As I mentioned in a previous post, our little family has been pretty busy this past year. I figured I would take a moment to go over some of the stuff we have been up to.

Jeremy

Jeremy has been busy with recruiting. He has become a great recruiter. We are coming up on his two year mark on the duty later this summer. He has started seeing some of the people that he has recruited go through boot camp and some are even already in fleet. It’s so cool to hear about their updates and how well they are doing in the Marine Corps.

One of the biggest things that happened with Jeremy was that he was promoted to Staff Sergeant! For those that aren’t familiar with the military, in order for Jeremy to do a full twenty years in the Marine Corps he had to reach this rank before the end of this contract. Since he is now a Staff Sergeant, he can retire in about 9 years! I’m so proud of him reaching this milestone. It took a lot of work but he did it.

Kelly

As I mentioned in the previous post, I decided to give up the housewife life and try working at the News Gazette as a circulation customer service representative. For the most part I loved it. It really helped bring me out of my shell and socialize more. I met some great people there. Unfortunately, the News Gazette was sold last year and the position I held was sent to a call center. I took that as a sign that it was time for me to go back to being a housewife.

Since going back to being a housewife, I am enjoying my housewife role more than I did before. I have my own little routines that make the day go by quicker. Another thing that helped with adjusting to being a housewife was that I finally had friends! Being a housewife in a tiny village can feel very isolating. But between the friends I made while working, through the horror meet up group I was running, and just around town, I’ve actually made friends that I hang out with often (when there isn’t a pandemic going on of course). Having people to go out with and have game nights with is so much fun. That’s the hardest thing about moving every three years is trying to start all over again with making friends to do stuff with.

In the past year, I did get some traveling in before the pandemic closed everything down. Mathew and I went to Chicago for a weekend trip. It was fun to parts of Chicago I haven’t seen before. I also went on my first cruise with my mom and little sister, Magan, for my mom’s birthday. We went to Key West and the Bahamas. I will be taking more cruises in the future. It was so relaxing amazing. I also went home to North Carolina for Thanksgiving. It was nice to see my family and to spend the holiday with them. Especially since it would end up being the last time I saw some of them before they passed away. I was also able to see some friends while I was in town which was awesome. I will write more about my trips in future posts.

The Pets

Katniss is still my little shadow. She still likes going to the Japanese house on campus for the Japanese festival and to see the Cherry Blossoms. She is still a little empress. She has her own cat tree in my office so she can watch me write and work.

Bagheera is still the neurotic kitten he has always been but right now he is a little more neurotic than usual right now. He had a traumatizing run in with a mouse (we live in the country) and he started spiraling with anxiety. He pulled all the hair out of his tail and refused to leave our bed even for food. We have since moved him from our bed to the cats’ bedroom where he has a half closet. We made him a nest in the closet and set up a Feliway diffuser. He has started venturing out the room for short trips and his tail is starting to grow hair back. He was like this once before in Japan when Jeremy and I went to the states for 10 days. He will come back to normal. It will take some time for him to heal.

Valar Morghulis, sadly, doesn’t live with us anymore. Bagheera was unusually aggressive with him and despite Valar living with us for one and half years, Bagheera never warmed up to him. Valar was incredibly sweet and loving but it wasn’t fair to him. Right about the time Jeremy and I were talking about what would be the best situation for Valar, a woman posted on a local Facebook group stating that she was looking for a cat to be an emotional support animal. I reached out to her and told her about Valar. The more we talked, the more we realized that this may be the perfect situation for Valar. A week later we took Valar over to her apartment where he instantly clicked with her. She has stayed in contact with us and Valar is doing beautifully with her. While we miss him, we are happy to know he is doing well and is happy in his new home.

Last fall, we did bring another pet into our family. His name is John Paul Jones. Yes, he is named after a contestant on The Batchelor. He is a Soft Coated Wheaten. We got him from a breeder near here. Normally we adopt from the shelter or foster first but when we tried that with dogs here, they didn’t mesh well with the cats. Jeremy and I discussed what we needed and wanted in a dog. We did research and found out about the Wheaten breed. It match a lot of our needs and wants plus their playfulness seem to last even after the puppy stage. John Paul has been such a blessing to our family. He is very easy to train. He does very well off leash. He hasn’t had chewing issues like most puppies have. Like the cats, he has his own bedroom downstairs. Since he isn’t fully potty trained (he uses puppy pads overnight and when we are gone for a few hours), he doesn’t come upstairs where its carpeted. He does chase the cats but he doesn’t try to attack them. Katniss is warming up to him and tolerating being near him. Bagheera (before his freak out) would play with John Paul and even sleep on John Paul’s blanket with him. I love that he is apart of our family. He’s a good cuddle bug.

The Ghosts

While we have all been busy this past year, the ghosts have remained fairly quiet. Al has visited a couple of times. Mostly its been knocking on mirrors or the walls. Either Al or my father visited Mathew and his dog, Darwin last summer. He was texting me that he was hearing knocking in his living room and occasionally Darwin would go look towards the living room and bark. He said he hadn’t experienced anything like that before. I told him it was either Al or my dad checking him out since he had been hanging out with me and Jeremy often. Rampu hasn’t been active because the cats accidentally broke him. Bagheera was chasing Valar and one of them got tangled in Rampu’s cord. They ended up pulling the cord out of the back of Rampu. Thanks to COVID and the state shut down, we haven’t had a chance to find someone to repair him. I’m hoping to find someone soon since the state is slowly starting to open up. Basement Demon has been some what active. He has been knocking on the basement door. I know he misses the cats. The cats haven’t been down in a while because of the mice situation and because we found a hole that goes to our neighbors side of the basement. There is no access to on that side and the hole isn’t big enough for a human to go rescue a cat. I’m hoping Jeremy or our landlord can fix it soon. I have heard the children run through the upstair often. Always from my office to the bathroom and back again. I know its the children because its when the cats are downstairs and because I keep the office shut up when I’m not working. Elizabeth the doll is doing well. She is happy being in my office now that I am working again on the blog. She seems to be bringing us good luck and happiness since being moved to the office.

I have missed blogging and I have definitely missed interacting with y’all. Please let me know what y’all have been up to in the comments below.