Tuesday, April 5, 2016

The new normal

As it turns out, it been six months since our lives were... altered.  Six months!!?  I can't believe it's been that long since I could walk outside and freely shop wherever I wanted.  And then I realize that really I didn't walk outside that much anyway.  It was a nice escape when T was little and fussy and just needed a change of scenery (who am I kidding, he still needs that...), but we've found new ways to do things.

This is perhaps the lesson to be learned.  Flexibility in all things.  This is one of those lessons that military life really drills into you.  There are times when I wish for things to be different, but they aren't so...  Right.

We are still happy with our decision (and the Army's graceful acceptance) to extend here.  It's a great situation for family life and the kids remain happy with school, club, and home as their options for entertainment.  Being here has enabled me to get ever closer to finishing my masters degree - just one semester left (and a term paper, group project, and 2 final exams for my current semester). 

The big news recently is that we now have an air quality monitor installed at the embassy reminding us each hour on the hour just how poor the air is here. www.airnow.gov On that note, T is on the nebulizer for the third time in the last six months, but seems to be doing much better finally.  We all seem to be suffering a bit more healthwise than we did last year, but I think some of that is just the ebb and flow of time.  We've got an extra kid in school now, so one more person to be picking up every germ that everyone else brings back with them from all of the places they seem to go all the time.  In K's class, it seems that someone is always absent (and always out of the country).  We're not people, we're actually just petri dishes in some large experiment.  I've been trying to get my hands on an indoor air quality monitor since our windows don't really do a great job of keeping the outdoor air outside, but the one I really want is only for sale in China.  Still waiting and hoping someone might take me up on the offer of sending me one.  In the meantime, we'll operate under the assumption that our indoor air is awesome!

We're enjoying Spring Break this week by binge-playing Star Wars on Wii, overdoing it on tennis lessons at the club, and doing our best not to get rained on while outside.  We hope to have our summer vacation plans finalized sometime soon and are looking forward to a somewhat relaxing time back in the US.