Marjolein from Marjolein Book blog (http://marjoleinbookblog.blogspot.com) just gave me the One Lovely Blog Award! Thanks so much, Marjolein! I'll be looking for other blogs to give it to soon.
I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for life here. The two people who gave me the best insight about military life were my friend, Jen B, and my cousin, Bill. Bill told me just when you get settled and make friends, either they’ll leave, or you will and that’s becoming the trend. In the last place I lived, I went to more farewell parties in less than a year and a half than I had in my whole life. But here it’s a whole different story. Most people are here for only two years, unless they’re single or unaccompanied, then it’s 18 months. So by the time you arrive, a lot of people you meet are on their way out. I have already said good-bye to the people I was closest to when I first arrived. I didn’t expect to make close friends in such a short period of time and then I did and, poof! Now they’re gone, too. It almost makes me wonder if I would have been better off not getting as close so it wouldn’t be so depressing when they all left. However, then I wouldn’t have made the good frie...
When I first found out I'd be moving to the Azores my response was, "Where is that?" I'm not a geography master, but I had never heard of it. I even misspelled it when I tried to "Google" it. Then, when I finally found it, it appeared it was right off the coast of Portugal. I imagined myself taking a little ferry over to mainland Portugal twice a week where I could shop and wander around the downtown wearing fabulous European clothes and heels. Then I was at a furniture store and looked at a globe. Apparently much like mapmakers like to stick Alaska and Hawaii at the bottom of the page as if they're south of California and within yachting distance of each other, the map I saw was off...900 miles off. There is no way to take a ferry from the Azores to Portugal unless you have a death wish. So I found out the cruel reality that I was going to live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As for me wandering around downtowns in cute outfits and...
A friend recently shared with me that she found a lily growing in her garden on her birthday last week. She never planted any lilies, but found out that years ago her late grandmother had planted one, but they never bloomed--until now. She thought it was so sweet that she got a present from her grandma. That got me thinking about the shower gift that I got from my grandmother after she had passed. She had died in 1993, yet the gift (her wedding crystal) was found in 2006 the very day before my bridal shower. I wrote about it for an anthology called, Patchwork Path: Grandma's Choice . it's just a really nice reminder that even when people pass on, they are still with us.
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