Sunday, December 30, 2012

Adjusting to Alabama...

I've been in Alabama for just over four months...it is interesting what has changed from our last time living here... and what has not.

The south is still the south:
I noticed it when I stopped for lunch is Lexington, KY in August as I was moving to Alabama.  I'm back in the land where outward appearance is important to women.  At the Chick-fil-a every woman I saw had perfectly styled hair, was wearing make-up(which included lipstick--something I only wear on a special occasion) and was dressed fashionably.  Since it was a Saturday, (my make-up free day), and I was dressed for comfort.  It really stood out to me.

People speak politely and are genuinely friendly.  "yes ma'am" and "thank you sir". Cashiers and waitresses who look you in the eye and engage in actual conversations with you. After living in a college town filled with self-absorbed college students who rarely, if ever, say "excuse me" as they shove themselves past you in a crowded store aisle, hold conversations with other employees while checking you out at the grocery store, or are just monosyllabic with their interaction with you, it is a very noticeable difference.

The weather:  Still horribly hot and humid in the summer, torrential downpours with tornado warnings, and using the a/c in December.

We chose to live in Prattville again.  I know my way around.  The drive to the base is familiar as is the base itself. We chose to go back to the church we attended when we were here before.

What 10 years away does change...
There are more of things: more houses, more stores, more traffic, more stuff that we own.

There are less of things: only two people living in our house most of the time; less connections because we don't have the kids to automatically plug us in to activities such as soccer, Awana, home school co-ops, and play dates.  No "optionally mandatory" military social events to attend.

Me:  Thanks to being a follower of Jesus, I keep growing and changing. The passage of time means that my situation is totally different than last time we were here. We are not moving upward in Alex's career, we are planning to retire after this assignment.  It's not our first time in the south, so the initial excitement of moving to a new place is not present....and in the last two years we've found the place we would like to call home...it is not Alabama.





Saturday, December 1, 2012

Only 12 months since my last post...


 So instead of 15 months between posts, it's only been a few days over 12 months.  That's a 20% improvement in time between postings..... right?

So what have I been doing this last year?  Well shortly after my last post, I had a relapse with my SAD/depression.  I totally fell apart:  wanting to sleep, be on the computer or watch TV all day, crying a lot, and generally not able to do, or completely wearing myself out in completing, the most basic tasks of life like laundry, cooking, grocery shopping etc.  My doctor put me on different anti-depressants which very quickly started to help.  However, it's been a very long year of recovery.  I am finally starting to feel like myself again, and yet I also am feeling the slow down and sluggishness that happens with my SAD regularly at this time of year.

I still managed to stay in graduate school.  It was important for me to have a reason to get up and get out of the house during the week and I really enjoyed my classes.  I took an incomplete in my winter intersession theory class and finished the class during spring quarter. Winter quarter I did most of the work for my two art history classes  everything required except writing the final paper for each class.  I took PR's in both classes which gave me unlimited time to complete the papers.  I just finished one of those papers this past week.

On March 6th, the last week of winter quarter classes, we received unexpected news from the Air Force.  After 10 months of being told that Alex was at the top of the deployment list and would be deployed overseas immediately after his AFROTC tour finished, his new assignment was posted....NOT a deployment but rather an Air War College distance learning instructor at Maxwell, AFB in Montgomery Alabama for the next 2 to 3 years.  Life was chaotic from that point on, which didn't help with my depression recovery instead it made my depression worse.  Alex seriously thought about not accepting the assignment and immediately retiring.  However, he realized that he would be doing a huge disservice to his cadets and his cadre at the detachment because he would have had to leave the Air Force right as spring quarter was starting.  We also thought we wouldn't be able to stay in Athens so our choice was A) move with an Air Force job in July or B) scramble to find a job somewhere in the United States that Alex could begin after Jeremy graduated from high school in May.  We chose option A.

In the next 2 1/2 weeks we got the house ready to be put on the market.  I was NOT happy that we were having to sell our home a year earlier than we had planned.  We had done NONE of the pre-moving preparation that we normally start during the last year at an assignment.  Over spring break, instead of resting and recharging for spring quarter classes, we frantically cleaned and decluttered the house for showings, and started getting ready to move.

During spring quarter I audited one art history class and completed all the work except for the final paper in the other one taking  a third PR for the year.  Oh, and I did mention that Jeremy was graduating from high school in May.  He was busy with senior activities, auditioning for the OU school of music, and breaking up with his girlfriend just before graduation.  This added more stress to my life as we began a repeat of the spring of 2009 when Nathan graduated from high school and we moved a month later.

We ended up getting one low-bid offer on the house, which we rejected since we would have had to come to closing with right around $10,000. We decided to put the house up for rent instead.  Good thing we did, because the Air Force Transportation Office screwed up our moving dates.  Alex ended up coming to Alabama and 'camping out' at the house we rented at the end of July while I waited another 3 weeks for movers.  While it was an annoying thing, it did make it easier for me to get both boys to their respective colleges.  It was only a 6 hour drive one way instead of an 11 hour drive to take Nathan to Liberty, and a 5 minute drive to take Jeremy to OU instead of an 11 hour drive.  The moving truck loaded our belongings on Friday, August 17th, I took Jeremy to his dorm that night as he was trying out for the Marching 110.  Saturday morning I left Athens and drove half way to Alabama.  Sunday I drove the rest of the way, and Monday the moving truck arrived and we began unpacking...

Maybe it will only be a few days or weeks rather than several months before I begin writing about our adventures in Alabama.