Tag: moving

A Quick Recap

A Quick Recap

Hello Blog, long time no see.

Just a few things have happened since I last wrote. In no particular order, a non-comprehensive list: Shane was transferred without much warning, we sold the house, moved to a new city in a new state that we had never been to, I got a new job in a whole new industry, we fostered 3 kittens and adopted 2 others (at the same time), I lost 10 pounds, and I chopped all my hair off.

These two are my little loves – Klaus is the tuxedo kitten and Bear is the gray boy. Shane found Klaus under a bush outside of his work, and after watching for the mom cat for another day, brought him home. He’s named after the Klauses (Klausi) in The Originals and The Umbrella Academy. Bear was one of 4 kittens Shane’s coworker found in his backyard. We fostered all 4, but we chose to keep Bear and he’s my little baby boy.

We think Bear is a Nebelung – but it’s not like we have papers on his pedigree, so we’ll never know for sure. He’s a massive boy, with chubby little legs that don’t seem to bend as he trots around, and a lion’s mane. He’s scared of everyone, and almost everything, and we don’t see him that much. As a kitten, he spent most of the time hiding, so we don’t have many kitten pictures of him. Once in awhile he gets spooked that he’s all alone when he isn’t expecting to be and he screams. That’s honestly the only word for it. It took him a really long time to find his voice, so much so that I almost cried at his first real meow, but now it is the most powerful noise in this house.

Klaus is about 6 weeks older than Bear, and is pure joy. I have no other word for him but joyful. He gets into everything, wakes me up at odd times of the night, snuggles with me in the bed, and has figured out how to open barely cracked doors. He doesn’t meow much, mostly when he wants to be let into the garage or he knows we’re on the other side of the door. He also has what I like to call crazy eyes – he rarely blinks and they’re always wide open and are almost perfectly circular.

Tau has adopted Bear as his personal emotional support animal – if he’s having a bad day he’s often found with his face buried in Bear’s fur. They (aka a couple of vets) think that Tau might have lesions on his brain, causing some absence seizures and affecting his personality. It’s agreed all around though that he’s still living a good life. He plays a lot, eats well, has a great purr that he uses often, and hasn’t tried to eat or kill the kittens so quality of life is still good.

Anyway, it’s been a hell of a year, and I’ve been missing writing this blog. Sometimes I write posts in my head while getting ready in the morning, or while trying to get myself to sleep at night. So here I am.

2018 Highlights

2018 was bananas. I don’t just mean the country falling down around us, or Earth continuing its slow decline because we’re killing it, or the general insanity that has come to what feels like the entire world. Though all of those things are also true. It’s just been a crazy year, personally. I won’t remember the insanity in the future {yyaaaayyy bad memory}, so I thought I’d write up a few of the ‘highlights’ of the year. I’m intentionally avoiding the worst things that happened this year, by the way. Keeping it positive, but adding in some things that were just unique. I’ll have a normal end-of-2018 post later on, with stats and such.

  1. I have a nephew! He’s a chubby little ball of love and I can’t handle how cute he is.
  2. Hurricane Florence has to take the {almost} top spot, right? It was our first evacuation.
    • Shane and I took our boys and fled to the mountains of North Carolina. We didn’t spend that long up there, but I really feel like the weekish we spent dealing with the Hurricane put me behind on my to-do list by several weeks. I never recovered, and have been playing catch up since September.
    • Thankfully, my area of MB was fairly unscathed. Our grocery stores weren’t stocked for awhile and the roads were so flooded that we couldn’t leave town for awhile, but that was really it. Other people had it much worse. I still wish I had volunteered to help out, but maybe next hurricane.
  3. Shane got a new job! He had like 3 or 4 interviews for it, then started the week after his last one.
  4. We moved to Myrtle Beach in a grand total of 4 weeks from the day of his last interview. He had his last interview on April 12th and my parents drove the UHaul down on May 12th.
    • I had to pack the old apartment up without a lot of help because Shane had to be here to work. He did help when he could.
    • Tau immediately got a UTI when we got here and has been a different {re: needy} cat ever since.
  5. We celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary by forgetting it, packing all day, then saying ‘Happy Anniversary’ exhaustedly on the couch. Classic us.
  6. We visited Washington, DC in February {I had a conference} and Nashville, TN {I had another conference} in December. Both were cold, rainy, awesome trips.
  7. We discovered Huntington Beach State Park which has quickly become one of our favorite places in MB.
    • Turns out I like taking pictures of birds.
  8. Driving back to spend a day at work means I have to drive up the night before and I have dodged the following:
    • A tornado. A real, touched down a few miles from my car tornado.
    • A thunderstorm complete with hail.
    • Two separate hurricanes.
  9. I gained 20 pounds since we moved here.
  10. Moving here has been a hard transition. We don’t know anyone, we’re in a place neither is very familiar with, and it’s really lonely sometimes. I do like that Shane and I get to spend a ton of time together.
  11. I started this blog and I’ve really enjoyed blogging!
22 Things I’ve Learned Since Moving to the Beach (feat. Hurricane Florence)

22 Things I’ve Learned Since Moving to the Beach (feat. Hurricane Florence)

**I didn’t post this week because we evacuated ahead of Hurricane Florence. I had already written this post, so I’m just adding to it before posting.**

I’ve been living at the beach (in a tourist town) for almost 4 months now, so I’m clearly an expert on beach living. I’m kidding, I’m still brand new around here, but I have learned some things and I’d like to share. Also, be aware I make sweeping generalizations & completely make up statistics.

1. Very few people are *from* Myrtle Beach, most people here seem to be from somewhere else.
2. People who are from MB hate the beach with a passion and may go to the actual beach once a year. Maybe.
3. There are distinct ‘tourist’ vs ‘resident’ areas & while residents will go to tourist areas they will complain about it the entire time they’re there.
4. Yes, 501 and 17 are nightmares. Robert Grissom will get you almost anywhere you need to go.
5. 3 out of 5 people here are from New Jersey/New England/Ohio.
6. Those people still drive as if they live in NYC or Boston.
7. A visible majority of year round residents are retirement age or older. Many jobs traditionally held by teenagers are held by retirees – most of the teenagers work on/near the beach.
8. There are more golf courses than should be allowed in one area. Several large roads have golf cart bridges, which will never stop boggling my mind.
9. Myrtle Beach is the land of gated communities. They’re everywhere & don’t mean that the houses are particularly expensive.
10. Real estate is surprisingly reasonable (for the most part). If you want to live on the beach on Pawley’s, you’ll pay a pretty penny but other areas are much more reasonable.
11. The SC State Parks pass is a *must* if you live here – beaches at the state parks are so nice and far less crowded. They let you get into parks & park events for “free” (or at a reduced price) – the pass costs $100, but it paid for itself in the first 4 months we’ve lived here.
12. The “feels like” temperature is often 10+ degrees higher than the actual temperature and jeans will kill you. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe.

Since I’ve written this post my wee family had to flee Hurricane Florence, so I thought I’d go ahead and add 10 things I’ve learned about beach living during hurricane season. Most of the following are based on pre-aftermath, since Florence hasn’t hit MB as of this writing & I probably won’t be able to update it for awhile afterwards. Keeping that in mind, many of the things I’ve learned could be totally wrong and I make no claims that they’re true.

13. Nothing is worth your life. We left a lot behind in our apartment and I get sad thinking that if something happens to the building I’ll lose family heirlooms, my entire book collection, the sweet sweet soundbar in the living room, our nice tv, etc. but Shane and I are safe, sound, and dry with our cats. We’ll all survive the Hurricane and while the blanket chest my grandfather made may be lost, that’s the most important thing.
14. My mind only deals in worst-case scenarios, apparently. It decided that all my belongings were gone the second we left home. Which I guess is okay, since if nothing happens to anything, it’s a happy surprise.
15. Don’t stock up on freezer goods. At least not during hurricane season. Though we are repaying our hosts with lots and lots of food from our freezer, it was very heavy to get in the car & we tossed a bag of fish fillets I was excited about.
16. All diets are off during an evacuation – I’ve eaten more doughnuts in the past few days than in the months before. And I ate peach cobbler. And drank 4 sodas yesterday. I don’t really drink soda except Sprite/Ginger Ale when I don’t feel well.
17. If you have time & it fits in your car, don’t feel bad about bringing it. I packed too many books for our journey into the mountains, but books are easy to pack into small spaces & I didn’t put us in any danger while we were getting ready to leave, so why not bring too many?
18. If you have security cameras, set a couple up to look out of the window. We’ve been checking them periodically to see how the weather/storm is progressing. Right now, it’s a bit windy/rainy, but it’s early yet. I like looking at the two we have set up looking outwards instead of the one facing inside because the action is happening out there.
19. Even if nothing happens, you should probably leave if things look really bad. I guess if your house has lived through 17 Category 1 storms, it’s fine to stay for another one, but if it strengthens to a Cat 2 you should probably get out. There are reasons not to, obviously. Money and employment are the biggies and if skipping a shift will get you fired, I can see needing to weigh that against everything else.
20. Take a pack of cards. Put a pack of cards in your car just in case of a surprise evacuation. They’re super handy to entertain kids and pass some time. Also crosswords or something, if you’re so inclined. The app I use to do crosswords only works when it’s connected to the internet. And if the power’s out, I need to save the battery.
21. Stress is a weird thing. I’m okay, but sometimes I just get really quiet and stare at something. I’m also really really exhausted even though I’m sleeping fine.
22. There is no place like home. Even if it’s only been home for a few months.

-S-