To touch or not to touch

"OMG, She touched the Queen!" I'm sure the mouse under the Queen's throne is having a fit over Michelle Obama touching Queen Elizabeth during their "private" meeting.

I have to admit I was surprised to see the bit of video that HLN has shown over and over again during the Robin show.

And then I remembered an incident from when Paul was going through flight school.

The Army trains certain allied soldiers in helicopter flight. Among those allies are the United Arab Emerates. We had a few such students in Paul's flight class.

At some point or another there was a formal gathering of the students, teachers and spouses. I had been very specifically drilled that the Arab students do not shake hands with women. I was told to not hold out my hand for a handshake. I was instructed to keep my hands at my side and make the greeting verbal. No problem.

When Paul introduced me to one of the Arab students with whom he had forged a "friendship", I kept my hands to my side. I said "How do you do? " without lifting a hand.... and he... well.. he stuck out his hand for a traditional american handshake!
I felt that etiquette required me to take and shake. So I did. But I could tell he was very uncomfortable with the handshake.

Who knows.. perhaps they were drilled to shake the spouses hands... that it would be rude to do otherwise.

So.. I think we can cut Michelle Obama some slack. After all, the Queen touched her first.

No school today = no work at home .... or...

The school called at 6:20 this morning to let us know that school was cancelled. Too bad they can't make these decisions the night before so we can sleep in. Ah well... back to bed and when we finally wake up rested, I'm gonna try to enlist the kids so we can get some house cleaning and packing done.

It's so Soggy!

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We've had rain this week. The rivers are over their banks in a lot of areas on and off post. I've had to take the longer routes when I go off post because my usual route is seriously under water.

Paul comes home on Friday (YAY!), I have sufficiently procrastinated that I am feeling the stress. The rain doesn't help... I have stuff I need to trundle off to storage and I hate to have to move it through the rain. But... I do have the rest of today and tomorrow to start making some headway.

Do You Twitter?

Apparently the new craze is Twitter. All the cool "kids" are doing it! I've been hearing about twitter.com on The View (yes, I watch the view... I keep hoping for some really good arguments.) Anyway.. now Elisabeth and Sherry are twittering too. But Joy, Whoopi and Barbara are holdouts. They don't have the time to twitter.

I have signed up. I am "following" Danny Bonaduce and Wil Wheaton.. as well as Elisabeth and Sherry. It's kind of interesting, but to be honest not something I forsee myself obsessing over.

but for getting a concise bit of dribble out, it works.
So... do any of you twitter?

Shopping Therapy

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This may not be the best thing to admit (in the current economic times), but I currently have an excess of money in my spending account. ... or I did until last night. It's been a rough couple of weeks (months) at our house and I needed some retail therapy.

So yesterday afternoon, after our gym time, Kim and I dumped Mac on the doorstep of the house and we drove off to the mall to indulge in some therapy. Kim made a big score at HOT TOPIC, picking up some really nice jewelry (not my taste, but totally hers!). Then we spent some time looking for new shoes (flats).. unlike Beth (over at Nutwood Junction), we were not successful in that particular quest. Flats that are cute enough and fit are elusive. So we placed that on the back burner and headed over to Bath and Bodyworks.

I found a new scent that I loved. It's in their aroma therapy section. It's called Black Cherry Vanilla. YUM! I bought a candle and the body wash in this new (to me) scent.

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Then off to JCPenney's. We found a few choice pieces of clothing and felt like we'd really scored big. After that, it was time to hit the bookstore.

The bookstore didn't get quite as much of my money as it normally does. I did pick up a couple of magazines and a puzzle book. And one new title, a Dean Koontz book whose title escapes me at the moment.

It really was a great shopping trip. I didn't spend too much, but I found some really great things.

Happy St. Patrick's Day !

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We're Moving!! (AGAIN)

I was contacted a few weeks back while Paul was out of town by our housing office. Seems that our street is next on the renovation/rebuilding project list. They are trying to relocate all of us into some of the new housing on the other side of post.

Tuesday I got the call that they now have a house ready for us. Paul is gone for the next four weeks. Anyone else see the problem? LOL.

I'm not exactly sure yet how we are going to handle this. The housing office is having a meeting today to map out the future availability of four bedrooms. If they can have something else available for us in late April/early May, we will pass on this particular house and take the next one. But if this is the only one in the foreseeable future (keeping their construction schedule in mind), then they will hold this house until Paul returns. The one thing they won't make us do is move without him here.

Which means that the kids and I have three weeks to make this house "move ready". OY! I've mentioned my procrastination issues, right? Poor Paul.

Okay.. so anyway... Kim and I went to see the house yesterday afternoon. The bedrooms are huge. The rest of the house is kind of chopped up into smaller areas. Its a two story. On the first floor is a formal living room, formal dining room, 1/2 bath, kitchen, breakfast nook and family room. Lots of square footage, but not all together in a way that makes sense. I'm not quite sure how we are going to work this all out, but I'm sure we will.

I guess in the next day or two I'll get a definitive plan from the housing office Re: our move date. But the writing is on the wall, and we are moving.