Working, painting and planning and WHALES!

Remind me not to leave a pessimistic/crabby/whiny post as the last thing posted for two weeks. People start to worry, unnecessarily. But thank you to everyone who has expressed empathy and sympathy over the work/fertility stuff. Your kind words are always appreciated. I'm always surprised (pleasantly) when someone contacts me out of blue. Especially people I've never met. I sometimes forget that anyone reads this outside of some family members and Pat. Hi, Pat. :)

It's been busy around here. Par for the course. I was given an extra layer of work from my employer which took up more time than usual. It was welcomed though - it reignited a number of neurons that had gone dormant for awhile. Much of my work boredom is born out of repetition. It's nice to mix stuff up every once and awhile. Last week, after putting in the work during the day, Zac and I spent almost every night over at our friends' new condo, helping them get it ready for their move. These friends don't have code names yet . . . hmmm. How about, Max and Julia? Sounds good.

Max and Julia purchased a condo about 10-15 minutes away from our house. They've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting to move into it. They were staying with us for awhile in December but politely moved in with a different friend when our onslaught of visitors started arriving in January. Finally they got word that they could start moving into the place. Great! Except that Max was set to deploy in a week. That gave them a week to get the place cleaned, painted and moved into. No small task.

So after Julia did a boatload of cleaning, Zac and I joined her and Max in spackling, sanding, taping, priming and painting most of the condo. Of course all of us have day jobs, meaning we could only work from 7pm-11pm each weekday night. We also spent more than 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Saturday was the last day of painting. Sunday was the moving-household-goods-extravaganza. Everyone was exhausted, but at least their condo is painted and their stuff is there. It will take awhile longer to do laundry and organize the place, but at least the major stuff is done. So Max deployed today feeling a little more at ease with the situation.

Of course Max and Julia repeatedly and emphatically thanked us for our help, which was appreciated but unnecessary. We're friends. This is what friends do for each other, you help one another out. And honestly, Zac and I had fun. We both really enjoy working on the house with all those DIY projects. Zac would prefer not to paint, but he's a spackling/sanding fool and got to spend at least a little while on their lanai cleaning up some of the vegetation overgrowth around the lanai. (The condo had been vacant for a year.) So not only did we get to help out some good friends, we got to do something we enjoy too. The Coronas that Max and Julia supplied were just icing on the cake.

As I've mentioned, we're probably PCSing off island in October. (Notice I'm still qualifying it. Don't want to jinx it by getting arrogant.) It looks like we're going to try to take a trip to San Diego at some point in the next month to check the area out. You can ask as many people as you want for their opinions and you can do as much research online as you can, but nothing will substitute for driving around and actually being there when you're trying to figure out where to live. As we've helped Max and Julia with their move, I've become increasingly excited about the move. Yes, moving can be a serious time-consuming pain in the butt, but it's also a great excuse to cull through your belongings every three years and reorganize. I'm looking forward to it. (For now. Ask me again once we're in the throws of the process.)

Also because of our impending PCS, Zac and I decided that we needed to make trips over to Maui and Kauai before we leave. Neither one of us have been to Kauai yet, but we have both been over to Maui once before, separately, many years ago. Zac didn't particularly like his trip there back in the day, and I was anxious to go back. We decided on a Wednesday to leave for the weekend. Talk about short notice. Keep in mind that for us to go to Maui takes less time than it does for you Minneapolis folks to drive to St. Cloud or Rochester - it's only a 35 minute flight - so it's not like it's a huge undertaking. I'm glad we went we did though because it was getting to the end of whale watching season. and this is what we got to see:






WHALES! One of the few regrets I will leave Hawaii with is the fact that we didn't go to Maui to do this every year at the height of the season. It was amazing! I don't even know how to explain how crazy/spectacular it is to have two humpback whales playing around right in front of you. It has got to be one of the highlights of my Hawaii Life. Just incredible. I highly recommend Maui in the early spring to everyone. If you ever get the chance - go. It is worth every penny.