23rd Year in 23 Pictures

My birthday is today! The past year has been a whirlwind of change. I never dreamed that my 23rd year of life would be so full of surprises, accomplishments, and challenges.
Ready for the picture summary of the last year?



Happy birthday to me! On October 29, 2010, we went out to celebrate my birthday. I was cramming months of work into a few last weeks of school, Jeff was drowning in paperwork for our upcoming move. We weren’t stressed, nope not at all.


I almost miss this quiet country road. I drove it to and from school every day for two years while we lived in California and I finished my degree. The commute was an hour each way, and it would’ve been a killer if it hadn’t been such an easy drive. Traffic was nonexistent and my company was usually more in the species of cow, sheep, or chicken than human. That said, my 10 minute commute to work here is much more likable!


Time to pack! We found out about our upcoming move to Japan in August, and were packed and ready to go in November. We spent Thanksgiving in an empty house with an air mattress and two laptops. Our cats couldn’t decide if they liked or hated the changes. They were amazingly nonchalant about the empty house; the car drives were much much more vocally opposed.


Speaking of empty houses — here she is, all empty and ready for inspection on my last morning in Lemoore, CA. It was a bittersweet day. Neither of us liked living in Lemoore and couldn’t wait to start our adventure in Japan, but this was our first home together. We brought both cats home to this place, we made our lives together in this home. And when I drove off base for the last time, I did so knowing we probably wouldn’t return. Ever. That’s a weird feeling.


Before we could get to Japan, Jeff had some training to do in San Diego. So we headed down there for two weeks, which was just enough time for me to finish my degree. I finished a few weeks early because of our move; my professors were amazing and SO supportive of my unique situation. I thought a big state school would be harder to navigate than my small private university in IL, and while the larger offices like financial aid and tuition were, the English department has some amazing people running it. (This diploma frame is a gift from my brother, my parents are hanging onto my actual diploma since it was mailed in April when we had already moved to Japan)


While we were in San Diego, we took the opportunity to check out a carrier! Despite six years in the Navy, Jeff has yet to be stationed on a carrier. And obviously as a spouse I wouldn’t see much of them. So we were eager to check out the USS Midway Museum docked in San Diego. It was so much fun to walk through the whole ship, seeing parts Jeff would never see on an actual carrier and imagining living in a big metal box like that (not a fan!). It was also a lovely little break from the stress of moving.


With training completed, we were eager to get home. We drove home partly to drop the car off at my parents for them to keep safe and mainly because Jeff had some extra leave and we wanted to soak up some family time before we moved so far away. The drive with the cats was…interesting, but they held up pretty well. Just in case you’re worried, this picture was taken when we were parked and eating lunch. The cats were safely in the backseat for the highways


Have you ever visited Chicago? Want to know the best attraction? FOOD. Oh my god, did we eat. Both of our families treated us to more food than we should have ever eaten and it.was.delicious. Aurelio’s Pizza is a family favorite and my brother and I, who was also visiting from Phoenix, enjoyed it so much. We spent tons of time laughing and creating memories with family and friends, but we also ATE way too much to be healthy. Chicago food is dangerous!


One wonderful part of traveling when we did was the opportunity to spend Christmas with our families. Moving during the holiday season was generally a pain in the ass. Our move out of Lemoore got all kinds of screwy because we had to be in San Diego on Thanksgiving weekend. Our drive home was semi-dangerous with the possibility of snow (we had no problems, luckily). Our flights were battling the weather Gods. We ourselves were freezing to death in Illinois after spending two winters in balmy California. But. It was wonderful to get to see all our extended family at Christmas.  I don’t think we would have seen nearly as many people if we hadn’t have been able to come home when we did, and for that I’m so grateful. This little guy is my youngest nephew, Phil. He’s a cutie, and as obsessed with Star Wars are his big brother Jacob and his Uncle Jeff. Care to take a guess who these toys are from? (Hint, I’m married to the guy…)


Unfortunately our two sweet cats couldn’t make the trip to Japan with us. It was too cold in Chicago for the flight to allow pets, and their microchips were the wrong frequency for Japanese scanners. We talked long and hard about it, and decided the best thing for all of us was to leave our cats safely at my parents’ house until we returned from Japan. It was hard leaving them. But they’ve happily taken over my parents’ house and even made friends with my parents’ rambunctious dog.


In case you’re getting lost in all our travels, or just need a visual, here’s our journey from Lemoore to Misawa. It had some detours. We drove from Lemoore to San Diego (5.5hour drive), then drove from San Diego to Chicago (~26 hour drive). We flew from Chicago to Seattle (~4 hour flight), then sat waiting through 48 hours of delays until we could board our flight from Seattle to Misawa (~10 hour flight, I believe. I was a little exhausted, so my memory’s vague!) All in all, it took over a month. We moved out of Lemoore on November 30th, and landed in Japan on January 11th. Whew, we were wiped.

I’ve only traveled overseas once before, to visit Jeff in Italy in 2006. It was a 12 hour trip I believe, and I barely remember what happened after the airline went on strike, I got thrown on a plane to Amsterdam, then Rome, then Naples, and lost my luggage back in Rome. That travel story was a whopper… so was this one though.
We left Chicago without much ado. We said goodbye to family, packed our bags until they were bursting at the seams and left boxes for my parents to mail to us (we did a little shopping while we were home). We got to Seattle in the evening, and checked out the USO in the airport. While it was nice and comfortable and more than we expected, it was CROWDED. There were delayed AMC flights like mad that week, so there were a lot of people just waiting to get to Asia. We tried sleeping on the only open couch for a while, but neither of us could sleep so at about 1am we decided to splurge on a hotel room and some good rest. We called a cab and trudged with all our luggage outta there. We were back bright and early for our flight. Except. It was delayed. Some problem. We sat and waited…and waited. That night, they said we couldn’t board and gave us all vouchers for hotel rooms. We got to the hotels probably around 1 or 2 in the morning and needed to be back early in the morning. The next day, we actually took off.
Woo, we were on our way!
Well, after a three hour delay where they had to fix paperwork because we had more weight than allowed, then drain excess fuel because the plane was too heavy.
Okay, late but we were still moving!
Except, there was an error in the cockpit. Something about a hole in the windshield that was making the noise unbearable. We were hovering somewhere near Alaska at this point. The decision was made to turn around and fly back to Seattle. Ouch. We were in a plane full of soldiers on their way to Korea, and their rudeness and anger was unbelievable. They were blatantly rude to the poor flight attendants who had nothing to do with the errors or the decision. It was bad. We got back to Seattle late and got another hotel voucher, and were told to be back at 4am or some ridiculous time to board again. We did board, thankfully, and made it to Misawa with little excitement, thankfully.
That’s a really long story to explain why landing in Misawa was an experience. I was more tired than I’d ever been, especially since we landed in the morning and I had no clue what my name even was anymore much less what day it was or what time it was. Jeff had the bulk of the work when we landed and checked in, but I did struggle pretty badly with figuring out what was going on. Jetlag is a bitch. That first week was rough, but we got a lot accomplished – Jeff checked into his workcenter, we picked an apartment, we got new cellphones, we scheduled phone and internet. We ate way too much fast food and Stouffer’s meals.

I think it was about a week until we moved into our apartment. It was a beautiful newly renovated apartment building. Our apartment is on the 8th floor and I fell in love with the view. Our choices were limited to this building, we had our pick of three floors. The pickin’s were slim, and finding a decent pet-friendly place wasn’t happening. (We were thinking of trying to get our cats over here at some point, but have since decided it’s better all around if they stay with my parents for the full three years and we pick them up when we PCS next). So we moved into our second place.

And I filled it with our stuff! Our movers both in CA and here in Misawa were pretty great. We got through our move with only minor scratches and dents to show for the trip across the ocean. Not too shabby.

And here’s my favorite part of the apartment. The view. We get a view of the nearby lake and some mountains behind it. It’s gorgeous and really amazing to see outside my window every day all year.

We started venturing out into Japan to explore. Our adventures stayed pretty close to home as we figured out driving (Jeff has driven in Japan before and adjusted quickly, it took me much longer) and tried to navigate the roads without understandable road signs. Directions available on base count stop lights to give directions, so getting turned around is almost a given. We also learned more about the culture and religions of Japan. We both love digging into cultural history, so we loved that part of everything.

I saw some of the freshest fish of my life too. I grew up in the Midwest, so fish isn’t exactly fresh once it gets to the stores. But the fish markets here are no joke. Some things are still living and breathing, like crabs, and some things are probably fished the day before. We even had a crab make a great escape right in front of us. He scrambled out of the cooler he was hanging out in and tried to run away before Jeff could gesture to the vendor to catch his escapee.

We got to know the people Jeff worked with. This is Superbowl Monday. Since it aired live at about 7am here, the base threw a party. As you can tell, the Navy guys thoroughly enjoyed their party. And I made lots of new friends by very loudly trashing the Packers

I tried sushi! I had tried it once in Phoenix with my brother and didn’t know what to think. It was such a different food than anything I had experienced in the past. I tried it again here with probably the freshest fish you can find. I still don’t know what fish I like and don’t, but I’ve got a couple favorites now. I figured out I like tuna, so that’s something from a girl who would never eat seafood growing up.

I fell in love with northern Japan. It’s gorgeous and just my kind of weather. I also experienced cherry blossoms blooming all over the place, which is just about the prettiest bloom on the planet.
If you’ve been alive for the past year, you know what happened here in March. I blogged briefly about my experience, and the news talked about it nonstop. I don’t have any pictures of the earthquake or its aftermath, but the memories will always be there. My experience was thankfully unexciting compared to the devastation and terror in other parts of the country. We spent days without power, unaware that the earthquake and its resulting tsunami had wrecked such havoc on the rest of the country. That was probably the saddest and weirdest day of my life, when I was listening to the radio in the car and heard the number of deaths and the facts of what happened in Sendai, only hours from where I was sitting.

As life returned to a more normal existence, we got back to traveling and exploring. And eating. So far, I’ve found that I love Japanese food. Sushi, yakisoba, and beef bowls are my favorites at the moment. The picture is a beef bowl, filled with rice, beef, and onions. Simple, but oh my goodness is it delicious. I might make Jeff go out for some with me soon, since it looks so tasty!

Moving every few years is challenging, but it gives you an opportunity to meet all sorts of people and make new friends. These girls are pretty great, as are the rest of the friends we’ve made since we moved here. There’s nothing more fun than sitting with a group of people who have been in the military for years and sharing all your stories of places you’ve been and things you’ve done.  Or just getting out for a girls’ night as the wives and trying the local drinks and bars

This past year has been a whirlwind of change, and the biggest part of that force was moving to Japan. It’s been such an incredible experience, even though we haven’t done as much as we’ve wanted to yet. For my first time living overseas, it’s been a pretty happy experience. For Jeff, I don’t think anything will beat Naples at 18 with nothing but free time and overseas pay, but he’s pretty happy here in northern Japan too. A lot of people don’t like this base because it’s so remote and big cities and their activities are quite far away, but I don’t mind. I love the weather, it’s such a huge improvement over Lemoore’s dusty, dry, heat. The rain and snow makes the ground SO green. The nature all around is gorgeous and I point out the beauty of the world every single time we drive, probably driving Jeff crazy. Maybe I haven’t been here long enough to miss the attractions of larger cities, or maybe I’ve just grown used to being in a remote place after two years in Lemoore, but I think this base is situated in a beautiful part of Japan. The base itself is like any base – some things are good and some are bad. Its remoteness make some things challenging, and the balance of being on an Air Force base but being a Navy spouse is an interesting experience.
With two years and some change left here (how have we already been in Japan this long?!), I’m hoping to soak up as much as I can. It’s not likely we’ll be back in Japan after we leave, so it’s one of those use-it-or-lose-it opportunities. And I don’t intend to lose it.

The Traitor's Wife

I haven’t done a book review in a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. I’ve actually been re-reading a lot of my favorites. I’ve also been picking an Edgar Allen Poe short story here and there to give me the creeps just in time for Halloween.
I also picked up The Traitor’s Wife a few weeks ago at the BX. We were browsing and it caught my eye, then sounded interesting enough to buy.
Here’s a synopsis posted on Amazon:

In the harsh wilderness of colonial Massachusetts, Martha Allen works as a servant in her cousin’s household, taking charge and locking wills with everyone. Thomas Carrier labors for the family and is known both for his immense strength and size and mysterious past. The two begin a courtship that suits their independent natures, with Thomas slowly revealing the story of his part in the English Civil War. But in the rugged new world they inhabit, danger is ever present, whether it be from the assassins sent from London to kill the executioner of Charles I or the wolves-in many forms-who hunt for blood. A love story and a tale of courage, The Wolves of Andover confirms Kathleen Kent’s ability to craft powerful stories of family from colonial history.

The book was previously named The Wolves of Andover and has been re-named, apparently. It’s also a prequel to Kathleen Kent’s first novel The Heretic’s Daughter, which is now on my list of books to read in the future.

I really enjoyed the book. It’s a little slow to start, and confusing since the narrative jumps across the ocean from the colonies to England and back, and most of the characters are strangers until you get quite a few chapters in. I had trouble keeping up with who was who, but that doesn’t interrupt the narrative too badly.
I loved the way Kent weaved the narrative with historical glimpses of life in the wilderness of American colonies and life in London. You’d go from a description of a person and their thoughts and feelings to a depiction of the daily chores a woman must do to keep the house safe and running. It was really interesting to me. The love story might feel under-developed compared to most romantic novels, because there are very few words and intimate interactions between the two characters. It seems like nothing has happened and suddenly they’ve both decided to be together. She probably could’ve spent a bit more time on how their emotions develop, but it isn’t sparse either. It’s not like colonial men and women had a lot of time to sit and write love notes to each other or spend afternoons gazing into each other’s eyes anyways.
The connection to English political history is interesting as well. I don’t know extensive facts about that time in history, but I have studied it off and on in relation to literature I’ve studied and in basic history courses. The back room dealings to quietly and quickly dispose of political nightmares doesn’t seem stretched at all, and the depictions and stories of the assasins kept me reading. I think the network of connections through the colonies were accurate, especially for political refugees hiding from the king and his vengeance. I loved the quick stories of colonial men and women plotting and preventing the success of the assassins coming to aide England’s interests. It reminded me of the Underground Railroad decades later.

Overall, I really liked this one. It wasn’t a book I picked up and didn’t put down all night, as it was slow to start and somewhat dense to read for a long period of time, but I did finish it within a week. I loved the book enough to look up its predecessor and make a note of buying it in the future. It’s different enough to stick out on the shelf and it’s well put together, so the historical vignettes and the love story and the murder suspense work together instead of against each other. If you’re into colonial America at all, I think you’d enjoy this one

Our Lucky Number

After realizing I lost a big chunk of my pictures, I scoured Photobucket and other internet places for any pictures I might recover. I found some. Some will be lost forever, unfortunately.

Then I sat and thought about how little we've gotten to celebrate together through the years. I mentioned this year will be the third in a row that we'll get to celebrate my birthday today (barring any inevitable changes or delays with the military and traveling). We started dating nearly 7 years ago, shouldn't that number be bigger?

None of ours are, though. We joke that two years seems to be our limit for most things.


When we were dating, we were able to visit each other over holiday breaks. I flew to Naples, Italy in 2006 to spend Christmas with Jeff, and he flew back from Naples in 2007 to spend Christmas with his family and me. In 2008 he was deployed to Japan.

In 2009, we celebrated our first Christmas living together in our own home. We were married in 2008, but didn't spend the holiday together so this one was much more memorable. We also had two little furballs of lovin' making our house a home too.

In 2010, Christmas was a little hectic. We had just driven cross country to get home for the holidays after moving out of our house in Lemoore, then traveling to San Diego where Jeff did some training and I frantically finished my degree. We drove home in a crazy caffeine fueled two day drive, then soaked up all the family time we could before we moved overseas.

We don't have any good pictures together from that time, but here's some from Christmas at his mom's.

We had cute little nephews to spoil before we moved. This is Phil, he's 2 and a spitting image of his three uncles.

Jeff brought Nerf guns for the boys and their cousins, and they had a blast running through the house all day long with them. Jeff jokes that they'll always remember him as the uncle who brings them Star Wars stuff and Nerf guns. Phil has an older brother, Jacob, but he was running around too quickly for my mom to get too many clear pictures ;)

Jeff's birthday is days before Christmas, so it's fairly easy to keep track of his birthdays. That one's a two year record as well.

Thanksgiving is a similar holiday. We spent our first Thanksgiving together in 2009. We celebrated a lot of firsts in our place in Lemoore. In 2010 we were together but our Thanksgiving was pretty abnormal. All our household goods were packed up the day before, so we were living with laptops and an air mattress. We went to Jack in the Box for food, then celebrated with some friends and Guitar Hero.

Our anniversary is still hanging at the bottom with a measly record of one year. We got married in 2008, spent our anniversary together in Monterey in 2009, then he was deployed again in 2010. I honestly cannot tell you what we did this year, in 2011. We were together, but I can't remember anything at all. Hm. Our dating anniversary in January doesn't fare any better. 2006, 2007, and 2008 were misses, as he was stationed elsewhere each year. I think he made it home from his deployment before our anniversary in 2009. In 2010, I believe he deployed before our anniversary. We were actually just talked about our dating anniversary this year. It was January 23rd. I think we might have still been living in the hotel over here, but he thinks we had moved into our house. I need to backtrack in my blog or on Facebook and find out.




Spending so much time apart is such a normal part of military life, you won't often hear me complaining about Jeff being gone or missing some important holiday.

Disappearing Act

I was going to post an old picture just for fun. Since it's October, I went into my files to look for a picture from last October.

Here's my birthday, October 30th in 2010.

All we could manage was an evening out for dinner and a movie. I was in the midst of cramming two months worth of reading, papers, and finals into a couple weeks. Oh, and we were burying ourselves in paperwork for our move. Not a stressful time in our lives at all, yeah.


I remembered that we had been together for my birthday the year before too, and had an epiphany. It's a record for celebrating things together! Since we've been long distance for so long and he continues to deploy occasionally, our record for celebrating things together is slim to none. Maybe 2 times tops, for Christmas, anniversaries, anything.

Jeff's been traveling and will continue to travel for short periods of time for work, but he should (add a mile of salt to be safe with the military) still be home for my birthday in two weeks. That makes three years in a row, otherwise known as our new record, of spending a special day in person together!


Anyways, that's not the point of this post.

I got excited and went to look up the picture from 2009 of us together. I could see it perfectly. We had gone to Olive Garden, then came home and watched a movie while I drank wine and annoyed my cats with pictures. I wore one of my favorite shirts and we looked cute.

....

It is nowhere to be found on my external hard drive!! Gr. I started looking deeper and realized I have shockingly few to none pictures in any of my 2009 files past August. Um, I took at least some pictures in that time period. I even still have some on FB. Where are those pictures?! In the past 2 years, I've gone through 3 computers and one external hard drive. It pains me a little to think of how many pictures I've lost along the way. One computer was slowly killing itself, so I upgraded to a laptop. When my husband's laptop crashed, we bought a new laptop. Due to purely selfish reasons (I liked the look of the new Sony Vaio better than the one I already owned), he got my laptop and I took the new one. Which is fine, but the file transfers apparently were not successful during one of those moves.

I'm bummed. I deleted a ton of old pictures off Facebook a long time ago. I'm about to go digging through my Photobucket accounts and old blogs to see if I can dig up some of those pictures, because I don't want to admit that I might have lost them forever! We wiped Jeff's laptop before I passed it over, and the slowly dying desktop is currently sitting in pieces in the office closet, so that thing isn't getting turned on anytime soon. Bummed!

So, there's your flashback and a very sad story. Not exactly a life-changing or day-ruining story, but enough to get me mildly upset that I don't have those pictures anymore.

Too Shea

With the weather turning colder, my skin is getting dry again. I've tried just about every lotion to keep my dry skin moisturized. A few things work temporarily, but never past the next shower of hot water.

Bath & Body Works - True Blue Spa's Too Shea 100% Shea Butter

On a whim, I ordered this Bath & Body Works body balm during a sale, in addition to my favorite fall candles and anti-bacterial soaps.

Oh my, it's wonderful. It's pure shea butter. It's much thicker than creams and lotions. It feels a little similar to Bath & Body Works' Body Butters. It's thick and a little hard to spread onto your skin, but the skin just soaks it up. I've been putting it on my legs, feet, and hands for a few weeks now and my trouble areas are disappearing. The cracking and peeling around my fingernails is significantly less frequent, and the dry, irritated skin on my legs is lessening.

I also love that it's unscented. It soaks in pretty quickly and isn't too greasy. It's more expensive than drugstore lotions, but a little goes a long way. And it lasts so much longer than lotion, since it's just the straight moisturizing shea butter without all the scents and weird ingredients lotions offer. And with the constant sales B&BW offers, you can catch it at a cheaper price.

I love this stuff.

Just wanted to share :)

How Bazaar

This weekend base was hosting a "Far East Bazaar". I saw the signs posted a few weeks back, but didn't think much of it. I mentioned the event to Jeff in passing, and he enthusiastically told me we needed to go check it out. I wasn't aware that he had attended a few of these bazaars down in Southern Japan while he was deployed.

The last bazaar he went to featured this gorgeous chess set that he got at a steal, in my opinion. It's housed in a beautiful wood case with dragon decals and beautiful gold locks. Solid wood. The board itself is also solid wood, and the pieces are beautifully carved. I'm not a chess person, but I love the set.

I knew he had picked it up on his last deployment to Japan. When he said he bought it at a similar bazaar, I knew we had to go.

Who knew what we could find?


I forgot to bring my camera to take some pictures of the bazaar itself, but it was hosted in a hangar on base. It was large, obviously. They had tons of Asian furniture, which took up about half of the hangar. We fell in love with quite a few of the pieces, especially one large and in charge dark wood entertainment center. But the prices of solid wood and the likelihood that damage would occur during one move or another made us resist. The rest of the place was filled with everything from $2 paper ornaments to much more expensive wood carvings, paintings, etc. If we had unlimited funds, we would've needed a truck to bring home all the things we saw and loved. Jeff had his eye on a $3,000 sword for a while. Too bad that's outside of our budget.

But of course, some things weren't. A few things were within our budget and quickly snatched before they were gone. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy some locally made products that we could keep forever. Sure, we could always buy some "oriental decor" at the local home goods store in the states, but how much better will our house look when it's filled with authentic decor from all our travels? That's our goal, anyways.

The first thing we picked up was this sake set. I saw the beautiful midnight blue glaze on the ceramic pieces and could not walk away. They had sushi sets, bowls, plates, and sake sets. After some thinking, Jeff decided the sake set would make the most sense. He had his eye on another gorgeous gray set, but I couldn't let this midnight blue glaze go. It's my favorite color, and well-made ceramic pieces go straight for my heart. I love it. Now all we need to do is find some good sake.

(By the way, I tried my first sake a few weeks ago! I went out with some girlfriends for a birthday, and between way too many other drinks, we tried some sake with lime. It was delicious! We all agreed that we needed to find that exact sake and buy it by the bottle in the future.)

I'm also a sucker for paintings and prints. There were tables and tables of gorgeous images of Japan. Most were hundreds over our price range.

We saw this print in a larger scale and I stopped in my tracks. I loved it. Jeff said he had seen the print multiple times in the past and shared my love for the gorgeous waves and the miniscule Mt. Fuji in the background. Too bad it was way too expensive even for mutual love. We walked down a few tables and found smaller, more affordable prints. Perfect! The print is made on wood, and the frame is solid. It's going to stay around for a while. I love it, and it had many brothers and sisters I was wishing I had the means to purchase and bring home. We were both drooling over all the nature scenes, with beautiful bamboo and cherry blossoms. There were also tons of prints of buildings and structures from Japan, but Jeff and I both prefer the more natural elements.

Ready for my favorite? They had all sorts of carved animals scattered throughout the vendors. I fell in love with two elephants. One was some kind of stone, colored bright red. Another was solid jade. We argued in indecision for a while, then I picked the jade elephant. As much as I loved the red, we both prefer blues and greens in our home, so this little beauty will undoubtedly match any decor we have in the future. Red, not so much.

This guy is big. Heavy. He's a hunk of rock carved roughly and gorgeously. I love him. I like that the carving isn't perfect ad that it looks like it's a hunk of jade. I don't like things too perfect. Jeff's been cracking jokes about my love for this elephant all weekend.

As I was drooling over the elephant, Jeff mentioned possibly buying two and using them as bookends in the future. I liked the idea, but the way he was shaped might not make the best bookends. Then I noticed the guard dogs sitting next to him. Their rectangular bases would make perfect bookends, and since they're also solid jade, just as heavy.  I begged until Jeff let me get them and their brother, the chunky elephant ;)

Don't quote me, but from my limited knowledge I understand that these guard dog structures are placed around sacred buildings to protect from evil spirits. We decided they would protect our knowledge, since they'll eventually be guarding our collection of books.





So that's what we came home with. I was one happy girl. And of course, I immediately went about moving decor around to make room for my new favorites.

My favorite elephant was put on the entertainment stand where everyone could see him. I decided to hang the print over the entertainment stand as well. It's small, but with all the movies and decor on that wall, anything bigger would look too cluttered. I love it.

You can see the scale of the print in relation to all our movies and chunky entertainment stand better here. I love how it worked out that everything from the planters to the German stein to the print have touches of midnight blue. I've also got green and brown thrown up there. And NCIS just to top it off ;)

This is My Temporary Home

I had a conversation today about the difficulties of moving from place to place so much. The conversation focused on furniture, and how much of a hassle moving it can become. Things get broken or misplaced. Furniture that fit perfectly in that town home now is an eyesore in this apartment. Or whatever, use your imagination. Jeff and I have made an agreement that we'll save the permanent and high quality furniture pieces for a permanent home that we own and plan on staying in for a while. Until then, we'll buy things that are flexible and replaceable.

The conversation also got me thinking about how we live in each temporary living situation. One girl said that since she's only here a year, she's not decorating or doing much of anything before she has to move again. The other girl said even though she'll be here another two and a half years, she hasn't put anything up on the walls and doesn't intend to do so.

It got me thinking.

Even though we're not here forever, I want our place to feel like a home. It's our comfort zone and where we live, why shouldn't it feel comfortable and cozy? Some things I'm not doing until the effort is worth it, like painting. Other things I can't actually do until we own our own place, like tearing down walls or replacing cabinets. But there are many things I CAN do while we're living in this apartment. Decorating the walls, filling the place with momentos and family pictures. Things that reflect us and our tastes. I can do that with our mobility in mind, though. I use Command strips to hang pictures on the walls so I don't do as much damage, I prefer knick knacks and things to put on table rather than large wall hangings or structures, and we don't own too many breakable things.

In the 8 months or so that we've been living here, I feel like I've done that. I feel like I'm coming home when I walk in the door at the end of the day, and I think that's how it should be. Would I pick an 8th floor 2 bedroom apartment for a permanent home? Probably not. But for now, it IS home.

So here's how I've made our place a home. Basically by unpacking all our stuff and putting it up.

Here's the living room/great room/main room in January on move-in day.

And here it is today.

(FYI, the TV says "Learning Japanese" in Kanji. It's an AFN commercial that shows simple phrases like 'please say that slower' or 'I don't understand'. Very helpful!)

Here's the office in January.

And here it is today.

Here's the bedroom in January.

Here it is today.

Maybe not the most amazing transformation. Probably not what I'd do with the place if we were staying here for more than a few years. But it helps. Having the space filled with furniture that works for us makes us comfortable. It can be overwhelming living overseas and dealing with the cultural differences. Coming home is a source of comfort and security for me.

Some things are still pretty much the same around here though. The view, for one. The trees may lose or gain their leaves and the water may change from snow to rain, but the lake is gorgeous any day.

January.

October.

The leaves are just starting to change, I can't wait to see how gorgeous fall is in my temporary home here in northern Japan!