Negative productivity and a crazy cat.

The time away from Michael is certainly not getting any easier, but we've still been able to talk several times a week even since he's gone further out into the field for training. For me, one of the most challenging things about him being relatively unaccessible on a moment's notice by phone is the organization of any and all logistical details - since, now that we are married, my logistics are often going to be his, too! Even while I am in Chicago and he is still here, it is going to be important for us to always be on the same page so that we can stay on top of tickets between Atlanta and Chicago, and obviously for me to find a balance in work/school and my time with Michael. Anyway, while he's in the field, he obviously isn't able to help me even with the smallest details, so I've just been trying to juggle what few things I've had to take care of :-) He is very good at expressing his gratitude for that and saying that he wishes he could be helping with everything, so that makes it all worthwhile.

The past week and a half or so, I've really been at a complete standstill, as far as productivity. You might wonder what I need to be producing. Well, before I left in May I wasn't able to finish all of my packing of my winter clothes and several miscellaneous items leftover from my dorm room, most of which I will be wanting/needing desperately in Chicago! That is the main thing I am trying to wrap up - luckily my parents aren't looking over my shoulder trying to take over my entire closet...just my room. Although my mom has already made a very nice little office for herself in there, even with my bed still intact! So that is for my last week, as we are taking off for Orcas Island this coming Tuesday for five and a half days.

It has been really great to be home; I haven't seen as many people as I had hoped, but that seems to happen "everytime", no matter how long one has. I've managed to get quite a bit of downtime and good running and reading in, so for me that is alright for now. My thank-you pile still stares me daily in the face, but those I'm planning on bringing next week, so hopefully finish them then!

Michael has been doing a lot of driving out in the Mojave Desert the past couple of weeks. His Sgt. Jon Pratt had two incidences of heat exhaustion in just 3 days last week, however, which meant Michael took a couple of missions he wouldn't necessarily have otherwise. Jon is doing better, but the Sgt. above him who had him go back into "action" after just a night's rest following his first bout is getting demoted and moved to a different section. They had one day a couple days ago when they had some real "Iraq" fighting and action, so I'm glad about that, since it's really the reason they are out there - not just to run ammo back and forth between the camps. (At least, I thought...?) So they have a week or so left in the actual field and then will go back to the "staging ground", which is actually a Marine base in Yermo, CA, to get all of the vehicles back onto the trains to head back to Georgia.

My dad and I took a two-day trip up to North Vancouver, Canada, this week; he had a couple services/performances at Regent College and I visited several friends in the area. Such a great time. Here are a few pictures of the dinner I had with my "group".

Thursday night my dad had a concert at Regent, and we went out to dinner with Brian Moss (our friend who is the music and arts director at Regent), Heather Pasman and Jamie, the saxophone player who was also doing the concert. We ate at a great little bistro called Burgoo. They had "the best grilled cheese sandwich [Brian] had ever had in [his] life"...and it was pretty good! My dad was really excited about it, so I snapped a shot of him & Brian.

Meanwhile, today when my mom and I were baking all morning in our kitchen, the cat, Taffy, was begging incessantly. He started when I was making my salad for lunch, continued as we blanched peaches and cut them up for a pie, and was finally rewarded with some cooked chicken. (Although not before we made fun of him for begging for fruit...) Here he is, perched on my leg begging for who knows what...

All's well that ends well...

I found an apartment! Thank the Lord for finding a small but cute studio in a fab neighborhood just a block away from the metro!

Sight-unseen apartment hunting - not recommended!

The past three days, my dad & I (mostly my dad, who seems to have an amazing endurance for looking at hundreds of apartment ads, luckily for me!) have been sifting through hundreds of listings on Craigslist Chicago in order to try to find an apartment. We have finally narrowed it down at least to a general area/neighborhood - Lincoln Park - but now just need to narrow it a bit more (there are still hundreds in that single neighborhood!) so that I can either have someone I know in Chicago go take a look and meet the landlord or go there myself. It's fun to just browse through apartments, when one has little to no intention of living in them or needing to find a place in the next couple of weeks...but actually choosing is nearly impossible, especially sight-unseen. I know that I pretty much just need to choose a few to five, call the landlords, and make appointments and go, but then I'll be using a free ticket my dad has, since it would cost me $700 roundtrip to Chicago pretty much anytime this month! Whew. So my shoulders are sore and my head hurts, but we are truckin' on.

The thing that has been frustrating is that Michael is slaving away in the desert heat in CA and not very able to even see many of these listings, let alone come up with an opinion on them. This is solely due to the fact that the internet browser he's using is on his phone, so it's limited even though he can surf as much as he wants. Basically I will just take this opportunity to recommend that if you are looking for an internet-capable phone for actual internet surfing, get an iPhone, because BlackBerries, to my current experience, have somewhat debilitated browsers as far as formatting goes...

Anyway, all of that is boring and I'm sure will be inconsequential in a matter of days, so onto a more concise update. I arrived back on Camano on July 4th in time for an afternoon & evening of visiting with my parents, my godmother, some of their longtime friends and my brother- and sister-in-law. It was a blast. The weather was perfect (although I missed the AC I've gotten so used to!), the company was fabulous and the show was spectacular. We didn't even have to worry about lighting ourselves on fire - just sat on the deck and took in the show coming from the beach & our neighbor's parties!

So it's good to be back, but there are so many odds & ends that need to be tied up! Michael's & my bills, the rest of the wedding thank-you's, cleaning out the rest of my stuff leftover from before we moved... the list goes on! Having said that, though, I do have three and a half more weeks, so it isn't like I'm needing to worry myself sick about it :-)

Start of NTC and wine tasting in Napa...

Michael has arrived in California, so we are back in the same time zone! We've certainly learned to appreciate every little joy when it comes to the ease of our communication. They arrived Monday afternoon and have been working their tushes off since. Apparently their company's food & water supply has yet to arrive, though, so thus far they have had to buy all of it! Michael was telling me how yesterday morning they were called out to fix a truck at 9am and were there until 12pm...without any water. I found that pretty unbelievable. Well, I find that they have to buy all of their food & water unbelievable, but Michael says they've told them they will be reimbursed. Not to be the skeptic, but I will believe that when I see it! When I spoke with him last night, him and Jon Pratt, his Sergeant, were starting from opposite ends of a long line of trucks and making sure they all started - many of them didn't. They are all supposed to leave this morning, so I asked him what they would have to do with all of those ones. "We'll have to fix them." Oh, right. Just a minute, let me go fix these fifteen trucks while you have a cup of coffee...ha. "We're good, babe!" Anyway, I know they are good, but still...and when I said that to him, his reply was, "We just stay up all night if we need to." There we go...while that isn't cool, it makes more sense! So he is already up to his neck in work, but I think that that is a pretty positive thing, since before I was always feeling bad that he was alone at our apartment :-( Hour-long conversations are few and far-between again, but we've dealt with lots and lots of times like these before, so it's just a matter of readjusting again.

We've had unbelievable weather. Sunday we ended up going wine tasting in Napa Valley, which is about an hour away from her house, and it got to 108 degrees! We had a great time anyway. Here we are in front of one of our favorite wineries, Folie à deux, who make a fabulous wine called Ménage à Trois that everyone should try once!

We also went on a tour of Sterling Winery, which is built in Greek-style architecture and beautiful. Their wines are expensive but not really worth it - but we really enjoyed seeing the wine process in a big winery...which, much to Michael's chagrin, no longer involves the smashing of the grapes by human feet! Here we are on the tram up to the winery from the office at the bottom of the valley. We're also sporting some pretty fab faces.

So we had a great time even though we went through about 6 bottles of water each in the short car rides inbetween wineries! Jes' dad, Rich, was nice enough to drive us out there since he knew the way better.

Monday we went out to Jes' sister's apartment to babysit her month-old nephew, Dominic. I'm still afraid of breaking every baby I hold under 2 years old, but I did get him for about 40 minutes while we were there and he survived, so I guess I'm okay! Yesterday was pretty relaxed; we've been walking down to get tea/coffee the last couple mornings and it's starting to cool off so that is nice. I'm looking forward to going home, but it is really fun to just relax and hang with Jes here. We had a fun game of Trivial Pursuit (which I'd never played before) on Monday night, which I barely won...and only because I'd landed on easy questions for each qualifying one!

I've been getting up each morning and sitting outside on their back patio with my tea to enjoy the fresh air, read and pray. I love that time of day when you know the only people up are the ones who go in to work each day - and when you don't have to be one of them! I know that in a month and a half, I will be, so for now I'm enjoying vacation while I can.