moving...Operation Stork Attack Update.

Tomorrow the movers come and take all the boxes away. I am pretty overwhelmed to be leaving our first real home. This is the home that Joe and I bought and called ours. We started a family here. This is where I looked forward to coming home to after every hard day at work. It is hard to leave.

Joe right now is at the gym. I am not allowed to work out since the surgery was just yesterday. Actually I am a little glad to have an excuse not to work out. I have fallen a bit off the wagon on operation stork attack, but vow to start again with new vigor and determination.

The movers came!

On Friday bright and early, the movers came and packed up all of our stuff...and even some stuff we didn't want to be packed. I left some of Jordy's clothes out, they got packed. Joe left some DVDs, they got packed. I took a shower after they left and realized I had no towel...I blotted myself dry with one of Jordy's bibs.

Earlier in the week we drove down to St. Louis and dropped our car off to the shipping place. It should arrive in South Korea on October 20th. That is a long time with no car! At least it is warm weather, so I won't be hiking back and forth to work in the snow! The drive down to St. Louis wasn't too bad, we used my dad's Magellan. It was nice to not have to navigate. But when we were driving to our hotel, it randomly announced in the middle of some street that "You have arrived." There was no hotel in sight. Luckily we were able to spot it about two miles down the road.

While we were in St. Louis getting gas, Joe saw some guy putting a gun into the trashcan. He jumped in the car all freaked out demanding that I drive away fast- I interrogated him right there as to what we getting away from. He told me I suck as a getaway driver

As if this whole week wasn't stressful enough, I had surgery today. I had a little mass on my right cheek, just under the skin (pre-auricular mass, likely a parotid tumor). It had been there for years, and I never worried about it. Then I told one of the attendings at work about it, and she sent me right away to ENT. He said that the natural history of these things is for them to be stable in size for years, then suddenly increase drastically in size, turn into cancer, etc. So he thought, and I agreed, that it needed to come out.

The procedure didn't take long. I came home wearing a huge pressure dressing over my right ear. I seriously look like I am trying to direct air traffic. It really hurts having my ear mashed down so hard. I have to go back tomorrow, and have my ear muff removed, and the drain underneath it. I was really worried that I would have a huge scar on my cheek, but my ENT guy is also a board certified plastic surgeon so hopefully it will turn out pretty!

This next week will also be a busy one. Monday they come and take away all the boxes. Then this week is my last week of clinic. I am working at a ER in rural Nebraska Saturday and Sunday. Then Jenn comes next week! Also my little man will turn 1. I can't believe it!

7 days and counting...

Only 7 days until the movers come to pack up all of our stuff. Even Jordy is feeling the heat.

I am feeling so overwhelmed. I keep coming up with more stuff that I can't live without for the next year....what about the shampoo that I have been stockpiling for the last three years, my heating pad, my wok- yes I know I haven't used it in the last three years, but we will be in Korea. Maybe I will need to make stir-fry while we are there. You just can never be too prepared.

Since the movers already took the stuff that will go to Korea, the movers coming next week will be moving all this stuff to storage. So literally, we will not be seeing it for one year!

Joe seems surprisingly calm. Blissfully playing on his PSP....if he could only catch a glipse of the inner workings of my mind, he wouldn't sleep for the next month!

I am to the point of stress level that I can not concentrate on any task. While I am at work listening to whiny patients I am really thinking about how we have to drive to St. Louis on Wednesday and drop the car off to be shipped to Korea. While I am on the phone coordinating this drive to St. Louis I am thinking about what I will need for my moonlighting shift in rural Nebraska....I can hardly fall asleep b/c my mind is racing in circles about stuff that needs to be done. It is a endless circle. I just need to stop!

My sister was supposed to come up and see us, but then wasn't able to get the time off of work. Then with the car needing to go to St. Louis I thought we would be able to see her there, since she is working there now. But turns out she will not be in town anytime in the next month, and infact got a new job in Kentucky, so getting to spend time with her is a negatory. I guess that she will not get to see our little monster unti he is in his terrible twos, and she will really wonder what on earth we were thinking when we had kids!

To be honest I am a little glad to be leaving this base. It is so lonely without the rest of my classmates here. It is almost like I am invisible at work. Our program director even took me off of his email list, so I don't get any of the group emails. I am constantly lost and hearing stuff through the grapevine.

Hearing the guys in Korea talk about how sweet our jobs will be is pretty exciting. We (Trent, Travis, Eric, & me) will all be working in the ER together! Allegedly we only work 3 twelve hour shifts per week. It sounds too good to be true! I will wait and see before I get too excited...

We have Renters!

Hooray!! We found someone to rent our place. I hope it all works out. In preparation of getting the place ready for renters, I wanted to paint over the trees...

For those of you who don't know, I have two huge palm trees painted on the main wall in the entry way. I chose to do this b/c it is a huge wall- two stories high, and I didn't want to paint the whole thing. Mostly to avoid climbing a ladder and scaring myself silly, not to mention that Joe would have no part in it- seeing as he is afraid of heights.

So I found these trees, palm trees to be exact, on QVC. Now I know what you are thinking, QVC? But I assure you, I am not turning into my mother! These trees are called tatouage, and they have a whole line of things such as trees, vases, flowers, all kinds of stuff. They boast that you can have a custom painted look, and when you tired of them you can paint right over them....

THEY LIE!!

We primered the area with a good coat of primer. Then two coats of white paint later we were horrified to realize that although the tree was covered and not a speck of green was shining through, you could see every bump of every frond! It looked like our wall was embossed with a huge palm tree! I was so mad....

then we got a call that our place had rented, to the people that really loved the trees!

Damn it!!

So off to Menards ("save more money at Menards"), and bought a little sander. My dad spent about an hour sanding our wall. At one point I thought that he was going to sand a porthole right over to our neighbors house.

But alas, after over an hour of sanding, Joe then slapped on two more coats of paint, and VOILA!
A brand new wall.

We only painted up to the line that was even with the lower ceiling of the living room, now I can only focus on that damned line where we painted, and where we didn't....that damn line...

I talked briefly about breaking down and painting the whole wall, Joe told me to never speak of painting again...I think I agree.

Four Thousand Dollars!!

Yesterday while at work I got an urgent page from Joe. Since he hardly ever pages me at work, I immediately called back.

He said that a UPS man showed up at the house with an URGENT Letter for me. Since it was so URGENT he opened it. Inside the envelope was a check for 4 thousand dollars made out to me!

Joe was all excited!

I said to shred the check! There is no way that I am randomly gonna get a check for that amount without expecting it.

Then I remembered earlier in the day I got an email from "Eric Johnson" saying "you should have received my check by now." I just deleted it and thought it was junk mail.

My mom and Joe did some investigating. They called the bank the check was from. They said the routing number was bad. They said there were several checks floating around like this.

When I got home I got another email for "Eric Johnson", Here is what it said:

Hello ,

how are you doing today ? am glad to inform you that the payment as now been delivered to you Via ups....

All you have to now is now is go ahead and have the payment cashed and take off your own money fior the Item and have the remaining balance send to my Shipper today Via Money Gram money transfer. and don't forget to take deduct the transfer charges before sending the money.

Below is the Information you are to send the money to...

NAME----CHRISTOPHER CAJUMBAN
city-----ROSEMEAD
STATE---CALIFORNIA
ZIPCODE--91770

I wrote back instructing him to fornicate himself with a metal pole.

This is obviously a scam. I hope that everyone who reads this will not fall for such a scam.

I actually saw it on Oprah about a year ago, and while I was working in Valentine there was some girl who fell for it. The scam is they send you a check. Then you deposit it, and wire some money back to them. After they get their money, your bank tells you that the check didn't clear and you owe them the money, plus any returned check fees.

It is really sad that someone would do this!

No TV??!

So in preparation of getting ready to go to Korea, we are shutting things off.

First to go was the house phone (but you can still call the same number- we got Vonage!). Getting rid of the house phone wasn't painful since we had vonage, and we still had cell phones.

Now the next step, cancelling Direct TV. Now this one is gonna hurt. The official day is August 10th. The countdown begins. Joe has already started staying up nearly 24 hours a day to watch tv nonstop.

I am kind of looking forward to a life without television. There was one week when we lived in California that I demanded we not watch tv for one week. I remember that week as so much fun- Joe and I did all kinds of fun things; played cards, listened to old CDs, and the most exciting thing was we talked! Joe looks back on that week as one of the worst weeks ever! He is such a couch potato!

After the tv goes off we have to mail back the boxes. I am sure Joe will dress in black and say a small eulogy. I will try to capture the moment on film for everyone to enjoy.

This afternoon we have some people coming to see the place. Hopefully they will like it. I think it would actually be perfect for them as they need daycare for their daughter and there is one right across the street. Also the wife works for a local business right down the street. Hopefully we can dazzle them into taking it!

Jordy Bug

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