Retirement: Part 2

July 3, 2009 in Marriage, Time Goes By, Work by Sara | 3 comments

Well that was actually really fun.  I shed a few tears, but not many.  JD was lauded by all as an all around great guy.  Hands where shaken, backs were slapped, and a few necks were hugged.

It was good to hear how well JD is thought of at work.  I think that it is hard to understand exactly how your spouse is at work.  I know that I sometimes wonder if JD would recognize me, patient as Job while listening to my patients and offering endless support  as needed.  I think he would wonder why that part of me goes missing at home so often.

And I couldn’t help but quietly think while they were listing all his accomplishments (and they were many), “Is this the same guy that can’t find the mayonaise on a regular basis?”

We were both grateful to have friends and family there to say goodbye to this part of our lives.  It will be strange not seeing him in uniform as he comes through the door each night.  To see him walk by other officers without saluting.  To identify ourselves now as retired military.

(Between Michael Jackson’s death and all this talk of retirement, I’m feeling just days away from doses of Geritol and my first broken hip.)

So off we go to the next part of our life.  If it brings half as much satisfaction as this last part then we’ll have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Proud of you honey.

I love you.

Retirement: Part 1

July 2, 2009 in Marriage, Time Goes By, Work by Sara | 3 comments

My husband retires from 20+ years in the military tomorrow.

I am much more nervous about it than he is.  No one who knows us well will be surprised to hear that.   It is the very nature of our relationship for me to be all a twitter about something while he calmly moves into the next phase of life with nary a blink.  Thank goodness.  If we were both like me?

Heaven help us.

It’s a big day.  Tune in tomorrow for a recap.

I’m sure there will be more tears.

Surprise.

Reunited…..And It Feels So Good

July 1, 2009 in Uncategorized by Sara | 3 comments

I’ve been without internet service for 10 days. I totally missed the deaths of MJ, Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett.  Not to mention I had to try and locate a phone book in order to find a number I needed (GASP!)

Oh ATT, you and your promises. You said I’d be up and running by 8pm a week ago. Then you said that you’d forgotten to send me a modem but because I am a VALUED customer, you’d send it overnight and I’d be good as new in less than 24 hours.

You lied.

Overnight evidently means 48 hours in real time.

Since the modem arrived I’ve spent approximately 7 hours on the phone talking to numerous people. Two of which told me their names where “Kevin” and “Tom” but I suspect they may have been fibbing because they sure didn’t sound like their mammas would have given them those names.

I wonder. Does the management of these big companies really think they can fool us into thinking we are talking to someone in the US by making them tell us their names are Kevin or Tom or Billy Bob?

Turns out that between the efforts of a nice gentleman named Mike who came to my house and performed wonders with wire cutters and lots of equipment that he kept unhooking from his belt and attaching to different parts of my house, and a gal named Marge (really. She sounded totally like a Marge) I am now up and running.

And guess what they told me?

This whole debacle happened because ATT is in contract negotiations with their employee unions and they aren’t budging on giving these guys health benefits.

Really?

ATT can’t afford to pay part of Marge and Mike’s health benefits? Didn’t they make something like 12 billion dollars last year?

So they guys in the field are way behind on orders because they can’t work the overtime they need in order to keep up. Hence the run around I got.

It might have been nice if someone had mentioned that to me during the 47 conversations I had with various representatives over the last week.

I’m not anti big business by any means but this sounds might stingy to me.

I’ll bet “Kevin” and “Tom” didn’t ask for benefits.

Empty…..But Full

June 29, 2009 in Family, Friends, Home by Sara | 8 comments

A friend of mine sent me a text about a week ago saying, “House Empty?”.

To which I replied, “Yes, and so am I.  But full at the same time.”

He asked me to explain.

Empty:  Of tears.  I’ve shed more in the last two weeks than I have in a long, long time.  (My mom is saying, “yeah, since the last time you moved.”) True.  I get attached.  And I’m a crybaby in the best of circumstances.  But Lordy mercy.  Saying goodbye to friends that I left behind in Virginia just about killed me.  I raised my kids from babies to big girls with these people.  We’ve shared life together in very real ways.  I love them.  You know who you are.

Full: I pulled into my new driveway to find that my realtor had conspired with our friends here to get them inside our new house.  We were greeted with signs that welcomed us back and welcomed us home.  They and their lovely children had left homemade signs and treats in almost every room.  I love them.

Empty: Seeing my children say good-bye to their dearest friends and then throwing themselves down on the floor of our empty home and WAILING.

Full: Having kids EXACTLY my girls ages living right next to us and seeing these new little faces appear at my doorstep asking if the girls can come out and play.  In the five nights we’ve stayed in our house we have already had 3 sleepovers.

Empty: Saying good bye to our dear church.  This was the place where we all felt loved.  Where we learned so much from some very gifted people.  Where Jesus used his people to change our hearts and our lives in a very real way.  Wondering where in the world we will find our church home in our new town.

Full: Meeting a couple who just happened to be riding their bikes by our house while I just happened to be outside talking to our realtor who just happened to know them.  In the course of the conversation they invited me to check out their church this weekend.  Then she called me later to tell me a little more about it and offer to meet me there so I wouldn’t feel like such a stranger.

So that’s what I mean by being both empty and full.  It’s been a hard couple of weeks.  But it’s also been a time when I’ve had the opportunity to meet some wonderful new people including the 5000 installation people that have been in and out of my house in the last week.  I especially love Jeff who fixed my air conditioning and my mover Drew who was just the BEST EVER.  I hugged his neck as he left and felt like I was losing a good friend. My new neighbors are wonderful.  They’ve been stoppng by most every day with offers of help and little treats for all of us.  As I speak, one of them has my children at the pool so I could sit here at Starbucks for a while. And to my friends Kate, Maureen, Kat, Sally, Julie and their families…….you guys are the best.

So as sad as it was to leave and as much as I miss my friends in Northern Virginia, this move feels right.

I am full.

Stay Tuned

June 21, 2009 in Home by Sara | 9 comments

We are here.

I have much to share.

Check back in a couple of days after I’ve surfaced from the one million boxes that will be carted into our house tomorrow!

Our house!

Oh my.

It’s really happened.

The fact that the A/C seems to not be working upstairs is doing very little to dampen my excitement….

So far.

And…..We’re Packed

June 18, 2009 in Home, Marriage by Sara | 7 comments

Yes we are.

Hallelujah.

Four brave people showed up on my doorstep at 8:30am.  They were confident and just a little bit cocky.  They looked around and said, “We don’t need no stinkin’ two days to pack you up!  We’ll do it in ONE day.”

Twelve hours later they straggled back out of our house.  They had prevailed but were almost defeated by my kitchen.  While three of them packed up the ENTIRE rest of the house, one poor woman stood in my kitchen the entire time wrapping and stuffing boxes.  In the end it took three of them to finish it up.

I am somewhat ashamed.

However, I do want to take this opportunity to share with you all that the lead packer said that in all his years of packing people up, he had never had a case where the man had more garment boxes than the woman.

(It’s all those t-shirts, I guess)

And the fact that clearly I spend all my disposable income at William and Sonoma.

For Sale! Cheap!

June 16, 2009 in Family, Marriage by Sara | 5 comments

2357 Blank CDs

476 assorted cords

23 headsets

67840 Business Cards with assorted names and numbers on them gathered from meetings and symposiums over the last 5 years

896 various military insignia and do-dads

35 T shirts that haven’t been worn in years but can not be thrown away because they remind you of “something”

758 Instruction manuals for things we no longer own

Luckily I’m rather fond of the owner of the above items or I’d be putting him up for sale, too.

Pack rat.

It’s Gonna Be A Long Week

June 15, 2009 in Faith, Family, Home by Sara | 3 comments

Moving is hard.

Emotions are running high at the Whitlock household this week.  Between the three of us girls, we’ve had at least 7 crying jags just today.  I foresee several more before the week is out.  Poor JD.

The girls have been so excited about moving that they forgot about being sad about leaving their friends and their neighborhood until just this past week.  You could almost see the reality of it smack them right dab in the middle of the forehead.  So they’ve been spending lots of time with their best little friends.  They made each other friendship bracelets and earrings.  They begged to spend the night with each other and to basically just spend every possible moment together.  Of course we let them.

I’ll miss those little knuckleheads as much as my girls will.

So we covet your prayers for our family this week.  As we put the girls to bed tonight we held hands and prayed that God would be close to us as we end this chapter of our lives and prepare for the next exciting adventure.  We are confident that we are following His leading.  In ways too numerous to count we have watched Him work out every detail of this move.

But it’s still hard to say good-bye.

Just Call Me Grandma

June 12, 2009 in Family, Good Ole Days by Sara | 1 comment

Land Family: Circa 1968

Land Family: Circa 1968

There are just a few more things about this picture that I feel I must point out.

To those of you who wonder why a child of 6 is wearing grandmother glasses, I’ll just say this.  The selection of frames in the 1960s for children was non-existent.  Disney princesses had not found their way on to any frames in that day or time.  Children’s glasses were basically just smaller versions of grown up glasses.  So that is why I look like a 65 year old.

In fact, if you added a cardigan sweater and a pocketbook full of tissues and juicy fruit gum, I would be my own grandmother.

My mother is 20 years younger than I am right now in this picture and yet I have a child who is just a couple of years older than I am in this picture.  The very thought of that makes me tired.

My mom made that beautiful dress that I have on.  She smocked it and everything.  I still remember how it felt when I wore it.  It was made out of white velvet material and it was so soft.  My mother has always been a genius with a sewing machine.

My dad was voted most handsome as a high school senior.  One look at that picture and you can see why.

One of the best pieces of advice my mom has ever given me was to not waste my time worrying about being fat.  She said that she worried about that practically her whole adult life.  Look at that picture!  She’s a waif.  Those cheekbones!  No wonder she was able to snag Mr. Handsome.

This was the last family picture taken before the birth of my baby sister.  She’s the baby and she is special but she never got to wear her hair in a bouffant and wear a velvet dress.  I still say being the oldest has its perks.

The Beauty Shop

June 11, 2009 in Good Ole Days by Sara | 6 comments

The Land Family: Circa 1968

The Land Family: Circa 1968

You would never know from looking at this picture that I have the finest hair on the planet. I’m not kidding.  I didn’t even have hair until I was over two and I’ve spent a fortune on hair products over the years designed to plump up my skimpy little tresses.

But not on this day.  On this day my Mom and I went to the beauty shop.  Now the real name of this fine establishment was the Bouffant Beauty Shoppe, but everybody knew that if you said the beauty shop, you were talking about Anna Fay’s place back behind Barker’s Chevrolet.  It was the place in town to get your hair done and catch up on all the latest gossip news in our small town.  On a Saturday that place would be rockin’!  Right when you walked in the door there was a line of about 8 dryer chairs and everyone of them would have a lady sitting under it with big ole rollers in her hair (complete with a silver clip holding the little spit curl by her ear)  looking at the latest issue of Good Housekeeping or chatting it up with her neighbor.  The place smelled like a wonderful mixture of Dippity Do, hairspray and that unmistakable ammonia smell of permanent solution.

I loved it.

It had an old fashioned coke machine that you lifted up the top, dropped a dime in and then slid your 6 ounce Coke or Fanta Grape Nehi out of the little metal maze.  I still remember those as the best drinks I’ve ever tasted.

Anna Faye (she’s my daddy’s first cousin) ruled the roost.  She and the girls that worked with her wore white polyester pantsuits like you used to see nurses wearing in the hospital.  They all had great high bouffant hair dos and I thought they were the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

On the day this picture was taken, my mom and I went down to the beauty shop to have our hair done.  I’m about 6 years old in this picture and Mom is 26.  They sat me in the chair at the shampoo bowl (oh how it hurt the back of my neck!) and shampooed me.  Then they rolled me up on rollers and sat me in one of those dryer chairs on a stack of magazines so I’d be high enough to get up under the hood and let the hot air blow my hair dry.  After I was all dry, Anna Faye combed and teased and sprayed my hair into that glorious do you see above.  Then she did the same thing for Mama.  We were beautiful.

Things have changed at the beauty shop.  The white pantsuits are long gone, as is the coke machine.  The dryer chairs are still there but I don’t think they get used very much any more.  Stylists have come and gone, but Anna Faye is still there working her magic.  And the smell of hair spray is still in the air.

Postscript:  I know that a few of you out there spent time in those chairs.  I want to hear your memories of the place.

Please.

« Older entries