- Not even 8am and both children have been in multiple timeouts. There is also a 100% chance of rain for the rest of the day. This doesn't bode well for that bottle of wine sitting on my counter.
- In case you are wondering about our apartment inspection, let me calm your fears- our building is still standing and everything is fine. Apparently there was some sort of issue with a warranty inspection that the complex had a few years back, blah blah blah. So we had to go and point out each individual problem with the house while a man who spoke no English took pictures of the deficiencies. A woman who spoke English accompanied him. Every time the man bent down to take a picture, Sam and Molly would squat down with him, and thoroughly inspect the damaged area to see if they could provide further insight. I showed them some areas that had been damaged when we moved in (in case it somehow helped their case? We all know I don't know what I'm doing here) and when I would point out a crack in the flooring, Sam would bend over and chime in with, "Oh yeah. Four's boken. I boke da four." Woman: "Oh! Ahahaha! You boke dis four? How you do that?" Sam: "I jus did it. I boke it." Me: (all the nervous laughing you can imagine) "Sam! Quit being so silly! You didn't break the floor! It has been like that since we moved in! I swear it's been like that since we moved in. We did not break it. Promise." (daggers shoot from my eyes towards Sam)
- The kids started back at preschool yesterday. No one wanted to go at first, but once they walked in the door, they dropped their backpacks, took off their shoes, and ran to play. What bliss! Then Steve and I went to a coffee shop for breakfast, browsed the PX in peace (no cats to herd!), and then had beef and leaf for lunch. This is the life.
- Just wrote out a very long, ranty bullet point about how much I hate patrolling the playground and how the complete lack of parental involvement is driving me to drink. I decided to delete it because it was very ugly and whiny. But in summary: Just because your kids are older doesn't mean that you don't need to monitor them.
- And on a related note, I am already sad about leaving Korea. We've got under a year left and it makes me teary just thinking about it. I see the
assholeAmericans at our apartment complex and I am sickened at the thought of being surrounded by nothing but that again. I want to stay in this kid-friendly, safe, polite, smiley society. Granted, every country has its downfalls, but I see so many more in America than I do here. I never imagined I would love this place as much as I do, but I find myself wanting to freeze time here. I love our little town, our favorite kids cafe and the owners who know my kids by name, the endless pedestrian options, the beautiful nature that surrounds us, how close we are to the big and bustling city of Seoul, the sweet old ajummas at our beef and leaf, the myriad of playgrounds, the pure love of children, this list could go on forever. Steve doesn't share my "freeze time" sentiments because the Army is tres stupido here (where is it not?!), but I have a feeling I am going to be SO VERY DEPRESSED when it comes time to move. (Prepare yourself for many a sad blog post- coming Summer 2015.) - Lest you think all of my English-speaking neighbors are the pits, I do have a few friends in our apartment complex. We succeeded in convincing one of the gals that she needs an inflatable bounce house in her living room so that our children don't murder our sanity come winter. AND SHE ACTUALLY BOUGHT ONE. I'm paying my admission in fresh bread.
- Related to the above bullet, my confidence in the kitchen has grown by approximately 8,000% this past month since I have successfully made pizza dough AND sandwich bread from scratch! I am naturally scared of yeasty products, so this is A Very Big Deal for me. And after tasting the finished products, Steve has declared that he "can't go back", so I ordered a bread box off of Amazon and committed to an entire JAR of yeast instead of the tiny packets. Oh there's no turning back now!
- The highs for next week are in the 70s. YOU GUYS. My bread-making skillz could not have come at a worse time. I refuse to online shop for jeans, so I MUST fit into the ones I have here. That, or leggings. (Let's be real, it's probably going to be mostly leggings. Because homemade bread.)
- After much internal debate (Casey and Kelly, you know the struggle was real), I caved and got the Fitbit. Let me tell you, that little bracelet is motivating. Does anyone else have one? Let's link up so you can taunt me to get up and move during naptime.
- We spent this past Saturday at our favorite friend's house.
- We had big plans to go to the zoo, but poor Luke got called into work at the last minute. So after he got back, we picked up some lunch and hit up a semi-shaded park.
- During what should have been naptime, the kids watched a movie and played while Steve slept on the floor, I drank beer, and watched Aggie skillfully decorate her house. We had dinner (and wine!), sang happy birthday to Luke, watched the kids blow out his candles, and then bathed everyone. We drove home and chucked the kids straight into bed. Such a fun day.
- Molly's most recent timeout turned into a nap. It's only 830am. Apparently 530 is too early to wake up for the day. Ummm..... TOLD YA SO.
- Was alerted to this field of flowers exactly one week before Steve goes to the field for a month. Since I cannot bring any clients out here for pictures, I drug my poor offspring out and made them stand awkwardly while I snapped photos and Koreans stood behind me and stared at our ginger sideshow.
