[Turn it up...]

Ahh…yes, Alabama.

We’ll probably end up in Enterprise, AL – the closest town to base – where they celebrate the Boll Weevil.

No joke. They’ve even got a statue of one in their town square.

See?…There it is. And you thought I was kidding.

There’s actually a back-story to it – here cotton used to be king until that darned ol’ boll weevil moved to town & ravaged all the crops.

It forced the farmers to turn to peanuts…and thus began the ever-heralded boll weevil of Enterprise, Alabama.

[I think my IQ just dropped 80 points.]

But apparently somewhere outside of town there’s a “pick your own” farm. Kinda excited about that, actually & hoping it’s still in existence by the time we get there.

I’ll have to learn phrases like, “Roll Tide”….and listen to more Skynyrd.

Yep. Ala-freakin’-bama. Lord help me.

Every time a military family moves, a lot gets left behind.

These are sometimes donated, sometimes gifted, often times pitched & then there’s jewels like these – the abandoned.

When my friend & her family moved back to the States in June, she left behind the lilies she had purchased & planted last year.

Stargazers & Casablanca lilies – the biggest, freakin’ lilies I’ve ever seen – and my mom was a florist. So that’s saying something.

But she left them behind & for almost a solid month I have had fragrant lilies scattered through-out the house.

Since they’ve still not rented out her old house, it allowed me to sneak into the backyard every couple of days to snip off more flowers. If the place is still empty when they begin to die back, I’ll go next door & dig them up to take home.

But then there’s the oddities that get left behind…

…like this high-performance, American muscle-car radial.

[please ignore the scattered camo-covered gear also strategically stowed in our front hall]

We’re actually babysitting it until a friend can figure out how to ship it home. It seems the packers & movers won’t ship a single spare tire.

Moving 6 times in 7 years, I’ve come to pick up a thing or two. And every freakin’ time we have to move again I think, “there’s got to be an easier way”.

[This is where a good spiral notebook comes in handy - small & portable.]

The first step to figuring out just what that easier way is, is to break it down in chunks – think through every step of the journey. So for example, here’s how our move back to the States is gonna work:

1. Getting ready to move
2. Getting Maggie on a cargo plane
3. Our flight back home with Kitten (the howler)
4. Arriving at DFW & picking up Maggie
5. Staying in a hotel in DFW with pets
6. Fixing up Eric’s Jimmy that’s sat for 3 years
7. The road trip to our next base (wherever that is)
8. Staying in a hotel with pets while we hunt housing
9. Moving into our new place without a lick of our stuff

Fudge, that’s a lot of steps for this move.

But once you’ve got the steps listed – written down one step per page in your spiral notebook – start imaging yourself in the middle of that step.

What has to be done before this happens? What has to wait until the last minute? What could be done in advance? What would make this portion of the journey easier on me, on Eric, on Maggie & Kitten? How am I going to feel by this point – exhausted? Frustrated? Ready to scream? What am I going to be responsible for?…and if the PCS Fairy granted me one wish, what would I ask for?

So rather than go through each & every step…let me just give you an example using the “hotel in DFW” segment of our trip.

At this point everything is still high-level – you don’t have to get into the absolute details of everything – just a good overview.

So #5 – staying in a hotel in DFW with pets.

• We’ll need to find a hotel that takes pets close to my mom’s
• We’ll probably need it a minimum of 3 days – more likely a whole week while we fix up the Jimmy
• The room will need at the very least a mini fridge & microwave – this way we can save money on food
• We’re going to be really tired, so let’s spring for a room with a king size bed
• The earlier we book, the better deal we’ll get – especially considering we’re moving in December
• Kitten will need a litter box (w/ litter & scoop), food & bowls – on arrival
• Maggie will need food & bowls – on arrival
• Kitten will do better if she has her hidie-hole to sleep in (it will remind her of home)
• Maggie will do better if she has her pillow & blanket (to remind her of home)
• I will do better if I have my feather pillow, a good book & my sound machine : )
• We’ll need wireless internet
• Need to decide if Maggie stays in the hotel with us the whole time or if we find a kennel to put her in.
• We could do our laundry at mom’s
• We’ll need to set aside time to spend with friends & family before we hit the road
• We’ll both need prepaid cell phones until we get settled in our new base.

And that’s just step number 5!

By this point it can look really overwhelming – and that’s ok – because for me, I’ve figured out how to keep from feeling too stressed out. I make a wish.

[ahem]

Oh Great & Powerful PCS Fairy! If I could have one wish during this time it would be…

…to have an over-flowing gourmet gift basket of fruit & cheese & chocolate & bread and all other kinds of amazing you-can-only-get-this-in-America foods waiting for us in our hotel room as we check in

…with a travel candle & maybe a potted orchid to take to our new home

…with a litter box & food waiting for Kitten & food for Maggie, too

…and a pre-arranged appointment for a massage at a nearby spa the following day.

In U-Haul’s name I pray, amen.

Ok…so it’s a little more than one wish. But the thing is, by thinking of it I can now figure out a way to make it happen – especially this far in advance.

So what needs to get added to my list?

• Order a gift basket from Central Market to be delivered to the hotel
• See if they’ll throw in an orchid
• I can bring a small travel candle…add that to the packing list
• Order a complete set-up for Maggie & Kitten from Petsmart & have it delivered to the hotel the day before we arrive
• Find a nearby spa that offers a reasonably priced 30 minute massage & book an appointment

The massage trick is something I picked up in the move from Virginia to Oklahoma – courtesy of my sister. Well, that and the gourmet chocolates.

[pick a road trip, any road trip]

She got me a gift certificate to a local spa & I decided to use it the day before I hit the road to Oklahoma – with then 3 cats in the car.

Having that opportunity to relax after so much stress (I had sold our house by owner) – still knowing there would be more to face once I got to Oklahoma, made the whole process easier. It also didn’t hurt to hit the Williamsburg Chocolaterie on the way out of town. They made the best swirled mint liqueur chocolate truffles.

And just those two little steps in the midst of all that Army life chaos made the trip that much brighter.

So here me now all you Army wives!

Only you & I know how much work & stress & pain & turmoil it is to move time and time again & I don’t even have kids to drag around in the process!

Find your PCS Fairy, make your wish & then find a way to make it come true. Find someway to take care of yourself, to reward yourself – DURING THE MIDDLE OF IT ALL – to help keep your sanity intact.

Trust me – you’ll thank me later & you’ll never skip this step from here on out.

With 130 days left in Korea we still don’t know where we going yet. It’s the question everyone asks. And I get it…but  believe me, I want to know more than you do. Because it would kinda be nice to start figuring out the best neighborhoods to live, what I’ll have access to again…{crossing fingers there’s a Panera}.

But it’s a total crap shoot.

The Army gives us the chance to submit our top 3 choices – but it’s completely their call on whether or not they even factor them into consideration.

Since Eric has a specialty MOS [military occupational specialty] it means that’s there’s only a handful of places we could get sent. In some respects knowing the contenders in advance is nice – it takes out some of the fear factor. But then again, it’d be great to be able to choose from more than just our normal handful.

So let’s run down our options:

1. Fort Eustis, VA
2. Fort Rucker, AL
3. Fort Irwin, CA
4. Fort Polk, LA
5. Fort Bliss, TX
6. Fort Hood, TX
7. Fort Campbell, KY
8. Fort Drum, NY
9. Fort Carson, CO
10. Or the great unknown…always a possibility

FORT EUSTIS: It’s in Newport News, Virginia along the Chesapeake Bay – but we’ve been there before & the magic Army 8 ball says “all signs point to no”.

FORT RUCKER: Alabama. South Alabama. It’s a TRADOC base – which stands for training & doctrine. It’s where they train the Apache pilots to not crash them into the ground – so it’s bound to be out in the middle of nowhere.

FORT IRWIN: California. Another TRADOC base. Needless to say, not in my top 3.

FORT POLK: Louisiana. Not too far from home.

FORT BLISS: Just send me to Hell, that would be preferable over Bliss although it would be just as hot. It’s New Mexico – just south of White Sands, but just north of the drug cartels in Juarez. And they deploy.

FORT HOOD: Closest to home. Only a 2 – 3 hour drive depending on traffic on I35. It’s the largest Army base in the world & we’ve been there before, so the odds aren’t so great. But they also deploy.

FORT CAMPBELL: All I can get out of Eric on this one is that he’d…[quote] prefer to never go back there again [end  quote]. Although Kentucky sounds nice to me. It’s bound to be green & actually get cool come Fall.

FORT DRUM: Outside of the Adirondacks in upstate New York. It’s bound to be gorgeous there – but they get 200 inches of snow a year & deploy left and right…and it’s also the furthest away from home.

FORT CARSON: South of Denver in Colorado Springs. It’d be great to be so close to the mountains – we’d be getting friends & family visiting us for a change.

And last but not least…the Great Unknown.

With the Army you never know what you could get, so you always have to factor in some wild curve ball like “congratulations! You’ve been selected to become a recruiter”…been there, done that.

So I thought it might be fun to do a giveaway – if you guess where we end up, I’ll send you a….ahhh….[looking around]…umm…yeah, I’ll send you something. Maybe a box of Korean snacks: green tea KitKats, Korean moon pies? How about a Seoul Starbucks mug? I don’t know, I’ll think of something.

In the meantime, one guess per person please. And although I wish I could tell you when we’ll find out – set a time limit on this thing – the Army doesn’t work that way. Just know that sometime over the next 130 days we’ll get an email saying….

“Congratulations! You have 30 days to report to….”

One of the lasting impacts life in Korea will have on me is farming & the dream of one day having my own little farm – one where we don’t move every time we turn around would be preferable.

I’ve been in Korea over 800 days now – watching my 3rd & final growing season in Anjung-ri.

And I’ve learned a lot from watching the local farmers.

So this year, I ordered seeds from Burpee online & tried my hand at planting my own little backyard crop.

I ordered dwarf velour green beans…that are actually purple.

And now I’ve got my first “mess of beans” as my Granny would say.

I’m going to cook these babies up & serve them with a grilled balsamic pork loin and  potato pierogies…num, num...and serve it all with some sparking white grape juice (sorry, we’re not drinkers).

But soon I’ll also have tomatoes ready for salsa. I’m afraid I got them in the ground later than I should. But look at those big ol’ babies!

And so far one little lone jalapeno, but more are starting & hopefully the serrano peppers will catch up, too.

If I cross my fingers, I might just get lucky enough to have my own little sugar baby seedless watermelon….way late in the season.

But I’m super pumped about my little ear of corn – so far it looks like I’ll have a whoppin’ two of them, but fresh corn I don’t have to pay $6.39 US for?….

Definitely worth it – and I’m counting the days until I can roast those suckers on the grill.

Hmm…smoky, chewy corn – with lots of butter.