Weeks Reflections

I had time the other day to as is was relaxing at this wonderful beach to reflect on the last week’s events. 

 I think the highlight has been that Tina and I celebrated our 20^th wedding anniversary on the 3^rd.   I look back at the years and they seem like they have just flown by.  Like most couples we have had our ups and downs but all in all I feel so blessed to have Tina in my life.   As I was showing pictures of Tina and I to a friend the other day she said we have a true love story.  I think that her comment really does sum up our relationship so well.

A couple of post back I was talking about my suitcase and all the baggage we carry in life, I related it to my broken suitcase that I had.   Well I finally bought a new suitcase J

My baggage in life I have also been working hard in clearing excess out that I have been carrying around too.  With the recent move I think that will is going to really help.   I also have a few relationships that have been toxic as well.  I have been addressing them and either trying to fix them or limit the effect they have in life on me. I always find the family relationships to be the most troubling, I feel like I owe more to the relationships because they are family, but how far is too much?

Our family and animals are adjusting to the new house.  I think Brenna and I made the right choice on picking houses.  

Oh the stress of moving!

This last week has been very stressful.  We are in our final night here in a hotel in Rock Hill SC.  We will finish unpacking what’s left of our move tomorrow.   We started our journey when I got back from working in Miami on the 18^th.   We had a huge garage sale on the weekend of the the 20^th and 21^st.  I was shocked we made $980 between the two days.  However I was bummed that we did not get our refrigerator sold and the ping pong table though.  On Tuesday Brenna and I went up to Rock Hill to get the keys for the new house and try to get the utilities set up.  But we got a late start so we didn't get everything set up and to top it off the house was not cleaned like the landlord had promised.   We went up the following day and got all the utilities set up and spent 6 hours cleaning the house.  We got back home at 1am, we were so beat.   The 25^th we picked up a 20’ U-Haul truck and I so thought that it would be too big.  I was so wrong, we packed it full!   Oh my we have accumulated a lot of things sense we have move in to that house.  On Friday we got everything packed and cleaned the house up.  We wanted to leave the house cleaner then when we rented it.   Up until this point we were extremely stressed out, and this is when the stress went over the top though.  We have had one of our cats that has been a bit sick lately so I thought that I should take there to the vet to see what was going on with her before the trip to our new home.  They did all kinds of test and determined that she had a mass on here intestinal area.   They were not sure if she would make it through a surgery or if they could even do surgery on her and what quality of life she would have even.  Tina and I had to make such a hard decision on what we should do for her.  Oh we so struggled with what was the right decision.  We decided to have her put to sleep. We didn't want her to face any future needless pain and suffering. It was the hardest thing Tina and I have had to do; she was such a great part of our family.  She has brought our family so much joy and love.  Tina and I were so glad that we could be with her as she passed though.  I am also thankful that the staff was so kind to us in that hard time for us. 

After that hard time we did last touched of cleaning of the house and left for Rock Hill.  That was one of the hardest drives that I have had to do,  all the emotions of leaving the town that we have been in for 6 years.   There has been so many good memories there, and with the the passing of our cat added it made it a very emotional drive and lots of crying.

Unloading the truck was so much easier; I back the truck up to the front door and put the ramp from the truck onto the front porch.  I was able to bypass the steps into the house and made it a lot easier.  In a post before I talked about how I used some skills from my past male life.  Here is were it came in handy again.  I worked for a rent to own store and got pretty handy with a appliance dolly and moving appliances and furniture.  I was able to show Brenna how to move all the big things with a dolly.  She was amazed. 

We will be spending the night tomorrow for the 1^st time in the house.  We have been so blessed that I have had a lot of hotel points.  I have used them to stay in both Charleston and Rock Hill.  It has made it a lot easier to not stress on getting things packed and unpacked. 

This move have been very physically challenging for me, I think I am getting too old to be moving all this heavy stuff around.  The mental side of it has hit both Tina and I really hard.  As we are getting settled things are starting to unwind finally.  We have always grown in many ways when we have moved so I am looking forward to see what new ways we will grow as a family and individually as well.

A long few days. (Past experiences come to my rescue)

This weekend was a whirlwind of craziness.   It all started out Thursday I worked a shift at the JFK airport from 4pm to 4am.   I got off work and packed the car and drove 12 hours to get home for Tina’s birthday. I surprised Tina for here birthday,  she didn't think i would be home once again.  It was great to see her and the girls event though it was just for the night. I got up the next day on Saturday and got 2 new tires on the car because I got a flat on the way home of Friday L.  At around 2 pm I finally was able to get on the road to drive to Miami.  It took be just a bit over 8 hours, then I worked all-night and got off around 830 am.    So to sum it up I drove 1300 miles in a few days, and I had 2 days that I was up about 30 hours at a time. 

I had 2 instances over the weekend that really made me thankful for my past experiences in my so called past life.   I think that I am blessed to have them and most women would never have the chance to have them so in a lots of ways I feel very lucky.

On my way home Friday I had just passed into North Carolina coming from the JFK airport.  I was driving along and all of a sudden I get the dash lighting up that I have a flat tire.   I pulled off at the exit that was coming up and pulled into a gas station figuring that I my need air in a tire.   I got out and my left front tire was leaking air pretty good and had a bulge in the side wall.  My 1st thought was what a way to add to my already long day being up for 24 hours already.  So I go inside and the gas station and get a nice cold Pepsi and  use the restroom.   I come out to the now flat tire.   Here is where my past experience comes to my rescue.  Back in the day as I call it I used to work for my Uncle in a tire and wire rope shop.  A flat tire really doesn't intimidate me in anyway.  I get down to business; pull the spare tire out of the trunk and all the implements that are packaged nice and neatly with the spare tire.  I notice that there are 2 older gentlemen sitting on the curb outside of convenience store watching me,  as I am getting ready to jack up the car they come over and ask nicely if I need help. From what I can see on there faces its is  mostly because I am woman and for sure can’t change a tire.  I politely say oh no thanks I can get it, they walk away and sit down to watch just knowing that I have no idea what I'm doing.  In about 10 minutes I have the spare on and everything packed away, and I didn't even get my shirt dirty.  They were in shock J  I just look at them and smile and get back to my trip home.   I am thankful that my VW had a full size spare being I had 320 miles left to drive home. 

My Second experience happened when I got down here in Miami.  I have been sent down to help our other Loadmaster Camille out.   I got in really late around midnight Saturday and checked into the hotel and headed out to the airport to watch the operation.  I am really just counting on observing the operation and learning how they do things.  When I got to the airport I was met by Camille who was very panicked because the plane was do in around 5am and the cargo build crew was short handed by about 4 people and had only build 6 out of 18 pallets needed for the flight.  At the rate they were going there was no way they would get it done even by departure time.   Once again here is were my previous past life came to the rescue.   About 8 years ago before transitioning I ran a warehouse that built and broke down freight for a cargo airline.   I have a vast amount of experience in that area, and again you would never expect a woman to have that.   I went to the lead of the crew and asked if he would like help, he was very stressed out and agreed to let me help.  I could see in his and his small crews eyes that they was very apprehensive.   I figured that my efforts would be best used by running the forklift and building up pallets.  Needless to say they were shocked that a woman could run forklift much less build freight like I could.  I build faster than one of their seasoned workers was even though I was well out of practice.   After a few hours we got everything all built in time for the flight.  I ended up building 1/2 of the freight for that flight.   Once again I am so thankful for my previous experiences in life.

After a few long days now I can rest and relax and start to explore Miami a little bit.

  

Time for a new suitcase.

I have been thinking a lot about how I hold on to hurt and disappointment that has happened in my life.  I think of myself as predominately a positive person.   However I seem to have some baggage or hurt that I hold on too for too long.    For me I seem to categorize the hurt into two types, family and friends and acquaintances in life.

What I have found true for me is that I seem to put more weight to the family hurt.   I think what is worse is for some reason I seem to hold onto the hurt baggage longer as well.    

Because I work in the aviation industry my mind thinks about bags in a probably different way than most people.  I have done my fair share of loading suitcases in my life.   When I travel currently I have a huge big suitcase,  I love how much it holds.  It is able hold enough cloths for about a 18 day trip without having to do any laundry.  When it is fully packed this thing is so heavy, but it has a handle and wheels to pull it and it is manageable though.

In life my suitcase to hold my life’s hurts is also similar and I sure can pack lots of hurt and disappointment in it.  Like my real life suitcase it is not divided, I just stuff and stuff things in until the zipper barely closes it.  There is no order to it so if I need to find something everything is going to be pulled out.

My point to this analogy is about a year ago I was flying home and claimed my bag in JFK I noticed that one wheel had been broken was not working well.   I needed to walk about 5 blocks to our office to get to my car to head home after a long trip.  About half way to the office the wheel finally completely fell off.  So I had to carry it by the handle a few blocks.  It was not bad because it was really light and I didn't really think anything of it.   So for a year I have been using this suitcase and I works well,  I do most of my travel in a car so I don’t need the wheels to work on it, until my one of my last trips.    I was on the west coast for about 3 weeks and then on the east coast for a while.   So you can imagine I packed that suitcase until it was over bulging!  So much so that I would not fit in the trunk of the Camaro that I was driving in Seattle.  I had to put it in the front seat.  I really didn't think much about it leaving at first because the plan was to ride our own planes so it wouldn't be a issue with weight and we are always brought out to the planes so I would not have to carry it far.  On the way home the plan changed I ended up having to fly a commercial airline back to JFK to where my car was.  When I got to pick up my suitcase at the baggage carousel all I could think of was how far I was going to have to carry this heavy bag and my way heavy backpack that I used for a carry on.  I am pretty strong person but I was really not looking forward carrying it.    I struggled with the bag to get it on the air train and off to the Federal Circle.   My only hope was that there would be someone in our Operations Dept. could come give me a ride.  However it was midnight though and the likelihood was not in my favor.  I was so ever thankful when I made the call and Pleasant answered the phone and was able to come get me.  I was lucky this time but may not be the next time, so I am in a hunt for a new suitcase.

Like my real life suitcase my  suitcase for my baggage needs to be upgraded as well.   My old suitcase has gone through my life and done well for me, but it is worn out.  I also want to down size it to a manageable size, this means I need to go back through my life’s hurts and start discarding to fit my new suitcase.  It is scary for me to go through all of the old hurts but I have been carrying around way too much for way too long .   How is your suitcase?  Is it overfull like mine?

Out with the old and in with the new

Well I feel a little stressed today.   It may be self imposed stress though, but I have a big list of things to get done before I leave for work tomorrow.  I cleaned the house yesterday and really focused on getting things like cleaning the stove and scrubbing off all the hard water marks in the showers.   I want it to be a little easier to clean when we move out to your new home next month.    One of the things that I have been worried about was getting rid of our old couches and glider chair that we have had in our sun room for a while not knowing what to do with.  As I was cleaning the house I had a idea of what to do with them, I vacuumed them and spayed some Fabreze on then and moved them out to the front yard with a sign that said FREE.   We live on a major road so there are a lot of people driving by all the time.  In the first 15 minutes someone had picked up the glider rocker.  It took a few hours and someone took the sofa and loveseat.  I’m happy that they went to someone’s house and will get some more use.    We still have a refrigerator and a ping pong table to sell and 2 window air conditioners to sell before we move yet.  I think that I will try to sell them on Craig’s list.

We have moved countless times across country, so our family is not new to the stresses of moving.  It still doesn’t make it any easier though.   This move we have really involved everyone much more than in the past moves.  In the house hunting everyone has been involved in choosing our place to live.  For me the real stress is to come though.  The packing and moving part doesn’t really bother me too much.  I think the most stressful part is getting adjusted to the new town.  Finding a new church, making new friends, finding new doctors, making new friends is what bothers me the most in moves.  It is also a great opportunity to look at areas in our life that we want to improve on, and make those changes.

I am very excited for the fresh start for our family.  

The hunt is over finally

In my last post I was pretty positive that we have found the right home for us.  I was pretty excited but in the end it didn’t end up working out for us.  I was really bummed because I seemed to fit all of our needs except it turned out that they didn't like cats.  Brenna has had her cat for 10 years, and we just were not going to give her up.

This week was stressful once again in that I felt like I was starting from scratch looking for a place to live.   Brenna and I started to take trips up to Rock Hill and started looking again, between Craig’s list and local rental companies.  Each time we go up there it is such a long day, it is a 2 ½ hour drive each way and after the week before taking 3 trips up there I really was not interested in doing a trip on Monday in any way.  Monday we didn’t find much that interested us, Wednesday we found 2 houses that interested us but we couldn’t look at the inside but I called and made appointments to look at them on Friday. 

Brenna and I drove up Friday and got to the 1^st house to look at and as we were looking in the windows waiting for the person to come and show us the house I got a email from her that she was sorry for the short notice but she had rented it this morning.   We went and got the new listings from the few local rental companies and sat and had lunch feeling pretty low that we were having such a hard time finding home.   After lunch we took a drive by a few homes on the lists killing time before seeing the last house at 6pm.  We met the person at the house just before 6pm, she seemed like such a nice lady.  She opened up the house and we took a walk around it.  The last renter had just moved out and had left it so clean.   We had seen this house from outside and really like it, and the inside was just as nice.  So we decide to rent this one.  It is funny it really doesn’t fit all our needs like some of the other houses that we have looked out.  It is  not close to Brenna’s school, and is not in the school that we thought we wanted for Christa.  But it works for the animals and is in a great area to live and really quiet.  It sits on 7 acres of land.  It yard makes our current yard tiny, I’m so glad we have a riding mower! I will be putting it to a good use now.   It turns out that this house is really opposite of what we were looking for but it turned out to be perfect match for our needs.  Our struggle for find the right place to live is finally over, now the next struggle of getting packed and moved is yet to come.

                                                            

Change is in the air.

With fall coming change seems to be in the air.  Working for a commercial cargo airline I am used to change in my life.  Currently we are looking for a new place to live in Rock Hill, SC our oldest will be attending college at Winthrop.  It sure adds a unique stress in trying to find a place that meets everyone’s needs.    Between having pets, trying to be within walking distance of the college and being close to a good middle school we sure have a tall order for a house to rent J   In the past when we have moved it has always been because of my job changing.  With my current job it is nice that we have the option of living almost anywhere we want.  That sure makes it nice for our family at the current time.

 Brenna and I looked at several houses yesterday and think we finally have a handle on 2 houses that would fit our families need. Here is our favorite one.

Change is also in the air for my job as well.  For the last year I have been traveling and working at the McGuire AFB.  I really enjoy the areas and it really has become my home away from home.  I stay in New Hope, PA and is such a great town.  I have met some great friends there and have made it my  2nd Home for sure.  I am so looking forward to getting back there.  It looks like for the next couple of months I may not be spending as much time in my 2^nd home though.  I will be helping cover JFK base and working on getting my airport badge for Anchorage, AK and Chicago, IL as well.    I do have fond memories of the Anchorage airport, and when we lived there we really did enjoy the area!  When we lived there I really did work way too much, I always had 2 or 3 jobs at once.  Because of this I was not home much and we didn’t get to enjoy the area as much as we should have though L.      I am hoping that I can get back to my routine of staying 18 days a month at my 2^nd home though.  I really like having a constant in my life, so now having the job changing and home house changing it does add a bit of stress in life for sure.

I know that in the past change has always been good for myself and our family so I am really looking forward to what the new changes will bring.