Where In The World Is Deb?

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October 21, 2005

Living La Vida Poco

Is it a bad sign when every single person including the movers say "what made you move to Cobden instead of Florida?!" with a perplexed look? What they don't understand is that I deliberately chose a small town - I have been all over the world and just want peace and quiet now. Oh and there's the hurricane thing. Y'all Floridians are plumb crazy at this point.

We ended up driving all night and accidently got into Cobden around 3am. The only hotel we could find at the time did not allow pets so we slept in the truck in my dad's driveway (and yes, he was mad that we didn't wake him). He was dying to show us the house, so the minute after they woke up, we were out there oohing and ahing. The house is just great. It is 118 years old, so there is lots of character (and yes, that means we need to scrape off about 40 years of repainting). I cannot describe how beautiful the property is, nor can I take a proper picture of it. Seth and I sit on the front porch swing every morning with our breakfast. Fantastic. The leaves are just starting to turn and the hawks are circling around thanks to all the harvesting.

I went and picked up my van later that Friday - what liberation having your own vehicle is! The movers arrived today with all of my worldly junk goods, so now we have beds (and walls made of boxes). I told the boys that if we got enough situated this weekend that we would go to the pound and adopt two kittens. We have been planning the kitten caper for the last three years.

Everywhere I turn there is a small town moment. My dad and stepmother live here as well as an Aunt and Uncle, so everytime I say my name I am connected. I registered the boys for school and the secretary said "oh that is why you bought the Reimbold house" as she looked at the emergency numbers, "Your Aunt was good friends with his wife". Then, I stopped into the town hall to get a phone book and mentioned that I bought the house up the hill from the school - she said, "Oh, your last name is Codding - you bought the Reimbold house". This sort of thing has happened nearly every day I've been here. I have officially come full circle because I grew up in just this sort of small town (except it was in Florida).

The job hunt has been going slowly but surely. I am beyond frustrated with the Illinois RN license process. I started this thing 3 months ago! I called yesterday and they said that all they needed was my school verification - the very thing that I EXPRESS MAILED to them three weeks ago. The woman on the phone said "oh, it can take up to four weeks for them to process that then". Insert me with "The Scream" face. But anyway, I am going around collecting applications. I am going to start submitting resume's and applications next week when I get phone numbers for my newly moved reference people (can't you people hold still for one minute?). I am actually still on active duty, so I have plenty of breathing room and time for swing sittin.

I do have phone, cell phone and a mailing address so if you would like it, drop me an email and I will give it to you. I will not be connected to the internet at my house for another week. I am stealing time on my dad's at the moment.

Posted by DebC at 02:52 AM | Comments (4)

October 13, 2005

The Egg Rolls Are Not Laughing

Well, I think our time is finally up in Norfolk. And not a minute too soon either, I am afraid we were about to run out of museums. In the eight days we were here we saw:

1. Yorktown
2. Virginia Air and Space Museum
3. Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center
4. The Maritime Museum (where the have the Merrimac turret)
5. Virginia Beach (where we got extremely sandy and wet prompting an hour search for two pairs of pants to buy - harder than it sounds)
6. Cold Harbor battlefield
7. Gaines Mill battlefield (Junior Ranger patches earned by completing workbook after these two battlefields!)
8. Fort Monroe (where General Lee had a house and Jefferson Davis was imprisoned after the war)
9. Children's Museum of Virginia (Portsmouth)
10. Virginia Living Museum
11. U.S. Army Transportation Museum

Did you get tired just reading that? Jake says he is never going to another museum as long as he lives.

What about all the administrative checking out I had to do? I did about 2 hours total. It took me six business days. This has got to be the highest concentration of incompetency I have ever had to deal with. I literally checked in with them at 0730 am and then was sent off for the day. I wanted to scream but I also wanted to get out of here with my records intact, so I didn't. But I wanted to.

Oh, the title of the post? Today at lunch, Seth made a joke that Eli and I were laughing about but Seth did not think it was funny. So he was telling us not to laugh and then he threw out his arms wide and said "The eggrolls are not laughing". I have absolutely no idea what that means (we were eating at a Hardees) but it was DAMN funny. So we decided that Seth's Indian name would be "Egg Rolls Laughing". Jakes is "Dances With Girls" and Eli's is - ah shoot, I forgot Eli's Indian name. Oh well. We are actually coping very well - It is fantastic having two adults in the picture. Tomorrow (hopefully, if they don't botch things up) we will leave Norfolk sometime after lunch and head towards Illinois. We will be stopping at a couple of battlefields and other places as they come up and if no one has killed anyone else, we will drive straight through. If deaths are occuring, we will find a hotel for the night. Wish us luck!

Posted by DebC at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2005

I am tired, ummm, I mean RE-tired

The move has been going amazingly well so far - with the usual Deb Codding antics, of course. My long-time friend, Joan came into the train station on Tuesday night and then I promptly made her mop floors so I could close out of my military house on Wednesday. I passed my housing inspection with flying colors - but not without replacing the bathroom sink due to a small chip and the front porch light fixture due to broken screw. Thank goodness for awesome neighbors who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves. I paid them in beer of course :)

We (including Joan) moved into a hotel apartment on Wednesday and then raced around furiously trying to nail down all the last minute things. Friday was my retirement ceremony and it was very nice. I just started to type out the whole nervous breakdown part of it but it would take too long and I am paying 20 cents a minute for an internet connection at Kinkos in Norfolk, Virginia.

Needless to say, all went well and Joan and I even managed to work in two shopping trips where ceramics were purchased at the last minute. Why I did not do this in the nearly three years that I was in Sicily is the same old story. I saw Joan off to Rome on Monday morning and then spent an hour at the post office mailing all of my excess crap that wouldn't fit in the suitcase. I ended up carrying on a very large ceramic bowl but it is totally worth it.

Checked my bags in at the military terminal the night before (5:30 am show time the next day is not conducive to 2,000 pound suitcase lugging). Got home to discover that I packed the dog's leash. Much bad words and then the hotel bathrobe sash became part of my family. We are so ghetto.

Not a single problem with the flight, the boys did extremely well and got to see Batman Begins, Mr and Mrs Smith and The Fantastic Four as in flight movies - much happiness. We were able to see and walk our dog Jax while on a layover in Spain which made us feel much better. No matter how stressed we were, Jax had it worse. His kennel was between a cat's kennel and a ha-UGE dog's kennel.

Had the worst approach and landing that I have ever experienced when we landed in Norfolk (we actually bounced so hard, I thought for sure it was a carrier touch and go practice). I did not barf. The plane occupants actually clapped when we stopped.

We cleared customs and discovered that the hardest part of our trip was to be hailing a taxi big enough for our world to fit in. That took an hour. Steve was waiting for us at the Navy Lodge as planned where we discovered pets are not welcome. So now we are in a very scary part of town at a Motel Six which is the only place around that will take pets. I hope to be finished by Friday but that is optimistic - I will likely head towards Southern Illinois next week sometime midweek.

TO LIVE IN MY NEW HOUSE!!!! Oh yah baby. I can't wait to see it in person but I understand that it is very good. I have put the pictures that my dad (who orchestrated the entire thing) sent to me in my gallery - click here. I will be adding more pictures to it once I see it. It is a 110 year old farm house, 4 bedrooms on 9.5 acres with the boys school at the foot of the property. Now all I have to do is get a job. It is just amazing to me how things are falling into place so easily (the Deb definition of easy - not the dictionary definition).

Posted by DebC at 08:04 PM | Comments (4)