Spiritual Health Recipe

The dining room of our rental home.  Also note the small un-updated kitchen behind it.  

So we are settling.  I feel normal, sort of.  Our kids are starting to have a schedule.  We have places to be and people to see and life is feeling normal.  I am almost adjusting to the expenses of EVERYTHING, but really I cannot complain.  Arlington is gorgeous, the weather is perfect, our new neighbors are very friendly, and we are really having a good time.

The stairs and the door to the kitchen.

There is part of me that is having a hard time.  The thing is this: I lived in this country where there was a lot of really crappy things, corruption, poverty, health problems, and disrupted family lives.  Without seeking it out I saw a lot of really sad things.  And here I am in Arlington, Virginia.  Arlington where I swear Masters degrees and JDs are the new high school diploma.  Arlington, Virginia where for $750,000 in a recession you can have the privilege to buy an un-updated home that is 1 bathroom and three bedrooms.

One side of our living room..  

The other side of the living room (not my art)

There is such a drastic, stark difference between Manila and Arlington.  I find myself with my kids at the yuppie tax payer supported public parks (which are nice) and the other moms (and nannies).  The moms here are not gussied up.  They wear yoga pants, sweats, and their Harvard Business School sweatshirt.  They are smart but they have decided to put it all on hold to raise their children, and they plan on raising them well.  So they put all of these type A traits that made them successful pre-children, into their kids.  They manage everything about their kids: their play dates, their wardrobe, the games they play, where they go, and making sure they have every opportunity.  And I get it because to a degree I am the same way.  However, the obsession over every minute detail of their child's life and diet is exhausting.  I understand wanting to provide a balanced and nutritious diet, but the obsession over gluten non gluten, soy, dairy, organic, dye free, high fructose corn syrup free, sugar free it is a lot to take in.  It is a lot of work and frankly after living with people who lived off of essential one rice and sauce meal a day, it is hard for me to swallow (pun intended).  It makes me wonder if perhaps as a society if we spent merely a fraction of our self-absorbed worries and put it towards others we might just find ourselves spiritually healthier, which I think in the long run will go farther than the food trend of the day.

The saddest part about all of these feelings is the reality that no one wants to hear about it.  People don't want to hear about it and I find myself drawn to other foreign service friends who have dealt with the same experience.  Not that I had anything traumatic or awful happen in my time in the Philippines but I have lived abroad, seen and dealt with a lot of crap and now I am back in the antithesis of Manila and the problems here are of a very different nature.  Problems that I wish Manila could trade for, because you know when your biggest dilemma at the grocery store is which aisle of cheese should I peruse first, things are good.

The question I now have to face as I think about this is how, as a parent, can I teach my children to have that sensitivity to the broader perspective?  I pray that I can because it is the only way it makes the moves and uprooting worth it.  Their educations abroad may end up being top notch but the true value of this experience comes from gaining a broader perspective of the people of the world.

Constant State of Flux

I feel like my little family has been in a constant state of flux for three months. We packed up in July, went on vacation and lived out of suitcases for five weeks, and now we are in Arlington again trying to get settled, AGAIN.

I am tired. I still feel like my house isn't together. I have managed to kill most of the spiders but I haven't brought myself to clean the coffee cup rim stains upstairs left from someone else. Seth and I gave up on trying to do it all and for the price of a Filipino maid's month salary we are getting someone to deep clean our house for four hours.

We are starting to like our home more though. It is a big old house in Arlington. Everyone on the street calls it the Admiral's home, I suppose it was a military home built for an admiral. Our landlord inherited his mother's furniture and we are now using it. Which is fine, except furniture from the 50s and 60s was not exactly know for comfort. And I can only assume people got taller in 50 years because seriously all of the couches and chairs are six inches from the floor to the seat.

We decided we needed to get into our storage to get one really comfortable piece of furniture. We found our couch and our boxes of winter clothes, that is most of our boxes of winter clothes.

Apparently one of the boxes which contained old laptops that I didn't know how to throw away so I put in storage and all of Seth's really really nice winter coats was stolen. There is a record that it should exist, it just doesn't. So now we are in the process of filing a claim. Ugh.  I imagine the value of loss close to $1000 and we will be lucky if we get $250 when everything is said and done.

When I found out we were moving to Arlington I started looking at preschools for Stella last May. All of the preschools were already full and were charging Georgetown tuition rates. There was no way I could justify my stay-at-home mom status with that sort of price. So, I decided we would do other things, which is really easy to do here in Arlington.

I got a call from someone in my church. One of the county run co-op preschools had a spot open, which has really reasonable and not crazy tuition rates.  So this morning I got my act together, brought every last document for myself and Stella and went to the county to get her signed up (quick side note here about how awesome Seth's schedule is so that I could leave the house at 8 without having to bring two children to the county rec building, a task only slightly better than going to the DMV). So...tomorrow Stella gets to start her first day of school.

I am really excited about this preschool and admittedly already love the philosophy better than her preschool in Manila. They are focused on art, projects, outside play, cooperative play and everything I think children should be doing. It is not weird in this preschool to go out every day. The teachers are not allergic to the sun. I have high hopes.

I promise once I get this house together I will put up pictures.

The Oakwood Alternative

Hooray! We made it. Oh, maybe I should delete the exclamation point, um...we are here. We are back in Arlington. The flight was about the easiest puddle jump I have ever done. I think flying will be forever easy now that I have conquered 22 hours with 2 under 3. Yay for perspective.

So...the house. The deal was made over phone calls, a sister-in-law inspection, study of google street maps, 2 photos, and a whole lotta hope.

It is in so many ways awesome. The back yard is HUGE. There is a ton of space for the kids to run around. Down side, there seems to be a massive infestation of mosquitos to the alarming level. Seriously, even in the Philippines we were not bit this much. The house is BIG. Four bedrooms, two and half baths, a living room, dining room, mud room, and has the old Arlington charm. Seth can walk to work in 15 minutes (take that Oakwood shuttle, Seth is getting some exercise and still gets there faster). It is great on so many levels.

Ok, so here is the not as awesome part. The part you get from not touring the home yourself.

All of the furniture was all the rage when my grandparents were my age. Seriously, I think I am sleeping in Ann Margaret's old bed (which is king, nice). There is a major, major infestation of daddy long leg spiders. As in, you can find at least two spiders in every corner and many, many spider corpses. And the most annoying part. The house was SUPP

OSED to be deep cleaned before we came but as far as I can tell, nope. Which means I am dealing with my stuff that just came today and retroactively cleaning and dejunking from strangers who lived here in the past year. Not cool. In fact pretty sucky.

BUT...I realize this is so so much better than a house half this size in the Oakwood hutches. Give me a few weeks and it will be ours.

And the final tidbit of so-awful-its-awsome:

The TSA decided that we are so important that they personally inspected all five of our boxes. Thank you TSA for protecting our borders from our diplomats. I suppose the sticker indicating it is coming from U.S. Embassy Manila is only a red flag to say, "lets take them down." My clothes were strewn all over the boxes. Random items that had been meticulously wrapped were not so meticulous. Hmph.

Our Australian neighbors in Manila pleaded with us to get the TSA off their back when they traveled. We informed them we were powerless. Case in point.

Ohh, and guess who got a car?

Yup. We got it.

It was a relatively painless process as far as car buying can go. It fits the kids, the stroller and groceries surprisingly well.

Summer Finish Line

I can't believe how fast our home leave has gone by.  It has been fantastic.

Stella has really blossomed into a ham and a half.  Gone our the days of her initial shy-ness.  Here to stay is Stella the performer.  She introduces herself to everyone she meets and informs them she is three.  She also makes up her own songs and stories.  She had me and Seth in tears on the way home the other day.  Here is the story:

Once upon a time there was a giant baby who ate all of the toys.  No one could find the toys and they were sad.  Then they followed the trail of toys and found the baby who was actually a nice baby.  And then they played.

It has been a good time.  We love, love, love our vacation home.  However, despite our very darnedest efforts to have our own space and still see family it is never enough.  My family has their own schedule, Seth's family has their schedule and it is never enough time.  We have had a lot of fun but look forward to our families visiting us when they will have nothing else to do but vacation.

The car debate is still on.  We will buy a car next week and I will tell you where we will NOT be buying a car Mini of Baltimore County.  So they list a used Mini with about 2000 miles on it.  They mark the price on the car about $5000 less than what it should be (this is all on the Internet).  Of course this raises a red flag so we call.  They say it was mismarked but continue to leave the mistake up for two weeks.  And then we ask about payment (we don't want to finance we just want to buy a car, crazy I know).  They don't take checks, banks are closed on Labor Day, they won't let us put money down on a credit card and drive away, and they are SHADY from the beginning.  So...we will not be buying a mini or any car from Baltimore.  And that's the other thing, I am total biased about Baltimore.  I am sure there are wonderful people there but getting there is a PAIN and I have only had terrible stuck in traffic for six hour type experiences with Baltimore.  So Mini of Baltimore you will have to do your Bait and Switch tactics to someone else.  Not buying it.