I smell change...

Well hey, ya'll.  I know, I know--you thought I had died.
I just...had nothing grand to say.  Which is sad, but true.  I'm through the rough stage of learning to live in the middle of nowhere with my new husband day-in, day-out, and I've gotten the new job down pat.  So now I'm just coasting--fighting every urge to nest in this house because I refuse to live here much longer.

Now, now, don't get me wrong.  There is nothing wrong with our home.  It's very nice, in fact.  But it's not ours.  This is not where we're supposed to end up.  This isn't where we're going to paint and tile and buy furniture to fit the wall space...  This isn't the Hoffman house.

You probably think I'm crazy, but hear me out.

Also, Ryan is coming to a close at work.  That, too, sounds crazy.  I mean, his band program is hardly ideal.  But he's getting to a breaking point.  He leaves the house every morning around 6:45 to head to school to work on planning.  Why, you ask?  Because he doesn't have a planning period.  Which--beeteedubs--is illegal.  BUT, if he chooses to take a planning period, the only time he has available is the time he has to travel from the high school to the elementary school to teach two classes of beginning band.  Oh--and that's also his lunch.  So eating is out.

Once 3:05 hits, it's over, right?  Wrong.  Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:15 to 5:30 is soccer practice.  Girls in the fall, boys in the spring.  Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:15 to 5:45 is marching band practice.  Fridays from 4:30 to 5:30 is music lessons with kids who need help, followed by football game call-time at 5:45.  (I usually bring him dinner so he can actually eat.)  Game from then till...usually 11:00.  The last few parents show up to take their angels home around 11:30.  Ryan is usually home by 12:00 or 12:30 after cleaning up his room himself...and that's if it's a home game.

Thank God that's only football season, right?  Wrong again.  As soon as football ends, basketball begins.  More games!  More nights of the week!  Woohoo!  Replace "marching band" with "concert band," "jazz band," and "winterguard."

It's a miracle I see my husband.  To be honest and fair, he did warn me before we were married: "You will be a widow nine to ten months of the year.  Seriously."  And it's true.

But to do all this--for no more than one of the lowest teacher's salary?  You don't even want to know.  After 5 years of it, he's starting to really get tired.

Therefore, I'm job hunting--for the both of us--and I've narrowed it down.  But this is all on the D-L, okay?  No words on facebook, no mentions in public.  Okay?

Plan A: We move down to Huntsville, AL, and I get my certification in contract management and be the bread winner while Ryan either 1) takes a less demanding teaching position or 2) goes back to school for  an accounting degree or 3) takes a job in a factory to relax and chill out his mind.

Plan B:  We move to Oman.  Yes, Oman.  I've found Ryan a music job there (I was googling international music jobs on a whim...).  He's had one interview, and we're waiting to hear if he passes on to round two of interviewing.  It's a two year contract with free, furnished housing, tax-free income, and relocation arrangements.  HOLY CRAP.

Sooo...anyone know anything about Oman?  Anyone?
I've been googling the crap out of it, but I still don't feel like I know enough.  It's near UAE and Yemen (Yemen!  Ha!  All I can think about is Chandler taking a flight to Yemen to avoid Janice...)  The capital is Muscat--home to about one million peeps.  Oh--and it's HOT.
Greaaaaaat...

So...that's my life.
:)
Thanks for listening.

Now comment!

Oktober

Ahh, October.  Autumn made her debut this week, and the evenings have just the right amount of crispness in the air.  It makes me think of this time two years ago when I was in Munich for Oktoberfest...  These days, however,  I find myself breathing more deeply, appreciating the turning colors of the leaves on my evening walks...until Ryan asks me why I sigh so loudly as I take out the garbage.
"I'm appreciating Fall!" I shout back toward the house.
"What??" he asks, too far away to hear me as I tromp down the driveway.
"No, Fall!"
"You fell??"
Yes, this is a normal conversation for us.
Yes, we really interact like an old married couple.

Let's see--the past few weeks in review?

Two Saturdays ago we had our first date in over a month.  Finally!  I realize that I signed up to be band director's wife--I expected to give up my Friday nights...but not the rest of my evenings as well.  Between football games, marching band practices, soccer games, and soccer practices, plus church choir?  By the time we're both home in the evenings, it's 9:30 and I'm already headed for bed.  [See previous note on "old married couple" admission.]  So it was nice to get a date night with my husband.  We drove down to Oak Ridge and played with reactors designed miniature atomic bombs saw The Lion King, 3-D.  I will also freely admit that I sang along to every song and bawled my eyes out when Mufasa died.  True story.  Afterwards we scored some Ruby Tuesday--have you tried their 2 for $20 deal?  One appetizer and two entrees for just 20 biggins.  Not too shabby!  And their cocktail of the night was a Malibu Black and Cola--pretty fab.  Just sayin.

This past Saturday I woke up in Texas.  No, seriously.  Thursday night I drove down to Mum and Dad's--4 hours--then got up at 3:30 Friday morning and Mum and drove 13.5 hours down to Houston for my cousin Kyle's wedding.  It was a large, Catholic wedding with almost 300 guests.  Lots of celebrating, blah blah, amazing food, blah blah, open bar, blah blah, loud music, blah blah, photo booth--wait, photo booth?  Yes, yes, I said photo booth.  It ROCKED.  I convinced my mother AND my 94 year old grandfather to go for a spin in ye ol' picture makin' machine with me--and the results are simply epic.  Although they wouldn't use the provided props, I did twist their arms into funny faces and bunny ears.  I believe you can see them here.  If not, let me know.

If you know my grandfather at all, you know two things: he loves dried prunes, and he loves to dance. And, of course, as he is 94 years young--he's going to have a different taste in music than I.  That's a given.  So when a slow Sinatra tune came on, I took advantage and asked him to dance.  He loved it, as did the photographers.  I don't remember much of those few moments, and I blame the assault of flashing cameras.  I DO, however, remember that as Sinatra faded away, as Grandpa twirled me one last time, a new song came on.  This song.  Yep.  And let me tell you, I came alive.  I pulled out every move I learned from my crazy European discotec days and I. GOT. DOWN.  Grandpa's face was priceless.  After a moment of shock, he just laughed, shook his head, and swayed while I did my thing.

What a champ.

This week back in Tennessee has been, well, less exciting.  I've done laundry, baked some pumpkin spice cookies, gone to soccer and football games to support my husband, and tried to catch up on sleep.  Which, if you'll excuse me, is what I plan to go do now as well.

Hope your autumn days are lovely.  Remember: deep, appreciative breaths and sighs are not the same.

Vlog.0

Greetings!
This week I'm learning how to vlog.  (Video + blog = vlog.  Ha!)  I was unaware of this concept until the past two weeks.  (How LAME does that make me??  Don't answer that.)  See, there's a list of words and a few questions floating about the blogosphere and I decided to be brave, put on some makeup, and record myself talking.  How hard can that be, right?

Note: Before you do this, have a glass of water on hand.  I was all ready to go and hit "Record" and then... I coughed. For a solid half a minute.  All on camera.  For reals.

Laaaaame.

Okay, so without any more ado, here's the list of words I'm supposed to say:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught.

Aaaaaaand, after that delightful display of my audio and video skills, we'll move on to the second half of our feature presentation.  Please note that while I am from Texas, part of my Tennessee residency has evidently rubbed off.  Apparently I have Selective Accent-ism or something, because after watching these vids, I'm thinking about some serious elocution classes...  Yikes.


Questions:  

• What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
• What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
• What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
• What do you call gym shoes?
• What do you say to address a group of people?
• What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped
• body and extremely long legs?
• What do you call your grandparents?
• What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry
• groceries at the supermarket?
• What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
• What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Also odd: the fact that I think I talk AND maybe even act like Erika even in my videos.  

I know, I know--I keep saying that.  But I swear.

Genetics.

They're there.

Ode to the Birthday Boy(s)

This past Saturday was Ryan's 27th birthday.
It was also my brother Ben's 21st birthday.
(How convenient is that??!)

To celebrate, we had planned on going to Dollywood (Look!  I made a link thanks to my bff cousin Erika! Look!  I did it again!!) in Gatlinburg.  However...we didn't.  See, apparently there was a bit of rain over on the east coast (aka Hurricane Irene), and a bunch of people decided to come visit the hills of Tennessee for a few days.  So when we got to watching the news Friday night--watching the reporter interview hotel owners who were out of rooms to rent--we realized that these people weren't just going to spend this lovely Saturday in their rooms.  Why, no.  They were animatedly going on and on about all the exciting places they were going to visit...on Saturday.  Great.  Sooooo...ex-nay on ollywood-Day.  :(

However, Saturday morning we conference called the family and took a vote.  The resounding result?  Putt-putt!!  Suh-weet.  So we totally got our Tiger Woods on (minus, you know, the 16 strippers) and headed out to meet the green.  Fun?  You be the judge:

Judging up the putt

Jenn and Carter

Sister wives!

Ryan and Val

Ryan's pretty purple confection!

Sp apparently there aren't standard "male" birthday cakes--so we went with the more masculine purple opposed to the hot pink.  Granted, he still would up with butterflies.  But hey--it tasted good!

After putt putt and an amazing dinner at Sonny's Barbecue, Ryan and I headed on over to EarthFare.  It, mi amigos, is home of my very own crack cocaine.  No, seriously.  Feast your eyes on this:

HEAVEN in a bottle.

This is Homestead Creamery's chocolate milk.  And it is to-die-for.  As in, when I don't have in for a few weeks, I start dreaming about it.  I daydream about it.  It's delish.  So get your booty off the computer and go try some.  You'll thank me, I promise.

Hope you guys had a great weekend!

Disneydisneydisneydisney...

It's currently 2:24 pm and I'm taking a break from reading Living Dead In Dallas drinking obscene amounts of Mountain Dew googling international real estate work.  It's been rough.  Since 8:30 am, we've had about 6 people come through our doors.  Most Mondays we get around 4, just to give you an idea of how cah-ray-zy busy the beginning of the week is. *Insert eye rolling here*  I'm honestly not even sure why we bother to be open...

In other news, Ryan and I have finally booked our HONEYMOON!!  After 3 months of marriage, we finally realized that if we didn't just set dates and go, we'd never get one--it would just wind up being a vacation, not a HONEYMOON.  (Yes, it's in caps because it's Special. So there.)  Drumroll please........we're going to Disney World for 10 days at Christmas!!!!!  How cool is THAT?!?!!  We were mulling over destinations in over dinner (hot dogs over the fire!) last week, and said, "Well...why not Disney?" 

I immediately began researching every aspect of the holidays at Disney, where we wanted to stay, etc.  I knew that I was insistent on staying at an actual Disney resort for several reasons.  A) If you're gonna do Disney, you want to get the most for your money.  By staying at a Disney resort, you get free shuttle services to all the parks, plus, each day of the week one of the parks opens an hour early just for Disney resort patrons.  (SOLD!)  B) It's our honeymoon.  If there's ever a time to splurge, do it on your honeymoon, right?  That seems a good time to do so.  C) I freaking love Disney.  If you know me at all, you know that I know every line to every song from every movie.  Seriously.

So, we've booked a one bedroom suite(!!!) at Disney's Old Key West resort from Dec 17-26.  (We're having a Disney Christmas!!)  After reading all sorts of reviews and spending many hours online doing research, I picked the OKW resort because, frankly, it has the biggest rooms.  It is also the first of Disney's resorts (and, duh, the oldest) but has gone through a massive remodel this past year to update all rooms/suites/villas.  See video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lclTv0fWv6w   (Someday, someone will teach me how to embed links...)  Or, you can just echo my excitement by looking at the floorplan below!:

Also, this means that we will finally be able to embrace our inner-wizards and check out Hogwarts at Universal Studios.  Score!!  I'm going to drink Butterbeer til....til...til I can't drink it anymore.  (Then I'll probably want a nap.)  And I'm totes gonna wear an eyeliner scar on my forehead for the day.  You just wait for the photos--those are gonna be priceless!

So that's the news in my world.  I sit around, plotting how to convince Ryan to wear the bride and groom Micky-and Minnie hats with me...  You know, just another Monday.  :)

<3
r.