The Mac and Cheese Chronicles

It’s moving season. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, military families are packing up and moving on to their next assignments. Moving vans line the streets and on trash day, the curbs are piled with all sorts of potential treasures. Both houses on either side of us are empty, and a week from today Boo’s best friend will be gone.

It’s one of the disadvantages to the military life. We make friends with people for such a short amount of time. Our lives become entwined for a year or two and then we move on.

I remember reading once about the life of the military wife. “We work on projects that we will never see completed. We plant flowers that we will never see bloom.” It’s the hope that keeps us going.

When we are the ones moving, the stress and anxiety help keep the feelings of sadness at bay. We are worried about getting the house ready for the movers and stressed over the last minute details of picking up medical records and finding all the house keys. We wonder what sorts of things will get broken this time around and as the moving van pulls away, we hope that we really will see all of our earthly possessions again. Then we’ve still got to clean moving debris from the house, finish all the paper work and try to get to bed early before hitting the road the next morning. When we are the ones moving, there isn’t a lot of time to be sad.

When we are the ones staying, it’s a different story. We watch our friends packing out and we take their household cleaners and refrigerated foods that they could not take with them. Maybe we have a neighborhood barbeque to say goodbye and then just like that- they are gone. Most likely, we will never see them again.

Boo’s best friend and his family have already moved to the on-base hotel. There won’t be anymore Jedi training or drenching water gun fights. No hopeful little boy’s face trying to peer through my sidelight window, wondering if Boo can play. It’ll be hard for Boo to be the one left behind this time. My Mama-Heart will ache for him and I’m sure many an evening prayer will be said, asking God to send him another good friend into our neighborhood.

Yes, it’s moving season again. Time for empty houses where friends used to live, waiting in hopeful anticipation for new friends to move in.

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When we returned from Korea we spent the summer sweating it out in Norfolk, VA while Philip attended yet another military school. We were only there for 3 months, so we lived in a fully furnished 4 bedroom house that the Navy so thoughtfully provided for us. We had our “hold baggage” delivered there so that we could at least have toys, books, games and videos for the children. I was in the last trimester of my pregnancy and not in the mood to be out in the heat and humidity. I’m embarrassed to admit that we were more than a little enamored with American TV. So many choices! (But oy! the commercials! ) We particularly enjoyed watching reruns of “The Tick” on Saturday mornings and “Kim Possible” daily on the Disney Channel. At the time, Disney’s newest movie was “Sky High” which they advertised with one of my favorite 80’s hits, “I’ll Melt With You.”

Two years later, “Sky High” reached the top of our Netflix queue and showed up in our mailbox yesterday. I have to say that we all loved it! Boo and Pumpkin Girl like the action, I’m a BIG fan of all the 80’s songs. I haven’t heard The English Beat in sooo long! So this afternoon I made good use of Bip’s nap-time by going on iTunes and downloading a bunch of my favorite songs. And just like that – I’m back in high school again. Except without the angst. And with a minivan and kids added. OK, so not so much back in high school, but I’m having fun. I added my new songs to my playlist of Definitive Songs of the 80s. I’ve got 109 songs on that list!

This was all a very long way of telling you that this post is being written while I’m destroying my eardrums with my iPod. “Cuz you’ve got love, love, love on your side…”

Because what I set out to tell you about was this: Mommy Cards. Have you heard of these? They are the newest thing to have. Like business cards, they provide all the information you might like a new friend to have. Say you meet a new family at the park. Maybe you’d like to arrange more play dates at the park. Or your new friend is interested in homeschooling, or maybe even in starting a homeschooling group. Or maybe she, like you, thinks that the 80’s so totally rock man! I actually met a mom a couple of weeks ago at the ice skating rink. Both our daughters were struggling in the class and we thought maybe we could join forces and share semi-private lessons. We each dug around in our purses for papers and pens and I was fortunate enough to have printed out my receipt for the class and was able to use part of that paper so that we could exchange information.

That’s where some Mommy Cards would have been nice. When I first heard about them I kind of laughed. But then I got to really thinking about it. It’s moving season here in the military and we’re going to get a bunch of new neighbors soon. I’ll meet them at the park, at church, or I’ll take them a batch of cookies as a welcome. It would be nice to just be able to hand them a card with our names and phone number on it, to help them remember us.

So I did a Google Search for “mom business cards.” There are a lot out there and they are very cool looking. They are also very expensive! One place wanted $20 for 50, another place wanted nearly $40 for 60. Ouch. Then I thought of Vista Print, the people who do the free business cards. They’ve got lots of fun, free designs, but they also have even more that you can pay for. We had return address labels made by them with little caricature faces of each member of our family. I wondered if they made similar caricature business cards – sure enough, they do! They only want $7.99 for 50. I chose a cool, patriotic looking design and added all our faces. I saved some money and chose super slow shipping, so they’ll be here in a couple of weeks. I probably could have gone even cheaper and printed them out myself, but I prefer the look of a professional card.

So anyway, I thought I’d share my cool find. Back to my 80’s tunes…

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Pumpkin Girl:  I’m full
Philip:  OK, give  me your plate, I’ll finish it.
Pumpkin:  That’s what I thought you’d say.
Boo: Cool Daddy, you’re like the backup stomach!

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Our computer has been running slow lately. So slow that when I power it up, I have time to go prepare breakfast for me and Bip before the computer’s ready to go. Forget trying to get it to print anything. I click “print” and nothing happens. I lean over and look at the printer. I click “print” again. And again, for good measure. I wiggle the mouse around and say, “Please! Hello? Print?” I click “print” again. I go over to Ask Sister Mary Martha to see if she knows who the patron saint of computers is so I can start a novena, but my computer won’t load her blog. I tell the computer it’s not just a pig, but a Big Pig, cuz you know, that helps. I get up and fill my water bottle. I return to find 3 pages waiting for me (I only wanted one) and the 4th one is printing.

Great.

I try to close the document I was working on. Nothing.

Sigh.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

So I keep telling my husband that I’m calling those computer geek guys. They make house calls,  which means they can brave the dangers of the DC Beltway instead of me. I’m all for the staying home and having people come to me. If I had a posse, cronies or peeps, they would all be wearing UPS uniforms. The only problem with this plan to get my computer fixed with little or no effort on my part is that I live in the Ultimate Gated Community – a US Military Base. You don’t get on to my base without proper ID, DNA samples, references, an on-base sponsor, 120 days notice and a note from your doctor. Which means that unless the computer geeks have their own way on to base, I’m going to have to stop what I’m doing, load up all my kiddoes and head down to the visitor’s center to sign my geek in and hope he has all the proper paperwork. Honestly, I don’t know what all those guys up at Ft Dix were doing, because there aren’t any pizza delivery guys driving around here. You want pizza delivered from off base, you go meet your pizza at the gate.

So anyway, this greatly decreases the Making My Life Easier Factor, which means I did what I do best – procrastinate.

The computer got slower.

In the meantime, I realized it’s time for the annual fun fest known as Taking the Kids to the Dentist. I needed to find a children’s dentist in the area first, of course. And everyday as the computer got slower and slower, I kept threatening to call the geek guys, even if I did have to get up and go get them. *side note- did you know that whacking the CPU doesn’t actually help the computer go faster?* Philip though, is a wise man and told me that I could call the computer geeks after I found a dentist and scheduled appointments. He’s responsible like that. Plus, he also suspected that all we needed was a new memory card. So, a dentist was located and appointments were booked, next step – a computer overhaul!

The very next morning, I open the blinds on our front window to see none other than a computer repair guy’s truck! A computer repair guy that may already have his own base access! I was so excited that I started talking in exclamation points! I wrote down his number, but as Philip was leaving for work, he was able to talk to the guy who seemed to know exactly what was wrong with our computer. Besides the fact that it is a Big Pig. And the best part is- you’re going to love this- he lives right on base!  No signing anyone in, no braving the Beltway.

Our computer went off for a day of R and R and came back a much happier computer. A healthier computer. A Oh-I’ll-be-happy-to-print-out-that-document and open-up-any-website computer!

It’s problem? Four viruses and a spyware. Yes, you read that right, 4 viruses. Yes, we had anti-virus software, but apparently it wasn’t very good. We were using Norton which we paid good money for, but now we’ve been squared away with Avast! I’d really like my money back from Norton – four viruses people! The repair guy said he was surprised our computer even booted up.

So I told you all this just to make the point that sometimes procrastination is a good thing and that when God puts a computer repair man in front of your house, it’s going to take more than a new memory card to get things moving.

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…but now I’m found! Bip has been reunited with Whee. Thank you for your prayers.

One more request though – now we’re missing his Mickey Crocs. I know they’re in the house. If you don’t mind, please pray that we find them by tomorrow morning. Thanks!

**Update! 5:30 pm: Bip’s crocs have been found.  Seek and ye shall find.

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