And then it was empty...

Wow, this place looks really nice without all the stuff! There is really a fine line between "personal touches" and "excess clutter." I think we crossed it way back in September.

This was my favorite and least stressful packout ever. I'd like to say I'm getting better at these things, but really the reason is that we didn't have most of our stuff. We only brought 700 pounds of stuff to VA from the DR, and acquired a bit more stuff, but not much! We had probably 300 pounds set aside for UAB, so they kept telling us to go find more stuff to send by air. The best problem to have! I don't know how much our final HHE shipment was, as they will weigh that back at the office, but it wasn't a lot.

I want to go on record saying that my husband was right. Last time, when we packed out of the DR, he wanted us to completely pack our suitcases before packout. I organized and packed our clothes, but decided that I couldn't REALLY pack everything because I still needed a lot of it before we left post. Well, really the issue was that I hate organizing toiletries and the sock/underwear drawer and all the random stuff, so I left them for last. Plus shoes, bags, etc etc. Let's just say that we had SO MUCH last minute stuff that I don't know how we got it into the bags and under weight.

This time, we actually have an entirely empty suitcase and 2 half-empty bags! Woohoo! I tried to be more ruthless about bringing less clothes. So what if I wear the same outfit a lot?

We will be on home leave for the next 5 weeks, and then my family stays in OR for another month, so I'm pretty sure we'll fill those bags with stuff. Besides, my son is having a birthday during this time. But still, I feel really good about not packing our bags to the brim at this point.

We had a lovely get together last night with some new and old friends. I found it hard to be as social as I like to be during this time in VA. People (us included) were busy and stressed learning new languages and I think many of us with kids packed a ton of activities into the weekends. It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction after not having enough to do in the DR (other than pools and beaches...oh, how I miss them!). Anyway, maybe next time in VA, we will try to take more time to smell the flowers and spend quality time with people. I'm grateful, though, for the new friends we made and the old friendships we nurtured as best we could!

Ok, 3 blog posts in 3 days is a little much. Let me sign off.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you a message about the Earth...

My six year old baby girl loves to make books.

Twas the night before packout...

Twas the night before packout,
and all through the 'Wood,
not a creature was freaking,
(although maybe they should).

Hey folks! This is not my normal packout persona. Normally, at 8pm the night before packout, I am approaching my most miserable. The place is still a total wreck, I've been walking around for days taking things from one place and putting them somewhere else, and there is NO END IN SIGHT. Why do I do this to myself so often!? But this packout only involves about 1/4 of our stuff, so it's 8pm and I'm contemplating bedtime soon! Also, we are not moving to China tomorrow but rather my mom's house, where I'll have a few weeks to organize papers and such. Life is good.

Here's our UAB (unaccompanied air baggage) pile - after our fiasco in the DR when we tried to ship everything UAB, I think this time we are underestimating things a bit, but that's fine...I'll just grab some stuff from the HHE (household effects) pile if we have extra weight (we can ship 700 lbs. by air). This time, I'm basically packing all the kids toys, some art supplies, select kitchen stuff, a handful of clothes and linens, and a lot of storage containers. I'll be arriving about a month before the family, so I'm really hoping I'll be able to set up their rooms before they arrive. I'm also planning to send myself a package of room decals, new toys, and books. Traveling with older kids is so much easier than toddlers, but I've come to realize that spending a little extra money to help ease the first two weeks is worth it.

I've been ruthlessly getting rid of clothes and shoes- anything I don't like enough to wear frequently, or anything I have too many of. When you move this often, you don't need to keep all 10 pairs of white socks, when you always reach for just 3 of those pairs anyway!

The kids are doing really well so far. They seem fine about the movers coming tomorrow and taking all their stuff. L has packed about 20 of her favorite stuffed animals in her suitcase (luckily they are mostly tiny) and all M wants to take are a few Legos. I'm sure there will be some meltdowns and such, but overall I feel like they are both doing alright in this FS life of ours.

Made it through Chinese!

Last week, I passed my Chinese test!

It feels like it was by the skin of my teeth. I had heard the tester spoke very quickly and with a strong accent, so I thought I was ready to fight my way through the test. But I was so keyed up by the time I got in there that when he opened his mouth and I didn't understand a word, I totally broke down. I started to cry and couldn't stop. They got me some tissues and then left for five minutes to let me compose myself. I sat there telling myself- you can do this!

When they came back, I pushed through, sighing with relief each time we finished a different section. Every once in a while, I would freak out again but was able to push it away and keep going. The reading was a whole different beast and I was frustrated that it was nothing like the readings we had practiced, but I did the best I could. 

As I sat in the waiting room waiting to learn my score, I was a mess...wondering if I failed both parts or just one, thinking about what it meant for my plans (really not a big deal), wishing I could control my nerves better. When they brought me back in and told me my score (2 in speaking and 1 in reading), I couldn't believe I passed, and of course, that made me cry anew. 

While I don't know that my performance that day really was deserving of that score, I know that the past nine months are. I have worked pretty hard, about as hard as I could work while also being a mom and trying to take care of myself. 

Out of my cohort of 10, 9 passed, with scores including 2+/2+ and 2/2 in addition to the minimum passing score, 2/1. I find that interesting, since we all started from 0, but absorbed the language at different rates. I don't think scores correlated with how hard we worked or how much extra time we put into it, though that extra time didn't hurt. Innate language ability plays a huge role. In some ways, that bothers me, because I have always been pretty good at languages, yet I was not one of the shining stars this time. But one thing I know is that I move slowly - it takes me a while to conquer things- so I'm hopeful that by the time I leave China, my Chinese level will have improved greatly. We'll see. 

The day after my test, I had LASIK, so I've been recovering from that while also trying to prepare for packout (in two days). Since we don't have all our stuff here (only about 1000 pounds), I'm not too worried about it. Plus, we have time during home leave to organize things further. But maybe that's why I can't sleep. :)

So, so close!!

Well, the end is almost here. I take my Chinese test on Thursday. If all goes well, we will pack out next week and move to Maryland to commence our home leave.

It's been a long road. I cannot wait to be done. Not done with learning Chinese. Even after 9 months of full time study, my Chinese is quite elementary. It's just a hard, hard language and I have so much more to learn. But done with sitting in a classroom, 5 hours a day, mostly being passive. And done with spending the other hours in the dungeon they call a language lab! I preferred to study there because of the ability to use a particular Chinese language computer program (KEY5)and I found it much more comfortable than my other options. But it gets a little old!

Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly glad to be here and grateful that I get paid to learn a language. But I am really excited to get started doing my job and being more active.

I learned a few things:

1) Even if you use another program too, use Rapid Rote from the start, mostly because after a while you won't want to create all those flashcards, and the teachers have already done it for you.

2) Start learning the characters right away!

3) Once you get into the Intermediate reading book, they give you too many words to learn every day. It's not humanly possible (and many of them are not useful words, anyway). The thing is, they don't really expect you to learn them all, so I was more blase (sp) than I should have been about it. A friend of mine looked at the coming week's words on Sundays and chose about 150 of the most important ones to learn during that week; he then reviewed those flashcards all week. I wish he had told me about his strategy earlier, because it is a great idea. My reading is probably my weakest ability- I just got overwhelmed at all the reading and therefore didn't learn a lot of characters.

4) If you are here on long-term language training, any language, do an immersion! The Chinese program has not done one in a while, and when I asked, I was encouraged to propose a trip. A few of my classmates and I met to brainstorm a trip to NYC, but we ultimately decided that the trip might help with our routine Chinese needs (eg shopping, dining out, etc), but wouldn't help us with the more sophisticated vocabulary that we needed for the test. In retrospect, I wish we had gone ahead. I became SO BORED around April that I wanted to pull out my hair. Luckily, that was right around the Cherry Blossom festival and just at the right time, our teachers organized a trip to see them. That helped, though it was just one day. We also did a museum trip a few weeks later.

You don't have to go to a community that speaks the language - one language section just organized a few days at a hotel on the Eastern Shore where students and teachers just spent concentrated time together- cooking, watching movies, and speaking the language all day. I wish we had done TWO immersions! You really need something to break up the monotony.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure other items will come to me.

I'll be posting lots about pack out so come back soon if that's your thing! I'm not panicking about it, only because we only have about 1000 pounds here (so it has to be easier, right?). Also, I can bring any uneaten food to my mom's house. That's super helpful.

That's it for now.

Salads and more salads

About two months ago when I started exercising, I also started looking at the calories in what I eat, and it was surprising. So I started trying to reduce the junk I eat and increase the good stuff. I also realized that when I eat a lighter meal at lunch, I'm not quite as tired during the afternoon classes. So, I've started taking salads to school every day. The key to avoiding salad boredom, for me, has been to include one or more items that are different or especially yummy. Things I don't eat often. The things that make me happy are edamame seeds, feta cheese, sunflower seeds, salmon salad, chicken salad, cottage cheese, eggs, etc.

I also started making 'health bowls,' basically a salad with healthy grains like quinoa or brown rice, cooked vegetables, etc. Just a more substantial salad. The sky is really the limit here and I've had fun creating these. Got the idea from Real Simple but it's not exactly new.

Here's one w/ quinoa and salmon. So good.

This week I discovered Mason Jar Salads, and I'm kind of obsessed. I wish I had found this idea sooner! Apparently I've been under a rock because they are all the rage. The idea is to layer a bunch of ingredients- dressing on the bottom, hardy vegetables next, then other stuff like meat, cheese, and beans if you like, finally greens. The greens stay crispy because they never touch the dressing, and all you have to do is grab a jar from the fridge in the am and go. I've always found salads to be a hassle because of the dressing and the cutting up of a bunch of ingredients every night. Even though I've gotten used to all the prep lately, it would be even better to have a few days of salads just ready to go!

So, if you are into this stuff like I am, check out this Mason Jar Salad tutorial and these awesome recipes. Or google 'Mason Jar Salads' and you will be bombarded with ideas. Last night I made my first one and enjoyed it on a beautiful spring day outside at FSI. Somehow, it was yummier than a regular salad (also, it's a great way to use up leftover meat, veggies, etc! This was fajita chicken from last night). I'm planning to try a bunch of different recipes this Sunday.

What's that? You're wondering when I study Chinese? Well, yea, I basically only study at school these days. Which I why I will hopefully pass, but not exceed the expectations or anything. Oh well. My overall health is important, too.

Getting in shape

I only have a minute but want to share my boot camp experience. I bought a Groupon with Custom Fitness Concepts because their locations and timing worked with my schedule. I recently finished a month and I am really sad I can't keep going, especially now that the weather is getting nice! When I started on March 31 it was COLD.

I joined the 6-7am Bluemont Park group. Bluemont Park is 2 minutes from Oakwood FC, so it's really a perfect location if you're staying there (but there are other locations and times throughout VA). I am sorry to report that the terrific Bluemont coach is leaving, but I'm sure the new coach will be just as great. It was not the scary drill sargeant scene I imagined- just an hour of doing more than I thought I could.

The class starts out on the tennis courts and often moves to the parking lot, surrounding trails, and even the other side of the park. The workouts are never the same, though the 3 repetitions of every set nearly killed me...

As for results? Well, I don't think I've given it enough time or effort. In the past two months, I revamped my eating patterns a lot and have been exercising about 3x a week. Now I realize I need to exercise more if I want to lose a few pounds. And what's cool is that I want to exercise more! Just have to fit it into my schedule.

I highly recommend Custom Fitness Concepts and especially Bluemont Park group if you are in the area! They are offering a free week's trial if you want to check it out.