Oak Ridge, TN

After staying in a hotel for a month, it was time to move out to an apartment.  My apartment at Oak Ridge is a pretty new one, about 2 years old.  It is bad because the high voltage power lines are just in front.  It is good because it locates on the same street as my office is and  it is on lake shores.
In my hotel stay, I collected a lot of tissues, bottle water and toilet papers (picture 1).  They can probably last for a while.  The washer and dryer room are inside my bath (picture 2).  And bed is same as at home or at hotel.  One night on real bed is okay.  But, for several nights, I prefer to sleep on the floor.  It makes my back better.  The breakfast place of the apartment is turning into a dining and the place for working (picture 3).  The table and four chairs were bought from “Big Lot” which is one of Mom’s favorites.  The light fixtuer is from Walmart.  And the new black-&-white printer (I don’t like pictures and color in general.  I prefer text and black & white) is from Staples. On the kitchen counter top is a picture of  Mom and myself which I have carried to everywhere I work, for a long time.  It once was on my office desk in China also.

Pulse of Rockville politics.

Saturday night, we went to the annual fellowship dinner at UU. I do like the congregation and I usually go by myself about once a month.  Sometimes I feel really connected to the service. Other times it feels slightly goofy. It’s only a couple blocks from the house and the people who go are politically active in the community and we like having our finger on the pulse of progressive politics in suburban MD.

Vince’s birthday party in progress..

Where does 12 years disappear to? Twelve years ago, I was huge and 7 days past my due date – willing with all my power for Vince to come out of me. He didn’t show up until 2 days later. Now he’s closer to leaving home than to the date of his birth.  I just want to keep this time forever!  My kids are not little anymore, but they aren’t grown-ups yet either.  They still want me to snuggle with them and tuck them in at night.  

Ice cream cake.

Vince’s birthday party extravaganza is happening tomorrow so we picked up an ice cream cake for him on our date tonight. How did Vince get to be 12? Everything is happening too quickly…

So for the party, a handful of boys are going to walk home from school. Jeremy and I have to be in different parts of town and we are going to do our best to beat the boys to the front door. We’ll have backup at the house, but I’m a little nervous to leave the backup defenseless for too long against the onset of a bunch of sugared up preteen boys.

Back to school.

Everyone went back to school and work today. Hopefully winter is really, really over now (even though there is still 4-5 inches of snow on our front lawn). I had to drive into Alexandria today to swap out my work computer. I tried to time the trip so I’d miss rush hour traffic, but on the way home, there was a huge accident where they had to close down both the inner and outer loop of the beltway for at least 15 minutes. So it took me more than two hours to get home.

I gotta go give Edda a shower and put her to bed…