Annie Valentine

This weekend we made our way back to Utah via Moscow, ID.

For the record, Moscow might be the best small town America has to offer. Good people, amazing scenery, and fantastic eating. With two major universities planted right there in the wheat fields–eight miles and one state line between them–the town is packed with diversity.

Of all the coincidences, Jason’s little brother and his wife got a job transfer up there a few months ago. They recently had their first little baby and we couldn’t resist the extra ten hour drive/two day trip to kill two birds with one stone–kiss the nephew and haunt our past all at the same time.

The past is a funny thing. We look back on our years there with intense feelings of fondness and pain. It was in Moscow that we tried so desperately to get pregnant. Those two years seemed to be the longest I’ve ever experienced, and the resulting baby brought more satisfaction and contentment than anything I can think of. We wanted to see it again from this angle.

We were prepared to be a little sad and nostalgic. The reality is simple; life will never plant us in that fertile soil again and we loved it there. Moscow offers a perfect mix of liberal and conservative lifestyles (hippies and farmers), the perfect weather conditions (so picturesque that the farm land requires no irrigation), and a town filled with mostly happy people. Who wouldn’t want to stake a claim there?

The day we spent driving our kids around to our old dives and places of employment was interesting. Yes, we were happy to visit. Yes, things were mostly as we remembered. But both my husband and I felt like a couple of ghosts, dropping into the Co-Op, spending a few hours at the town pool–everywhere we went looked great, but it was missing that old magic. We felt like interlopers.

It was like the city had gone limp on us. No pulse, no thrill, just a place filled with memories that only he and I share. All our old grad school friends have moved on, and apparently so have we.

Driving by our old duplex was the biggest shock of all. We bought the duplex as an investment; live in one side and rent out the other to help pay the mortgage.

When we bought it the place was thrashed. Jason and I spent hours sweating and slaving and painting and flipping until finally it screamed, “HOME!” Coming from a small studio appartment, the 1000 square feet was positively palatial.

We drove up to the duplex and parked the car in front. I looked around at the knee high grass and crooked house numbers. The house was as vacant as the day we’d pulled out of town in our moving van eight years ago. I slowly stepped out of the car and walked to the front door, cupping my hands to peer in that old, cheerful front window.

Oh my gosh, it was so stinking tiny.

My husband and I just stood there, staring with our mouths hanging open. The front room wasn’t even as big as our basement TV room.

I learned something this weekend. I learned that life is made up of more than streets and houses. It wasn’t just Moscow that we loved, it was living in Moscow as newlyweds, surrounded by friends stranded in our same little life boat, with no one but each other to hang on to. Take out the life lessons and the pain and the laughter and all we had to drive through was a nice piece of scenery.

We’re moving again this week, this time to Germany. As I write this, the packing company is upstairs boxing up my world with brown paper and labeling it with magic markers. Kitchen, Bathroom, Books. My children are sad to leave “the brick house,” afraid they’ll miss their rooms and their hide outs.

But this time I am not afraid. I’m not leaving my life behind here, it’s coming with me. Even if our piddly posessions sink to the bottom of the sea, we’ll all be just fine.

I’m taking my world, all five pieces of it. My husband, myself and our four little babies are all I really need to be content. And like it says on the wall in my kitchen, “Together is our favorite place to be.”

I am so hungry I could eat one of my children.

We all know that moves are stressful. During the past eight years we’ve moved twice. With our last move the government gave us an 11,000 pound household limit; by the time the boxes arrived and my family was settled our weight limit was at 11,024 because Mama couldn’t stay out of the Starburst.

We are approximately 13 days out from making the leap to Germany and I have been in moving limbo for four weeks now (no thanks to vacation and the lack of household items which are currently floating around in the Atlantic somewhere). Two weeks and seven pounds into this nightmare, something had to give.

Enter my irritatingly skinny sisters.

The only thing worse than getting fat is having to do it while hanging around family members who are losing weight faster than popsicles in August. Hey, there is serious magic in calorie counting.

And so, amid all the upheaval, before coming back to Utah I hauled myself and my extra seven pounds onto the wagon, intending to thwart the chubby moving god’s and uncover the skinniest version that I could starve myself into . (When I say starve, I mean deprive myself of sugar and cream sauce and sandwich bread. I am eating like a rabbit.).

Those last 10 (or 17) pounds of baby weight will melt off, right?

It has been two weeks and my children should probably keep their toes away from my mouth. I live for my crumb calorie scrap meals and suck down herbal tea like a wannabe Brit. I’m chomping on veggies and lean meat like a cave man’s wife…

And the scale has not moved since Friday.

Heaven help the pork chop that gets on my bad side, if it wasn’t for the fact that at least I haven’t gained in the last four days I would be snarfing down Oreo cookies right about now.

Well thank goodness the Lord isn’t finished with me yet.

I had something happen this week that really upset me. Considering the fact that this came right smack in the middle of our move to Germany, I was ripe for the Devil’s picking.

For starters, it took a major chunk of brain to organize all 12 bags into something that would make sense for this move. Without organization we would be living out of suitcases double time–twice as much ruffling and messing and dirty undies getting shoved into forgotten pockets.

When I’ve got something on my mind there’s nothing worse than a silent project to act as a big kettle for stewage. The first day of the move, I sat on the floor and folded and rolled…and thought. I thought about the situation, how I felt wronged and bothered and disrespected and–let’s just say it was not a good stimulant where my blood pressure is concerned.

The packing process took three days. For three days I rolled this around in my mind, knowing there wasn’t a real solution within my power. I was like some sort of pressure cooker. Every single time I sat down or stopped visiting with Dan the moving man, this thistle would creep back into my conscious and I’d feel the scowl settle in. My angry wrinkles were getting way too much exercise.

The third night, after the movers had finally boxed their last box and loaded their last crate (it took 14), I found myself alone in the shell of my home. I had a few hours to spare before my girlfriends arrived with buckets and mops, so I went to work repainting.

And then my head began to monologue.

I knew just what I was going to do, what I would say, and exactly how I’d say it. Three days into this and let me tell you, I was a boiling furnace ready to blow a gasket. It was time, I decided, and I was going to say what was on my mind. And when I was through…

And that’s when I heard it. That little voice, in the silence of my home, that quietly whispered, “Or not. Or you could just be happy and grateful and forgive this small error. Who said it was such a big deal, anyway? You have other options, good options. You can be loving, Annie.”

For the record, I don’t usually think in the third person, so when I hear my name used I kind of know it’s a nudge from someone who’s got a better view of things.

My knees were instantly humble and bendy, and it didn’t take long for me to come right around to the Lord’s way of thinking. Such a small thing, and I was so willing to inflate into something else.

I sat there after my prayer and looked around the empty bedroom. The furniture, clothing, toys, pictures of Jesus–all gone. But as quiet as my house was, I wasn’t alone. How very thankful I am that the Spirit didn’t get boxed up with the movers. I have the feeling I’ll be leaning on him heavily in the next few weeks.

Here is the much delayed response to how we got out of town three weeks ago with our new car. It’s this week’s column.

We bought a new family car.

For the past four years I’ve been coasting around in a luxurious Toyota Sequoia, complete with eight seat belts, a power universe, and a kitchen (almost).

But now that we’re jumping the pond to Germany, it’s time to down grade. Last month we sold our beautiful gas hog and have been on the lookout for a Mazda 5. It’s small, easy on the budget, and manages to seat six with seven square inches to spare. Perfect for all those little cobble stone streets.

We found our car on Tuesday. It was supposed to be here Friday so we could pack it up and leave for vacation at 6:00 am Sunday morning.

It took nearly two anxiety-filled days to finally get our car. Gone went Friday, poof went Saturday, then finally at 4:30 on Sunday morning, less than two hours from our scheduled departure, the car rolled into town.

Goodbye schedule, hello crazy town.

You would think that Mr. Prompt and I (usually right on time for almost everything) would be kicking and screaming at the situation we found ourselves in. But instead of tearing each other’s hair out because the schedule went bananas, we both remained impressively cool and collected amid the onslaught of morning punches.

But the fool who drove the car from LA took his wife with him. They casually decided to “stop in Vegas” for the day instead of bringing our bought and paid for car home so we could get packed for our vacation. That same fool put oil in the car, then drove away and left the oil cap in California, crossing four states with oil sloshing all over the engine.

I don’t know this guy, he’s probably nice and probably needed to escape his kids, and maybe the stop in Vegas saved his marriage, but really? Really. Jesus and I can only take so much.

So we picked up our smoking car and tried to start it. The battery was completely dead.

Seven hours and eleven misfit oil caps later we finally found one that fit, replaced the battery, loaded up our luggage topper, strapped in the kids, then drove .8 miles down the road to stop for lunch.

But the best part of this scenario? Despite the all the travel bugs, neither of us yelled, stomped, or lashed out with our feet. We handled the morning like ice skaters–smooth and cool about the whole thing.

(Although the hour it took Jason to install the battery was a little touch and go; we kept a 12 foot cushion between us and him the whole time. Also no one spoke.)

Twelve hours and 37 public restrooms later, here we are basking in the cold June weather of lovely Sun River, Oregon. Our kids are at the movies with their grandparents, Jason is snoring away on the couch next to me (looking cute as all get out–I just might have to disturb him when I’m done here), and I’ve got a bowl of peanut butter M&M’s and a book and you to keep me company.

Life doesn’t get much better than this.

I am really really moving. The packers are here as we speak, boxing up my rooms faster than I can sort through my old video box. This is happening way too fast.

So. Since I am leaving Utah and since this is where I first started blogging, I’m thinking it would be nice to have a little gathering. What I want to know is this: Are there any bloggers out there, those I have met or haven’t met, that might want to hit a Chuck-a-Rama with me in two weeks for a little goodbye get together?

If it’s just going to be me and Kristina, that’s fine, but I would really love to meet some of the women I’ve come to admire and respect on the web, as well as those who don’t blog but think we’d be fast friends in person.

What think you? Want to come feed your face with me? I know a place with a big banquet room…

I love the new Mazda 5.

Honestly, it’s like driving a toy minivan around. It gets good gas mileage, my children think the new Zoom Zoom car is fast and cool, and I feel like I’m driving a metro with a secret compartment for kids, it’s so easy to maneuver.

However, nothing is perfect and there are three things I do not love about this vehicle. The first two I’m stuck with. I really wanted Blue Tooth, and there isn’t much storage space in the back.

I’ve been psyching myself up for the storage space bit, giving myself internal lectures on simplicity and less-crap-living in general. Nothing like a small car to eliminate extra baggage, right?

For the record, most states don’t actually consider children baggage, so I’m out there. Enter complexity and crap.

But the third thing I hated about the car was the lack of tinted windows. Any woman who’s ever driven down the road with a tired baby in the backseat sitting in full sun knows just how miserable it can be.

Also, I would like to be able to run into the post office without anyone snooping in my windows at all the underage cargo strapped in the backseats.*

“Honey,” I said to Jason after the first week with our car, “I have to have tinted windows. Now.”

“As you wish,” he wisely replied.

When we pulled up to the auto body shop the next afternoon, Jason started to head inside.

“I want it as dark as it can possibly be,” I said. “You know, to keep the car cool and stuff.” Stuff like running into the cleaners.

Five minutes later he came out. “They said they could do the windows at a level five.”

“A five? Is that dark enough?” I asked. “Five doesn’t sound very high to me, I want a ten.”

“Sorry babe, he said five was as dark as they could go.”

I sighed and decided to be content. Anything was better than zero.

The next afternoon we picked up the car for the last time. We drove in and immediately got a look at our new pimped out vehicle.

I say pimped out because I was quite sure a gangster was going to open fire on me any second.

It looked like they had taken a can of black spray paint and fogged out all the windows. I approached it slowly and once I got close, put my hands around my eyes and tried to peer in.

I couldn’t see a darn thing.

All I can say is Hello Harrison! Welcome to the wonderful world of vehicular babysitting!

We drove that little baby up to the port in Tacoma that afternoon, said goodbye, and watched the first little piece of our life ship off to Germany.

Holy reality check we’re really moving.

*In the real, non-blog world, mother’s should never, ever leave small children unattended in the car while they run errands, go to the spa, or participate in illicit affairs. In the blog world we sometimes joke about things good mothers would never really do.

A few weeks back my husband sauntered into the kitchen.

“Hey honey,” he said, “Would you mind if I went shooting with my Dad and brothers on Saturday? It’s the last chance I’ll have before moving.”

“No problem,” I said with a smile. “You’re a wonderful father, a darling husband, and you deserve to do whatever you want, whenever you want it.” Okay, that last sentence might not have been said out loud, but we all know it was right there in the “yes you can”.

“And hey,” he said, “Next week for date night I’m going to take you to the range so you can finally learn to handle a gun.”

The week before Saturday was brutal for me. Preschool was out so I was once again plunged into full-time parenting of my three and five-year-olds. They’re usually happy and busy, but major scheduling shifts bring out the very worst behavior in both of them.

By the time Saturday morning arrived I was half packed to run away to Mexico. Mr. Sharp Shooter was up and ready by eight. “Well babe,” he said, “I’ll take Harrison with me to get him out of your hair.”

“Take him where?” I asked.

“Shooting, remember?”

Oh. Right. Shooting on Saturday. And he was going to take the good child with him. Splendid.

“Is that today?” I asked.

“Yeah, you said it was okay–”

“Of course. What time will you be back?”

“Oh,” he said vaguely, “We’ll leave here in a few minutes, probably grab a little lunch after…you know.”

Being the naive wife, I silently assumed that “after lunch” meant “home by one o’clock.”

By four-thirty I was going insane. I had spent my Saturday feeding, ignoring, and being forced to discipline my two middle children, not to mention the teething baby who thought my hip was the only answer to life’s most stressful situations.

When my husband finally rolled in the door around five, I was ready to bolt. I had my purse and keys and wanted nothing more than a moment away from the insanity.

“Here,” I said, handing him the baby.”I’ve got to run down and print something out, then I’m going to hit my errands.” I raced downstairs to finish gathering my things. Within two minutes the baby was screaming.

She cried for ten minutes.

I finally made it back upstairs, my fuse smoking, and found my tuckered out mate sound asleep on the couch.

“Really?” I said, waking him up, “You can’t hear the baby screaming her head off?”

This casual observation led to a slightly heated discussion about schedules and preschoolers and husbands who don’t feel appreciated. As uncharacteristic as it might sound, I remained mostly calm and aloof. I didn’t yell back, I didn’t curse or kick or mimic, I simply let him blow off steam as I gathered up my errands.

He finally slumped down in front of the computer with one last invitation for me to leave (and possibly never return). I decided the best thing to do would be remain cordial, refuse to fight, and quietly escape to the comforts of the mall, followed by the movie theater.

But as I turned to go, I spied his large glass of ice water sitting on the counter in the kitchen. As if in slow motion, I watched my steady hand pick up the ice water, walk behind him, and gently dump the entire contents right. Over. His. Head.

Then I ran like hell to the car and didn’t come home until midnight.

The next morning (after we’d finished with the I’m-sorry-I-love-you speeches) he pulled me in for a hug. “You know,” he said with total sincerity, “I’ve decided it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to learn to shoot after all. I might not survive it.”

Frankly, the man has a point.

Last week I was up at McDonald’s in Lacey sipping my dollar drink and watching my children run around. After a few moments I struck up a conversation with a lovely mom sitting at the next table. We were fast friends in no time.

After conversing for a while, I mentioned that while my husband and I are currently living down in Utah for a few more minutes, I’m originally from Elma and in fact we have every intention of returning there once our time in Germany expires. We recently bought ten heavenly acres to prove it.

She laughed and wrinkled her nose. “You’re from Elma? Really? That’s funny!” She said it like Elma was the joke of the outcast list.

I grew up in Elma. There was a time when the only thing I wanted in life was to fly away and never return. The world was big and needed exploring, and I was determined to be the one to do it.

In the past fifteen years I have never been back for more than a visit. Through college and marriage I’ve lived in the west, on the east coast, traveled and studied in both the middle east and Europe, and seen a nice little selection of life outside this valley.

In three weeks I’m shipping my babies off to Germany for a few years of foreign living. But I can tell you right now, as exciting as this new adventure sounds, there’s only one place my husband and I would really like to be right now and that is here in Elma.

We came home two weeks ago for our last hurrah before the move. Every day we look at each other and wonder, “Why in the world do we want to leave here and traipse half way around the world?” There is no place more beautiful (to us), more perfectly located (to us), or more full of opportunity (for us). We’d like nothing better than to build a house on our property, buy a few pigs and put out a mail box.

Elma feels like home again. We haven’t even set foot in Germany yet and I’m already homesick.

I’m going to miss driving over the viaducts in town. I’ll miss Smitty’s, and El Ranchon (one of our favorite Mexican places ever). I’m going to miss swinging into the Health Club when I’m home, and driving by my high school.

I hate that my older boys will miss out on attending Satsop School–the educational world’s best kept secret–with all their cousins. I don’t care how good the DOD schools in Germany might be. How many public schools offer an education to rival a private institution? Three-day field trips to Canada and Oregon? Teachers and administration that know every single kid by name, their parents, their siblings, and what car the family drives?

I’m leaving my favorite hair place (Rochelle’s), my favorite chiropractor (Dr. Peterson, also my brother-in-law), and the best variety store the world has ever seen.

I love this town. More than that, after seeing a nice little chunnk of what’s out there, we choose this town. Elma is where we want to raise our children. When it comes time to put down roots, ours run deep and they run here.

So when that girl so casually assaulted all the things I value most in the world, I only had once response for her.

“You bet I’m from Elma, and if you knew what I knew about it, you’d want to be to.”

So last night I was putting the kidos to bed.

“Mommy?” Harrison (8) said, “Will you sleep with me? I don’t feel good.”

I ran through the regular drill–forehead feel, say ahh, when did you last poop–the sick kid basics. His answers sounded good.

“Honey,” I said, “You’re fine. Just lay down and close your eyes–”

“No Mom!” he said, bursting into tears. “I’m frightened!” He threw his arms around me and sobbed. I could feel his whole body quaking so I knew it must be something serious.

Now Harrison is a sensitive little soul. My first thought was that he had somehow caught a glimpse of WWATCF (Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), otherwise known in our family as He Who Shall Not Be Named. Don’t even mention the word Wonkabar around Harrison unless you want to see a nearly grown boy lose his scout badges and bawl like a baby. Something about a bad dream that’s been haunting him since he was four.

“Did you see a bad movie?” I carefully sidestepped around the obvious.

“No,” he said, burrowing his head into me. “I’m having bad thoughts about…the…the tobacco! And cigarettes! Don’t make me go to sleep!!”

“Tobacco? What about it?”

“I keep having nightmares…about smoking!”

I tried not to laugh. See, I’m a chain dream smoker. I can’t even stomach being in the same room with the stuff in real life, but in my dreams I’m a happy little chimney. I’ll smoke anything.

“Oh sweetheart,” I said, “I smoke in my dreams all the time!”

“No! I’m so afraid of the cigarettes Mom, please don’t make me go to bed alone!”

I did the usual relaxation/affection bit and he was breathing easy and snoring in three minutes flat. But it got me thinking, where did this come from?

Today in the car, without previous knowledge of last night’s meltdown, Jason asked Harrison to recite his poem for me from the end of the year poetry festival. Jason had suggested it, taught it to him, and they worked on it without any meddling or censoring from good old Mom. It went something like this:
Tobacco is a dirty weed
And from the devil it doth proceed.
It picks your pockets
And burns your clothes
And makes a chimney out of your nose.

I think Willie Wonka has officially been usurped.

I am not a jealous woman.

HAHAHAHAHA! I really had you going there, didn’t I?

To be honest, I’m pretty darn secure in my relationship with Mr. T. We’ve been together for 12 years and to date, he’s never given me any reason to believe he was anything but hopelessly devoted to myself and my legs. He ignores other women in general and somehow manages to put off the most successful No Trespassing vibe I’ve ever seen in my life.

And still I find myself ready to pee on his leg if he even mentions one of his old Jr. High girlfriends.

A few weeks ago we were visiting during date night. “Hey,” he said, “I was talking to Tommy the other day and he said the funniest thing.”

Now Tommy and Jason have been friends for years, he’s cute and sweet and fun and I absolutely love the guy. Let me rephrase that, not love, loved.

“He thinks I’ve got an itch,” Jason said.

“An itch? What are you talking about?”

“You know, an itch. He doesn’t believe a man can go through life with just one woman. Don’t worry, he says it’s not about you, he thinks you’re great, he just thinks that men need to experience a ‘variety’ to be truly satisfied. Ha ha! Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?”

I just stared at him. There he sat, thinking the whole episode was borderline hysterical, while I was considering the best way to go about borrowing his gun and killing good old Tom with my own two hands.

I am darn lucky that my husband just happens to be happily married, because it’s comments like that that make a man question his marriage, his dedication and in some cases his life.

I recently read an article about a national study done on couples who either waited until marriage, or didn’t give in to romantic temptation before they had established a solid friendship and only experienced one lover in their lifetime. Not a surprise that in many cases, couples are happier and more sexually active than their bedroom busy counterparts. The stats are completely in our favor.

People who let their spouses do the scratching are ultimately happier.

If I could get away with it, I would like to give old Tom Tom a piece of my mind. Any man who thinks satisfaction in the bedroom comes from mindless sex with some stranger, or sneaking around behind your wife’s back (and yeah, he’s married) is a sad, sorry excuse for a lover.

Being a lover isn’t about technique or experience, it’s about trust. The only reason I can give my complete, uninhibited self to my husband on a regular basis is because I believe with all my heart that he would never soil our intimacy with something as dirty and selfish as screwing around behind my back.

Lucky for me, Jason couldn’t agree more and isn’t afraid to say so.

Itch or no itch, being faithful is pretty darn satisfying.