Let me back up for a moment and explain a strange phenomenon:  My kids do not like to wake up in the morning for school.  They drag butt, particularly Anja, and need a LOT of prodding to get moving.  But!  on the weekends?  They’re up before 7am.  I do not understand this, at all.

So anyway, I made some banana bread today to cheer myself up, nice and crusty and good.  I thought that would improve my mood, but alas, Evil Saturday had already sunk its claws into me.  A kind request of Anja to take a shower turned into yelling and forced naptime (for her) which led to a defeated naptime (for me) which apparently did everything for her mood but nothing for mine.

And then there was The Drama of the 10 Year Old, which irritates the crap out of me.

I had wanted to get out today to run some errands but instead I spent the day in the house, grumpy all day.  I am looking forward to this day being over.  The banana bread is gone, and I am done.

Fortunately, I was able to be dressed and on the mess decks in 8 minutes and although I was the last person in line, I was able to take my test.

And with that, let the games begin!  Please please pleeeease let me get a ticket to the ball!

Bad news?  Not a drop of it was hot.  Or even lukewarm.

I am in a relatively small berthing (sleeping area).  Our section of berthing has “only” 24 racks - broken up into 4 sections and divided into stacks of 3 racks.  Getting up is fun - most of us get up at generally the same time so there are a lot of people moving in a very small space, all of whom are disoriented from the sleep and haven’t had their morning coffee yet.  And female.

Besides our berthing, we share with two other departments and they have similar compartments with about the same number of racks.  The space is one long space broken up with “knee knockers” (kind of elevated doorways) and curtains dividing each department’s berthing from the next.  In the middle one is the one bathroom.  The one bathroom with the 6 toilets and the 5 sinks (only 3 of which function) and the 4 showers.

So let’s do the math: about 75 people, and 4 showers.  Not only those 75 people but the other thousand-something people waking up about the same thing.   All things considered, things run surprisingly smoothly most mornings; outside of the occasional line for the shower or the knocked head trying to comb my hair.  This morning, however, I was not so lucky. 

I try to be conservative with my water, so I turn the water pressure down and I turn off the water when I’m washing.  This morning I put on a thick coat of conditioner on my hair and lathered up; when I turned the water back on to rinse, the pressure was very low, so I tried fiddling with the shower head.  As I fiddled, it only seemed to make it worse.  My panic increased as the water decreased, until it was coming out in little drips, and then stopped altogether.  I stood there for a few minutes, waiting, turning the water off and then on, off and then on, as the conditioner slimed down my back.

Finally I got out and checked the water in the sinks but alas, they too were dry.  Resigned, I toweled off the soap and started combing my hair with a fine toothed comb to try and comb out some of the conditioner.  And just as I opened the door to go out of the bathroom, the water started up again.

I just know there was some mechanic somewhere cackling to himself as this all played out.

The mood today was positively electric as we made final preparations for getting underway.  I can’t describe the feeling of seeing our giant ship inch away from her home for the last 9 months.  We are finally back out to sea, and it is exciting.

Also, a little bit nauseating, and definitely exhausting.

We’ve finally gotten the last of the concussion-inducing pipes out from the overheads and no longer have to wear hard hats everywhere.  It is going to be very exciting to feel us start moving again, although that will be short lived as the Oregon coast is keeping rough seas up for a while.  Needless to say, I’ve already got Dramamine in my drawer.

It’s been interesting adjusting to life here.  I was here that one time 5 years ago but I have grown so much since then and I’m in a very different position now than I was then.  I’m truly enjoying the challenges, but they definitely are challenges.  The people here unfortunately have been unequivocally negative.  From the day I stepped on board, I’ve heard things like, “Welcome to hell!” or “You’re going to hate it here.”  All that has done for me is strengthen my resolve to stay positive, and so far it’s working fairly well. 

For example, I tell myself my rack is “quaint” instead of “claustrophobic”.  The food is free, so I really can’t complain much about that.  The job is always interesting, with such stirring topics as “Can one wear kilts off the ship.”  The stories on an aircraft carrier abound, like the guy, Sailor A, whose illegal phone (we’re strictly prohibited from having cameras on the ship while we’re in the yards) got stolen, but he reported it anyway, and then Sailor B saw Sailor C with the phone so he took it from Sailor C to give it to Sailor A, but it turned out that it really was Sailor C’s phone, so basically, everyone’s screwed.

I’ve gotten to know a lot of people already and it’s nice feeling like I have a place here, which makes things nice.  I’m having fun knocking my head, slamming my fingers, and getting mysterious bruises again, and I’m learning new things every day at work, whether it’s work related, leadership related, or history related from my history geek division officer.  It’s fun, and I’m glad I came here - bring on the dramamine!

Seriously, could this kid BE any cuter?

This has been a long time coming.  She doesn’t wash it after swimming, or doesn’t wash it well, and she doesn’t condition it.  And on top of that, she does not brush her hair.  I brush it when I’m home but it needed to be brushed a lot more than once a day or every other day or every three days when I have duty.  It got to a point where it was so damaged that she couldn’t really brush it at all and it started matting in the back.  Not a pretty sight.

So I decided to cut it, and I let her pick out the style, and she found one in a magazine that the stylist kind of followed except that she decided to take it upon herself to assume that she shouldn’t put any hair products into her hair so she kept cutting shorter and shorter.  While I’m not entirely happy that she didn’t cut it how we asked it to be cut, it does look super cute on her and it is so. much. healthier!

Isak also got a haircut so the Shaggy look he was rocking has been scaled back to a more respectable little boy length.

This picture was just too cute not to share.  This is a look I’ve seen from Anja a lot lately, the scrunched-nose giggle face.  I love it.

So we moved to the Pacific Northwest where it’s mild and rainy year round.  Not cold, not snowy, but mild and rainy.  One would think that in a mild and rainy climate, if the temperature drops to below freezing it would be cold and snowy, yes?  Apparently, if the temperature drops below freezing the clouds have nothing better to do except move to Wisconsin to dump snow there instead.  My kids have been understandably disappointed by the clear blue skies over the last week as the temperature dipped all the way down, according to our thermostat, to 11°.

But this morning I was sleeping in, until I heard a loud yell of, “Kids!  Look out the window!” with an instant response of “It’s ssssssnnnnnoooooooowwwwwwwwiiiiiiiinnnnnnngggggg!!!!!!”

It started out slow at first, just some flurries, but it turned into a winter wonderland of fat, fluffy snowflakes that ended with about an inch and a half of snow.  The kids, however, didn’t know how long it would last so they wasted no time in getting out and enjoying it.

See all those little patches, and the long spoke-y lines?  That’s how much snow it took to make a snowball at this point.  But they did a good job of amassing a small arsenal of them, ready to launch at unsuspecting parents.  Little did they know that I was watching from the upstairs loft.  I love the view from here, especially when it involves sneaky little ones plotting for our demise.

Can you name three unusual things about this picture?

1. Isak is wearing pants.
2. Isak is wearing shoes.
3. Isak voluntarily got himself wet, although he probably didn’t know it when the snow was still frozen.

The kid hates pants, and he hates shoes, but he was dressed so fast in layers of clothes, socks and shoes, and out the door before I even knew what was happening.

Anja, on the other hand, is NEVER one to pass up on an adventure.  The snow brought out the best in her beautiful, energetic personality.  She’s happiest when she’s outside, and today was not only no exception, but her happiness was at a whole new level.  She couldn’t get enough of it.

Who needs a hill to roll down when you have our driveway?  I wish I could figure out how to calculate the slope, but unofficial calculations show it’s The Perfect Slope For Turning Oneself Into a Human Snowball:

She really just couldn’t get enough of it.  No matter that there was barely enough snow to cover the ground, she was GOING to make the most of it.  I love this picture; I can just feel her love for being outside and the excitement of finally being able to make a snow angel.

And then my cover was blown, and the even bigger personality came out…

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any “after” pictures to show how much snow we ended up with, but it was quite a bit!  Probably close to two inches…enough for mini snowmen complete with mini carrot noses (sorry no pictures!)  If it snows overnight and is enough to close down the schools (from what I hear, 4″ is more than enough to shut them down around here…wusses!), they are going to have so much fun tomorrow they won’t ever be able to have this much fun again.

The training has been very interesting; we got lucky because the class wasn’t supposed to happen due to low participation.  But because all 4 of us in attendance were from the Lincoln, they decided to go ahead with it anyway.  Because of the small class size, we have gotten a lot of “extended” training - lots of time for questions and answers and straying off topic to discuss things that otherwise we would not have had time to cover if we had a large class.  And the best part?  We generally get out early every day and can spend some time at home researching financial matters.  Like logging into your bank account to find out that your credit card number has been stolen.  Again.  OK, that was B’s catch, he truly is the financial specialist in the family.

It’s been so great going to this class because the facility we’re working out of is 9 minutes away from my front door.  This means I get to get my kids ready for school, I’m there when they get home, we have all afternoon together, I can come home for lunch and make sweet potato fries every day, and I can stop at the Commissary and buy that night’s dinner on my way out of class.  I’m really enjoying this and not looking forward to getting back to that 5 hours of commuting a day.

Anyhow, today is my last day of class and I get a certificate of completion and can go back to work on Monday to preach the value of the Thrift Savings Plan. Preach!  Lucky for me, I took leave on Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday in preparation of Thanksgiving. :)  Can’t wait to make some gobbledy-good turkey!  Or to have the USS Sig Command Poultry Specialist make it for me.