Occassionally, when I have nothing better to do (and really, that just means Im too lazy to be folding the laundry I should be folding, instead putting it off until just before PC gets home) I will look at property there. And I think it serves two and only two purposes 1) too see just how unaffordable everything is and 2) to upset me, make my heart sink and make me question the path we’ve chosen.

I love my life, I do. I think I find happiness and fulfillment and joy and grace and humility and gratitude in just about every day. But sometimes I wonder- if we moved back there- would I find even more of that? I was talking to my sister-in-law about this and her take is that ‘you can never go home again.’ That the things we loved would just be different now- we’re in a different stage of life (kids) and things would just be different. But maybe thats the point. After all, we’re different. We’re not the same people that left in 2004. We’re better people. We’re more humbled, generous, simple. We’re more experienced? traveled? Im not sure what the right word is there, but I sometimes wonder if we had to go to the far reaches of the Earth just to find out that we are supposed to end up exactly where we started from.

I had emailed one of my close friends about my property searching telling her that it was totally irrational, what I was doing, “isn’t it, iSN’T IT?” That I just need to keep reminding myself to stay the course. Just fourteen more years and we’ll have the freedom to do whatever we want. We’ll be 45 years old and won’t have to work anymore….we’ll have health insurance and a paycheck for life. Its a deal you can’t beat. My friend told me there is nothing “JUST” about 14 more years. And she’s right. This chapter of our lives (kids, family) will be closing. Nathan will be 19 and Mackenzie 16- we’ll almost be empty nesters. And really- who knows what life may throw at us before we reach that day 14 years from now. Its sort of do-or-die in that regard. There aren’t any second chances. There are no do-overs. I think that is the thing I wrestle with the most- you only get one chance to live this day. I love what we’re doing at the moment. I love where PC is at at the moment and  I love having my own parking spot (I don’t think I mentioned that on the blog did I? Well, I do. I may not have an ice maker in my freezer but I do have my own parking spot at PC’s office.)  I love the places we’ve gotten to go and all the things we’ve been able to see. Life is great (and to be clear- I have no regrets, and I think joining the Marine Corps was the best decision we’ve ever made) but I do wonder; maybe we’re missing something and don’t even know it? I guess that’s the  great quandary of life isn’t it?

Im sure a lot of this is stemming from the fact that its just time to get off this rock. We’ve been here for an awfully long time and right now, any place that isn’t sandy and tropical seems far more like ‘home’ than here….

This will always be home....

...no matter how far away we are.

This weekend we went to the Torii Beach salsa and jazz fest. Both nights- yes, it was that much free fun. We had a fantastic time eating way too much unhealthy food, listening to good music, watching beautiful sunsets, fireworks, and enjoying the ocean breeze.

Why can’t every weekend be like this?

Eating edamame....between funnel cakes.

but funnel cakes are good. They're even better if you dump a bag of BBQ chip crumbs on top.

With that being said, its becoming more apparent to me in little ways that our time is actually winding down here. With any luck 12 months from now we’ll have a truck parked outside our house, packing our entire life into large wooden crates before they are loaded onto a ship headed for home.

My husband is anxiously waiting for the new iPhone to arrive. In fact we had a ‘romantic ‘ anniversary lunch where the conversation revolved around cell phone plans and upgrading handsets and megabytes and yeah. PC told me the phone isn’t going to cost us anything but we’ll have to sign another two year contract to upgrade phones and its $100 to break the contract. When we leave. Next year. And it just sort of struck me, that this is really it. Don’t get me wrong, I know we still have a full year to go and in some ways Im sure it will drag on and in other ways it will go much too fast. But still- next year.

I’ve started thinking about it when I buy things at the commissary. You always have to check expiration dates over here because we seem to get a lot of America’s leftovers (nothing but the best for our military, right?) Its June and we have Christmas packaged baby wipes and Valentine kleenex. Its actually kind of exciting to look at that bottle of BBQ sauce and see EXPIRATION: OCT 2011 and think, “huh, we’ll be gone by then. We will expire before you bottle of BBQ sauce. Either you will be consumed or you will be trashed because we will part ways before OCT 2011.” And yeah- thats a pretty profound conversation to be having with a bottle of BBQ sauce, isn’t it? It will still be awhile before we know exactly where we will be heading 12 months from now but Im excited to start a new adventure, be closer to home; family and friends. And if we’re lucky, I think we might be taking a few friends with us, and Im pretty giddy at the thought of taking some of our favorite people with us! Virginia or bust.

But in addition to being the funny, witty and charming writer you heart Im [relatively] crafty too!

I discovered this Bloggers Quilt Festival thing and figured, what they hay.  The rules of engagement are that you: ” Share one quilt, and it’s story.  Why you made it, why it is special to you, what you learned about quilting/yourself while making it.”

So. Here goes.

After college my mom had a t-shirt quilt made for PC and I with all our CU and my sorority t-shirts. I liked the idea of it because there are so many memories associated with those old t-shirts. When PC joined the Marine Corps I figured someday I’d make one with all of our shirts we’ve collected along the way. Funny, the impetus for starting this project was not that I felt I had enough shirts or wanted to make it for a promotion or anything. It was this: we always fight over who gets lovingly tradeoff who gets the CU blanket because its the warmest snuggliest one for movie watching. Thus, t-shirt quilting commenced.

So the why I made it, I suppose we could say- out of marital necessity?  The why its special?  All these t-shirts that have been collected, they are markers….symbols (?) of this crazy military life we live. Many of them were ‘earned’ through separations, deployments, vacations, reminders of good times as well as a lot of difficult ones. Its kind of like the ribbons/medals PC wears on his uniform, so many of those shirts are a reminder of all we’ve been through, all we’ve accomplished, and the good things he/we’ve done. Im proud of those shirts, we’ve sacrificed a lot to get them.

Im still not quite finished with it. Its still full of safety pins at the moment and, Im sort of having to reacquaint myself with quilting, its been a looong time since I’ve made anything bigger than a baby blanket.

And lets see, what did I learn while making it: knit (t-shirt fabric) does all it can to be difficult to sew with, it curls and stretches and is just generally a pain to work with. Two layers of bamboo batting a warm blankie will make, but my sewing machine said ‘oh heeeeeell no’ when it came to machine quilting it, so, Im quilting it the old fashioned way (a la by hand). It might be done by Christmas. Ok, Valentines Day. Or Easter, definitely by Easter.

I had to dig through PC’s drawer to find one of the last remaining  green skivvy shirts that still had his name ‘branded’ on it from OCS (Officer Candidate School). When he was “Candidate DXXXX ” instead of “Captain DXXXX.” Sorry- I had to smear out our name in the pictures, I just can’t be having the ENTIRE internet knowing my name. The shirt next to it is from the time PC got deployed to Dhaka, Bangladesh on about 10 hours notice to go provide humanitarian relief when Cyclone Sidr hit in 2007. I also got a lot of beautiful jewelry from that trip, but, thats neither here nor there.

The t-shirt with all the aircraft was from our time at the MAG, time that at the time was not so fun, but looking back on it has a lot of good memories.  A shirt from Comm School, a pocket with the US MARINES tape sewn on- from the uniform he wears proudly everyday, and probably my favorite- the white shirt that says something in Burmese and under it it says, “Have you Been to Myanmar?” I don’t know why that cracks me up. It just does. That shirt was from when PC was deployed to Thailand for an exercise in April 2008, then Cyclone Nargis hit Burma/Myanmar and they were tasked with providing humanitarian relief for that. He was supposed to be home Mid May- we didn’t see him until July. AND I was pregnant. That was a rough one. You may remember what a cluster that was with with US offering help and it being refused so all our Navy ships sat in the water and all those Marines just waited. And all us families at home waited. And the end result was that basically we were able to deliver a few cases of water. PC got to go on one of those deliveries and they were allowed to go only as far as the airport terminal where he acquired this t-shirt.

I even included a piece of the Marine Green Silkies. Any of you fellow spouses can appreciate why 1) I was happy to cut them up and 2) why I laugh seeing it in there. The green silkies are running shorts. And by shorts I mean they are almost inappropriately short…..so short that I feel I should cover my eyes when a big group of Marines run by. Or maybe just cover one eye, because, Marines are kind of cute.

I called PBK this morning and surprise surprise they won’t ship it either [sob]. Oh you guys, I love Japan. I really really do and yes, this is materialistic and petty but Im SO OVER not being able to get what it is I want.

Im racking my brain trying to think outside the proverbial box on how to get something table-like here. I saw a great Chinese antique table the other day but I cringe a little at the thought of letting my kids color and paste all over it. Plus- the antique Chinese don’t do the adjustable leg thing. And before you remind me of our weight issue, Im purging at the same time– the baby glider and ottoman are going, books are going, some dishes are going–I’d say we have 8+ boxes of stuff exiting. Either way, the kids need somewhere to play, let me present exhibit A- the play area mess. Except this isn’t a mess- this is actually as ‘picked up’ as it gets.

Yes, I know it looks terrible. No paint, nothing on the walls, the messy bookcase. The loose plan at the moment is to swap the bookcase out (put it in the family room or Nathan’s room) and use our two gov’t bookcases (not exactly pretty but functional) and it would look like something Pottery Barn(ish) with bookcases with neatly organized baskets and then a playtable behind the couch. Thats the hope. What we have right now? Its depressing.

*the end table you see in the 2nd picture- that gov’t bad boy is going back to the warehouse.

think brain think:
-PC is headed back to DC for a conference soon and PBK doesn’t stock the playtables in their stores so I thought of him shipping it home but he has to be able to get it first.
-find some military family moving here soon, send it to them and have them pack it with their stuff. I don’t know anyone moving and Im not sure I’d trust someone in that situation-plus- it would be MONTHS before it got there.
-see how much it costs to ship it FexEx international.
-try and figure out that FedEx smart-ship business.
-pray to the furniture gods
-PC’s friend is in the Philippines right now so Im sure he could take a picture to the people who made the kids’ kitchen to have them make us a table, but we’re still stuck on how to get it back here (PC doesn’t have as many pilot connections anymore to get them to load it on one of the planes).
-build a table out of all the cardboard boxes floating around our house. I guess our house will look like a junk hole college apartment forever. Oh Pessimism, I love you.

Come on internet- THINK…..what can I do? Does anyone [echo echo echo] have any connections at PBK or Land of Nod or FedEx or maybe just a boat they will be crossing the Pacific with in the next few weeks? Please help.

It was a little (and I stress little) bittersweet leaving the cement bungalow (what are we going to call this house?? This one will be the deluxe bungalow). Sadly/strangely? That house is the longest we’ve lived anywhere since….uh, since I was a kid living at home I guess. So much happened in that house. We moved there when Nathan was a 5 month old– FIVE month old! Now he’s almost a 5 YEAR old. Mackenzie came home to that house, we became a family of four in that house. But, at the end of the day its just 4 cement walls and seafoam tile.

Our new place is pretty much the exact same house except with a dining room in the front which oddly makes such a huge difference. We no longer have to split our family room into family room and dining room. Now the kids actually get a sizable area to play. And we have a backyard. A really nice big back yard. Its a lot of mud and clover but I sprinkled some grass seed and hopefully we’ll have more grass than mud soon. And speaking of back yard, we’ve talked about getting the kids a playhouse. Well. That proved to be not just difficult but flat out impossible. The BX has none. I tried to order them from the BX’s online store and ha- they won’t ship them over here. So, thats really awesome that they don’t even ship to the exact people they are supposed to be selling to. If it weren’t for our “weight problem” (we’ve got 10,000lbs, we’re only allowed 14,000 and we’ve got a decent amount in storage so we’ve got to be hovering around our max) I’d have PC build something amazing. He’s a pretty crafty craftsman and I’d feel….vindicated? Like the BX can take its plastic playhouse and shove it. Sadly, the end result is still the same: no playhouse.

Time to get back to work.

And forgive me in advance- I haven’t had time to proofread this. Children can’t be ignored any longer.

Lets start back at the very beginning because since we had this talk the last time (on the old blog) we’ve had some new friends join us. As mentioned the other day PC and I both went to school in Colorado, once we finished school he was working as an engineer and I was working for Wells Fargo. Sept 11 happened, PC got laid off. He found another job later that fall that paid well but it was a small (read: volatile) company. He started bringing up the idea of the Marine Corps which I was initially strongly against. We bought a house. I loved my job but we knew that kids were on the horizon. He was worried about being the sole provider given his company/industry at the time. He continued to bring up the Marine Corps, I saw it as a win-win (I would be able to stay home with the kids and not work). I had a really really hard time with leaving Colorado and our friends there. And, to a small extent my job (I think I maybe/possibly would have tried to continue working- even with kids really really part time or as a temp if someone was sick/on vacation etc.) Because of this we agreed to keep our house there and that way, after his initial commitment of 3 years if one or both of us wanted to get out we could hang up our hats and we’d still have our house to move back to. PC was commissioned in August of ‘04.

We lived in Virginia for about a year and a half and then moved to Japan in Dec. ‘05. We’ve been here ever since. Our initial commitment to the Marine Corps ended last year. We opted to stay longer for many reasons I wont get into, but at the time it was the right decision. Because we are doing back to back tours overseas the military pays for a trip home (hence, the travels this summer- thanks taxpayers!) We are scheduled to move in Dec of 2011.

After deciding to stay here for another 3 years and after all we’ve been through in the last 5 years I had just sort of resigned myself to the full 20. For those of you not well versed in military you can retire after 20 years, retirement pay begins right away and you have full medical benefits for life. Its really a pretty sweet deal in that regard. PC and I would be 45 and, probably, if we are smart with our money, wouldn’t have to work again. Though, Im sure PC would work, just because he might go bonkers without something to do. We just passed the 5 year mark, we’ve got 15 to go. And, its easy to say this right now, when things are going good, (those of you who have been around for awhile know that there have been extended periods of time where things have NOT been good) but I was really ok with this just being our life. It took me a long time to get to that point. And again – this is easy to say when things are going along swimmingly.

But every time we go back to Colorado….usually its just hard for me. Last time we went home (summer of ‘07) there was the inkling that we would get out and move home. And then we didn’t. But this time, I knew it wasn’t in the cards so, while I was sad, it just….it just is what it is. However, this time, without ANY comments, without ANY prompting it was my husband that was reconsidering. He met up with one of his good friends that continues to offer him a job….and everytime the pot gets a little sweeter and, I mean this in the nicest possible way but I think he’s one step away from begging PC to come work for him. And the really swell part is that the day PC was having lunch with him he had said he would be back at 2pm and then Vivian and I could go do something, the two of us. So at 4:40 when I hadn’t heard from him I was getting a little PEEVED. It doesn’t help any that Vivian and I feed off each other because sometimes our husbands can be birds of a feather in this regard. So, I called him and was like “Where are you? you haven’t even left yet? Leave now.” It seems I cut them off in the middle of their “if you come and work for me this is what I can offer you” conversation. So…yeah. Not great timing.

I was even slightly more irritated that he was late because he was having this job-offer conversation which at the time I thought was completely irrelevant. “Oh what– so you are getting out of the Marine Corps now?” NOT AFTER WE SPENT A YEAR FIGHTING ABOUT IT. Don’t even tell me that. So we’re at Vivian’s house and Im crying and we’re wrangling kids and Im thinking holy shit….what just happened here? Wait…you can’t be serious? Because I finally just got to a point where I was good with what we were doing and I was on board for the 20 and Semper Fi, yada yada. And now you’re reconsidering. Sob.

So, that brings us to the present. And let me tell you, I’ve been running every morning these last few days (oh yeah- did I mentioned I gained 5 damn pounds this summer? Worth it I think.) We’ve been waking in the 5am hour (AND KIKI IS SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT CAN I GET AN AMEN?) so I go run before PC goes to work. Every morning this is what weighs on my mind. Do we stay in? Do we get out? How do you decide? Because the path’s are so vastly different. And the thing I keep telling myself, the thing that is so hard is that there are no do-overs in life. Its not like 15 years from now, once we’ve done the Marine Corps thing and we’re retired and our kids are gone that I can be like “yeah…..I wish we could have raised our kids in Colorado. I wish we would have gone camping and hiking and they could see their grandparents at the holidays and they’d be rooted in one place.” (note: did anyone else just feel that earthquake here?) I don’t want to live with regrets.

The real problem is that one option is not far superior to the other. In fact, I’d even say they are equal. But we have to pick one. And Im having trouble weighing the pros and cons. So how does one decide? I also try and look at what the future will be and yeah…. like I think about schools and how in the Marine Corps these are the places you can be stationed: Okinawa, Iwakuni (Japan), Hawaii, Southern California, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina. Thats pretty much it. The [public] schools in Hawaii are atrocious. California- same. North Carolina- not much better. South Carolina- not sure on that one. Virginia- excellent. Overseas–DODDS schools are very good. So, the writing on the wall is that our kids will probably have to go to private school at least in some of the places we live. And while as a Captain PC makes good money, its not enough to afford $10,000 tuition for a private school. I also, especially after this summer seeing everyone’s beautiful houses and driving past our old house and coming back to the freaking shoebox we call a house have been in a pissy mood about living in 1100 sq feet of space. Yep, its probably matieralistic. Yep- I know that some people live in a cardboard box but friends, I have HAD IT with the cement bungalow. HAD IT. 4 people in this house with ZERO storage space is not working. Our friends were talking about how much they enjoy riding bikes as a family. We wouldn’t know because if we want to EXTRICATE our bicycles from the closet we call a storage area they won’t easily go back in. And a trailer for the kids? Forget it. Unless we want to store that under our kitchen table. Nathan desperately needs a new bike because he’s outgrown his. Where will we store that? His current little bike is just in the kitchen, in front of the washer. No- theres no “nook” or anything. Its exactly as I described it. In the middle of the floor, right in the way of traffic. But there is no other option– if we keep it outside it will either get stolen (like our neighbors who had their jogging stroller stolen right off their porch) or, more likely, is it will be entirely rusted in about 3 weeks. I have at least 4 laundry baskets full of stuff to get rid of. And right now the two baby carseats and a stroller and bouncy seat are clogging up kiki’s room waiting for the flea market but its just….I dont know, even with getting rid of a massive amount of stuff, I just feel like the walls are closing in on us. My point with this long drawn out saga is that I have to accept the fact that we’ll never have a big beautiful house like we used to. In the states yes, we could rent something bigger. True. But you can’t do much to a rental to “make it yours.” The whole espresso machine with a line into the plumbing. Im guessing that wouldn’t happen in a rental. Neither would a complete kitchen upgrade! But we can’t buy anything because lord knows doing the rental thing? That can kind of suck. And if you do the rental thing on an expensive house– when you are the one stuck covering the mortgage payment if you can’t sell it. That kind of sucks too. (note: I swear its not just the jets…..the little brass handles on the furniture are shaking again. Mini-earthquakes?)

Here are probably the two things that make me cling to the Marine Corps: 1)free healthcare 2) pride. If we do get out I told PC he should stay in the reserves. 15 years of reserve time and its still a good retirement. The pride? Im not sure you can get the same thing anywhere else. Being in the military, or more correctly, being a military family is one of the things Im most proud of. While I know I am not the one who wears the uniform, I think every military spouse would agree with me that its most definitely a joint effort and we contribute a lot too. Weather it be making dinner for the Marines in the barracks, hosting extra people at the holidays, or being a single parent for weeks or months on end, and running a household entirely on your own, we bear the burden too. Trust me when I say I don’t always do it with a lot of (any?) grace, but I’ve at least proven that I can hack it.

We’ve met some unbelievable people. We live next to people that wake up and fly $30 million dollar jets for a living. We have friends that are in the sandbox fighting the fight right now. We’ve lost one close friend already. We have another friend that was in the infantry and has actually killed people (bad guys of course). Im not sure entirely how I feel about that- but still. Its not like we are surrounded by anything mundane I guess is what Im saying. And I get that there are LOTs of great people in this world, but I wonder- will I regret not being surrounded by these people? These people that so selflessly put their lives on the line. These families that are so quick to lend a hand when you need it most.

Most of all will I miss the person that its made me (or forced me at times)? I’ve been shoved out of my comfort zone and let me tell you that this girl from Iowa never thought she’d be living on a little island in Japan, married to a Marine. Its humbled me, its made me appreciate what I have. Its been eye opening visiting some of the places I’ve gotten to go- places I would not have seen otherwise. Its made me care a lot less about keeping up with the Jones’. Its made me a better person. Its also made me bat-shit crazy at times (see also: 1100 square feet of living space).

We have some time to figure things out— I’m not sure if we have to ride out the rest of our 3 years here or if we could leave sooner than that. Technically the only thing the Marine Corps has “given” us that would obligate us is our trip home this summer which we technically haven’t been paid for yet (we paid for it and once PC turns in the paperwork will be reimbursed for it). There has also been a pilot program where you can take a leave of absence from the military for up to 3 years. But I think its only in its pilot stages and it could be awhile before it materializes, if it ever does.

Like I mentioned before, there is no clear winner in this case. I will be sad if we leave the Marine Corps, just like Im sad everytime we go back to Colorado. Vivian told me her Dad tells her (and I think my dad has said the same thing) nothing is ever 100% right or 100% wrong. Its just hard because I could go either way. There are things about both lifestyles that would make me exceedingly happy, and there are things that I would dislike about both.

When we drove into Rock Creek where our old house was we had to get gas at Safeway. Thats the Safeway my brother worked at when he lived with me the summer PC was at OCS. It was a really fun summer. And off to the right was where we had our first apartment. And there was the lake we would take Sandy for walks by. And also our first apartment there on the right? It was bigger than our current house. AND it had a two car garage. And as we drove up the road I just started sobbing. And PC was rubbing my leg trying to console me and part of me is thinking, its just memories. You are just remembering all these good times and its making you sad. But the other part of me is thinking- if you’re so freaking UPSET about not being here, maybe you should figure things the hell out and DO something about it. When we were with Vivian and she and I were leisurely flipping through magazines while our kids played I just kept thinking about how, maybe in some other life, this could be reality. Spending time with one of my  best friends, just like it was any other normal day, watching our kids play, discussing great recipes. In my mind, there isn’t much that can top that. Maybe if she had an espresso machine plumbed into the water line. But that would be the top.

It might also be worth mentioning that its Colorado or bust. If given the choice between the Marine Corps and somewheretown, USA? I’d take the Marine Corps. Colorado is the only place that I want to be, and if we can’t be there, then we should stick with the MC. So, Im so confused. Before, when PC and I were going around and around it was because I was unhappy with the Marine Corps. I didn’t want to be here “one second longer” I once told him. And now, Im at peace with it. Its fine. But there is also this other really really really great option that continues to present itself. I do believe in signs and  I do think there is a higher power up there working and I just wonder what to make of that….and the fact that PC’s job (the one he just started 2 months ago) has now been ripped out from under him (through no fault of his own- the military continues to make more jobs civilian/GS jobs which is what happened to his)….maybe its a sign.

So, tell me your thoughts. I know there are quite a few of you who are/were military. Im going to be sad if I don’t see lots of comments because if YOU can’t solve my problems, who can?