Domesticity

Catching Up on the First of the Month

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Happy November! The last few months have seen me slacking in the online documentation of my oh-so-fascinating life, but the autumnal coolness in the air following Hurricane Sandy’s passage last week has me motivated to catch up on previously mislaid hobbies — knitting and blogging, chiefly. I’m lusting after gorgeous, squishable yarn and raring to write things more interesting than utilitarian emails. This month is shaping up to include some travel to visit family and some projects to ready the house for tenants when we move early next year, so it may be wishful thinking on my part to suppose I will have time for everything. If nothing else, tapping out a blog post now and again could provide a pleasant respite from the pre-PCS freak-out I’m already beginning to feel creeping in around the edges.

Autumn Holidays

Sampson and I have not had much time to breathe this fall. We made it through the mad rush of the Jewish holidays; Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah all pop up in remarkably quick succession. As has been the case in years past, the craziness factor in Sampson’s squadron seemed to ramp up at the same time. Mighty inconvenient, that. His chain of command does try to be accommodating of his religious observance, but the unrelenting requirements of the flight schedule were not amenable to Sampson’s taking off any more time than the bare minimum for the High Holidays. We missed out on building our own sukkah this year; I had neither the heart nor the handiness to tackle the job on my own, so our observance was rather lacking. Next year, wherever we may wind up, I want to make sure we do not let that joyful time pass us by again.

Stormy Weather

Hurricane Sandy passed our house by, leaving nothing more in the way of clean-up than a few downed branches and a ton of leaves scattered across the yard. We were very lucky. I spent most of this past weekend holed up alone in the house, watching the rain, listening to the wind, and wishing in most uncouth terms that the Navy hadn’t played its customary “Forget the woman and children; save the airplanes!” card, sending Sampson and several of his squadronmates on a “HURREVACation” to sunny Florida. Not gonna lie, the injustice of it all rankled a little bit. (Okay, it rankled a lot.) But, he’s home now, and we were extremely fortunate with the storm’s minimal impact on ourselves and our loved ones in Northern Virginia. I sincerely hope that was the last gasp of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season.

Candyween

Halloween saw a moderate number (for our neighborhood) of trick-or-treaters on our doorstep. Even though we parceled out generous handfuls to each child, we still wound up with leftovers from our single bowl of candy. My favorite kid this year was the adorable, tiny witch who had not yet mastered the trick-or-treating procedure: she tried to walk right in when I opened the door. Cute as she was, I’m not sure she tops last year’s favorite, a little boy who caught a whiff of the beef stew simmering away on the stove and announced, “Mmm, y’all are cooking something good in here; I can smell it!” This year, our chicken soup was already eaten and the leftovers put away before the doorbell started ringing, so no word on whether my cooking still meets with youthful approval.

How is your November shaping up? Got any fun stuff on tap for chillier days and lengthening nights?

Never Did Find a Pair of Hiking Boots

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My non-specialized footwear served me all right this time, though. Our Lake Tahoe vacation was glorious and relaxing and full of hiking and just what we needed.

Lake Tahoe

It’s practically unfair for water to be this blue, or for the weather to be this gorgeous.

We’re now in the midst of the Jewish High Holy Day season, which tends to boggle me with the apparent speed of its annual return. Our Rosh Hashanah wound up being quieter than we’d anticipated; Sampson’s folks were supposed to come spend the Jewish New Year with us, but my father-in-law’s golf injury necessitated a last-minute cancellation of their trip. We were sad not to be able to spend the holiday with them, but healing absolutely takes priority. Sampson and I still managed a feast of brisket, risotto, and plenty of apples and honey for a sweet new year.

Sampson’s work schedule has been pretty wacky over the last week or so, with a lot more late-night stuff than we’re used to interspersed with some early wake-ups. That kind of sleep-shifting always plays merry hell with my internal clock, so I’m glad today is shaping up to be more “normal.” I’ve got a Civil Air Patrol meeting tonight, during which I hope to get a few things back on track with the cadet side of our public affairs program. Cookies may be required to soften the blow of any tasking I have to hand out; baked goods always make work more palatable, right? I’m thinking my basic chocolate chunk recipe will do nicely.

I guess that means I’m off to bake and to further enjoy the hint of autumnal coolness on the breeze blowing through my open windows. Hope your day is going equally well!

All I Have to do is Dream?

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This morning I dreamed that Sampson was home. It was a soft, quiet dream, untouched by the frantic edge of anxiety-driven nightmares and the brain-bending surreality of those weird dreams whose true bizarreness is only apparent upon recalling them with waking memory. My unconscious mind sketched a cozy, domestic scene this time: just us, sleepily spooning on a couch while watching some mildly interesting show about a massive bookstore on TV.

“I am so glad you’re home. This is perfect,” I murmured, and he pulled me closer.

“I know, it’s great. Couch naps rock,” he said, kissing my neck. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Nestled warm and secure and utterly content in his embrace, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

And the dream faded.

And I woke up, alone in our bed, the morning light of the real world sneaking in through the windows to remind me that my husband is still deployed, still thousands of miles and several time zones away from being able to indulge in a lazy afternoon nap with me. Not fair, I thought, muzzily attempting to reconcile the dream’s feeling of solidity with the waking evidence that my husband had been present only in the private universe of REM sleep. Not nice.

It was nice, though. Even the twinge of disappointment that it was just a dream does not cast an irredeemable pall over the tranquility and joy at the heart of my sleeping brain’s creation. Even though he is oceans and continents away, I experience Sampson’s love as a strong and daily presence in my emotional life. My dream this morning, however fleetingly, let me feel as though he were physically by my side.

I miss him very much. Very often my waking thoughts of Sampson’s return focus on the excitement and emotional high of his future homecoming. While wonderful and special and all that good stuff, those dizzy heights are not our favorite part of a reunion. My dream this morning vividly reminded me of all the quieter pleasures to which we can look forward upon his return.

“Ready the couch for the best afternoon nap ever” is definitely getting added to my pre-homecoming checklist.

Who’s Winning, Me or the Deployment? (Part I)

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I can’t decide whether I’m rocking this deployment or whether it’s kicking my ass. I can point to arguments in support of both; I’m never sure which way the scales are going to tip on any given day. I don’t remember feeling this weebly-wobbly during last year’s deployment, but that could be selective memory on my part. Or maybe I’m just picking up on the nuances a little more clearly now that it’s not my first one. I don’t know.

Let’s look at the case for “This deployment is kicking my ass.”

The Ass-Kicking

Six-legged Invaders: Ants. They’re fascinating critters when they’re not swarming in my sunroom. The poison I dutifully sprayed around the perimeter of the room and all the windows has helped some, but I’m paranoid that they’re living in the walls and all I’ve done is cut down on the ones I see alive. The dead ones aren’t a whole lot of fun, either.

Drip… Drip… Drip… The remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl brushed by us yesterday, bringing a day of rain. I usually like rainy days for the pleasure of being cozy and dry inside our snug little house. It’s a lot less cozy to realize that the rain has decided that it would like to join me and the cats indoors. It’s not the first time this has happened, but we thought our intrepid homeowner roof-patching skills had taken care of the problem (which had previously only shown up in a crazy storm of the raining-sideways-and-tornado-warning variety, not light steady rain like yesterday). Apparently not. So, now I’m on the hunt for a roofer who can diagnose the problem and fix it — without, I sincerely hope, having to replace the whole roof.

PCS Panic: I know, I know, it’s a little early to start flipping out about orders that are supposed to come next April or May. Except OH WAIT, Sampson recently mentioned to me that if the stars align for the orders he really wants (sorry about the deliberate vagueness), we would have to be at the next duty station in January. That would make December the crunch time for the move, and that is this year. This PCS will be our most complicated yet:

  • We own our house and plan to rent it out. That means whipping a lot of things (such as the ant issue, the leaky roof, the overgrown bushes in the back yard, the fence, the shed behind the garage, the effed-up window in the laundry room…) into shape and finding a property manager and figuring out a whole lot of stuff that is brand-new to us.
  • We have pets this time, which we didn’t for the various flight school PCS moves.
  • We’ve lived here for just about four years now, and the Law of Expanding Crap has ensured that we have more furniture and stuff in general than we did before.

The PCS stress might not be fully attributable to this deployment, but Sampson’s absence points a horrible magnifying glass at everything that absolutely must get done before we move.  All I’m seeing is the inexorable expansion of the to-do list and the months my husband won’t be around to help with any of it.

Lest anyone interpret that as resentment towards Sampson, please note that it is his support and faith in my competence that imbues me with the strength to suck it up and get things done. Most of the time, it’s comfort enough to know that he would be here to do battle with Murphy if he could — most of the time.

Then there are the days where I can all but feel the to-do list looming over my head, mocking me with tasks at which I can wield no experience or expertise. Those are the days when I feel fragile, overwhelmed. I suspect that is a signal that I’ve let my focus drift too wide and I need to squeeze it back down to concentrate on a single step rather than the whole seething mass of Everything that Must Get Done.

And on the days when even tackling a single step threatens to drown me, my best bet is to shunt whatever is currently kicking my ass aside for the moment and contemplate the ways in which I am totally rocking the deployment. That’ll be my next post, “Who’s Winning, Me or the Deployment? (Part II).”