Playing with the boys

Last week, I hung out in Orlando with Nic and Zac. Laurie and Chris are preparing for a shuttle launch and had a scheduling conflict Wednesday, plus the boys were off Friday, so they needed someone to keep the little critters.

Somewhat fortunately, I'm out of work now so I got to go. I left with Laurie the same afternoon as my party and got there at a reasonable hour, but after the boys had gone to bed. (And to sleep, which is two totally different things, I've learned.)

Anyway, I got to be on Kid Duty parts of the week -- like drop off or pickup -- for some of the week, then both on Wednesday and I had them all to myself on Friday.

In between, I bought a car. Nothing special, justa bland FSU garnet 2006 Corolla. I'm familiar enough with Toyotas and had researched enough about the the model and asked enough questions prior to meeting the owner that basically the only thing that would have turned me off would have been a Gator sticker or something.

Instead, it had a gold pinstripe, so I knew it was an all right deal. I got it for the KBB "good" third-party price, which is what it is. The dealers really want to hose you, so unless this thing falls apart soon -- and it's got 98k miles on it -- I did all right. (Chris checked it out and said it appears fine, too.) I will be needing new tires soon, but that's not horribly bad if I do them two at a time.

Anyway, it's complicated getting money from Tallahassee out in Havana when all you have is a debit card but hamdullah it worked. I even managed to do the tax/tag/title thing, although my temporary tag flew off somewhere between Perry and Havana. Ah well, li fat mat, as we'd say in Morocco. It's gone. I'll get a real tag soon enough.

So back to the boys. Nic is my buddy, and Zac tolerated me this time. None of that "Who are you?" stuff this time, although I get get called "Aunt Wendy" and "Aunt Lee" here and there.

We played baseball and kickball, Monopoly and Wii Resort and spent time at the park. They gave Lucy -- my car -- their stamp of approval from the back seat, and then we went to some kind of horribly overpriced putt putt. Nic got wet. Twice. Really, really wet.

People told me twice I resemble Laurie -- one "You sound just like her!" and one "Oh, I knew you were her sister - you look alike!) I just don't see it, and neither does she.

I've tested my Morocco limits by eating out successfully, including not flipping out with that little buzzer thing at Outback.

And I got a lot of work on this free-lance gig done, although I am not sure I am doing it the way I'm supposed to be. I have a meeting on that tomorrow.

Now, I am trying to get on the job hunt, but I don't know what's out there. I got a call that cheered me up about one, although it was more of "We're still planning to hire but I'm leaving the country for a while, so don't hold your breath." I also got a "thanks for playing, please try again" from another, but I hope to at least find some part-time work fairly soon.

In the meantime, I'm still cleaning and paring down like a madwoman. I'm also on call for nephew sitting during the next shuttle launch and might wind up being a driver to Zippy's softball this weekend in Tampa.

And I started French classes at the senior center (extremely funny, IMO) and am looking into the Red Cross disaster training, too. I certainly don't lack options, which is really nice!

Hail, hail, the gang's all here!

*BURP!* I've been officially welcomed back!

Leanne and Darren gave me a wonderful little brunch, complete with chocolate chip pancakes, and about 30 people came over to say hi and eat (and eat and eat, but there were still enough leftovers to feed a dar chebab!)

Ashley and James made for a wonderful waitstaff -- who knew an informal get-together used menus?

So thank you, Leanne (who swears she doesn't read this blog), and everyone who was able to come. It was so wonderful to see people after two (or, in many cases, a heck of a lot more) years.

So much has changed since I've been gone, like Leila and Chip being pregnant, Alexandria driving, my mom retiring and Trina getting

married. It's kind of strange to be dropped back in the middle of it all.

For those still keeping count, I returned to Orlando with Laurie on Saturday night (taking leftover couscous and ham, which I'm still devouring) to hang out with the nephews a little more. They couldn't come to the party since they had a Cub Scout event.

So I'm in Orlando this week and today Chris and I took the boys to work on baseball a little. Chris pitched and I caught while we tried to show them how to correctly hold the bat and stand.

And, at one point, I found myself trying to instruct Zac in Arabic. I was like, oh, wait. That's not right.

I still miss Morocco. My tutor said my host mom visited them this week. I wish I could e-mail her.

EC and I are still in communication. I sent him a childhood photo. He has none, so he shared this with me. It's from his "mut" (dead, translated here as "expired") passport. I still think he's "zuin."

Downsizing even more

Before I sold my house, moved the rest of my stuff to Florida and then joined PC, I swear I unloaded a ton of stuff.

I gave away art supplies, I sold stuff on Craigs' List and I threw all kinds of stuff away. I even left some stockpiled cardstock when I moved my house and forgot a few things when I ultimately drove out of Michigan for the last time.

But upon returning from Morocco, I'm still stunned at the amount of *stuff* I have. Living on a shoestring for two years magnified the fact I just don't *need* more than that, either.

I mean, I survived just fine on maybe five pairs of pants, so why did I, at one time, need five pairs of pants in varying shades of brown? Or three black ones? (Not counting jeans ... and let's not count jeans, please!)

So now I am downsizing yet again. I've taken countless (well, maybe 4-5) loads to Goodwill already, cut more into rags, given some to Leanne, taken some to a consignment store and thrown more in a "TBA" pile.

And I'm utilizing Craigs' List to the hilt.

Wonder of wonders, I've gotten some bites. I managed to unload ALL my hockey cards to a guy in Wayne Gretzky's hometown. Hamdullah! Let's put out there that I'm making absolutely no money - I wound up shipping four boxes to Canada -- but am just so glad to A. give the stuff a good home and B. never have to move it again.

As far as my stuff goes, that's all I've unloaded, but I've had success in freeing up floor space in my mom's room, too, but finding a buyer for the toddler bed and dresser she bought years ago for some reason.

And the brand new chairs she had in the room, if you can call something eight years brand new if it still hasn't been touched.

Best of all, I got a taker for a childhood's worth of trophies so they're no longer cluttering dust in the house.

And, even though I'm not doing so much of it right now (I'm working on a writing assignment), my mere presence has spurred my mom into some kind of cleaning frenzy. She's going through my grandmother's stuff to sort it (and learning my my brother is the spitting image of her father) as well as finally pulling the trigger on those long-fantasized about home improvements.

No, the new kitchen is still in the far distant future, but we got a new bathroom cabinet. And fortunately, even though I'd planned to, Daddy installed it.

It's smaller than the old one, and looks much nicer. The new medicine cabinet will go up a bit later, but right now Zippy is marveling over how nice at least a small part of her bathroom looks.

Next up is a new storage thingie in the utility room because we lucked out of finding something at Goodwill that she fell in love with. I hope to have little to do with that one, but I am up for painting her room, which is the project in the hole.

As far as jobs go, I am working on the writing assignment, which requires doing a lot of reading and then rewriting -- it's kind of like super-sized book report. I underestimated, I think, the reading time involved but I am into it now.

After that finishes up -- inchallah next week or at least by the end of the month -- I'll get more serious about looking for a job locally. I am still applying for federal positions plus hoping for a call on a different one I'd applied for, but I figure I am still about 3-4 weeks away from apply-for-everything mode.

Symptoms of that will include applying to temp agencies and part-time jobs in Tally, including retail.

Back in the USA

Happy New Year. I'm back.

I got back to Laurie's on Dec. 26, spent a couple of days with my nephews ("Who are YOU?") before arriving to the greater Havana area and greeting Kocur, who acted as if I never left.

That's a common theme right now: it seems I'm expected to pick up where I left off, and that's not happening.

At Laurie's, I freaked out in Target. Part of it, as you might figure, was due to the selection (THREE rows of calcium supplements? Holy smokes!) and I guess that frazzled me, because on the way out I really had heart palpatations at the electric doors.

The football game went fairly well, although I had a tough time with the crowds. It was nice to see Bobby go out with a win, though.

I've eaten at Cracker Barrel three times in a week.

Driving has been weird, but being a passenger was even weirder. I felt like we were going so fast!

Actually, I'm dealing fairly well, though. My mind is wired for vacation and I feel that's how I've coped all right thus far. We'll see what happens a bit later.

For now, it's all right, though. Mackenzie has been at the house and I've gotten to spend some time with her. She gave me a makeover today, which might come in handy if I have a job interview requiring four layers of lip gloss.

And now the job search really begins.