I adore three-day weekends. It's nice to know that I have reinforcements in the form of "Daddy" for three entire days. There is something delicious about Sunday evenings. I think it's when you start to gear up for a typical Monday and then get the delightful surprise reminder that you have one more "weekend day" left.
We had a really nice three-day weekend. In reverse order--
Yesterday we took the kids to the beach. J has been DYING to go since we got here. I'm a huge fan as the kids and Better Half are all happy to mess around in the freezing cold Pacific and I am happy to lie on a blanket, read, and nap. We had a great time. Saw a seal. In the wild. And a pelican. Got a fantastic parking spot. Experienced no traffic issues. It really was magical. Except for the sand. Sand is glorious on a beach. Not so much anywhere else. Despite our best efforts I now have sand all over my car, my clothes, and my apartment. We went to the beach with Better Half over spring break. He says he was STILL cleaning up sand when he moved out of it three weeks ago. For. The. Love.
If you removed the mountain backdrop behind the field, our Sunday looked identical to every Sunday we've spent in Kansas for the past 6 years in the summer. Baseball. But we can cross "find the kid a baseball team" off of the list of things to get done for C. Lesson learned on Sunday--Rednecks are everywhere. Even in Southern California.
On Saturday some of our dear friends (who happen to live in California) drove two hours to come see us in our tiny, temporary apartment. More on the apartment later. It was wicked hot and sticky. Basically just like Kansas. We took all the kids to the pool, tried to feed everyone out of Better Half's dorm-sized refrigerator (I am so not making this up) and off of his six dinner plates. Then we all sat around the kitchen and tried to think of things to do. Entertainment pickings are slim. A deck of cards and a game called "Pass the Pigs" is about all I can offer until the rest of our stuff gets here. Oh, that, and a whole lot of verbal teenaged sibling sparring. Anyway...it sure was nice of Andy and Amanda to schlepp their kids two hours to hang out with us in our roach-infested apartment. I'm sure they're super anxious to do it again real soon. Which leads me to...
~Housing~
Yes. There are roaches in my apartment. When your husband is able to locate a "month-to-month" rental in a city where no one does "month-to-month" rentals, you have to understand that you get what you pay for. When we procure the therapist for J, I'm sure he/she is gonna want to spend significant time on the "I opened the cabinet to get a bowl for cereal and a roach fell on my head" incident. I don't want the trauma of that one coming back to haunt her in adulthood.
This address should be very temporary. As in "we should be outta here by the end of the week" temporary. I am so hoping that we have gotten our last You. Have. Seriously. Got. To. Be. KIDDING. Me. About. This. text/email/phone call from the Realtor/Lender/Escrow company with one more thing to do/hold-up/potential disaster that is going to cost us the house we are trying to buy and all of our earnest money.
When we first got here and I saw the apartment, I had a very "zen" attitude about closing on the house. If it worked out, great. If not, there'd be another one and we'd be fine to live here for awhile. Once I saw the first roach, I lost my "zen" space. I think it went back to Kansas.
~California~
You have to have a "food handling license" to work at any restaurant in California. It sounds like it's a certificate that states that you understand that handwashing prevents disease and you should use gloves and not sneeze or cough or pick your nose while making my hamburger. This is amusing and terrifying to me on so many levels. I am also interested in how much one must pay to obtain such a credential.
I'm not sure which "California Girls" Katy Perry is singing about, but she's sure not singing about the ones who live in this town. J's public elementary school dress code states that all shorts must hit below the mid-thigh. No makeup may be worn. All hairstyles must be of natural color and shape. "Daisy Dukes and bikinis on top" don't fly here. Believe me. I'm so down with kicking it old-school. None of this is a problem for me at all. It's just not at all what I expected. It doesn't jive with my stereotype of this place.
Neither is the policy for the high school baseball team that all hair must be cut above the ears and off the neck.
Or the fact that there are technically school busses here, but no one uses them. Everyone drives their kids. That doesn't seem very environmentally friendly to me. Just saying.
N on California--"This is a great place to be during the weekend. The week? Notsomuch."
~Exercise and Health~
I have been self-medicating with food for the past week-and-a-half. Don't judge. It's really easy to do when you have a roach-infested kitchen. You pretty much want to be out. And eat out. And eat badly. And often.
So I have this friend, Jennifer, who, several years ago, had this blog titled, "Exercise is a Reasonable Substitute for Love." This amazing lady, while dealing with some pretty life-changing personal stuff, used exercise and healthy living as a means of coping with the crazy. In the process of all of this, she found love and had to start calling her blog something else. :o) Now she never posts because she's wicked busy going back to school, running her own business, parenting her kids, and doing lots and lots of healthy and wicked-cool exercisey things like running multiple marathons every year.
I'm going to steal a page out of her book and try an experiment. I'm going to see if "Exercise is a Reasonable Substitute for Friends." :o)
In that vein, I went to a CrossFit gym today. It was completely un-air conditioned. Just like mine back in Kansas. I felt right at home.
I don't want to go as far as to say that I've missed things like rope burns on my legs, but the constant burning pain above my right ankle is reminding me even as I sit that I accomplished something good for my body today.
And it is also a constant reminder to quit going to class without first checking out the WOD. Forthelove. Today was definitely a knee sock day.
Except that my knee socks are still in Kansas...
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