That's in the large part for two reasons.
One, the Lanz ladies are taking on the new Alaskan frontier on their own for a while. On July 27, Graham left to take the bar exam in Columbus, Ohio, and then make his way to Rhode Island for Naval Justice School where he will be for the next ten weeks. 75 days until his return. I couldn't believe it when I counted up the days. I feel like I've been managing emotions and challenges pretty well throughout the move, but I'm not going to lie, dropping him off at the airport was tough. I couldn't ask for a better partner in life than Graham. He's my rock, and a constant source of love and adventure for the girls. And don't even get me started on how Star's been coping, as she hoards his shoes and slippers all over the house. But we're all just taking it day by day.
Speaking of day by day, I was trying to think of ways to help the girls understand how long Daddy was going to be away - to know when he was coming home. I read on a military blog about making a paper chain, one link for each day. So I sat down one night, construction paper and glue stick in hand, and made a chain. Once I was done, I really thought about whether or not to show it to the girls. Do you have any idea how long a paper chain with 75 links is? It is depressingly long! But we did give it to them and they really enjoy ripping a link off it each morning. I wrote the number of days until Daddy's home on each link so we can keep count of the days, and we get excited when we notice the chain getting noticeably shorter.
The girls also get a kiss from Daddy each day. Thanks again to another military blog, we have a glass jar about 10" high and 8" in diameter filled with Hershey kisses. 150 to be exact (75 for each girl). It's a special treat, and another way we can see the amount of time until his return getting smaller.
 |
| Our "kiss" jar & you can see the paper chain in the background, wrapped around the curtain rod above the window. |
The second reason is all our stuff got here! It made it. With only minimal damage. While living off only what we brought in our suitcases from the airplane trip and a few things we purchased once we got here was tough, it was not near as hard as I thought it was going to be. In fact, having all of our worldly possessions show up in one day in about a thousand boxes was pretty overwhelming. Here's what our kitchen looked like when the movers left on delivery day:
 |
| Not exactly a functional kitchen at the moment. |
Did we really need all this stuff? To me, the answer was no. I was fairly happy with our minimalist lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy to have my microwave, toaster and my "go to" pots and pans for cooking. And the girls were ecstatic to have more of their toys. But as I unpack box after box, I see our things in a different way. There are things that we treasure, like our vast library of books and my grandmother's antique hutch & china. We don't need them, but they have a value beyond their utility. But do we really need 10 plastic cups, or 5 sets of placemats I'm not even sure how we accumulated? Being forced to go through everything that gets tucked in drawers and corners of closets when you move I guess has its benefits.
And, Graham, if you're reading this, don't worry, I'm saving some boxes to unpack for you :)
No comments:
Post a Comment