Its Amanda's Fault!

...not in a bad way :) But, I guess you can say its Amanda's blog that inspires me to even bother. All has been actually well for the most part here in the Dush. I never would have believed it, in any of the months leading up to recently that I would not be the first one on the plane out of here. There is a lot to be said about moving in the winter months to a dirty, wet, cold, BORING, new country. How could I be convinced to be content much less happy with all of this depression. Well spring has sprung a new attitude in me. Give me sunlight, grass, flowers and clean (ish) water and smiles emerge.

So here is what has happened since I last told you about my life (and Amanda went on vacation and I got lazy).

D has grown into a TODDLER!!! Really really sad and proud times for this momma. A number of things have made this official for me. #1 He prefers to eat with the utensil in his hand and not just hold it. #2 He wears shoes all the time. #3 He has his own personality, a very strong one. He prefers to lay in bed a while before he makes his appearance in the morning. This is not to be negotiated and when I do mess with this he is pretty much crunchy all day. #4 He tells me to change his diaper. He has peed on the potty, once. This was by his own doing. He went into the laundry room grabbed the frog potty brought it to the living room and peed in it. Then he preceded to be a boy about it and play in it. #5 Kisses he gives real kisses, not the open mouth suck your face kisses. These really sweet puckered lip kisses. The best part about all of this, I AM the one who has first hand witnessed it!!!! When most of Howie did this as first NeNe was the one to tell me. Oh and about NeNe D loves his NeNe. He talks about her all the time. Whenever I am on the phone or computer it should always be NeNe.

H well he is himself. Tender, loving, helpful and well typical toddler. He is really starting to grow into big boy. Can dress himself on most days, washes his hands, washes dishes (we have almost put this to a stop as he cut his finger the other day). He want to get big, wear work clothes and work in "the box" he loves all of Daddy's big kids. Last weekend he helped Daddy work on the field truck (his name for our 4Runner). He was very proud of himself and would like to drive that field truck when he gets big and goes to work. I said sure, we would surely get our moneys worth being as the truck would be 26 years old at that point.

I have in the last few weeks finished my first class and made a 97.2%!!!! I am so proud of myself :) But, I did have to drop my next class. I could not take more money out of savings to pay for it.  I am hoping that my GI money will hopefully come through this summer since I applied for it in December. You know the government wants money from you they get it the next day, you need something from them well put on your patience pants.
After looking at my sewing materials I think this week I am going to tackle my first project. Yesterday I finally fixed Mr. Monk. I had to cut his back open take out the noise box that was completely busted, put the new one in and sew him back up and I also fixed his arm that was starting to hang. It is not as pretty as my mom would have done but it was a start. He may require a touch up this summer.
 Our countdown to home is approaching rapidly. Which I know this is going to sound annoyingly terrible but here it is: I kinda want to stay. I know I know, hear me out. I LOVE home and cannot wait to return WITH my whole family. The reason we wanted to go on this journey was to be together. Now I am leaving Chris instead of the other way around. It will be so good to be home anyway. I mean CFA, Osaka, Papa Johns, grocery stores, CLEAN water, paved roads, laws, Target, NENE. Yep, well I guess my want to stay here tends to fade fast. Thank GOD for skype and all of the other modern conveniences that have kept us in contact with the US will work the other way around to keep us close to Daddy. C told me this weekend that I was acting as I do when he is set to deploy. I have to agree that I am acting a bit crunchy but I am praying that it is for a different reason ;)....

Just read Amanda's new blog and decided it was time for me to vent out another. I miss my home, I miss my mom, I miss my job (don't ask why, everyone knows I clearly hated it), I miss Target, I miss parks, I miss friends, I miss real people. Thank you thank you Lord for letting someone invent the internet. How in the world did people survive this without internet? Those women were much stronger, creative, well better than I am. This place makes me feel like I am on a constant emotional roller-coaster, much like being pregnant but worse I think. Some days or minutes I am content, I am happy to run around the house, play cars, build and tear apart race tracks, pretend to do homework, and figure out how to be a good SAHM. But, other days I hate playing in the house, I want to have a real face to face conversation with another woman, I want a freaking friend or a sister someone ANYONE besides my sweet loving boys. I have tried, really tried to make friends but I guess I am socially retarded here. I cannot speak enough Russian to make a local friend, I do not have a job so there goes work friends, I am never invited to anything and I can't really invite anyone over because I know no one. Sure we have the guys over and we go to there house but, nothing can take the place of a face to face woman conversation.

So less ranting, here are some wonderful things.
#1 C and I have been working out, doing Insanity for almost 5 weeks. Hoping to see some results soon.
#2 I really like to bake, now I have time to and I don't have to leave it at home. I make C take it to work      each morning (this is why I may not be seeing results).
#3 H & D are getting so big, I am so grateful I am here to witness it.
#4 I have watched for days or weeks kids near us play with a flat rubber ball, it was breaking my heart. So today I took our soccer ball out to them. I didn't know what to say so I just smiled and handed the ball to a little boy and walked away. I hope they enjoy it. I am thinking about ordering some more just to hand out around the neighborhood.
#5 Less than 3 months until I get to leave for a while.
#6 2 more weeks of my first class and so far I still have an A and I am a little proud of myself and beginning to think I may not be as dumb as I thought. :)


So now its time for me to do some more of that productive stuff I like so much....


P.S. How do I add pictures?

When did I grow up?

When did we turn in to adults? Why did this happen to us? How can we make it stop? Those are my questions for today. My husband would tell me to stop thinking so much, I am not sure how I can make that happen. I f I knew I would probably sleep better and not be so confused.

 I am tired of being an adult. It is so draining. Today I want leave this prison and run away, get on any plane and just go anywhere but here.  Probably not happening because the boys need a nap and I haven't the funds to purchase a plane ticket. Since I don't have a job. Which is my next problem. Why do I even want a job? When I had one I counted the seconds until I could quit and complained about leaving my boys on a daily basis. Can I ever be content and happy with what I have? This is my newest prayer. Don't get me wrong I am happy staying at home making huge messes until 3 then picking them all up before Daddy gets home. Watching D be big enough to tackle H. Having H wash dishes (he loves to do it and does a really good job). I wouldn't want to miss any of this for a paycheck. But, why do I want to go back to work? I don't even know what I want to do. I know I want to be a nurse, but what kind? I am scared that I will not be able to find a job when we return after being out of practice/work for 3 years, who will want to hire me? And well then there is school, I am actually doing well a big surprise to me :) But we can't afford to keep paying $1400 every 8 weeks for me to take 1 class and C wants me to quit for a few semesters but then I am scared I will never return and I want to be almost done before #3.

No you haven't missed anything. We do not have #3 baking. #3 is a daily prayer and me letting go and giving it to God. Which is either my hormones going wacko or I am just turning into a really mean person. Before we went to Italy we started to seriously talk about #3. C gave me the ok so I took out my IUD (extremely easy to do)!!! Then I prayed we would make a baby in Italy how romantic would that have been. Well now I am praying for anytime before June and if not in June well I guess whenever then.

My last rant for the day. C and I have been doing Insanity for 23 days now and I have only gained weight what is up with that? Its well insane and not fair! I do see some changes in muscle mass of my legs and I know muscle weighs more than fat, but tell that to anyone who is working to see the numbers on the scale decrease.  The good news is the longer it takes for me to get pregnant the better shape I will be in to push this kid or kids out (my other secret prayer is for twins).  Well I would love to tell you more but this MOMMY-O is being paged.

Always an Adventure

Today I decided that we needed to get out and go on one of my ever wonderful "adventures". Everything is this country is an adventure going to find food, driving, crossing the street, you get the point. So I am on the hunt for a lithium ion camera battery (for a camera I do not have yet). We cannot ship lithium ion batteries over here amongst a million other products that would make me happier. Since neither hubs or I can read Russian or Tajik we just decided to strap the kids in and walk around the shops, sending one of us in to look around. Well not batteries to be found but I did find the camera I want. Surely it was stolen from another country and brought here like every other decent product. We did not buy it, but I think I might.
We also went into a Turish furniture store which was had some pretty tables but def out of our budget, still wondering who is this country can afford to buy these things?!?!
During all of this H decides that he is hungry surprising because we had been out of the house an hour and he had had a bag of goldfish and fruit snacks. So to blow my "diet" we went to SFC kinda of like KFC but much worse and its the only "fast-ish" food. By fast I mean it takes less than a half hour to get your food.
After lunch we went to the green market to pick up some veggies because I want to make tacos tomorrow. Well its a mad house but thats to be expected. People begging for money (supposedly they work for the mafia so we are not supposed to give, but sometimes I just feel led to and others I don't and feel guilty later) Today is one of the guilty later times. We saw a man digging out of the trash can for food and drink, I felt very led to give him a bag of goldfish I had on me, at least it would have been clean. But, I didn't and now I feel bad. I am always praying for a way to help people here,  but I have not found it just yet. Oh so the market yep I am sure we were ripped off when we bought tomatoes but we were tired and I just didn't feel like arguing and its warm and the dead animals everywhere kinda stinks so off we went to the indoor market to buy beef.
4 stores later hubs found meat, cola, beer, cauliflower, rage and a headache. Lucky for me the boys were sleeping so I got to relax in the car and watch people do the strangest things while driving. Like make left turns from the far right lane, double and triple park so people are blocked in for hours waiting for people to move their cars.
Well now time for something productive tonight: bake cookies and really finish my research paper because its due tomorrow.

Virgin Blog

Well if anyone is reading this its my first, well blog ever. I have been thinking about making one for the last 5 months so better late than never, right? I could start at the beginning but that would take a while and I guess it would not enhance any progression in the way I currently feel about life. Not the deep meaningful life but the on the surface can get you feeling sorry for yourself type. 

So here goes it since I am just starting from today and when necessary I can fill you in on the past. I am in school, online attempting to finish my BSN degree. Its going so so about 1/2 done with the semester. This week I have spent 3 full days working on my research paper which is in fact giving me gray hair. But, I think I am almost ready to turn it in which is good because its due Sunday. My advisor is hounding me to register for classes but I am still attempting to pay off the one class I am taking now. Hubs says to take the next semester off, but I am in a love/hate relationship with finishing and scared if I stop I will never start again, never finish and never be able to get a job again. I know I think too much about the topic. So today after writing for hours my brain was fried so I came back home to see my little men. H was being a terror and has once again destroyed the DVD's and played with the computers. No matter how many times I tell Fesia (our nanny) not to let him play in my room. We have equally told H that many times not to do the same thing and have taken away all of his favorite things to get our point across, well nothing works.  So I put H down for a nap (bc Fesia will not be firm and make him). Then D gets up, I change his diaper only to find that he has the worst sore on his penis which is another thing I have told the nanny a MILLION times change the boy every 2-3 hours!!!!!!!! SO angry with her, so she is getting the next week off while I fix my child and stop being made with her. I know she speaks english but she does NOT understand english! Today is H's favorite day of the week, Thursday that day we try to do something "fun". So today we made sushi (nothing crazy carrots, cucumbers, and avocados-now about the avocados I am trying not to get excited about these seeing as I am told this never happens). Sushi was good I thought but the boys would not even try them. But H had fun anyway playing with his friend. One awesome thing about today: We got MAIL!!! Its been about 2 weeks and they boys got a good box for them.

Well now I should really do something productive like: watch TV with my husband, beat my mom at bejeweled, spend $817 at amazon, or eat some candy!