F is for...

Forgotten in the move!

Well, almost. Almost but not quite...
No, really, F is for... FWINGO! The Flamingo!

Fwingo may simply be a tacky lawn ornament to you, but to me, he is a tacky lawn ornament that I earned!!

I went to a magnet program in high school. Really intense, internationally certified curriculum. The way the program works, is that during your junior and senior years, you take your exams in May, rather like the AP exams. You get your scores back from your exams over the summer, again, like the AP exams. Whether you graduate the program is determined by your totaled exam scores, along with a few other things. In the meantime, as you're waiting for your exam scores to get back to you, you graduate from high school with the rest of your class in the spring, earn the regular HS diploma and head off to college. The way my high school works it, is that there is a second graduation ceremony in December (when we come back from our first semester at college) for those who've either graduated from the magnet program, or earned certificates from taking magnet program classes and exams. The graduation ceremony is hosted by the class below you (i.e. the current seniors in the program). Our friends in the class below us decided to Flamingo-a-Friend** the school for the day of the ceremony. Our names were each written on a flamingo, which were all in the nicely landscaped garden in front of the high school. At the end of the ceremony, we were able to take home our flamingo. So, I did. I have since named him, and decorated him with the leis that you see. Seemed right for him, somehow ;)

At the moment, Zach hates the plastic flamingo, while I'm trying to find a large indoor plant to plant Fwingo in, so that he may lurk among the greenery in an unobtrusive corner of our desert home :)


**If you don't know what Flamingo-a-Friend is, check them out here. You call the company, and they will come and fill the yard of your choice with flamingos, ravens, sheep, owls... basically, the plastic animal of your choice. :) I'm sure there are other companies that do it too, but the first one I heard about was this one, so that's what I've always called it.

Happy Easter!

From us and the buns!

Though, in terms of egg-hiding, he's much better at the searching side of things. See? Here he is thoroughly searching the bag of baby carrots to find the Easter eggs!

haHA!

I have a camera cord again! Huzzah!

So, to catch you all up pictorially with the goings-on the last two weeks, here goes.

Lots of packing up, loaded it all into cars, then went south to FL to visit family before heading west. In FL, tried to see as much family as possible, and even had a day down at Mandalay (grandparents' place down on the river in the FL panhandle). Zach became truly one of the family, spending much of the afternoon at Mandalay in the hammock, and having the chance to drive the Whaler, too, as we went out to the Flats. Saw 3 active osprey nests, so that's a good sign for the summer too. :)

In TX we stopped first in Houston to visit more family. Figured we weren't going to be heading that way again anytime soon, so better try and see as many folk as possible, right?

From Houston, we had a VERY long drive across TX. Western TX is a horrible drive. Very flat, very brown, very boring, and very endless.

AZ and NM were brown and desert-y too, but they were much more scenic, so the drive wasn't that bad. And I felt like such a little tourist, because I was giggly-excited over seeing saguaro cacti for the first time! :) They really are cool looking though!

Finally getting to CA was stressful, honestly. I've grown up on the coast, and the east coast at that. Arriving in the middle of the SoCal desert was about as different an environment as you can get, and still stay in the same country. :) More on my impressions of the post and the new place later. For now, I've got to get back to unpacking. It's very exciting - actually starting to look like a home!

Yes, I know...

Still no pictures. That cord's around here somewhere though! :) I'm taking plenty of pictures, though, because the apartment's actually starting to look like a home now. Very exciting! We've got a bunch of the major furniture up in the apartment now (thanks to some help from our kind neighbor downstairs) and starting to be able to unpack the boxes. Need somewhere to put the picture frames and books and such, right? So, yes, very exciting now, with our home actually starting to look like a home :)

Even better, I've interviewed for a job, so hopefully I'll hear back from them early next week. I don't want to talk about it too much (don't want to jinx it, y'know?) but please keep your fingers crossed for me!

Even though I've been moved to the middle of nowhere, I'm really actually pretty excited about it. I feel like I've been given a fresh start here. I'm out of Horrible Job, and all the life-sucking stress that went with it. Even simple things like cleaning or dishes or laundry would seem like insurmountable obstacles when I was working there; I just came home so DRAINED from work. Here, I'm starting to feel like myself again - I feel like I might actually be able to have more of a life here in the middle of nowhere than I did in SC! I know it probably sounds silly and overly romantic, but I'm really trying to stay positive about the move and all the changes that have come with it. :)

Settling in

Just a quick note this morning. We moved into our apartment yesterday. We got one in the middle-aged neighborhoods on post. Not the new ones, only a year or two or three old, but not one of the old crummy ones. It's not horrible, just a few more nicks and dings and scratches on the walls than a newer place, but there's SO MUCH STORAGE!! It's awesome! We have a one car garage, a second bedroom, and more closets than my old place did. It's so much bigger! Makes me very excited, because I think now I can have all my stuff sorted so that I can have my hobbies (particularly my books and my yarn) in their right places, without Zach feeling claustrophobic or cluttered. Yay! The extra space will be great for Joey too, because I won't have so much stuff out, which means he can run a bit freer in the apartment, and so much space for him to hop around, too! He's already been exploring a little, and seems to be settling in. Just having the world stop moving is a nice change (compared to last week, spent almost solidly in the car).

Meanwhile, I'm applying for jobs here on post. Slim pickins, but that's what you get when you're living in the middle of nowhere. On the upside, several MWR facilities are hiring, and apparently desperate for morning people. When your staff is either high schoolers or people with kids, having someone available at 4 or 5 in the morning is nice. They've been really excited about me possibly coming on.

Also on the to-do list, besides applying for jobs, is unpacking, particularly to find my camera cord. Once I find that, I can post pictures of the trip, the fort, and our new place. I know it's somewhere around here, but if only I could find the box it's in....

Oh yeah...

Forgot to add this - silly me.

Yes, we have arrived in CA. Drove FOR-EV-ER through the desert this past week (Texas does NOT end!!!!), and arrived in Ft Irwin on Saturday morning. Have been working our way through offices and paperwork, and it looks like we'll have a place to move into on Wed. Woohoo! So, we should have a real address by the end of the week (well, we'll have it before the end of the week, hopefully, but I might be buried under boxes unpacking, so it might take longer to get it out to everyone). Joey will be thrilled with all the new cardboard to attack in the house :)

Right now, we're hanging out in the Army Lodging, and catching up on a LOT of missed sleep. I'll have pictures pulled off my camera soon, so check back and you can see pictures of our trip, visiting family, and our final arrival here in the desert. But, yes, we have arrived. And are very tired :)

For all my friends running the Shamrock today...

Good luck everyone! Run fast! I miss you all, and wish I was running it with you too. Hope the weather holds for you too. Maybe a little warmer than last year though?

So, to Cathy, Maribeth, Dan, Mr. C and Ms. Donna, good luck with the Half Marathon again this year (Ms. Donna, on her first Shamrock!). And good luck to Will, too, for braving the Full this year! Best of luck everyone!