It Has Begun

The anxiety, that is. General stress over the move and all the related logistics has been with me for the past two months,but the all-out can't sleep, can't stop moving, feel like I'm going to puke anxiety has hit with full force today. Do you know what our travel/moving schedule looks like? Let me break it down for you:

this Thursday (6/16): Mover come to load up all our things for repatriation. (And we are not allowed to pack anything ourselves, which simply adds to my anxiety).

Friday (6/17): Wake-up call around 2:45 a.m. to get showered, get kids up, and get everyone ready, out the door, all luggage loaded (5 large bags, 2 car seats, 1 pack-n-play), and to the airport for a 6:00 a.m. check-in. Then, we fly for 14 hours, layover in D.C. for a little while, then fly to Boston, where we crash at the Boston-Logan Hilton.

Saturday (6/18): Pick up rental car, drive to New England Town, let everyone explore the new home, shop for appliances, enjoy local seafood, and crash when we all hit "the wall" around 7:00 p.m. (if not earlier).

Sunday (6/19): I fly to Philly with Eliza and Amelia, while Hubby and Hannah fly to my Home State. Along the way, Hubby will connect with his Dad, who is also flying to my Home State. After a very short night of rest, they will hit the road in our minivan and the minivan we're buying from my mom and head to College Town (6-hour drive). By 1:00 p.m., they'll meet the movers at our storage unit and load up All The Things We Left Behind (ATTWLB). Then, they'll make the 39-hour(!!) drive to New England Town.

Thursday (6/23): Hubby meets New England Town movers to load ATTWLB into a storage unit and put one of the minivans into a storage unit. They'll both then fly to Philly and re-join the little ones and I.

We wait....

Wednesday (6/29): We head back to New England Town, and I'll catch a flight out to Home State.

Thursday (6/30): Hubby will hopefully close on the house with the two little ones in tow.

Friday (7/01): Hubby and the littles will fly to FL from New England, while Hannah and I fly to Florida from Home State. We'll all convene at the Orlando airport, where we'll finally be whisked away by Mickey Mouse himself and taken to our luxury resort, DisneyWorld's Beach Club Resort.

For one week, we'll enjoy three parks (Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom), club-level concierge service, and the best pool the Disney park has to offer. This is our reward, our present to our family for working hard, living somewhat frugally over the past two years, and simply surviving Doha. Who know when we'll have the money to do this again, so this is it! At some point, I'm sure I'll be excited.

Thursday (7/07): Hubby and the littles fly back to New England, while I fly Hannah back to Home State, wait at the airport a couple hours, then fly back to New England and drive to the hotel where Hubby is.

Friday (7/08): Please, for the love of God, this should be our moving day! The shipment from Doha will be delivered, the movers will bring our stuff from storage, the furniture stores (yes, plural) will bring our bedroom suite and living room suite, and Lowes will bring our new refrigerator (and possibly some window A/C units).

Now do you see why I'm literally worrying myself sick? Can you imagine the 5,632,218 things that can go wrong in these plans? I can! And that's why I'm freaking out! I have only a limited number of the anti-anxiety meds that my doctor prescribed for me last fall. I've been exercising to help work off some stress and try to help get more restful sleep. Unfortunately, I'm still overwhelmed. I feel like there's too much to do and not enough time to do it. I'm afraid I'll forget something important or that air travel will get screwed up, or worst thing ever....something falls through with the house at the last minute and we're left freaking homeless!!

I could desperately use some prayers for zen, peace, and calm if you have some to spare.

Oh, by the way

I GRADUATED!!

I really, truly did it...I don't think I believed 100% that it would happen until I heard them call my name. It was a very bittersweet moment because my advisor, quite unexpectedly, wasn't able to attend and hood me. Instead, my department chair stood in, and it was fine, but my advisor was sorely missed. I wish I could post pics, but none were taken. At least none by my family. I'm sad about this...They didn't want to stay for the entire 2+ hour ceremony (and I don't blame them), so Hubby to the little ones back to the hotel, and my Mom took my oldest daughter back as well. After the ceremony, there I was, all decked out in my hood and gown, with nobody to snap a shot. Le sigh. There was a professional photographer there on behalf of the university though, and I'm supposed to get an e-mail letting me know how to access the photo taken of me getting hooded.

None of us wanted to come back to Qatar. Check that. Eliza wanted to come back because she missed all her things, specifically her books (yes, just like her Mommy and Daddy). After 3 days on the road in three different hotels and a long day (and night) of both domestic and international flights, we finally returned safely to Doha, where our skin will now melt off our faces because of the heat. OMG the HEAT!!

I'm woefully unprepared for this semester's classes, but I shall take care of the shortly. The house is still a disaster area of unpacked things, and Eliza has taken out and played with nearly every toy, book, and craft she owns. She then proclaimed, "I love it here, and I don't ever want to go back to America!" For her, America equals the loss of her stuff (for it won't all fit in the suitcase). We explained that when we move back to America, all of her things will come with us.
Everyone's still trying to get their sleep schedules back to normal. I've been up since 3:00 a.m., and I know I'll pay for it later this evening. Hannah had a successful first day of 6th grade, despite being incredibly scared, anxious, and excited all the same time. I pray that she'll continue to do well, and I know much of her potential rests on my ability to help her get/stay organized at home (her bedroom, backpack, etc.). We still have lots to do over the next few weeks, so blogging may be light (like it isn't already?)....But I really want to blog more this semester, mainly to chronicle the job search process and hold myself to my academic goals of writing, revising, and submitting work.

Still Here...in the USA!

Ack...I'm behind in posting all the details of our trip back to the US and the Great Sicknesses of 2010, so here goes.

As it turned out, I ended up in the ER in Doha before we left because the pain in my neck was so severe. The regular doctor wouldn't see me because he knew I needed a specialist, so he referred me to the orthopedic doctor. The orthopedic doctor did a new x-ray and decided I should see a neurosurgeon. He also suggested I'd be a good candidate for neck surgery, but not the disk fusion kind...Honestly, I was in too much pain to understand/remember what the details of the surgery he was explaining. I got very little relief because apparently they don't care to follow the treatment that has always worked for me in previous episodes (steroid treatment combined with pain meds).

As if this wasn't enough (happening just days before our trip), the morning we boarded the plane Eliza said she wasn't feeling well. Hmm. She looked fine, she'd eaten breakfast, so we didn't think much about. Before the first 4 hours of the flight were over, Eliza was getting feverish and Amelia started having green goo oozing out of her eyes. Evidently she wasn't over her sinus infection. Luckily, I'd packed the antibiotic eyedrops--just in case--and we started giving them to her in-flight. Eliza proceeded to get worse, saying that she felt like she was going to puke. I could feel her fever getting higher and higher, despite the Tylenol. She basically slept on and off the whole 14 hour flight. I had no idea how sick she was...

Once we got to DC, we landed, got our luggage, got our rental minivan, went to my uncle's house, ate a quick dinner, then headed to the urgent care clinic, where Eliza was diagnose with strep throat (super positive reading) and an ear infection! She looked awful as of Friday evening. Antibiotics, however, are clearly miracle drugs because she was 10 times better the next morning.

Saturday morning we headed for Ocean City, NJ. The drive took longer than expected, but we made it just in time for dinner. Hubby's mom was grilling out, so he and the kids ate, played with cousins, and visited while I made the trip to the grocery store to stock our beach house. Speaking of the beach house---perfect :) Small, but typical for most of the property at the shore. Just enough space for us to eat, sleep, bathe, etc. The rest of our time would be spent at the beach or the boardwalk. Despite some minor lingering pain in my neck, I couldn't pass up the first morning's opportunity to take a jog in the beautiful sunshine. Mild temperatures and perfectly-landscaped yards made it all seem like something out of a TV show. Really and truly, I fell in love with the place. I basically spent the next 6 days thinking about how in the world we could ever afford to own property there. Everyone had a great time shopping, eating, visiting with family, and soaking up the sun, sand, and the waves. When Thursday came, I didn't want to leave!

We headed to Home State on Friday, only to find out that our short-term corporate house wasn't going to be ready for another 5 days. A long story, but we stayed with my parents until it was ready for us to settle in, and here we are. We've been here since last Wednesday, and everything's going well. I was able to get Eliza into a great swimming lesson program that includes arts & crafts time, story time, and a snack. Hubby and I are taking turns using the public library as our makeshift office, and there's a great park and aquatic center very close to our house! We joined a local YMCA, where they also offer childcare, so we've been able to get some much-needed exercise in, while the girls have some play time outside of the house-- a win-win situation indeed :)

The only inconvenience right now is that I still have a few minor corrections to make on my dissertation manuscript. Initially I had a TON of corrections to make, for I am evidently the Sloppiest Dissertation Writer in the History of the World (SDWinHOW). True story. I'm now down to three corrections: 1) revise my abstract, 2) change the long quotes from plays, 3) and get page numbers for plays from the collected editions I used. Don't ask me why I didn't have this last one finished before I left Qatar....clearly I was out of my damn mind because the 7 volume collection of Aphra Behn's plays that are edited by Janet Todd??? Yeah, they're not really available at your local public library or local bookstore. I'm going to make a run to the nearest R1 library, where they have at least 2 of the volumes. If I need the others, then I'll have to see if I can get ILL privileges somehow.

Anyway, once I get these corrections made, then I'll feel like I have some breathing room, and I can move on to revising the article and researching the piece for the collection I'm submitting to in September. I also need to somehow make the latter fit into one of the ASECS panels for 2011.

Yeah, I'm kinda hoping that at some point we'll get more than one 6-day vacation in a year.