My life never feels as overwhelming as it seems when I write it all down

It's been a long time since I have felt compelled or inspired to do more than just the monthly and event posts for the kids. I think a lot of that was just Abby not wanting to go to sleep at night and me falling into an exhausted heap right behind her. Now that she goes to bed reasonable early and Zoe follows a few hours later, I atually have some time to myself. It's amazing!

We have moved and settled into our brand new house. It is so amazing to love where I live. I feel so at peace here and I am remembering so many of the things I always loved to do. I guess somewhere around nine months after a baby is born you suddenly sort of look around and remember who you are.

And a ROUGH and busy nine months it has been. We moved when Abby was three weeks old, which means the movers came and we cleaned the condo out when she was two weeks old. No matter how hard I tried to take it easy, there was always something to do. That coupled with the fact that Abby only very recently started sleeping the night just kind of made me not myself for a lot of the last year. And I don't really like that feeling, but those days are behing me and I definitely feel much cheerier these days.

I am obsessed with the little town where we live. It's a strange and wonderful place. We have pretty much no chain restaurants, but it's still big enough that you would expect it. We have a waterfront downtown area, and they have now zoned most of it that you have to have a full five acres to build a new home. The school Zoe attends is just unbelievable. I love the small town feel around here so much. Yesterday our neighbors down the street picked their daughter up from the bus stop on their horse! It was great to watch the horse walk past my front door (thankfully not pooping right there!).

Chris and I got to go away for the weekend without the kids last week, and that was just as amazing as you would expect it to be. We stayed at the Renaissane Clubsport outside of San Francisco. It was very strange being away from the kids for so long, but they were in good hands and it was really good for us.

It was especially good for us because we are closing in on yet another deployment. Chris is headed to Korea for about a month at the end of this month and then will be heading back over to Afghanistan in early December for about a year. I am having a hard time verbalizing my feelings about this, and it may  be because it hasn't truly sunk in for me. It's going to be hard being in a new place without any nearby friends or support. His family is a little over an hour from here, so I do have them in case of an emergency but I don't have any "let's grab coffee" friends nearby.

As for making friends, it is so hard when you are an adult! It seems like I become the most awkward and strange person whenever I meet new people. I think I definitely take some getting used to. I manage to say all the most inappropriate things. But I am confident that if I stop being so lazy about it (and really attend those mom groups, etc instead of just thinking it would be a good idea) then I will make some friends.

And I miss my people in Florida. A lot. I miss my mom and dad and my Jessica and Carol and my brother's family. But I love it in Washington. I love my house and my town and the school here. I love the fall and the cold weather and the wild blackberries that grow all over everything. I wish I could somehow merge the two because I feel a lot of guilt about not being able to be there for people on the East Coast sometimes.

This has turned into something much longer than I intended but I guess it's good I got the baseline information out of the way so that I can just jump in with thoughts from here on out.

And now, for those of you who haven't read this far but just want a quick glimpse of my life's recent goings ons: