Bramblestitches

It's grass, it's weird, it's fun!

It only took about a month, but finally Big G thinks grass is fun. When we first got here, he'd never played on it, and cried when we put him down on it (then screamed while backing away to the safety of the concrete patio).

But now:

Back to work

Today is the Man's first day back to work after our big move. Miss O woke up just in time to have her picture taken with Daddy, but Big G was sound asleep (and an hour later is STILL sound asleep).

Overwhelmed

Maybe I should say it again. So. Much. Stuff.

I'll be honest. I'm getting a little nervous watching these piles of supplies tottering around the edges (and let's face it, all over the middle, too) of this room. It's starting to feel like maybe... maybe I have a problem. I listed a few more things today on ebay, but in the end I may just start giving this stuff away to my local thrift stores. I say storeSSSS because I'm not sure the volunteers would appreciate me showing up with my truck bed FULL of bags and boxes of books, patterns, fabric, yarn, clothes, linens, and other foolishness.

Ack! I'm drowning in clutter!

Settling in

Hello! It's been a long time--y'all still remember me? I've missed you!

Well we made it all the way from the desert to beautiful North Carolina. It took four and a half days of driving and lots of Subway sandwiches and Carls Junior/Hardee's burgers. Now we're settling into our lovely little neighborhood in a great house and getting to know the area a bit.

The trip itself was actually pretty easy--at least as easy as a five day trip can be. The kids are incredible travelers, and even the Man behaved himself tolerably well. Actually, he did ALL the driving. Like, I didn't drive. At all. Not even a mile. He get's bored when he's not driving, and he gets sick if he tries to read or do anything else. So I got a ton of knitting done. It was very exciting to watch the landscape change from bleak tan desert, where we started in California to the healthy and flourishing desert of Northern Arizona and New Mexico, to the cattle grazing lands of Texas and Oklahoma, the farms and crops of Arkansas and Tennessee (lots of corn and tobacco), and finally the forested, misty-rivered Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Here in Jacksonville, a city of about 60,000, there are trees everywhere. Even in our backyard we have three large pine trees that rival any of the trees on my dad's property.

There's so much more to tell, and I'll have to post several more times before I'm all caught up to today, but that's all I have time for now. I promise to be back again soon!

July

Where to begin? There has been so much activity this month that I can't even believe how much we've gotten finished.

Aside from another magazine deadline, which kept me very busy for a couple of weeks, we've had visitors, packing, and a ton of stupid stuff that goes along with moving: shutting off services, changing addresses, blah, blah, blah....

We have less than a week until our moving truck gets here, but nearly everything is ready to load. We still have most of our furniture in the house, but it's all ready to go, except for my desk, where I'm sitting now. I've done most of the cleaning (not the bathroom, yet), so all I will have to do when the house is empty is a quick vacuum and mop.

We did manage to rent a place near Camp Lejeune, so at least we don't have to house hunt on top of everything else when we get there in a week and a half.

I hate to leave you with such a scrawny update after I've been gone for so long, but there's still a lot to do today: laundry, kitchen packing, furniture disassembly, etcetera. This might be my last post until we get our internet service set up on the other coast. I hope you'll all have a lovely couple of weeks--please wish us luck as we travel!

Mapping the way

Today I mapped our route from Twentynine Palms, California to Jacksonville, North Carolina, using the AAA website. What good luck--I-40 goes all the way across the country! I even programmed in a few tentative hotel stops.

We really don't have time to dilly-dally on this trip. We load the moving truck on August 3rd, and the truck could deliver our stuff as soon as August 9th! We are supposed to provide the truck driver with a delivery address by the 8th--but we don't have a house yet. I think I'll have to arrange for a storage unit before we get there, or else rent a house sight unseen.

We've also been spending a bit of time looking at the smaller towns surrounding Camp Lejeune, especially Sneads Ferry. Be sure to listen to the Sneads Ferry Shrimp Festival song. Not only is Sneads Ferry about the same size as our native Gold Beach, Oregon, but it is also a fishing town. There aren't many rentals available there, and they're all a little out of our price range, but it really looks like a wonderful community.

We've also been using Google Earth a ton to help us pick a neighborhood.  By zooming in on the satelite pictures, we can see how close the houses are together, how close they are to highways, and even map the exact route, mileage, and time it would take the Man to get to work. In this screen shot, Camp Lejeune mainside is the white blob in the center of the picture next to the bay. Jacksonville is at the top of the screen, Hubert is to the right of "Triangle Gate," and Sneads Ferry is directly below "Sneads Ferry Gate." The gates are three of the entrances to Camp Lejeune.

Happy Independence Day!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

It's my birthday!

I turned 25 today! Still loving every minute of it!

So much stuff

You only truly realize how much you own when you are getting ready to move. Ever since we found out about our PCS (that's permanent change of station, for you civilians) we've been frantically running around the house looking for every shred of unloved junk to give away or throw away before we have to move it.

We discovered a lot of junk. And a lot of "good stuff"--that terrible trap of a phrase--that we just don't need or want anymore. But what to do with it? Ebay it? Well, I could, but I just don't have the time for it right now. I could take it all to the thrift store, but honestly, I don't have time to take it to the good one right now either, since it's in the next town. And throwing it all away just seems wrong. Which leaves... Freecycle!

I write a quick description of the items I want to unload, send them to my local online freecycle group, and people come get the stuff! It's working out really well! We've managed to give away nearly all of our unloved stuff, including our electric piano, which went to our local theater. Woo!

We've got orders

On Monday, totally out of the blue, the Man got a call that he needed to go to IPAC (not to be confused with IPECAC, which has approximately the same effect on people) to pick something up. Well, it turns out that the "something" are new orders.

Folks, we're off to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina in August! Things are going to be a little busy around here, so I'm going to shut down my shop for the rest of the summer. I'll still be around, but I've got to get packing, get through deadline, and get a zillion other things done in the next month and a half.

We're looking forward to the change of scenery. Whee!