Type Writer Machine

My domain expires in about two months. I’m not sure if I should renew (it’s a little expensive with the hosting service and everything) or switch to a free blog. The jury is still out on that one. I just want to save some money these days, so I’m still debating on what to do. I like my website a lot, and now that I’ve gotten rid of my Facebook account (permanently), I am going to need a place to rant and rave. Not that I did much of that in Facebook, but I was never comfortable enough there to open up.

I haven’t had much motivation lately, and I am trying to change that. It’s really hard to get motivated to be productive. Well, not always, but sometimes I just get into a mood, and I want to sit around a lot and ignore the many things that are staring me in the face on a daily basis. Whenever I recognize that the funk is setting in, at least lately, I do what I can to try and nip it in the bud. I might be tired and lazy, but the dishes still need doing, and the carpets still need cleaning, and the family still needs to eat dinner every night. “I don’t want to” is not a valid excuse in the real world, even though the child in me sometimes rebels and pouts about it.

Speaking of children, my poor child is “SOOO BOOORED” today. I really don’t know what to tell him. It’s raining and wet outside, and inside it’s dry and cozy. I just gave him an old digital voice recorder and told him to go make a radio show or something. That ought to keep him busy for a little while. I don’t know what it is with kids and technology but they’re always so fascinated by it. Right now he’s reading “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” on the recording. At least technology has motivated my child to read today, because I swear if I hear “I’m so bored” one more time I am going to rip my greying hairs out in chunks. A bored child is counterproductive to a clean kitchen.

Well time lapsed since the last paragraph. So I’m going to end this and post it.

1. “We do not take the lid off the monkey!”

2. “No more octopus until you eat your broccoli.”

3. “Why is there a Plesiosaurus in my bedroom?”

The past…I don’t know…two years, maybe three (I’ve lost track of time) have been very difficult for me, personally and emotionally, and probably in any other way imaginable when it comes to all things internal. I’ve really been trying very hard to just grow up, and to stop being so immature about the way that I see life. I don’t know why that is so difficult to do. Everyone makes such a big deal about the teenaged years being so difficult, but I really think that it’s the period called your 20s that are the hardest so far. Far worse than being a teenager, because you start to realize that what you once thought you had figured out was all a load of crap, and reality hits you so hard you can’t even figure out which way is up anymore.

Back to square one in a way that never happened before. I shouldn’t have to explain what it’s like. You’ve either gone through it or will soon.

I just feel so out of touch with everything that I once held dear. None of it interests me anymore. I don’t know what direction I need to go in now.

I’ve lost a lot of friends since I started growing up more. I don’t know if it was me or if it was them, but something happened down the line where we just lost touch with each other, and in almost two years I haven’t made any effort to make new ones, so I’m kind of on my own right now, living the solitary life of emotional hermitude. It’s not all that bad, but sometimes I wonder what I need to be doing, and where I need to be going. And I just keep sitting in the quietness of my soul, because nothing can hurt me or abandon me if it’s not there to begin with.

I feel like I still have all of the passion that I used to have back when I loved to paint and play music and draw and read all the time and listen to all kinds of music. I just feel like that passion is dormant right now. Resting from what was a very tumultuous time that had no real direction and produced nothing of value. Maybe when the time is right it will well up again, but I will actually do something with it, instead of wasting all of my talents and desires on projects, journeys, and friendships that produced nothing but scar tissue and a load of wasted time.

And so the record keeps spinning.

Quick post. Not much brainwaves going on right now.

I’m here. I’m doing great. Not much has been going on but day-to-day stuff. Vet appointments, oil changes, grocery shopping. It’s almost like it’s back to normal, but it’s not. Still doesn’t feel like home yet. I think curtains will help, so I’m buying some soon. We’re taking another family day out sometime soon (this weekend?). John may or may not be going to Iraq. Can’t talk about that yet, but it’s on my mind. Not in a bad way, because God is in control.

I deactivated my Facebook account for now. I may reactivate it, but not for a month or so. I just need a break. It’s too much right now. It’s too fake. I have no tangible friendships, and lately it has felt like Facebook is the place where all of my friendships go to die. So I am backing off. Going to focus more on family and on finding a church and all of the wonderful sweet things of life.

I promise I will write more soon. Things are good. But I can’t write more because even this feels a little forced. Right now I am just watching Lost and trying not to let myself think a lot. Just for a few more days. Then I’ll have something substantial.

Love,
Mich

P.S. Thanks for keeping up with this blog if you’re still reading. Thanks for your comments, Mary. They mean a lot.
Praise and thanks to God. He’s blessed us so much.
Also, please check out my dad’s website, www.ddanielgwhite.com. He’s working on big things right now.

Hey, I changed up my blog! I don’t know if this is the one I will stick with, but the Puffin at the top is a cutie, isn’t he? This has nothing to do with typewriters, either, but perhaps that will also be fixed later. Mister puffin, you may not be long for this website, I’m afraid. I just really wanted to be able to post bigger pictures on my site. I get tired of scaling them down to minuscule sizes because of my layout.

We had a really great weekend. It’s still going on because of President’s Day, but it doesn’t much feel like the weekend anymore because of all the cleaning I have been doing today.

We have been trying to do something fun as a family every time we get paid, so on Saturday we went to Seattle to visit the Boeing Museum of Flight. It was so awesome. We had the best time. Stayed from noon until it closed at 5, and that was plenty of time for me! We did so much walking, but I managed to get a lot of really great pictures.

Here’s little man that day. He was SO excited to be going to this museum.

The main gallery was HUGE. All of the planes that they had were originals, unless otherwise noted. Some were test models but you get the idea.

Most of the airplanes were untouchable, but a couple of them were set up so the little kids could get their picture taken in the pilot’s seat. Gabe loved that!

They had some really awesome looking planes from all different periods of time in the history of flight. I loved the biplanes especially.

They had fighter jets, too.

Any flying cars!!!

Even I had a chance to sit on an airplane at one point. Not exactly an unfamiliar experience, though. I would have rather been the pilot than the passenger.

Lucky Gabe got to go to space!

We saw the original Sputnik. It wasn’t the one they launched, but it was the test model that they built. Very neat!! It’s a lot smaller than I thought it was.

Later, we got to see AND go onto the very first Air Force One. Dwight D. Eisenhower to Nixon had this plane. We also got to see a Concord, but unfortunately because of the rain, I was unable to get a picture of it. In fact, I was standing underneath the Concord to snap this picture of Air Force One. We went on the Concord as well, and it was SO TEENY inside. Way more cramped than a regular airplane. We learned that it could go from one side of the Atlantic ocean to the other in less than three hours. Crazy!

We saw a gallery dedicated to the two world wars. They had planes from WWII downstairs… (we also saw a shard from a Japanese bomb that was dropped on Pearl Harbor. It was very moving)

And WWI upstairs. This first picture is of the world’s very first fighter plane.

AND we saw a real triplane! Those are so cool.

We had so much fun on Saturday. We want to go back soon!

I was definitely beat after that. Saturday, Valentines Day, was no less busy. My wonderful husband gave me 2 dozen red roses and a box of chocolates. Then we went to church. We are starting to shop around for a new church, and this was our first week visiting one. It was called Life Center in Tacoma. It was okay. A little too big for my tastes. I’m not very comfortable in really big churches. But it wasn’t bad. They had a nice children’s church area, and the music was good. We had a couple of issues with it other than its size. We’ve decided to visit again another week, so it wasn’t horrible, but I doubt that it will become our permanent church.

After church we went to a Chinese buffet and the price was outrageous. I won’t even say it here. It wasn’t worth the rose they gave me at the end of my meal. I’ll take a cheaper meal and no rose any day of the week. Then we went to Kohl’s and got us all some much-needed clothing.

Today is all cleaning, so the climax of the weekend is over. But we’re already starting to talk about what we’re going to do next in Seattle. There’s so much to do that it’s hard to decide!

It’s Superbowl SUNDAY! I so totally could not possibly care LESS right now! But everyone that I know does care for some reason, except for my wonderful husband, who also could not care less about this game called football. We will be spending our Superbowl Sunday not watching the Superbowl. Instead, we will be unpacking a little more, and maybe watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with our son. I wouldn’t mind going out somewhere, but in the name of saving a bit of money, it is probably best that we just stick to ourselves and our home.

I really need to go out and shop for groceries, but the problem with doing that today is that since everyone is wigging out over this stupid football game, the Commissary is going to be slammed with people. John suggests that I go after the game starts, so we’ll see what happens there, I suppose.

While we’ve been unpacking, we’ve been taking a good look at all of our furniture and deciding that some of it has to go. We need a new couch, and we need new bookshelves, and Gabe really needs a new mattress. There are other things we need, too, but that’s just the start of it. We’ll probably start with some new bookshelves for now. We have so many books, and nowhere near enough shelves for them. One thing at a time. We can’t get a couch yet, because we have these two cats who just love to tear up furniture. We’ve decided to get them declawed, which is going to cost a pretty penny, but you do what you have to do to save your couch.

I’ve run out of things to say. It’s obviously humdrum around here. Maybe it’s this Pacific Northwest weather. Always cloudy and/or rainy.

Things are going well, albeit at a slow pace. I don’t feel like the unpacking is going as quickly as it should. I think it could be my imagination, or the fact that we live in a smaller place than our last house, but do I have more stuff than I did when we last moved? I really think I might.

It’s a very quiet neighborhood. There are a lot of kids, but they are all kind of quiet children that I can tell. The last neighborhood had a lot of loud, obnoxious, rude middle school aged kids running amok around the neighborhood. It doesn’t seem to be like that here as much, which is good. The only thing that is not quiet about our neighborhood is that it’s just a few buildings and trees away from the flight line, and the fighter jets are constantly in and out. It gets very loud, but I don’t mind that at all. Compared to some neighborhoods I have lived in, I would say this is probably the best one yet.

I even had a visit from a lady who lives one building over, and she brought cookies! How nice is that? I didn’t think people even did that anymore.

I can’t wait until I have unpacked the last box. I think that is going to be a while, though, because I am seriously ready for bed, and it’s not even 6.

Addendum: It’s somewhere around 8:30 now. Little Man is in bed, and I’m hanging out here on the couch with John. The couch is in a very odd location. Certainly not permanent. We just sort of stuck it in the middle of the living room so that it faces the television, with no regard as to how it looks. I’m starting to like it here, which means it may be time to finish the living room. We’re so ready for new couches, but we have to save up the money first and get the cats declawed and all that good stuff.

I kind of wish that I had someone to talk to on the phone, which is why I am writing here. But it’s several hours ahead of me in the east, and I am the only person I know in the west. I hope we can find a good church quickly.

We’re home.

Our stuff is here.

I wanted to write so much but it has been such a long day. I hope to write something serious soon.

I kept meaning to update every night when we got to our hotel but unfortunately, I was hit with a horrible bug. Gabriel had been sick, and so I think that by being in the car with him for hours at a time, sharing the same air, I got infected, too. So whenever I’d get to my hotel, I would pretty much just eat dinner and pass out. So I’ll have to try to make a quick update about the past couple of days.

After we left Little Rock on the 23rd, we drove through Oklahoma and reached Amarillo, TX. We ate at this place called The Big Texan, and it was probably the best food I have ever shoved into my face at any given time in my life.

Then, on the 24th, we drove through more of Texas, all of New Mexico, and some of Arizona to reach Flagstaff. The snow there was over my head in drifts, and it was amazingly picturesque. The mountains and the desert during the drive that day were absolutely amazing and awe inspiring. I wish that I could have seen more of it.

On the 25th, yesterday, we left Flagstaff and drove the rest of the way through Arizona, passing the Hualapai (Wa-la-pie) mountain range (near Kingman, AZ – look it up, they’re beautiful) and into California, where we drove through the Sierra Nevadas. The latter mountain range was so gorgeous I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to stop the car and climb them and roll down. Some were huge and jagged and snow capped, and the foothills were so tall and rounded and covered in fine green grass pastures that housed cows and goats and probably other livestock, too. It was like the prettiest postcard. After a very long drive, we arrived in Stockton, California, where we stayed the night and ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory.

Now it’s the 26th, and we’re all getting ready for our free continental breakfast before hitting the road one last time. Today we finish California, drive through Oregon, and then finally reach Washington State, where we will stop in Olympia. It’s going to be our lengthiest trip yet, but it’s our final trip, so I’m ready to get it over with.

I really enjoy the scenery and such, and the driving hasn’t been too bad. It’s just really long and exhausting, and being sick has made it hard. I am feeling so much better this morning, albeit a little congested, so I think that today will go well despite the length of trip. It will be good to be in our new home. (Note: We will no have our house when we get there, just a hotel room, but the area is going to be home to us for the next few years so I am trying it on for size. Haha.)

Now I am off to have continental coffee. If you’re on my Facebook page, you will see my phone number there. You can call me if you want today. I am driving a long way and it’s nice to hear from friends. Keeps me going.

Onward!

We’re in Little Rock. Meant to write that last night but we were so tired after driving that we went out to eat (awful food) and went straight to bed. Today we drove in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and then arrived in Arkansas.

Trying to get a hold of my parents has been kind of hard. I was hoping to talk to mom and tell her how the trip is going. Maybe she will call me today.

We’re about to get to driving. I just wanted to log where we’re at and what we’re doing. Not much to speak of yet, but maybe after we arrive at the next hotel tonight there will be more to say.