Antsy

Thank you for all the congratulations to my husband! Some of you asked how it was that I knew before him. Well, I couldn't say it at the time, but it's safe now so let me explain...
Earlier this month my husband had to leave for a conference in Abu Dhabi for 5 days. He got home on Wednesday, stayed for 3 hours, then had to leave again to catch a flight to Virginia for a ceremony! He stayed about a day and a half and then flew back home again. Poor guy is so tired and worn out!! And we have to make the long flight again in less than 2 weeks. Anyway, that's how he didn't know. When the promotion message came out, he was on a plane to the U.S., and I had no way of getting in touch with him to tell him. And I couldn't say that here at the time, because it wouldn't have been safe to give the locale of my husband, not to mention the fact that I was all alone. So, there you have it.

I'm getting very antsy with this move. The movers come on Thursday and we need to separate our items into piles of "express shipment" & "household goods shipment", or in other words, "slow" & "slower". It will be about 2-3 months before we see our belongings again. This time around I've wised up and put together boxes of things to mail to ourselves: toys, spices, cookbooks, school, crafts, etc. These will arrive in Estonia before we even get there! Anyway, the problem is not in the separating of the items, but in the timing of doing it. You can't do that sort of thing too early, because you're still using everything. So I'm sitting here feeling a lot of pressure to have these things done, but also feeling like my hands are tied because I really can't do it yet. I also have to get our luggage packed before the movers come so they don't pack anything that is supposed to go with us on the airplane. Here's the real clincher. After the movers have come and gone, we'll still be here for about a week! The State Department is great and gives us a kit full of everything we'll need until we leave: dishes, linens, etc. And all of the furniture in the house belongs to them, so I'm very thankful that we won't be sleeping on the floor in a bare house for a week! Eating was going to be tricky though. We can't take the food with us, and our non-perishables will be packed up, so that won't leave us with very much in the house. So, here and there over the past month I've made meals to have in the freezer! Now I don't even have to cook that last week, just reheat.

I also remembered something exciting recently! We will be in the U.S. for two weeks.... you know, the home of the free, where we have the right to say what we want. Do you know what that means for me?? TRACTS!! I haven't been able to pass out tracts the whole time we've lived here, and I miss it. I looked around my house and was able to get together a good size stack of all different kinds. Granted, some of them have the address of our church in Japan, but the message inside is the same. I hope to have none left by the time we get to Estonia.