awe

what an incredible day is was in america. i have never before felt such pride in my country nor held so much hope for our future as a nation.

i pray for our new president and his family as they embark on this new journey. there is a long road ahead for us all but, for the first time in 8 years i truly believe there are brighter days ahead.

hotel life-week 1

with only being at the four seasons a week, i'm not quite sure it has sunk in that this is going to be my way of life for 2 years. at this point it still kind of seems like vacation.

i will say that filling out an inventory sheet to get the laundry done today was weird. sitting there counting and recounting socks and underwear is not something i expected to do but i guess i just didn't think about it. nor did i expect it to cost so much! need to wash a pair of undies? that will be $3 per pair!! i'm not one for math but a week's worth of clean drawers for both of us is going to cost $42, which is insane to me.

don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining, just observing. we're not paying for it or any of the other amenities that come along with hotel life. it is incredibly nice to come back to a spotless room each afternoon and find freddie the "be green" frog greeting you each evening on your turned down bed.

so far the life agrees with me which is why i'm extremely fearful that we are on our way to becoming very, very spoiled.

favor

yesterday i went to the red cross to donate platelets. i will be rejected as a blood donor for a year when we return. depending on how long we're gone and what countries we visit i could possibly be rejected indefinitely.

i used to donate platelets each year on my birthday. but, as life got more hectic my donating definitely waned. i have to say i felt pretty guilty yesterday when i was quickly reminded how incredibly easy it is to give such an incredibly important thing back to my fellow man.

sadly only 5% of americans donate but every 3 seconds someone is in need of blood. a single donation of platelets can provide as many platelets as 5 whole blood donations. bone marrow transplant, cancer and leukemia patients whose immune systems are already compromised, benefit particularly from single donor platelet transfusions.

so many of our friends have offered up their help while we are away. i hope we don't have to call too many of these in, but, i think it would be really cool if some of you guys would donate while i'm away to make up for my lost donations.

it takes a couple of hours to donate platelets (you could donate whole blood in less than 20 minutes) but it isn't painful and you get to watch a movie. they actually have a decent little library. best of all you get all the grape juice and nutter butters you want afterward. i also think they were giving away tickets to the aquarium as well.

so be a friend not only to me but to some people whose lives truly depend on it.

learn more about it and go donate!

expiration date

I went for my annual “lady checkup” today. These yearly appointments are never the most pleasant experience but hey, if you have a uterus you have to do it. Or at least you should.

I really like/respect/trust my doctor so it is hard for me to ignore what she was lecturing me on today…I got “the baby speech”.

In the 6 or so years I’ve been seeing her she has never before uttered the word “baby”. The closest we ever came was on my first visit when she asked me about birth control. Obviously, we didn’t get too far down that road.

But today the entire visit was asking me about whether the wife and I were thinking about children and how although she thought I still had years to decide, I did need to keep in mind my ever aging plumbing.

She is definitely not from the school of “you better do it before you’re 35 or your baby will have 3 heads” , she had her last child at 41, so the fact that she felt it was time to begin this dialogue with me really weirded me out. Even after knowing we were leaving for 2 years and that we aren’t in the market for any kids anytime soon, I could totally sense her sense of obligation to let me know that this needed to be on a burner, if only on one of the back ones.

If you know me, you know I am already hyper aware of my age. Turning 30 last year felt like a death sentence and maybe I brought it upon myself with all the negative thinking but I think we can all agree my health didn’t exactly help me feel like a spring chicken.

So here comes my doctor talking about my baby timeline and my eggs drying up. It also didn’t help that today is also exactly one month before I turn 31.

Maybe I’m even more sensitive to this because I’m about to leave the country for 2 years so I feel my deadline is going to be accelerated when we come back and can even start talking about a family. Not to mention about 98% of our friends are planning to start their families before we even return. Oh, the pressure!!

I’m not even sure where I’m going with all this…maybe because I’m not sure I even ever want to physically be preggers or if we truly want kids in our future.

I guess the one thing I do know is that I’m grateful for the next two years of not thinking about it and just really enjoying the time the Wife and I have together, just the two of us…

at least for now….

moving out, not necessarily up

we move into the 4 seasons today. i can almost hear the moans and groans, yeah, i know...what a tough life!

we want to thank all of our friends who put us up and put up with us over the past month.

hp, rach & heids, and our atlanta home base, pablo. seriously, thank you for letting us invade your space, dirty up your towels, blanket your guestrooms with clothes and suitcases, or in hp's case take over your actual bedroom, pollute your air with gert's constant burglar alarms but most importantly for your love and hospitality. we're so grateful to have not just as friends but as family.

also, a big thanks to all those friends who offered up their homes/beds/couches/futons/air mattresses to us should we have needed them. it truly humbled us to realize how many wonderful and generous people we have in our life here in atlanta.

debut

be sure to check out our culinary adventure blog to see what we're eating while traveling the world...the Wife has made her blogging debut with some pics from our "hopping" good dinner with K&M at zaya. link is on the sidebar...

toe gate

went back to the doctor yesterday to get my ct results. the ortho said that although i did have some impacting of the bone, at this point he didn't think we needed to do surgery! such good news considering we are leaving in less than 3 weeks. he can't guarantee i won't have issues in the future but if it can just hold out for a couple of years i'll be happy.

so i'm using the bone stimulator and hopefully will be out of the boot (oh yeah, it's back) just in time for our flight to india.

we're starting to get really excited about the trip again now that we know we are definitely going (keep your fingers crossed that india/pakistan relations hold up) and that my toe should be healed. even though my ortho told me yesterday it would be stiff and achy for up to a year...seriously?

has anyone else experienced pain from a broken toe for a year??? seems a bit extreme to me, but, if last year taught me anything it is that seemingly minor injuries can really impact your life.

heartbroken

i have come to what i knew would be the hardest part of leaving...saying goodbye to gert. we've been dragging her around from house to house for a few weeks now and i've had to face the fact that she needs some stability.

so, tomorrow morning when we leave for atlanta my baby is staying behind. my heart is breaking in two and i have burst into tears probably three dozen times this weekend...but, i know it's what is better for her.

i've had her since she was 12 weeks old and leaving her behind feels like more than i can handle...i just need to remember that she is going to be very loved, well taken care of and is going to be so happy to be back with maggie.

i used to think this little monkey was so lucky i came to the pound that day but i know i'm really the lucky one to have her in my life.

a few spriggles short

for anyone who's ever kept or had gert as a guest in your home you know she has a real issue with her travel bag. even though this bag never contains more than a bag of food, maybe a couple of treats and a toy or two she will protect it as if it contains gold bars.

her cousin jack didn't really seem to care about her warning and instead decided to put one of his teeth through her little head :(

it is just a small puncture wound but she did have to have her head shaved...as if she needed help looking weird...

it looks like a little yarmulke, too bad she missed out on Hanukkah

new year

well, another year has passed and i have to say i'm glad to see 2008 in my rear view mirror. my 30th year was a difficult one with the delay in our departure, the issues with my foot and the stress of getting everything ready to leave for 2 years.

we began our new year with some wonderful friends, a delicious meal and a lot of champagne. a great start to what i know is going to be an amazing year.

of course i'm still dealing with some foot issues. i not only broke my big toe but the break goes all the way down to the joint. meaning my bone could have shifted and may need to get a pin put init so i don't develop arthritis. although "arthritis of the big toe" doesn't sound that serious, it is apparently really painful and can make walking very difficult.

after 9+ months of limping around in pain i know how important it is that i am proactive in the health of my foot...so, if my ct results show a bone shift on monday i guess i'll have to have the surgery. my orthopedic surgeon said he'd have me ready to leave by the 24th. he's one of the best in the nation so i'm worried, but not in in a total panic.

either way i refuse to let this minor setback get me down. this is going to be a year full of unimaginable possibilities and i can't wait to explore every single one of them.