Thoughts on Oakwood

For the uninitiated among you, Oakwood is the name of the apartments that State has teamed with to provide an easy alternative for members of the Foreign Service seeking temporary housing while in training in the D.C. area. Reimbursement is handled directly between DoS and Oakwood which means that we have one less thing to worry about during a period of extreme life-changing chaos. To sweeten the deal, the good folks here throw in all your utilities (power, water, phone, internet, and television), and they will even come to your apartment once a week to clean it. I can already hear you saying, "Where do I sign up?," right? It gets better. There is a shuttle service that will take you to and from work, the Metro, or the grocery store.

Ok, here's the rub. There are five of us in our family, and they only offer studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments. Hmmm...how does that work with a large family such as ours? I'll save you the trouble of doing the math: the solution for us was to occupy adjoining two-bedroom and studio apartments. This technically gives us a three-bedroom home, but it's so much more than that. The boys are sharing a room (as they have been for some time), the parents have a master suite (since we are the masters), and our daughter gets her own private royal suite complete with two televisions and her own kitchen (which is great if she decides to whip up a midnight snack while simultaneously watching reruns of Taxi and MTV Cribs).

We're actually very fortunate to have this available to us. I just think that it will take some time to accept the new reality of being a permanently transient family. Welcome to the Foreign Service.

Feeling Thankful

I can hardly believe I'm going to say this, but today I am thankful for the move.  I am thankful to be cleaning out closets and cabinets, and in the process of doing so, I'm feeling lighter and lighter. 

Also today I found the missing DS which I took and hid in a moment of anger from the 10yo six months ago.  I hid it so well that even I couldn't remember where it was.  I have felt really bad about its missing status.  I can't remember now what even happened to cause me to take it, but it surely wasn't a sin bad enough to lose the use of for six months (I'm definitely snagging that 2011 Mother of the Year award.).  I also found my long-lost diamond earrings that Leonard gave me for graduation.  They've been gone a couple of years at least. 

So, it was a good day.  We won't talk about how many rooms in our home look like this:

Or how that is a pretty good representation of what's going on in my head and my tummy.  We'll just focus on the positive and the words of my brilliant husband as we were sorting through piles and piles of papers and junk in our office today:  "This move thing is a good thing for us.  It's good for us to see all of the garbage we've been holding onto.  That's how hoarding starts, you know.  First it's piles of papers from ten years ago and the next thing you know, you're digging out 12 dead cats." 

So thank you State Department for saving us from our eventual hoarding demise.

In the beginning...

Our family is about to leave a very comfortable life in the beautiful coastal community of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. It’s sunny and warm most of the year, people are friendly, the food is amazing, and it’s a safe place for our children to attend school. When we initially began telling people about our plans to pursue a life in the Foreign Service, the response we got most often was, “Why?” It’s a fair question, and we found ourselves searching for a suitable justification the first time that it was posed to us. At the heart of our rationale is a desire to share with our children a perspective of the world that can only be gleaned through first-hand exposure to cultures outside of the United States. The opportunity to build memories, as a family, that are uniquely available to members of the Foreign Service was a tremendous draw for us. This blog is meant to serve as a record of our travels and experiences, good and bad, for our children to look back on as they grow along our journey. Hopefully we, as parents, will learn a few things as well.