Flight Etiquette

Note: Last week I had the chance to fly to California to spend 3 1/2 wonderful days with my friends Megan and Nicki. It was a fantastic time to be with girlfriends and recharge my batteries. I wrote the following blog on my ipod touch while in flight from Nashville to Salt Lake City . . .

So here I sit on flight number 305 to Salt Lake City and wouldn't you know I'd end up next to an arm rest encroacher. No matter how much planning and preparation you do to ensure a pleasant flight for yourself there are certain things that you just can't avoid. I booked my flight well in advance allowing me to select my seat. I wisely chose a window seat knowing that at 32 weeks pregnant chances were good I'd need to potty early and often on this 3.5 hour flight.

When I got to my seat on the plan to discover a man already sitting in it I nicely explained he was in the wrong seat. He informed me that my seat, 26C was across the aisle (there were only 2 seats on the other side of the aisle and three on his side). So, I pointed to the chart right over his head that had a picture of a window and then the letters E, D, C clearly meant to be moving from window to aisle. Again, he argued with me that I was wrong and if anything C was the window or it was across the aisle. Losing my patience I pointed out seats A and B on the other side and restated that obviously seat C was next, and it was, in fact the aisle seat, but kept myself from saying "so get your butt out of it!!!". He finally agreed and they shift over to their rightful place.

I unapologetically plop myself into MY seat while the wife asks her husband loudly enough for all to hear if he'll be ok not being on the aisle. It was all I could do not to growl at her that if they had booked in advance as I had they too could have picked their own freakin' seats and he could be loving his aisle position. Then, referring to a comment I'd made during the seat assignment debacle about being pregnant and having to use the bathroom a lot, the wife looked and me and said "well, I'm glad you won't mind then when I have to get up and use the restroom a lot too". Um, excuse me, but what on earth makes you think this cranky, swollen, tired pregnant woman would be so gracious? Let me reiterate - YOU TOO had the opportunity for an aisle seat just like me. Your lack of planning does not require a gracious attitude on my part.

In response I pulled out my headphones, grateful that at the last minute I took Ryan's Bose over the hear headphones so I could play deaf and avoid any further interaction. This is precisely when I discovered I was next to an arm rest encroacher. The husband plops his arm up on the armrest and it totally spills over into my personal seat space. Now, I firmly believe that the middle seat passenger is mostly entitled to both of his shared armrests since they are crammed in the middle seat. But what they are not entitled to is even 1 centimeter of my precious personal seat space. I don't want your arm rubbing mine while its sitting innocently on my lap. So now I have to start the subtle game of communicating arm space rules. This involves firmly pressing my arm against the side of the armrest and, if necessary, moving it vertically up and down to communicate my point and(hopefully) cause discomfort on the part of the encroacher. So far, its working ok but it looks like frequent reminders may be necessary.

Oh, and so far his wife has already made a trip to the potty and we are only 1/3 of the way through the flight. At this point I think the score is Lacey - 3 and Outdoorsy-wanna-be-upper-end-of-middle aged- couple (you know the kind with special hiking shorts, keens AND keen socks on) - 2. I feel confident that I will prevail.

Just another evening

So it was just another evening here in the house. We were still reeling in post-deployment bliss! Everyone was happy and all was good. It was a couple days after the 4th of July but fireworks had been happening forever in our neighborhood so loud noises were nothing new.

We had put all the kids to bed and Ryan was relaxing in our room downstairs while I was folding laundry nearby. All of the sudden I started to hear loud, weird noises. "Are those fireworks?" I asked Ryan. "Yes", he said. More loud, weird noises. Followed closely by my super-mom suspicions that had been well honed during his deployment (Ryan's super-dad sense may have atrophied some) so I walk over to the window in our bedroom that looks out on our deck and look up the the window in Jake and Ainsley's room. Just in time to see the screen pushed open and a Larry Boy go plunging to certain death on the wood below. Only he crashed into a pile of other toys that had taken the plunge before him which certainly saved his life. I turned around and said to Ryan, "No, that isn't fireworks, its your children throwing things out their window". And then I turned around and laid down on the bed to watch some TV while he went upstairs to deal with the situation. Ahhhh, more post-deployment bliss.

And in case you are wondering, NO - their windows were not open and YES - their windows were locked before this incident began. But clearly that is no match for our children!

Ryan comes Home!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a joyous reunion it was last Friday when the kids got their daddy back and I got my husband back. After three years of long seperations we are excited for a new chapter that will keep him in the US for a couple of years!

Finally - a contract!

So I guess you could say the past few days have been somewhat eventful . On Thursday evening I received a call from our real estate agent asking me how quickly I thought we could be out of the house. I honestly would have probably promised her anything at that point although I couldn't contact Ryan and the housing office at Ft. Campbell had just closed for a 4 day weekend. But what I said was "tell them to bring us an offer and we'll go from there". And they did. And it was a good offer and so when Ryan called the next morning I was able to tell him we had a very good offer on our house! We countered that evening and got a verbal acceptance right away and that was that. The inspector is here now so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well but we have on our side that fact that these buyers are a little house desperate right now and hopefully that'll smooth over any wrinkles!
It had been a couple of weeks since our house had shown when I got this call from our realtor so I certainly wasn't expecting it. Turns out its a couple we had shown the house to three weeks prior. They came to look a couple of times but wanted to do a pool and were concerned about the orientation of our house and the direction it faced. So they made an offer on another house which got rejected when another all cash offer came in (yippee). And then they offered on another house and the inspection was bum ( yippee). So finally they decided to lower themselves to 240 Cullom Way and offer on our house. Hey, I'm not prideful, I don't care where we were on their list.
So, we have a closing date of 24 July. Lots to do before now and then. Post housing is not going to work out which means we had to find a place AND we have to move ourselves but so far all things are falling into place. We found a 4 bedroom house in a good location and we can get in now. And my parents are coming to help (WHEW!!!!) which is huge. And this house has a two car garage so we'll have some storage options.
Of course, just a couple weeks before I'd booked myself a flight to California on the 23rd so we need to be out of this house NLT the 21st so I can clean it out before I leave. Bring it on!
oh - and Ryan got home too - hee hee. I'll post pics soon. Its been an out of this world reunion time. We are all in heaven. I guess the more times you do this the less difficult it is to adjust!