards, but it would have been a completely different story if she’d seen us.  I need to fix that damn door!

 

Introducing the Ergo

Our Ergo and backpack came in the mail on Friday.  Abbie seriously loves the thing, almost as much as we do.  So far, I’ve worn her on 2 walks around the neighborhood and in the grocery store, and Mark wore her on our hike in the White Tanks.   As you can see, she does love the thing, and it is VERY comfortable to wear.  Since the waistband is wide and padded, most of her weight is on your hips.  It basically feels like you’re wearing a book bag, although I remember my book bag in college being much heavier and a lot less comfortable.

The hike in the White Tanks was beautiful.  I wish we had bought a season pass to this park now.  It’s about 15-20 mins from our house.  We did the Waterfall Canyon trail this time, which is only a mile or so long, but as you can see, beautiful.  We figured (along with LOTS of other people) we’d check out the waterfall since we’ve had so much 

rain here lately.  You had to climb way back in the canyon to see the waterfall, or tip-toe across a few scattered rocks, neither of which we were willing to do with Abbie with us.

So Mark climbed back and got pictures of the waterfall while Abbie and I sat on a rock and watched people fall in the water.

(I really need a hood for my camera.  Then you wouldn’t see my hand blocking the sunlight….)

 

It seems as though Arizona is more beautiful this time of the year.  The weather was PERFECT for the hike – low 60’s and mostly sunny with a nice breeze.

Abbie really enjoys people watching.

 

 

 

Apparently the thing is comfortable too because Abs fell asleep on the way back.  The Ergo has a sleep hood on it though so we just put that up and it prevented her head from bouncing around.    It was a beautiful day and we had a great time hiking with our little one.

Ci stiamo muovendo in Italia ... Credo che

Translated, that means “We’re moving to Italy… I think.”

So here’s what happened.  As I said before, all 5 guys that were supposed to go to Spang, volunteered for Aviano (Italy), so we were back to square one.  Two of the guys already have their household goods (HHG’s in military acronyms) on the way to Germany, so we’re assuming that they’re going to Spang, but we really don’t know for sure.  The three guys left were Mark, Chris and Dave.  Mark volunteered for Aviano first and Osan (Korea) second.  Chris volunteered for Osan first and Shaw (South Carolina) second.  And Dave volunteered for Aviano first and Shaw second.  They ended up giving Chris Aviano because his wife is also in the Air Force and that’s the only place they could get them together.  They gave Mark Osan and they gave Dave Shaw.  Well Chris and his wife both didn’t want to go to Aviano, so they said that Chris could go to Korea and then Mark and Dave would have to decide who was going to Aviano together.  Dave is currently up at Nellis AFB in Vegas so Mark called him and they both wanted to go so Dave suggested that they use his friends iPhone that has a random number generator on it and Dave said he’d take number’s 0-4 and Mark could have numbers 5-9, and whichever number came up would determine who got Aviano.  Mark agreed and they pushed the button and a 7 came up, so Mark got Aviano and Dave is going to Shaw.  My dad is taking Mark to Vegas with him bc that’s the 2nd time he’s gotten an assignment based on luck.  Although we all know how that first assignment turned out….

It’s hard not to get excited about this assignment now, even though we still don’t have orders for it yet and we have no clue when we’ll be heading over there, if at all.  I’m scared to start planning and to get excited because I’m scared the rug is going to be pulled from beneath us again.  I guess all I can do is pray that this assignment sticks and that in a month or so we’ll be in Italy.

So Aviano is about an hour and a half north east of Venice, right at the foothills of the Alps.  The Adriatic Sea is about 45 mins south, and Rome (where Mark’s brother is) is about 5.5 hours away.  Vienna, Austria is 5.5 hours away, Switzerland is 6.5 hours away, and Prague is about 8.5 hours away.  Living in Italy will give us AMAZING opportunities to travel all over eastern Europe – in a lot of the countries you don’t really like about when you think of Europe.  We’ll be VERY close to both Slovenia and Croatia, which will be interesting.  We’ll also be fairly near Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria and Montenegro (where the Bond movie, Casino Royale, was filmed).  Greece will be a train ride away (long train ride, but still a train ride) and quite a few people have told us they’ve gone to Egypt while living over there.  How cool would that be?

So I’m not holding my breath, but I’m praying that we do get to move there.  I know about 3 words in Italian and there’s a whole new set of road blocks about moving to Italy.  Abbie and I need special passports and visas to live there and we don’t have a whole lot of time to get those done.  We’re hoping we’ll get more information on all of that this week.  I’ll keep you updated.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!