Out of Sorts...

Maybe it's the yucky snow that's sitting over a foot high on my lawn...maybe it's all the crappy drivers that cut me off on a daily basis...or maybe it's because I only have 9 channels on my television and can only watch just so much of Dr. Phil and Britney. Ahhh, wait. I don't want to admit that I keep up with Brit-Brit's erractic, highly delusional, bipolar behavior. Back to the weather...let's just say it's the weather.... *sigh*


Regardless of the reason, I'm finding myself becoming desperate to leave this joint. Remind me not to put Misawa, Japan, on any list of "Top Ten Places to Live" anytime soon. I'm really bored, and frankly I'm beginning to wonder if I've grown so accustomed to military life that I start getting a little antsy when I can feel the grass growing under my feet (figuratively speaking--I haven't seen grass in months). Yes, Noah and school keep me very busy, but there's only so much you can do within the confinement of your home and getting ANYWHERE--even to the metropolitan area an hour south of here--cost the equivalent of ordering 25 Tall White Chocolate Mochas at Starbucks, which BTW, is the only reason I'd want to go to Morioka anyway...to drink some Starbucks. Speaking of Starbucks, the base finally got a clue and started offering Starbucks coffee! So, scratch Morioka off my "to do" list--there's no reason for me to go there anymore when I can get my coffee fix here.

I digress... :)



So, I'm beginning to put a list together of things I want to accomplish, career-wise, when we finally get to Hawaii. Whenever I'm feeling a bit blue, contemplating future plans and ambitions is always a picker-upper-- "Numero Uno" being that I put the finishing touches on the degree I've been working on for the last year and a half. I should only have one class left when we PCS in Feb 2009--yippee!! Second, I'm hoping to chase the dream of starting my own grant proposal writing biz. That should be fun. The third and fourth kind of fall into the same category--volunteer work as a member of a board of directors--but in different arenas. I'm looking at being on the BOD of both a charitable organization and an association. Time to put all that knowledge I've been gaining in the virtual classroom to work in the real world. It would be awesome to do both. Actually, I think it's the fact that I'm getting all this "nonprofit management knowledge" and have no way to apply it that's really giving me the itch to leave Japan. Aside from my importnat roles as mommy and spousey, I'm feeling professionally useless. That's got to change...and soon.



Anyway, here's a new pic of the little guy. He'll be six months old this coming week. My little precious one! He's working on his "M" sounds, so I'm hoping it won't be too much longer before I hear the word "ma-ma" fall from his lips. :)



Later!



Amanda