We finally decided to do some landscaping here at our house. Well, landscaping is kind of maybe not so much the right word because who really wants to invest all that into a house you’re only going to be in another 2 years? So we passed on the bushes and the trees, and we’re not going to dig up the yard in the front to plant plants, but we’re doing the Spanish thing and decorating with potted plants.

So far we’ve bought two big square clay pots, each sporting a lovely, alive-for-now rosebush. We have several dahlias that we’re going to put in mounted planters on the front of the house (tres espanish), and we’re going back today to buy the planters and more flowers to pot in long planters to put on the windowsills in front. We also bought 2 rosemary plants and an aloe plant, and while I was tempted to buy the cannabis seeds as a Christmas present (I’ve started shopping early this year!) but B pointed out that maybe it wasn’t going to be so funny on the base.

With a few extra minutes this morning, I slip into Isak’s bed to wake him up nicely. I get under his giant, camouflage blanket and rub his back and kiss his nose.

“Good morrrrrning, sunshine.”

“Uhhhh. Morning.”

“I looooove you, sweetie pie.”

“I know.”

“I love you more than life, did you know that?”

“No! I didn’t know that.”

“You didn’t?!”

“No, but you ought to love me more than that new can opener you got.”

So today I sent an email out to my three K/Christinas.  After I sent it out, I wanted to find a link from the email, so I clicked on “All items” to click on the last one, and I saw there an email that was unread but that wasn’t in my inbox.  I scrolled down to find another, and another, and another.  I realized they were all annotated with stars (Gmail) so I clicked on the “Starred” folder and wouldn’t you know, there were over a hundred emails, all unread, all the way back to early JULY!!!

I’ve been going through and trying to reply to the emails and I just feel so bad that I got so many really, really, really nice emails that I never saw.  I just wanted to put something up here so everyone who I ignored hopefully sees it.  I am really sorry!

No, you’re not hallucinating:  I am actually posting twice in a 24-hour time period.  Will the trend continue?  Eh, probably not, but I do hope to post at least a few times a week, every week.  The unfortunate part of my job is that I hear so many amusing things but I can’t post about any of them.  What a waste, right?

So I’m left talking about the generally mundane parts of my life, usually relating to either me or the kids.  Or, periodically, such exciting things as income taxes (ooooooooh).  Since I covered taxes in the last blog entry, and the kids, this time it’s all about me.

Every week, the base Commanding Officer (CO) picks someone to be the “rock star” of his weekly radio show, usually someone recently returning from an IA assignment to the middle east.  This week it was my turn. 

It’s a 5-minute or so interview and he just asks the interviewee a few questions about themselves.  Everything went remarkably smoothly until he asked, “What one moment stands out from your time in Iraq?”  I’m really hoping the editing guys had time to edit that part of the interview (they had very limited time since an exterminator was clearing out the building shortly after my interview - nice!) because I’m pretty sure “uh, um, er, ehh, uhhhh,” came out of my mouth as all the inappropriate things to say passed through my mind (”Well, there was that time I was getting an IV for a migraine as a mortar hit the parking lot by the dining facility!”  “Yeah, the pool party where the star guest was a blow-up lifeguard was a blast!”  “How could anyone forget the time I thought I was being shot at and headed for cover and it turned out to be a car backfiring?”) and I ended up stuttering out something about how hot it got there.  I think that was safe because the interview continued without incident and I wasn’t sent to the mental health clinic after the interview. 

The show was set to air this morning at 7:00am; I usually catch the end of it in the car which was perfect because my interview was at the end of the show.  Of course, because it’s just the way it rolls with me, the power went out across the base this morning from 5:00-9:00am and my ticket to fame and adoration was zapped.  Soooo typical.

Fear not, my loyal claque; they are going to give me a copy of the CD and if it passes several strict reviews by the Editor-in-Chief of this blog (aka “me”), I will hopefully have it posted by this weekend.

Silent, I know.  I’ve been terrible about keeping my blog updated.  But don’t worry, thanks to good old Dad, the guilt about not posting every day has overcome me and here I am.  You can all thank Dad for this post.

I had a big, long, semi-entertaining post written up on Sunday, a long, long post detailing the evening prior where I went out with the neighborhood ladies and we played Bingo and I won a 200€ pot.

But alas, all the details of Spanish Bingo - and trust me, there were many, including accusations of vomiting, the Spanish call for a waiter, overenthusiastic Americans, and really, really cute boots - were zapped into the black hole of the internet where my emails and posts go every so often.  So you don’t get to hear that story.

Instead, the story I shall tell this evening is of one 5 (almost 6!) year old sweet, cherubic perfect little angel, one who manages to make her father and I tear our hair out of our heads (mine just grows back faster).

Just before I went back to the States for my class, I helped both kids organize their rooms - teaching them what goes where, how to take care of it, all of the basics of keeping their room clean.  When I got back, it was back to where it had been before, and Anja being Anja, absolutely NOTHING was clean in her room.

I asked both of them to clean their rooms over and over and over.  Isak’s was slowly but surely getting cleaner; Anja’s, on the other hand, didn’t get any cleaner.  In fact, if anything, it got messier.   She would do anything to get out of it, including going to sleep 5:00pm.  Finally, I told her if it didn’t get done, all of her toys would be gone.

And that’s where it ended up.  After days of threatening, I finally took away all of her toys - every last one of them.  Every Barbie, every PlayMobile piece, every baby doll, every stuffed animal, everything.  All that’s left is a stack of books and a tray of crayons.

As I put all of her stuff into bags (just going through everything in the room on the floor took about 3 hours!), and she stood in the doorway with a continuous 80 decibel scream, she cried, stomped her feet, told me she would do it “now”, and so forth and so on, until everything was clean and packed up, at which point she sniffled, put her chin up, and said, “Mamma, my head feels sour now.”

So that’s what’s been going on on the Anja front.  Isak is doing well and has started piano lessons which he really seems to enjoy.  He’s doing well in school, though he has a very hard teacher this year and his grades have slipped a little but that’s nothing a little financial incentive hasn’t helped.

On a completely unrelated front, we did our taxes today - the first time EVER we have done our taxes this early (I usually take advantage of the 3-month extension afforded to military members stationed overseas).   Our tax refund was one to make our jaws drop.  That means this weekend?  I hit IKEA!