Well, there went that idea.

There I was, thinking, "Self, you should start writing on your blog again."

And then life happened.

There's the usual, every day stuff. And then there's the unexpected.

On May 2, we received the news that my father in law had passed away. He wasn't an old man; he was only 53. He had a few health concerns, but nothing that was life threatening enough to warrant the suddenness of it all.

So, we made the trek over to eastern NC for the funeral and to start making arrangements for the estate. The four of us stayed in my father in law's house along with my brother in law, his wife, and their two sons. Though I had brought my laptop with me, things were so chaotic with eight of us in the same house (not to mention the number of visitors we had at any given time), I had no time to sit and write. We just returned home Sunday night.

Thus begins a new attempt at blogging more regularly.

Last night, I tried something new for dinner. I confess, I resort to Hamburger Helper every couple of weeks for a simple meal. I know that it's not very healthy, however, so I wanted to try a homemade version.

(Not my pot of Helper; credit to Divas Can Cook.)

I followed a recipe I found on Divas Can Cook. I modified the recipe slightly; I did not use onions or parsley, and I used more than the 2 cups of cheese called for. My husband and daughter ate it with no complaints; my son did not eat this at all (though to be fair, he won't eat pretty much anything that contains hamburger). Personally, I thought the texture of the sauce was a bit odd, and the flavor wasn't quite what I was going for. Not a bad meal overall, but I plan to make some tweaks to the recipe the next time I try it. Right now, I'm contemplating cutting down the measurements of the spices, and possibly using a different kind of cheese. I'd love to hear any suggestions on how to improve this recipe!

Tennessee

Back in February, we said goodbye to Charlotte.

Now, I never cared much about Charlotte itself. Having moved around so much when I was younger, I just don't get all that attached to places (though I do still miss good ol' Prior Lake, MN). However, we were doing good in Charlotte. Jake had a stable job, I was going back to school. We bought our first house; Noah started kindergarten last fall and had a WONDERFUL teacher. We had some fabulous friends.

Things occurred last fall that forced Jake to resign from the police department. I won't get into the specifics here, because I could probably write a novel about it. The day after he unofficially resigned, he started the process to rejoin the Army (for anyone stumbling upon this who wouldn't know our history, when Jake and I met, he was in the Army and I was in the Air Force). It took a couple of months to get everything settled (during which time he formally resigned), but in mid January, he was sent to Fort Campbell, which is on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee.

The kids and I were able to join him at the beginning of February. I don't have much of an opinion on Tennessee yet; we haven't explored the area much because it's been pretty cold. The house we're renting is ok - it has a HUGE backyard that's fenced in, so I can send the kids and dog outside to play on nice days and not worry too much. There's a river that runs behind the property as well; we're hoping we can do some fishing there once the weather is consistently nice. Noah's new school seems to be ok, though I think he's a bit ahead of their curriculum. We didn't sell our house in Charlotte; my mom is now renting it from us.

I'm a little lonely here. I miss our friends terribly. While I was happy to find that Clarksville has a Mommies Network site here, due to the transient nature of a military town, there aren't nearly as many members as on Charlotte Mommies, and it's not as active. I'm not attending school this semester, since we moved in the middle of that. It's kind of weird to be sitting at home again after over a year of going to classes. I'll resume that in the fall once both kids are in school, though my original program plan is not going to work out now.

Anyway, I may actually start writing here again to detail our adventures in Tennessee. I have several projects I'd like to work on over the next few months, and it'd be nice to share them here. Not that anyone reads this blog or anything, but that's ok. It's been too long since I've really written as it is, so even if I'm just doing this for myself, it's a good thing. And if I happen to pick up a few readers, well, that's a good thing, too. So if you've stumbled across this, leave a comment to say hi, and feel free to ask questions or give me suggestions on things to write about!