I think I got out of bed too early this morning.  I'm all ready to go, I've curled my hair and touched up my makeup twice already.  Breakfast was finished over an hour ago, and I'm still nursing my second cup of coffee.  I'm so excited, but I don't want to be there too early.

 

I was just jumping on to check my email and saw that I was beginning to get some traffic from the featured Spaces page.  A big thanks to the MSN team for inviting me to share my story again.  When I started this page over a year and a half ago, I never imagined I would enjoy writing as much as I have.  It's been so great to get good wishes from people all over the country and the world.  If there is one good thing that has come from this technological age, it's the connection it has created between and among so many different people from all over the planet.

 

I've got to get going, but I wanted to quickly answer a few questions from my comments:

 

Yes, Forever Odd is the second book from the Odd Thomas series.  I have never been interested in Dean Koontz or any of his books, but I read the first Odd book on a whim and will always love it.  There is a new one coming out soon called Brother Odd.  I haven't finished the second yet, but it has been very good.

 

To answer your question Selena - the memorabilia for "A Christmas Story" is featured at Suncoast Media stores.  Be sure to check it out!

 

I've got to go!  Wish me luck!

Getting settled into the house has been a loooooong process.  We're still not quite as comfortable as we'd like to be.  We've got all the boxes opened and emptied, but we haven't got a place for everything yet.  We did get the upstairs bathroom fixed up for the most part . . . new sink and new cabinets.  This past weekend we painted the kitchen cabinets to make the kitchen look almost new. 

 

We're still planning to paint the WHOLE house and get some new furniture to add to the second and third bedroom.  Josh will have his "Blue Room" (named for the signature Air Force hue, which just happens to be his nickname), to include awards shelving and possibly an arcade game and dart board.  The third bedroom will be the computer/guest room, where we now keep the computer desk and plan to put a great bed we found at IKEA (we decorate our whole house in IKEA).  Our bedroom will someday have a chaise lounge and new dresser or shelves.

 

Josh is struggling through tech school.  As a lateral (not coming straight from basic training) and Staff Sergeant, he has been getting some grief from one particular instructor (who has been written up for doing the same to other SSgt students in the past).  I have been praying for him all day, because this morning he had to reevaluate for a group of drill instructions.  This horrible instructor failed him yesterday after a very complicated dramatic event overturned the ORIGINAL evaluation that was first made last Friday. 

 

Josh was really upset yesterday and nothing I said could console him.  The truth is, he has not failed ONE THING since he started tech school five weeks ago, not even the pages and pages of memory work he had to recite, punctuation and all.  We're very surprised that this happened yesterday.  He was very concerned because if this instructor fails him on this evaluation completely, Josh has to finish the duration of this tech school and start again in the next class.  It's called being washed out.  It can only happen once before they send him away for good.  I am POSITIVE this could not possibly happen to Joshua, but he will worry over nothing, so this has got him all tensed up.  To make it worse, I have the day off today and thought he would call me when the evaluation was done (since they do it first thing in the morning), but I have not heard from him.  It's now noon.  He's probably teasing me.  His good friend Dave told him not to worry about being washed out, so I have confidence that he will be fine.

 

MY job has been nearly uneventful and all around pretty fun.  I don't know if I ever mentioned where exaclty I have been working, but I am the Assistant Manager at PIER 1 IMPORTS.  It's a great job.  I love the store and I feel like I have come into the position so well.  I am comfortable with my responsibilities and I get along wih all of the associates.  It's just great.  The surprising part is that I haven't spent my entire first paycheck yet . . . I think I have displayed exceptional self control.  The downside to the job is that I have to ride the bus to work everyday.  Usually Josh picks me up so I don't have to ride home that way.  Until I get a car of my own, I'm pretty sure I will have more than a few entries pertaining to the interesting characters I meet on the ride and at the stops.

 

For example, yesterday I got on at the stop near my house and the bus was packed with filthy children and the foul-mouthed mothers.  One lady tried to keep her baby in his stroller while the bus was moving and got in an argument with the bus driver when she was asked to remove him.  When she picked the child up and put him in her lap, he started screaming.  She shouted directly in his face and slapped him a couple of times . . . which didn't help the screaming.  It was a long ride, to say the least.

 

Anyway . . . that's all for today.  I'm laying around the house today because I think I've caught something (probably off the bus . . . I've started carrying hand sanitizer).  Have a great day!  Talk to you again soon!

 

Things here in D.C. are feeling the best they have yet.  Thursday night we will finally have the keys to our new home . . . we'll be reunited with Charlie once again . . . and all of this brings us one step closer to a new sense of normalcy.

 

Today is Josh's second day of tech school.  Everything has been easier to deal with than he had expected, which is good news, especially considering some of the drama he was faced with less than two weeks ago.  He's no longer nervous about how things will go . . . I told him plenty of times that everything would be fine, but he had to find out for himself before he could be comforted.

 

I feel closer to him than ever before.  It's funny . . . after living with him for more than a year in the town where I grew up, being here has meant that for the first time, he is the only familiar thing in my day-to-day life.  This is especially so because we are living out of a hotel room and have only a small percentage of our possessions with us.  I'm beginning to miss our big comfy bed.

 

This morning, after taking him to work really early and dragging myself back to bed (I don't know how he does it), I somehow was reminded of the first time I told him I loved him.  Back then, I was so afraid to admit my true feelings for him because I didn't want to chase him away.  If you do not recall, our relationship had begun on a very rocky foundation.

 

That night, his two roommates were having a loud discussion in the kitchen, probably drinking, and Josh was lying on his back in the living room while I sat next to him.  He had seen in my eyes that I was hiding something, and I told him I had a secret that I was afraid to tell him.  He tried and tried to get it out of me, but I just couldn't speak the words.  Finally, I found the courage to tell him in another way . . . I traced the words onto his bare chest with my finger.  I (Heart) U.

 

Shaking, I pulled my hand away and looked at his face.  There, for the first time, I saw absolutely no fear or reservation.  Without hesitating, he reached his hand up to my face and spelled out the words ME TOO on my forehead.

 

It seemed so silly that night, but now more than ever I see it as the beginning of a beautiful journey, one that I feel we have hardly begun.

 

While I admit that I am working through some feelings of loneliness being away from the rest of my family, and feeling like I don't yet belong anywhere, I have found a very comfortable place in the arms of Joshua.  This is the place I will always call home . . . no matter where we end up together.

Things are certainly better since my last entry.  I have been dying to get in here to write again, but it's been really hard to work around all of the errands we have to run.  Plus, we only have one car, which makes things a lot harder than many would believe.  Anyway, I'm sorry for the long span between entries, but I am hoping things will get easier once we have moved into our new HOUSE!

 

That's right, Josh and I have finally made an offer that has worked out.  In my last entry, I spoke of an offer we had made on the first house we really loved -- but the guy was a real jerk and refused to be fair about the deal.  Well, after the second deal fell through, the original seller came calling, wondering why we had dropped out of negotiations so quickly.  He wanted to know what he could do to get us to buy his house.  Our realtor made it very simple for him -- pay the closing costs.  After some persuasion (she told him we were a young, newly-married, military couple and this would be our first home), he decided that was fair.

 

We offered him his full asking price as long as closing costs were covered -- and he agreed to it.  One catch:  the lender had an appraisal done on the house to be sure that it was worth what they were investing in it.  It had fallen short by $5,000.  At this point, Josh and I were panicking.  We knew this guy was enough of an A-hole that he would never agree to a discount in the house.  But our lender would never give us his full asking price if the house could not be proven to be worth that.

 

The bottom line was -- he had to do his research and come up with comparable properties in the area that would justify his asking price.  This worried us the most.  He took his time, telling our realtor that the closing date made no difference to him, as he wasn't in a hurry, and that it wasn't his problem that we needed to get in as soon as possible (after all, we are paying for our temporary lodging).  If we didn't want this house so BADLY, Josh and I would have told this guy to shove it.

 

But we need a place to live, so we waited him out.  This morning, the lender let us know that with some help from his broker, the seller (who is a real estate agent himself, albeit a new one) managed to justify his asking price by digging up several comparable homes that sold for higher than normal in the area.  The appraisal will be readjusted and the closing will continue as planned until the day we move in -- next THURSDAY!  We are so excited we can barely stand it.  A HOME FOR US.

 

More good news: I think I have found an excellent job.  There is a great shopping center just minutes from our house with not a few great stores.  I decided to apply to a few and one -- a furniture and home decor store -- has offered me a position as an assistant manager!  It's not official yet, as there is a long process to being accepted into the position, but the store is the perfect fit for me and the wages are much better than I was making at AutoSwag.  I will give you more details when I know for sure whether I have it or not.  Josh is already banking on it, as he has taken me clothes shopping to buy a new wardrobe just for the job.  I, however, am the ever-negative one in the family, and I will wait until it is a done deal.

 

Until then, please keep us in your thoughts and I will try to update again very soon.  Thanks for reading!